He answered her knock with a look of vast surprise.
“Majesty,” he said. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“Sir Moris,” Muriele began, “I have not treated you and your men well, these past months.”
“If you say so, Majesty,” he replied, sounding uncertain.
“That being said, I must ask you to bear a few direct and impertinent questions.”
“I will answer any question Her Majesty puts to me,” the knight assured her.
“Are the Craftsmen faithful to me and my son Charles?”
Moris stiffened. “We are faithful to Charles as king and to you as his mother,” he replied.
“And do you recognize any other claim to the throne?”
Moris’ frown deepened. “Princess Anne has a claim, but she is not, to my knowledge, present.”
“You have heard that Prince Robert has returned?”
“There is a rumor to that effect,” Moris said.
“What if I were to tell you that I think he slew my husband and the Craftsmen and Royal Horse who rode with him to the headland of Aenah?”
“I would call that a reasonable supposition, Majesty. And if you’re asking if I would follow Prince Robert, the answer is no.”
“And you trust your men?”
He hesitated. “Most of them,” he finally admitted.
“Then I lay this geis on you, Sir Moris, and on your men. I want you to leave this castle and this city, even if you must fight your way out.”
His eyes rounded like regaturs. “Majesty? We will stand by you.”
“If you do, you will die. I need you alive, outside of the castle, outside of Eslen, where you can find the support you need to enforce my justice. I want you to take Hound Hat, and I want you to dress one of your men in a heavy cloak and hood, so that it appears you have Charles with you.”
“But the king, Majesty—”
“Is still the king. He will be safe, I assure you.”
Moris absorbed that for several breaths. “Do you want us to leave now, Majesty?”
“Now and as quietly as possible. I want no blood spilled unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
He bowed. “By your command, lady. Saints be with you.”
“And with you, sir,” she replied.
She returned to her quarters, thinking that at least now she would know—once and for all—if the Craftsmen could indeed be trusted. Actions proved better than words.
She put on her circlet, collected the two escorts Fail had left her, and went to court.
3
Swordsman, Priest, and Crown
When Stephen broke the praifec’s seal, he knew he had severed himself from the Church. The seal was sacrosanct, to be opened only by the intended recipient. Punishment for a novice or priest who broke that sacred trust began with expulsion from holy orders. After that, they were subject to temporal punishment—which could be anything from a whipping to death by drowning.
But to Stephen, that was nothing. For the Church to prosecute him for the crime, they would have to know he had committed it, and if he wished to hide that from them, he probably could. No, the reason he broke the seal was because he knew in his heart the rot he’d found in the monastery d’Ef wasn’t just a bad spot on a pear—the whole fruit was rotten, through and through, along with the tree it grew on.
If the fathers of the Church were behind the waking of the Damned Saints, the implications were staggering. And if the Church itself was corrupt, he wanted no part of it—or, rather, no part larger than the one he had already played. He would serve the saints in his own way.
“Stephen?” Winna asked. “What does it say?”
He realized he’d been staring past the inked characters without reading them. He tried to clear his mind and concentrate.
Strange, he thought. Besides the signature and a verse that looked like Vadhüan, the letter was gibberish.
“Ah. It’s some sort of encryption,” he told them. “A cypher.”
“A knot of words you can’t untie?” Aspar said. “I doubt that.”
Stephen nodded, concentrating. “Given time, I could read it. It’s based on Church Vitellian, and an older liturgical language called Jhehdykhadh. But written as it is, it doesn’t mean anything. There is this verse here, though . . .” He trailed off, studying it. It was Old Vadhüan, or some closely related dialect.
“There’s a canitu here,” he said, “in the language of the Warlock Lords, a canitu subocaum—ah, an ‘incantation to invoke.’”
“Invoke whom?” Leshya asked.
“Khrwbh Khrwkh,” he replied, shaking his head. “I’ve never heard of it, whatever that is. But not all the Damned Saints are commonly known. Actually, it sounds more like a place than a person—it means something like ‘bent mound.’”
“Could it refer to a sedos?” Leshya asked.
“Easily,” Stephen replied. “And given what we’ve seen so far, that makes the most sense. It’s just that they’ve prefixed the name with dhy, which usually indicates that the name following will be that of a saint. It’s quite puzzling.”
“In any event,” Leshya said, “it’s pointless to go back to Eslen to alert your praifec, since it seems perfectly clear he’s well aware of what’s going on out here.”
“Well, I’m not clear on it,” Aspar said.
“Neither am I,” Leshya shot back, “but we know now that the Church is waking an old faneway, and it seems just as certain that it’s not a good idea to let them finish it.”
“They may have finished it,” Aspar said.
“I don’t think so,” Stephen said. “I believe these are the instructions for the consecration of this Khrwbh Khrwkh, whatever exactly it might be. And the canitu appears to be part of a longer piece—or more specifically, the end of a longer piece.”
“You’re saying that we have what they need to finish it.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Listen, I’ll try to translate for you.” He cleared his throat.
There was a moment of silence, and then Aspar grunted. “A drinking song it’s not.”
“I’m not sure about all of it,” Stephen admitted. “That bit about swordsman, priest, and crown, for instance. The words here are Pir Khabh, dhervhidh, and Thykher. The first is very particular, a man who fights with a sword. Dhervhidh means ‘someone who has walked a faneway,’ but not necessarily in orders. The third, Thykher, could be anyone of noble blood or it might mean a king specifically. Without better resources, better reference materials, I’ve no way of knowing for sure.”
“What was that about ‘deathless’?” Winna asked.
“Mhwrmakhy,” Stephen said. “It really means ‘servant of the Mhwr,’ another name for the Black Jester, but they were also called ‘anmhyry’ or ‘deathless.’ We don’t know much about them except that they don’t exist anymore.”
“Didn’t exist anymore, you mean,” Leshya said. “That used to be true of a lot of things.”
“Granted,” Stephen agreed, a little diffidently. Something was gnawing at him about the list of “flowing froms.”
Aspar noticed his inattention. “What is it?” he asked.