A Draw of Kings

36

THE BAS-RELIEF





FOR FIVE DAYS they’d ridden as if the Merakhi army hunted them from just behind the next hill, but the wind that broke winter’s chill had carried no sound Adora could attribute to pursuit. Now the sun touched the horizon beneath a heavy cloud bank. Days of fitful sleep had left her eyes scratchy and dry in the light.

Waterson stiffened ahead of her and scented the air. “I smell the sea.”

They crested a hill and came in view of a large village.

“Tacita,” Adora said. Nothing moved over the village nestled in a broad arc of limestone that cupped the area in a protective hand, but a sensation of recognition nagged at her.

“Where do we begin?” Waterson asked.

The question slid past her, meant for her but without import. She knew this place. Rather, she felt as if she should know it. They dismounted, leaving the horses to graze and drink from a pond within the confines of the town. Adora walked past the buildings, the odd sense of familiarity growing within her. At a junction where a church rose opposite an inn, she turned without thinking, heading up an incline toward a large building, a mansion that overlooked the town.

Why did she know this place? A rock wall four feet high, assembled from the limestone that littered the fields, surrounded the manse. Weeds poked through cracks in the stones that paved a road toward the broad keep. Wide windows, huge targets for even a moderately skilled bowman, testified that the mansion’s origin hearkened to a time of peace. Darkness filled those openings even as memories of life and light pulled at her.

Despite the immense solidity of the estate, everything struck her as too small, as if viewed from the wrong angle. They ascended a flight of rough-hewn steps leading to wide doors framed with massive oak planks.

Rokha drew her sword, her mouth tight. “I thought I saw movement at one of the windows.”

Waterson grabbed the thick iron pull on the door and shoved. Hinges squalled in protest as the door swung open into the gloom. Heavy drops pattered, and thunder rumbled in the distance, heralding an approaching storm. “I’m not overly fond of invitations to ambush.”

Adora tried to reconcile the impressions in her head that conflicted with her vision. “I know this place.”

“You’ve been here before?” Rokha asked.

She had to nod. “But I can’t remember when. At the far end of the room beyond this door, there’s a fireplace large enough for me to stand in.”

Waterson pulled his sword. “If we’re lucky, we won’t be attacked in here.” He snorted. “Not that anyone who knows me would consider me lucky. You have a way of surrounding yourself with unfortunate men, Your Highness. You should consider moving in different circles.”

Adora smiled despite the sorrow Waterson’s banter woke in her. “I consider myself fortunate in my chance of companions, Lord Waterson.”

For the space of a pair of breaths, Waterson’s expression of self-mockery slipped from his eyes. The tightness around them relaxed, and Adora beheld the man he would have been had not circumstance betrayed him.

He bowed. “At your service, Your Highness.”

She drew her sword and nodded.

They entered the next room. Waterson chuckled and pointed to a fireplace when a lightning flash briefly illuminated the space. “Not quite big enough to stand in.”

“Not for an adult,” Rokha said.

Their words took on a sepulchral echo in the empty space. Bits of broken furniture lay strewn here and there, but no lanterns or even torch material remained. Waterson led the way, moving with each flash of lightning. Adora followed, and Rokha protected their rear. The rain came in earnest, the sound mimicking the roar of the distant ocean.

“No,” Adora said, obeying the impression of a memory. “Go left.”

They departed the hall and followed arched corridors toward the back of the building. Despite Rokha’s suspicion, nothing stirred inside, and no sound evidenced the presence of others. They arrived at a set of doors framed by large windows that led outside. Waterson pointed at the floor.

“Wait for the next flash.”

In the harsh blue-white light that flickered across her vision, Adora could see two sets of footprints leading outside.

Waterson grimaced. “They got here before us.”

“Impossible,” Rokha said. “It has to be someone else.”

Waterson gestured in the gloom. “As evidence goes, this is pretty hard to refute.”

Adora frowned. Something didn’t seem right. “No. They couldn’t have beaten us here; they couldn’t have known. I didn’t even know where we were going until we arrived.”

Waterson’s chest inflated before he sighed. “I hope you’re right, Your Highness.”

He opened the door onto a torrent. Garish brilliance showed a small stone church across a brief courtyard surrounded by a high stone wall. Waterson led the way at a run, stopping once they’d gained the protection of the overhanging roof.

“Do you remember this place, Your Highness?”

