The Justice of Kings, page 24
“Well, thank you again for your kind assistance.” I said. “I appreciate that I am a burden on your time.”
She softened at my supplication, but only slightly. “Good night, then,” she said.
“Good night,” I replied, and then she was gone.
I lay on the cot and stared at the blank ceiling.
“Nema’s tits, what have I got myself into?” I asked the air.
The lifestyle turned out to be so regimented that it took only a few days to become accustomed to it. We would rise at daybreak, undertake the kupaiyanne, which was the ritual bathing, attend temple for the two-hour morning sermon, undertake our tasks – which for me, given my position, were indeed menial in nature, including cleaning the latrines, cleaning out the stables, tending to the sick livestock and scrubbing the floors – then came lunch, another round of tasks, dinner, private prayer and bed. Private prayer turned out to be something of a misnomer, for while it was expected that the kloster’s occupants would spend some of that time in the temples or smaller chapels in the kloster complex, in reality it was an hour or so of free time. It was also the only time that the members mixed, men with women, and therefore inevitably when the greatest amount of forbidden behaviour took place.
After my initial anxieties faded, a process which was accelerated by the comfortable monotony of the daily routine, I slipped into my role with a little more confidence. I was quizzed plenty of times by both nuns and monks – mainly during kupaiyanne, but also at mealtimes and evening prayers – on my history with Vonvalt. While it did pain me slightly to lie about how he had mistreated me, I found it easy to exaggerate. After all, I had grown weary of our time together, and I had wanted to leave his service. Given that all the best lies are formed around a kernel of truth, I found it very easy to convince everyone of the tough life I had led. The unsightly scar on the shaved side of my head also did much of the talking for me.
I was constantly aware of the urgency of my mission, which made me come across as anxious and easily exercised. I was also constantly torn between further ingratiating myself so as to assuage all suspicion, and the need to start investigating the conspiracy. This tension caused me a great deal of stress, and I ate and slept poorly.
Brother Walter, the old monk who had been on gate duty the night I had arrived, watched me ceaselessly. Of all the people within the kloster, he was the least friendly. He continually pulled me up on what he considered to be poor work, or made me repeat trivial tasks for no other reason than it pleased him to be difficult. When he was not staring at me, hawk-like, from across the dining hall, he was secreting himself in doorways and alcoves under the pretence of oversight and leering at me. Not since Muldau had I felt such a weight of unwanted attention, but as much as I wanted to write his behaviour off as a ghastly old man’s lechery, I could not help but feel that there was something else to it – particularly since he had recognised me at the gate on my first night there. It was difficult to shake the constant feeling of paranoia; but I felt as though my instincts as regarded Brother Walter at least were right, and resolved to avoid him as much as humanly possible.
Eventually I realised I could not waste any more time gilding my subterfuge, for the temptation simply to carry on in the kloster’s comfortable, quiet routine was becoming overwhelming. So, just over a week after I had entered the kloster, a few days before Ebbe would start to wane, during the morning round of tasks, I decided I would start to make discreet enquiries of Emilia. She and I had become closer, but I still sensed she was wary of me, and that she – unlike most of the other monks and nuns I had spoken to – did not quite believe me and my reasons for being there.
“Does something special happen for Ebbe?” I asked. We were in the garden in front of one of the cloisters, weeding the bank of flowers.
“There is a service in temple tonight, but it is not mandatory,” she replied, ripping out a large clump of stringwort and dumping it in a wicker basket between us.
“Perhaps I will go,” I said.
“Suit yourself.”
I pretended to take an interest in the weeds in front of me.
“What do you make of Brother Walter?” I asked. In spite of the man’s utterly repugnant behaviour, I tried to turn the point into something approaching sisterly banter.
Emilia looked at me, briefly and blankly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… you know.” I paused, flummoxed. I knew that she knew what I was talking about. She had to have known. She wasn’t an automaton. No one could have mistaken the man’s general manner, and while I had no doubt that a good portion of the men in the kloster would be turning a blind eye to it, someone like Brother Walter was certain to have a reputation among the women.
“No, Helena, I do not know what you mean.”
“I fear he does not like me. He is constantly disparaging my work.”
“Perhaps your work is not very good?”
I was surprised at how much that offended me. It took a great deal of effort not to snap at the girl.
“What are his duties?” I asked. “Is he close to Obenpatria Fischer?” I realised as I said it that it was a treacherous line of questioning. It was not a natural thing to be interested in, especially for someone who was new to the kloster and apparently seeking to make a life there.
Once again, Emilia looked at me. Her face was completely inscrutable.
“Brother Walter is one of the most senior men in the kloster; of course he is close to Obenpatria Fischer. I’m surprised you do not know what his duties are by now.”
There followed another uncomfortable pause, as there so often was with our conversations. This time, however, I was resolved to cut to the heart of the problem.
“Emilia, do I offend you?”
She did not like that. I could tell immediately that the confrontation had embarrassed her. Her cheeks flushed.
“You do not offend me. I have no issue with you,” she replied tightly.
“Emilia, stop your infernal weeding for a moment and look at me.” I said it gently, but with an undercurrent of firmness, like a mother trying to tease something out of a sullen child.
