Chapter Twelve #2
“Oh, yes,” said Roland proudly. “If a man and a woman are out walking together, I know if they’re husband and wife or something else. Father and daughter. Brother and sister. Mama says it’s mighty useful—”
A sudden, terrible scream. Both Roland and the stranger twisted toward the boarded-up windows of the second floor.
Roland raced up the staircase, only vaguely aware that the stranger was right behind him.
All he could hear was the ringing in his ears, the “not again, not again” of his heart, the fear in that familiar, high-pitched scream.
This was his fault—he had read the client’s mind, he didn’t see—
“Mama!” he cried.
His mother was in the hall, caved over herself, clutching her stomach. Her smile was hazy and unfocused as her client’s hand reared over her.
Roland snapped the bond he’d forged between them, and his mother fell over.
Then I was wrenched from his mind so suddenly, I gasped. The wide river returned, stacks of town houses now lining both banks.
“We’ll dock here,” Roland said, pointing to a stone wall. For a moment, I saw the boy he’d been, so eager to be loved, flinging his wooden ball up in the air and impatiently waiting to catch it.
“What happened then?” I asked him.
“Prospero offered her more than a hundred crowns to bring me to court as his apprentice,” said Roland dully.
“Enough for her to become madame herself. He told her, as I’m sure he told you, that he wouldn’t take just any child.
He was the most powerful magician in the kingdom, and so he would only train those with immense promise.
That would have convinced her if the money hadn’t already done so.
If I was special, that meant she was, too.
I’ve seen her only twice since. She doesn’t know I serve the king. ”
“She didn’t want a new life?”
He frowned as our boat bumped against the stone. “Some people only want what they’ve always known.” He gripped the rail for balance and leapt gracefully onto the wall, adjusting his hair and cloak as soon as he’d landed. In his hands was a rope that tied to a rusted nail.
When his knot was secure, he extended his palm to help me down. I told him how sorry I was then. How truly sorry.
His thumb skimmed across mine. “Yes, well, Prospero took me in, and after that, and after what I learned in Lionesse, I swore to never manipulate desire again.”
“I assumed the reason was that someone had betrayed your affections.”
He laughed bitterly. “Well, she did.”
His mother, he meant.
The inn where Oliver was staying reminded me of my birth father’s.
A place for crooked dealings, far from well-trodden paths.
Roland indicated a table in the corner, where a group of men tossed down cards and coin.
They were angry and lusty and bored—a dangerous soup in men.
“I’ll have to play your husband tonight,” Roland said. “You’re unchaperoned.”
He caught the attention of a pretty barmaid, the shadows cast by his cloak accentuating the dramatic cuts of his features.
“For my wife.” He pressed his lips together after he said it, then nodded to me. Coin exchanged hands.
She only spared me a brief glance, reminding me of Bess. She too had a sharp mind but a soft face.
We were led to our table as a fight broke out over the card game.
Roland leaned his head back against the booth, looking for all the world as if he was above such a petty dispute, and the maid returned minutes later with two cups of ale.
Narrowed eyes matched the suspicion in her head: She had finally noticed the wisps of white hair beneath my cloak.
Roland asked her if she needed something. His wife, he said then, was very tired. She shook her head vigorously, spilling on herself as she backed away.
Slowly, he turned his head, eyes like struck matches. “So, where is the book? Can I guess now? Is it there?” Using his eyes, he pointed to my lap.
I shook my head.
He flicked them up to my bodice. A flush burnt up my neck.
“Aren’t you going to tell me?” He lazed an arm over the ridge of the booth. “I thought I was your lord husband tonight.”
I snorted. “If you really were my husband, you’d take many lovers, and I’d be left all alone.”
I had only meant to tease him. But his brow knitted instead. “Whatever makes you think I would ever—” He cut himself off, reaching for his ale. He was unhappy after that, grinding his teeth with his arms crossed, then tossing back his drink. A red front of frustration pressed through his mind.
Just then, Oliver slid into the booth, his eyes jumping from my face to Roland’s. “Had a little quarrel, have we?”
“Not at all,” I said at the same time Roland muttered, “No.”
Oliver’s smile widened. “Let us hasten this a bit.” He turned to me. “Roland says you always see the worst in him, and it irritates him to no end.” To Roland: “Bianca says you are needlessly emotional and quick to anger. Now, we have much to discuss. Blood ciphers and whatnot.”
“Which is why we must be very careful,” warned Roland.
“Cover your hair, please.” With a sigh, Oliver snapped his frayed, moth-bitten cloak over his head.
