“Ah,” he said, giving me a knowing look. “The girl. Her name Dinay?”
I nodded, knowing Denna changed her name as often as some other women changed their hair.
The greasy man nodded again. “Yes. The pretty dark eyes? She gone for long.”
My heart fell, despite the fact that I’d known better than to hope she would still be here after all this time. “Do you know where she might have gone?”
He barked a short laugh. “No. You and all the other wolves come sniffing after her. I could have sold knowing to you all to made a thick purse. But no, I haen’t idea.”
“Might she have left a message for me?” I asked without real hope. I hadn’t found any letter or note waiting for me at Alveron’s estate. “She was expecting me to find her here.”
“Was she?” he said mockingly, then seemed to remember something. “I think there a note found. Might be. Not much a reader me. You would like it?” He smiled.
I nodded, my heart lifting a little.
“She left without payment in her room,” he said. “Seventeen and a half pennies.”
I brought out a silver round and showed it to him. He reached for it, but I set it on the table and held it there with two fingers.
He scurried off into a back room and was gone for a long five minutes. He finally returned with a tightly folded piece of paper clutched in one hand. “I am find it,” he said triumphantly, waving it in my direction. “Not much good for paper here but kindling.”
I looked at the piece of paper and felt my spirits lift. It was folded against itself in the same fashion as the letter I’d had the tinker deliver. If she’d copied that trick, it meant she must have read my letter and left this note for me. Hopefully it would tell me where she had gone. How to find her. I slid the coin toward the innkeeper and took the note.
Once outside, I hurried to the shadow of a recessed doorway, knowing it was the closest thing to privacy I would find on the busy street. I tore the note open carefully, unfolded it, and edged into the light. It read:Denna,
I have been forced to leave town on an errand for my patron. I will be away some time, perhaps several span. It was sudden and unavoidable, else I would have made a point to see you before I left.
I regret many of the things I said when we last spoke and wish I could apologize for them in person.
I will find you when I return.
Yours,
Kvothe
At eighth bell I made my way to the Maer’s rooms, leaving Caesura behind. I felt oddly naked without it. It’s strange how quickly we become accustomed to such things.
Stapes showed me into the Maer’s sitting room, and Alveron sent his manservant to invite Meluan to join us at her convenience. I wondered idly what would happen if she decided not to come? Would he ignore her for three days in silent rebuke?
Alveron settled onto a couch and gave me a speculative look. “I’ve heard some rumors surrounding your recent excursion,” he said. “Some rather fantastic things I’m not given to believing. Perhaps you’d like to tell me what really happened.”
For a moment I wondered how he’d managed to hear about my activities near Levinshir so quickly. Then I realized he wanted to know the details of our bandit hunt in the Eld. I breathed a mental sigh of relief. “I trust Dedan found you easily enough?” I asked.
Alveron nodded.
“I regretted having to send him in my stead, your grace. He is not a subtle creature.”
He shrugged. “No real harm was done. By the time he came to me the need for secrecy was past.”
“He did deliver my letter then?”
“Ah yes, the letter.” Alveron pulled it out of a nearby drawer. “I assumed it was some sort of odd joke.”
“Your grace?”
He gave me a frank stare, then looked down at my letter. “Twenty-seven men,” he read aloud. “Experienced mercenaries by their actions and appearance . . . A well-established camp with rudimentary fortifications.” He looked up again, “You can’t expect me to believe this as the truth. The five of you couldn’t possibly succeed against so many.”
“We surprised them, your grace,” I said with a certain smug understatement.
The Maer’s expression soured. “Come now, all provincial humor aside, I consider this to be in extremely poor taste. Simply tell me the truth and have done.”
“I have told you the truth, your grace. Had I known you would require proof I would have let Dedan bring you a sackful of thumbs. It took a full hour of arguing to drive the notion out of his head.”
This didn’t set the Maer back as I expected. “Perhaps you should have let him,” he said.
