Page 35

Chapter 35

We left the prince with the corpse of his father, and were led down yet another passage by the Yarrow guard. I had to remind myself that it was still day. In this windowless, torchlit place, it felt as if we walked not the waking world but Arasinda, the afterlife where betrayers and the disloyal wander sunless caverns filled with reeking fumes. Ten paces from the door, Malo glanced backward and made to speak, but Ana hissed, “No! Not here. There are many ears about this place. And do not speak much before our Treasury comrades, either! I trust them little as well, for now.”

The guest wing of the great hall was guarded by no less than a dozen soldiers, and from their bearing I gauged they were fell hands with a sword. They hesitated a great while before reluctantly allowing us to enter. The rooms within were dark, yet as we entered we heard a great rustling as many people shot to their feet. Then we heard voices crying out, “Imperials! They are imperials?”

Then more: “Iudex? They are Iudex? Oh, are we freed? Tell us, are we freed?”

The Treasury officers gathered around us like spirits in the Harvester’s kingdom, pawing at us and asking for news. I had to stand before Ana to push them back, and squinted to see in this shadowy place. The chambers would have normally been a grand, stately sight, with four-poster beds and many tapestries, but now it stank of sweat and worse things.

“Calm!” Ana snarled at the delegation. “Calm, now, all of you! Where is Kardas? We must see to him.”

The Treasury officers led us to one of the four-posters. Kardas lay upon it, with many pillows propping him upright. His engraver Gorthaus leaned over him, dabbing his forehead with a cloth and water. She looked up at us as we approached, her face gaunt and her eyes sunken. She seemed utterly transformed by her spell in captivity.

Kardas, however, looked far worse: his neck was so swollen that she’d had to unbutton the collar of his shirt, and his lips were distended and thick. His cheeks and eyelids had swelled so greatly that his eyes were now little more than cracks that trickled tears down his face. He was breathing shallowly, and his wheezing was so loud that I could hear it from six paces away.

“We can’t move him,” Gorthaus warned us hoarsely. “Even if we are freed, and even if you had stretchers and medikkers behind you, I’d not dare to lift him from the bed.”

“We are not here to move him, girl,” said Ana. She waved to Malo. “Do it.”

Malo knelt beside Kardas and took a vial from within her cloak. She held it to the light, peering at it: a tawny liquid swilled within, and a dozen tiny worms coiled about at its bottom, each with a stripe of bright white along its back. Malo uncorked the vial, poked in a bare finger, and withdrew it. Five of the little worms were stuck to her skin, like leeches. She recorked the vial, stowed it back in her cloak, then carefully pulled the worms from her finger and placed them upon Kardas’s neck.

“Arvith leeches,” murmured Malo. “Altered so their venom reduces even the most potent of inflammations. His breathing should be free soon. In an hour, he should be able to sit up—but he will have a terrible thirst.”

“Keep some spare worms, Malo!” said Ana dryly. “Just in case any of us sip from the wrong cask…”

Gorthaus leaned back from Kardas’s side. Her face crumpled, and she began to weep. “Oh, thank the fates! I…I’d resigned myself to watching him die hours ago. Are we freed, ma’am?”

“Not until I’ve convinced them of his innocence,” said Ana. “Tell me, Signum—were you present when the king was stricken?”

“I was.”

“And your memories were engraved, I assume?”

She reached down and lifted her engraver’s satchel, and all its tiny glittering vials of scent. “They were.”

“Then your testimony will be quite valuable. Leave your prificto’s side, and come sit by the light of the window, and tell us all you know.”

—

Gorthaus slumped in her chair, head bowed, her elbows resting on her knees as the words poured forth. It felt terribly strange to reverse roles, with myself as the interrogator and she the engraver, regurgitating information as her eyes trembled and shimmered.

“It was just a tea,” Gorthaus began helplessly. “Like many teas we’ve had. I thought the events quite dull, and I hate the taste of saca so. There were no naukari there that night—do you know this word, naukari ?”

A soft, contemptuous grunt from Malo.

“No servants, I mean,” said Gorthaus. “Just us, for we were to discuss high secrets.”

“Please proceed,” Ana said.

Gorthaus began, her eyes tremoring. I watched as she tried to navigate her memories. Like many engravers—myself included—she was a fastidiously arranged person, even now: her dark hair was pulled back in a tight bun, her eyebrows were trimmed and smooth, and her uniform was perfectly symmetrical, with every bend of cloth exactly where it ought to be.

