Chapter VI #3
“Tyrus, god of war,” he began, because it was so often Tyrus whom tradition required him to invoke. “A son of yours steps forward now, a child of blood and blade and flame.”
“Priest,” a faint voice said from below the altar rise. “I should like a word.”
Annoyance flared up in the Priest. He’d thought himself alone—had gone so far as to recall and commission Beneson to keep watch over the single publicly traveled corridor that led to the cavern sanctuary.
It was the first time the boy had ever failed him, and worry followed hard on the heels of irritation.
“Does this word warrant interrupting me at my duties?” the Priest asked, his voice harsh.
“You may be the judge of that.”
The speaker drew closer, ascending the stone platform and coming so near that the Priest was confronted by the smell of him—sweat and refuse and the sickly sweet scent of jessim, a powdered tree sap many in the court used as a stimulant.
The temperature rose ever so slightly, too, as the unwanted visitor set a torch into the altar bracket.
“Name your request,” the Priest said. “I’ll add it to my list of petitions to bring before the gods, though it may take a week or two for me to reach yours. Ours is a greedy, unsatisfied clan.”
“Yes,” the speaker said. “I’m aware of those traits. I possess them myself, in good measure.”
“Admirable.” There was nothing of either approval or disapprobation in the word when the Priest spoke it. Let this inconvenient religious seeker wonder where the Invers’ holy representative stood on the subject of their people’s habitual and bottomless desires.
“I’ve always thought so,” the speaker continued. “And in order to attain some of my loftier goals, I took on a position several years ago, working for someone you know well. If you are the king’s right hand, my patron is surely his left.”
“Lucian,” the Priest growled. “Of course you’re one of his.”
“Admirable,” the speaker echoed, with an audible smile. “They did tell me you’re the cleverest of the brood Orden grew up with. Pity he let you live.”
“Invers don’t believe in pity.”
“Foolish, then, that he allowed you to survive. Particularly in light of some of your more… clandestine activities.”
“I suppose you intend to tell me what unscrupulous behavior you believe I’ve been indulging in.”
“Well, where should I begin?” the unknown spy said.
Try as the Priest might, he could not place the voice.
“Perhaps with your lesser transgressions. How you helped the wife of one of our prorexes slip her unwanted child, or how you assisted Marchio Garus Inver in fleeing the country, to escape debts he owed the crown.”
“The use of ender’s herbs is not prohibited by our laws,” the Priest answered evenly. “Nor is helping a friend arrange travel. I had no knowledge of the extent of Garus’s debts.”
The speaker drew closer—so close the Priest could feel his breath, stirring the air beneath his chin. The Priest kept himself utterly still and blank-faced, as if carved from stone.
Do not move. Do not make a sound, he thought fervently at Ellimere, who was half-hidden in the encroaching gloom.
“I’ve been watching you for years,” the spy murmured. “That is the barest fraction of the disloyalty I’ve witnessed from you in that time.”
“Difficult, I should think,” the Priest said. “To keep close watch on someone who famously dwells in darkness.”
The spy let out a small, disparaging sound.
“Not as difficult as you clearly believe. But I will tell you this, Priest—I’ve kept the worst of your betrayals to myself.
I haven’t breathed a word to Lucian about the Corrinians who pass through these caves, or the Lyrien sorias who were here only last night.
Nor have I brought up the way Her Majesty the queen uses you as a go-between to maintain the ties of her former life, which Orden takes such pride in having severed.
I have not mentioned how she passes letters to you, intended for her old Matria and those conniving witches, Gileta and Dolenza.
What treachery such missives contain, I can only imagine.
Nor have I spoken on the matter of your collusion with Caervallion, or Her Majesty’s. I’ve been the soul of discretion.”
The initial hints of blackmail had not moved the Priest. His pulse had not so much as quickened.
It was far from the first time someone had attempted to use him to their own advantage, and certainly would not be the last. If it suited him, he allowed the arrangement to go forward, eventually tilting the scales of fate until he himself benefited as well.
If it did not suit him, a word in Orden’s ear or an edict from the gods, and the offending party was sent to some minor province in disgrace, or to the fiercest frontlines in Vesper.
But no one had ever threatened Ariana as well.
