Canticle

Chapter 17

Petronus

Petronus looked up from the table as servants rolled a service cart set with tea and breakfast rolls into the cramped interrogation room.

The room smelled sour, but it had smelled that way before Petronus had added his own sweat to the confined space. He’d been here from late morning, through the afternoon and then night, as Ignatio and his men questioned him in shifts. Adrenaline had given out long ago; now he felt the weariness permeating him. His arms felt heavy, his face numb from sleeplessness. He rested his arms on the table.

Ignatio followed Petronus’s glance. “Perhaps we should take a break.” He smiled. “Maybe you’d like to have some breakfast and then get some sleep. We have plenty of time.”

Petronus met his eyes and held them. “Tell Erlund he is violating the terms of our arrangement.”

Ignatio laughed. “In what way? You’ve been treated with dignity and respect. You’ve been fed and kept safe. You’ve not fallen down any stairs or stumbled into any wells.” He leaned forward, his smile wide and toothy. “Don’t believe for a moment that you wouldn’t have if you were within reach of Sethbert’s more loyal followers.”

Petronus resisted the urge to chuckle himself. “Sethbert was a madman. His own people turned on him in the end because he was dancing the City States into civil war after breaking their economy.”

“Regardless,” the Entrolusian spymaster said with a flourish. “Would you like some breakfast?”

He wanted to decline on principle, but Petronus had no way of knowing how long he might be kept here, politely asked questions that he-with equal politeness-declined to answer. He eyed the breakfast rolls, saw a glaze of molten sugar on the steaming buns and sighed. “Certainly,” he said.

Ignatio served them, pouring the boiling tea into porcelain cups. He used silver tongs to drop two of the rolls onto a small plate and passed it to Petronus. Then slid a steaming teacup over to him in its porcelain saucer.

Ignatio sipped his tea, then regarded Petronus in bemusement. “You’ve not answered most of my questions,” he said. “I don’t understand why you are so hesitant.”

Petronus inhaled the soft citrus aroma, his hands enjoying the warmth of the cup. “Those matters have nothing to do with my purpose here,” he said. “I’m to be tried for Sethbert’s execution. The private matters of the Androfrancine Order are not the concern of the United City-States or its Overseer.”

“They are if the metal men are still functioning. They are if the spell is still loose in the world.”

Petronus felt the anger surge through him. It tingled in his scalp and he slammed down his cup, sloshing hot tea onto the table. “Do not for one moment forget that the Entrolusian Delta unleashed that spell. It was safe before your Overseer, by deceit and treachery, arranged for its use. He killed tens of thousands of innocents in that act of genocide.” He realized that his voice had risen significantly.

“Your people dug it up. Sethbert believed you meant to use it on the Named Lands.”

Petronus bit his tongue. He knew better than to share any of his findings with this man or any other before the trial actually began. Not even Isaak’s assurance that the spell had been destroyed in the casting. Instead, he forced calm back into his voice. “As reigning King of Windwir, I decline to answer and invoke the right of Office Privilege as delineated in the Articles of Kin-Clave.”

Ignatio nodded. “Of course.” He stood. “I think we’re finished here,” he said. “I’ll send someone for you; they will escort you to your rooms.”

Petronus watched him leave, then sipped the tea. It was orange-probably from the Outer Emerald Coasts-and touched with just a hint of honey.

He bit into a roll and chewed the sweet bread slowly. There were at least some benefits to being a guest at the hunting estate. The food was exceptional.

As he ate, Petronus pondered Ignatio’s questions. He’d had a list and had worked his way down. Petronus had watched him as he did so. The spymaster had checked off each question meticulously and had gone through the entire stack.

How long did it take him to gather those questions?

Days, Petronus imagined.

He reached for the second breakfast roll and the door opened. Erlund had been a boy the last time he’d seen him-maybe eight or ten years old. Petronus wouldn’t have known him now but for the guards that accompanied him and the way he walked.

Like someone with power. Petronus stood, though he did not want to.

Erlund waved him to sit, then sat himself. He nodded to the teapot. “Is this hot?”

Petronus nodded.

