This morning, word had gone like quicksilver through the halls of the dormitory leveclass="underline" they were all wanted in the chapel at nine this evening. No one knew what it was about, but the Holy Father required every priest in the Arvath to be there. Such a gathering was unlike Cardinal Anders, who always worked in the shadows, meeting one-on-one so that no one else knew his plans. Tyler sensed something terrible on the horizon. It was eight thirty.
“I know that you know, priest.”
Tyler jumped to his feet, knocking over the candle. He turned, and the Mace was there, leaning against the wall beside his bookshelves.
“You know that I can’t read.”
Tyler stared at him, speechless and frightened. He had known that he was treading on thin ice the other day, jumping into the Queen’s conversation, but he had been unable to watch the Mace wriggle there, like a hooked fish. And Tyler’s move had worked, for the Queen had forgotten about the note. It was only when Tyler met the Mace’s gaze afterward that he saw fire, hell, murder.
“How did you find out?” the Mace asked.
“I guessed.”
“Who have you told?”
“No one.”
The Mace straightened, and Tyler closed his eyes, trying to pray. The Mace would kill him, and Tyler’s last, odd thought was that the man had done him a great honor by coming in person.
“I want you to teach me.”
Tyler’s eyes popped open. “Teach you what?”
“How to read.”
Tyler glanced at the closed door of his room. “How did you get in here?”
“There’s always another door.”
Before Tyler could consider this idea, the Mace darted forward, catlike and silent. Tyler tensed, pressing backward against his chair, but the Mace only grabbed the other chair from beside the bookshelves, placed it facing Tyler, and sat down, his expression truculent.
“Will you teach me?”
Tyler wondered what would happen if he refused. The Mace had not come here to kill him, perhaps, but that could always change. The Mace had joined Queen Elyssa’s Guard at the age of fourteen, and now he was at least forty years old. Illiteracy was a difficult thing for anyone to hide, but it must have been nearly impossible for a Queen’s Guard. Still, the Mace had gotten away with it all of these years.
Tyler glanced down and saw something extraordinary: the Mace’s hand, resting on the arm of the chair, was trembling, a slight flutter that was almost imperceptible. As unbelievable as the idea seemed, Tyler realized that the Mace was afraid.
Of me?
Of course not, you old fool.
Then of what?
After another moment’s thought, he knew. The Mace couldn’t bear to ask for help, not from anyone. Tyler stared, marveling, at the terrifying man sitting across from him—the courage it must have taken him to come here!—and before he knew it, the words were out.
“I’ll teach you.”
“Good.” The Mace leaned forward, businesslike. “Let’s start now.”
“I can’t,” Tyler told him, lifting apologetic hands as the Mace’s expression darkened. “All of us are supposed to attend a meeting in the chapel at nine o’clock.” He checked his watch. It was a quarter to nine. “In fact, I should go now.”
“A meeting about what?”
“I don’t know. The Holy Father demands the presence of every priest in the Arvath.”
“Have there been many of these meetings?”
“This is the only one.”
The Mace’s eyes narrowed.
“Come back tomorrow, just after supper. Seven o’clock. We can start then.”
The Mace nodded. “Which chapel is this meeting in? The main, or the Holy Father’s private?”
“The main,” Tyler replied, raising his eyebrows. “You know the Arvath very well.”
“Of course I do.” A hint of contempt crept into the Mace’s voice. “It’s my business to know of danger to my mistress.”
“What does that mean?”
The Mace went to Tyler’s clothes rack and pulled a robe from its hook. “You are not a stupid man, priest. Pope and kings make poor bedfellows.”
Tyler thought of the new appointees to the accounting office, men who looked more like criminal enforcers than priests of the Arvath. “I’m only a bookkeeper.”
“Not anymore.” The Mace put on his weekend robe. Priests’ robes were meant to fit loosely, but the material hung tight on the Mace’s huge frame. “You’re the Keep Priest, Father. You can’t avoid picking a side forever.”
Tyler stared at him, unable to reply, as the Mace ran his hand over the wall beside Tyler’s desk. His hand stilled, then pressed hard, and Tyler’s mouth dropped open as a door swung inward, a door whose edges had been cleverly concealed by the uneven mortar of the wall. The Mace stepped into the darkness, then leaned back into Tyler’s room, a twinkle of humor in his dark eyes.
“Seven o’clock tomorrow, Father. I will be here.”
A moment later, there was nothing facing Tyler but a blank stone wall.
The bell for convocation rang, and he jumped; he was going to be late. He grabbed one of his chapel robes and threw it over his head as he hurried down the hallway. The arthritis in his hip began clamoring, but Tyler ignored it, pushing himself harder. If he entered late, word would surely get back to the Holy Father.
Hurrying through the door of the chapel, Tyler found his brother priests already assembled in long, straight rows on either side of the central aisle. Up on the dais, the Holy Father stood behind the podium, his sharp eyes seeming to burn through Tyler as he stood frozen in the doorway.
“Ty.”
He looked down and saw that Wyde, sitting on the end of the last bench, had scooted over to make a space. Tyler gave him a grateful look as he squeezed in, bowing his head respectfully. But his unease persisted. The sight of Anders in the white robes was still a shock to Tyler; to him—and no doubt, many of the older priests—the Holy Father was, and always would be, the old, shrunken man who now lay entombed beneath the Arvath. Tyler didn’t grieve the old Holy Father, but he couldn’t deny that the man had left his mark on the place; he’d sat in the seat for too long.
Anders held up his hands for silence, and the shuffling stopped. The room was as still as stone.
“Brothers, we are not clean.”
Tyler looked up sharply. Anders gazed across the room with a benevolent smile, a smile that suited a Holy Father, but his eyes were deep and dark, filled with a righ teous fury that made Tyler’s stomach tighten with anxiety.
“Disease begins with contagion. God has demanded that we root out the contagion and eradicate the disease. My predecessor tolerated it, turning a blind eye. I will not.”
Tyler and Wyde stared at each other, bewildered. The old Holy Father had tolerated many vices, certainly, but they seemed like the sort of vices that wouldn’t bother Anders at all. Anders kept two private servants, young women who had been turned over to the Arvath by their families in lieu of the tithe. When Anders had moved into the Holy Father’s lavish apartments in the pinnacle of the Arvath, the women had followed, even though the new residence came equipped with an army of acolytes ready to serve the Holy Father’s every whim. Anders might call his women servants, but everyone knew what they were. The new Holy Father was no stranger to vice, but now, as he turned and gestured to someone behind the dais, light glinted off the tiny golden hammer pinned to his white robes, and Tyler froze in sudden comprehension.
Two of the Holy Father’s aides emerged from the hallway behind the dais. Between them was Father Seth.
Tyler bit back a groan. Seth and Tyler had received their ordinations in the same year, but Tyler hadn’t seen him in a long time. Ever since Seth had been given his own parish in Burnham, out in the southern Reddick, he rarely visited the Arvath. He was a good man and a good priest, so no one ever spoke of it, but all the same, everyone knew about Seth. Even back when they were all novices, Seth had always liked men. Due to Tyler’s position as a bookkeeper, he knew that Father Seth kept a companion out in the Reddick, a man far too old to be a clerical aide, although Seth’s records listed him as such. When the clerical aide had appeared, Seth’s board expenditures had increased significantly, but Tyler had never called attention to this; priests and cardinals all over the Tear kept questionable companions and paid for them with the same contortionist’s accounting. But Seth’s aide was the wrong gender, and Anders must have found out.