Introduction The Element of Fire was my first novel, written around 1990, when I was 26. It was published in hardcover in 1993 and paperback in 1994, by Tor Books. It was published in Italy in 1995, Russia in 1997, Poland in 1998, in France, by l'Atalante, in 2002, and will be published in Spanish by Bibliopolis. It was a finalist for the 1993 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award and a runner-up for the 1994 Crawford Award. And it's almost impossible to find in the US, so I'm posting it here. It was the first Ile-Rien book, before I knew there were going to be any other Ile-Rien books. Since then Vienne, altered by time, war, and general rough usage, has been a setting for The Death of the Necromancer (nominated for the Nebula Award in 1998 and also becoming impossible to find in the US) and The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods, available in paperback from HarperCollins. Kade Carrion also appears in the short story "The Potter's Daughter" in the anthology Elemental, edited by Steve Savile and Alethea Kontis, published in 2006 by Tor Books. The text posted here does not match the original US edition; I've edited it to make the prose a little smoother and more in line with my current style, but haven't made any substantial changes to plot, storyline, characterization, or anything else. The Element of Fire by Martha Wells And New Philosophy calls all in doubt, The Element of fire is quite put out; The Sun is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit Can well direct him where to looke for it. -John Donne "An Anatomie of the World" Chapter One THE GRAPPLING HOOK skittered across the rain-slick stone of the ledge before dropping to catch in the grillwork below the third-story window. Berham leaned back on the rope to test it. "That's it, Captain Sir. Tight as may be," the servant whispered. "Well done," Thomas Boniface told him. He stepped back from the wall and looked down the alley. "Now where in hell is Dr. Braun?" "He's coming," Gideon Townsend, Thomas's lieutenant, said as he made his way toward them out of the heavy shadows. Reaching them, he glanced up at the full moon, stark white against the backdrop of wind-driven rain clouds, and muttered, "Not the best night for this work." The three men stood in the muddy alley, the dark brocades and soft wools of their doublets and breeches blending into the grimy stones and shadow, moonlight catching only the pale lace at the wrists or shirt collars of Thomas and his lieutenant, the glint of an earring, or the cold metal sheen on rapiers and wheellock pistol barrels. It was a cool night and they were surrounded by failed counting houses and the crumbling elegance of the decaying once-wealthy homes of the River Quarter. Thomas personally couldn't think of a good time to forcibly invade a foreign sorcerer's house. "The point of it is to go and be killed where you're told," he said. "Is everyone in position?" "Martin and Castero are up on the tannery roof, watching the street and the other alley. I put Gaspard and two others at the back of the house and left the servants to watch the horses. The rest are across the street, waiting for the signal," Gideon answered, his blue eyes deceptively guileless. "We're all quite ready to go and be killed where we're told." "Good," Thomas said. He knew Gideon was still young enough to see this as a challenge, to care nothing for the political reality that sent them on a mission as deadly as this with so little support. Glancing down the alley again, he saw Dr. Braun was finally coming, creeping along the wall and uncomfortably holding his velvet-trimmed scholar's robes out of the stinking mud. "Well?" Thomas asked as the sorcerer came within earshot. "What have you done?" "I've countered the wards on the doors and windows, but the inside... This person Grandier is either very strong or very subtle. I can't divine what protections he's used." The young sorcerer looked up at him, his watery eyes blinking fitfully. His long sandy hair and drooping mustache made him look like a sad-faced spaniel. "You can't give us any hint of what we're to find in there?" Thomas said, thinking, This would have been better done if I hadn't been saddled with a sorcerer who has obviously escaped from a market-day farce. Braun's expression was both distressed and obstinate. "He is too strong, or... He might have the help of some creature of the Fay." "God protect us," Berham muttered, and uneasily studied the cloudy darkness above. The others ignored him. Berham was short, rotund, and had been wounded three times manning barricades in the last Bisran War. He claimed that the only reason he had left the army was that servants' wages were better. Despite the little man's vocal quavering, Thomas was not worried about his courage. "What are you saying?" Gideon asked the sorcerer. "You mean we could fall down dead or burst into flame the moment we cross the threshold?" "The uninitiated so often have ill-conceived ideas about these matters, like the fools who believe sorcerers change their shapes or fly like the fay. It would be exceedingly dangerous to create heat or cold out of nothing..." "So you say, but..." "That's enough," Thomas interrupted. He took the rope and tested it again with his own weight. The first floor of the house would be given over to stables, storage for coaches or wagons, and servants' quarters. The second would hold salons and other rooms for entertaining guests, and the third and fourth would be the owner's private quarters. That would be where the sorcerer would keep his laboratory, and very likely his prisoner. Thomas only hoped the information from the King's Watch was correct and that the Bisran bastard Grandier wasn't here. He told Gideon, "You follow me. Unless, of course, you'd like to go first?" The lieutenant swept off his feathered hat and bowed extravagantly. "Oh, not at all, Sir, after you." "So kind, Sir." The brickwork was rough and Thomas found footholds easily. He reached the window and pulled himself up on the rusted grating, balancing cautiously. He felt the rope jerk and tighten as Gideon started to climb. The window was set with small panes of leaded glass and divided into four tall panels. Thomas drew a thin dagger from the sheath in his boot and slipped the point between the wooden frames of the lower half. Working the dagger gently, he eased the inside catch up. The panels opened inward with only a faint creak. Moonlight touched the polished surface of a table set directly in front of the window, but the darkness of the deeper interior of the room was impenetrable. It was silent, but it was a peculiar waiting silence that he disliked. Then the window ledge cracked loudly under his boots and he took a hasty step forward onto the table, thinking, Now we'll know, at any rate. Dust rose from the heavy draperies as he brushed against them, but the room remained quiet. "Was that wise?" Gideon asked softly from below the windowsill. "Possibly not. Don't come up yet." Thomas slipped the dagger back into his boot sheath and drew his rapier. If something came at him out of that darkness, he preferred to keep it at as great a distance as possible. "Tell Berham to hand up a light." There was some soft cursing below as a dark lantern, its front covered by a metal slide to keep the light dimmed, was lit and passed upward. Thomas waited impatiently, feeling the darkness press in on him like a solid wall. He would have preferred the presence of another sorcerer besides Braun, the rest of the Queen's Guard, and a conscripted city troop to quell any possibility of riot when the restive River Quarter neighborhood discovered it had a mad foreign sorcerer in its midst. But orders were orders, and if Queen's guards or their captain were killed while entering Grandier's house secretly, then at least civil unrest was prevented. An inspired intrigue, Thomas had to admit, even if he was the one it was meant to eliminate. As he reached down to take the shuttered lamp from Gideon, something moved in the corner of his eye. Thomas dropped the lamp onto the table and studied the darkness, trying to decide if the hesitant motion was actually there or in his imagination. The flicker of light escaping from the edges of the lamp's iron cover touched the room with moving shadows. With the toe of his boot Thomas knocked the lantern slide up. The wan candlelight was reflected from a dozen points around the unoccupied room, from lacquered cabinets, the gilt leather of a chair, the metallic threads in brocaded satin hangings. Then the wooden cherub supporting the right-hand corner of the table Thomas was standing on turned its head. He took an involuntary step backward. "Captain, what is it?" Gideon's whisper was harsh. Thomas didn't answer. He was looking around the room as the faces in the floral carving over the chimneypiece shifted their blank white eyes, their tiny mouths working silently. The bronze snake twined around the supporting pole of a candlestand stirred sluggishly. In the woolen carpet the interwoven pattern of vines writhed. Keeping hold of the rope, Gideon chinned himself on the window ledge to see in. He cursed softly. "Worse than I thought," Thomas agreed, not looking away from the hideously animate room. Unblinking eyes of marbleized wood stared sightlessly, limbs and mouths moved without sound. Can they see? Or hear? he wondered grimly. Most likely they can. He doubted they were here only to frighten intruders, however effective they might be at it. "We should burn this house to the ground," Gideon whispered. "We want to get Dubell out alive, not scrape his ashes out of the wreckage." "How?" Good question, Thomas thought. The vines in the carpet were lifting themselves above the surface of the floor like the tentacles of a sea beast. They were as thick around as a man's wrist and looked strong, and metallic glints that had been gilt threads in the weaving were growing into knife-edged thorns. It was only going to get more difficult. Thomas caught up the lantern and stepped down into a chair with arms shaped into gilded lampreys. They were struggling viciously but were unable to turn their heads back far enough to reach him. From there he stepped down to the hardwood floor and backed toward the doorway. Gideon made a move to climb into the window but the viselike tentacles were reaching up above waist-height and groping along the edge of the table. Thomas said, "No, stay back." At the sound of his voice the vines whipped around and stretched out for him, growing prodigiously longer in a sudden bound, and Thomas threw himself at the door. The latch was weak and snapped as his weight struck it. He stumbled through and caught himself, just as something thudded into the dark paneled wall in front of him. He dropped the lantern and dove sideways, scrambling for cover between two brocaded chairs and the fireplace. Embedded in the wall, still quivering, was a short metal arrow; if he had come through the doorway cautiously it would have struck his chest. The lion heads on the iron firedogs snapped ineffectually at him as he pushed himself further behind the chairs, thinking, Where the hell is he? The sputtering candle sent shadows chasing across crowded furniture and everything was moving. Then in the far corner he saw the life-sized statue of a Parscen archer. Naked to the waist and balancing a candleholder on his turbaned head, he was drawing a second arrow out of the bronze quiver at his side and putting it to his short bow. Rolling onto his back to make himself a smaller target, Thomas dropped the rapier and drew one of his wheellocks. He'd loaded both pistols down in the alley, and now as he wound up the mainspring, an arrow thudded into the over-stuffed chair seat. The other chair began to edge sideways using the clawed feet at the ends of its splayed legs; without thinking Thomas muttered, "Stop that." He set the spring, braced the pistol on his forearm and fired. The plaster statue shattered in the deafening impact. The shot scarred the wall behind it and filled the room with the stink of gunpowder. Thomas got to his feet, tucking away the empty pistol and picking up his rapier. Now the whole damned house knows I'm here. He hadn't planned to do this alone either, but the vines filling up the first room and curling round the doorway into this one committed him to it. Avoiding the animate furniture, he went to the door in the opposite wall and tried the handle. It was unlocked, and he eased it open carefully. The room within was dark, but the archway beyond revealed a chamber lit by a dozen or so red glass candelabra. Thomas pulled the door closed behind him and moved forward. The dim light revealed stealthy movement in the carvings on the fireplace mantel and along the bordered paneling. In the more brightly lit chamber beyond the arch, he could see an open door looking out onto the main stairwell. He stopped just before the fall of light from the next room would have revealed his presence. There was something... Then he heard the creak of leather and a harsh rasp of breath. It came from just beyond his range of sight, past the left side of the arch. They knew Grandier had hired men to guard the house; it was the only way the King's Watch had been able to trace the sorcerer, since there was no one in the city who could identify him. The man in the next room must have heard the shot; possibly he was waiting for the protective spells to dispose of any intruders. Thomas had planned on something to distract the sorcerer's human watchdogs, to send them down to the lower part of the house, if Gideon would just get on with it... From somewhere below there was a muffled thump, and the floorboards trembled under his feet. Thomas smiled to himself; shouts and running footsteps sounded from the stairs as the hired swords hastened for the front door. In theory, he wasn't disobeying the King's orders to keep the raid on Grandier's house secret. Placed correctly, a small charge of gunpowder could blow a wooden door to pieces while making little noise, and the houses to either side of Grandier's were empty anyway. The waiting guard did not take the bait with the others, but went forward to stand at the doorway into the stairwell, his rapier drawn. He was big, with greasy blond hair tied back from his face, and dressed in a dun-colored doublet. Thomas had already decided to kill him and had started forward when the man turned and saw him. The hired sword's shout was muffled by the clatter of his comrades on the stairs and he rushed forward without waiting for help. Thomas parried two wild blows, then beat his opponent's sword aside and lunged for the kill. The man jerked away and took the point between the ribs instead of under the breastbone, dropping his weapon and staggering back. Cursing his own sloppiness, Thomas leapt after him, grappling with him and trying to drive his main gauche up under the man's chin. In another moment Thomas was easing the limp body to the floor. There was blood pooling on the rug and on his boots, but hopefully the others were occupied below and there was no one left to follow his trail. He glanced quickly around the room and noted it was free of the