The humor of the situation was rapidly fading for me. “Your grace, if I were to lie to you, I would choose a more convincing tale.” I let him consider this for a moment. “Besides, if all you want is proof, simply send someone out to verify it. We burned the bodies, but the skulls will still be there. I’ll mark their camp for you on a map.”
The Maer took a different tack. “What of this other part? Their leader. The man who didn’t mind being shot through the leg? The one who stepped into his tent and ‘disappeared’?”
“True, your grace.”
Alveron eyed me for a long moment, then sighed. “Then I believe you,” he said. “But still, it’s strange and bitter news,” he muttered, almost to himself.
“Indeed, your grace.”
He gave me an oddly calculating look. “What do you make of it?”
Before I could answer, there was the sound of a female voice from the outer rooms. Alveron’s scowl vanished and he sat up straighter in his chair. I hid a smile behind my hand.
“It’s Meluan,” Alveron said. “If I am correct, she is bringing us the question I mentioned earlier.” He gave me a sly smile. “I think you will enjoy it, a puzzling thing indeed.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE
Lockless
STAPES ESCORTED MELUAN INTO the room while Alveron and I rose to our feet. She was dressed in grey and lavender, and her curling chestnut hair was pulled back to reveal her elegant neck.
Meluan was followed by two serving boys carrying a wooden chest. The Maer moved to take his wife’s elbow, while Stapes directed the boys to set the chest to one side of her chair. Alveron’s manservant hurried them outside and gave me a conspiratorial wink before he closed the door behind himself.
Still standing, I turned to Meluan and made my bows. “I am pleased to have the chance to meet with you again . . . my lady?” I made the last a question as I wasn’t sure how to address her. The Lackless lands used to be a full earldom, but that was before the bloodless rebellion, when they still controlled Tinuë. Her marriage to the Alveron complicated things too, as I wasn’t sure if there was a female counterpart to the title of Maershon.
Meluan waved her hand easily, dismissing the issue entirely. “Lady is well enough between us two, at least when we are closeted. I’ve no need for formality from one to whom I owe so great a debt.” She took hold of Alveron’s hand. “Please sit if you’ve a mind.”
I made another bow and took my seat, eyeing the chest as casually as possible. It was about the size of a large drum, made of well-jointed birch and bound in brass.
I knew the proper thing to do was engage in polite small talk until the matter of the chest was broached by one of the two of them. However, my curiosity got the better of me. “I was told you were bringing a question with you. It must be a weighty one for you to keep it so tightly bound.” I made a nod toward the chest.
Meluan looked at Alveron and laughed as if he had told a joke. “My husband said you weren’t the type to let a puzzle sit for very long.”
I gave a slightly shamefaced smile. “It goes against my nature, lady.”
“I would not have you battle your nature on my account.” She smiled. “Would you be so good as to bring it round in front of me?”
I managed to lift the chest without hurting myself, but if it weighed less than ten stone t
hen I’m a poet.
Meluan sat forward in her chair, leaning over the chest. “Lerand has told me of the part you played in bringing us together. For that, my thanks. I hold myself in debt to you.” Her dark brown eyes were gravely serious. “However, I also consider the greater piece of that debt repaid by what I am about to show you. I can count on both hands the people who have seen this. Debt or no, I would never have considered showing you had not my husband vouchsafed me your full discretion.” She gave me a pointed look.
“By my hand, I will not speak of what I see to anyone,” I assured her, trying not to seem as eager as I was.
Meluan nodded. Then, rather than drawing out a key as I’d expected, she pressed her hands to the sides of the chest and slid two panels slightly. There was a soft click and the lid sprang slightly ajar.
Lockless, I thought to myself.
The open lid revealed another chest, smaller and flatter. It was the size of a bread box, and its flat brass lockplate held a keyhole that was not keyhole shaped, but a simple circle instead. Meluan drew something from a chain around her neck.
“May I see that?” I asked.