Adora nodded. She did, though the scale of the church seemed too small to fit her intuition. “I must have been a young child.”

“The church would have been for the nobles of the house and perhaps for their staff,” Waterson said. “I had one as well, though it was smaller than this.” He moved through an archway into the sanctuary. It might have held thirty or forty people. Lightning showed through a far window.

“There’s nothing here,” Rokha said.

“There’s nowhere else to go,” Waterson said. “Check the floor.”

They split up, their movements timed to the flashes of the storm. No footprints marred the dust of the floor. But when they returned to the narthex, they spotted tracks leading to an alcove with a dark-paneled door, nearly invisible against the aged wood paneling of the room.


It opened to reveal a set of stairs descending into the depths of the earth. Orange light glowed from a small torch set into a sconce on the wall. Waterson took it in hand, eyeing it as he might a viper. “It’s just been lit.”

More light glowed from beneath them. Adora’s heart hammered against her ribs.

The stairs ended in a large oval chamber completely walled in with heavy blocks of limestone. By torchlight Adora could see niches fronted by faces cut in bas-relief, sculptures of men or women pictured in the flower of their youth. Some were children.

“It’s a crypt,” Waterson said. “There must be generations here.”

“It is.” A figure limned in shadow moved in the darkness. “There are. Welcome home, Your Highness.”

Another silhouette, larger and armed with a sword, joined the first. “We despaired of your coming.”

Waterson lifted his torch, and the shadows fled to reveal two normal-sized people. Adora’s heart slowed from its frantic race. They stepped forward and knelt to her. “Be welcome in Patria, the seat of your father.”

She gaped.

Charlotte and Will, Oliver Turing’s assistants, gazed up at her, awaiting her command, their expectation plain.

She dipped her head. “Oliver Turing died before he could deliver his message. All he could tell me was that I needed to find my father.” She turned a slow circle, noting the number of tombs. “Why is he here? I always assumed he rested at Erinon.”

Her news of Oliver Turing struck them, and they touched their heads together, mourning, before Charlotte spoke. “The decision to hide your father’s body was made of desperation, Your Highness. The king and the church desired to erase his memory in case any of his sons survived.”

Adora stiffened. Sons. It had been years since anyone had dared to remind her of her father’s efforts to sire the future king. When it became clear Rodran would never produce an heir, the Judica had tasked Prince Jaclin with providing the scion Rodran could not. After the death of her mother, at Adora’s own birth, the Judica feared nefarious forces were at work, so they sent Jaclin to roam the countryside in hopes of hiding the heirs he produced. But the Merakhi assassins, the ghostwalkers, had found them all. Only the prince’s nickname, Randy Jac, had remained. She thrust the painful memories away. “Why would my uncle use a nuntius?”

“Because”—Charlotte smiled sadly—“he suspected something that he desperately wanted passed on, but the duke had him watched. Weir suspected the king of some secret knowledge.”

“So Oliver sent you here?” Adora asked. Realization flooded through her like sunlight. “This was one of my father’s estates. I played here as a child.”

Will brought an unlit torch forward, touched it to Waterson’s before moving to a niche hidden in the corner. “No one’s been allowed here in almost twenty years. The entire kingdom thought it abandoned, a belief the king encouraged. I think you’ll understand why.”

Charlotte came forward, touched her fingers to the bas-relief in front of her father’s tomb. “This is your father, Your Highness, as he looked some fifty years ago, when he was about your age.”

Gasps from Rokha and Waterson echoed her own. She knew him.



Martin Arwitten, leader of the faithful, first among equals within the hall of the Judica, sat speechless. He cudgeled his brain, berating himself as a fool and a coward for not speaking, for not offering the nobles who remained, chief among them Duke Escarion, the solace and comfort of the church.

He gazed around the room, forced his eyes to see past his dread and fear, gauging these men. The faces surely wore expressions that reflected his.

“We are undone,” Duke Batten said.

Several men nodded. One—Martin thought his name was Torin—filled a wine glass with careless movements, unheeding that it overflowed onto the polished wood of the table, and drained it. Bleary eyes testified to the number of times he’d made those same gestures already.

“We are not. Not while we have breath,” Martin said. Inside, he snorted at the inefficacy of his words.

“The gaps are failing,” Escarion said. To his credit, his tone did not accuse but rather informed, inviting strategy or suggestion. “Those possessed by a malus within the Merakhi army are able to control the spawn. We cannot stand against them. Our forces must retreat here to Escarion. We possess the high ground, Archbenefice, but the natural defenses here do not match those of the Arryth.”