This was how most engravers lived: we remembered, perfectly and forever, how all things should look, and if anything was ever askew, it bothered us immensely.

But Gorthaus seemed to take it further than most: even now, her hair remained waxed and carefully fixed; all her heralds still bore a few drops of polish on them, and each was pinned on her coat front in positions perfectly equidistant from the placket of her shirt.

The impression I got was a profound hunger for control. Perhaps that was what running about chasing Yarrow royalty did to a person.

She began to speak, regurgitating her experiences. Her engraved memories matched what the prince had told us: besides herself, there had been five men in the room—the king, the prince, Jari Pavitar, Satrap Darhi, and Prificto Kardas—and no one else. There had been the cauldron of tea, and the cups. Kardas had filled the king’s cup, brought it to him, and let him drink. “As he always did for the third cupful,” she said, “as a sign of deference.” Then the king had simply cried out and collapsed.

“The king’s cup,” Ana said. “Tell me its movements exactly. ”

Gorthaus’s eyes tremored, her pupils dancing like a beheaded snake. “First the prince served the king. The prince took the cup back when the king was done and placed it next to the cauldron. The prince did the same for the second cup, taking it back and forth, serving his father. Then…then the cup stayed there for some time, sitting by the cauldron.”

“Who else went there?” asked Ana. “Who else served themselves at the cauldron while the king’s cup sat in that spot?”

Gorthaus shrugged helplessly. “All of them.”

“All?”

“Pavitar, Darhi, Kardas, the prince. They all got up and went there and poured another cup for themselves, then sat back down.”

“Did you go near the cup, Signum?”

“I did not, ma’am. I did not drink at all, for I don’t care for the taste of the tea, and they did not expect me to speak anyway.”

I grimaced as I absorbed this. If this was so, then any of the men could have slipped poison into the king’s cup. For having now read of kerel poisoning, I knew it acted terribly fast, inflaming the throat within seconds when consumed in high doses.

Gorthaus continued: “They took us to another room. They had us put under guard, with drawn swords. I mean—some of my people haven’t ever even seen a drawn sword, do you know this? They’re axioms, number-readers! They quaked like children awoken by an owl!”

“What happened next?” Ana asked.

“We waited, for what felt like hours. We heard shouting in the distant rooms, fighting. We were terrified, sure we were to be killed. But then the…the prince came. He was very calm, very lovely. He said we were not under threat tonight, for he would not allow us to be harmed.”

“Then what?” asked Ana.

“Then Kardas thanked the prince, and the prince departed, yet…yet just after that…the prificto started coughing as well. Then he collapsed, just like the king, and I was sure he was to die…”

“He showed symptoms just after the prince left?” asked Ana.

“Yes.”

“Had he drunk or eaten or tasted anything?”

“No. I remember. We even asked for water, and were refused. I…I truly don’t know how it happened. How can a man be poisoned if he’s tasted nothing at all?”

Ana frowned and bowed her head, lost in thought. I tried to suppress showing my own discouragement: another mystery, among so many that seemed unsolvable.

“And then?” Ana asked.

Gorthaus continued, and her testimony again matched the prince’s: Camak had returned just as Ana’s scribe-hawk had come to the window and sent her his response pleading for help.

“We would be dead without the prince,” said Gorthaus shakily. “Of that, I’m sure.”

Ana pursed her lips. “Are there any at court who might wish the king ill? Any who might benefit?”

“I…I can’t say,” Gorthaus said. “The prince springs to mind first, for he’d then inherit the throne, but…he has never seemed the sort. He is a gentle, somewhat silly person. He goes hunting, but he never actually fires the arrows themselves, do you know? He just likes being around the men who do the hunting for him. Many doubt his appointment as preferred heir, in fact.”

I spoke up: “ Preferred heir? I thought the eldest son inherited. Isn’t that how most monarchy works?”

“Well…no.” Gorthaus’s eyes shimmered in her head as she consulted her memories. “King Lalaca has—had?—seventy-six wives in his harem, and two hundred and sixteen acknowledged children. This means he has rather a lot of heirs to choose from.”

Stunned, I looked to Malo, who shrugged.

“Wherever did the fellow find the time?” I asked.

“Shut up, Din!” snapped Ana. “Now—what of Pavitar? Could he have any reason to do it?”

