The old man snorted. “And how do you imagine the magistrates of Martensbridge could arraign a sorcerer against his will?”
Tigney cleared his throat. “Even if it is not yet ascended, I fear that it’s only a matter of time. Learned Ruchia’s was the most formidable demon in the whole of my experience. Much too powerful for this raw young man, however well-intentioned he may be. Blessed, I take full responsibility for my Temple-sworn duties, and I must ask you, as a matter of prudence, to take this danger out of this boy and the world.”
Pen, listening intently, his stomach curling, tried pointing out, “But I’m not Temple-sworn. I’m really only a guest here.”
Clee said poisonously, “In your case, that’s hardly a recommendation.”
Tigney just shook his head.
It came to Pen that for all the talk of accusations and magistrates, arguing like a lawyer was not what was called for now. If there was truly a god immanent in this chamber, it wanted another mode of speech altogether.
Pen climbed up on his knees and shuffled over to face the saint. Inside him, he thought Desdemona wept, despairing as a woman mounting a scaffold. Tigney made an abortive motion as if to restrain Pen, but the old man merely regarded him curiously, without fear.
Pen opened both hands and raised them, as he might have done before a temple altar, with less cause. It occurred to him that the attitude of supplication was identical to that of surrender on a battlefield.
“Blessed, if I speak, will the god hear?”
The sheep’s-wool eyebrows twitched. “The gods hear you at all times, speaking or silent. You hearing the god . . . that is more rare.”
Pen decided to take that for a typical obscure Bastard’s Yes. He swallowed, thought of bowing his head, but then decided to look up. At, or through, those terrifying gray eyes.
“Lord God Bastard, Mother’s Son, Fifth and White. Please spare Desdemona. She’s a good demon.” Pen considered that descriptor, in all its ambiguity—good for what?—and decided to let it stand. “She has no life save through me, and, by your leave, please . . . please let me serve her in her need.” And, in what was surely the most foolhardy impulse of his life, even beating out Drovo’s drunken oath to the military recruiter, added, “And Yours.”
Tigney shook his head, back and forth, once, slowly.
The Saint of Idau raised his hand and laid it on Pen’s forehead, in some beginning malediction. His lips parted. Stopped. His look grew inward for an instant more deep than long. Fathoms deep. The eyebrows climbed in surprise. “Huh! There’s a first.” His hand dropped back.
“What?” said Tigney, nearly squirming with anxiety. “The white god takes the demon, yes?”
“No. Spits her back. Says He doesn’t want her. At least not yet.”
Tigney blinked, stunned. Pen’s breath caught. What, what, what . . . ?
Clee protested, “But you must!”
The saint eyed him sourly. “If you want to argue with the god, go to the temple. Not that you’ll get much save sore knees, but it’ll spare my ears.” He made to lever himself up with his cane.
Pen cried aloud, “Wait, wait, what . . . Blessed, what does that mean?”
The old man eyed him glumly. “It means congratulations. You’re a sorcerer.” He pursed his lips, and added more judiciously, “The gods do not act for our ends, but for Theirs. Presumably, the god has some interesting future in mind for you—for you two. This is not a blessing. Good luck. You’ll need it.”
Tigney, aghast, said, “But what should we do with him?”
“No idea,” said the saint. He paused. “Though it would likely be prudent not to let him get killed on your doorstep.”
His eyes still wide, Tigney said, “He’ll have to be sworn into the Order.”
The saint’s lips quirked up. “Weren’t you listening? He just was.” He wrinkled his nose. “Though not, I suppose, to the Order as such . . .” He shuffled toward the hall, grumpily mumbling, “Ah, Lord Bastard, my back . . .”
At the doorway, he turned around. “Oh.” He pointed to Penric. “That one tells the truth”—his finger swung to Clee—“that one lies. Have fun sorting out this tangle, Tig.” His cantankerous voice floated over his shoulder: “I’m going back to Idau.”
Clee was taken away by a couple of husky dedicats, Pen was not sure to where. With more painfully sincere politeness than heretofore, Tigney suggested Pen might like to rest in his room a while. Pen, swaying on his feet, did not demur, and neither did Desdemona, who had gone very silent indeed.
All Pen’s meager possessions had been turned out and strewn across his bed, though nothing save Ruchia’s book appeared to be taken. Clee’s things were in no better form, and for the first time, realizing Tigney had known nothing, Pen wondered what the divine had first made of it all when both men had gone missing last night. He wasn’t quite able to muster sympathy.
He cleared his bed without ceremony, stripped out of his clammy clothes, stole Clee’s blankets to throw atop his own, and climbed in, more exhausted than he’d ever been even after the most futile, sleet-soaked hunt. When he slept, he dreamed uneasily of fathomless eyes.
He woke in the early afternoon, ravenous, and went to beg food in the kitchen, where dedicats or acolytes who had missed meals were, depending on the mood of the servants, sometimes allowed charity. His extended to dry bread, some pretty good beer, and a random but generous assortment of leftovers from lunch. Hunger makes the best sauce, he remembered his mother intoning to him, vexingly, but there was nothing left on his plate but a smear by the time he’d done.
A dedicat found him there, drooping over his place. “Lord Penric,” she said. “Learned Tigney begs you will attend upon him upstairs.”
She led him not to Tigney’s workroom, but to a larger chamber at the back of the house. Pen hesitated in the doorway, taking in the intimidating committee assembled around a long table. Tigney was present, and two older divines in the robes of the Bastard’s Order, but also one in the neat black gown of the Father’s, black and gray braid on the shoulder, with a notebook and quill before him. A bulky man whom Pen guessed by the chain of office around his neck was a city magistrate sat next to him. A middle-aged woman in a fine silk gown, protected by an over-robe of scarcely less elegant linen, tidied a stack of papers, and rearranged her own quills and ink. All stared back at Pen.
The saint had apparently gone back not to Idau, but to bed, for he sat fully dressed in plain townsman’s garb on a cushioned chair in the corner, eyes half closed as if dozing. Pen did not feel the god within him now, to his relief. The immense absence did not seem to leave an empty space, precisely, so much as one reserved, freed of all life’s clutter and waiting for its Guest again.
Tigney rose and ushered Pen to a chair at the foot of the table, facing the room’s window. He could see all the interested faces around the board, and they could see his even better.
“Learneds, Your Honor, milady.” That last, by Tigney’s respectful nod, was directed to the woman in silk. “I present to you Lord Penric kin Jurald of the valley of Greenwell, as discussed.” Tigney did not present Desdemona. Pen thought she was awake, within him, but still very silent; exhausted, cautious—a mode, he was beginning to realize, not characteristic of demons—still afraid of the saint?