Chapter Seventeen The Records and Findings of Benedict Castor the First
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE RECORDS AND FINDINGS OF BENEDICT CASTOR THE FIRST
I ripped away from Tory, darting between knights. Maude had barely a moment to open her arms before I was throwing myself into them. She caught me, then laughed in her throat, her arms around me as fortifying as armor. “My girl.”
I shut my eyes and hugged her so tightly it stole my breath.
The gargoyle sighed contentedly. When I was out of Maude’s arms, I reached for him so desperately I bruised myself on his body, tears wetting my veil. “I missed you so much, Bartholomew.”
Poor thing didn’t know what to do in my arms. He gave a small shriek and squirmed like a cat fumbling backward.
But then he eased, and his stone arms found their way around me.
He said, with a kind of wonder that sounded like both sadness and joy, “Oh, Bartholomew, I was forlorn without you. What a marvelous capability for love I have.”
“Excuse me,” Hamelin barked. “Maude Bauer, Rodrick Myndacious, and the abbess’s stone watchdog were all said to have died on the tor. Suddenly all three are back, winning tournament events. What’s next, a fucking gargoyle champion?”
I pulled back, ready to flay him with my tongue, but the gargoyle spoke first. He hemmed and hawed so loudly it came out a bark, then turned to the king and his knights.
“I am the final gargoyle. A last vestige, like the Diviner, of the tor. Let me be resolute: We three were not killed by the crumbling of the cathedral, but we did scatter to the wind. It was only when we learned of the tournament that we, like sheep of a feather, found ourselves together once more.”
“Birds of a feather,” Maude said.
The gargoyle scowled. “Anyway. Now that we are back, it is our duty to stay. Bartholomew is still a knight, and I am still her squire.”
“Everyone knows that gargoyles are ancient sprites, domesticated by abbesses of old.” Samuel Eichel clutched his sword like a noblewoman clutches her pearls. “And there have been egregious troubles with sprites of late. This is a terrible portent, sire. We should not allow the gargoyle to remain.”
Rory snorted, and Maude’s hand fell to her axe. “You know my family’s repute,” she said. “Do you really believe anyone of the Bauer name would suffer a sprite to live lest the creature was of no threat?”
Samuel snapped his mouth shut.
The gargoyle cleared his throat. He was peering at Benji.
He might have been trying to smile, but those fangs…
He looked like he was holding in a mountain of loathing—or a catastrophic sneeze.
“Surely the king bears me no ill will. He remembers how loyally I assisted in taking up the mantle of his endeavors.”
The king’s cheeks were ashen. He was still looking at Maude.
The knights threw their skepticism at a gargoyle and a knave like Rory, but Maude?
No one asked her where she’d been or why she’d bothered entering the joust or what she’d done with her winnings.
She’d have told a lie, or she’d have told the truth, and it wouldn’t have mattered.
No one saw a Diviner as anything but a girl who drowned, and no one heard the name Bauer and gave it an ounce of doubt, the mighty bell of its legacy ringing in the air.
Maude stepped forward. Opened her arms to Benji like the abbess had so often to me. “Forgive me. I’ve been away. Recovering from old injuries in the Chiming Wood. I had a long while to think, King Castor. And now that I am here—”
She put her hand on his shoulder, clasping him with poignant force.
The last time he’d seen her, Maude had been withdrawing from his knighthood—condemning Benji with tears.
Now, she was smiling down upon him. “Let bygones be bygones. I can’t think of where I’d rather be than at your side, Benedict.
Your champion. Your knight. Your friend. ”
Benji’s gaze widened, his blue eyes full of clouds. That’s the trouble with spectacle and illusion.
How do you truly know what’s real?
The king looked to his knights, who had all fallen silent in deference to Maude, and his lips thinned. He put his hand on hers. Said, with all the magnanimity he could muster, “I’m pleased you had all that time to recover. You’ve missed quite a lot.”
The subtext was loud. What have you really been doing?
Maude merely grinned. “You’ve gained yourself a queen in my absence, and a knave at that.” She looked over his shoulder at Rory. Pitched her voice low. “Shame. About his memory. It’s like he’s a boy again. Sharp and violent and entirely without direction.”
I glanced at Rory, standing with his usual idle tilt, brows low over his eyes, mouth cut by a semi-permanent sneer. It was hard to imagine he’d ever been a boy.
Benji eyed him, too. He did not say the words spring water, but as assuredly as they were in my blood, they were there. “Was it you who gave it to him?”
The knights were leaning in now, scowls on their faces, particularly Hamelin’s, as they worked to understand what was happening between their king and Maude Bauer.
