“How would ye know what he did, freeman? Ye were na here.”
“Am I wrong?”
Again, Amicus did not respond.
Matheson continued. “I heard that the Flames were dimmed for three days afterward.”
“Abramm is our rightful king,” said Amicus.
So those rumors were true, Gillard thought. It was Abramm who came to visit us.
“He is a pretender!” Matheson spat. “A usurper. A servant of the Shadow.”
“Ye’re speakin’ treason, freeman. And if—”
A voice, loud and close, drowned out the rest of it: “Brother Makepeace, what are you doing?”
Gillard twisted away from the door and stepped forward. Brother Merces stood at the nearby juncture of the corridor and the stairwell, frowning at him.
“Master Amicus told me to wait here, sir,” said Gillard.
“To wait, possibly, but not to press your ear to the door.” Merces started toward him. “If he’d wanted you to hear his conversation, boy, he’d have bade you stay inside.”
“Yes, brother.”
Merces slowed as he came even with Gillard, his eyes flicking to the Master’s door. Gillard schooled his face to blandness—he was getting better and better at it—and urged the stupid oaf to move on by.
“See you don’t do it again,” Merces commanded.
“I will, brother.” What a delightfully ambiguous statement.
The blue eyes narrowed and fixed upon him for a long moment; then the man finally moved on. Gillard counted to thirty after the man had disappeared into the Great Room, and was just about to step back and resume his listening when Amicus’s deep voice sounded through the door. “Makepeace!”
Whirling, Gillard pressed the latch and stepped inside again. “Yes, sir.”
Both men were now standing as Amicus gestured at his visitor and said, “Bring Freeman Smith t’ one of the meditation cubicles an’ watch with him there fer as long as he has need.”
“Yes, sir.”
Though Matheson looked right at him for the second time now, Gillard saw no hint of recognition, nor even any indication he might seem familiar. Disappointed, he turned and led the way out of the receiving room and down the corridor to the stairway, which he climbed with careful concentration. The man he escorted followed wordlessly, and when they arrived at an open cubicle, he stepped past Gillard as if he weren’t there.
The room beyond was small, barren, and lit with a single oil lamp on a bronze stand. There was no window and nothing on the wooden floor, though a rolled pad stood beside a three-legged stool in one corner. As his guest surveyed his new environs, Gillard dutifully turned, closed the door, and dropped the bar to secure it from the inside.
When he turned back Matheson was still frowning around at the tiny chamber. “Why is there no chair or bench?”
“We meditate on our knees. The pads there will protect you from the stone. Or you can use the stool if you like.”
Frowning, Matheson pulled the stool into the center of the room and sat down.
Gillard watched his old friend closely. He’d expected to be recognized by now, or at least to have piqued the other man’s interest, despite the fact that Ian had barely looked at him the entire time they’d been together. Yes, he knew the way aristocrats tended not to see those they considered beneath them, and yes, Ian would certainly not think to look for him stubble-headed and cloaked in a Mataian acolyte’s tunic. But still . . . You’d think he’d at least recognize my voice.
Gillard unrolled the mat that Matheson had ignored and settled onto it, to the right of and slightly behind his friend, the position affording him a clear view of the man’s profile. As far as Matheson was concerned, however, he might have been alone. He sat staring at the oil lamp’s flame now, right hand propped on the thigh of his dirty breeches, his bearded jaw working as if he were grinding his teeth. Then he glanced at the door, at the flame again, and released a long low breath. After a while he began to bounce his knee up and down, then glanced at the door again, and finally stilled himself and dropped his head forward into both hands.
Gillard decided it was time to speak. “You seem troubled, sir.”
Matheson snorted and twisted his head aside to answer him without looking. “Indeed.”
“Would you like me to pray for you?” It was hard to get that line out without breaking into laughter.
“No.” Matheson twisted his head forward again and rubbed his face with his hands. “But thank you for offering.” He was thinner than Gillard remembered him, and his hands were rough and dirty, the nails all but chewed away. Scabs marred the backs of his knuckles.
