Son of Avonar

CHAPTER 24

“… dead these ten months. Our only boy. I’ve needs to tell my man. Please, Your Worship.”

“Your husband works in the armory, you say?” The guard eyed the black ribbon tied around my sleeve and nodded knowingly. From the number of sleeves with black mourning bands I had seen, everyone in Montevial had lost a son or brother or father in the war.

“Aye, sir. Journeyman, he is. Honored to serve the king. And our Tevano was a legionnaire—no conscript.” I moaned and pulled my apron up to cover my face, lest the young guardsman look too close and unmask my charade. One of his fellows, an older man with a thick red beard, had been staring at me from his post on the far side of the squat palace gate towers.

“All right. Go on then. But straight to the armory and straight out again.”

I dipped my knee and hurried through the dim passage under the gate defenses, taking care to avert my face from the red-bearded guard as I passed. Perhaps it had been foolish to enter the same gate Karon and I had used almost every day for two years.

Once across the outer ward, I angled away from the direction of the armory and headed for the workrooms Karon had taken over for the Antiquities Commission. For the first time in ten years, I approached the palace of the kings of Leire with anticipation rather than dread. Even the flying red banners that told me Evard was in residence could not slow my steps as I sped down the brick-paved roadway that separated the palace proper from the stone monoliths that were the royal storehouses.

The next task was to discover if anyone I knew was still employed at the Antiquities Commission. Everyone who had worked for Karon had respected and liked him, but they would have had to undergo the “purification” mandated at the trial, an expensive and humiliating ritual, so I couldn’t summon much confidence that I would find someone familiar, much less sympathetic and unafraid. Matters looked even worse when I crossed a graveled yard to the Commission workrooms and found them occupied by a noisy, sweating army of leatherworkers.

“What’s your business?” asked a bearded workman, dropping a daunting roll of hides about three paces from where I stood gawking in dismay. From this dark, stifling den of hammering, cutting, and stitching would come the mountains of saddlery, harness, and boots needed for the warriors who had carried Evard’s war into Iskeran.

“I was to bring a message to the secretary at the Antiquities Commission,” I said. “And I didn’t think to ask where it was. Last time I had to deliver something, this was the place.”

“It’s been a while since you’ve carried a message then, girl, or you’ve got fair lost along your way. I’ve worked here eight years.”

“Where is it moved then? My mistress will beat me sure if I don’t deliver my message.”

“Antiquities, you say?” The man scratched his greasy beard. “Don’t sound familiar.” His expression was vague. He had no idea what I was talking about.

“They work with old things dragged in from everywhere: statues, tablets, armor, tools, boxes, things used to decorate tombs, and such like.”

“Oh. Like loot from the war?”

“Yes. Yes, exactly that.”

“Maybe it’s those fellows down to the pit.”

“The pit?”

“Yeah. That’s what we call it. Buried like moles, they are. Round behind this building you’ll find a cellar stair. Go down, and in, and down some more, and give a shout. Those moles might be the ones you’re looking for”—he gave me a good-natured, gap-toothed leer—“unless you decide you like us fellows better, up here where you can see and get a breath of air at the same time.”

I smiled at the sweating man. “Not today. But if I find the man I’m looking for, you’ve saved my goose, and I’ll not forget it.”

“Good enough.” The man hoisted his smelly bundle onto his broad shoulders and staggered into the noisy workshop.

When I found the cellar stair in the weed-choked alleyway behind the leatherworks, the steps were littered with leaves and twigs and chunks of broken paving, and the door at the bottom of the stair looked as if its hinges had been rusted shut since the Rebellion. I made my way carefully down the crumbling stair, wrenched open the heavy door, and stepped inside.

I felt hollow and sick at the sight of the dark and deserted passage. No demons here, I thought, but wasn’t sure I believed it. The only sound besides the empty reflection of my steps was a quiet, regular tapping from the far end of the sloping way. I tiptoed past gaping blacknesses toward the source of the noise. A weak pool of lamplight spilled from a doorway on my left. The tapping stopped, and I peered cautiously through the opening.

A dark-haired man was bent over a table littered with tools and dust and broken chips of stone. The rest of the small room was crowded with stacks of crates and old books, heaps of rolled manuscripts, and shelves crammed with bottles and jars and rags, paint pots and boxes of every size and shape. A mangled oil painting lay on the floor beside a carved wooden horse that must be at least eight hundred years old. From Iskeran, I knew. Horses were sacred to the Isker gods. The man raised a small hammer and began tapping at something on the work table.

“Excuse me,” I said.

The man jerked around, dropping his hammer with a clatter. He was small and dark-skinned with black, curly hair just beginning to show signs of gray. His nose, mouth, and chin came to a point in such a fashion as to be vaguely reminiscent of a rat.

“Racine!”

The man squinted at me, frowning. “Who’s there? Step into the light, if you please. I can’t see in the dark, though those who ration lamp oil must think it so.”