Erlund surprised him by pouring his own tea. Of course, the Overseer’s presence here surprised him as well. Erlund sipped the tea, then put it down and folded his hands on the table. “If you had stayed put in your shack, old man, you’d still be there. Running your little bird-line and trying to assuage your guilt.”

Petronus looked at him. He was younger than Rudolfo but already had lines in his face. This one is not like his uncle, he realized. He cared, and the civil war had worn him, aged him. Petronus thought about his shack, then thought about the blood-magicked attacker. “Staying was problematic,” he said, “though turning myself over to you was certainly not my first consideration.”

Erlund stared at him for a moment. He took another sip, then motioned for his men to leave him. They vanished quickly, pulling the door closed behind them as they went. The Overseer leaned forward. “Regardless,” he said, “here you are, caught up in an internal matter of state with your very neck laid out upon the block.” Erlund chuckled. “Of all people, I know Sethbert was mad. Certainly the Androfrancines were up to something, but Sethbert went too far and his conspiracy is well detailed. I would have never pursued your arrest for the events at his so-called trial. But now Entrolusian law comes into play, and I’m forced to give that law its place. You killed our Overseer without recourse and beyond the reach of our law.” Petronus saw weariness in the man’s eyes. “More than that,” he said, “I know that this civil war has kept our attention at home while our neighbors slide into war with the Marshfolk. This girl-queen, Winteria, is not strong enough to hold the leash she’s been handed.” Here, he frowned. “I find it interesting that the strongest military in the Named Lands is enmeshed in insurrection while blood-magicked Marsh Scouts murder children in their sleep.” He sipped the tea again. “I also know that Esarov forces my hand and that you are the pry-bar he uses. He gets legitimacy for his cities. I get my army back. Everyone wins. for now.”

Petronus nodded. “I believe that is apparent to Esarov, as well. If all of this is true, why have I been awake all night with your man, Ignatio?”

Erlund lowered his teacup. “I thought the opportunity for a free flow of information between us would be useful.”

Petronus scowled. “It was an interrogation. Largely regarding the mechoservitors and the other properties transferred into Rudolfo’s care.”

The Overseer smiled. “It could be seen that way.” The smile faded quickly, and he leaned forward again. “But don’t you find it interesting that the only House undivided and untouched-and beyond that, the only House to directly benefit from all of this-is the Ninefold Forest?”

Certainly, Petronus thought. He’d seen this as well, but in the case of the Androfrancine holdings it had been the only logical decision. But chewing on him behind those surface facts was another reality: He knew of a certainty that just as Vlad Li Tam had made his life’s work shaping Rudolfo for this role, Vlad’s father had done the same with Petronus. Their mastery of that work was evidenced by the truth of its outcome: From the outside eye, each step along the way that he or Rudolfo had taken appeared completely logical, completely reasonable, entirely compelling.

It was an application of Franci behavioral work that went deeper than even Petronus’s grasp of those principles.

“I do see that,” Petronus said, “but I also see the Gypsies at peace, working to rebuild what your uncle took from us all.”

“I am suspicious of it,” Erlund said in a low voice. “But,” he said, “I’ve had my questions asked. You’ve exercised your right to decline them. Perhaps with time, you’ll grow to trust me and the bonds my uncle severed will be retied.”

Petronus didn’t think so, but said nothing.

Erlund changed the subject. “Have you given much thought to your defense?”

“I have,” Petronus said. “And according Entrolusian law I can call any able-bodied man or woman on the Delta to advocate on my behalf?”

Erlund nodded. “We’ve a list of advocates to choose from. If funding for your defense is at issue, it will be provided for.”

Here Petronus smiled. “Actually, I already have an advocate.” A cloud passed over Erlund’s face. He knows, Petronus thought, but he said the name anyway. “Esarov will speak on my behalf.”

There was anger, though controlled, in Erlund’s voice. “That stage-prancing bugger is a criminal and a menace to the Delta.”

“He is an able-bodied man, well versed in law,” Petronus reminded him, “and not a criminal if you intend to honor the word you gave when you agreed to this present arrangement.”