Maude took a deep breath. Let it go. “Sometimes, for things to go right,” she murmured, “you must do the wrong thing.”
“You taught her that, Bartholomew,” the gargoyle told the king sweetly. “Don’t you remember? That night upon the tor?”
Benji paled. Rory, Maude, Bartholomew—all three of them had returned like haunting shadows, lingering in the corners of Benji’s gaze, refusing to confront him outright. I could tell in the way the king’s chest moved that he was breathing hard, disquiet sitting as firmly upon his head as his crown.
He turned abruptly. “It’s getting late.” Then he flicked his wrist at Hamelin and barked, “Lead the way to the Peaks.”
The line of knights broke apart as they moved into the stable, collecting weapons and horses. The gargoyle skipped away, and Rory’s dark visage vanished from my periphery. Tory came forward. Reached for my elbow. “Your carriage is on the road, Diviner.”
“I’ll do that.” Maude stepped into Tory’s path, eyeing her fellow knight down her nose. “She’ll be safe with me.”
Tory tendered a sidelong glance, like I was a prized horse and she did not yet wish to surrender my lead. “The king was explicit her care remain with his most trusted.”
Maude shot me a grin. “What do you think, Diviner? Am I trustworthy?”
Not in the slightest. I grinned. “I’d trust you with my life.”
“There you have it. She’s in good hands.”
Tory took a step back, glowering. “Mind her well. As Samuel said, there’s been plenty of trouble with sprites.” She nodded at Maude’s axe. “I know that thing’s not just for show.”
“I’ve got enough blood on my blade to paint you red, Bassett.” Maude knocked into Tory’s shoulder. “Excuse us.”
It began to rain. We moved upstream against a tide of knights, making our way toward the road and the carriage that sat upon it. “Well done,” I said, almost smiling. “You rattled the king better in an afternoon than I’ve been able to in six weeks.”
She laughed in her throat. “I doubt that.”
Gods, I loved looking at her. Every line in her face was a story I wanted to know over and over again. “So, Maude Bauer. What have you been up to?”
“Been having a chat with the kingdom’s nobles, actually. Regius Ormsby and Otto Lange, to be specific.”
I thought about what Rory had said in the Seacht. How long do you imagine the noble families of Traum will suffer a king who handed them wealth—only to lose it in his self-aggrandizing tournament? The boy’s time is nigh. Kings come and go.
“You’d win the events, strip the nobles of their coin, thusly stripping Benji of his crown.”
Maude nodded curtly. Said, so quietly it might have been to herself, “We took up the mantle, killed the Omens. But it was furtively; no one knew. Perhaps none of this might have happened if I had been louder in my beliefs, if I’d spoken up about Aisling’s crooked system sooner.”
“They’d have stoned you like they did Benji’s grandfather.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, I understand better now. No more killing tyrants in secret.” Maude’s green eyes were forward, steadfast, sure. “Transformation should bear witnesses.” She gave me a wizened glance over her shoulder. “Not all spectacles are for illusion.”
“And who would you see stand in Benji’s place as king?”
“That’s up to the nobles.”
I frowned.
We moved to the road. Slowly, a sly little grin settled on Maude’s mouth.
“What’s that smile about?”
“Hmm? Don’t know what you mean.” We reached the carriage. Two draft horses had already been hitched. Maude led me around them. Waiting on the other side of the carriage, where nothing and no one could see us but the open moorland—
Was Rory. His horse, Fig. The gargoyle, too.
I bit down on a smile. “Oh.”
“Thought you two might want a moment to properly reunite without the entire kingdom watching.” Maude’s grin edged over her mouth. She waltzed away. “I’ll just be over here, checking on the horses. Come along, Bartholomew.”
The gargoyle stayed as he was, watching Rory and me with the same adoration one bestows upon kittens or lambs or any clumsy newborn creature. He’d likely have stayed that way had Maude not returned, taken him by the arm, and pulled him away.
For the first time since before he’d died, Rory and I were alone.
He took a step, watching my veil, his stone eyes beautiful and strange. I wanted to claw open his armor—feel that he was corporeal.
Three more steps and he was in front of me, so close I could count each of his dark eyelashes as they fanned his cheeks. He didn’t touch me. He just looked at me, a flush warming his skin. “Still no shoes, I see.”
I glanced at my bare feet. “I like giving you the chance to behave chivalrously.”
“No you don’t.” He took a final step forward, pinning my back against the carriage. “You don’t like me when I’m good, and you don’t like me when I’m bad.”
My heart thundered. “I like you all the time, knave.”