Meluan seemed surprised. “I beg your pardon?”
“That key. May I see it for a moment?”
“God’s bother,” Alveron exclaimed. “We haven’t come to the interesting bit yet. I offer you the mystery of an age and you admire the wrapping paper!”
Meluan handed me the key, and I gave it a quick but thorough examination, turning it in my hands. “I like to take my mysteries layer by layer,” I explained.
“Like an onion?” He snorted.
“Like a flower,” I countered, handing the key back to Meluan. “Thank you.”
Meluan fit the key and opened the lid of the inner chest. She slid the chain back around her neck, tucked it underneath her clothes, and rearranged her clothes and hair, repairing any damage done to her appearance. This seemed to take an hour or so.
Finally she reached forward and lifted something out of the chest with both hands. Holding it just out of my sight behind the open lid, she looked up at me and took a deep breath. “This has been . . .” she began.
“Just let him see it, dear,” Alveron interjected gently. “I’m curious to see what he thinks on his own.” He chuckled. “Besides, I fear the boy will have a fit if you keep him waiting any longer.”
Reverently, Meluan handed me a piece of dark wood the size of a thick book. I took it with both hands.
The box was unnaturally heavy for its size, the wood of it smooth as polished stone under my fingers. As I ran my hands over it, I found the sides were carved. Not dramatically enough to attract the attention of the eyes, but so subtly my fingers could barely feel a gentle pattern of risings and fallings in the wood. I brushed my hands over the top and felt a similar pattern.
“You were right,” Meluan said softly. “He’s like a child with a midwinter’s gift.”
“You haven’t seen the best of it yet,” Alveron replied. “Wait until he starts. The boy has a mind like an iron hammer.”
“How do you open it?” I asked. I turned it in my hands and felt something shift inside. There were no obvious hinges or lid, not even a seam where a lid might be. It looked for all the world like a single piece of dark and weighty wood. But I knew it was a box of some sort. It felt like a box. It wanted to be opened.
“We don’t know,” Meluan said. She might have continued, but her husband hushed her gently.
“What’s inside?” I tilted it again, feeling the contents shift.
“We don’t know,” she repeated.
The wood itself was interesting. It was dark enough to be roah, but it had a deep red grain. What’s more, it seemed to be a spicewood. It smelled faintly of . . . something.A familiar smell I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I lowered my face to its surface and breathed in deeply through my nose, something almost like lemon. It was maddeningly familiar. “What sort of wood is this?”
Their silence was answer enough.
I looked up and met their eyes. “You don’t give a body much to work with, do you?” I smiled to soften any offense the words might bring.
Alveron sat forward in his chair. “You must admit,” he said with thinly veiled excitement, “this is a most excellent question. You’ve shown me your gift at guessing before.” His eyes glittered grey. “So what can you guess about this?”
“It’s an heirloom,” I said easily. “Very old—”
“How old would you think?” Alveron interjected hungrily.
“Perhaps three thousand years,” I said. “Give or take.” Meluan stiffened in surprise. “I am close to your own guesses I take it?”
She nodded mutely.
“The carving has no doubt been eroded over the long years of handling.”
“Carving?” Alveron asked, leaning forward in his chair.
“It’s very faint,” I said, closing my eyes. “But I can feel it.”
“I felt no such thing.”
“Nor I,” said Meluan. She seemed slightly offended.
“I have exceptionally sensitive hands,” I said honestly. “They’re necessary for my work.”
“Your magic?” she asked with a well-hidden hint of childlike awe.
“And music,” I said. “If you’ll allow me?” She nodded. So I took her hand in my own, and pressed it to the top of the box. “There. Can you feel it?”
She furrowed her forehead in concentration. “Perhaps, just a bit.” She took her hand away. “Are you sure it’s a carving?”
“It’s too regular to be an accident. How can it be you haven’t noticed it before? Isn’t it mentioned in any of your histories?”