Should I just blurt out the truth, Gillard wondered, or continue to play with him for a bit? It was gratifying to know his disguise was as good as this . . .but at the same time discomfiting, as it reminded him of the other more foundational changes that had been worked in him since Matheson had seen him last. Changes that wouldn’t grow back with time or be exchanged like an old robe for something new and different. The old bitter horror flared in him, and for a moment he almost changed his mind about letting Matheson see him.
The other man shifted on the stool and said to his lap, “And just how long does he expect me to wait here?”
“Until you have your answer, I would imagine.”
“I wasn’t asking you, boy.”
“I know. But perhaps you should.”
“Like you would know.”
“I know more than you credit me.”
“Why kind of insolent twit are you, anyway?” As Matheson said this, he turned to glare at Gillard, his eyes fixing squarely upon the acolyte’s face. And for the first time he really looked at him. For one instant the frown deepened, then drained away as he stared hard. His eyes tracked over Gillard’s face, up to his naked scalp, and down the length of his shrunken body, then back up to the face. Horrified recognition surged across Matheson’s countenance as he lurched up and away, stumbling over the stool and falling against the wall, as far from Gillard as he could get in this tiny room. He stood there braced, staring in disbelief. “Eidon’s mercy! You’re . . . you’re small.”
“Prittleman tells me it was a result of some spell Abramm cast over me, but I prefer to believe it was the morwhol.”
Matheson remained backed up against the wall, his face pale, his eyes so wide the whites showed. He blinked, gulped, and then his gaze tracked again over Gillard’s body, down and up again to the scalp with its two weeks’ worth of pale blond stubble. “So the rumors are true,” he murmured. “You have taken holy vows.”
“A matter of expediency. Nothing more.” He frowned. “Come on, man. Are you going to stay slammed up against that wall all day? Whatever’s befallen me, it’s not catching.”
Matheson forced himself to relax and step forward but was unable to stop staring. “Holy vows, my lord?”
“Why do you act so astonished? You must have believed some kernel of those rumors you mentioned, else why would you have come here at all?” And why has Amicus released word of my vow-taking already, when he told me it would be years?
“I thought they were hiding you. I thought . . . Everyone said you were as one dead. . . .” His eyes remained on Gillard’s bare head, his look of distaste deepening. “I never would have thought you, of all men . . . Eidon’s mercy, Gillard. They’ve made you bald!”
“Yes, and already it has served me well. The king’s men hardly give me a look. You yourself didn’t even recognize me.”
“But not because of the robes and the hair . . .”
“Oh, I think it was very much because of them. You just said it yourself— not even you would have expected me to do this.”
Matheson frowned at him, and then a look that almost seemed like sympathy came into his face. “Is it . . . is it because of the shrinking that you . . .” He trailed off, seeming unable to find the word he wanted.
“That I what?”
“Got religious.”
“Got r
elig— Plagues, Ian! Haven’t you been listening? This is purely a matter of expediency.”
“But how would they—”
“They don’t care. I told Amicus I didn’t believe a word of his gibberish. He said it wouldn’t matter.”
“He wants to use you.”
“Of course he does. As I want to use him. . . . But enough of me. You’re the first person from the outside world I’ve met since I came here. Tell me what’s happened since Seven Peaks. I’ve heard next to nothing.”
And so Matheson obliged him. After the debacle at Seven Peaks, he and a handful of other deposed and wanted supporters had fled north to a remote valley, where they’d lived for several months. Eventually they’d heard the stories that Gillard was being held drugged in Chancellor’s Tower. Adopting a false name, Matheson had traveled to Springerlan to investigate. He’d never gotten to see Gillard and, being a wanted man himself, had not stayed long. Returning to Two Cities he’d landed a job at a warehouse, rising through the ranks to become a manager, an accountant, and the boss’s sometime personal assistant. He’d recently accompanied him on his trip down to Springerlan to plead with the new Duke of Northille for exemption from the new tax and conscription writ that had just passed.
