Duplais’ unwavering gaze scrutinized me as he might a treasure map.
“That man was not my father. I would know.”
But would I? Frightened, confused, and grieving as I was? After five years’ absence? With his being cloaked and masked, voice disguised by the thick patois? As I reviewed the scraps and snippets of his Norgandi phrases, I could detect a false perfection. No one, especially a man of common background as the masked man’s words bespoke, enunciated his own language without some local or regional variation. So he had learned the Norgandi language later and was better educated than he seemed. But Papa? I called it up again and listened.
“He was not my father. His voice’s timbre was all wrong. But neither was he a native speaker.”
“Good enough.” Duplais seemed surprised at my offering so much. “What was he after? If he’d a mind to abduct you, he would have clobbered me, dragged you off, and searched your baggage later. If he had wanted blood to leech, they would have taken both of us and to perdition with baggage. He was hunting something .”
The three of them waited. De Santo glaring. Duplais calculating. The black-cloaked man in the shadows listening.
“I’ve no idea.” I knelt on the soft earth and began to collect my belongings, brushing off the dirt and flattening what had been trampled before placing each item back into the satchel. The Norgandi had gotten off with my journal, Montclaire’s planting book, and my magnifying lens, but he had dropped the scissors and the other books. “Perhaps they were like you, sonjeur, digging where there is nothing.”
My lies glared like a temple dancer’s spangles. Duplais expelled a disbelieving epithet, and stomped into the wood to consult his shy friend.
Self-discipline rid me of the shakes and set my mind to work again. The marauders had been after a book. Lianelle’s own journal, perhaps? Or had she never returned the doubly encrypted Gautieri book? Considering their interest in the scissors and magnifier, I surmised they were also interested in anything Lianelle had made using the books. For certain they hunted the same thing as Duplais: spiniks . . . secrets.
CHAPTER 5
4 OCET, AFTERNOON
A s Duplais, my chaperone Margriet—an old friend of Captain de Santo—and I crested yet another scrubby hillock, journey’s end spread out before us. Beyond yellow-gold grass dotted with rust-colored poppies lay the broad bronze loops of the river Ley and the royal city of Merona, glowing this afternoon in a golden haze. Sketchy shapes of sails and barges clustered at the crescent harbor, whence Sabrian ships sailed into the unknown reaches of the world. Atop a modest bluff overlooking city and river sprawled shapely walls and towers of pale yellow stone—Castelle Escalon, where the kings of Sabria had held court for more than four hundred years.
I dreaded the place. Tens of thousands of people lived inside Merona’s walls.
My parents had assured me that my aversion to crowds was merely excessive shyness certain to be outgrown, like my belly-churning reaction to magic and my spring sneezing fits. So far I’d seen no relief from any of them. The few towns and villages on this journey had already left my ears itching and buzzing, as if a swarm of insects had been trapped inside my skull.
In contrast, Duplais’ spine visibly uncoiled as our path hairpinned down the hill toward the Caurean highroad. For three days the tight-wound librarian had pursued a convoluted route of game tracks, bridle paths, and roads little more than faint wagon ruts. We had spent our nights at deserted loggers’ cabins and a meager hostelry that had likely not hosted a customer since the Blood Wars. Captain de Santo and the black-cloaked man had never left us, lurking among the trees or behind hillocks. Indeed, we had traveled from Montclaire to the royal city without being abducted, slain, or even noticed—whichever the danger Duplais feared most.
None of this
“That man was not my father. I would know.”
But would I? Frightened, confused, and grieving as I was? After five years’ absence? With his being cloaked and masked, voice disguised by the thick patois? As I reviewed the scraps and snippets of his Norgandi phrases, I could detect a false perfection. No one, especially a man of common background as the masked man’s words bespoke, enunciated his own language without some local or regional variation. So he had learned the Norgandi language later and was better educated than he seemed. But Papa? I called it up again and listened.
“He was not my father. His voice’s timbre was all wrong. But neither was he a native speaker.”
“Good enough.” Duplais seemed surprised at my offering so much. “What was he after? If he’d a mind to abduct you, he would have clobbered me, dragged you off, and searched your baggage later. If he had wanted blood to leech, they would have taken both of us and to perdition with baggage. He was hunting something .”
The three of them waited. De Santo glaring. Duplais calculating. The black-cloaked man in the shadows listening.
“I’ve no idea.” I knelt on the soft earth and began to collect my belongings, brushing off the dirt and flattening what had been trampled before placing each item back into the satchel. The Norgandi had gotten off with my journal, Montclaire’s planting book, and my magnifying lens, but he had dropped the scissors and the other books. “Perhaps they were like you, sonjeur, digging where there is nothing.”
My lies glared like a temple dancer’s spangles. Duplais expelled a disbelieving epithet, and stomped into the wood to consult his shy friend.
Self-discipline rid me of the shakes and set my mind to work again. The marauders had been after a book. Lianelle’s own journal, perhaps? Or had she never returned the doubly encrypted Gautieri book? Considering their interest in the scissors and magnifier, I surmised they were also interested in anything Lianelle had made using the books. For certain they hunted the same thing as Duplais: spiniks . . . secrets.
CHAPTER 5
4 OCET, AFTERNOON
A s Duplais, my chaperone Margriet—an old friend of Captain de Santo—and I crested yet another scrubby hillock, journey’s end spread out before us. Beyond yellow-gold grass dotted with rust-colored poppies lay the broad bronze loops of the river Ley and the royal city of Merona, glowing this afternoon in a golden haze. Sketchy shapes of sails and barges clustered at the crescent harbor, whence Sabrian ships sailed into the unknown reaches of the world. Atop a modest bluff overlooking city and river sprawled shapely walls and towers of pale yellow stone—Castelle Escalon, where the kings of Sabria had held court for more than four hundred years.
I dreaded the place. Tens of thousands of people lived inside Merona’s walls.
My parents had assured me that my aversion to crowds was merely excessive shyness certain to be outgrown, like my belly-churning reaction to magic and my spring sneezing fits. So far I’d seen no relief from any of them. The few towns and villages on this journey had already left my ears itching and buzzing, as if a swarm of insects had been trapped inside my skull.
In contrast, Duplais’ spine visibly uncoiled as our path hairpinned down the hill toward the Caurean highroad. For three days the tight-wound librarian had pursued a convoluted route of game tracks, bridle paths, and roads little more than faint wagon ruts. We had spent our nights at deserted loggers’ cabins and a meager hostelry that had likely not hosted a customer since the Blood Wars. Captain de Santo and the black-cloaked man had never left us, lurking among the trees or behind hillocks. Indeed, we had traveled from Montclaire to the royal city without being abducted, slain, or even noticed—whichever the danger Duplais feared most.
None of this
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