The moment the spy spoke her title, a wash of rage flooded through the Priest—the sort that clouds judgment and renders its bearer unwise.
Carefully, he fought it back, focusing on something else that jangled at his attention, piquing his interest. On all counts save one, the spy’s accusations were true.
And it was of the greatest interest to the Priest that Lucian would purge the castle of possible sympathizers to the old ways or Caervallion, while whispering that Inverlyn’s queen and religious leader were both in league with the Caervallin king.
“I assume there’s some favor or position you require in exchange for your silence?” he asked.
“Yes,” the spy all but purred. “I set myself to thinking, recently, how I might benefit from the new prince’s arrival. I should like to stand as one of his patrons at the naming ceremony.”
“Impossible,” the Priest scoffed, because he knew better than to appear to give way readily.
“There are only four patrons who stand for a child as highly born as the prince. Orden will stand for Tyrus, the queen for the hearth goddess, myself for Mortis, who governs justice and death, and Consul Hadrian Inver, for Kidrien and the realms of industry and trade. I cannot appoint a fifth.”
“Then name me in Hadrian’s stead,” the spy said easily. “Or your own, or the queen’s. If you wish to keep your secrets and Her Majesty’s, I expect you to bring this about, as well as any future favors I may name.”
“You know,” the Priest answered, sidestepping any agreement or refusal, “I can work out how Lucian might uncover what Ariana and I have done, in transporting Corrinians and keeping up contact with her former mistresses. But I don’t understand how he discovered that we’ve put ourselves in league with Caervallion.
I thought I’d hidden our tracks very cleverly. ”
“In Honoria, perhaps,” the spy said. “But my master is a paragon of his profession and visits Caervallion often. A stray word here, a coin in the palm there, and many things can be brought to light. You would not grasp the full scope of the tools of our trade.”
An absolute fool, and a poor spy at that, the Priest thought. Lucian must only keep this lackey about to fuel the fire of his own ego, an indulgence which he would pay for.
“Is he in Caervallion often?” The Priest feigned surprise. “I know Orden has tried for Afon’s life three times since the battle summer, but I wouldn’t have called three visits in seven years often, assuming Lucian even went to carry out the king’s business personally.”
Pleased with the breadth of his knowledge, the spy audibly preened.
“I’m sure the king has a great deal of business you aren’t party to.
Lucian visits Caervallion several times a year to carry it out.
I will tell you, though, he’s much taken with the manner of the Caervallin king.
Says Orden would do well to emulate it—that Afon has more of the Inver fire in him than Honoria’s own sovereign.
Not that such admiration means anything—Lucian only voices it when he’s in his cups, but Orden should remember the heritage he springs from, and the ways of his predecessors.
If Afon were king in Honoria, Lucian says, he would never have left a maimed half brother alive or taken a soria to be his queen.
He’d have slaughtered you on Tyrus’s altar and bedded the star witch before cutting her to pieces, or saved her for a sacrifice once she’d got him an heir.
Of course, Orden could do that yet—the prince’s naming ceremony shall be soon, I expect? ”
“Indeed, and you shall be a patron at it,” the Priest said, acceding with the poor grace that would be expected of him, even as he fought back revulsion. “But the prince’s other advocates have already made offerings to Tyrus to prepare themselves for the ceremony. You must do so as well.”
There was no such requirement for a child’s patrons, but the Invers were a primarily irreligious lot, who used their faith in times of trouble or when it served them best to do so.
The Priest could count on one hand the number of court members who might be considered truly devout, and this upstart spy was certainly not among them.
“Do you think me witless?” the spy said. “Now that I’ve threatened you, you’ll come nowhere near me with a knife.”
In answer, the Priest removed his short-bladed pugio from its hidden sheath on his upper arm, setting it down on Kidrien’s altar. He held out his hands in an invitation. “Search me, if you like. The only knife will be held by you, and there will be no blood spilled but mine.”
The spy patted him from shoulders to ankles, brisk and businesslike.
When he drew away, satisfied with the results, the Priest moved to Tyrus’s altar once more.
Already, a plan was fomenting in his mind.
He worked through the next few moments—where this irksome stranger would stand, where he himself had taken up position, feet rooted to the ground, the altar before them both.