“Northille?” Gillard interrupted. “That’s my property.”
“Not anymore, sir.”
“Who did Abramm give it to?”
“The former captain of his guard: Trap Meridon.”
“He made Meridon a duke? The man’s a commoner!”
“Well, now he’s one of the highest-ranking men of the peerage. He’s also the First Minister.”
Gillard’s anger erupted as it had not been able to in weeks, spewing forth in a rant on Abramm’s monumental stupidity and gall that was exceeded only by that of the peers who allowed him to do such things.
“Well, sir,” Matheson said hesitantly when he’d run down, “Abramm is working from a strong position these days. What with the regalia manifesting, the business at the Gull Islands, and then the orb at Graymeer’s lighting . . .he’s won many converts.”
Gillard frowned at him. “Regalia? Gull Islands? What are you talking about?”
Matheson was aghast. “You don’t even know about that?”
“I am an acolyte. No one tells acolytes anything. And before that . . . I was unconscious.”
And so Matheson told him of the events of the coronation, and Abramm’s victorious campaign to take the Gull Islands, of Briellen’s rejection of him because of his scars, his subsequent marriage to Chesedh’s Second Daughter, now made First, and the lighting of the guardstar at Graymeer’s that same night.
“He is . . . beloved in Springerlan, to hear the talk,” he concluded. “Nearly everyone there wears a shield. And he’s spent the last two months on progress. He and Queen Madeleine just came up the River Kalladorne, stopping at all the towns and cities, him wearing the crown and bringing the orb for all to see. And leaving more converts in his wake. He’s going through the Highlands now to receive the border lords’ fealty. Half of them love him, too, on account of his Terstan shield and his turning of their fabled Hasmal’uk stone to gold.”
Gillard listened with growing horror. To hear Matheson tell it, the whole world had twisted into some dreadful alternate reality in his absence. How could Abramm be beloved? How could he be so successful? He was a cowardly little runt. How could he have taken Gillard’s place so thoroughly and no one even question? “It’s not fair,” he muttered. “It’s not right.”
“That’s why I came,” said Matheson. “I had to know if you lived. If there was any hope for those of us who followed you. . . .”
INTERLUDE
FOURTH
ON THE LATE-SUMMER EVENING before the king was due to return to Whitehill from his months-long progress through the realm, Hazmul stood in the rotunda of the royal gallery, hands clasped behind his back as he stared up at the canvas looming on the green wall before him. It was the centerpiece of the new display set up to celebrate Abramm’s return, and he hated it.
Alaric the Bold painted to symbolize Tersius sat astride his great white warhorse, Runjan, depicted in the stylized halfrearing position. The king wore the crown and a white robe and held his broadsword aloft, blazing with the harsh and searing light of Eidon’s chosen. And on the ground directly before them cowered a spindly red dragon, about to be trampled by Runjan’s raised golden hooves.
It was one of the paintings newly exposed by the crew of Terstans Abramm had assigned to clear away the arcane webbing that had obscured many of the collection’s pieces. This one’s original images, in fact, had been almost completely obliterated, not only by the webbing but by the dust and oils of time. That their painstaking work had revealed a picture of such contemporary significance—or so they thought—had excited them all, and they were eager that their king should see it upon his return.
Contemporary significance, indeed. Hazmul snorted. It was an obscene piece of propaganda. An insulting caricature of an imagined reality. And he should know, having seen the incident firsthand. He wanted to burn it right off the wall.
Instead he leaned forward and blew lightly at the canvas, as if there were a dust feather that needed to be dislodged. No one in the room with him would think anything of it, because none of them could see the faint violet light of his breath. . . .
