Part 30 (2/2)
”Everyone at Bryn Shaer gets breakfast,” I said. ”Here - there's honeyed Breijard pears. Go ahead, His Grace won't notice if one's missing.”
”He's eaten already. Go away.”
That little one was starting to get on my nerves. I wondered if I might take him out - the tray was heavy; one quick club to the back of his scowling head - ”Ease up a little, Arrod. The girl's trying to be hospitable. That's rare enough.”
I turned to Older-and-Softer. ”One quick peek inside the rooms, and I'll disappear. You'll hardly even know I was in there.” For good mea sure, I stole a glance at Arrod. ”And I can make sure the next tray has an extra bottle of sweet Brennin red on it.”
Finally, finally they relented, stepping aside and swinging open Antoch's unlocked door. Inside, Meri sat in a chair by the cold fireplace, weeping and obviously terrified. Werne stood before the tall windows, a green shadow, flanked by guards. His head was bowed over the earthstone in his clasped hands. One of the Confessors looked up briefly when I entered, but nothing more. The red drapes sectioning off Lord Antoch's office were thrown open, and two Confessors were working their way quietly and methodically through Antoch's desk and bookshelves. Sud denly I was sick with relief that I had never brought back the seal or the letter I'd stolen.
Not that it mattered. Werne already had Antoch and Lyll's most valuable possession.
”Celyn!” Meri's voice was a sob. She stared at me with wide red eyes, straining her hands, and I saw that she was bound to the chair - with silver chains. I took a calm breath and set the food down quietly on the desk beside her.
”They have Stagne!” Meri whispered ur gently.
I shook my head. ”Impossible. He's safe, Meri, I promise.”
Desperate, awful hope burned in her eyes. ”But she said -”
”Who said?” My voice was a hiss, and I made a pretense of noisily arranging the food to cover our conversation.
She looked at me miserably. ”Phandre.”
”What!” A hot sickness spread through every inch of me, and on a table a few feet away I now saw what I had missed at first: two small, leather-bound books, one black, one gray . . . and both of them held down by a thick silver weight. Beside them was a flat, grayish-blue stone - one of the lodestones carried by the Confessors to detect the presence of magic - and a host of wicked-looking instruments with orbits and dials and compa.s.s faces. The kinder tools of the Confessors' trade. Everything in me crumbled. If they had her magic books . . . But I saw that Meri was fighting for bravery now that I was here, and so I knelt beside her and squeezed her hand. ”It's all right, Meri. They won't hurt you. We'll get you out.”
She nodded tearfully, but I could tell she didn't believe me. I held her hand tightly, fiercely, my fingers digging into hers, but no spark, no thread of light twined our hands together. Meri pulled her fingers out of my grip, curling them back under her bound hands, giving her head the faintest shake. Desperately I wished someone else were here to help me - anyone. Wierolf. Lyll. Tegen, who would have devised an escape for Meri bordering on genius. Tegen - who had not been able to free himself from three Greenmen. But who had saved me.
A strong hand grabbed my arm and yanked me away from Meri. ”What's this, then?” said a dangerous voice, and I looked up into the pockmarked face of a leering Greenman. ”Another little magic-lover, no doubt. Let's strap her down as well, see what she'll give up.”
”Guardsman Jost! This is a n.o.bleman's home, not some dockyard alehouse.” One of the Confessors gave him a chilling look. ”Try to comport yourself with some dignity, if that's even possible.”
”Yes, Your Grace.” The Greenman dropped my arm and stepped away from me.
Well, they knew I was here now. ”Don't you people know who this is?” I said. ”That's their lords.h.i.+ps' daughter - and you have her chained up in here like a common criminal. I demand to know why!”
”Silence, wretch!” the Confessor snapped in a voice like a whip cracking. ”You presume to question the work of the Holy Mother's servants? Begone before we're moved to take another prisoner.”
I remembered those voices. The man was older, graying at the temples, and he looked mean. Not fighting mean, but dark and cruel, the sort of person who could sit for hours, pulling out a girl's fingernails. I took an involuntary step backward - but a voice like a tether grabbed me and held me steady.
