Daughter of Ancients (35 page)

A scream ripped through the soft dawn of the hospice like a sword through flesh. I sat up abruptly, bumping my elbow on the chair where I'd drifted off in the dark hours. “Earth's bones!” Rubbing my elbow, I stepped over my discarded books and shuffled across the cluttered room to peer out the open window, expecting an uproar. But the only noise beyond Papa's quiet breathing was the screech of two magpies arguing with a squirrel outside the window.

Shadows still lurked in the cloisters. A sleepy attendant carried an early breakfast to her charge. Her demeanor was so ordinary, her purposeful steps so slow and steady, that there was no need to ask her what was the alarm. She hadn't heard it.

What poor wretch had reason to produce such a cry? If the sunlight had not been filtered through the dark green leaves of the cherry tree, and if the warm air had not smelled of moisture and roses, I might have believed I was back in the desert, listening as another slave was sealed into his collar. I shuddered. Must have been dreaming.

So, shake it off then.
But as I pulled on my boots and jacket and slipped quietly out the door to play the next round of my spying game, that scream clung to my spirit like a wet cloak.

I squeezed through a laurel hedge and wedged myself between its thick tangle of branches and the trumpet-flower vines that covered the stone wall surrounding a private garden.
The wall is not at all high,
I reminded myself as I dug my knees and the toes of my boots into the mortar and eased upward, keeping my back firmly against the thick hedge.
You're as like to fall off as you are to sit in D'Arnath's chair
. I detested heights.

The heavy dew on the dark leaves quickly soaked my trousers and tunic. From the top of the wall, only slightly more than my own height, I could have scrambled into the sheltering branches of an elm tree and looked down into the private garden of the resident the young Lord came to visit, able to observe surreptitious comings and goings at the garden door as well as hear what might be spoken thereabouts. But I had never made it farther than halfway to the top, so I never saw anything. I could only listen.

In two months of listening, I'd heard not a single admission of evil at that door. No hint of treachery or nefarious schemes. I'd heard more laughter and good wishes than curses, and not a single instance of torture or murder. Indeed, the only devious plot I had discovered was the man who lived in the hospice secretly teaching the young Lord's skinny friend to read.

A pair of robins fluttered into the elm tree, and a rabbit or a squirrel rustled in the old leaves. After half an hour of listening I was ready to move on to my next observation post. But just then I heard the garden door open.

“. . . supposed to meet her at dawn. I'm surprised he didn't wake you.” This was the older man, the one who lived here, the man my father swore was—or had once been—the Prince of Avonar.

“No matter. My guess is he didn't sleep much after last night's work. If I'd not been hammered flat, he'd likely have had me out riding like in the days at Verdillon.” This was the skinny young man from Gaelie.

“A foul business, Paulo.”

“Aye, my lord. I'll get the letter where it's going. Any other messages?”

“Tell her . . . tell her I'll try to write her this week.

And now Gerick's helped me get organized, perhaps I'll get some work done on the manuscript. But she shouldn't depend on it. It's so difficult. . . .” His words were laced with the same weariness I'd heard in my father's voice.

“She understands, my lord. You know she does.”

“Take care of her, Paulo. And watch out for yourself. If what Gerick's guessed is true . . .”

“I will, my lord. With my life as you know.”

I held still as hurrying footsteps crossed the grass. As always, he bypassed the gate that opened into the public path and slithered over the wall not ten paces from my position. Only when he dropped into the grass and hurried away did I breathe again. I heard what might be a sigh from the far side of the wall and nothing more.

One question answered. The young Lord . . . Gerick . . . wasn't there. I had been surprised when I first heard his name. I'd never thought of him having one.
Gerick
seemed quite ordinary, quite human, for a person who was neither. It fit the mask he showed to the world. But what lay under that mask was the mystery that was driving me balmy.

