“Do you want me to read something to you?”
“To yourself—but quietly! Come sit next to me. I already muddled it out, even without my spectacles, but I want to see if you read the same words.” Merolanna patted the bed.
Utta herself did not wear scents, not because the Sisterhood didn’t permit her to, but out of personal preference, and she found Merolanna’s sweet, powdery smell a little disconcerting, not to mention almost strong enough to make her sneeze. She composed herself with her hands on her lap and tried not to breathe too deeply.
“This!” Merolanna said, waving the piece of paper again. “I don’t know if I’m going mad, as I’m sure I already said. The whole world is topsy-turvy and has been for months! It almost feels like the end of the world.”
“Surely the gods will bring us through safely, my lady.”
“Perhaps, but they’re not doing much to help so far. Asleep, perhaps, or simply gone away.” Merolanna laughed, short and sharp. “Do I shock you?”
“No, Duchess. I cannot imagine a person who would never be angry at the gods or full of doubt in days like these. We have all—and especially you—lost too many that we love, and seen too many frightening things.”
“Exactly.” Merolanna hissed out a breath like someone who has waited a long time to hear such words. “Do I seem mad?”
“Not at all, my lady.”
“Then perhaps there is some explanation for this.” She handed Utta the piece of paper. It was a page of a letter, written in a careful and narrow hand, the letters set close as though the paper itself was precious and none of it was to be wasted.
Utta squinted. “It has no beginning or ending. Is there more?”
“There must be, but this is all I have. That is Olin’s handwriting—the king. I believe it must be the letter that came to Kendrick just before the poor boy was murdered.”
“And you wish me to read it?”
“In a moment. First you must understand why...why I doubt my senses. That page, that one page, simply...appeared in my room this morning.”
“Do you mean someone left it for you? Put it under your door?”
“No, that is not what I mean. I mean it...appeared. While I sat in the other room with my ladies and Eilis, talking about the morning’s service in the chapel.”
“Appeared while you were at the service?”
“No, while I sat in the other room! Gods, woman, I do not think so little of my own wit that I would believe myself mad because someone left me a letter. We came back from the service. It was the new priest, that peevish-looking fellow. As you know, the Tollys drove my dear Timoid away.” Her voice was as bitter as gall.
“I had heard he left the castle,” Utta said carefully. “I was sorry to hear he was going.”
“But all that doesn’t matter this moment. As I said, we came back from the service. I came here to take off my chapel clothes. There was no letter. You will think I am a foolish woman who simply did not notice, but I swear on all the gods, there was no letter. I went out into the parlor room and sat with the others and we talked of the service and what we would do this day. The fire burned down and I went to get a shawl, and the letter was lying in the middle of this bed.”
“And no one had come in?”
“None of us had even left the sitting room. Not once!”
Utta shook her head. “I do not know what to say. Shall I read it?”
“Please. It is eating away at me, wondering why such a thing was left here.”
Utta spread the piece of parchment on her lap and began to read aloud.
“...Men on Raven’s Gate are slack. It seems our strong old walls work their spell not only on enemies, but on our own soldiers as well. I do not know if the young captain whose name escapes me inherited this problem from Murroy and has not been able or willing to fix it yet, or whether his governance of the guards has been slack, but this must change. I warn you that we must keep our eyes open for enemies within our city as well as outside, and that means greater vigilance.
“I implore you also, tell Brone that I said the rocks beneath where the old and new walls meet outside the Tower of Summer must be examined and perhaps some other form of defense should be built there—an overhanging wall, perhaps, and another sentry post. That is the one place where someone might climb up from below and gain direct access to the Inner Keep. I know this must seem like untoward fretting to you, my son, but I fear the long peace is ending soon. I have heard whispers here in Hierosol that worry me, about the autarch and other things, and I was already fearful before I set off on this illstarred quest.
“While I speak of the Tower of Summer, let me tell you one other thing, and this is meant for your eyes alone. If you read this letter to Briony and Barrick, DO NOT read this part to them.
If a day should come when you know beyond doubt that I am dead, there is something you must see. It is in the SummerTower, in my library desk—a book, bound in plain dark cloth, with nothing written on its cover or binding. It is locked and the key may be found in a hidden cubby hole in the side of the desk, under the carved head of the Eddon wolf. But I beg of you, even order you so much as I am still your father and lord, do not touch it unless a time comes when you know as undeniable truth that I will not come back to you.
“That is all about that, or almost all. If you must share anything in that book with someone else, brave son, spare your brother and sister, and trust no one else but Shaso, who alone among my advisers has nothing to gain from treachery and everything to lose. For him, the fall of me or my heirs will mean exile, poverty, and perhaps even death, so I think he can be taken into your confidence, but only if you can see no way to shoulder the burden alone.
“Enough of this unhappy subject. I trust that I will still come back to you hale and well—Ludis wants bright gold in his hands, or at worst a living bride, but not a dead king. In the hours and days until then, please see that the castle is made safe. There are still too many places where we are vulnerable, and the slack methods of peacetime quickly become lasting regrets. Tell Brone also that the tunnels beneath the castle have not been surveyed in a hundred years, while the Funderlings have been burrowing like moles, and that there are so many holes in so many Southmarch basements that...”
“And there it ends,” said Utta. “Except that there is a curious addendum written in the side margin, in quite a different fist.”
“I could not make that out—read it to me,” demanded Merolanna.
The Zorian sister squinted for a moment, trying to make sense of it. It was in an archaic-looking script, much smaller and more clumsily done than the king’s writing, twisted so that it would fit into the letter’s narrow margins, but the ink seemed quite fresh and new.
“If ye desire to knowe more, we wold speake with you. Say only, YES, and we will heare ye, howsowever.”
Utta looked up at the duchess, perplexed. “I have no idea what that means.”
“Nor do I. Any of it. But if someone is listening, I will say it. Yes!” She almost shouted the word. “There. How is that for madness? I am talking to ghosts. It will not be the first time this cursed year.”
Utta ignored that, looking around the room, trying to spot anyplace that someone might hide and spy on them. The chamber had no windows, and since the duchess’ part of the residence was on the topmost floor, nothing lay above them but the roof. Could someone be up there, crouching beside the bedchamber’s small chimney, listening? But surely they would hear anyone moving about up there, or the guards would spot them.