Erlund composed himself, but his eyes flashed. He stood up and he suddenly seemed more guarded, more formal. Petronus made note of it and realized he skirted the edge of something in Erlund that he might want to avoid. “Word will be sent,” Erlund said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve other matters to attend to.”

After he’d gone, Petronus settled into waiting. He sat alone with his thoughts for the two hours it took them to come for him, and when they came, the guards escorted him to his suite of rooms in complete silence.

When they locked him inside, Petronus went straight to the large, rounded bed and fell into it.

He thought he would sleep instantly. But the questions of the night continued at his heels, and he looked for the pattern within them. Rudolfo had been the only one untouched in these recent attacks; he’d been the only one to benefit from the fall of Windwir, and his neighbors were taking notice.

Petronus did not for a moment believe the Gypsy King could be behind his own so-called good fortune, but it was obviously a part of House Li Tam’s work in the Named Lands.

He thought of his boyhood and the summer he’d spent with Vlad Li Tam, teaching him the rugged life of a fishing family as part of the boy’s training to someday take over House Li Tam. Even that arrangement, he now realized, was a part of Vlad’s father’s design.

“Perhaps,” he mumbled, “even this is, too.”

But to what end? He thought of the papers he’d passed to Rudolfo and willed that the Gypsy King would take up the work he’d started.

Then Petronus gave himself to sleep and for a few hours, let the questions slip from his grasping fingers.

Winters

The winter air over the Summer Papal Palace hung heavy with smoke, and Winters stood by the charred piles of bones and tried not to retch. She still could not believe what was happening.

They did not bury their dead. Instead, they paid them the greatest insult by stacking them like firewood and putting the torch to them.

Now, the soldiers worked against the weather, using pickaxes to hew out trenches for the burnt remains. It was just past morning now, and if they worked the rest of the day, they could give the Litany that night. Then, she would prepare her next War Sermon. She had never imagined it would be against a faction of her own people. But any rage she’d felt en route to this massacre paled in comparison to what she felt when first she smelled the cooking fires.

Winters heard footsteps behind her, then heard Seamus clear his voice. “We’ve a bird from the Gypsies,” he said.

She looked up and over her shoulder. It would be Jin Li Tam. She’d had word that Lady Tam was on the march. It had surprised Winters-so soon after Jakob’s birth. The price of being a queen. She forced her mind to the moment. “What does it say?”

“They ride for our southern reaches to parley with Meirov’s rangers.” Here, he laughed, though it was more of snort. “She wishes you to ride south and join them. without your army.”

She turned to fully face him. “I intend to do as she asks,” she said. “I mean to have the army to patrol our territories and find the source of this violence among our people. They will be within reach if I need them to the south.”

She watched several emotions play across Seamus’s face. Finally, he spoke carefully. “There is only one way to find this source. You do realize this.”

She did not know that she did until he said so. Then, it struck her and her heart sank. “Yes,” she said. “You must search for the mark. And start with the army.”

He nodded, and she heard the sadness in his voice. “What will you do with those we find, my queen?”

He knows my answer.

She stared at him for a moment, then looked away. “I will deal with them, Seamus, as my father would have done and his father, before him.” By the axe. The words tasted bitter in her mouth, yet she knew they were true. She would find within her the violence required. And perhaps that was how it was intended all along. Her dreams had turned bloody of late. Gone was the white-haired boy, Neb, and those few glimpses of the Home he would find them. Ezra’s reedy voice, echoing across her bathing cavern, filled her sleep now instead. A wind of blood to purge; cold iron blades to prune.

Thus shall the sins of P’Andro Whym be visited upon his children.

She shook off the cold of that echoing voice and looked to Seamus. “Send a bird to the Gypsies. Let them know that I accept their gracious invitation.”

Seamus nodded. She read unhappiness in his face; perhaps it was merely worry. “And will you lead the Litany tonight?”

She looked to the pile of charred bodies. She heard the steady ring of blades biting into the frozen ground. Overhead, a massive black bird circled alone, contrasted against skies that threatened more snow. “I will,” she said. “It is my place to.”

“One of the Twelve could stand in if you needed us to.”

