“And these dead people? This talk of greffyns?”
Stephen shrugged. “Murderers who kill by poison? I don’t know, but there could be many explanations.”
“This from the fellow who only a few days ago argued for all manner of ghosts and ghoulies? Who flinched today when he thought Grim the Raver was come for him?”
“I argue from the knowledge of the church, from what the Alwalder allows as possible. The dead do have souls, and there are spirits in the world, creatures of light and darkness. All are accepted by the church, catalogued, named. Your Briar King is not.
“Greffyns—I can’t say. Possibly. The Skasloi and the warlock lords after them created all sorts of fell, unnatural creatures to serve them. Some of those might still exist, in the corners of the world. It’s not impossible.”
“And this business Sir Symen spoke of, the sacrifices at the seoth? I know the church builds fanes on them.”
“In the church we use the ancient term, sedos. They are the seats of the saints’ power on earth. By visiting the sedoi, priests commune with the saints and gather holiness to themselves, and so, yes, we build fanes on them to mark them, and to insure that those who visit them are in the proper frame of mind. But the church maintains fanes only on living sedoi, not on the dead ones.”
“What do you mean, dead?”
“A sedos is a spot where a saint left some of his power, some virtue of his essence. Over time, that fades. Once the sacredness has faded, the church ceases maintaining the fanes. Most of those in the King’s Forest are dead. But dead or alive, I’ve never heard of human sacrifice at a sedos—even among heretics. Not for centuries, anyway.”
“Wait. Then you have heard of it.”
“The blackest of the sorcerers in the Warlock Wars sacrificed victims to the nine Damned Saints. But this couldn’t have anything to do with that.”
Aspar stroked his chin. He glanced up. “Why not?”
“Because the end of the wars was the end of that. The church has kept careful watch for that sort of evil.”
“Ah.” Aspar took another swallow of mead and nodded. “Thank you, Cape Chavel Darige,” he said. “For once you’ve given me something to think about.”
“Really?”
“I’ve had a lot of mead.”
“Still, thank you for listening.”
The holter shrugged. “I’ve arranged for you to leave for d’Ef tomorrow.”
“I could stay a bit longer, go with you to this creek—”
The holter shook his head. “So I can see this meal come back up out of you when we find the corpses? No thank you. I’ll do well enough on my own.”
“I suppose you can,” Stephen flared, reaching for the mead jug. Somehow he miscalculated, however, and the next thing he knew it was spilling across the table, a honey flood.
“Anfalthy!” Aspar shouted. “Could you show this young fellow his bedchamber?”
“I’m not a child,” Stephen muttered. But the room had begun to spin, and he suddenly didn’t want to be anywhere near the arrogant holter, the morose knight, or any of the rest of these rustics.
“Come on, lad,” Anfalthy said, taking his hand.
Mutely he nodded and followed, the light and noise fading behind him.
“He’s right,” Stephen heard himself say. His faraway voice sounded angry.
“Who’s right?” Anfalthy asked.
“The holter. I’m no use wi’ arms an’ such. Blood makes me sick.”
“Aspar is a fine man, good at what he does,” Anfalthy said. “He is not a patient man.”
“Just wanted to help.”
Anfalthy led him into a room, where she used her candle to light another, already in a sconce on the wall. He sat heavily on the bed. Anfalthy stood over him for a moment, her broad, comforting face looking down at him.
“Aspar has too many ghosts following him already, lad. He wouldn’t want to add you to them. I think he likes you.”
“He hates me.”
“I doubt that,” she said softly. “There’s only one person in the world Aspar White hates, and it’s not you. Now go to sleep; tomorrow you’re off, yah?”
“Yes,” Stephen said.
“Then I’ll see you for breakfast.”
When Stephen rose the next morning, nursing a pounding head, Aspar White was already gone. Sir Symen supplied Stephen with two fresh horses and a young huntsman to be his guide, and wished him well. Anfalthy gave him a bundle of bread, cheese, and meat and kissed him on the cheek.
As his headache improved, so did Stephen’s mood. After all, in two days, he realized, he would finally be at d’Ef, where his work would start. Where his knowledge would be appreciated, valued, rewarded. The scriftorium at d’Ef was one of the most complete in the world, and he would have access to it!
The eagerness he had felt when he started from Cape Chavel more than a month ago began to return. Bandits, kidnapping, and a crude holter had overshadowed it, but he figured he had had his run of trouble. What more could happen?
8
Black Roses
Anne felt a feathery trembling in her belly and goosebumps on her flesh, even though the night wind came from the sea—warm, heavy, wet, and salty. The air seemed to sag with the need to rain, and the moon came and went fitfully in the cloud-bruised sky. Around her, neat rows of apple trees swayed and rustled in the wind.
On the wall of the keep above, she could hear two guards talking, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
She felt faintly dizzy, a slight vertigo that had come and gone in the month since she had visited Eslen-of-Shadows. She stepped under one of the trees and leaned against the trunk, her head swimming with the scent of the blossoms. She lifted the scrap of paper that the stablehand had passed to her when she had put up Faster.
Meet me in the orchard by the west gate at tenth bell.
“You work fast, Virgenya,” she whispered.
Though Fastia seemed unaffected by her request to Saint Cer.
It was surely tenth bell by now. Had they forgotten to ring it?
She shouldn’t be doing this. What if he didn’t come, anyway?
What if he came, and it was just a cruel joke, something to laugh about with the other knights and the stablehands? Silly. What did she know about this fellow?
Nothing.
She brushed nervously at her dress of Vitellian brocade, feeling sillier by the instant.
The hairs on her neck suddenly pricked up. A shaft of the inconstant moonlight cast the silhouette of something big and dark moving through the branches of the apple tree nearest her.
“She is like a dream, like a mist, like the phay dancers seen only from the corner of the eye in the woodland glade,” a voice whispered.
“Roderick?”
She jumped as the tenth bell began to chime, high up in the August Tower, and jumped again when the long shadow dropped from the tree and landed with a soft thump.
“At your service.” The shadow bowed.
“You startled me,” Anne said. “Were you a thief before you became a knight?” she asked. “Certainly you aren’t a poet.”
“That wounds, Princess.”
“Go to a physician or a rinn witch, then. What do you want, Roderick?”
He moved into the moonlight. His eyes were shades in an ivory carving. “I wanted to see you in something other than riding dress.”
“You said you had seen me in court.”
“True. But you look lovelier now.”
“Because it’s darker?”
“No. Because I’ve met you now. It makes all the difference.”
“I suppose you want to kiss me again.”
“No, not at all. I want you to kiss me.”