Canticle

Chapter 12

Vlad Li Tam

The grating of wood against wood drew Vlad Li Tam to wakefulness and he stirred. In the days-or was it weeks? — he’d lain in tepid saltwater he’d finally retrained his instincts to accommodate captivity. He no longer opened his eyes expecting to see and no longer found himself gripped in panic when he could not. Instead, he came awake quickly and immediately set himself to the task of ciphering his present circumstances.

The girl brought him food with some regularity-usually a pungent gruel that tasted something like fish and corn-but he had no idea how often she came. And each time, she helped him sit up and fed him patiently as if he were a child. Sometimes, she left the bowl if he hadn’t finished. But he had yet to eat from the bowl directly. It was bad enough he took his water that way those times that the rocking of the ship didn’t spill it into the seawater that sloshed about the bottom of his cell.

Vlad Li Tam rolled to the interior of the hull and pressed his ear to it. He heard distant voices and felt the vibration through his skull as the wood scraped together again.

They’d stopped moving, he realized, and the dramatically lessened to-and-fro swaying of the ship told him they were either in unnaturally quiet seas or safely harbored. The latter seemed most likely.

He heard footsteps beyond his door and used the wall to sit up. His muscles protested-cramps and spasms took him, and when the door opened, he heard himself groan.

“Just a short walk,” the girl told him. “We could have you carried, but I thought you might appreciate the restoration of some of your dignity.” There was amusement in her voice.

“Where are we?” he asked.

She did not answer. Instead, with strong hands, she reached down to work at the ropes binding his ankles, and for the briefest moment he flexed his muscles to kick out at her but thought better of it. She chuckled. “You’d not get far, old man. It’s good you didn’t try.”

“If you’d wanted to kill me,” he said, “you already would have.”

She laughed again. “Actually, that’s not true, Vlad. There are other matters to attend to before that day arrives, but do not doubt for a moment that it’s coming.” She pulled at him, and her strength was surprising. “Stand up now.”

He did, wobbling unsteadily before falling against the hull. She pulled him upright, her firm hand steadying him. Then, she guided him ahead of her, her hand on his shoulder. The stale air of the hold felt like cool autumn compared to the fetid room he left. He walked into the corridor.

“To the right now,” she said. “Ten steps to the stairs.”

His legs burned with the effort and he staggered.

She leaned in close behind him, and he felt her breath tickle the back of his ear. “I could have you carried. Would you prefer that? Is that how you want your children to see you?”

My children. He felt panic rise in him, flooding him with a fear and a rage that made his head ache. He clenched his fists and felt his jaw clench. “My children?”

She said nothing. Gently, the woman pushed him forward. “You can face this, Vlad,” she told him. “Walk to it.”

Vlad Li Tam forced himself forward, counted the paces and found the first step with a tentative foot. As he climbed up, light swam at the edges of his blindfold and he suddenly smelled mango trees and salt air and hot sand. He opened his mouth and drank it in. She turned him to the left, and firm hands lifted him onto the dock.

Once he stood on the dock, he felt hands at the back of his head, and he was suddenly blinded by an explosion of white. He closed his eyes against it, and even against his eyelids it penetrated him. He groaned.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the girl. She was young-maybe twenty-and her face was painted in markings of gray and black and white, her green eyes stark against that backdrop. Bits of seashell and coral and wood were woven into her hair and she smiled at him.

She was beautiful and dangerous.

She wore the garb of a fishing girl, but he could tell it was not her custom. She was made for armor or possibly gowns but nothing in-between. Yet a man on the dock held up a dark robe to her, and she slipped her arms into it.

“Where am I?” he asked again.

Her smile widened. “Home, Vlad.”

As his eyes adjusted, he took in the rest of his surroundings. The schooner at the dock was made of a dark, unfamiliar wood, and the lines of it were nothing he’d seen in the Named Lands. The shipbuilder in him measured it and recorded its displacement, factored its speed based on its mast and sails, and noted the mixed crew that moved over the deck.

The dock was a high structure overlooking water so green and clear that it stung his eyes, and as he looked inland, he saw jungle and sand. Within the jungle, birds sang and monkeys chattered, and above it, a large building of white stone rose up into a cloudless blue sky.

