“For us all,” Merolanna assured him. “We are honored by your interest in two old women like ourselves, Lord Havemore, now that you’ve become such an important man in Southmarch.”
“Were you not perhaps spreading the fat a little thick?” Utta asked as they made their way across the residence garden, hoods pulled low against the chilly rain. “You do not need to make an enemy of him.”
Merolanna snorted. “He is already an enemy, Utta, never doubt that for a moment. If I weren’t one of the only people left related to Olin, I’d be gone already. The Tollys and their toadies have no love for me, but they can’t afford to see me off—not yet. Perhaps if they get through the winter they’ll start thinking about how I might be encouraged to die. I’m very old, after all.”
Startled, Sister Utta made the sign of the Three. “Gods protect us, then why did you suggest to him that you were in ill health? Give them no excuse!”
“They will kill me when they want to. I’m convinced now that they had something to do with Kendrick’s murder, too. By reminding Havemore, I was just reassuring him that whatever I got up to, I wouldn’t be around to make trouble much longer.” She stumbled and caught at Utta’s arm. “And I’m not all that well these days, in truth. I find myself feeble, and sometimes my mind wanders...”
“Hush. Enough of that.” Utta took the older woman’s elbow and held it tightly. “You have frightened me with all this... intrigue, Your Grace, all this talk of threats and plots and counterplots. I am only a Zorian sister and I’m out of my depth. Besides, I need you, so you may be neither ill nor feeble, and you certainly may not die!”
Merolanna laughed. “Talk to your immortal mistress, not to me. If the gods choose to take me, or simply to make me a doddering old witling, that’s their affair.” She slowed as they entered the narrow passage between Wolfstooth Spire and the armory. The paint had faded, and tufts of greenery grew in the cracks in the walls. “By the grace of the Brothers, I have not been to this part of the castle in years. It’s falling apart!”
“A suitable place, then, for those who are no longer necessary—Brone, and you, and me too.”
“Well said, my dear.” Merolanna squeezed her arm approvingly. “The more worthless we are, the less anyone will suspect what devilry we’re up to.”
“Your Grace, this is...this is quite a surprise.” Brone’s voice was a bit thick. Other than a pair of young, wary-looking guardsmen who acted more like they were watching a prisoner than protecting an important lord, the countinghouse was empty. “And Sister Utta. Bless me, Sister, I haven’t seen you for a long time. How are you?” “Fine, Lord Brone.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t get up.” He gestured at his bare left leg, propped on a hassock, the ankle swollen like a ham. “This cursed gout.”
“It’s not the gout, it’s the drinking that’s keeping you in that chair,” Merolanna said. “It is scarcely noon. How much wine have you had today, Brone?”
“What?” He goggled at her. “Scarcely any. A glass or two, to ease the pain.”
“A glass or two, is it?” Merolanna made a face.
In truth, he looked much the worse for wear. Utta had not seen him for some time, so it was possible the new lines on his face were nothing odd, but his eyes seemed sunken and dark and the color of his skin was bad, like a man who has been weeks in a sickbed. It was hard to reconcile this bloated, pasty creature slumped like a sack of laundry with the big man who only a short time ago had moved through the castle like a war galleon under full sail.
Merolanna rapped on the table and pointed at one of the guards. “Lord Brone needs some bread and cheese for the sake of his stomach. Go fetch some.”
The guard gaped at her. “Y-Your Grace...?” “And you,” she said to the other. “I am old and I chill easily. Go and bring a brazier of coals. Go on, both of you!”
“But...but we are not supposed to leave Lord Brone!” said the second guard.
“Are you afraid the Zorian sister and I will assassinate him while you’re gone?” Utta stared at him, then turned to the count. “Do you think we’re likely to attack you, Brone?” She didn’t give him time to reply, but took a step toward the guards, waggling her fingers like she was shooing chickens out of a garden. “Go on, then. Hurry up, both of you.”
When the baffled guards were gone, the count cleared his throat. “What was that about, may I ask?”
“I need your help, Brone,” she said. “Something is gravely amiss, and we will not solve it without you—nor in front of Havemore’s spies, which is why I sent those two apes away.”
He stared at her for a moment, but his eyes failed to catch light. “I can be no help to you, Duchess. You know that. I have lost my place. I have been...retired.” His laugh was a rheumy bark. “I have retreated.”
“And so you sit and drink and feel sorry for yourself.” Utta cringed at Merolanna’s words, wondering how even a woman like the duchess could talk to Avin Brone that way, with such contemptuous familiarity. “I did not come here to help you with that, Brone, and I will thank you to sit up and pay attention. You know me. You know I would not come to you for help if I did not need it—I am not one of those women who runs weeping to a man at the first sign of trouble.”
The specter of a smile flitted across Brone’s face. “True enough.”
“Things may have seemed bad enough already,” Merolanna said, “with Briony and Barrick gone and the Tollys riding herd over us all—but I have news that is stranger than any of that. What do you know about the Rooftoppers?”
For a moment Brone only stared at her as though she had suddenly started to sing and dance and strew flowers around the room. “Rooftoppers? The little people in the old stories?”
“Yes, those Rooftoppers.” Merolanna watched him keenly. “You really do not know?”
“On my honor, Merolanna, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Look at this, then, and tell me what you think.” She pulled a sheet of parchment from out of the bodice of her dress and handed it to him. He stared at it blankly for a moment, then reached up—not without some discomfort—to take down a candle from the shelf on the wall behind him so he could read.
“It’s...a letter from Olin,” he said at last.
“It was the last letter from Olin, as you should know—the one that Kendrick received just before he was murdered. This is a page from it.”
“The missing page? Truly? Where did you find it?”
“So you know about it. Tell us.” Merolanna seemed a different woman now, more like the spymaster Brone used to be than the doddering old woman she called herself.
“The entire letter was missing after Kendrick’s murder,” he said. “Someone put it among my papers some days later, but a page was missing.” He scanned the parchment with growing excitement. “I think this is the page. Where did you find it?”
“Ah, now that is a story indeed. Perhaps you had better have another drink, Brone,” Merolanna said. “Or maybe some water to clear your head would be better. Understanding this is not going to be easy, and this is only the beginning.”
“So the Rooftoppers...are real?”
“We saw them with our own eyes. If it had been only me you might be able to blame it on my age, but Utta was there.”
“Everything she says is true, Lord Brone.”
“But this is fantastic. How could they be here in the castle all these years and we never knew...?”
“Because they didn’t want us to know. And it is a big castle, after all, Brone. But here is the question. How am I going to find that piece of the moon, or whatever it is? Sister Utta thinks it is Chaven the little woman was talking about, but where is he? Do you know?”