sorcerous animation. There was a closed door on the opposite wall, and it bore examining before he ventured out onto the main stairs. As Thomas was reaching for the handle, he felt a sharp stab of unease. He stepped back, his hand tightening on his sword-hilt, baffled by his own reaction. It was only a door, as the others had been. He reached out slowly and felt his heart pound faster with anxiety as his hand neared the knob. Either I've gone mad, he thought, or this door is warded. Testing it with his own reactions, he found the ward began about a foot from the door and stretched out to completely cover the surface. It was a warning, with a relatively mild effect, more than likely meant to keep the hired swords and servants away from this portion of the house. It could also explain why the dead man hadn't left his post to investigate the pistol shot or to follow his comrades to the front entrance. He had been guarding something of crucial importance. Thomas stepped back and kicked the center panel, sending the door crashing open. Beyond was a staircase leading upward, softly lit by candlelight glowing down from the floor above. Bracing himself, Thomas stepped through the ward and onto the first step, and had to steady himself against the wall as the effect faded. He shook his head and started up the stairs. The banister was carved with roses which swayed under a sorcerous breeze only they could sense. Thomas climbed slowly, looking for the next trap. When he stopped at the first landing, he could see that the top of the stairs opened into a long gallery, lit by dozens of candles in mirror-backed sconces. Red draperies framed mythological paintings and classical landscapes. At the far end was a door, guarded on either side by a man-sized statuary niche. One niche held an angel with flowing locks, wings, and a beatific smile. The other niche was empty. Thomas climbed almost to the head of the stairs, looking up at the archway that was the entrance to the room. Something suspiciously like plaster dust drifted down from the carved bunting. A tactical error, Thomas thought. Whatever was hiding up there wasn't doing it to be decorative. He took a quiet step back down the stairs, drawing his empty pistol. The air felt warm; beneath his doublet, sweat was sticking the thin fabric of his shirt to his ribs. From the powder flask on his belt he measured out a double charge and poured it into the barrel. He pushed the bullet and wadding down with the short ramrod, thinking that it would be quite ironic if the pistol exploded and ended the matter here. Thomas wound and set the spring, carefully aimed the pistol at the top of the archway and fired. The fifty-caliber ball tore through the light ornamental wood and into the body of the plaster statue that had perched up on the opposite side of the arch. Thomas shielded his face as splintered wood and fragments of plaster rained down. A sculpted head, arm, and pieces of a foot thudded to the floor in front of him. He climbed the last few steps and stopped at the front of the gallery, which was now wreathed in the heavy white smoke of the pistol's discharge. This next trap wasn't bothering to conceal itself. Ponderously the angel statue turned its head toward him and stepped out of its niche in the far wall. Thomas shoved the empty pistol back into his sash and drew the second loaded one, circling away from the angel. It was slow, its feet striking the polished floor heavily, plaster wings flapping stiffly. It stalked him like a stiff cat as he backed away. He wanted to save the pistol for whatever was behind the next door, so he was reluctant to fire. Then his boot knocked against something that seized his ankle. He fell heavily and dropped the wheellock, which spun across the polished floor and somehow managed not to go off. Rolling over, he saw that the hand and arm of the broken statue had tripped him and was still holding onto his ankle. He drew his main gauche and smashed at it with the hilt. The hand shattered and fell away, but the angel was almost on top of him. Scrambling desperately backward, he caught the base of a tall bronze candlestand and pulled it down on the angel. The heavy holder in the top struck the statue in the temple, knocking loose a chunk of plaster. It reared back and Thomas got to his feet, keeping hold of the candlestand. As it lurched toward him again he swung the stand. A large piece of the wing cracked and fell away as the blow connected, and the creature staggered, suddenly unbalanced. Past the stumbling statue he saw movement on the stairs. There were dark writhing shapes climbing the steps, dragging themselves upward on the banisters. He backed away, realizing it was the vines that had sprung out of the carpet in the first room. Are they filling the entire house? The situation was horrible enough, it hardly needed that. And he had known he couldn't get out the way he had gotten in, but he had hoped to have the front door as an option. Now that way was blocked. Thomas dropped the candlestand and turned to the other door. He pulled it open and one quick glance told him the room seemed unoccupied by statues. He slammed the door closed as the angel lumbered awkwardly toward him, bracing against it as he shoved the bolt home. He stepped back as the thing battered against the other side. Moonlight from high undraped windows revealed shelf-lined walls stacked with leatherbound books, most chained to the shelves. It was a large room, crowded with the paraphernalia of both library and alchemical laboratory, quiet except for the erratic tick of several lantern docks. There was a writing desk untidily crammed with paper, and workbenches cluttered with flasks and long-necked bottles of colored glass. It smelled of tallow from cheap candles, the musty odor of books, and an acrid scent from residue left in the containers or staining floors and tabletops. He drew his rapier again and moved around the overladen tables, inbred caution making him avoid the stained patches left by alchemical accidents on the floor. He knew he would have to come back to this house at some point: the desks and cabinets crammed with scribbled papers would undoubtedly hold some of Grandier's secrets, but now he hadn't time to sort the vital information from the trash. Thomas circled the rotting bulk of a printing press and a cabinet overflowing with ink-stained type, and stopped. At the far end of the room, hidden by stacked furniture and shadows, was a man seated in a plain chair. He faced the wall and seemed to be lost in thought. Dressed in a black cope and a baggy scholar's cap, his face was angular and lean in profile and his hair and beard were gray. He didn't seem to be breathing. Then Thomas saw the shimmer of reflected moonlight from the window and realized the man was encased in an immense glass ball. Wondering at it, he took a step forward. The enigmatic figure didn't move. He went closer and lifted a hand to touch the glass prison, but thought better of it. As if the gesture was somehow perceptible to the man inside, he turned his head slowly toward Thomas. For a moment his expression was vacant, eyes fixed on nothing. Then the blue eyes focused and the mouth smiled, and he said, "Captain Thomas Boniface. We haven't formally met, but I have heard of you." Thomas had not known Galen Dubell closely, the fifteen years ago when the old sorcerer had been at court, but he had seen the portraits. "Dr. Dubell, I presume." Thomas circled the glass prison. "I hope you have some idea of how I'm to get you out of there." There was another heavy crash against the door. The statue, the animate vines, or something else was intent on battering its way in. "The power in this bauble is directed inward, toward me. You should be able to break it from the outside," Dubell said, his composure undisturbed by the pounding from the door. It would be dangerous for the old sorcerer but Thomas couldn't see any other way. At least the heavy wool of his scholar's robe would provide some protection. "Cover your head." Using the hilt of his rapier, Thomas struck the glass sphere. Lines of white fire radiated out along the cracks. The material was considerably stronger than it looked, and cracked like eggshell rather than glass. He hit it twice more, then it started to shatter. A few of the larger shards broke loose, but none fell near the old man. Galen Dubell stood carefully and shook the smaller fragments out of his robes. "That is a welcome relief, Captain." He looked exhausted and bedraggled as he stepped free of his prison, glass crackling under his boots. Thomas had already sheathed his rapier and was overturning one of the cabinets beneath the window. He stepped atop it and twisted the window's catch. Cool night air entered the stuffy room as he pushed it open. An ornamental sill just below formed a narrow slanted ledge. Leaning out, he could see the edge of the roof above. They would have to climb the rough brickwork. He pulled his head back in and said, "I'm afraid we'll have to take the footpad's way out, Doctor." He just hoped the old man could make it, and speedily; the battering at the door was growing louder. Dubell scrambled up the cabinet easily enough. As if he'd read Thomas's thought, he said, "It's quite all right, Captain. I prefer the risk to more of Urbain Grandier's hospitality." He might have the easier time of it; he was almost a head taller than Thomas. As Dubell pulled himself carefully out onto the narrow sill, the door gave way. The sorcerer used the scrollwork around the window casement as a ladder, drawing himself up toward the roof. Thomas swung out onto the sill after him and stood, holding onto the window frame. Broken fragments of brick sprinkled down as Dubell grasped the edge of the roof above. Thomas boosted him from below and the scholar scrambled over the edge. Digging fingertips into the soft stone, Thomas started to pull himself upward. Dubell had barely been able to grasp the ledge from here; Thomas knew he would have to stand on top of the cornice before he could reach safety. There was a crash just inside. Straining to reach the edge of the roof, Thomas bit his lip as something gave way beneath his left boot. Fingers wedged between the soft brick, he groped for another hold and felt the mortar under his hand crumble. Then from above, Galen Dubell caught his arm in an iron grip, supporting him as he found another foothold. For a man who must do little with his hands besides write or do scholarly experiments, Dubell was surprisingly strong. The man's gentle demeanor made it easy to think of him as nothing more than an aged university don and to forget that he was also a wizard. Thomas scrambled over the edge, his muscles trembling with the strain. "I thank you, Doctor," he said, sitting up, "but there are those at court who won't appreciate it." "I won't tell them about it, then." Dubell looked around, the damp breeze tearing at his gray hair and his cap. "Are those your companions?" There was a shout. The two men he had stationed atop the tannery were waving from the edge of the next roof. "Stay there," Thomas shouted back. "We'll come to you." Slowly they made their way up the crest of the pitched roof to the edge where the others were throwing down some planks to bridge the gap. The slate tiles were cracked and broken, slipping under their feet. They had just crossed the makeshift bridge to the tannery when Thomas turned to say something to Dubell; in the next instant he was lying flat on the rough planks with the others as the timber frame of the building was shaken by a muffled explosion. Then they were all retreating hastily across the tannery roof, choking on acrid smoke, as flames rose from the Bisran sorcerer's house. *** "So much for keeping this quiet," Thomas remarked to Gideon. The two men sat their nervous horses, watching from a few lengths down the street as Grandier's house burned. There was a crash as the facade collapsed inward, sending up a fireworks display of sparks and an intense wave of heat. The neighborhood had turned out to throw buckets of water and mud on the surrounding roofs and mill about in confusion and panicked excitement. The real fear had subsided when the residents had realized the fire was confining itself to the sorcerer's home, and that only a few stray sparks had lit on the surrounding structures. Three of the hired swords had been taken alive, though Thomas doubted they would know much, if anything, about Grandier's intentions. His own men had obeyed their orders and come no further than the front hall, so they had been able to escape the fire. There had been one casualty. Gaspard, one of the men who had been posted in the court behind the house, had been hit by a splintered piece of flaming wood as he tried to escape from the explosion. His back and shoulder had been badly burned and he'd only escaped worse by rolling in the muddy street. Dubell had insisted on treating the injury immediately, and Thomas had been only too glad to permit it. Now Gaspard sat on a stone bench in the shelter of a hostler's stall, his shirt and doublet cut away so Dubell could treat the blistering wound. The servant Berham was handing the sorcerer supplies from Dr. Braun's medical box and Dr. Braun himself was hovering at Dubell's elbow. Thomas suspected that Berham was providing more practical assistance than the younger sorcerer. "The fire is hardly our fault" Gideon shrugged. "Blame Grandier for it." "Yes, he's a cunning bastard." Gideon glanced at him, frowning. "How do you mean?" Thomas didn't answer. Dubell had finished tying the bandage and Martin helped Gaspard stand. As Castero led their horses forward, Thomas nudged his mare close enough to be heard over the shouting and the roar of the fire. "Gaspard, I want you to ride with Martin." "Sir, I do not need to be carried." The younger man's face was flushed and sickly. "That was not a request, Sir." Thomas was in no mood for a debate. "You can ride behind him or you can hang head down over his saddlebow; the choice is yours." Gaspard looked less combative as he contemplated that thought, and let Martin pull him unresisting to the horses. Berham was packing the medical box under Braun's direction and Dubell was staring at the fire. Thomas had been considering the question of why Grandier had not killed Galen Dubell. The answer could simply be that Grandier might have wanted to extract information from the old scholar, and his plan had gone awry when the King's Watch located the house. But somehow he didn't think it was going to be simple. The fire should have started when I broke the glass ball. Yes, it served the purpose of destroying Grandier's papers, but why not kill all the birds with one stone? Unless he wanted us to rescue Dubell. But why? To announce his presence? To show them how powerful and frightening he was? To make them distrust Dubell? As Berham took the box away to pack on his horse, Thomas waved Dr. Braun over and leaned down to ask him, "Is it possible for Grandier to... tamper with another sorcerer, to put a geas on him?" Braun looked shocked. "A geas can be laid on an untrained mind, yes, but not on a sorcerer like Dr. Dubell." "Are you very sure about