She looked to him. It was worry. She’d considered him a grandfather for as long as she had memory. He’d been close to her father and had even been mated to her father’s sister for a short while before fever took her. “I need to do it, Seamus,” she told him. “I need my army to see me do this.”

A look of pride crossed his face. “You will be a strong queen.”

She sighed and looked back to the bodies. “Lately, I do not feel so very strong.”

His voice sounded suddenly like her father’s-or Hanric’s-and she felt the gooseflesh rising on her arms. “You do not need to feel it for it to be so.”

She nodded. “Thank you, Seamus.”

He returned the nod, studied her face for one last moment, and then turned. After he’d gone, she went back to studying the Androfrancine corpses.

She felt the wind upon the back of her neck and smelled something new on it. It was faintest hint of sweat and evergreen pitch.

It was an uncanny sense of presence, and she turned, feeling eyes upon her back. “Who’s there?”

The voice reached her as barely a whisper. “Lieutenant Adrys of the Ninefold Forest,” he said. “I’ve brought a company of Gypsy Scouts to your aid by Lady Tam’s order. We’re here quietly, of course.”

She squinted. Just barely visible, standing in Seamus’s tracks, crouched a shadowy form. “I will tell my captains; we wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to occur with our scouts in such close proximity to yours.”

He chuckled. “Forgive me, Lady Winters, but my men will not be found unless they wish to be. We think remaining discreetly invisible to your people is a better strategy given the”-here he paused to search for the best work-“internal nature of your foe.”

She bit her lip. He was correct, certainly, though she could not bear giving consent for these Gypsy spies to run magicked and secretly among her people. “Anything you can learn will be greatly appreciated.” Here she paused. Should she tell him what she knew and feared? What licked at the corners of her awareness ever since the day Seamus had shown her the mark upon his grandson? She forced herself to speak it. “I’m convinced it is some kind of Y’Zirite resurgence.”

He paused. “Are you certain?”

There had only been a few resurgences over the years. They’d ended badly beneath the boot heels of the Androfrancines or whatever watchdog they’d turned loose upon them, but they left their own wounds before fading back into history where they belonged. Tertius had covered them in detail during her lessons. The cutting was new, though. “Yes,” she said. “I’m certain. They bear the mark of House Y’Zir.”

She heard his indrawn breath despite the magicks that muffled it. “I will pass that word along to Lady Tam,” he said. “Meanwhile, we are tracking those responsible for this attack. I will dispatch word to you through one of my men should we learn anything.”

She inclined her head. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She waited, wondering if she should ask the question that haunted her. She felt a slight wind as the shadow turned away, and she called out after him, her voice more thick with emotion than she wanted it to be. “Has there been any word from the expedition to the Wastes?”

She felt his hesitation. “That is a Ninefold Forest military venture, Lady Winters, that I am not at liberty to discuss.”

She closed her eyes. “You’re absolutely correct. My apologies, Lieutenant.”

The voice softened. “Rumor has it that you and the boy, Neb, are sweet for each other.”

She blushed and said nothing.

“We’re doing our best to find him. Aedric is seeing to it himself.”

She felt her stomach lurch, and the world tipped as the words sank farther into her. To find him. “Is he lost?” Now, that heavy emotion was a desperate whisper.

But the Gypsy Scout had already slipped away, leaving her alone with the sense of dread that grew, a dark and cold seed, within her.

The black bird she’d spied earlier shrieked suddenly, and to Winters, it sounded like laughter in that stormy sky.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam fought her queasy stomach and kept herself low in the saddle. She’d completely underestimated the impact of Jakob’s powders on her sense of balance and movement. The horse threatened the light lunch they’d taken an hour earlier.

Somewhere behind her, Lynnae fared no better. She rode with Jakob now in the carriage, a company of Rudolfo’s most decorated Gypsy Scouts assigned to their protection. It was her turn with Jakob, though by rights, she’d been taking longer shifts to accommodate Jin’s meeting schedule with the captains of the Wandering Army.

Still, it was good to be on horse back again, to feel the cold wind on her face and the solidness of the horse beneath her. The sounds and smells of an army on the march had filled her ears and nose the last several days after rallying in the foothills that ringed the Ninefold Forest. And the nights spent huddled for warmth in the wagon with Jakob and Lynnae awakened something within her that had slept for what seemed so long now.