I stepped into the room and had the disconcerting experience of having someone collapse in a dead faint at the sight of me. Someday, I thought, as I sniffed Racine’s pots and jars to see if one contained water or wine, someone will greet me with an ordinary, “Hello, Seri, how are you today?” I satisfied myself that the contents of a fat green jug were not toxic and proceeded to dump them in Racine’s face. I sat down beside him on the floor while he sputtered and shook his head like a pup, propping himself against the foot of his table.

“My lady! My apologies. I—It’s just—I didn’t—I thought—” The man’s mouth opened and closed like a fish’s.

“I’m sorry for startling you. You needn’t be afraid. It’s not unlawful to speak with me. I’m on the king’s parole, not a fugitive.”

“No. No. I just assumed…”

“I’m not a ghost either.”

He pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and blotted the drips running down his face. “Just surprised. Amazed. It’s so quiet down here. No one comes. And it’s been so long. What’s brought you here, my lady?”

“I’m visiting the city, and I was curious to see what had become of the collection. I’m happy to find it in your care.”

His color deepened to scarlet. “Oh, my lady, to call this care! I’m the only one left, you see. There’s no money to do the things we did. And the collection… pffft. Waging war in Iskeran is terribly expensive, I suppose. Anything that can be sold has been sold. All the bronzes melted down, and the silver. What gems were left in their settings dug out. Even the swords and armor taken away to use or to melt. Paper and stone are all that’s left, and much of that was destroyed after—” His eyes darted toward me fearfully.

“Yes, they would have done that. But you’re still employed. Who’s the commissioner, then?”

He leaned close and dropped his voice. “No one. None dared show interest in the post. I’m still secretary, but to Commissioner Nobody. I’m not sorry for that. I can stay down here and do what I can. They just brought this lot from Kerotea. All rubbish save the horse and this box.” Sitting on the workbench was a cube-shaped case of cracked and peeling leather, bound in corroded brass. “I’m working to get the hinge pins out so as to get it open, careful as Master Ka—the commissioner—taught me.”

Heaving a great breath, Racine climbed to his feet, straightened his back, and gave me a gracious hand up off the floor. Though no longer rattled, he was not yet easy. He opened his mouth to begin several times, and then blurted out quite suddenly, “I never thought to see you again, my lady.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. I never thought to be here again.” The unexpected encounter with Karon’s old assistant made me hope the fanciful story I had concocted to get me into the vaults might be unnecessary. Racine clearly wanted to talk. I let him.

As he offered me his stool that was the only seating in the tiny room, he drew up his brow. “I’ve often thought— wished—I could go back and change some things.”

“Who among us has not?” I perched awkwardly on the tall stool.

“I should have spoken.” He paused, his eyes unfocused as if he were looking inside himself, before reaching out to meet my gaze. “No one but you spoke for him. I should have done. All Reagor’s prattling, those stupid, impossible lies about flying boxes and living mummies, and no one said anything to dispute him. But I was afraid.”

“For good reason. It would have made no difference, Racine. You would have died for it.”

“But it wasn’t right. At first”—he averted his eyes, his color deepening again—“I was glad he was found out, afraid that because I’d been close, he’d done something to me… and I hated him for that. I hated him for deceiving me and making me so afraid. But at the trial, I listened to what you said, and it made such plain sense. And I saw what they’d done to him, and I thought how he was a good man, just and fair, and teaching me, trusting me. I couldn’t believe the wicked things they said about him. I thought someone should speak up, but I couldn’t. All these years and I still haven’t got my nerve up even to say his name here in the dark, where there’s no one to hear it.”

“Thank you for telling me, Racine. You mustn’t feel guilty. The Holy Twins themselves could have spoken for him, and nothing would have been any different. But you’ve just made life very much easier for me!”

Racine screwed his features into such a morosely puzzled knot that I almost laughed. “I had another purpose for my visit. Regarding the collection. And I was afraid I’d find no one here that I knew. Or that if there was someone I knew, they’d spit on me and chase me away.”

Racine put on his most businesslike face and bowed to me. “It has been quite a long time since I’ve had a request that was not in the vein of ‘remove this useless refuse from my sight,” or “don’t you have anything of real value?” It would be a pleasure to assist you, madam. And I give you my most solemn word not to spit.“ He waved his hand to encompass his cramped domain. ”What is your pleasure? A review of all we have left? Not much. An examination of your most efficient cataloging directories? Out of date, but still useful. Perhaps an extensive tour of our workrooms that extend from this wall here all the way to that one right there, a whole two paces longer than my armspan?“

“I wanted to find something. Something we catalogued that I would give a great deal to see. If I could get into the southwest vault…”

Racine’s smile wilted, and my spirits with it. “The southwest vault? Would it were another. We had to abandon the southwest vault, as it was wanted for something else. I moved as much of the contents as I could, but they didn’t give me much time. A good deal of it was burned. What was it you were looking for?”