Vlad Li Tam blinked and staggered, but she did not steady him this time. He looked at her and finally made the connection, but it made no sense to him. The paint, drawn in careful symbols upon her skin, and her hair, decorated with pieces of the earth, gave her away though the style of it had more sophistication than he’d seen previously. “You are a Marsher,” he said.

“No,” she answered. “That is the bastard name from the time of our sorrow. But the tears of my people are passed now. I am Machtvolk.”

Machtvolk. He dropped the word into his memory and found nothing to resonate with it.

“Ah,” she said, looking up and away. “They’re here now.”

Vlad Li Tam heard the familiar sound. He followed her gaze and his breath caught. An iron vessel rounded the point at the harbor’s mouth, steaming in slow.

My children.

Another followed close behind, and after that, another. The flags of House Li Tam were struck, and no flags flew in their place. His legs threatened collapse as the weight of it pressed him. Five of his ships approached, and on their decks he saw his family lined up-men, women and children-while dark-garbed soldiers moved among them and barked orders. He looked again and realized his flagship was missing from the small fleet.

Finally, his legs gave out and he sat down, heavy, upon the dock. When he found words, his voice was low and his mouth tasted like sand. “What is this about?”

When she looked down at him, he saw love in her eyes and it terrified him. “It is about redemption, Vlad.”

He reached for another question from the thousands that swam behind his eyes. “Who are you?”

“I told you,” she said. “I am your Bloodletter and your Kin-healer.”

The ships slowed and he heard the whine of the engines as they wound down, heard the clanking of anchor chains. Two men pulled him to his feet, and he watched as the first of the longboats started ferrying his family ashore.

Her words echoed in his mind. Bloodletter. Kin-healer. As the first of the boats approached the lower docks below them, he saw fear on the faces of his grandchildren.

In that moment, for the first time in his life, Vlad Li Tam knew powerlessness and despair.

Jin Li Tam

Her dreams frightened Jin Li Tam awake, and the bone-strewn plains of Windwir fell away with the kin-raven’s words still ringing in her ears. Soon I shall dine upon your father’s eyes.

If the nightmares hadn’t started before her labor, she would’ve thought them to be some strange side effect of the powders she drank. But she knew better.

She sat up, rubbing the tears and sleep from her face. Beside her, Jakob stirred and she looked to him. His tiny face was gray and soft in sleep as he breathed in shallow gasps. She pulled on a robe and padded first to the glass doors leading out to her snow-covered balcony. It was a clear night, and the stars beat down upon the sleeping forest city. A full moon cast its watery light over Library Hill, limning the massive cornerstones of its construction in a blue-green glow. It would be several hours before the sun rose and the Ninefold Forest stirred itself awake.

She went to the door and opened it, whistling low for a servant. A girl, her face freshly scrubbed and her hair still damp, awaited.

She still hated to leave his side but could not bring herself to risk waking the baby. His sleep was fitful enough. “Sit with Jakob,” she told the girl, “and bring him to me when he wakes up. I’ll be in the study.”

The girl curtsied. “Yes, Lady Tam.”

She waited until the servant came into the room to take her position in a rocking chair near the bed. Satisfied, Jin slipped into the hallway and padded quietly down thick-carpeted floors.

Rudolfo’s study lay behind ornate double doors made from a dark, polished wood. She slipped an iron key into its lock and turned it easily, pushing the well-oiled door open just far enough to slip inside.

Locking the door behind her, Jin went to the desk and lit its single lamp. Already, new messages awaited her in the simple basket Rudolfo kept for incoming work, and she sighed. She didn’t know exactly how he kept up with it all, though she knew he rose notoriously early most days. She’d been at the desk from before dawn until after dusk the day before, and she’d finally seen the bottom of the basket. Now, it was a third full and more would arrive with the dawn.

The life of a queen, she thought. She reached for the top message, then forced herself to leave it. Instead, she slid open the drawer on the desk and drew out the knife belt. Glancing to the door, she slipped out of her robe and let it drop to the floor. Then, she buckled the belt over her short cotton shift and moved to the center of the room. She dug her toes into the carpet and struck the pose, curling her fingers around the bone-handled blades at each hip. Drawing the knives, she launched into her morning’s dance.