How long had it been? She thought perhaps it was the time she and Rudolfo had toured the other eight houses, introducing her to the stewards and people in each of those major towns that had sprung to life where Rudolfo’s family had built their manors. Before that, it had surely been the war.

She heard a fluttering and a thud to her right. She looked over to see a small brown bird caught in the Second Captain’s catch net. Philemus reached down with gloved fingers to pick the bird out and pull a knotted string from its tiny foot. Pulling off the glove, he felt the raised bumps along the string and passed it to Jin. She read it quickly with her fingers.

It’s started ahead. She looked up, eyes squinting into the gray, over-cast day. Somewhere, ahead of them, the fighting had begun. They’d been monitoring the progress of Pylos and Turam’s armies with their forward scouts as those southern forces approached the Marshlands, and yesterday, the rangers of Pylos had crossed into Marsher territory or the band of wilderness that commonly passed as the unmanned border, just ahead of their army.

But who do they fight? The Marsh army patrolled the far north, looking for answers to the destruction of the Summer Papal Palace and the brutal murder of the Androfrancines hidden there.

Before Philemus could release the bird, another, this one white, also dropped into the net. She knew that this one meant stop and the Second Captain read the knot codes even as she raised her hand to order a halt.

“Someone approaches,” he said. “A lone Marsher on horse back. He wishes to parley with you.” The officer looked to her, his eyes worried. “Alone,” he added.

She continued scanning the landscape around them. They’d forded the Second River two days behind them, far north of Windwir’s ruins. In another three or four days, if she pushed them, they would ford the Third River and be within reach of their objective. She’d hoped to plant herself and her army along that southern Marsher boundary. But she’d also hoped-irrationally to be sure-that she could prevent the fighting from breaking out. That somehow, she could appeal to reason if she and the Wandering Army blocked Pylos and Turam’s forces from moving further north.

Still, when she thought of Meirov’s lost child and of Turam’s lost crown prince, she wasn’t certain there was any reason for her to appeal to. The rage brewed by those cowardly acts would surely be stronger than her ability to encourage higher thinking.

The army slowed to a halt behind her and she waited, her horse prancing to and fro along the frozen ground. Finally, a form took place in the gathering fog ahead. She squinted at it until it became a man on horseback-an old man upon an old horse.

“Set up a perimeter of scouts,” she said in a voice sharper than she meant to.

“Shall I accompany you to-”

“No,” she said as she spurred her horse forward.

She trotted the horse forward until the old man came into focus before her. He wore tattered robes made of fur-wolf, she thought, from first glance. He had bits of bone and wood woven into his carefully braided beard and hair, and his face, though painted in the custom of a Marsher, held more intricate designs than what she’d seen of others. The earth tones were painted on in an interlocking pattern of black, gray, green and brown.

He sat high in the saddle, his head moving to the left and right as if he listened and smelled for something. As she approached, he turned to face her and she saw that his eyes were the color of milk.

A blind man sent to parley.

He bent his head to the side. “Great Mother,” he said, “you should not be here.”

She remembered the cryptic note that bore the same title. She’d pondered it for hours, even had it with her in her pouch. Was it possible that this man knew something about her father, somehow? Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you call me that? And who are you?”

The old man smiled. “I am Ezra. I am herald to the soon-coming Macht Queen and prophet of the Crimson Empress.”

More riddles. And she’d heard of the Crimson Empress before. But where? “Winters has not spoken to me of you.”

He chuckled. “She did not know of me herself until recently.” He looked up, then cocked his head again. “You come with your army, but what do you hope to accomplish? You are ill from caring for your son. You are weakened still from his birth. You should be resting, not mounting a war against a foe you cannot see.” His face softened, and a smile broke out upon it. “Still,” he said, “I had not hoped to live long enough to see this day. I would ask a great favor of you, Lady.”

Her eyes narrowed. She could not see them, but there were scouts surrounding them now. One whistle and a dozen arrows or two dozen blades would bring him down. “What favor do you ask, old man?”