that?" "Of course." After a moment, under Thomas's close scrutiny, Braun coughed and said, "Well, I am quite sure. I had to put gascoign powder in my eyes to see the wards around the house, and a geas, or any kind of spell, would be visible on Dr. Dubell." "Very well." That was as good as they were going to get without taking the old scholar to Lodun to be examined by the sorcerer-philosophers there, and there was no time for that. Dubell came toward them. "An unfortunate fire," he said. "There was much to learn there." "I thought you said it was dangerous to create fire out of nothing?" Thomas asked Braun. "It is," Braun protested, flustered. Dubell smiled. "It depends on one's appreciation of danger." "So much does," Thomas agreed. "They'll have some questions for you at the palace." "Of course. I only hope my small knowledge can aid you." "We'll find Grandier," Gideon said, coming up beside them. Dubell's eyes were troubled. "If he continues his mischief on such a grand scale, he will be hard to miss. He'll also be a fool, of course, but he may not see it that way." "Oh, I hardly think he's a fool," Thomas said. Castero and Berham had gotten Gaspard mounted up behind Martin, and they began to turn their horses away from the crowded street. As the others went down the alley, Thomas took one last look at the burning house. So far Grandier had shown an odd combination of ruthlessness and restraint, and he was not sure which he found more daunting. The sorcerer had snatched Galen Dubell out of his home in Lodun, indiscriminately slaughtering the servants who had witnessed it. For no practical reason, since Lodun University was full of wizards and scholars of magic who had been able to divine Grandier's identity within hours of examining the scene. Yet the fire that could have been so devastating stuck to Grandier's house like pitch and refused to spread to the ready tinder of the other old buildings. As much as he might wish to, Thomas couldn't see it as a gesture of defiance. He only wondered where, in what corner of the crowded city, the word had passed to watch for a sorcerous blaze in the night, and what to do then. Chapter 2 "DOES THE MASK fit?" Anton Baraselli looked up at the young woman who sat on the balcony railing, her feet swinging under her tattered red skirt. Gray eyes stared back at him from the pale features of the distorted half-mask. "It fits. Do I have the part?" Baraselli sat at his table on a balcony overhanging the main room of the Mummer's Mask tavern, where his acting troupe made its home. He was middle-aged, his dark hair wispy on his nearly bald head, but his plumpness and the newness of his clothes reflected his troupe's recent prosperity. He could barely hear the woman's deep voice over the shouted conversation, drunken arguments, and the competing strains of mandolin and viola that rose up from the rowdy crowd on the tavern's main floor below. The wealthier patrons were drinking in the small private rooms off the second-floor gallery, the shutters propped open so the music could reach them clearly. "Well, you've no troupe to recommend you," Baraselli said, leaning back. He didn't want to pay her as much as she might ask. His last Columbine had run off to be married, leaving without a backward glance yesterday morning. Baraselli had come to Ile-Rien from conquered Adera years ago when all forms of the Aderassi theater were despised and confined to back alleys and peasant festivals. Now the war with Bisra was over and Ile-Rien's capital was more cosmopolitan and free with its money. Vienne was a jewel of a city in a rich setting, standing on temperate plains roughly in the center of the country, with rolling hills and olive groves on the warmer coast to the southwest, rich forested midlands, and black-soiled farmland in the terraced valleys of the high country to the north. Baraselli had liked it, and now that Commedia and other foreign theatricals were popular he liked it a great deal more. The woman took the mask off and tossed it onto the table. Her hair was dirty blond and her narrow face with its long nose and direct eyes was plain, too plain to ever play the unmasked heroines. Her faded red dress was old and well-worn, better than a country woman's but no bawd's false finery either. Whatever the rumormongers thought, whores made terrible actresses. She looked toward him with a grin. Smoke from the candles and clay pipes below reached up to touch the tavern's high beamed ceiling and spread out like a cloud behind her. It was an interesting theatrical effect, but there was something about the image that Baraselli found faintly disquieting. She said, "I'm not here to make my fortune. I'll take what you paid the last one." She had good teeth, too. "All right, you're our Columbine. But on sufferance, mind. We've got an important engagement, a very important engagement. It happens when you attract the crowds and praise we have. If you don't give a fine performance, you're out. If you do, well, it's one silver per fortnight and a fair share of whatever they throw onto the stage." "That's well, I agree." "Anton! Look out the window." Garin, still wearing the gray beard from his Pantalone costume, came pounding up the stairs. "What? I'm busy." Garin pushed past him and threw open the shutters of the window behind Baraselli's table. "Damn it, you'll let the night air and the bogles in, you fool." Baraselli stood abruptly, jarring the table and slopping wine onto the stained floor. "But look at this." Garin pointed. The Mummer's Mask stood in a huddle of taverns and old houses on the side of a low hill commanding a good view of the River Quarter. Lying before them were the narrow overhung streets of the older and poorer area, which eventually led into the vast plazas and pillared promenades surrounded by the garden courts of the wealthy. Farther to the west and standing high above the slate and wooden roofs were the domes of churches, the fantastic and fanciful statues ornamenting the gables of the fortified Great Houses, the spires of the stone-filigree palaces on the artificial islands on the river's upper reaches, all transformed into anonymous shapes of alternating black and silver as clouds drifted past the moon. But now, against the stark shadowy forms of the crowded structures of the River Quarter, they could see the bright glow of fire, a harsh splash of color in the darkness. "Down near Cross Street, I think," Garin said. More of the troupe had drifted up the stairs in his wake, curious. "Lord save it doesn't spread," one of them whispered. "Another bad omen," Baraselli muttered. One of the clowns had died of fever last month. Clowns were traditionally good luck in Adera, if not in Ile-Rien, and having one of them die unexpectedly had shaken the other performers. Gods and spirits, no more omens before this of all performances, Baraselli prayed. "Maybe it's a good omen," the new Columbine said, selecting an apple out of the bowl on the table and watching the worried actors with oblique amusement. "Some people think fire is." Dark smoke streamed into the night sky. *** They rode through St. Anne's Gate and into the cobbled court between the high walls of the Mews and the Cisternan Guard Barracks. The facades of the two buildings were almost identical, though time and weather had scarred the dressed stone in different ways. Each was entered by three great archways that faced one another across the length of the court. Now torches threw reflections up onto the mist-slick stone as grooms and stablehands hurried to take the horses or curious Cisternans wandered out to see what the excitement was. Thomas dismounted and handed the reins to one of the grooms. He took off a glove to rub the horse's nape, then let the man lead her away. This was Cisternan Guard territory, but it was also the closest entrance to the palace, and he wanted Galen Dubell within a warded structure before Grandier made another attempt on the old sorcerer. The palace wards repelled fay, sendings, and any other form of magical attack. They were fitted together like the pieces of a puzzlebox, or a stained glass window, and drifted constantly, moving past each other, folding over each other, wandering at will over their domain. They would prevent the sorcerous abduction that Grandier had used to snatch Galen Dubell from his home in Lodun, and the palace's other defenses were more than adequate to hold off hired swords. As Thomas crossed the court toward the two sorcerers, the Cisternan Commander Vivan joined him. The Cisternans were the regular guard for the palace, their ranks drawn from the families of the wealthy merchant classes or the gentlemen landowners. Vivan had held the post of Commander for the past five years, and even though the Cisternans were ultimately under the King's authority, Vivan had no particular political ax to grind, and Thomas found him easy to deal with. The Commander said, "A midnight expedition? How exciting." "I would have preferred to stay here and help you guard the stables, but duty called," Thomas told him. Vivan snorted. The old king Fulstan had made the Cisternans his bodyguard out of dislike for the Albonate Knights, who had held the post traditionally. When Fulstan's son Roland had taken the throne, his mistrust of anything belonging to his father had led him to demote the Cisternans and return to the Albons. Going from the King's Own to the King's Old had been a great loss of prestige for them and the Queen's Own had never let them forget it. Another sore point was that their ceremonial tabards were dark green trimmed with gold, making them good targets and appropriate decor during midwinter festivals. Gideon reined in near them and dismounted, asking, "Captain, what orders?" "Send these gentlemen back to the Guard House." As the lieutenant came closer and Thomas could lower his voice, he added, "Go to Lucas. Tell him what happened and then wait to see if the Dowager Queen has questions for you. I'll see him after this meeting." He wanted to double his share of the guard placements and put a watch on Dubell. "Yes, Captain." Gideon nodded. Vivan was eyeing the old sorcerer with grudging curiosity as Galen Dubell and Braun dismounted. He asked, "What were you doing, kidnapping scholars out of the Philosopher's Cross?" "Exactly," Thomas said as he went to join the sorcerers. "I could never keep anything from you." Thomas led Dubell out of the wet chill of the courtyard and through the inner gate at its far end, passing under the spikes of an old portcullis. Dr. Braun trailed behind them. In the wall beyond, a heavy ironbound door guarded by two alert Cisternans led into one of the corridors that ran inside the protective inner siege walls. The corridor was raw stone, lit by oil lamps and undecorated except for scribbled writings by present and long-dead occupants. Dubell shook his head. "I lived here for many years and there are still parts of this place I have never seen. I am quite lost, Captain." "We're in the siege wall opposite the south curtain wall. The Summer Residence and the Adamantine Way are behind us at the opposite end of the corridor, and we're going toward the King's Bastion." This siege wall divided the newer section of the palace with its open garden courts, domed Summer Residence, and the terraces and windowed facades of the Gallery Wing from the jumbled collection of ancient blocky bastions, towers, and walls on the west side. A steep stairway led up into the King's Bastion, which loomed above the Old Courts and the Mews. As they climbed, the surroundings began to show rapid signs of improvement, the rough stone softened by hangings and overlaid by carved paneling. The ancient cracked tiles had been recently scrubbed and polished, reflecting the light from hall lanterns of stamped metal and glass as soft pools of gold. They passed Cisternan guards posted on each landing, and began to hear the bastion's hum of activity, never still at any time of night. At the fourth level, Thomas led them out of the older stairwell and across the landing to the carved-oak Queen's Staircase. They were in the heart of the bastion now, and the men posted here were Queen's Guards. Dubell paused on the landing, looking up at the wide staircase with its dark wood carved into flowing bands and banisters set with fragments of mirror glass. Then he shook his head as if at his own folly and said, "It has been a long time." The old sorcerer had been led this way the day of his exile ten years ago, to see the Dowager Queen and to hear his sentence, which so easily could have been death. Thomas acknowledged the guards' salute, and thought it fortunate all around that Ravenna had been lenient with Galen Dubell. The top of the staircase opened into a vestibule, the first room in the Dowager Queen's State Apartments. The King's State Apartments were on the opposite side of the bastion, and the young Queen Falaise lived in another suite on the floor just below. They passed the young pages waiting in the vestibule and went in to the Guard Chamber, a long richly paneled room lit by several glass drop chandeliers. Gideon was already there and several Queen's guards surrounded him, demanding to know how the night's work had gone. They called greetings as Thomas entered, and he went forward to ask Gideon, "Did you see Lucas?" "Yes, and he spoke to Ravenna. But the Bisran ambassador came in and demanded to see her. They're in the Privy Council Chamber now." "Damn. What does he want at this time of night?" "Who knows?" Gideon shrugged. The ambassador was a diplomat, not a soldier, and the young lieutenant didn't think him a matter of much importance. Thomas considered a moment. Something to do with Grandier? If it was, then there went all hope of keeping the River Quarter incident quiet. "Queen Falaise has been asking for me." Gideon looked uncomfortable. "Will you need me anymore tonight?" Thomas eyed him a moment, but said, "No, you can go on." As Gideon left, Thomas saw Dubell was taking his leave of Dr. Braun, who had apparently decided not to brave an interview with the Dowager Queen. The other guards were watching the sorcerer curiously, which at least meant that news of their adventure hadn't flown too far ahead of them. There were also two young Albonate squires waiting self-consciously in the corner. So Renier is already here, Thomas thought. Whether that was good or bad depended on what mood the King had been in when he had sent him. He said, "We'll wait in here, Doctor," as Dubell turned back toward him, and they went into the anteroom. Tapestried hangings with a Garden of Paradise theme matched the carpet and table covers, cloaking the large, high-ceilinged room in rich shades of green. Renier stood before the immense marble hearth, abstractedly watching a manservant build up the fire. He was Preceptor of the palace's chapter of Albonate Knights, which was a military order founded for the protection of the King's person, and the only order of knighthood in Ile-Rien that still meant more than a courtesy title. They were members of some of the highest families in Ile-Rien, brought into the Order as boys, living in monastic discipline until they were knighted by the King. Renier would