It had been four months since Abramm left Springerlan with his wife to go on progress through his realm. In his absence the people’s regard for him had deepened even more than it would have had he stayed. They loved the fairy-tale nature of his courtship and marriage, especially the way Eidon had seemed to anoint the union by lighting the guardstar the night it was consummated. Abramm had been wise to leave right afterward, letting the goodwill solidify without having to worry about the inevitable missteps and irritations a man would make in his day-to-day living.
Hazmul had stayed behind with Meridon and the other counselors to keep the government running smoothly in Abramm’s absence, breaking away only for a quick trip up to Skaevik for the border lords’ official giving of fealty. He’d been surprised and irritated to see Rennalf of Balmark among the lords who swore allegiance to the king. According to reports, the man had been completely cowed when he’d learned what Abramm had done on the Gull Islands. At Skaevik he’d been docile, polite and respectful in his dealings with the king, but Hazmul had sensed the resentment simmering within him. Which was one of the few things that made the trip worthwhile.
Returning to Springerlan he’d received the summons to a rhu’eman court of inquiry he both expected and had prepared for. The debacle at the Gull Islands could in no way be laid to his account. He had passed on all appropriate information. Surely they should know that the man who had been the White Pretender could be counted on to act daringly in any assault he might bring to bear. Hazmul had passed on his suspicions that the crown imparted some increased ability to see . . . and they all knew of Abramm’s history of destroying etherworld corridors.
His defense had been accepted and the commander of the island operation demoted. Still, he’d not come home without receiving a warning: Madeleine had entered her destiny when she’d been allowed to marry Abramm, and the marriage would be a threat. . . .
But he wasn’t worried about that. As with the Light plague, these things happened. Some humans were simply intractable. And anyway, he’d prepared for this.
From Skaevik, Abramm had ridden through the Highlands, visiting the various manors, coming down through Kerrey and Long Valley, where he’d stopped off at Castle Stormcroft to spend the last two weeks of the journey alone with his queen. Or as alone as a king and queen could be with a retinue of nearly one hundred attendants, servants, and armsmen.
They were due back tomorrow around midday.
Already he’d been hearing the reports of how in love they were. How much more relaxed Abramm was, how much more confident Madeleine was. They said Abramm doted on her and that she practically worshipped him in return.
br /> Nauseating. But if the ties between them were half as strong as the reports . . . that could be very useful.
He turned from the painting and strolled about the rotunda, glancing at the other pieces as he exchanged pleasantries with his fellow guests, amusing himself with the thought of how shocked they’d be to know who really dwelt behind Byron Blackwell’s annoying spectacles.
Vesprit caught up with him in one of the gallery’s shadowed side aisles, Hazmul quenching its kelistars so his underling might approach. Assigned to monitor Abramm’s journey north, Vesprit had returned periodically with his reports, the last one being three weeks ago. Now he informed Hazmul that all had gone as planned and the royal couple would arrive as scheduled.
Throughout his report, however, the underwarhast’s aura kept shimmering with suppressed excitement, a breach of manners Hazmul found increasingly irritating. He was about to call him on it when Vesprit finally got around to sharing his news:
“He has absolutely devoted himself to her, sir. It’s been shocking for a man who once took vows of celibacy. Making up for all the years he lost, I suppose. Do you want to guess how often they—”
“Vesprit, please.” Hazmul turned away from him to one of the paintings. “I have no interest in such prurient details. If you have nothing more to report, you may go.”
The amber aura rippled, blotching momentarily with brown as Vesprit straightened his bronzed shoulders. “Sorry, sir, there is more. I was merely making note because his efforts have paid off. The queen has conceived. She’s not told anyone as yet, though I think her maid suspects.”
Hazmul sat back in his chair. “And the child?”
“Male, sir.”
“He’s sired an heir?” Now, that was unexpected. Thoroughly unexpected and wholly delightful.
“Indeed, he has, sir . . .” Vesprit paused. “You sound pleased.”
“Oh, Vesprit, I am very pleased. This is a most excellent development.”