Martin nodded. He wanted nothing more than to shut himself in his rooms and leave the fate of Illustra to Deas, but some remnant of hope or will refused to let him surrender. He was probably a fool.

The map before him showed Escarion’s lands. He traced the rivers to the south with a thick finger. “The spawn we encountered in Bellia succumbed to the water.” The nobles around him nodded in agreement, but their eyes betrayed their doubt. “And we must trust to Deas,” he added, but his thoughts accused him as a deceiver.

Torin snorted, his lips flapping in the pause. “Show me some sign of Deas’s favor.” He stood, looking around the room as if searching for some evidence of deliverance. The count shook his head, wavering on his feet in time to each blink. He gripped a bottle of wine in each hand and staggered away. Martin envied him the luxury of his retreat.

Duke Escarion stood, signaling an end to the meeting. “We’ll need sappers to take down the bridges.”

He left with the other nobles in his wake, leaving Martin to sit in the empty room. The fire at the far end, set to drive away the spring chill, made joyful cracking sounds, and the flames danced as if happy to provide warmth.

The deep cushions of the chair invited him to remain, but the failure of their forces to hold against the Merakhi horde placed requirements on him. Not many, true, but certain tasks must be completed. He rose, took his staff in hand, and made for the door. His page, Breun, stepped in beside him, his round face curious and a little frightened.

When Martin turned from the wing of the castle that housed both the conclave and the Judica, the lad missed a step.

“Are we not returning to your quarters, Archbenefice?”

Martin shook his head. “I need to see an old friend, Breun. Come, we’re going to drop in on Primus Sten.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.” Every line of the boy’s posture showed he longed to ask why. Martin hadn’t visited the primus since Sten had withdrawn from active participation in the conclave upon Canon’s death. Luis and Willem had split Enoch’s duties in his absence. The primus rarely left his rooms.

At the thought, a chill crept up one arm and down the other. Like Sarin, he thought. He waved his hand in the air as if he could physically brush the comparison aside. “I find myself in need of counsel, Breun.”

The eyes widened in wonder. “You, Archbenefice?”

Martin chuckled in spite of himself. “Me perhaps more than any other, lad. The higher you rise, the greater your need for advice.” He caught the boy’s gaze. “I hope you will remember that.”

“I will, Your Excellency.” His hair flopped in agreement with his earnest nod.

They ascended the steps of the south tower. At his knock, the door opened to reveal the head of the conclave. At seeing Martin, Sten bowed. “Please come in, Archbenefice.”

Martin bent in appreciation and stepped across the threshold. Sten had picked out his own room, a modest affair with a single window that faced south. A chair sat in front of it surrounded by the implements of Sten’s craft. “Thank you for seeing me, Primus.”


Sten noted Martin’s inspection. “I don’t really own that title anymore.” His thin shoulders lifted beneath the weight of his heavy blue reader’s cloak. “They’re coming, but the lots are misbehaving, preventing me from determining exactly when. Perhaps it is me. I find it difficult to concentrate on the present or the future. I keep replaying the past, altering it within my mind to see how the present would change.” He laughed. “We tried to prepare for this—the three of us, Rodran, Bertrand, and I—but the war didn’t come in time. We aged until we became three old men guarding their secrets.” He pointed out the window. “None of our machinations mattered in the end. Rodran couldn’t father a child, and all the children we got from Prince Jaclin were killed. We turned the prince out to stud to save the kingdom, and it didn’t help us at all.”

He gave Martin a sad little smile. “All we accomplished was to deprive the princess of her father. The royal line failed, the church failed, and then the conclave failed. Luis blames himself, but the cast didn’t work for me either.”

Martin leaned forward. This was why he had come. “I need those secrets, Primus.”

Sten’s smile grew sad. “You know them already.”

“Who is supposed to be king and savior of Illustra? One of you must have known.”

Sten shook his head. “At the end we didn’t even trust each other, not really. Bertrand and I saw how Rodran took to Liam, but the cast came up the same.” He tottered to the chair that faced the south-looking window and took his seat with trembling, searching hands. He spoke to Martin as he gazed out across the meadows. “I think Rodran might have been the wisest of us all. Not once did he ask to have the question cast. Whenever we broached the subject, he just smiled and looked at Liam.”