“Not fair to bring up a girl’s silly prattle.”
“She was right. While you are off adventuring, I will stay here. Teriza and Kat will spoil me unmercifully. I’ve food, wine, an abundance of books and paper, and immense quantities of ink. How could I lack? When you settle on a destination, leave a message with my father. This latest brush with mortality has convinced me that I must visit him. Once done, I’ll find you again. No god or demon will prevent it.”
CHAPTER 24
“… dead these ten months. Our only boy. I’ve needs to tell my man. Please, Your Worship.”
“Your husband works in the armory, you say?” The guard eyed the black ribbon tied around my sleeve and nodded knowingly. From the number of sleeves with black mourning bands I had seen, everyone in Montevial had lost a son or brother or father in the war.
“Aye, sir. Journeyman, he is. Honored to serve the king. And our Tevano was a legionnaire—no conscript.” I moaned and pulled my apron up to cover my face, lest the young guardsman look too close and unmask my charade. One of his fellows, an older man with a thick red beard, had been staring at me from his post on the far side of the squat palace gate towers.
“All right. Go on then. But straight to the armory and straight out again.”
I dipped my knee and hurried through the dim passage under the gate defenses, taking care to avert my face from the red-bearded guard as I passed. Perhaps it had been foolish to enter the same gate Karon and I had used almost every day for two years.
Once across the outer ward, I angled away from the direction of the armory and headed for the workrooms Karon had taken over for the Antiquities Commission. For the first time in ten years, I approached the palace of the kings of Leire with anticipation rather than dread. Even the flying red banners that told me Evard was in residence could not slow my steps as I sped down the brick-paved roadway that separated the palace proper from the stone monoliths that were the royal storehouses.
The next task was to discover if anyone I knew was still employed at the Antiquities Commission. Everyone who had worked for Karon had respected and liked him, but they would have had to undergo the “purification” mandated at the trial, an expensive and humiliating ritual, so I couldn’t summon much confidence that I would find someone familiar, much less sympathetic and unafraid. Matters looked even worse when I crossed a graveled yard to the Commission workrooms and found them occupied by a noisy, sweating army of leatherworkers.
“What’s your business?” asked a bearded workman, dropping a daunting roll of hides about three paces from where I stood gawking in dismay. From this dark, stifling den of hammering, cutting, and stitching would come the mountains of saddlery, harness, and boots needed for the warriors who had carried Evard’s war into Iskeran.
“I was to bring a message to the secretary at the Antiquities Commission,” I said. “And I didn’t think to ask where it was. Last time I had to deliver something, this was the place.”
“It’s been a while since you’ve carried a message then, girl, or you’ve got fair lost along your way. I’ve worked here eight years.”
“Where is it moved then? My mistress will beat me sure if I don’t deliver my message.”
“Antiquities, you say?” The man scratched his greasy beard. “Don’t sound familiar.” His expression was vague. He had no idea what I was talking about.
“They work with old things dragged in from everywhere: statues, tablets, armor, tools, boxes, things used to decorate tombs, and such like.”
“Oh. Like loot from the war?”
“Yes. Yes, exactly that.”
“Maybe it’s those fellows down to the pit.”
“The pit?”
“Yeah. That’s what we call it. Buried like moles, they are. Round behind this building you’ll find a cellar stair. Go down, and in, and down some more, and give a shout. Those moles might be the ones you’re looking for”—he gave me a good-natured, gap-toothed leer—“unless you decide you like us fellows better, up here where you can see and get a breath of air at the same time.”
I smiled at the sweating man. “Not today. But if I find the man I’m looking for, you’ve saved my goose, and I’ll not forget it.”
“Good enough.” The man hoisted his smelly bundle onto his broad shoulders and staggered into the noisy workshop.
When I found the cellar stair in the weed-choked alleyway behind the leatherworks, the steps were littered with leaves and twigs and chunks of broken paving, and the door at the bottom of the stair looked as if its hinges had been rusted shut since the Rebellion. I made my way carefully down the crumbling stair, wrenched open the heavy door, and stepped inside.
I felt hollow and sick at the sight of the dark and deserted passage. No demons here, I thought, but wasn’t sure I believed it. The only sound besides the empty reflection of my steps was a quiet, regular tapping from the far end of the sloping way. I tiptoed past gaping blacknesses toward the source of the noise. A weak pool of lamplight spilled from a doorway on my left. The tapping stopped, and I peered cautiously through the opening.
A dark-haired man was bent over a table littered with tools and dust and broken chips of stone. The rest of the small room was crowded with stacks of crates and old books, heaps of rolled manuscripts, and shelves crammed with bottles and jars and rags, paint pots and boxes of every size and shape. A mangled oil painting lay on the floor beside a carved wooden horse that must be at least eight hundred years old. From Iskeran, I knew. Horses were sacred to the Isker gods. The man raised a small hammer and began tapping at something on the work table.
“Excuse me,” I said.
The man jerked around, dropping his hammer with a clatter. He was small and dark-skinned with black, curly hair just beginning to show signs of gray. His nose, mouth, and chin came to a point in such a fashion as to be vaguely reminiscent of a rat.
“Racine!”
The man squinted at me, frowning. “Who’s there? Step into the light, if you please. I can’t see in the dark, though those who ration lamp oil must think it so.”
I stepped into the room and had the disconcerting experience of having someone collapse in a dead faint at the sight of me. Someday, I thought, as I sniffed Racine’s pots and jars to see if one contained water or wine, someone will greet me with an ordinary, “Hello, Seri, how are you today?” I satisfied myself that the contents of a fat green jug were not toxic and proceeded to dump them in Racine’s face. I sat down beside him on the floor while he sputtered and shook his head like a pup, propping himself against the foot of his table.
“My lady! My apologies. I—It’s just—I didn’t—I thought—” The man’s mouth opened and closed like a fish’s.
“I’m sorry for startling you. You needn’t be afraid. It’s not unlawful to speak with me. I’m on the king’s parole, not a fugitive.”
“No. No. I just assumed…”
“I’m not a ghost either.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and blotted the drips running down his face. “Just surprised. Amazed. It’s so quiet down here. No one comes. And it’s been so long. What’s brought you here, my lady?”
“I’m visiting the city, and I was curious to see what had become of the collection. I’m happy to find it in your care.”
His color deepened to scarlet. “Oh, my lady, to call this care! I’m the only one left, you see. There’s no money to do the things we did. And the collection… pffft. Waging war in Iskeran is terribly expensive, I suppose. Anything that can be sold has been sold. All the bronzes melted down, and the silver. What gems were left in their settings dug out. Even the swords and armor taken away to use or to melt. Paper and stone are all that’s left, and much of that was destroyed after—” His eyes darted toward me fearfully.