Meluan was taken aback. “No one would think of writing down anything regarding the Loeclos Box. Haven’t I said this is the most secret of secrets?”
“Show me,” Alveron said. I guided his fingers over the pattern. He frowned. “Nothing. My fingers must be too old. Could it be letters?”
I shook my head. “It’s a flowing pattern, like scrollwork. But it doesn’t repeat, it changes . . .” A thought struck me. “It might be a Yllish story knot.”
“Can you read it?” Alveron asked.
I ran my fingers over it. “I don’t know enough Yllish to read a simple knot if I had the string between my fingers.” I shook my head. “Besides, the knots would have changed in the last three thousand years. I know a few people who might be able to translate it at the University.”
Alveron looked to Meluan, but she shook her head firmly.“I will not have this spoken of to strangers.”
The Maer seemed disappointed by this answer, but didn’t press the point. Instead he turned back to me. “Let me ask you your own questions back again. What sort of wood is it?”
“It’s lasted three thousand years,” I mused aloud. “It’s heavy despite being hollow. So it has to be a slow wood, like hornbeam or rennel. Its color and weight make me think it has a good deal of metal in it too, like roah. Probably iron and copper.” I shrugged. “That’s the best I can do.”
“What’s inside it?”
I thought for a long moment before saying anything. “Something smaller than a saltbox. . . .” I began. Meluan smiled, but Alveron gave the barest of frowns so I hurried on. “Something metal, by the way the weight shifts when I tilt it.” I closed my eyes and listened to the padded thump of its contents moving in the box. “No. By the weight of it, perhaps something made of glass or stone.”
“Something precious,” Alveron said.
I opened my eyes. “Not necessarily. It has become precious because it is old, and because it has been with a family for so long. It is also precious because it is a mystery. But was it precious to begin with?” I shrugged. “Who can say?”
“But you lock up precious things,” Alveron pointed out.
“Precisely.” I held up the box, displaying its smooth face. “This isn’t locked up. In fact, it might be locked away. It may be something dangerous.”
“Why wou
ld you say that?” Alveron asked curiously.
“Why go through this trouble?” Meluan protested. “Why save something dangerous? If something is dangerous, you destroy it.” She seemed to answer her own question as soon as she had voiced it. “Unless it was precious as well as dangerous.”
“Perhaps it was too useful to destroy,” Alveron suggested.
“Perhaps it couldn’t be destroyed,” I said.
“Last and best,” Alveron said, leaning forward even further in his seat. “How do you open it?”
I gave the box a long look, turned it in my hands, pressed the sides. I ran my fingers over the patterns, feeling for a seam my eyes could not detect. I shook it gently, tasted the air around it, held it to the light.
“I have no idea,” I admitted.
Alveron slumped a little. “It was too much to expect, I suppose. Perhaps some piece of magic?”
I hesitated to tell him that sort of magic only existed in stories. “None I have at my command.”
“Have you ever considered simply cutting it open?” Alveron asked his wife.
Meluan looked every bit as horrified as I felt at the suggestion. “Never!” She said as soon as she caught her breath. “It is the very root of our family. I would sooner think of salting every acre of our lands.”
“And hard as this wood is,” I hurried to say, “you would most likely ruin whatever was inside. Especially if it is delicate.”
“It was only a thought.” Alveron reassured his wife.
“An ill-considered one,” Meluan said sharply, then seemed to regret her words. “I’m sorry, but the very thought ...” She trailed off, obviously distraught.
He patted her hand. “I understand, my dear. You’re right, it was ill-considered.”
“Might I put it away now?” Meluan asked him.
I reluctantly handed the box back to Meluan. “If there were a lock I could attempt to circumvent it, but I can’t even make a guess at where the hinge might be, or the seam for the lid.” In a box, no lid or locks/ Lackless keeps her husband’s rocks. The child’s skipping rhyme ran madly through my head and I only barely managed to turn my laugh into a cough.