Page 32

Chapter 32

Almost instantly, the day seemed to unravel like a cheap fishing net.

To begin with, the bells did not stop tolling for over three hours, which meant all discussions in Yarrowdale had to be bellowed at close distance in order to be heard. But secondly, nobody knew exactly whom to ask about the bells or what could have happened there in the Elder West, for the only people who ever spoke with the high court of Yarrow were Prificto Kardas and his Treasury folk, and they, Malo discovered, were all missing from their quarters.

“They went up to meet with the court yesterday, ma’am,” Malo reported to Ana. She groggily dug in her eye with a finger, and continued: “Not a one of them was left behind, and we’ve heard not a thing from them since.”

“And that should not be so, I assume?” asked Ana.

“No, ma’am. They were expected to return late last night.” She swallowed. “But…I did check to see if Kardas had perhaps responded to your letter, ma’am.”

“And?”

Malo slipped out a scroll of parchment, darted forward, and handed it to her. “This is the response. I’ve not yet breached it. But…it has an odd look to it.”

I looked Malo over while Ana studied the scroll. She had not only hastily rummaged up her own Apoth dress uniform—dark crimson with brown piping and bright brown leather epaulets—but she had also apparently oiled her hair and combed it straight back in a slick, shiny cascade. She looked about as comfortable in her formal clothes as a sallow-cat in a river, and her bearing was not at all improved by the obvious fact that she was frightfully hungover.

Ana cracked the scroll open, then felt it with her preternaturally sensitive fingers, sightlessly reading every scrawl. “Well, well!” she said bitterly. “What luck! This scroll is addressed to the representatives of the Imperial Iudex ! I believe that’s you and me, eh, Din?”

“True, but…those do not sound like Kardas’s words, ma’am. Who composed it?”

Ana sniffed as her fingers kept probing the slip of parchment. “Why, it is from Prince Camak di Lalaca, heir to the throne of the realm of Yarrow. He requests our prompt presence at court.”

There was a stunned silence, broken only by a miserable belch from Malo.

Ana kept reading. “It seems our job may already be done,” she said lightly. “For though the king did indeed perish under mysterious circumstances, they have captured a suspect and now hold him captive!”

“They…they captured Pyktis?” I said.

“Oh, no. They have captured Prificto Kardas. They believe it is he who killed their king! And they would like to execute him.” She stuffed the note into my hands and said, “Read it yourself!”

I peered at the note and struggled to read it. It was written in a small, outrageously sloppy hand, suggesting the writer was either poorly educated, ignorant of imperial standard, or both.

I haltingly read aloud:

To the representatives of the Imperial Iudex,

I am Prince Camak di Lalaca eh Divaum, tenth of my name. Iwrite to you using this creature at the urging of your Treasury officers. By the time you read this message you will surely be aware of the death of my father, king of the realm of Yarrow.

Prificto Kardas is now held captive here. Many at court believe him to be the killer, and demand he be slain.

Though I still lack the crown, I am now regent. Kardas’s fate falls to me. Yet as I have only just this early morning received your warning meant for Kardas, I no longer believe he is the killer, not if you tried to warn him that a killer might be about. But I must tell you, the circumstances are not kind to his case. Many who desire his death are of a standing that is difficult to ignore.

I am told there is among you a person of skill with such matters. To you I say—riders from my court shall be arriving in your city midday, to demand your presence at court. Please come, and come quickly. I cannot comprehend how this act was done, nor whether my own life may now lie in peril.

I hope this creature finds you speedily. When you arrive, show no sign that I have warned you, for no one else knows of this message to you. But bring it to me, so I may know of your honesty.

A stony silence filled the room when I finished.

“It seems we are now in the business of court intrigue!” said Ana. She wrinkled her nose. “How trite.”

At that, Malo turned about, opened the door, walked to the porch railing, and vomited into the yard.

—

The Yarrow riders arrived just before midday, exactly as the prince’s message had said. There were three of them, and they were grand, glittering things, arrayed in long green capes and steel caps lined with artful, shimmering bronze. They seemed surprised to find us waiting for them at the foot of the hills, lined up before our Apoth carriage with a pilot atop it, yet they regathered themselves and approached.

