Jaranda drifted into sleep, a smile on her face.
The woman looked around the workroom with new hope. Tambrin.
If she could find some of the silky thread spun from the fibers of immature Tambootie trees, perhaps she could heal herself, remember her name. Maybe then she would know where to look for family or friends to shelter and feed her and her daughter.
Without disturbing Jaranda, she reached to the nearest strand of lace dangling from a work table. She fingered the fine threads woven into an airy pattern.
Silk. Lovely. But not Tambrin.
She reached a little farther to the table behind her. Linen. The finest spun linen in the world, but still not Tambrin.
She reached again, across her to the left. The lace eluded her. She stretched farther and touched—a hand!
A scream lodged deep in her throat. She wanted to scream, needed to shout her fear to the rooftops.
But that would awaken the baby.
“Nice story, Lady. Tambrin lace is worth six times its weight in gold in Coronnan right now.” The man’s deep voice flowed around her in soothing tones. “Show me which of these is Tambrin, and I’ll show you a safe place to stay in the city.”
Just then the floor rippled beneath them, and the ceiling dropped chunks of plaster on top of her head.
“I think I’d rather take one of these pillows to Coronnan and make my fortune there,” she replied.
Only then did she look at the intruder. Tall, black-haired, with eyes as deeply dark as a well, he smiled at her with a mouth full of gleaming teeth. A small pack steed stood patiently behind him. Not a true pack steed. One of those odd little creatures from the mountains of Jehab with exceedingly long ears and shaggy coat. It opened its mouth and brayed long and loud as if it laughed at her, at him, at the world. It displayed an amazing number of oversized square teeth—a lot like its master.
His clothing certainly deserved a smile, black trews and shirt brightened by a garish vest of purple with red trim and silver embroidery. His fringed sash of bright blue hung nearly to his dusty black boots. A dozen or more coins hung from the sash at his waist, from rings in his ears, and dangling from his purple, billed cap set at rakish angle.
Something in the back of her mind whispered “Exotic, interesting.” She thought perhaps it should have shouted “Dangerous!” But it didn’t.
“I should fear you, but I don’t.”
“Prejudices have to be learned. Not much to fear from me. I’m just a simple trader trying to make a living. You and a lace pillow filled with Tambrin lace could set us up in a nice palace all our own in Coronnan. No kardiaquakes in Coronnan.” A mischievous twinkle in his eyes made his offer nearly as attractive as the man.
“I don’t suppose you know my name?”
“Never met you before, Lady.” He shrugged, setting the coins to jingling. They formed an almost recognizable melody played on silver bells.
“I suspected you’d say that.”
CHAPTER 14
“
W
hat was this room used for?” Marcus asked Vareena. They had reached the corner room beneath one of the two large watchtowers. Two smaller towers at the end of the residential wings of the monastery contained latrines and staircases but no observation platforms on their roofs. These corner towers were massive—larger than four of the individual rooms combined. They topped the courtyard walls by at least another story.
Vareena paced the colonnade beside him, thrusting open doors as they passed. He wanted to hold her hand as they explored, but the barrier of energy repulsed him every time.
Robb slunk along behind them, lost in his own grumbling. He’d sat by the well for hours shuffling the deck of cartes. But as soon as Marcus and Vareena neared the tower, he had joined them.
“Looks like an office or study,” Vareena said, staring at the slanted writing desk, tall stool, stone visitor’s bench, and rank of empty bookshelves along one wall. The desktop and the shelves held only dust.
They explored a bed niche behind a half-wall at the back of the room. In the corner, steps spiraled up into the tower. Indentations in the shallow risers showed the wear of many feet climbing those stairs over the course of centuries of use.
Robb stared at the stairs without mounting them. “Maybe the bathing chamber is up there. Haven’t seen any signs of a bath. How did they keep clean?” he muttered.
“At least they have convenient privies in every corner and every level. They’re dry. No one has used them for centuries. Maybe we can crawl down one and out of the monastery.” Marcus began looking for the private closet that should be behind the stairs.
“What if they drain directly into the river, or into a pit beneath the ground with no exit? Besides the holes are too small for either of us to squeeze through,” Robb reminded him.
“We’ve found nothing. Nothing at all in this place.” Marcus slammed one fist into the other. He’d learned not to try putting it through the wall. He had several bruises and raw knuckles to remind him.
“I have a vague recollection of Mam saying that when the numbers of priests and monks declined to only three men, they packed up everything, including the temple stones, and moved elsewhere,” Vareena continued. “But that was long, long ago. Before the first ghost came three hundred years ago.”
“We need information,” Marcus interjected. He wanted to slam his fist into something in his frustration, again. Fear replaced his certainty that all would come out right.
And he could not touch Vareena, the one person he longed to take comfort from.
“Can you bring your mother here for us to talk to?” Robb looked up, hope shining in his eyes rather than his usual pessimism. “Always best to get information as close to the source as possible.”
“No.” She stared off into the distance, refusing to look at them, all her friendliness and helpfulness faded.
For once, Robb respected her silence and did not press her to comply with his request. Instead, he reached out one of his hands as if to caress her hair in comfort. But he dropped it before he even came close.
Marcus let out a long, uneasy breath. Unwanted jealousy flared hot. He and Robb had never competed for a woman before—they’d both had a number of liaisons—but always with the other’s blessing. They took care to seek out women who did not interest the other. But where Marcus fell in and out of love quite easily, Robb had always kept his heart slightly aloof.