The time abed had softened what had once been firm muscle, and though she’d not gained significant weight with her pregnancy it was enough for Jin to feel uncomfortable. But between the knives and the afternoon runs she’d started three days past, she was slowly taking back her body from its long captivity.

Her feet moved to silent rhythm, and her hips joined them as she shifted, dodged and leapt. The knives flashed in the dim light as she swept them around her and over her, leaning into each thrust and twisting, turning with each upward or downward slash. As she danced, she found memory pulling her back to the last time she’d drawn blood. Had it been escaping Sethbert’s camp with Neb? No, she remembered, it was the night she and the Gypsy Scouts magicked themselves and rescued Rudolfo from the so-called Pope Resolute in his Summer Papal Palace.

It seems so long ago now. And in many ways, she realized, it was. She and Rudolfo had consummated the strategic marriage her father had brokered, but she’d had no idea at that time how deeply she would come to love and respect the Gypsy King. Or comprehend how a tiny life could change someone so profoundly.

She danced with abandon, recalling the wrist-jarring catch of the blades in bone, the gentle resistance of cloth and skin and the warm slipperiness of blood wetting her fists. She moved across the floor, increasing in speed as sweat broke out on her forehead and over her lip. Her breath came more labored to her than she wanted, and soon, her shift was wet and sticking to her skin. Still, she danced on even as her arms and legs ached and felt heavy from the unaccustomed movement.

After an hour, she sheathed the knives and fell into an armchair, panting. There was the slightest of knocks at the door and she stood slowly, stretching and hearing the crack and pop of her joints. “A moment,” she said.

She unbuckled the knives and draped them over the chair. Then, she pulled on her robe and went to the door. She unlocked it and opened it.

Lynnae waited, her face pale and her curly hair tangled from sleep. “Good morning, Lady Tam,” she said. “Myra told me you were awake.”

Jin Li Tam held the door open. “Come in.” The girl did not look well, but she didn’t imagine that she looked much better herself. “Not sleeping?”

Lynnae shook her head. “Some. Not enough.”

She nodded. “Me, too. It’s the powders.”

“The panta root, particularly,” the young woman said, and Jin Li Tam felt her eyebrows raise.

“You’ve studied alchemy?”

She shrugged. “Some. Delta Scouts chew bits of the panta to stay alert. There’s also kalla and maybe a touch of vesperleaf.”

She’d picked up a hint of the kalla herself, having stealthily sampled her father’s pipe in years past. Jin Li Tam gestured to a chair and moved toward the furnace. A kettle of fresh water waited for boiling. “Would you like some tea?”

“I can make it, Lady Tam,” Lynnae said, but Jin Li Tam waved a hand at her.

“Nonsense,” she said. “I’ve not forgotten how to make tea.” She drew two ceramic mugs from the service cupboard and found the tea canister, measuring three round scoops of fragrant black leaf into the steeping pot, then returned to the sitting area to wait for the water to boil.

“How is Jakob sleeping?” Lynnae asked.

Jin Li Tam sat across from her and studied the young woman. In the days since Rudolfo left she’d seen much of Lynnae, but there never seemed to be enough hours in the day for them to spend any real time together. They met in one another’s rooms or in the hall or even here in the study; they exchanged minor pleasantries and mostly talked of Jakob. Even now, that held true. “He sleeps lightly,” she said. “I imagine he’ll be up soon.”

“Shall I take him this morning?”

Jin offered a tired smile. “It’s my turn. You need to rest.”

Lynnae shrugged. “I feel fine.”

But Jin Li Tam saw the truth in the dark circles beneath the girl’s eyes and the tightness around her mouth. Even now, Lynnae flinched and sucked in her breath. “Headaches?” she asked.

“Out of nowhere,” she admitted. “Like lightning. But again, it’s no problem for me to take him.”

Jin forced a smile and rubbed her own temples. “I appreciate your offer.” She looked at the girl again. She couldn’t be much past twenty years, if that, and despite her plain clothes she carried herself differently than most of the refugees Jin had observed over the last several months. She leaned forward. “This must be hard for you on the heels of such terrible loss.”