 

I had intended to follow the young Lord and the Lady to Maroth, staying with a cousin of my mother's while pursuing my mad quest, but the Zhid attack in Avonar had scared the sap out of me. I had lurked about the side lanes until I saw the Lady safe in the palace, and then I rode back to Gaelie and the hospice and Papa as fast as I could get there. I would do what service I could for Gondai, but I could not face Zhid.

The attack presented me with more unanswerable questions . . . such as why the Zhid would risk killing one of their “gods.” And why could D'Arnath's daughter, a woman with unparalleled power, not defend the two of them? She seemed more concerned with getting back the jewelry they stripped from her than defending herself or her lover. As for the young Lord, he had fought like a man defending his soul.

I had long given up on sorting out his motives at wooing the princess. Marriage would give him no power over the Bridge. I had suggested to my father that the devil might be planning to corrupt the next Heir as a child, the same way the Lords had corrupted him. But my mouth often said things I didn't believe. Papa asked me why I refused to countenance the only thing that made sense of the evidence: the handsome young man was head over heels in love with the royal young lady. Pigheaded, as always, I didn't deign to respond. Some answers were just impossible to accept.

No sooner had the young Lord returned from Maroth than he caught me off guard with his little speech of gratitude. Furious with myself for letting down my guard, I trailed him up and down the road to Gaelie until I thought I would scream if I saw that guesthouse one more time. I was convinced his presence posed a danger to Avonar, but, in truth, my heart was no longer in the hunt.

Papa's condition had deteriorated severely. He'd become irritable and snappish, complaining that I was gone too much, or that I was hovering over him as if he were a child. He called the food tasteless and the wine foul. When his irritation grew almost to the breaking point, he would collapse into sleep for long hours at a time. It was almost impossible to rouse him. Throughout all the agonies he had suffered over the past five years, he had never issued the least complaint, but when an afternoon storm blew raindrops through a window onto his book, he threw the volume across the room and let flow a stream of invective that should have made the air turn dark about his head.

Both Papa's faculties and his spirits did seem to improve the longer I stayed with him. After a few days I asked what had been bothering him so. He had no memory of the incidents at all. A few more questions told me he remembered nothing of the past weeks, and, in fact, believed I had only just returned from Avonar!

I sat with him for a long time after he'd gone to bed that night, exhausted from a day of nothing, and I watched his sleep grow restless and uneasy. My mulish conviction that I could change the course of villainy felt incomparably ridiculous as I looked upon the only person in the world I actually cared about.

Tomorrow,
I'd said to myself.
Tomorrow I'll tell the Lady about her lover, and I'll ask her what's wrong with my father, and then I'll put aside everything but what's most important.

I stayed the night at the hospice, so I could go to D'Sanya first thing in the morning. And that was the morning I woke to the man screaming.

 

I lowered myself the leg's length back to firm ground and wandered over to the stables. That's where they most often met—the young Lord and the Lady. But only F'Syl the groom was about. On most days I would spend an hour talking to F'Syl, just to prove his ferocious appearance didn't bother me, even though it did. Today I just waved at him, wandered casually along the path around the stable, and poked my head into a little-used back door. The Lady's gray stallion stood in its box, and in the next one over, the young Lord's latest mount, a powerful chestnut gelding. So he hadn't ridden back to Gaelie.

The rest of the day at the hospice proceeded little differently from any other. I moved through the quiet activity as if I were invisible. Spying was easy there. Eyes were always controlled. No one wanted to intrude. As in any great house, the kitchens were always busy, the attendants carrying meals to those who preferred to keep to themselves, while a few people made their way through the cloisters and gardens to the perfectly appointed dining rooms. In the afternoon one or two of the residents meandered over to the library or the artisans' workshops in hopes of finding amusement, but they rarely stayed for long. Not one of the residents could pay attention to an activity for more than a few minutes at a time. Most stayed close to their apartments.

“Excuse me.” I accosted the consiliar, who stood beside the dining-room door. “When might I be able to speak with the Lady in private? I have some urgent news for her.”