She saw tears coursing down his face from his milky eyes. “That I might hold the Child of Promise within my arms and speak my blessing over him.”

Jin Li Tam’s response surprised her. She felt the hair rising on her arms and neck and felt something cold grip her stomach. “You are already privy to the matters of my household, it appears,” she said. “You know that my son is ill.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “the blessing would do him good.”

Jin Li Tam shook her head slowly. “I do not know you, Ezra. You shall not go near my son.” She felt heat rising in her now-a righteous anger.

He sighed. “I could whistle now and have him brought to me,” he said. “But I will instead hope for another time.”

I could whistle now. She filed the veiled threat away for consideration later. “You are not alone then?”

His laughter was sharp. “I am an old, blind man. It would be foolishness for me to ride alone.”

She scrutinized the ground around his feet. He’d trampled the snow well enough that she could not see the footprints of whatever magicked escort accompanied him. But she did not need to see it to know these Marshers were blood-magicked. She thought of the scouts surrounding them, and the others that minded the carriage with Jakob and Lynnae inside somewhere closer to the middle of the army that stretched behind her. “Apart from my son and your concern for my physical health,” she said in a low, intentional voice, “what matter do you bring by way of parley?”

“Only this,” he said. “We intend to honor our kin-clave with the Gypsy King. Our houses have much work to do, together, in shaping the Named Lands for the new Age that dawns upon us.”

She tried to sort and categorize the data she pulled from his words, but it became lost in a sea of questions she knew she did not have the time to ask. “Our kin-clave,” she said slowly, “is with Queen Winteria. not with you.”

“Kin-clave,” he said, “runs deeper and wider than you can know from this place, Great Mother.”

“And because of it, you wish me to turn my army back homeward?”

He nodded. “I do; though I doubt you shall.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You are correct. I intend to honor my kin-clave with your queen and with her neighbors to the south. I go to bid peace among them.”

Ezra smiled. “And you may attain something akin to it,” he said, “but it cannot last. These are the pains of childbirth, the pains of something made.” He paused to regard her, and in that moment she could have sworn he could see her. His stare penetrated. “You are a part of this great making. As is your husband. And Jakob-he is most highly favored among men.”

She scowled at his words. There was a rhythm to his language that struck a familiar chord deep within, and she suddenly realized what it was.

The dreams. The voice was different, but the cadence remained the same, and she looked up and around her quickly to confirm her sudden suspicion.

Perched high in an evergreen, an enormous black bird-a kin-raven, she suddenly knew-watched them with a solitary black eye.

“Go cautiously, Great Mother,” Ezra was now saying as he turned his horse around. “The kin-clave of House Y’Zir and his servants is no small thing to trifle with.” Here his eyes narrowed, and blind or no, she was convinced he saw her. “Neither is that blessing a thing to spurn so recklessly, for someday it will save your son, and he will, in turn, save us all.”

She sat stunned and blinking. She’d certainly had her suspicions. She’d seen the intelligence reports on the dead scouts; she’d read her history and knew well that the resurgences stubbornly resurrected themselves, particularly during times of great distress and trauma in the Named Lands. Certainly, now was one of those times.

But to hear the words and to know that her family was so centrally woven into whatever belief this old man carried mixed a different kind of fear into the brew that bubbled deep in her stomach. She wanted to shout after him, to demand answers and if need be, to whistle down the Gypsy Scouts upon him and take him back to the interrogator’s wagon and the single Physician of Penitent Torture she’d brought out of forced retirement to assist them if needed.

And at the same time, she wanted to turn her horse, gallop for her son, and hide him within her embrace. Somehow keep him from the madness that seemed to unravel the world he would inherit.

But Jin Li Tam did neither. Instead, she sat upon her horse and watched Ezra the Marsh Prophet disappear into the gathering mist.

When she looked back to the kin-raven, she saw now that it had vanished, too.

If, she realized, it had ever been there at all.

Summoning up courage for her voice, Jin Li Tam called for the Wandering Army to resume its march. And for the rest of that day, she rode in silence and wondered what she would find awaiting her in the Marshlands.