For a moment, Lynnae’s large brown eyes went wide with something like panic. She swallowed. “I would be lying if I said it wasn’t. There are times when I’m nursing Lord Jakob or napping with him and forget it’s not my Micah.”

Jin Li Tam saw the tears forming in the girl’s eyes and felt shame wash over her. “I should not have spoken of it,” she said, looking away.

But out of the corner of Jin’s eye, she saw the girl shaking her head. “No, it should be spoken of; that’s what the Francines would say. That we move the Fivefold Path with words and memory.”

Jin Li Tam looked back to her and saw that the tears had spilled out, running the length of her olive cheek. “I can’t even imagine the price you’ve paid.”

But she could. A husband killed by the sword; a child dead of fever. In the deeper places she feared the same fate for herself. Her own child had been stillborn, brought back by the River Woman’s careful ministrations, and even now only survived because of the powders she and Lynnae provided him. And her own husband-she could not count how many times he’d narrowly skirted a violent end during the war. And now, she imagined, he would sail soon for destinations unknown in search of her father, facing gods-knew-what along the way. The weight of it felt heavy on her heart and cold in her stomach.

She realized suddenly that they had fallen into a long and uncomfortable silence, but the boiling water interrupted it.

Lynnae stood up, wiping her eyes. “Let me, Lady Tam,” she said.

Jin forced herself to remain seated and watched as the girl went to the furnace and poured the hot water into the steeping pot. She placed it onto a tray with the two cups and returned, setting it onto the small table between them. Once Lynnae was seated, she changed the subject. “Is there any news in the world?” she asked.

Jin Li Tam looked to the basket and sighed. Soon enough she would be back to it, coding messages, ordering birds and reading over the reports of two dozen operatives at work on Rudolfo’s behalf. She forced her mind back to yesterday’s messages, careful to hold back anything sensitive. “Winteria has declared herself,” she said. “It was heard for five hundred leagues, I’m told. Pylos and Turam have stepped up their efforts to quell their internal strife while shoring up their armies. Ansylus was buried in state last week; the Ninefold Forest was not invited to attend but sent an ambassador anyway.”

Lynnae’s brow furrowed. “Any news of the Delta?”

Jin nodded. “Esarov and his Democrats have taken another city. There are rumors that Erlund wasn’t killed after all-that it was a double in his place.”

She nodded. “I’m not surprised. He has dozens of them, and-” She cut off the words, and Jin Li Tam noted the blush that rose to her cheeks.

She’s shared something with me that a refugee should not know. She opened her mouth to say something, but in that moment, someone knocked on the door. Studying the girl’s face quickly, Jin stood and went to the door, opening it a crack. A scout stood waiting, a small and still bird cupped in his hands.

“This has just arrived for you,” he said. “It’s not one of ours; it’s not one that we even recognize.”

But she recognized it; the yellow markings upon its tiny head gave it away instantly, and her breath caught within her as hope built. “What message does it bear?”

“The bird is wounded,” the scout said. “We saw your name upon the message and went no further.”

He extended his hands and gentled the small, shivering creature into her own outstretched palms. It lay and twitched, even as she carefully picked at the white thread of kin-clave that held the torn note to its tiny leg. Holding the bird with one hand, she worked the scroll open and read it quickly.

It was triple-coded and in an unfamiliar hand and script, but she knew this bird well. Of all her father’s birds, this was the one that could find her, wherever she might be, and he’d kept it near to him at all times. And it had found her, though it had spent itself on the winds and rains and snow to make its last, long journey.

Do not despair, Great Mother, the note read. Your father’s kinship will be restored by the Older Ways, and his blood will purchase our salvation. She blinked at the words and felt something ominous settle over her. It shrouded her with fear and she imagined the croaking voice of the kin-raven from her nightmares, though its words had been different there on the bone-strewn plains of Windwir: Thus shall the sins of P’Andro Whym be visited upon his children.