“A leather trunk. Very old. It was in one corner, buried under a pile of rolled carpets.”

He tapped his long fingers on his cheek. “I don’t know. It doesn’t sound familiar. You say it was catalogued? I’ve tried to mark all those things that came from the southwest vault with their new location.”

“It had a number, but it would not have appeared on your list.”

“Well, then, we must have a look. Most of the things I salvaged went into the northwest vault.” Racine rummaged among the rubble on his table until he found a large ring of keys and a tired brown leather ledger. He took his lamp from its bracket on the wall and escorted me into the passageway, locking the door carefully behind him. He hesitated a moment, then said, “Would it suit you better if we were to be discreet about our journeying, my lady?”

“As a matter of fact, though everything I told you about my status is true, I would prefer that my visit be unnoticed. I promise you—”

He raised one hand. “No promises are necessary. This way.”

He led me down the sloping passage into the labyrinth of tunnels. A quarter of an hour’s brisk walking brought us to an iron gate, soon opened by one of Racine’s keys. Faint rustling and murmuring floated from the yawning mouths of the side passages. I swallowed hard and kept my eyes on Racine’s back. The lamp wasn’t nearly bright enough. The path angled upward toward another gate and through a wooden door.

To stand in the midst of the jumbled vault was like going backward in time, yet a single glimpse told me how depleted the collection was. The paintings, stacked so carefully, were of poor quality, the statuary mostly broken. A primitive idol in the shape of a raven-headed man looked blindly on the rest, the jewels pried from its eye sockets, its splendid belt, collar, and staff pockmarked by gouges and gaps where silver inlay and even the tiniest chips of gems had been removed. Racine led me to the corner where he had stored those artifacts rescued from the southwest vault, and we rooted through stack after stack of boxes and crates. I couldn’t think what I would do if the trunk wasn’t here. After two futile hours, I concluded I might have to make those plans.

Racine ran his finger down the pages of his ledger. “I just don’t know. If it wasn’t in the original list… Where else could I have put it? You said it was under rolls of carpets.” He thumbed through the wrinkled pages, slowly and deliberately, squinting at the crabbed writing that filled each one until I thought I might have to grab the book from him or scream. But then he tapped his finger on one page, and said, “One more possibility. I had them put a number of carpets in that niche behind the last row of pillars. It’s a little drier there than most of the vault. If your trunk isn’t there, then it must have been destroyed.”

I held my breath as he hung the lamp on a bracket in the niche beyond the pillars. On a raised floor a stack of carpets rose higher than my head. I took one side and Racine took the other, and we pulled one after another off the stack. No irregularity in the stack indicated the presence of anything so awkward as a trunk. Foolish to expect that workmen would have installed it here in the same way as they had found it. But when we had were almost to the bottom of the pile, Racine gave a shout. “Ouch! Serpents’ feet! Excuse me… what—? My lady, please come.”“

I clambered over the mountain of carpets to the other side. Racine sat on a dusty roll of wool, nursing a great bleeding gouge in his leg. “Look back there,” he said, pointing into the dark corner of the niche. “I backed into something when we were shifting that last one out of the way.”

I held the lamp high, and there in the corner, as if patiently awaiting my attention, was the trunk. “That’s it!” Avoiding the sharp metal edge that had attracted Racine’s notice so dramatically, I pulled the trunk from the corner. Holding my breath, I unlatched the hasp, opened the lid, and reached down into the dusty contents until I felt the smooth edge of the rosewood box. I looked up at Racine, my face hot with excitement.

I started to speak, but the man raised his hand in caution. “Perhaps it would be better if you say nothing. I think I’ll go and stack up these carpets that have so carelessly fallen upon themselves, and when you are finished with your sentimental tour of the collection, we’ll go. And, of course, there will be nothing in your hands when we depart.”

I smiled at him. “You are wiser than you give yourself credit for, sir. I’ll look around a bit while you stack your carpets, and then I will be ready to leave—with nothing in my hands.”

While Racine turned his back, I opened the box and looked on the precious things I had last seen in Karon’s hand. I removed the tattered journal, carefully wrapped it in a strip of gauzy fabric from the trunk, and slipped it into my pocket. Then I returned the box to the trunk and pushed the trunk back into the corner.

I found Racine diligently laboring to get the carpets back under his discipline, and I lifted one end of a heavy roll. “I’ve seen all I need to see. Whenever you’re ready, I’d be happy to go.”

Racine nodded and said, “Let’s be off then. I remember that the dust caused you much distress in years gone by. I can finish this later.”

The secretary led me along his underground paths, back to the door that led into the sunlight. I offered him my hand. “Thank you. I’ll not forget.”

“A small thing. Nice to have someone take an interest. Someday—”

“I’ll come back and tell you all.”