They began to speak to us in stilted standard, but Malo waved a hand and said, “ Paravha nahi karade, ” which I took to mean— Don’t bother. They discussed the situation for a moment, and then the riders wheeled about. “We are to follow them,” said Malo.

“Of course,” said Ana.

It was yet another carriage ride, rumbling up and to the west, through teetering jungle paths I did not know. Mud fanned the glass windows as our carriage hit the occasional puddle, and every league or so the tree line would dance back and reveal a yawning gorge or a sprawling set of hills. Then the world would close in again, and there was only the wet leaves, and the mud, and the dark interior of the carriage.

Malo leaned against the wall with her face pressed to the crack in the door, finger ready on the handle should her hungover belly betray her again. Ana’s distemper, however, had returned with a vengeful bitterness.

When I asked her what warning she’d sent to Kardas, she spat, “I would think that’d be obvious, Din! I told him I had reason to believe there was a murderous jungle smuggler skulking about the High City with a very advanced poison, and advised he keep himself and everyone around him from sipping or drinking a thing!”

“But…you knew this, and let us go to our beds?” I asked. “You did not wish us to try to stop it?”

“No—for I knew you could not! By the time I received your full account, and realized Pyktis’s likely intent, it was too late. Recall that this is an augur we are dealing with! He’d surely seen the smokes in the jungle and knew now was the time to act! Whatever the manner of his evil, he did it well before we could dream of stopping it. If I told either of you last night exactly where the crime would occur, I thought it probable you’d intervene, or seek some permission to speed up the hill crying alarm and death—yes?”

I grudgingly admitted that would have been so.

“Indeed,” said Ana. “And how would the Yarrow court have responded to such a thing, Malo, after their king was laid low?”

“Very poorly,” muttered Malo. “They hate the Empire, and would have hated the sight of us riding up uninvited even more—especially if their king had just died of poison, and thought him killed by another imperial.”

“Exactly. I have saved us from one error, but avoiding others shall be harder. I know little of the court and Kardas’s negotiations. And the task before us is a difficult one, for we must determine why Pyktis has made the mad choice of killing the king! Did he simply wish to put the Empire in a compromising situation here? If so, there are far easier ways to accomplish that!”

“And I?” said Malo dully. “Why do you drag a warden to this political meeting?”

“Because it would be quite useful to not only have someone fluent in the Pithian tongue,” snapped Ana, “but someone also in possession of a set of ears capable of hearing every whispered word in the room! Not to mention a nose that can sniff out any scent! For remember, children, we not only seek any sign of Pyktis and his plots, but especially any sign of where Pyktis might have stored the six crates of reagents he needs to attack the marrow!”

“What, you think we shall find them sitting in a back room of the king’s great hall?” asked Malo.

“I’ve no idea,” said Ana. “I only know Pyktis must have been there—and thus, we should seek all we can.”

I cleared my throat. “And we must also free Kardas and the rest of the Treasury delegation—true, ma’am?”

Ana paused. “Oh, right…yes. Yes, that, too, I suppose. It would save me some paperwork if we kept them all alive.”

I sighed and turned back to the window.

—

The carriage turned again and again through the trees, following the three Yarrow riders. Finally a sight emerged on the hilltops, like a crystal calcifying on the wall of a dark cave. Then we broke free of the forest, and I saw it clearly.

The High City of Yarrow, stone-wrought and solemn and resplendent. It was as if we neared not some regional seat of power but a spirit kingdom from the old stories, one that appeared on the seventh night of the seventh month for seven minutes only. We rumbled on until I spied gates, and walls, and the glints of iron armor, steel caps, and winking mail.

Soldiers. Dozens of them. Perhaps hundreds, all waiting for us atop the battlements. I described it to Ana as we rolled along.

“Remember, children,” she said softly. “Remember our story! No one is to know of our forewarning from the prince. We are ignorant visitors here, stunned and surprised by this news, and we know nothing of the circumstances in the High City.”

“Prachina da Sahira,” muttered Malo.

“What?” I said.

“In our tongue, it is not called ‘the High City,’?” Malo said, “but Prachina da Sahira. ”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

She turned her face back to the window so I could not read her expression. “The city of ancients,” she said.

We rumbled closer, and the gates opened, and I gasped.