For the past two years Marcus had loved Margit, Jaylor’s spy in Palace Reveta Tristile. He thought perhaps this attachment would last forever since it had lasted so long.
Then they’d come here.
He should remain faithful to Margit’s memory. He shouldn’t begrudge Robb’s attraction to Vareena.
But Vareena was so very beautiful, resilient, wise, and mature. And their only hope.
Marcus’ heart twisted in silent agony.
“Guess it’s natural we’d both want the only woman who can see either of us,” he muttered under his breath. He tried to reassert his natural good humor, without much luck.
The endless empty rooms of the monastery depressed him. He and Robb had searched the place, of course, looking for another exit. But he’d hoped Vareena could show them something they’d overlooked. She seemed more ignorant of the layout than they.
“My mam died twenty years ago. She tried to come up here to sit with her last ghost during a wild thunderstorm. Like the one that brought you here. Lightning hit a tree as she was making her way here. It fell on top of her and killed her. I inherited the duty to tend the ghosts that night.”
“How old were you, Vareena?” Marcus asked gently.
She held up her hand displaying all five fingers plus two from the other hand while she swallowed repeatedly, working to avoid the strong emotions that gripped her.
“Stargods!” He slammed his right fist into his left palm. Unsatisfied with the explosive gesture, he looked for something else to hit. Robb would do. He caught his breath and closed his eyes in shock. “This place is truly cursed. And all three of us along with it. We’ve got to get out of here!”
“That is what I have been trying to tell you for two days, Marcus,” Robb said quietly. Too quietly. Had he sensed Marcus’ earlier anger and jealousy, his need to lash out at his best friend because he was a handy target?
“What’s in the other corner room?” Marcus nearly ran the length of the colonnade where he kicked the door open, letting it slam against the stone wall behind it. The bang did nothing to alleviate his frustration.
“The kitchen with storage behind and refectory above.” Vareena looked inside. Her posture told him nothing of her thoughts.
He considered probing her mind, letting her memories give him as much information as she possessed—even the deeply buried bits about her mother. Something repelled him. He wasn’t even sure his magic would work on her since she seemed partially in the void. The summons spell he’d tried last night had lain dormant within the fire, never passing through his glass. He’d tried three times since coming here to no avail. Maybe all of his magic had died the moment they passed through these walls. He certainly had not had any luck trying to tap the erratic ley lines that passed through the courtyard. They never seemed to rest in the same place two heartbeats in a row.
And the constant haze in the sky distorted his planetary orientation. He had slept only two nights in this place. Well he hadn’t really slept all that much what with the nightmares and all.
His latest nightmare involved losing at endless games of cartes, until he finally bet with University money entrusted to him by Jaylor. In a desperate play to salvage his losses he’d bet everything, including Margit.
And lost.
He shuddered and tried to think the problem through—as Jaylor and Baamin before him had taught him.
His connection to the wheel of the stars, the spin of the planet, and the shift of the season told him more time had passed than the two nights he thought he’d spent in the monastery. Much more time. On top of that, his sense of
where
they were in relation to the nearest magnetic pole shifted every few hours.
Perhaps the way the ley lines broke just before meeting the exterior walls had something to do with his reactions. He got a headache every time he tried to puzzle it through. He just wanted out. Now.
He breathed deeply, trying to master his emotions. The failed summons spell had left him frightened and afraid to try again lest he fail and know for certain that all his magic was lost along with his luck.
“Look, Marcus,” Robb said in hushed tones. “Look at this!”
Marcus turned his attention away from his fears and looked where Robb had stopped at the center of the central wing of the monastery. He stomped over to his friend and peered inside.
Large and larger. Like the University, this three-story room took up one entire wing of the building, dominating the lesser rooms.
“A library,” Robb whispered.
“An empty library.” The last of Marcus’ optimism slid out of him, into the cold paving stones. “No books, no journals. Not even a cobweb. The rest of this building is filled with spiders and cobwebs, but not here. Only dust and empty shelves.”
“Not entirely empty. This bank of shelves in the center is filled with sacks of gold,” Robb dribbled a handful of coins out of a rotting canvas sack. He moved around to the back of the shelving unit and reappeared with another sack. “As many back here as in front.”
Marcus paced around the massive unit. It could easily hold one hundred or more books on each side. The entire thing was filled with sacks of gold coins and several bullion bars.
“What sunlight penetrates through the gloaming and then through the windows seems to concentrate in this spot.” Robb circled the unit in the opposite direction. With each pass the two of them made, the gold seemed to glow more brightly.
“Maybe whoever put the gold here wanted to spend his hours staring at it,” Marcus mused.
“Kind of a boring existence,” Robb added.
“Who would collect all this gold and just leave it?” Marcus reached out to touch the shiny metal. The coin warmed under his touch. Light reflected off it in warm shades. It almost begged him to pocket it along with the few coins he’d taken from Farrell’s corpse.
His heartbeat and breathing slowed. He focused only on the gold. Time seemed to stop . . .
Some moments later he shook himself free of the enthrallment. “Gold doesn’t do anyone any good just sitting here in isolation. We need to get it back to Jaylor and the Commune.” Hope blossomed again in Marcus’ chest. “Think of all that the Commune and University can accomplish with this much gold. New buildings. Books. Tools. Food and clothing for apprentices and journeymen.”
“Bribes to nobles to legalize the Commune again.” Robb grinned from ear to ear. His previous depression seemed to have eased.
“Stargods save us!” Vareena crossed herself, paused and signed the ward against evil again. “Money is evil. Put it back, Robb.”