Sham shook her head. “I don’t know. Was anything specifically happening to you when the killing started?”
“Hmm ... that would be about eight months ago. It was about that time that I moved Elsic to the stables. A good friend of mine died of the wasting sickness.” He closed his eyes briefly and leaned back. “My mother dismissed the cook. My favorite mare foaled. My back started hurting.”
“That was when your back trouble started?”
Kerim nodded. “I wrenched it on the way back from Fahill’s funeral.”
“Lady Sky’s husband?”
The Reeve nodded shortly, and then began to push himself forward again. “Come. If we hurry we’ll have time to eat before Brath and his entourage invade my chambers.”
Indeed, Dickon had just finished taking the dinner trays out when someone knocked on the Reeve’s door.
“I’ll get it,” said Sham.
The high priest waited in the hall with the aesthetic-looking Fykall a step behind him. Brath nodded at her as he entered. “You may leave us, Lady Shamera.”
She glanced at Kerim who made a negative motion with his hand. Shutting the door alter Fykall was inside, Shamera said pleasantly, “I am sorry, Lord Brath, but my lord has a headache and I promised to do something about it as soon as you’re gone.” She brushed by both churchmen and sat down gracefully in the chair nearest Kerim, leaving the visitors to occupy the chairs opposite him.
“You said you have a letter for me?” asked Kerim.
Lord Brath gestured to Fykall, who pulled a sealed courier’s envelope out of his purse and handed it to Kerim. “As you see, I have not broken the seals.”
Kerim looked up and raised an eyebrow, “I doubt that you could have done so, Lord Brath. The Voice has methods to prevent his letters from straying.” With a finger, he touched the seal and it opened readily without use of a letter opener.
Sham leaned sideways, shamelessly reading over the Reeve’s shoulder. There were two sheets of paper in the courier’s pouch. The first was a plain sheet of paper with a quick scrawl that said merely:
Sorry I inflicted him on you, but the old fool’s a favorite with Altis. I didn’t know anyone else who could deal with him better than you. Hope this helps.
The second paper was embossed and official. The scribe’s art had been practiced so heavily that Sham had to stand up and walk directly behind Kerim in order to read it. It was folded so she couldn’t see the top third, but the meat of the letter was decipherable.
Be it known that the first desire of Altis is that all of his subjects live in peace. To those ends, the Reeve of Southwood is to make such judgments as seem him mete. All who live in Southwood shall abide by his decisions.
Signed this day by
As Sham was connecting Terran of the first letter to the Voice of Altis, Kerim began to read the official letter out loud. When he was finished, he looked up at the high priest.
His voice softened from the official tones in which he’d read the letter. “I will, of course, keep the original. If you would have a copy, Fykall is welcome to stay and render it for you.”
The high priest stood stiffly, looking much older than he had coming into the chambers. “That won’t be necessary. Lord Kerim. Come Fykall, there are things to be done at the temple.”
The little priest nodded, but before following his retreating superior he reached out and patted Kerim’s shoulder twice in gentle sympathy.
Sham waited until the door closed and said, “Trust a churchman to take all the joy out of putting him in his place.”
Kerim eyed her unfavorably. “Don’t make light of any man’s pain.”
She tossed her head. “That was not pain you saw, but thwarted ambition. I have no sympathy to spare for Lord Brath—he has no mercy for those in his power.”
Kerim watched her face; he’d known too many people consumed by hatred to watch while it consumed another victim.
“Perhaps you are right; he doesn’t deserve our sympathy. But, Shamera, if we do not feel it—how are we better than he is?”
She snorted and strode to a small table that held a pitcher of water and several cups.
As she filled a cup with water she said, in an apparent change of subject, “You know, I have always wondered why there was never an official injunction against magic since Altis dislikes it so.”
“And you accuse me of gross ignorance,” he mused.
She turned toward him, cup in hand, and said, “Excuse me?”
“Even if magic were real, there would be no injunction against it. As far as I know Altis has never handed down a directive one way or the other.”
She frowned. “After the Castle fell, Lord Brath declared magic an anathema to Altis and incited the soldiers to kill anyone who might be a mage.”
“Fear makes idiots of us all at some time or the other. Brath was officially reprimanded for his part in the deaths after Landsend was taken.”
She set the cup down without drinking from it and wandered aimlessly around the room. “I don’t like him.”
“Brath? Neither do I. He’s an arrogant, self-righteous, self-interested worm,” he agreed lightly.
She tilted her chin up. “If he were drowning I wouldn’t throw him a rope.”
“The question is—” said Kerim slowly, “—would he throw you one?”
6
Sham entered her room with a tired sigh. Without calling for the maid, as she knew was customary, she rapidly stripped off the blue dress and left it where it dropped. Tonight she was too tired to play Lady Shamera for the maid’s benefit. A nightdress had been left on the bed, and she slipped it on.
Something nagged for her attention and she frowned, staring at the mantel over the fireplace. She had a very good eye for detail and a memory that seldom failed her. The ornaments on the mantle had been moved. Someone had been in her room while she was gone.
Alert now, she noticed that the keys were in the lock of the trunk, as if someone had tried to open it. Sham stretched and deliberately relaxed her muscles. This was not Purgatory, she reminded herself—she was the only thief here.
The servants had been in to dust the mantel and moved a few of the figurines and the ornamental dagger. Jenli had probably tried to open the trunk to put the rest of the clothes in the wardrobe—not that she would have had any luck. Sham knew without looking that the fastening spell had not been broken.
Still, she opened the lid and dug through the remaining clothes to make sure nothing had been disturbed. The flute lay awaiting her touch, its call so strong she had to force herself to cover it again with her tunic.
Her knife and dagger were there, slim-bladed and honed to deadly sharpness. Her thieving tools were there too, neatly tucked inside a small kit. She fell naked without them, but they were hardly necessary in the rarefied atmosphere of court. Tomorrow she would begin searching the courtier’s houses, then she could wear them.
Sham closed the trunk and locked it again, first with the key and then with magic. She picked up a long-handled brass snuffer that was leaning against the wall, and started to put the candles out one by one.
She could have used magic, of course, but she always used it sparingly. A wizard who used her magic for little things was likely to have nothing left in time of need. With a demon on the loose in the Castle she was likely to need it—and she was convinced it was in the Castle. One of the talents said to be strongest in the seal-people was sensitivity to danger. If Kerim’s selkie said it was here, it was so.
As Sham stood on her toes to reach the small candelabra that hung from the center of the room, a strange shiver ran down her spine. It was similar to the sensation the shifted ornaments on the mantel had given her, but this had no such mundane cause. Casually she circled the fixture, scanning the shadows that cloaked the corners of the room. She saw nothing, but she was certain something was here with her.