She shuddered. Forgotten was the mysterious girl who sat behind her, waiting for tea that Jin Li Tam no longer had the stomach to drink. Forgotten even was her sickly baby, restlessly sleeping down the hall from her. And the political debacle of the Named Lands with its grief-stricken nations also fell away, still reeling from Sethbert’s treachery when the blood scouts and their iron blades cut new heartache into the skin of their New World.

It all faded for the briefest of moments.

Instead, she was a little girl whose father was in grave danger, and she could not cast out the panic and fear that threatened to capsize her.

She looked back to the tiny bird-one of a long line her father had carefully magicked just so he could always find his forty-second daughter, no matter where she roamed. It lay still now, its tiny black eyes glassy in death.

You are a queen, some deep-buried voice asserted within her, wife of Rudolfo, father of Jakob. But more: You are the forty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam.

Raising her eyes to the scout, she passed the dead bird back to him. “Send in the birder,” she said.

Turning, careful that her face mask the intensity of her sudden, strong emotion, Jin Li Tam forced herself back to the table and to Lynnae, to take comfort in the scalding bitterness of a dark cup that waited for her there.

Petronus

Petronus spent the better part of a week ordering his notes, carefully scripting them in code at the desk in his plain quarters. He left his rooms to take his meals, and occasionally, when he was available, Esarov joined him. The revolutionary looked weary but pleased with developments overall, and just the day before he’d told Petronus that it was nearly time for his people to approach Lysias with the offer of a truce and an exchange.

“And you truly believe this will work?” Petronus had asked him, sipping a hot bitter drink laced with rum.

Esarov ran his hands through his long graying hair. “I do,” he said. “But it will be challenging for you.”

For us all, he thought now as he looked down to the words that seemed to blur into one singular smudge upon the parchment. Finally, he’d reached the last page and he could lay this work to rest for now in the hopes of coming back to it when this more present need for him had passed.

He heard Grymlis’s firm knock at the door and looked up. “Come in,” he said.

The Gray Guard looked troubled, but that did not surprise him. He’d not taken Petronus and Esarov’s plan well when Petronus had shared it with him some days past, and Petronus did not expect him to warm to it. He came in and closed the door behind him. “I’m told that they’ll be meeting in two days’ time,” he said.

Petronus nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

“And you’re certain you wish do this?” There was a firmness to the line of his jaw and a fierceness in his eye. “We can leave,” he said, “right now.”

Petronus shook his head. “I’m not sure we can, Grymlis.” And more importantly, I’m not sure we should. Freeing Charles was paramount, but ending the civil war on the Delta took equal place. The lack of stability was opening a door, he suspected, to something potentially far worse, and they could not be ready for it if they were twisted and tangled into conflict among themselves. Already, he’d heard word that Meirov of Pylos was shoring up her borders and mobilizing a larger force with eyes turned north. More caravans had been sacked and burned in recent days; ragged groups from his former Order slaughtered as they pushed their way toward the relative safety of Rudolfo’s Ninefold Forest. And in Turam, the old king had pushed himself up out of his lethargic illness long enough to appoint one of his former generals to be a strong steward of that throne. They had shored up the bond of kin-clave with Pylos, its neighbor to the east, and with the in de pen dent city-states along the northern beaches of the Emerald Coasts. He pointed to the only other chair in the room. “Sit with me, Grymlis.”

Grymlis sat, his discomfort obvious. When his eyes met Petronus’s they were the color of stormy skies. “I’ll speak plainly, Father,” he said. “This is foolhardy, Charles or no Charles.”

Petronus sighed and leaned back into the chair, putting down his pen. “It may be. But I don’t see another way through this Whymer Maze.”

The captain’s eyes narrowed. “You believe this strongly enough to die for it?”

Petronus chuckled but didn’t know why he saw humor in it. “I’m not sure what I believe enters into this gamble of mine. If Charles is alive and if he knows something of this so-called Sanctuary of Light, it may save the Named Lands from something terrible at the very worst. And at the very best, it may bring back something that was lost to us.” He looked back to the stack of papers, picked them up and used the flat surface of the table to line up all of the edges. He paused and looked for the bit of twine he’d been using. “But you’re not here for that, I’m certain. You already know that my stubbornness frequently outpaces my common sense.” He found the twine and laid it out on the table, placing the now-squared papers upon it and starting the knots that would hold the sizeable bundle in place.