probably have made a better country bishop than a preceptor, but in his tenure he had kept the Order's tendency toward religious fanaticism under tight control. He had broad shoulders and was muscled like a bear, and still rode to tourney on King's Ascension Day, easily managing the weight of the heavy ceremonial mail. Over his court doublet and lace-trimmed collar, he wore the bedraggled coat of sackcloth and poorly cured leather all Albon knights bore in honor of St. Albon, who had done some wandering in the wilderness before his sainthood. Renier looked up at their entrance, saw Dubell, and smiled. "Success." Thomas watched the Preceptor greet the old sorcerer, and wondered just how much Renier had known of tonight's expedition. The door opened again and Lord Aviler stood there a moment, eyeing them thoughtfully. He was dark haired, dressed in the blood red state robes of the Ministry, and his handsome sallow face was carefully controlled. He nodded to Renier and Galen Dubell, then his gaze shifted to Thomas. He said, "The River Quarter is on fire." Thomas smiled slightly to himself and went to lean casually against the mantelpiece. "Only a small portion of it." Aviler had followed so quickly behind them that he knew the man must have been lying in wait. "A stupid mistake." Aviler moved farther into the room, his folded hands covered by the hang of his sleeves. Thomas wondered if the pose was intentionally copied from the High Minister's late father, or if it was only habit. Aviler had recently inherited the post of High Minister of the body of nobles and wealthy merchants who formally advised, or were supposed to advise, the King, and had a great deal of theoretical power. But the Dowager Queen Ravenna actively opposed him, Queen Falaise ignored him except on social occasions, and no one had been able to do anything with Roland one way or the other since he had taken the throne at the end of Ravenna's regency last year. Aviler was statesman enough to resent this and just inexperienced enough to occasionally reveal his feelings. "Really, my lord, what do you want me to say?" Thomas raised his brows inquiringly. "That the mission was in danger of being found out so I set the city on fire to confuse the issue?" Before Aviler could reply, Galen Dubell said quietly, "It was unavoidable." "Dr. Dubell." Aviler acknowledged him stiffly. "It's a pity you couldn't have returned sooner and avoided this consternation." "That was my intention, my lord, but my plans went somewhat astray when my household was murdered and I was abducted." Dubell said it with such good grace that Aviler was actually caught off guard. "So Galen Dubell is a diplomat as well as a scholar," Renier said softly to Thomas as Aviler recovered his composure. "He was something of a recluse when I knew him, but I suppose years of academic infighting at Lodun will give anyone eyes in the back of his head. It's good he's returned." Thomas wasn't about to admit he missed Dr. Surete, who had held the post of Court Sorcerer since he could remember and had died suddenly last month of pleurisy. Surete had been seventy years old, had called every man under the age of sixty "boy," and had been the terror of the court for his ability to use sardonic invective like a bludgeon. Thomas said, "Let's hope Dubell's not anxious to get back to Lodun soon. We're going to need his help." Dr. Surete's assistant Milam had been killed in an accident before Surete himself had died, and since then there had been nothing but argument over who would receive the appointment while lesser talents like Dr. Braun vied for attention. Renier looked at him thoughtfully. "Lose anyone?" Thomas's expression betrayed nothing. "Does it matter?" Renier said softly, "Forgive him, Thomas. He's a boy and he was angry." "I thought you'd given up on the priesthood," Thomas answered, thinking, If His Majesty Roland wants me to die in the line of duty, it's his business, but he could have chosen a better time. If he doesn't see that Grandier is a danger to the state... At Renier's look he added, "It isn't my place to condemn him or forgive him. But tell me, did Denzil suggest the plan to Roland, or was it someone else?" Renier stiffened visibly. "I know of no plan." The double doors into the Privy Council Chamber beyond the anteroom opened and the Bisran ambassador stepped out, his expression grim. He was an older man, with the olive skin and hawklike profile of the Bisran aristocracy. Ile-Rien and its capital and court were alien to him, and his disapproval was evident. The excessive formality of the Bisran Court made it stagnant and stultified, while in Ile-Rien landlaw had traditionally permitted high officers and even personal servants to address kings and queens as "my lord" or "my lady," and to forgo obeisance in informal circumstances. The ambassador's dark plain clothing and simple white collar also marked him as a member of their sect that regarded any kind of ornamentation as a work of Hell; the opulence of the palace must seem almost a personal insult. The ambassador's hard eyes swept the room, pausing on Galen Dubell's scholar's cope and narrowing in dismayed disgust. Turning to the High Minister, he said, "Another sorcerer for the King's menagerie, Lord Aviler?" In Bisra, the magical as well as most of the philosophical arts were condemned, though the theurgic magic their priest-magicians practiced had been a deadly barrier against outside attack during the war. Sorcery that was not performed under the auspices of the Bisran Church was outlawed, and punishable by death. Aviler hesitated, his diplomatic smile turning thin with annoyance, unable to find the right words to defend Dubell's honor without insulting the ambassador. Before the silence could last long enough to give the Bisran a victory, Thomas interposed, "Perhaps that's a subject you should discuss with the King himself?" The ambassador flicked a resentful glance at him and received only an ingenuous smile in response. As a matter of policy, Roland did not receive the Bisran ambassador, who was not very pleased with this arrangement, since it required him to address his demands to the considerably less malleable Dowager Queen. But why is he here in the middle of the night? It could be only obstinate determination to get a hearing no matter who he inconvenienced, but Thomas doubted it. To compound the Bisran's discomfort, he added, "But I'm sure my lady Ravenna dealt with you to her best ability." The ambassador said, "Her Majesty was most... civil," and favored him with the same cold scrutiny he had employed on Dubell. The Bisran Court did not allow favorites to wield political power, so the ambassador tended to discount Thomas's position and influence, and cordially hated him as well. It probably didn't help either that the shape and tilt of Thomas's black eyes gave his face a naturally cynical slant, and that with his dark hair and beard this effect made him resemble certain popular portraits of the Prince of Hell. If the ambassador had noticed the evidence Thomas's climb on a wet and dirty building had left on his clothing, no doubt he attributed it to some adventure in debauchery. Turning stiffly back to Aviler, the ambassador said, "Another matter. I wanted to make certain you understood that if Ile-Rien offers shelter to the devil's son Grandier, the cost may be more than you are prepared to pay." Aviler bowed, his reserved manner masking a certain wariness. "I assure you, my lord Ambassador, Ile-Rien has no intention of offering shelter to a criminal sorcerer who has caused your land such pain." Besides, Grandier hasn't asked for shelter, Thomas thought. Unfortunately. And since the Bisran sorcerer had announced his arrival in Ile-Rien by abducting a prominent Lodun scholar of Galen Dubell's reputation, it hardly seemed possible that he would. But it was likely that the ambassador was only using Grandier's presence in the city as an excuse for a confrontation with Ravenna, and if he was being prodded by the Bisran War College to take a more aggressive stance with the Dowager Queen, it could only mean trouble. Bisra was miles of dry flat plains, and only tribute from its conquered states kept its coffers full. The Bisran Church exercised rigid controls on a populace that was land-poor and half-starved in the country and hovered at the brink of mob violence in the crowded cities. Ile-Rien had its uprisings and city mobs as well, but usually over taxes, and they were scattered outbreaks that were settled within a few days. Bisra seemed to teeter always on the edge of chaos, and with Ile-Rien's rich land and its Church's policy of tolerance toward the pagan Old Faith as a constant irritant, war had been inevitable and frequent. And now Urbain Grandier's depredations had made them even more desperate. Thomas watched critically as the ambassador nodded with bare courtesy to Lord Aviler and strode to the anteroom door, the page stationed there barely managing to swing open the heavy portal in time. As the door closed Aviler shook his head and said softly to Galen Dubell, "My apologies, Doctor. To a Bisran, any man in a scholar's gown is half demon." Dubell's expression was closed and enigmatic. "And a sorcerer, of course, is all demon." From the Privy Council Chamber two Queen's guards entered and stepped to either side of the doors as the Dowager Queen came into the room. Everyone bowed and she acknowledged them with a nod and a slight smile. "Gentlemen. Forgive the delay." Her graying red hair was tucked up into a lace cap and she wore a dark informal morning gown. She was over fifty now, and the years hadn't diminished her beauty, but transformed and refined it. Only the faint laugh lines around her mouth and the shadow of strain at the corners of her eyes betrayed her age. She took a seat in the brocaded canopy chair beside the hearth, her attendant gentlewoman settling on a cushioned stool behind her. "Dr. Galen Dubell, I'm glad to find you in good health. Perhaps you can help us in explaining this matter." "Yes, my lady. You saw my letters concerning Urbain Grandier?" Dubell said, stepping forward. "Yes. Dr. Surete brought them to me when he requested your return to court. His unfortunate death delayed the matter just long enough, it seems. When the messages came from Lodun telling of your disappearance I had already sent an order lifting the ban and requesting your return." As she spoke she was already unfolding a square of half-completed black-work embroidery and looking for the needle that marked her place. Ravenna always had to have something to do with her hands. It was a habit that disconcerted all but the most resolute of petitioners and foreign ambassadors, but Thomas noted it didn't seem to faze Dubell. The old sorcerer bowed to her. "I am honored, my lady." Ravenna gestured that away. "Tell me more about this Grandier. He has an odd name for a Bisran." Watching the Dowager guardedly, Aviler said, "We have some knowledge about his early life. Urbain Grandier was a Bisran sorcerer and scholar, though it is believed his father was from Ile-Rien, possibly a visiting priest, or even a noble, journeying there during one of the temporary treaties in force in the year of Grandier's birth. This would explain his surname, which is certainly not Bisran. Stubbornly, he refused to take another name, and this probably contributed to the suspicion with which he was regarded there." She frowned at her embroidery. "His original offense was some outrage concerning nuns, and the Bisran Church removed his sanction to perform sorcery? And then he was arrested by the Inquisition?" "Yes, my lady. After his escape from the Inquisition, Grandier brought on a plague and apparently made subtle changes in the weather over the Kiseran plain, some of their richest farmland, and destroyed most of their last year's harvest. The Bisran theurgic sorcerers are said to be near exhaustion with holding off magical attacks on Church officials and the War College." Ravenna smiled tightly without looking up from her embroidery. She hated Bisra even more than she had hated her dead husband, the old king Fulstan. "One might point out that it is nothing more than they deserve." "One might," Aviler agreed. "But the point is that Grandier has suddenly chosen to come to Ile-Rien." Thomas shook his head, briefly amused. Aviler's relationship with the Dowager Queen was an acrimonious one. For her part Ravenna merely studied the High Minister a moment. Her fine long-fingered hands had paused on the embroidery, the gold needle catching the firelight. That might mean anything; Thomas had known her to order an execution, explain to the culprit why it had to be done, and deny the family's fervent pleas for mercy, all without missing a stitch. Then she drew the strand of thread up tight and said, "Tell me about the events at the convent, Lord Aviler." She nodded to her gentlewoman. "Lady Anne knows she has permission to leave the room should she hear anything that causes her to fear for her modesty." As Lady Anne bit her lip and looked studiously at the floor, Aviler frowned and said, "The original incident took place at a convent in a town called Lindre, in the northern part of Bisra. Grandier was accused of corrupting the nuns, causing them to blaspheme against their own Church, to attack each other, to perform rituals that..." "According to the Inquisitors General of Bisra," Galen Dubell interrupted gently, "he caused them to corrupt themselves." The old scholar had moved toward the hearth and was staring into the fire, an expression in his eyes that Thomas couldn't interpret. "They found evidence of human blood used in rituals, symbols and books banned for centuries, the darkest magic... There was even some evidence of an agreement with a Lord of Hell." As the others watched Dubell in silence, Thomas said, "In Bisra they still burn hedgepriests for putting curses on cows. Why do you feel you can trust the Inquisition's reports?" "True, Captain." Dubell turned back to them. "The Inquisitors were, of course, lying. They manufactured the evidence, or most of it. Scholars who are not even sorcerers may have items in their possession that an evil mind can misinterpret. And Urbain Grandier was a scholar. He studied the stars, as well as the body and its ills and humors. He was also very outspoken in his opinions, and involved in the printing of inflammatory pamphlets. It was for this that he came under the Inquisition's scrutiny. The incident of some hysterical nuns at the Lindre Convent was used against him and he was given the usual sentence of torture and imprisonment." Dubell's voice had an enthralling quality. It might have been facilitated by the growing warmth in the room or the fatigue that was catching up with Thomas, but the old sorcerer seemed to be painting a particularly vivid picture of the man Grandier had been. After a moment Dubell shook his head. "It turned him, you might say. He escaped eventually, and began to commit many of the crimes of which they had accused him, but on a larger scale. The plague, for instance. It caused pockets of a poisonous humor to form beneath the skin, which burst when the victim was in death agony and spread the