Emilia looked at me.
“I want us to be friends,” I said.
“You do not want me as your friend,” she replied. She spoke quietly.
I leant in closer. “I do,” I said. “I really do. I want to know why you are so distant with me. It is not a requirement of – our faith,” I said, catching myself. “We are allowed to fraternise. I have seen people do much more than that,” I added, wriggling my eyebrows. I had hoped to make her smile, but to my horror she burst into tears.
“Bloody Nema,” I said, looking round to see if there was anyone loitering. Fortunately, we were alone; it was a sunny morning, if a little chilly, and the only sound was the distant bustle of the Vale below us. “What is the matter now?”
She said nothing, just wiped her eyes furiously. I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but she recoiled suddenly and sharply.
“Sorry!” I said, drawing back. There was nothing to do but let her cry it out. It was like watching a small fire slowly extinguish itself. She could not go anywhere. Tasks were mandatory, and if either of us were seen leaving the gardens we would be punished.
After a short while she subsided. To my amazement she then went back to weeding as if nothing had passed between us.
“You’re not serious,” I said, looking at her with incredulity. “You’re not going to tell me what that was about?”
“It’s better if you don’t know,” she said without emotion.
“Emilia,” I said quietly. “What is going on? What’s happened to you? Has someone—”
“Flame of Savare, would you stop talking!” she snapped.
Now it was my turn to recoil. I watched her for a while, but she ignored me so resolutely that I had no choice but to eventually go back to my own patch of soil. We finished the rest of the session in silence, and after the bell tolled us to lunch she launched to her feet and raced off to the dining hall before I had a chance to ask her anything else.
XIX
Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole
“The Sovans have spent centuries trying to unpick the secrets of the creatures which roam the holy dimensions; but, like the deep black waters of the sea, only those which lie closest to the surface can be in any way examined. Who knows what leviathans lurk in the depths of the afterlife?”
PROGNOSTICATOR GAVRO JURIĆ
Life in the kloster continued. Emilia actively avoided me. While I was confident that, given enough time, I could crack her, I did not have enough time. The rope had been played out. I had no doubt that both Vonvalt and Bressinger were being watched; the moment Vonvalt turned around and made his way back to the Vale was the moment the hourglass was upended. Nothing was going to happen while I scrubbed the floors, sang hymns and drank the kloster’s wine. I did not have the weeks and months required to slowly gain Emilia’s trust and draw her out. I was going to have to undertake a more drastic course of action.
I spent a few days planning, though really I was delaying the inevitable. I knew what I had to do: follow the documents. Vonvalt had taught me long before that contemporaneous documents were the gold standard of evidence. Human beings obstructed and lied – particularly when their lives were at stake. Even well-meaning witnesses could drastically misremember events. I did not have time to put my faith in people; like the ledgers in the town’s treasury, I needed documents. It was just that the documents in question – Obenpatria Fischer’s private correspondence – would be secreted away in his apartment.
Which meant breaking into that apartment.
The Fool’s Day fell on the fourteenth of Ebbe, and the Fool was the Jadrans’ patron saint. Such an important day necessitated plenty of ceremony and observance, and Fischer, as the obenpatria, would be engaged all evening in a vigil to take place in the kloster’s main temple. With everyone expected to attend, and with my time running out, I knew that I would not have a better opportunity. In spite of this, the plan still filled me with a keen sense of dread. In normal circumstances, breaking into Fischer’s private rooms and searching through his correspondence would be grounds for severe punishment; but if Fischer was indeed part of a criminal conspiracy, and I were caught, even my lofty Imperial credentials would not save me.
The night before the Fool’s Day I sat at the desk in my chamber and leafed through my copy of the Neman Creed, trying in vain to settle my nerves. As I turned the pages of the gorgeously illuminated codex, I could see that the whole thing was set out with infamous Sovan pragmatism. The first half of the book was dedicated to all their gods, demigods and saints, and which one to pray to and why – almost like a set of instructions – while the latter half, clearly aimed at the less practically minded Sovan, was given over to various parables and histories.
I knew that the lion’s share of the text came originally from Saint Creus, who according to Sovan mythology had been the earthly conduit between the gods and mankind. Over time, further volumes had been added, including the Book of Lorn, which had tried and failed to supplant the pagan Draedist practices of northern Haunersheim, Tolsburg and Jägeland. Against the original Sovan religious orthodoxy, however, these further books were ignored by everyone more than a bow-shot from Sova, and even Vonvalt, who was not a religious man, referred to them as “marsh ale for the soul”.
At the beginning of the book and at the head of the pyramid was Nema, the God Mother, who in most iconography took the form of a white deer. Her godly husband was Savare, the God Father. Between them they had ten demigod children known collectively as the Deti, ranging from the Fool, whom the Jadrans followed, to the Trickster, demigod of misfortune – and, as it transpired, horrifying elemental demon from the afterlife.