Grymlis shook his head. “I’ve gotten word from Esarov’s birder. Days late, but still better than not knowing at all.”

Petronus looked up, his finger marking his place on the knot. “From the line?”

He nodded. “Yes.” He dug into his pocket and withdrew a crumpled note. Grymlis passed it over.

Petronus took it and read it quickly. “So now Gypsy Scouts man the post in Caldus Bay and Rudolfo has found us out.”

He’d been skeptical of Grymlis’s plan to maintain that post, but he’d not imagined that it would be Rudolfo himself who would stumble upon it. He’d been more fearful that whoever had wanted him dead would send more blood-magicked emissaries to finish that first would-be assassin’s work. Instead, the Gypsy King himself had intercepted one of his birds and written his own message into it.

He looked at the note again. “What do you imagine he wants?”

Grymlis looked angry. “I don’t know what he wants, but my men are not his for the ordering. I’ll have strong words with him for that when he arrives.”

When he arrives? Petronus felt his breath catch. “Rudolfo? He’s coming here?”

Grymlis nodded slowly. “Aye. Esarov sent the pirate to fetch him.”

What game of Queen’s War did that Democrat play? And what madness had Rudolfo, with a new wife and child at home, traipsing about the countryside seeking his audience? Why hadn’t he simply sent a bird?

Esarov had to know that bringing the Named Lands most powerful man into the heart of a civil war deeply compromised an already tenuous kin-clave between the Entrolusians and the Gypsies. His mind turned to the coming trial, and he spun the cipher of this new lockbox. Could Rudolfo bring something to bear on this that he’d not thought about?

When the cipher caught, he felt the clicking in his brain and slapped his leg. “He intends to send Charles with the Gypsy King.”

Grymlis’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not certain that Charles is even alive.”

But buried beneath his common sense, Petronus suspected that indeed he was alive and that Esarov knew that the old Arch-Engineer was perhaps the greatest living treasure left to the Named Lands, both for what he could do and for what he guarded-some corner of the light that they had all feared lost.

At least, he thought, that mad Democrat realized that Charles was safer under Rudolfo’s care.

Grymlis stood. “He’ll be here inside of a week, but I’m not sure you will be.”

Petronus nodded. “I’m not sure I will, either.” He took the stack of papers and opened the satchel as wide as it would go. Even that wasn’t enough, and the papers bent as he shoved them inside. “Regardless,” he said, “I would have you pass this to Rudolfo. But discreetly; keep it away from Esarov’s men.” He thought for a moment. “My notes are coded; Isaak or one of the others should be able to cipher them out.”

He handed the satchel to Grymlis, who stood. When he spoke, his voice was a growl. “You marching off to trial. Rudolfo on the ride with barely a squad. I hope it isn’t catching.”

Petronus pondered this. “You hope what isn’t catching?”

“Foolishness,” he said. Then Grymlis opened the door and left, the satchel tucked beneath his cloak.

Petronus watched the door for a long time before looking back to his empty desk. He wondered what he would do now while he waited, how he would bide his time until Esarov told him whether or not Erlund was going to play at this new game. Esarov swore with complete confidence that the betrayal of Windwir was within, that they had been duped into believing in an outside threat by complex and terrible conspiracy. Vlad Li Tam had asserted without doubt that their enemy lay beyond, and that crafty old spymaster had left, Petronus believed, to find it and give name to it.

He looked to the map of the Named Lands that decorated the wall of his simple room. He saw Windwir at its center, as it should be, and traced the First River, the one the Gypsies called Rajblood, up through the circling hills, across the Prairie Seas and into the Ninefold Forest.

“And what are you seeking, Rudolfo, so far from home in these perilous times?” he asked.

Standing slowly, he walked to the map and placed a finger at its center.

The purported note from Charles came back into his mind.

The library has fallen by treachery, it had said.

That night, Petronus slept and dreamed of bone fields and blood and dark-winged birds.

When he awakened in the morning it was as if he hadn’t slept at all.