disease to anyone who stood nearby. It caused so much chaos entire cities were disrupted; the sick went untended... Only a man well versed in healing-sorcery could have devised something so terrible, and only a man driven mad with the lust for revenge could have brought himself to implement it." In the firelight, Dubell's face was a mask of pain. Then he sighed. "When I heard that a man calling himself Grandier had become established in the city and was believed to be a sorcerer, I thought it best to bring the matter to Dr. Surete's attention. I only wish I'd acted sooner." Renier had gone to the round table in the center of the room and was looking through the faded parchment and leather maps stacked there. He pulled one out and found Lindre, then thoughtfully tapped the red cross that marked the town. "You knew Grandier very well?" "No. His excesses and the motivation for them were much discussed at Lodun, where there is great interest in the natural, as well as the magical, arts." Dubell smiled. "And the printing of an occasional pamphlet." "We know," Aviler said dryly. He paced a few steps, his face severe and only half-visible in the candlelight. Aviler's late father had made his fortune in trading voyages to the East before he had settled down to take over the Ministry, and the stigma of those origins made Aviler the Younger careful to preserve the proper aristocratic disdain toward the occasional political commentary from Lodun. But the High Minister dropped the subject and only asked, "Why does Grandier come here now?" Dubell spread his hands. "I don't know. But whatever his reason, he must be stopped and driven away." Ravenna nodded. "Excesses in Bisra are all well and good, but he cannot be allowed to commit them here. I agree, Doctor. But why did he seek you out? Some special grudge?" Dubell looked thoughtful. "It has been ten years since Dr. Surete and I last tended to the palace wards. With Surete dead and Grandier rumored to be in the city, I thought it best that I should see to them again. The warding stones that hold the etheric structure of spells in formation around the newer sections of the palace must be examined individually, though in the Old Courts where the wards are tied to the structures themselves such attention is not necessary. But now I realize the situation is even more urgent than I thought. If Grandier meant to keep me from examining the wards after Dr. Surete's death, then he must have some way to circumvent them." Aviler looked up, frowning. "How is that possible?" "The wards are not unlimited or infallible. The sorcerers who constructed them directed them to react to certain situations in certain ways. But their creators could not, and did not, think of every situation. If a fay knew where the gaps were that their movement occasionally creates, it could pass through them unharmed." Galen Dubell smiled. "Dr. Surete knew the most about the wards. He could tell you their names." "I see," Aviler muttered. "Do you? Good." Ravenna finished part of the pattern and spread the square of needlework out on her lap. "Dr. Dubell, when can you begin this examination of the wards?" "Immediately," Dubell told her. "It will take several days, as some portions may only be performed during certain hours of the night." "Good, but we must continue the search for Grandier." Thomas said, "The King's Watch found that house; they'll find him." The King's Watch was a euphemism for the network of spies set up by the late Aviler the Elder to keep an eye on discontented nobles living in the city and the foreign cults that had begun to appear then. It was they who had been able to find Grandier's River Quarter house when the Lodun sorcerers had named him as Galen Dubell's abductor. "Very well. That is enough for now. Dr. Dubell must rest before he begins his work and I know you gentlemen have much to attend to." As they made to leave, Ravenna added, "Stay a moment, Captain." Thomas waited, and when the doors had closed behind the last of the others, she asked, "It was difficult?" "Fairly." Ravenna lifted a brow. "That's hardly an answer." He watched her a moment thoughtfully. That Roland had sent him on a mission designed to cause his death probably rankled her more than it did him. "Is that why you wanted me to stay, to indulge my sense of self-pity?" "Oh, don't start. Roland could send you to the edge of the earth and I would not care." She smiled for a moment, but her expression became bitter as she smoothed a section of the embroidery. "Master Conadine was sent for today from the Granges to help deal with Grandier. He should be here within the week. It was the worst stupidity not to wait for him and to send you with only Dr. Braun." "If I'd had the choice, I might have gone anyway," he admitted. "If we had waited any longer Grandier could have killed Dubell." "And taken a handful of men, and only Dr. Braun?" Her lips thinned. "Never mind. Roland did it to aggravate me, and we know who encouraged him to it, don't we?" Ravenna tested the sharpness of her needle with a finger, then selected another out of the case Lady Anne held ready for her. "And what other mischief has Denzil been up to lately?" Thomas took a seat on one of the stools near her chair, feeling his weariness as a tight pain across his shoulders. The episode with Grandier had worried Ravenna more than she had revealed to Aviler or the others, but he let her change the subject. He said, "He visited a banker on the Riverside Way yesterday, but that was about a gambling debt. If he's planning something now, he's taking more care with it." "Perhaps." Ravenna carefully threaded the needle. "Someday he will miscalculate." Thomas shrugged. "Roland can always pardon him." Denzil was Duke of Alsene, Roland's older cousin on his father's side, and acknowledged favorite. There were men who had more respect for the finer feelings of their dogs than Denzil had for Roland, but the young King still clung to him. It was undoubtedly Denzil who had talked Roland into sending a small contingent of the Queen's Guard to beard Grandier in his lair, knowing Thomas would be bound to lead them, and knowing that it would infuriate Ravenna. Thomas reminded himself there was nothing to be done about it tonight. But he was looking forward to the moment when the news reached Denzil that he had gone into Grandier's house and brought Galen Dubell out alive without losing a single man. "What did the Bisran ambassador want?" "To accuse us of harboring Grandier." She made a gesture of exasperation, willing to be led away from the subject of her son's favorite. "And also to present a new list of their heretics sheltering in Ile-Rien, so they could be arrested and returned to Bisra to burn for their crimes. That the Bisran Inquisition has no authority within our borders is immaterial, apparently. I wish I knew why the ambassador is so certain that Grandier is here with our blessings." She coughed, and Lady Anne hastily produced a lace-edged cloth for her. Watching her accusingly, Thomas said, "You're not feeling well." She had caught a lung flux last winter when they had gone to Bannot-on-the-Shore to quell a minor upheaval among the March Barons. Her vitality made it difficult to remember that she was not a young woman anymore, and Thomas still regretted allowing her to ride with the Guard instead of going in an enclosed carriage, even if it had let her surprise the barons in the middle of their secret conference. The disease had weakened her lungs despite the best efforts of apothecaries and sorcerer-healers, and she wasn't up to any more midnight rides over ice fields, whatever she might think. "You didn't have to see Dubell tonight, or the ambassador." "It is very damp out, and you are not my nursemaid." She tucked the cloth into her sleeve, unperturbed. "I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. And if the palace wards are weakening..." After a moment, Ravenna shook her head. "And what do you think of Dr. Dubell?" Thomas knew she wasn't asking about the old scholar's abilities as a sorcerer. "He's no fool. He handles himself very well." "Lord Aviler, the old Lord Aviler, not that young puppy of a High Minister, had great faith in Dubell. Despite his past disgrace." She sighed. "But I've kept you long enough." Thomas stood up, took her hand, and kissed it. She said, "Oh, and I'd almost forgotten." She rummaged in her sewing case, and pulled out a ribbon-tied packet of letters to hand to him. "What is it?" "An annoyance for you to deal with." He accepted the packet with an expression of distaste. "And I was afraid I might have to sleep tonight." "Oh, it isn't urgent. At least not to me." She smiled. "Enjoy." Stepping out into the Guard Room, Thomas turned the packet over curiously. Ravenna never forgot anything; it must be something she didn't want to discuss. Before he could untie the bound letters, he saw that Galen Dubell was waiting for him. "A moment, Captain?" the old sorcerer asked. "Yes?" "Forgive me if the question is intrusive, but Lord Aviler does not care for you?" The High Minister had already gone, though Renier was still in the Guard Chamber, speaking quietly to the two Albonate squires. "Lord Aviler is like that." Dubell's expression held nothing but mild curiosity. After a moment, Thomas found himself saying, "He doesn't approve of favorites. He's studied enough history to know what damage I could do if I were inclined to it." "I see." Dubell smiled. "Does Queen Falaise still have her entourage of poets?" Falaise had been a princess of Umberwald when Ravenna had chosen her to marry Roland a year ago. At eighteen she was four years younger than the King, and if Ravenna's motive in choosing her for a daughter-in-law had been to pick someone she could teach and influence, she had made one of her few mistakes. Falaise might have been the quiet studious girl that the ambassadors had described when she was a third daughter with few prospects, but once here and safely wed to Roland she had taken to palace life like a beggar child let loose in a bakery. "Yes, she does. City gossip reaches you all the way out in Lodun?" "City gossip is a treasured commodity. The servants bring it in with the milk every morning. The general opinion, I gathered, was one of relief that she had chosen to turn her attentions to harmless poets, considering what else she could have done." "She could have had guardsmen." "Or sorcerers." Dubell's expression turned serious. "I owe you a great debt, Captain." Thomas looked at him sharply. "I think you've already repaid that debt." Dubell gestured that away. "Nevertheless, if I can help you in any way, do not hesitate to call on me." As the sorcerer turned to follow the servants waiting to take him to his rooms, Renier intercepted Thomas. "There's something I have to show you." He looked worried. Resigned, Thomas followed Renier to a quieter corner of the Guard Room. "What is it?" "A letter. It arrived today in a packet of dispatches from Portier. The courier's a trusted man who swears he never let the packet out of his sight." The big man unfolded a square of paper. "This is a translation I had a priest do." Thomas took the paper. "What language was it in?" "Old Church Script." Thomas read the first scribbled sentence aloud, " 'O Best Beloved'?" He looked up, puzzled. "To whom was it sent?" "Roland. But the priest said that's the proper way to begin an old riddle-song, which is what this is." Where the music is not heard, There was a light not seen, There are barren hills home to multitudes, And dry lakes where fish are caught above a city's towers. Catch the incantation, solve the song. "The answer is a simple one: the Fay," Renier said. There was only one person acquainted with Roland whose feelings would naturally express themselves in poetic forms of the past. "You know who this is from," Thomas said, looking up at him. "The country folk are calling her Kade Carrion now." Renier shrugged, uneasy. "I suppose we're lucky; she could have sent something that exploded or told the secrets of whomever picked it up." Roland's older sister, the bastard princess who had never forgiven anything. Thomas tapped the rolled paper against his palm. "An odd coincidence, with Galen Dubell here. Ravenna decides to pardon the man who first told the bane of our lives that she was a witch, and the witch herself starts meddling again." She had chosen her moment well. We have more than enough to deal with from Grandier, and Kade is too dangerous to ignore. "She's been quiet for almost six months. Why now?" Across the room, a musician had taken a seat at the spinet and now played the opening verse of a popular new ballad, about a man who fell in love with a fayre queen and was taken away by her. He couldn't have chosen an air more inappropriate to the moment, Thomas thought. He said, "One hundred and ninety-seven days. I keep count. She might be in league with Grandier." Though Grandier had killed to protect himself, and Kade was rather like a cat--if the mouse was dead it was no good playing with it anymore. But people change. Renier shook his head. "There's not much else we can do. The sentry positions have already been doubled and tripled for Grandier's sake." His eyes flicked up to meet Thomas's. "Dubell is going to tend the wards." "Yes, he is, isn't he?" "We've nothing to go on." Thomas handed him back the letter. "Watch him anyway." Chapter 3 AT THE FIRST creak of the door, Thomas was up on one elbow and drawing the main gauche from the belt hung over the bedpost. Then he recognized the man entering the room and shoved the long dagger back into its sheath. "Damn you, Phaistus." The young servant shrugged and knelt beside the hearth to scrape the ashes out, muttering to the unresponsive andirons, "Well, he's in a mood." Thomas struggled out of bed. Despite the high ceiling and the natural tendency for drafts, the room was almost too warm; daylight shining through the high windows was reflected dazzlingly off the whitewashed plaster of the walls. His scabbarded rapier leaned against a red brocaded chair and his other three civilian dueling swords hung on the wall, along with the heavier, broad-bladed weapons used for cavalry combat. He ran a distracted hand through his hair, working the tangles out, and said, "What's the hour?" "Nearly midday, Sir. Ephraim's outside. He said you wanted him. And Master Lucas brought that Gambin fellow in." "Good." Thomas stretched and grimaced. A few hours of sleep had done little besides give his bruised muscles time to stiffen. While Phaistus banged things on the hearth, he found his trousers and top boots on the floor underneath the bed's rumbled white counterpoint and started to dress. "Clean that pistol." The servant stood, wiping his hands on his shirt tail and glancing over the draw table where Thomas had left his wheellock and reloading gear. "Where's the other one?" Thomas grabbed up a pewter jug and threw it at Phaistus, who ducked, grinned, and went on with what he was doing. Phaistus had come to the Guard House as a kitchen boy, silent and terrified, but had grown out of it before his voice changed. "I obviously don't beat you enough." Thomas went to the table and pushed back his sleeves to