”Be easy, Brother Hessop.” The Lord High Inquisitor turned away from his contemplation at the window. ”We must be always ready to explain why our Holy Mother makes the demands on us she does.”
I remembered that voice too. Soft, soothing, always so utterly reasonable - Werne had always been able to convince anyone of anything. He moved toward us in a practiced, gliding step that made him seem to float above the floor.
”Tell me, child, who are you?”
Hysterically I almost laughed. But before I could make up my mind how to answer, Meri spoke up: ”My maid, Celyn. Don't you touch her!”
Alarmed, I grabbed for Meri's shoulders. Werne spun his gaze on her, and like that it switched from benevolence to venom. He leaned over her and almost spat in her face.
”If you speak again in this room, sinner, I will have your blaspheming tongue cut out.”
”Don't talk to her that way,” I cried. ”This is her father's room!”
”Celyn!” Meri sobbed, her voice raw and full of terror.
Werne slapped her. Hard, backhanded, across the face with a gloved hand. I flew at him, forgetting every calm and disciplined fighting move that had ever been drilled into me, screeching, kicking, flailing madly with my hands, until strong arms grabbed me from behind and lifted me bodily from the ground.
Vaguely I understood that this was all going horribly wrong; I was making every thing unutterably worse for Meri and myself. I stopped screaming, at least. I had to - a hand was clamped hard across my mouth. Blessed Tiboran, for once I had the good sense not to bite.
The Greenman gave me a violent shake. ”How dare you touch His Wors.h.i.+p with your filthy Sarist hands!” He drew his nightstick and pressed it up beneath my jaw. ”We'll cut off those hands and feed them to you, little girl.”
”Enough!” Werne was unharmed, stumbling backward briefly before regaining his footing and his composure. He brushed his robes down, but he looked shaken. He put his fingers together and stared at them a moment, with dark brooding eyes - did mine look like that? - taking slow, smooth breaths. My chest tightened, watching him, his movements too familiar, and I looked away. We weren't alike. We weren't.
No, I was an impetuous fool who was going to get Meri killed, and he was the pillar of icy calm who was going to wield the blade, right in front of me where I could watch. Oh, Meri, I'm so sorry. I couldn't say the words aloud, with the guard's hand over my mouth. Meri slumped mutely in her chair.
”Forgive me,” Werne said, and it was a shrieking, insane parody of an apology. ”While the work of Blessed Inquiry often inspires - pa.s.sionate - reactions, we do not normally witness such displays. My daughter, it is worthy that you have inspired such devotion in your maid. Perhaps our Holy Mother will look upon you both with mercy.” He glanced briefly at me. ”Get . . . that out of here.”
The guard holding me carried me to the door - but Werne was still looking at us strangely. ”Wait.”
The Greenman halted, mid-turn, his hand dropping away from my mouth.
”Your face is familiar, child. Do I know you?”
I could have gotten out of there. One word would have dumped me safely in the corridor, so I could flee back to Lyll and Antoch with the news of what I'd seen. One word.
I didn't say it.
”Of course you know me,” I said recklessly. ”I used to be your sister.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.
The look that came across Werne the Bloodletter's face at that instant was priceless. I would have cherished it, if it hadn't been so deadly dangerous. He stared at me, eyes ink-dark and penetrating, but I refused to look away. I heard Meri gasp.
”Speak that lie again, blasphemer.” But there was confusion, doubt in his voice.
”No lie,” I said, struggling a little in the Greenman's arms. He set me back down on the floor but didn't quite release me. I still felt a little wild, and I had the strange sense that Werne had always made me feel that way, as if all his goodness and restraint brought out the recklessness and insolence in me. Like the moons of Celys and Marau, always pulling each other in opposition through the heavens. All these years, I'd been so afraid of him finding me again - but it was like he'd forgotten he ever even had a sister.
Werne crept closer, as if concerned I might strike out at him again, or that something noxious on me might rub off on him if he got too close. ”I had a sister once,” he said softly, almost to himself. ”But she died, long ago. A heretic, unclean. It was the greatest sorrow of my life.”
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