The Deti of course coupled with other astral beings (and sometimes one another), and spawned an entire pantheon of further demigods and saints, to the point where you could find one for almost any aspect of life on earth – gods of death and destruction, healing and music, love, luck, war, wisdom, strength, protection, time, trade, knowledge, travel, magic… It was easy to see how the Neman Creed was able to swallow other religions so entirely and pretend that they had always been lost offshoots of the main branch.
I spent much longer flicking through the codex than I had intended to. I decided that, despite my lack of belief, a prayer in the circumstances could hardly go amiss – and then the pages fell open at the entry for the Trickster.
I can distinctly remember the feeling to this day, the way my vision seemed to lose focus and every last inch of my skin broke – almost burst – out in gooseflesh. The image there of Aegraxes, a two-headed snake rendered as a black-and-white etching, was forever burned into my mind’s eye. For a brief moment I thought my morbid curiosity might compel me to read the words written, but I became so filled with a profound sense of dread that I used a few dabs of melted candle wax to glue the pages shut.
Robbed of all enthusiasm, I settled on a prayer to Kultaar, demigod of luck, a cheerful-looking mouse-like creature whose recorded interventions included saving the Emperor’s grandfather at the Battle of Sanque by placing an unfortunate charioteer between him and a ballista. I had not said prayers with any regularity since I was a child, when too often charitable handouts had been conditional on religious obeisance. Fortunately, Kultaar did not seem like the overly prescriptive type, and to the extent that he existed in anything approaching the description and image contained within the Creed, rather than as some malign interdimensional being, I was sure that he would forgive my fractured, rambling entreaties.
Eventually, I closed the codex and climbed into the bed. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was snuff out the candle, for reading the Creed had given me a sudden and healthy fear of the dark. But, knowing that it would burn down eventually, I blew it out, and wished for all the world that a drunken, snoring Bressinger was in the bed next to me.
I had no idea what time it was when I finally drifted off, but by the time I was roused in the morning, it felt as though I had barely slept at all. I had resolved to feign illness throughout the course of the day so that I would be excused from the vigil that evening, but as I headed into the ritual bathing, I did not have to lay much in the way of groundwork. By then I was so nervous and so exhausted from a night of fitful sleep that I barely had to pretend at all. A number of my fellow nuns commented on my pale, waxen appearance, the faint sheen of perspiration on my face, my withdrawn and sullen comportment, and by the time the service came around I was being practically ushered back to my room. This was not entirely born of altruism; a communicable disease would ravage the kloster to the last man.
I waited in my room for as long as I dared, hoping that everyone had indeed reported to the vigil as required. But despite my nerve-fraying anxiety, my journey through corridors was uneventful, and I reached the obenpatria’s apartments – which sat across from the office in which I had first met him – without incident.
I pressed my ear to the door, but I heard nothing through the old slabs of oak. Then I took the handle in my sweating hand. It only then occurred to me that the door might be locked. I half-hoped it was. With a deep, shaky breath, I twisted it and pushed, and was amazed when it swung open obligingly on well-oiled hinges. Perhaps by Kultaar’s intervention Fischer had simply forgot to lock it; or worse, he simply didn’t bother to because there was nothing incriminating inside. Either way, I wasn’t going to stand on the threshold thinking about it. I darted through and closed the door behind me.
Beyond was a chamber of breathtaking luxury. It was more akin to the solar of a senior aristocrat. Plush rugs of rich royal blue ensured that the obenpatria’s feet would never be discomfited by the cold flagstones of the floor, while a well-stoked hearth, hanging tapestries and thick curtains suggested that the flagstones had never been particularly cold in the first place. Beyond the first chamber, which acted as a sort of reception room, I could see Fischer’s bedchamber, where a large four-poster bed dominated much of the available space, with the rest given over to other ostentatious furniture. Gilt-framed paintings hung on the walls, while plinths held up marble busts of the kloster’s previous obenpatrias. There was even a private bathroom, where I could see gold-plated taps and expensive mirrors. I caught my reflection in one of them and I barely recognised the young woman staring back at me, with my head half-shaved and my features gaunt from stress.
I quickly set about searching the place. I looked for stashes of documents and correspondence. There was nothing in the reception room, but there was a desk in Fischer’s bedchamber. I rifled through the drawers, pulling out bundles of opened letters with trembling hands and leafing through them, trying to digest their contents as quickly as possible. It was just as well that Vonvalt had taught me High Saxan, for most of the letters were written in it.
None of it was interesting. I scoured the bedchamber, increasingly frantic, overcome with a gambler’s recklessness – except I was betting with time, rather than money. I might well have been gambling with my life. How long did the vigil last? Were people already dispersing back to their chambers? Would Fischer take some wine afterwards with other senior members of the kloster, or would he come straight back to his apartment and to bed? And would I hear any of it? Would I have any warning?
What brief confidence I had felt upon entry evaporated. Suddenly it seemed as though I had taken an insane risk.
I decided that I had done enough. I would be able to look Vonvalt in the eye when I informed him of my failure, knowing that I had done all I could. I turned to leave, relieved, when I noticed a small corner of paper protruding from the bottom of one of the drawers in a chest in the corner of the room.
I took two steps towards the apartment door, then stopped. With a profound sense of self-hatred, I turned back, dashed over to the drawer and yanked it open.