splash water on his face from the bowl there. Undisturbed, the boy asked, "Going to kill Gambin, Sir?" "It's a thought." Deciding he could wait to trim his beard. Thomas picked up the scabbarded rapier and went into the small anteroom. Ephraim was waiting for him. He was a little old man, the pockets of his faded brown doublet and breeches stuffed with sheaves of paper, the ballads he sold on the street. His stockings were mud-stained and one of his shoes had a large hole in the toe. He grinned and pulled his battered hat off. "You wanted to see me, Captain?" "Someone sent a packet of letters to the Dowager Queen through Gambin. I want you and your people to find out who hired him." Ephraim rubbed his grizzled chin. The best of the civilian spies Thomas employed, Ephraim was discreet enough for the occasional official mission as well as for Thomas's own needs. "That could be difficult, Sir. That Gambin lad hires out to so many there's no telling whose business he's on today, and he mightn't have a reason to go back to the fellow, you know." "Gambin's here now. I'll make sure he does." "Ahh. That's a different matter. The usual wages?" "A bonus if you find out by tomorrow." "Oh, I can't make any promises." Ephraim looked flattered. "But we'll do our poor best." Thomas left him and went down the staircase toward the clash of steel and loud talk from the large hall on the lower floor. The old, rambling house stood just inside the Prince's Gate, where it was dwarfed by the bulk of the King's Bastion and the Albon Tower. For seventy years the house had been the headquarters of the Queen's Guard and the property of whomever held the commission of Captain. The carved knobs topping the stairway's balusters were gashed and chipped from practice bouts up and down the steps, and the walls still bore the faint scars of powder burns from more serious skirmishes. The Queen's Guard were all scions of province nobility or second sons of landed families, with few expectations of large inheritances. The requirement for membership was a term of service with a crown troop, preferably cavalry, and an appointment from the Queen. In general the Queen's Own were unruly and hard drinking, and carried on jealous and obsessive rivalries with both the Cisternans and the Albon Order. They were also the most effective elite force in a country where until a few years ago private armies had abounded; commanding them had been Thomas's only ambition for a long time. As he reached the second-floor landing, Dr. Lambe was just coming out of the archway that led into the other wing. Dressed in a stained smock, the apothecary was followed by a young boy weighed down with various satchels and bags of medical paraphernalia. Thomas asked Lambe, "Did you see Gaspard?" "I did, Captain, and I'm not sure I believe it." Lambe adjusted the cap on his balding head. Apothecaries prepared the herbal remedies used by sorcerer-healers, and many, like Lambe, also made good physicians, even without any sorcerous skill. Healers learned in magic were in short supply everywhere but in Lodun, where the university drew them by the dozens. "What do you mean?" "The burns are scarred over already." He shrugged. "I knew Galen Dubell had a reputation for healing-sorcery, but what did the man do?" "Whatever it was, he did it quickly. He used some things Braun had." "Dr. Braun's not so bad." Lambe caught Thomas's expression and added, "He's not a steady sort, I'll give you that, Sir, but he has the makings of a fine practitioner in him. But this work of Dr. Dubell's... It would be an honor to hand the man bandages." Thomas watched Lambe go, thoughtfully, then turned into the small second-floor council room where Lucas waited for him. The dingy walls were hung with old maps and a few tattered remnants of flags, some of which were trophies from the last war, while others were more recent acquisitions from the Cisternan Guard, who would undoubtedly give a great deal to learn where they were. In the glass-fronted bookpress were classical treatises on warfare, manuals of drilling, musketry, fencing, and tactics, The Compleat Body of the Art Military and Directions For Musters. Lucas, the First Lieutenant of the Queen's Guard, was leaning back in a chair, nursing a tankard, his boots propped up on the heavy plank table beside a wine bottle and another tankard. Gambin was standing in the corner in an attitude that suggested he wanted to be as far away from Lucas as possible, and his long face was sullen. Gambin was a spy as well, but without Ephraim's sense of professional integrity. He worked most often for the lesser lords of the court, and this was the first time Thomas had considered him anything more than a minor irritant. He was dressed in a red and gold slashed doublet, the peacock finery of a court hanger-on that was particularly hateful to the eyes after a hard night and little sleep. Gambin said, "I've business elsewhere, Captain, if you don't mind." The bravado in his voice was unconvincing. Lucas raised an eyebrow. Thomas glanced at the lieutenant as he set his rapier down. Ignoring Gambin, he poured wine into the other tankard, tasted it, and winced in disgust. He said to Lucas, "Adijan '22? Are you mad?" Lucas shrugged. "It wakes me up." "It wakes the dead." Thomas dropped into a chair and looked at the spy. He waited until Gambin's pale eyes shifted away from his, then said, "Someone gave you a package." "They do. I'm handy for that," Gambin muttered. "This was for the Dowager Queen." The spy licked his lips. "Was it?" "Was it?" Lucas echoed. "It was," Thomas said. He drew the rapier from the fine black leather of the scabbard and out of the corner of his eye saw Gambin shift nervously. The hilt was unadorned beyond the inherent elegance in the shapes of the half-shell guard and the blunt points of the quillions, and the metal was worn smooth from use. Thomas ran a finger down the flat of the narrow blade, apparently giving all his attention to the shallow dents and scratches it had collected. "Who gave it to you?" "I'm not saying I had any package." Lucas pulled the packet of letters out of his rumpled doublet and dropped it on the table. Last night, after discovering that it was Gambin who had delivered the packet to one of Ravenna's gentlewomen, Thomas had given it to Lucas along with instructions to bring in the spy. Thomas held the rapier up and sighted along the blade. Despite last night's misadventures, it was still unbent. "Where'd this package come from, then?" Gambin laughed nervously. "There's no proof I had anything to do with that." Thomas looked up at him. "A Queen's word is not good enough?" he asked softly. "That's dangerously close to treason." "I... That's..." "Who gave it to you?" Gambin made the mistake of changing defensive tactics. "I can't tell you that." "'Can't'? Surely not 'can't,' " Lucas pointed out. "Perhaps you mean 'shouldn't'? There is a distinct difference." "I meant I don't know who it was; he had his man give it to me," Gambin protested. "That's a pity." Thomas laid the rapier gently back on the table and stood up. "You're no use to us, then, are you?" "So I'll be on my way, then." "Yes, do that." The spy hesitated, started to speak, then made a sudden dash for the door. Thomas caught him as Gambin faltered in the doorway at the sight of a group of guards dicing in the next room. He slung the spy around and slammed him face first onto the table. Lucas deftly rescued the wine bottle and moved it out of the way. Gambin yelped, the cry escalating into a scream as Thomas twisted the spy's arm upward at an unnatural angle. He said, "Keep yelling. There's no one to hear you who gives a damn. Now I suggest you consider an answer." "Look here, I... I'll find out who it is for you. I swear, he... I've got friends that can find him." The spy's voice rose in desperation. "I think you're lying. Doesn't it seem like he's lying?" Thomas asked Lucas. Lucas shrugged. "Well, he is handy that way." "No, no, it's the truth," Gambin panted. "I'll find him." "Are you sure?" Thomas put a little more of his weight on the man's abused arm bone. Gambin shrieked. "Yes, yes! I swear it!" Thomas let him go and stepped back. Gambin fell to the floor, gasping. He staggered to his feet, clutching his arm, and stumbled for the door. Thomas stood his chair upright and recovered his tankard from the floor. He gestured at the wine bottle Lucas was holding protectively. "Are you keeping that all for yourself?" Lucas passed it to him as he took his own seat. "I thought it woke the dead." "It does. That's what bad years are for." He poured the tankard full and took a long drink. He resented wasting the time on Gambin, and wanted to get back to the problem of Grandier. The three prisoners they had taken last night had known nothing. The man who had hired them had worn a hood and a mask, which was a common practice for nobles and the wealthy slumming in low taverns, and they had not been able to decide if he was a Bisran. Which might mean Grandier spoke without an accent, that the man who had done the hiring had not been the sorcerer but another confederate, or that the hirelings were too witless to have known him for Bisran if he had been wearing a Bisran cornet officer's tabard. We know nothing about Grandier, Thomas thought in disgust, except rumor and common knowledge. "I suppose Gideon relieved you at dawn." "Yes, and he was disgustingly cheery about it." Lucas sighed. "I can't recall being that energetic as a youth. Who's following Gambin?" "Ephraim, the one that pretends to be a ballad-seller." "Oh, hiring out, are we?" "Had to. All the regulars from the King's Watch are still looking for Grandier." "Grandier's a bad business." Lucas picked up the packet of letters and glanced through it. "So you're having an affair with the Countess of Mayence?" "A long, torrid affair. I get very effusive about it in the one dated last month." Thomas didn't mind his lieutenant's raillery. Lucas was perhaps the first man Thomas had learned to trust entirely, when with the rest of the Queen's Guard they had been employed as couriers and intelligence-gatherers during the last Bisran War. Since they were both dark enough to pass for Aderassi, the two of them had once spent six days disguised as mercenaries from that small country in a Bisran cavalry encampment on the wrong side of a wide and rising river. The Bisran commander had staged executions of captured officers of the Ile-Rien army as after-dinner entertainment, and the bounty he had offered for Queen's Guardsmen was enough to support a well-to-do merchant family for a year. "Yes, I particularly enjoyed that one." The older lieutenant spread the letter out on the table to examine the signature. "It's a good forgery. I'd think there were some truth to it if I didn't know you were too proper a gentleman to stand in line with the good countess's grooms and lackeys. I expect it's a lucky thing the Dowager thinks so too." "It's hardly luck. If Ravenna had asked me if I'd actually slept with the countess, I would've had to tell her I honestly couldn't remember. Most of the court ladies are starting to look alike to me." Thomas and Ravenna had not been lovers for more than a year, since her health had first begun to fail, and she knew that he had had other women since then. It hadn't changed anything between them; their relationship had passed that point long ago. The only woman she would have objected to was Falaise. Not too many years ago palace coups had ignited as quickly as fires in a dry summer; Ravenna could not afford to have the man who commanded her guard become attached to a daughter-queen who in many ways was still an unknown quantity, and who one day might like to rid herself of a dominating mother-in-law. But even though the letters had failed in their purpose, they were an annoyance at a time when Ravenna needed him free to help her, and not constantly guarding his own back. Thomas tapped the packet. "This was done by someone who doesn't know Ravenna." Lucas nodded. "Someone who doesn't realize how little she appreciates people who trouble with her personal..." He paused and his mouth quirked. "Matters." Thomas strongly suspected his friend had been about to say "affairs." He let it pass and said, "It's more the sort of thing that would work with Roland. I wonder if our anonymous schemer plans to try it." If some disgruntled courtier also tried to drive a wedge between Roland and his cousin Denzil in this manner, Thomas wished him luck, but it was far more likely this asinine trick was the brainchild of one of the Duke of Alsene's cronies. Inspired by a few casually dropped hints by Denzil himself, of course. Lucas looked thoughtful. "I wonder if it's been tried already." "I'd think the screams would have been audible even over on this end of the court. But there's no way to be certain." "Surely Renier, the ideal of perfect knighthood, would know." Thomas snorted. As the ideal of perfect knighthood, Renier was not without flaws. He was a skilled swordsman but tended to depend too much on his weight and size, using his greater strength to bowl over smaller opponents. This technique had some merit: there were many men who unwisely dueled with the Preceptor of the Albon Knights only to end with his footprints down their backs. Renier had knocked Thomas down once in a friendly duel, and when the Preceptor had stepped in close to follow up, Thomas had retaliated by slamming him in the groin with the hilt of his main gauche. Renier didn't seem to hold it against Thomas, and his good humor never seemed to suffer. But Renier had a misguided perception of loyalty, and while he was not a bad influence on the young King, he was not a good one either. He often went out of his way to repeat to Roland what everyone else in his hearing said, without regard for Roland's sensibilities or the safety of those whose careless words were later used against them. Thomas said, "The ideal of perfect knighthood thinks it's his duty to tell Roland every word I say to him, and God knows what His Majesty would make of the question." "Well, whatever you think." Lucas got to his feet slowly. He was only a few years older than his captain, but he moved like a much older man when he was tired. The reflexes go, Thomas thought, looking at the rapier lying on the table. And that's that. Lucas said, "I'm off to a well-deserved rest. Oh, there's that entertainment at court tonight. Will you need me?" "No, Gideon and I will take it. I've doubled the duty list for it, what with all our other little troubles." The acting troupes brought to court by the Master of Revels didn't ordinarily present much of a problem. Before they reached the palace they were examined for foreign spies or suspected anarchists, and the actors seldom turned mad and attacked anyone. "What sort of play is it?" "An Aderassi Commedia." Thomas winced. "Well, it could've been a pastoral." He drained the tankard. "Oh, there's this. I'd forgotten." Lucas picked up a leather dispatch case from a pile along the wall and tossed it onto the table. It was stuffed with papers. Thomas looked at it without enthusiasm. "What's that?" "The King's Watch sent it over. It's some writings and copies