Neb swallowed. Suddenly, he felt afraid and alone and uncertain. “You know that I would do anything for you, Father.” He wasn’t sure why he’d slipped into the older, more familiar term. Perhaps because he’d heard Isaak use the same. Or perhaps because over the last nine months, the man had played the role.
Petronus nodded again. “Very well then.” He handed the note over to him. “I am rescinding your status in the Order.”
Stunned, Neb took the note but did not open it. “If this is about-”
Petronus shook his head. “It is not about you.” Their eyes met. “The assignment in Windwir and your work here were only intended to be… temporary.”
Neb wasn’t sure what he felt. On the surface, shock. Below that, anger and despair and confusion. “I don’t understand. There is much work to be done still. I can-”
Petronus’s voice rose. “Enough,” he said. “You named me your Pope.” His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. “Would you so easily challenge my authority?”
Neb swallowed and shook his head, fighting back the tears that suddenly threatened to ambush him.
Petronus looked away. “Your work has been exemplary, as my letter indicates.” Neb stared at him, watching the old man’s eyes go everywhere in their avoidance of his own. “You have become a fine young man and a strong leader.” He paused. “You will of course be permitted to attend the council and trial if you wish it.” But his eyes told Neb that he would rather he did not.
Petronus went back to shuffling the papers on his desk, and Neb sat in silence, staring at the folded note in his hands. He wanted to tear it into pieces and throw it back at the old man, shouting at the top of his lungs that he would not be discarded so easily. He wanted to cry and run to the old man’s side and beg him to tell him what this was truly about, because he could see plainly that something dark-something terribly dark-worked at the soul of the man he credited with saving him from the madness of those early days after the Desolation.
No, he realized. Petronus did not save him. Hope did.
The old man continued shuffling through his papers, not speaking.
Because there are no other words left between us, Neb realized.
Finally, he stood and left the office, fleeing the manor for the forest. As his feet slapped at the grass and pine needles, Neb suddenly realized that once again his dreams were true.
“You will stand and proclaim him Pope and King in the Gardens of Coronation and Consecration,” Brother Hebda had told him in that first dream of many. “And he will break your heart.”
Brokenhearted, Neb sobbed in the forest of a place that no longer felt like home.
Vlad Li Tam
Vlad Li Tam could not abide wool during the summer, and he wondered how it was that anyone else did. The archeologist’s robes were rough on his skin, particularly after three days in the saddle.
The iron ship had dropped him with his horse and his small entourage on an isolated portion of the coastline near Caldus Bay. He’d sent the remainder of his armada ahead, intending to catch up to them near the Whispering Isles at the edge of the Named Lands.
He’d intended to be done. He’d planned to send his children for this last bit of the work, but in the end he couldn’t, despite Rudolfo’s threat. Years of personally delivering his most important messages would not be denied, and finally, at the end of things, he’d come to the Ninefold Forest for the first time since that night long ago to meet with his seventh son and hear his final words.
The Gypsy Scouts had questioned them briefly about where they’d come from. An Androfrancine at a small table, shielded from the sun by a small canopy, recorded their names and positions within the Order. After the brief interview, he directed them to the field of tents outside town.
They added their own tents to that small canvass city, and while his sons put them up, he wandered among the dark robed men, watching and listening for any scrap or tidbit that might help him.
Eventually, he left the Androfrancine sector and wandered across the wide, low bridge into the town itself. He joined himself with others dressed like him, moving strategically through the parts of the town he would need to visit. Finally, he came to Tormentor’s Row and the low stone buildings that served as the Ninefold Forest’s prison-the one place he knew he would not be able to reach personally and where his coffers were not deep enough to purchase influence. He paused, listening for screams but hearing none. Of course, by now Sethbert would be in a cell. He expected Petronus would have insisted upon that, not wanting to legitimize that particular Whymer interpretation, with its cutting and peeling in the name of redemption.
Those guards would be above reproach, but the cooks would not be. And the message would be easy enough to send through them. A long strand of hair-Sethbert’s sister’s, in fact-tied to the foot of the game hen he would take for his final meal. The hen would be served whole just as Sethbert preferred. And another strand of hair-this one shorter and taken from his nephew Erlund, tied carefully around the small bird’s bill. More threats at the end of a string of threats.
Of course, Vlad Li Tam had no intentions of killing Sethbert’s family. All of his children but those he’d brought with him for this last northward journey-and the daughter who no longer acknowledged him-waited for him on iron ships loaded with all of House Li Tam that they could carry.
But the threat would be clear, and sometimes a threat was enough to move the river. Vlad Li Tam was certain he could count on Sethbert taking the cue and keeping silent. And that silence would let his old friend finish the work he’d been made to do.
Smiling to himself, Vlad Li Tam continued his stroll through the town. He paused again at the gates of the seventh forest manor, studying the windows and doors and comparing them to the drawings and specifications he’d memorized so long ago.
There were messages for the manor as well, messages he would deliver personally.
But only after he finished moving the river.
Rudolfo
Petronus, the King of Windwir and the Holy See of the Androfrancine Patriarchy, reconvened the council with upraised hands.
Throughout the pavilion, voices went silent. Rudolfo sat aside from the others not just as their host but also as someone who wanted to see as much as he could.
The first two days of the council had been simple matters of organization. Petronus had first submitted himself for examination- receiving confirmation from at least a dozen gray-headed Androfrancines that they did indeed know him to be who the announcements and letters claimed he was. With that out of the way, he issued and expounded upon encyclicals on everything from property dispersal to the construction and management of the library.
Before adjourning for lunch on the third day, he had elicited gasps of surprise when he gestured to the metal men in their acolyte robes. “These new brethren that we have made will watch over our library, and the Gypsy Scouts shall guard them.”
Rudolfo smiled at this.
One of the bishops stood, angry. “They have no souls and you give them the light?”
Petronus had stared at the man and raised one of the new books into the air. “I give them nothing; they earn this. They work night and day to give back what was taken from you.” The Pope smiled. “And you who have souls-how many of you have helped them?”
The bishop reseated himself while Rudolfo smiled.
After lunch, after Petronus reconvened them with his silent blessing, he looked at Rudolfo and gave a grim smile. “Soon,” he said, “I will close this last council of mine. But first, we have unfortunate business together.” He nodded toward the main entrance, and six Gypsy Scouts escorted Sethbert into the tent. They walked slowly to accommodate his shackles.