“Her day's schedule has changed somewhat,” he said, polite and concerned as always. “I'll inform her that you wish to speak with her, and she'll summon you when she has time. Will that be satisfactory?”

“Of course.” A few more hours' observation might be useful.

A small carriage rolled through the gates about that time, and the Lady went out to greet newcomers. She wore her filmy white gown and her ever-present bracelets and rings, smiling as if they were the only people in the world and bestowing on them the favor of her unending conversation. Nowhere did I see or hear any evidence of a disturbance. Though the heart-twisting scream still echoed inside my head, I became convinced it had been a nightmare—the screeching magpies, perhaps, entwined in my sleep.

The young Lord did not show himself throughout that day. Five visits to the stables assured me that his horse was never taken out; nor was the Lady's. The Lady attended a musical performance in one of the public gathering rooms in mid-afternoon. She listened attentively to the musicians plucking at citterns and harps, but never once looked about to see where was her constant companion of the past eight weeks. She never sent any messages to his father's apartments. Never asked for him. Never received any message. So she, at least, knew where he'd gone.

The day passed into evening. Where was the man? I'd never seen anyone so efficient at killing. Four severely broken corpses left in the alley in Avonar, and he carried no weapon larger than an eating knife. Had he killed his father's attendant, too, the man found sprawled in the paddock like a starved rabbit?

By the time the hospice settled for the night, I had received no summons from the Lady. Unable to face my bare room in Gaelie with the sagging bed and flyblown window, I chose to spend the night in my father's apartments again. He fell asleep early on. I went walking in the sultry night. I'd left my horse tethered in a grassy copse of alder and oak saplings. So, as my thoughts and fears churned, I led her to a stream and let her drink and graze.

I had to give over this responsibility. How big a fool was I to think I could decipher the plots of a Lord of Zhev'Na on my own—I, who bore no talent, only suspicions and a paltry skill for sums?

The moon hung low in the east, blurred by a drifting cloud, and the wind was rising, making the dark outlines of the trees thrash and bustle as I hurried back toward the hospice buildings. My feet headed directly for the Lady's house. I didn't care that it was late. Her lamps yet burned, and she had always encouraged her guests or their families to come to her at any time.

Unlike on most nights, the Lady's front gate was closed and locked. But I knew another way into the grounds, through a service gate on the east side of the garden. It had been very convenient for spying, buried discreetly as it was in the hedge and the wall. Though it was normally kept locked, I had discovered that by sticking my narrow blade through the iron scrollwork, pushing in with my hand on the smooth bar on the outside of the gate, and lifting up the bottom with the toe of my boot, I could dislodge the mechanical latch on the inner side. Tonight the small gate stood wide open.

Of course, I wasn't planning to barge into the Lady's house uninvited. But as I climbed the wide steps at the main entrance, ready to tug on the bellpull, I heard fragments of conversation from a second-floor window open just above me. One speaker was a woman and the other, fainter, scarcely hearable, was a man.

“Please, D'Sanya . . . must listen . . .” In an instant I knew that the scream that had waked me that morning had been no dream, and that this hoarse and desperate speaker was the one who had made it. Who was he? What had happened? I had to know.

“. . . deceived me . . .” The woman was furious.

Finding a secure foothold on a ground-floor window ledge, I scrambled up to a second-floor balcony, then crept along a stone ledge toward the open window. A deep violet glow illuminated the windowpanes.

Only when I stopped to catch my breath did I even realize what I'd done. I jammed my face into the stone wall and suppressed a moan, promising myself that I would listen only for a moment and then scoot right back down to the safe and solid earth.

“. . . time has come. I've decided on your sentence.” My spine shriveled when I heard the tone of the Lady's voice, my own fears seeming quite small all of a sudden.

“Beg me,” said the Lady. “Grovel, so I can scorn you. Weep, so I can ignore you. I will bury you in the place where you were hatched, and you'll live forever with what you've done.”