of documents from Grandier's heresy trial in Bisra." "You're joking," Sitting up, Thomas pulled out the papers and thumbed through the pages of faded script. "How did they get it?" "A Viscondin monk who was traveling in Bisra attended the trial. He asked one of the officiating priests if he could copy the documents, and they allowed it. None of it was considered secret, or important, apparently. The King's Watch said it wouldn't be of any use, but they know how you are about these things so they sent it along." As Lucas left, Thomas spread out the papers. The Viscondin Order was one of the few brotherhoods that could still cross the border to Bisra freely. The Church of Ile-Rien and the Church of Bisra had declared ecclesiastical war on each other when the bishops of Ile-Rien decided against purging the countryside of the pagan Old Faith. The Bisran Inquisition had started its persecution of sorcerers at about the same time, and the Church of Ile-Rien's objections to it had caused Bisra to outlaw most of the independent religious orders. The Viscondin monk had copied the court documents in the original Bisran. Thomas could read Low Bisran, but not the elaborate High Script used for their official documents. He doubted the monk had been able to either, and the King's Watch had probably not bothered. He sorted the unreadable documents aside to send to the palace clerks for translation. It was clear even from the monk's crabbed notes on the evidence that Grandier had been a victim. The nuns' testimony had been confused and contradictory, and the details of how Grandier had enchanted them were vague at best; if they had brought such charges in Ile-Rien a magistrate would have had them all hauled off to gaol for false witness and wasting the time of a law court. According to the monk, one nun had even tried to recant her testimony but the judges had refused to hear her. Grandier had been tortured with fire, the choking-pear, and the other devices the Inquisition used to obtain confessions of heresy. Despite this the sorcerer had refused to confess, and had been sentenced to the question ordinary and extraordinary. He had been subjected to both strappado, having been hoisted by his bound arms and dropped to a stone floor, and squassation, during which the executioner had attached heavy weights to the victim's feet, then hoisted and dropped him to within a few inches of the floor until limbs had been dislocated. The scars would be visible on his face, his hands. Even if he's healed himself, he can't conceal that kind of injury. It would be a miracle if he could straighten his back or walk without limping, Thomas thought. Grandier disappeared from his cell a few weeks after his torture. A month later the priest who had brought the original complaint died insane. Within another month the bishop who headed the Inquisitorial Committee followed him. The witch-pricker, who had probably falsified the demon marks he had reported finding on Grandier's body during torture, died later in "terrible delirium," as the monk described it. The account ended there, before the plague and the other horrific disasters now attributed to the outlaw sorcerer. If he wasn't working dark magic before the trial, Thomas thought, he is now. *** The afternoon at the Mummer's Mask passed slowly as the tavernkeepers recovered from the night before and the acting troupe prepared for the night to come. Baraselli and his assistants sat at a big round table on the tavern's main floor arguing over which characters they would use tonight, while the actors lounged nearby feigning disinterest. Shafts of sunlight from the cracked windows glittered off the dust in the air and the various paraphernalia of the stage that had been hauled out for inspection. Silvetta, the actress who played one of the heroines, said, "What did you say your name was?" There was a moment of hesitation before the woman who had been hired for the Columbine mask answered, "It's Kade." She was sitting on top of one of the wine-stained tables, her legs folded beneath her skirt in a position that most women of better breeding would have found difficult if not impossible. The playing cards she shuffled were a tattered pack belonging to the tavern. "Really? Don't tell Baraselli." Silvetta shuddered, rolling her eyes in a gesture better suited for the stage. "Bad luck, ill omens, that's all he talks about. But they don't give children that name here anymore, do they? Except in the country. Are you from the country?" "Yes." "When did you learn Commedia?" "I traveled around with one for a while and learned the Columbine mask. That was after I got out of the convent," Kade told her. Silvetta leaned forward. "Why were you in a convent?" "My wicked stepmother sent me there." "Oh, you're telling me a tale." Personal questions out of the way, she said, "Do my fortune again." Kade's brows quirked. "I doubt it's changed any in the past hour." "You can't tell; it might have." "You can tell," Kade said, but began to lay out the cards for the fortune anyway. Corrine, the other heroine, appeared out of one of the back rooms carrying two dresses visible only as tumbled confections of sparkled fabric and lace. "What do you think, this blue or that blue?" Both women paused to give the matter serious consideration. "That one," Silvetta said finally. "I think so," Kade agreed. "What are you wearing?" Corrine asked her. Kade suspected she was anxious to make sure she wasn't going to be outshone by the woman playing her maid. With a shrug of one shoulder, Kade indicated the loose red gown she wore over the low-necked smock. "This." "You can't wear that," Silvetta objected. "I'm playing a maid." She laughed. "What else should I wear?" The free fortune-telling had won Silvetta over completely. She said, "At least let me curl your hair." Kade ran a hand through fine limp hair that the dusty sunlight was temporarily transforming into spun gold. Ordinarily she considered it the color of wheat suffering from rotting blight. "With an iron?" "Of course, you goose, what else?" "I hate that." Corrine draped the gowns over a chair and said, "The thing to do is to attract attention to yourself. There's plenty of men there, gentlemen, lords, wealthy men, on the lookout for mistresses. Of course, it's not often you can get something permanent, you understand, but it's worth a go." "Really?" Kade asked, her tone a shade too ingenuous, but not so much so that the other two women suspected subtle mockery. "Much better than an actor," Silvetta said, and jerked her head in the direction of the tavern entrance. The actor who played the Arlequin stood there talking to one of the tavern-keeps, having just come in from the street. He was darkly handsome, clean-shaven after the current fashion in Adera, and didn't look at all like the other actors who played clowns. After a moment, Kade said, "How well do you know him?" Silvetta answered, "He's new. Baraselli hired him last month when the other Arlequin died." Kade glanced at her. "Was he an old man?" "Oh, no, all our clowns are young. He died of a fever. It was very bad luck." The Arlequin had looked in their direction, and seemed to be staring at Kade. Corrine, who apparently had only one thought in her head, grinned and said, "He likes you." But Kade, who could read wolfish contempt in those dark eyes, snorted. "Hardly," she said, and by sleight of hand managed to insinuate the card for future wealth into Silvetta's fortune. *** Thomas had spent the afternoon checking on the progress of the inquiries he had set in motion last night, but the King's Watch had made little headway so far. He had wanted to sound out Galen Dubell on the subject of his one time student Kade Carrion, but last night hadn't seemed the right moment after the sorcerer's rescue from three harrowing days as Urbain Grandier's prisoner. Galen Dubell had moved into the late Dr. Surete's old rooms, and Thomas found him there when the afternoon sun was glowing through the windows and filling the high-ceilinged room with light. The old Court Sorcerer had needed this room when his eyes had started to fail; the multipaned windows in the west wall took full advantage of the daylight. Gold-trimmed bookshelves covered the other walls and a globe still shielded by its protective leather cover stood in the corner. The rest of the furniture was buried under piles of more books and a fine layer of dust. When the servant led Thomas into the room, Dubell looked up from his writing desk and smiled. "Captain." He was wearing a battered pair of gold-rimmed reading spectacles and open books were spread out on one side of the partners desk Dr. Surete had once shared with his assistant Milan. Thomas said, "I wanted to thank you for what you did for my man last night. He would have died if you hadn't healed him." Dubell smiled. "You are welcome, but I don't think that is the only thing you came to speak about. Please be direct." Well, well. Thomas leaned on a bookshelf and tipped his plumed hat back, finding himself more amused than discomfited. Directness was not something one encountered often at court. "We've had a message from an old acquaintance of yours. His Majesty Roland's half sister Kade." "So that is it." Dubell took off his spectacles and tapped them thoughtfully against the carved arm of his chair. For the first time he looked like a young man who had gradually grown old rather than the model of an aged wizard-scholar who had sprung fully formed out of the fertile ground at Lodun University. "Indeed, I know Kade." "She was your apprentice." "Not quite. I was the first to show her the uses for the talent she already had. A mistake I have already paid for. Ten years is a long time to be banished from the city of one's birth." He shook his head, dismissing the thought. "But you have had a message from her?" "Yes. It seems to suggest she's about to pay a visit." "In person? That is odd. She usually sends tricks disguised as gifts, doesn't she?" "If you can call them that." Kade's tricks ranged from the dangerous to the ridiculous. The goblet that no adulterer could drink from had provided some embarrassing and humorous moments for the entire court. A gift of a necklet that, once clasped, contracted and cut the wearer's head off had been considerably less entertaining. The ancient knight who had arrived last midwinter with his beheading game had been one of the most frightening but the least substantive. Of course, Renier had fallen for it like a sack of rocks off a wall. It had taken the Preceptor of the Albon Knights off on a two-month quest that was notable for its pointlessness and not much else. Presumably the fay sorceress had watched from a distance, laughing her own head off. When violent, Kade was about as subtle as a thrown hammer; when devious, she still preferred to sign her name to the deed. As an enemy Thomas would have preferred Kade over Urbain Grandier; she, at least, was a known danger. "Could she be coming to see you?" he asked Dubell. The sorcerer got to his feet and went toward one of the windows that looked out on the Rose Court five stories below. Thomas followed him. The stone paths below formed gray rivers among islands of small red and white fall roses. On one of those shaded rivers were a gallant and a court lady, standing close together in conversation. There was something furtive in the turn of the woman's head that spoke of an assignation. They couldn't know they were being watched by the Captain of the Queen's Guard and the man who would probably be made Court Sorcerer sometime in the next few months, but in the palace someone was always watching. After a moment Dubell said, "Kade could have seen me more easily at Lodun. Why should she wait until now?" "I can't answer that, Doctor. She's only half human and I don't understand why she does anything." No one had been able to answer the question "why" when Kade's mother appeared at court twenty-five years ago to captivate the old king Fulstan. No one had known she was Moire, a great queen in her own right from one of the multitude of fayre kingdoms that hid under ancient barrows, deceptively deep lakes, or the disappearing islands that lay off the southern coast. She had held Fulstan's attention constantly, day and night, for one year before departing and leaving behind her a baby daughter like a forgotten piece of baggage and a man who was far worse a king than he had ever been before. Dubell had a way of seeming to pick up on someone else's train of thought. He said, "I remember her mother. I was a young man then. The King's Company was performing The Fortunate Lands and suddenly she was there, dressed in black and her jewels like stars. The Queen of Air and Darkness." He picked up a book from the window ledge and absently added it to a stack on a nearby chair. "A wiser man might have seen a potential danger in Kade. The fay who appear the most human are often more changeable and vindictive than their monstrous brethren. But I saw only an isolated child with the first stirrings of real power and the wit and the will to use it. I admit I have never felt guilty, Captain. I gave her only an elementary tutoring in the craft. If I hadn't, she would have found someone else. I'm sorry for what she has done with the knowledge since then, but I assume no responsibility for it." He looked back at Thomas seriously. "I suspect that may be lese-majeste." "Perhaps, but it's a mild form of it." Compared to most of what goes on here. "And we do need your help." He was sure Dubell realized that until another court sorcerer could arrive he had them over a barrel, and Thomas was curious to see if the old scholar would come out and admit it. Dubell shook his head. "I took a vow of fealty when I first came here years ago. Whatever differences of opinion have arisen since then can have no bearing on it." The old sorcerer stood there watching the garden below, his stooped shoulders revealing his bone-weary exhaustion. Galen Dubell spoke so freely it made suspicion difficult, even for someone in whom suspicion was a deeply ingrained habit. And how many times does a man have to swear undying loyalty before you have to give him the benefit of the doubt? Thomas thought. At least until events prove otherwise. The couple in the court below had moved somewhere out of sight. Dubell asked, "Has anything been heard of Grandier?" "No, not so far. He's not going to be so easy to find again. You haven't remembered anything else you heard that might hint of his plans?" Thomas asked without much hope. They had gone over all this exhaustively last night on the way back to the palace. "No, I saw and heard very little of anyone." Dubell spread his hands. "A thing to be glad of, since I expect that is why they allowed me to live." "I don't know. This is a very complex game he's playing." Dubell nodded. "So it is," he agreed. "So it is." *** With winter on the way, the days were growing shorter, but as night dropped over the city on this particular day, Thomas felt he had done a great deal and gotten absolutely no results for any of it. As he leaned on the balustrade of the Queen's loggia and repeated to his young lieutenant Gideon the last message from the King's Watch commander, he