Tigney sat to Pen’s left; the magistrate straightened up and frowned down the table. “This committee is here assembled to inquire into the unfortunate events of last night,” he said, formally. If he’d been trained as a lawyer, Pen suspected he could parse more implications out of that. Not a trial, yet—inquest, was that the term? The magistrate went on, “We have thus far taken the testimony of Learned Tigney and Blessed Broylin of Idau, and the testimony and confession of Dedicat Clee.”
“Did Clee finally stop lying?” Pen asked Tigney.
“Mostly,” Tigney grunted. “We think.”
In his corner, the saint snorted softly, but did not look up.
“There remain some points of confusion and uncertainty,” the magistrate went on. Pen did not doubt it. “In aid of their resolution, we request that you take oath before the gods of the truth of your tongue, and recount what you experienced for our records.”
Pen gulped, but, coached through the wording by the Father’s divine, readily did so. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to lie about anyway. Maybe he was still too tired.
Under the prodding of the magistrate, Pen repeated his account of the events of the past day, in a deal more detail than his first bald report to Tigney. Quills scratched furiously. Every once in a while, another member of the committee would ask some shrewd or uncomfortable question, by which Pen began to grasp what a gullible idiot he had been. Remembered terror and outrage yielded to some embarrassment.
At least he was not alone in that last. The magistrate asked Tigney, “Why did you choose to lodge Lord Penric in Dedicat Clee’s room? Was there no other choice?”
Tigney cleared his throat. “No, but Clee was, I thought, my trusted assistant. The two were of a like age. I thought Clee might keep an eye on his doings, maybe draw him out and find any falsehoods in his tale. And report to me.”
Pen’s eyebrows scrunched. “You set him to spy on me?”
“It seemed prudent. Your story was . . . unusual. And as you yourself have found, some men will do questionable things in hopes of gaining a sorcerer’s powers.”
Pen thought throat-cutting went a bit beyond questionable, but Father’s divine looked up from his note-taking and asked, “If Dedicat Clee had not been placed so close to temptation, do you think he might not have generated his scheme in the first place?”
Tigney shrank in his seat. After a long pause, he muttered, “I do not know. Maybe not.”
The woman in silk and linen pursed her lips, her own busy quill pausing. “In all your observations last night, Lord Penric, was there anything to tell you which of the brothers first originated the plan?”
“I’m . . . not sure,” said Pen. “Up till the castle caught fire, they seemed very united and, um, loyal to each other. Lord Rusillin seemed more willing to abandon the hunt at that point, but then, he thought I was about to drown in the lake. In his, er,”—not defense—“so did I.” Pen blinked. “Is there any word from Castle Martenden today? I mean, apart from Clee. I couldn’t tell if he’d come back because his brother had thrown him out, or to prepare some ground on Rusillin’s behalf.” If the latter, he had certainly failed. Mucked it up beyond all repair, possibly. Pen could hope.
“That will be another point to clarify,” the woman murmured, her quill scratching again. “Or maybe not.” A slight, strange smile turned her lips. “Dedicat Clee claims the notion was his brother’s, over a dinner with too much wine.”
“But then, he would,” observed one of the other senior divines. By her slight frown, the woman did not seem to find this helpful.
“Will Lord Rusillin be arrested, too, like his brother?”
“We are looking into the practicalities of that,” said the woman.
Unlike Clee, Lord Rusillin, ensconced in... whatever was left of his stronghold, had his own armed men, which must certainly make the task more challenging to a town constable. Pen didn’t get the idea this disturbed her as much as it did him.
The committee ran out of questions as Pen ran out of answers, and, sucked dry, he was released.
Tigney escorted him out. “I have many urgent things to attend to as a result of all this,” he said, waving a hand about a bit randomly, if appropriately. “I should be grateful if you would keep to your room a while longer, Lord Penric. Or at least to this house.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“That’s one of the things I must attend to.” Tigney sighed, and Pen wondered if he’d had the benefit of a nap this morning. Probably not. “Apparently, you are meant to keep your demon. You might even have been intended to get your demon.” He looked troubled by this thought, not without cause. “Blessed Broylin either would not or could not say.”
Emboldened, Pen said, “If I am to stay in, can I have Ruchia’s book back? And the run of the library?”
Tigney began to make his usual negative noises. Pen added, “Because if I don’t have anything to read, and can’t leave the house, I will have no way to pass the time except to experiment with my new powers.”
Tigney grimaced like a man chewing on an unripe quince, but shortly thereafter Pen, grinning, climbed back to his room with the book clutched firmly in his hand.
He was back reading in the library the next morning when Tigney himself came to find him.
“Lord Penric. Please dress yourself”—Tigney looked him over—“as best you can, and make ready to accompany me up the hill. Our presence is requested.”
“Up the hill?” said Penric, confused. Some local argot?
“At the palace,” Tigney clarified, confirming Pen’s guess and alarming him no little bit.
He hurried through a better wash from his basin, combed and retied his hair with the blue ribbon, and skinned into the least dire selection of clothing left in his pile. Shortly after, he found himself climbing up the steep street in Tigney’s wake. The divine, typically, did not say much. Pen supposed he would learn all for himself, firsthand, and gritted his teeth in patience.
The palace, with all its offices, was a rambling structure of rose-colored stone extending over three buildings behind the temple. It was no fortress like grim Castle Martenden; if the city walls did not hold, its own would not slow a determined attack for long. Its upper facades were rich with windows. They were admitted to a side entrance, where a servant in the livery of the princess-and-archdivine escorted them up two flights not to a throne room, but to a workroom reminiscent of Tigney’s, though several times larger. On the lake side, four tall doors set with glass admitted good light, and allowed the exit of occupants onto a narrow balcony. Writing tables and chairs were positioned to catch the best illumination. Several scribes were at work, who looked up curiously as they arrived, then bent their heads again to their quills.
Pen was not too surprised when the silk-and-linen-clad woman from yesterday’s inquest rose to receive them from the servant at the door. “Five gods give you good day, Lord Penric, Learned. This way, if you please.”
First, Penric was made to sit down and read through a long copy of his deposition from yesterday, sign it, and have his signature countersigned by Tigney and the woman, whom he finally learned thereby was the princess-archdivine’s own secretary. This was repeated for two more clear copies—some palace scribe had been busy last night. It all seemed tolerably accurate and complete, from a certain point of view.
Then he was taken to the end of the room, where another aging woman sat at a desk apart, reading through a stack of papers. Her gray hair was more finely dressed, her silks more elaborate than the secretary’s—though Pen was beginning to get the idea that silks were to this palace as cheeses were to Greenwell, locally abundant to the point of surfeit. Time-softened skin, slight body, yet somehow secure within herself—he didn’t need Tigney to knock him on the back of the head in order to bow low when he was presented.