Chadde and Laurel had been the last to leave, Chadde once more locking the door behind them. Now Laurel was carving a rune into the door’s wood and iron bars with an extended claw, filling the space between lintel and threshold, from post to post. “Warding, Elder Dyfrig,” he said. “Sealing.”
I had seen that particular rune only once before—carved into a stone placed on a burial mound near Magus Kareste’s tower during my brief stint as the Magus’ apprentice. I’d been told that the rune was there to ensure the barrow’s occupant stayed put and didn’t go wandering. I’d been also told, despite the protections in place, to never go near the mound on certain nights at certain times of the year.
Another shiver shook me.
Done with the door, Laurel moved to the windowsills, scratching the same rune under all the windows, quickly circling around the building until he came to the front again. “Wyln,” he said.
Wyln held out his hand to me. “Your sword, Two Trees’son.”
Wondering what the fire enchanter wanted with my sword, I drew and handed it to him. I started to follow as Wyln walked towards Laurel; however, I was stopped by both.
“No, Rabbit,” Wyln said.
“Stay with Elder Dyfrig, Rabbit,” Laurel said at the same time. “Too much interest has been shown in you by the dead.”
Staying with the doyen was also good. I quickly stepped back to where Dyfrig stood.
“Too much interest by the dead?” Recovering from his fright, Gawell tried to push through the royal guards in front of him. “You’re the one with too much, magical! This is a ruse, keeping me from my kinsman, whose body has been desecrated—”
“Now you mention it,” Thadro said.
“Silence, Mayor,” Jusson said over Gawell’s furious gasps. “Master Laurel and Lord Wyln have as much interest in the jailer as you do, and none at all in the coins and jewels. However, I have a great interest in both, and so the morgue and everything in it is placed under my edict.”
“As does the throne, so does the Church,” Dyfrig said, still distressed. He tapped his staff against the ground, the tiny bells ringing. “So be it.”
“No!” Gawell wailed.
“So sealed by king and priest,” Laurel said over Gawell. “So sealed by She Who Is the Earth. Fiat.” The Faena touched the rune on the door and light filled it, exploding around both sides of the house, to each rune under each window, and a hum filled my bones from the power of them, the ground under me trembling as they rooted themselves in the earth.
“Oh, my,” Dyfrig said, his voice soft, his face full of reluctant wonder. He turned half-angry, half-expectant eyes to Wyln. But instead of touching the rune as Laurel had, the enchanter held my sword up, the blade becoming brighter and brighter, flickers of fire appearing on its edge. He then flung the sword up in the air.
“Guard,” Wyln said.
The blade burst into flames as it came down, blade first, to hang in front of the door.
“And so magic returns to Iversterre,” Jusson murmured over gasps and cries.
“It returned five years ago with Rabbit, sire,” Thadro said, his voice equally soft.
“Perhaps,” Jusson said. “Or perhaps it was here all along, biding its time.” He turned his head to the courtyard entrance and a moment later I heard the slap of running feet. Keeve and Tyle hurried in, carrying a chest between them. They came to an abrupt halt, however, as they took in the runes and the flaming sword. They quickly put the chest down, their eyes wide, their mouths hanging open.
“You should bless this with everything you can, Elder Dyfrig,” Laurel said as he and Wyln returned to where I was standing. “As much as you can.”
“I know what to do, Faena,” Dyfrig said. “But when I’m done, we will talk about what has happened. What is happening. And your part in it.” He flung the chest lid open, revealing a large glass flask of blessed water, a porcelain bowl, censer and incense, a bell, a container of salt and sprigs of hyssop, all bedded down in a lining of green velvet. I frowned at the velvet, its smooth nap teasing the back of my mind.
“It will be a morning of needful discussions, Your Reverence,” Jusson said, watching Dyfrig pull a stole from the chest and drape it around his neck. “Beginning with why Master Menck, with all his extracurricular activities, was allowed to remain the head jailer, then continuing on to the closing of the Eastgate and the rerouting of the King’s Road, and most likely ending with the office of Keeper of the King’s Peace.”
Gawell, who’d begun making noises of discontent again, froze. “Your Majesty?”
“Oh, you will be joining us, Mayor,” Jusson said. “You too, Master Ednoth.”
“Probably for the good,” Dyfrig said, sighing. He handed the bell to one clerk, while giving the censer to the other. “Things have changed.”
At the doyen’s signal, Keeve rang the bell as Tyle lit the censer, and rang it again as the blessed water was poured into the bowl. Then the doyen walked around the charnel house, describing a line against whatever lurked inside, even as Laurel and I had drawn lines of warding the night before. The two clerks kept pace with him, one continuing to ring the bell while the other swung the censer, causing fragrant smoke to pour out as Dyfrig dipped the hyssop into the bowl of blessed water and splashed the charnel house walls, all the while chanting about the goodness of God and His light. Finished, he turned to face us, and even Laurel— even Wyln—was quiescent when Dyfrig dipped the hyssop into the remaining blessed water and sprinkled us as he prayed for our protection and covering.
My surprise must have shown on my face for Wyln murmured to me when it was all over, “Sixty-seven years as a priest. He carries the authority and power of that as a mantle about his shoulders. I’d be stupid to turn away his blessing.”
“Even if you don’t have the same beliefs?” I asked. While I hadn’t expected bloodshed—not exactly—between Wyln and Dyfrig, I also hadn’t expected the dark elf to join His Reverence’s congregation either. I’d heard tales, both in the Border and in Iversterre, of Church-sanctioned slayings of the People in the not-so-distant days of the kingdom, and even now some doyens preached against the Border as if it were an outpost of hell.
Wyln gave a graceful shrug. “Who said we don’t?” he asked as he maneuvered us so that we stood in the middle of the King’s Own—and next to Jusson. “Whatever the beliefs, there is no denying that there is power in your Church, and Elder Dyfrig wields it with a deft hand.”
That was true. I could feel the weight of the blessing settling into place, like a massive bulwark raised against whatever was in the charnel house. However, I could also feel pressure from what the blessing, sword and runes held back, and once, in between the ringing of the bell, I’d thought I heard another noise—the clink of coins as if something had slithered on top of them.
Blessing and warding done, Jusson once again showed no inclination to loiter, waiting only for Dyfrig to repack the implements of blessing before he had Thadro give the order to move out. I kept pace with the Lord Commander as we left the courtyard, very glad that I had not only Jeff, but the whole contingent of royal guards behind me.
Chapter Sixteen
Everything was so wonderfully ordinary in the town square after the gray horrors of the charnel house. The sun shone brightly, the fountain tinkled and the Harvestide decorations fluttered in the breeze. People bustled about, some intent on errands, others standing in groups gossiping. They shifted out of the way as we came barreling out of the side street, staring at us in speculative surprise, and Jusson slowed to a more sedate pace. He did, however, glance over his shoulder a couple of times, maybe making sure that he hadn’t left anyone behind—or maybe checking that nothing had followed us from the courtyard of the dead. But it was just us, and I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding while all around me there was an easing, with shoulders relaxing and hands falling away from swords.