was even more convinced of it. One of the roofed terrace's walls was open to the night and to a view of the park and the river canal where it ran for a time within the towering bulk of the palace's outer curtain wall. Paintings on oiled silk hung from the edge of the roof, rippling slightly in the sharp coolness of the evening breeze. "They've lost Grandier's trail completely," Thomas told Gideon. Both were dressed in dark brocades for court, with lace at collars and cuffs and overlapping their top boots. Thomas wore Ravenna's signature color of red in the ribbons on his sleeves and his sword knot. "Which isn't surprising at this point. He was here secretly long enough to establish that house; he could have bolt holes all over the city by now." "That's not very encouraging," the lieutenant said with a rueful expression. One of Gideon's duties was the command of the group of Queen's guards that formed Queen Falaise's escort, and he had been attending to her most of the day instead of participating in the more exciting search for Grandier. "That's an understatement." Thomas watched the breeze ripple the surface of the canal. Gideon had been Falaise's lover for the past month, and he wondered if the younger man realized that he knew it. Thomas hoped it didn't become awkward. I've known him since he was a boy, he thought. I'd hate to have to kill him. Muted music and laughter drifted up the graceful staircase to the loggia. The open doors in the archway below led into the entrance hall of the Grand Gallery where the night's entertainment for the court was being staged. Thomas said, "Grandier's playing with us. I think he wanted us to find him the first time, and the question of why isn't an easy one." He shook his head. "I'll have to talk to the King's Watch commander again tonight." "Yes. Well, there's one other thing." Gideon lowered his voice. "My lady Falaise wants to see you. I know what you've said about that, Captain, and I have put her off, but..." "I'll take care of it." You'd think the woman didn't have any sense of self-preservation, he thought. Thomas was trying to avoid giving Queen Falaise an opportunity to make him any offers he would be honor-bound to tell her mother-in-law Ravenna about. "Who is she with at the moment?" "Aristofan, he calls himself." Gideon grinned. "His real name is Semuel Porter." "Which one is he?" "The pimply one." Thomas sighed. "They're all pimply, Gideon." "The pimply one with the red hair." He hesitated. "Braun's coming this way." Thomas glanced around. Dr. Braun, dressed for court in a black velvet scholar's gown, was gesturing erratically at them from the landing below the loggia. "He seems to have something on his mind," Thomas said. Gideon looked down at the young sorcerer with thinly veiled contempt. "He nearly got Gaspard killed fumbling around with the wards at that wizard-house." "Then perhaps it will offset all the times that Gaspard has nearly gotten himself killed," Thomas said, his voice dry. "Go on back to Falaise. See if you can tactfully encourage her to show up for court." "Sir." Gideon saluted and headed for the stairway leading to the upper levels and Thomas went down to meet Dr. Braun. "I have something I need to discuss with you," the sorcerer said hurriedly as Thomas reached him. Dr. Braun was worried, and his normal hangdog expression had given way to a look of frightened intelligence. Thomas found himself asking seriously, "What is it?" "Captain!" The voice hailed him from the arched entrance to the Grand Gallery. Hell, it's Denzil, Thomas thought. He told Braun, "If it can't wait, tell me quickly." Braun hesitated, his nervous eyes on the approaching Denzil. "It can wait," he said. "I'll come to the Grand Gallery later." "Are you certain?" "Yes." The young man began to sidle uneasily away. "Very well." Braun nodded and all but bolted out of the entrance hall. Thomas went to join Denzil. The Duke of Alsene's father had been a wastrel and little better than a border bandit who managed to lose most of the family properties by the time of his death. Denzil had inherited the Duchy of Alsene at age eight, surrounded by a large family of grasping and impoverished noble relatives. Seven years later when he had come to court and captured Roland's favor, all those properties had been restored, and he had been made generous gifts of land, court offices, and the incomes that came with them. Now he had his own cadre of debauched and worthless young nobles, and he encouraged them to plot and spread rumors and otherwise annoy Ravenna, even though two of his foolish friends had gone too far, and died for it on the Traitor's Block outside the city. Ravenna was continually balked by his influence over Roland, and if Denzil's family had deliberately trained him for the part he played now, they couldn't have done better. "I've heard some unpleasant rumors about the crown's intentions toward my manor at Bel Garde, Captain," Denzil said, adjusting the set of his gloves and deliberately not looking at Thomas. The King's cousin was the mirror of the perfect courtier. His blond hair was curled to perfection, his beard perfectly trimmed, his handsome features unscarred by the ravages of battle, work, or time, his amber doublet trimmed with aglets and his gold-embroidered breeches the height of fashion. That might be part of the attraction Denzil had for Roland; the King had always been an awkward boy. "Perhaps you can put me right on it." "I would be happy to put you right, my lord," Thomas said easily. At that the Duke's eyes lifted to meet his, cold blue and opaque, and very much at odds with the pettiness he was affecting. After a moment he smiled ingenuously. "I've heard that a cavalry officer thinks my manor there is some sort of threat." That was enough to tell Thomas that Denzil already knew all and was only trying to bait him. Bel Garde was built around a fortified tower overlooking the city. In the last century it had withstood a two-year siege and it would make an ideal staging area for an attack on the city wall. That Denzil should be owner of such a valuable and potentially dangerous property was a sore point with the older nobility and particularly Ravenna. Thomas silently damned whoever had let slip their plans to the young Duke and said, "It isn't a manor, Sir. It's a fortress, and in violation of the edict against private fortifications." The edict helped discourage rebellious nobles, but Roland had managed to avoid the issue of Denzil's property at Bel Garde for the past year. He had finally given in to Lord General Villon's diplomatic prodding, but the difficulty had lain in keeping it from Denzil until they could get a signed warrant from Roland. "Who has said this?" "Lord General Villon, the commander of the siege engine cavalry." Denzil snorted. "He's a fool." Thomas lifted his brows. "It is possible he was misled by the moat and the crenellated walls." Denzil fingered one of the tawny stones set into the cup hilt of his rapier, apparently trying to decide if the mockery was worth taking issue with or not. Thomas knew the gesture for an empty one, perhaps put on for the benefit of a group of courtiers now crossing the foyer to the gallery behind them: Denzil was a superb duelist, but Thomas couldn't challenge him because of his loyalty oaths to the royal family. Denzil could initiate a challenge himself, but despite provocation, he seemed to be saving it for a time when Thomas was badly wounded or on his deathbed. Denzil finally said, "And so he will destroy it?" "Only fill in the moat and tear down the walls. The estate itself will be better for it in the long run. I'm told by those who should know that it presents a golden opportunity to extend the park and put in formal gardens." Denzil's expression suggested this was the equivalent of prostituting one's children. He said, "Surely this plot did not originate with the King." "This edict has been posted in the Council Chamber for two years and a great many lords have already submitted to it. I would hardly call it a plot, Sir." Denzil gestured that logic away. "You would not call it so, Sir," he said stiffly. "I would like to know why you are my enemy, Sir, and despise me so." It was one of Denzil's best tactics with Roland; he could turn any mild criticism into a personal attack on himself. Thomas said, "I suppose if I ever gave you any thought, I might despise you, Sir, but I can't imagine circumstances in which I would be compelled to give you any notice at all." The expression of artificial indignance in Denzil's eyes hardened to real anger, and for a moment Thomas was hopeful, but the young Duke was only foolish about things that endangered other people's lives, not his own, and the moment passed. "We will see, Sir," Denzil said softly. Thomas waited until the Duke had vanished through the main doors of the Grand Gallery before starting down the steps after him. Denzil couldn't have gotten wind of the plans for Bel Garde any time before this afternoon, at the earliest, or he would have confronted Roland about it when he saw him this morning. Wager then that Denzil had approached Thomas impulsively. Wager then also that he would approach Roland sometime tonight, instead of waiting for a private audience, in the hopes of provoking Ravenna into an unflattering and public argument with the King. Walking through the oversized double doors of the archway was like walking into a wall of sound. The combination of the music from the musicians' galleries above the raised dais and the babble of conversation echoed off the high sculpted contours of the ceiling and shivered the rock-crystal chandeliers. The room was so immense that what Thomas knew to be a large crowd appeared sparse. Visiting nobles, courtiers, ministers, and wealthy merchants invited out of courtesy or political necessity milled in large groups around the bases of the marble-sheathed columns, the orange trees potted in silver tubs, or the fountains running with wine. Thomas made his way through the crowds toward the dais, occasionally greeting an acquaintance. In the center of the room, the play had just started on a raised plank stage with wooden classical columns and a painted backdrop of an Aderassi marketplace. A gaudily dressed Pantalone with a pointed beard and a mask with a long hooked nose was in loud mock argument with a grotesque Pulchinella with a humped back, protruding stomach, and a high peaked cap. Some of the crowd were even paying attention to it. Cisternan guards were stationed at all the entrances to the gallery, though they were armed only with swords. The Queen's Guard and the Albonate Knights were permitted to carry firearms in the royal presence at court, but no one else. The polished-stone dais supported the three chairs of state for Ravenna, Falaise, and Roland. Roland was surrounded by his servants and a few courtiers who had been called up to speak to him. An Albon knight stood guard at his back. Next to him Falaise's chair was empty. Ravenna was firmly established on the opposite side of the dais from her son. Four guards were gathered near her and a lady-in-waiting sat on a stool at her side. Thomas swept off his hat and bowed to Roland who was hidden behind his wall of servants and hangers-on, to Falaise's empty chair as a matter of form, and to Ravenna, who smiled down at him. As he climbed the dais, the guard nearest her caught his signal and stepped out of earshot. Thomas kneeled beside Ravenna's brocaded chair and said, "There's news." Ravenna put her sewing down. "Elaine dear, come and stand in front of me, there's a good girl. Here, wind this thread back on the spindle." The young woman's full skirt, puffed sleeves, and wide plumed hat effectively shielded them from curious eyes. "Denzil knows about the plans for Bel Garde. It's likely he'll confront Roland about it tonight. You know what will happen," Thomas told Ravenna. Ravenna's face set. "Villon's been working on Roland for the past two months. He said he'd give the order." She shoved her sewing into her satchel and started to stand. Thomas said, "Don't." She stopped, looking down at him, her hands white-knuckled on the arms of her chair. "Roland won't listen to you. Or worse, he'll do the opposite." "He will do what I..." He regarded her steadily. "Face it, Ravenna; it's a fact." She sat back down with a thump. "Damn Denzil to hell. Damn you to hell. Hand me that fan, Elaine. Oh, don't cringe so, child; I'm not angry with you, am I?" She fanned herself rapidly, the delicate silk construction somehow holding up under the pressure of her grip. "I want you to kill Denzil, Thomas." Thomas nodded. "Fine. Is now soon enough? I believe I can hit him from here if Elaine would step out of the line of fire." "No, no. I'll get him eventually. I'll think of something. You'll think of something; it's your duty." "My duty is protecting you and Falaise," he reminded her. Ravenna snorted in disdain. "Damn Falaise to hell. What I mind most is that Denzil's making a fool of the boy. Treating him like a puppy to be petted or kicked as the mood takes him. God, I hate that." Thomas didn't answer. She twisted the fan between her fingers, then extended it with a snap. "Well?" she asked softly. Thomas turned over a couple of options, then said, "Send the order tonight. Tell them to start a breach in Bel Garde's curtain wall." She hesitated. He continued, "There was a mistake. You thought Roland had signed the warrant, or was about to sign it. You sent the order yesterday." "Ah." She bit her lip thoughtfully and the fan's motion slowed. "I will order them to stop work immediately when I realize what an unfortunate mistake has been made. I will be properly apologetic. I will repair it with my own funds." Thomas waited, watching her as she thought it over. A breach in a supporting section of the curtain wall would be difficult to repair, especially with gentle mismanagement, and could be made to buy them at least six months. It would also keep General Villon, who was away with his troop at the moment, from being compromised. "It will do," Ravenna said. "Elaine, find me that lapdesk, please." As the girl brought the flat wooden box with the ink bottle and pen set, Thomas noticed the crowd around Roland had cleared and one of the stewards was presenting Dr. Galen Dubell to the King. As the old sorcerer bowed deeply, Roland said, "Come up here, Sir, and tell me how things are at Lodun." Roland had wanted to go to Lodun or the smaller university further off in Duncanny, but Ravenna had needed him here during her regency, and before that, Fulstan had refused to even let the boy make a progress there to see the place. It couldn't have hurt, Thomas thought as Ravenna's pen scratched across the parchment. He'd have tired of it in a few months, but it would have made him happy. God knows, they might even have been able to teach him something. Roland resembled his father, with his curling brown hair and blue eyes, but his features were a good deal more delicate. The King's servants would never have let him out of his rooms looking anything other than immaculate, but he still managed to look incongruous in his cloth-of-gold slashed doublet, and the lace of his falling band |