“No, no,” said Gorthaus. “Pavitar is the jari. He practically worships the monarchy. I can no more imagine Pavitar killing the king than I can the emperor burning down his Sanctum.”

“Darhi, then? The satrap?”

“I can’t imagine him doing it, either, honestly. He is a shrewd man, but he works to make friends, to ensure everyone views him favorably, and that all are in his debt. He is in a powerful place here, just as he likes it, and is too clever for such a mad move.”

“Did any of them behave suspiciously during the time before this tea?”

“No. Not that I could think of. Except that…”

“Except?”

“Well, the king had been eluding us for months. We hadn’t been able to meet with him at all. Then yesterday morn, we received the summons for the tea. My prificto said it was the work of Darhi, for he was laboring to continue our work.”

“It was Darhi who had arranged this tea?”

“Yes, ma’am. We thought it a good sign at the time. But…” She trailed off, concerned.

Ana was silent for a long while. Then she asked: “Tell me more of the room where the tea took place.”

“It was in the eastern hall, with glassless windows that look out onto the bay, and the Shroud. We have had meetings there before. The king always complained much of the view, and how the Shroud tainted it.”

“How many doors or chambers or passageways did it have about it?”

“Two, ma’am, but I did not see anyone come in or ou—”

“I did not ask you what you saw, Signum,” snapped Ana. “How many doors, and where did they lead?”

Her eyes flickered. “There is a door to the south, which takes one back to the great hall. Then there is one facing west, which takes one to the reliquary. From that chamber you can return south to the great hall, or go west to the king’s private chambers, though his bedchambers are upstairs. But these passages are highly guarded, and again—I saw no one come in or out of any door while we drank.”

Ana turned her face away and was silent for a great while. Then she raised a hand. “Thank you, Signum. We are done, I think. I have what I need—though it is not what I sought. Kol—take me and Malo to a safe space here. I have something to discuss.”

—

I led Ana to the far corner where the Treasury folk could not hear, and Malo followed. It was after I passed by one open window that I saw that Ana’s blindfolded face looked terribly strained.

“Ma’am,” I said, startled. “Are you all right? You lo—”

“Of course I am not!” Ana snapped. “I rarely leave my settled environs for a reason, Din! To venture so far and expose myself to so many new people taxes me greatly. But we have many knots to unravel, and so I push myself.”

A long moment passed. A muscle twitched in her cheek, then her neck. When she spoke again, her voice was unusually deep and hoarse, as if she’d just awoken from a long sleep.

“I feel Gorthaus speaks the truth,” she said, “yet it comforts me little. We are left with the same questions— how did Pyktis kill the king, if there were only those six people in that room? And what did he mean to gain from it?” She sucked her teeth. “It confounds me! How can we speak to so many, and still learn nothing?”

Malo turned to me. “Want to tell her what Darhi asked of you when he pulled you aside? For I heard his murmuring down the hallway.”

I relayed Darhi’s brief meeting with me, and how he had pressed upon me to remember his oathcoin. “It seems he controls much of this place, ma’am,” I said. “I almost feel he was the true ruler here, even while the king lived. Perhaps he intends to control even us.”

“Perhaps,” said Ana. “But is he a villain, or simple political swine? It is often hard to tell those two apart.” She turned her blindfolded face to the ceiling. “We are out of friendly witnesses. Now we must delve into liars and schemers. Tell the prince that we need to speak to Pavitar next.”

“Pavitar?” said Malo. “You are sure? The man nurses a great hate for us.”

“And that is why he shall speak truth when he does not wish to!” said Ana. “There is no one more forward with the unpleasant truth than a powerful, prideful man with a grudge. That is why you shall conduct this interview, Din, for I feel he dislikes you strongly. But I would like you to ask Pavitar about the king’s health. For you say his body appeared very old?”

“To my eye, yes, ma’am,” I said.

“But then, living in a monarchy ages a body,” said Malo, “even when you are the monarch.”

“True! Still, you will ask, Din. But before I forget, Malo—I have heard it said that a warden can hear the flicker of a lie in a man’s heart. Is this so?”

“A tremendous overstatement,” said Malo reluctantly. “I can hear some things, ma’am, if I sit very close to the subject. The smell of sweat divulges far more. But it is not a precise thing. The lie must be most emotional, and emotions do not always speak truth.”

“It shall have to do. It won’t be too hard a task to sit close to the jari, yes?”

Malo pulled a face and turned away.