There was a desperate edge to him I hadn’t noticed the night before; something I recognized, because it was in me, too, and in Roland, in all of us who climbed through the world with gritted teeth.
Now that he’d proved himself in the tournament, his circumstances would surely change.
Roland’s nails drummed against the table. We avoided each other’s eyes as I reached into my bodice and slid Eleanor’s book toward Oliver. “This contained the blood cipher that nearly killed us.”
A click of Oliver’s tongue. “No. I require an oath before we begin. Can’t be too careful.”
“I’m lord chancellor,” Roland said. “You can trust my word—the king’s word.”
“You must have been at court so long, you’ve forgotten how feeble the king’s word has become.
There are so many ways to commit treason, one might find themselves doing so accidentally.
You could trip onto the executioner’s block, they say.
This tournament proved it.” Oliver smiled with no teeth, and Roland fiddled with his rings, jaw flexing.
“Fine. Get on with it.” He removed his signet ring and set it on the table. “I swear that what is spoken or exchanged between us tonight will not be repeated or pass into the hands of others.”
Oliver swore. So did I. Silver glyphs scattered in the air, our tongues scalded as Oliver sealed the oath.
“Good,” said Oliver. “Now for payment.”
Roland offered to tell him what a lover truly felt about him, to straighten his teeth or erase a scar, but he closed his mouth as Oliver’s attention wandered to me.
“Not an option,” said Roland. “But I’m in a generous mood. I’ll give you anything else.”
“Don’t be so careless with your words, Lord Chancellor. I might bind you to them.” Oliver leaned back in his seat. “Bianca,” he said softly. “Bianca, Bianca, Bianca.”
“I said—” Roland cut in, but Oliver held up a hand. Roland pressed on anyway. “Whose memory are you after?”
With his chin, Oliver pointed at me. “Hers. Then I’ll decipher your little book for you. There’s no harm intended, Lord Chancellor. I swear it.”
Roland and I shared a glance. I want to do this for him, I insisted. Oliver had saved us. We were in his debt, and I would have handed over more than a memory in order to repay it. Roland eventually sighed, staring at Oliver down his nose. Their gazes, whipped-out blades.
“Come now, that wasn’t difficult, was it?” Oliver reached over the table, clapped Roland’s shoulder, then turned to me. “Ready, love?”
A low scoff from Roland.
“What would you like to see?” I asked Oliver.
“The moment of Ambrose’s death. Pay particular attention to the music, please.”
I swept him into my memory. The wooden turrets and the swans. The pluck of Fulke’s lute as Roland and I danced. His fingers tightening around my waist— When Oliver smirked, I shifted my focus. The music, so discordant with the sudden crash of Ambrose’s body to the ground.
The scene lurched suddenly, as if someone had tugged on it like cloth. Oliver wanted to show me something in his own mind now.
He was composing music in a chapel, wiping loose charcoal onto his brow.
Then, a chill morning. A bed. Somebody lay beside him, flipped onto their stomach.
He mumbled something in his sleep. Oliver hesitated, then shook him.
The man yawned, kissing Oliver’s hand, muttering, “What time is it?” Eyes the color of the twilight sky, tresses sapphire blue.
Jasper, Fulke Roet’s magician. He blinked at the sun and swore, leaping from bed and gathering up his clothes.
“Don’t forget,” called Oliver. He gestured to a sheet of parchment resting in the corner of the room, pinned beneath a glass bottle. A strand of music notes, rendered in a careful hand.
Jasper snatched the parchment and shot Oliver a crooked smile. “Until next time, Mercury.”
“It was your cipher that killed Ambrose,” I breathed.
“I didn’t know,” Oliver said. “Not until you mentioned Fulke was playing music when Ambrose died. I sold that composition many years ago to Jasper and Fulke. It was a way for them to communicate in crowded rooms. When Fulke played it, Jasper knew he was to assassinate Fulke’s enemies.
He will have expanded one of Ambrose’s organs until it burst—his spleen, his heart, who knows. A horrible, painful death.”
“And Jasper was your lover.”
Roland swept a crumb off the table. “Keep up, Bianca. Ambrose was, too. You know, I heard that when Alice Seton, the king’s mistress, was locked in the Archimago Tomb for treason, her family used a similar way to communicate with her.
A man would stand in the woods just outside the Tomb’s boundary and sing.
It sounded nonsensical to most listeners.
But when she heard it in her cell, it meant the king might still change his mind.
On the day she was executed, the man was silent, and she knew she would die. You were the composer?”