Paladin's Grace, page 33
It was a small warehouse as these things went, but even so, large parts of it were empty. There was a jumble of papers and blankets in a far corner, which could have been a squatter’s nest or crude sleeping quarters. Slum weavers flew back and forth on the rafters, through a broken window high on one wall.
Stephen wiped at his nose. The thick, acrid smell was stronger here than it had been since he fought the smooth man in the cell. But he didn’t smell any decay, just the heavy burnt smell and dust.
Taking up about a third of the floor was a pottery. There was a table covered in white dust, a beehive-shaped kiln, and dozens of freestanding shelves holding mugs and plates in neat rows.
“Come around the back,” said Mallory, gesturing.
Stephen stepped around the shelves and froze as if he’d run into a wall.
The shelves in the corner were exactly the same as the others, but instead of mugs, they held clay heads, placed upside down so that the delicate points rose up into the air.
“Are they alive?” he asked.
“Not as far as we can tell. We don’t know how they work.” Mallory grimaced. “We sent the slewhounds out and nabbed three of your smooth men, but it was actually a gnole that led us to this place. Caught the smell as the guards took one apart and said there was a building that smelled just like it down here.”
Stephen stared at the row of clay. What would happen if you put one in a dead body? Would it come to life, or is there more to it than that?
“Do they know what they are?” he asked finally.
Mallory shook his head. “No one’s seen anything like this. A rogue wonderworker? Some trick of ancient magic? Your guess is as good as mine.”
“I was thinking of golems the other day,” Stephen said. “All the stories about what happens when you don’t tell them to stop.”
“That’s one of the things we thought of,” said Mallory. “But a golem head? No one’s ever heard of such a thing.”
The gnole officer that Stephen remembered from the alley came up behind them. “A gnole hasn’t,” he agreed. “But a gnole thinks this is…” He screwed his muzzle up, clearly searching for the correct word. “Efficient, yeah?” He looked back and forth between the two humans. “Eh?”
Mallory frowned. “Efficient?”
“Maybe a gnole’s words are wrong.” The striped guard frowned. “But a gnole’s cousin works at a pottery, yeah? Big clay, big pots. Not easy. Big clay gets in a kiln, maybe clay explodes, yeah?”
Mallory and Stephen both nodded. Firing clay could be tricky, and sometimes the clay exploded in the kiln. There were limits to how big a pot you could make before it cracked or collapsed under its own weight.
“Well.” The gnole waved his paws. “A golem is being big, yeah? Very big. Not easy. These…” he gestured to the clay heads “…easy. Small. Small kiln, small head.”
“And if one gets damaged, you can just pull the head out and put it in another body,” said Stephen slowly. “A whole army. Just add corpses.”
“Thanks,” said Mallory. “I didn’t need to sleep at night or anything.” He looked over at the gnole. “Efficient was the word. You were right.” The gnole looked professionally pleased.
Stephen retreated from the shelves. He didn’t want to turn his back on those lifeless heads. Even bodiless, if their eyes opened, or their mouths…no, he didn’t want to think about it.
“Was there anyone here?” he asked.
“No. Cleared out ahead of us. We don’t know if he was another smooth man or not.” Mallory jerked his head in the direction of the squat kiln. “Bricks are still warm, though. Those big ovens hold heat for days, but he’s not long gone.”
“So he’s still out there,” said Stephen.
“Looks that way.” Mallory glanced over two silent men, both the size of Istvhan, who were waiting in the shadows. “You boys ready?”
“Say the word, captain.”
“Then get to it. I want those things destroyed.”
Mallory had been right, Stephen thought, as the first of the men hefted a sledgehammer. He definitely wanted to see it smashed.
Forty-Six
“There you are,” said the Bishop, as Stephen was ushered into her office. “You were supposed to be under house arrest.”
“Oh.” Stephen coughed. “I forgot.” And when she gazed at him silently, “No, really, I did. Captain Mallory sent for me, and I didn’t even think…”
Seated in front of the desk, Grace twisted to look up at him. She was surprised at how much she had missed him in just the last few hours. When he walked through the door, part of her brain said, Yes, he’s here, everything is normal now, we can relax, which was frankly rather terrifying.
Beartongue sighed. “Well, even the Motherhood can’t blame you for answering a summons from the guard. Though I suspect they’d try.” She waved a handful of papers at him. “Sit down. We’ve still got a few things to go through.”
“Yes, of course,” said Stephen. The memory of his behavior in the courtroom, almost occluded by the night’s events, came rushing back. “I’ve disgraced the order. There is no excuse for what I have done. You must lock me away. I would not have tried to escape, if it had not been for one of the smooth men there.”
Beartongue put her chin on her fist and studied him impassively. “What have you done, exactly?”
“I gave in to the tide,” he said. “In public. In a court of law. I cannot be trusted.”
“Yes, it was carnage,” said Beartongue dryly. “The way you beat the judge to death with his own gavel was terrible. Bailiffs hanging off the chandeliers. Zale said there was a river of blood ankle-deep.”
Stephen blinked.
“Orrrrr you lost your temper and did something stupid and then realized it was stupid and surrendered to the bailiffs immediately, without resisting arrest.” She leaned back in her chair. “Really, Paladin Stephen, if that was your idea of a berserker fit, I’m surprised the Saint of Steel’s chosen were ever called in for anything more dangerous than a garden party.”
“….uh.”
She waved her hand. “Yes, yes, you’re a paladin, wallowing in guilt over how you are the very worst person ever is part of the job. I’ve already had Galen in here this morning apologizing for using too much force on that DuValier fellow and Marcus taking all the blame for your actions because apparently you had a conversation about his ex-wife that he thinks put the idea in your head in the first place.”
Grace started laughing helplessly. Beartongue gave her an amused glance. “Oh, sure, you can think it’s funny. You’re not the one they’re confessing to. There’s a reason the Rat doesn’t call paladins, although I admit they have their uses.”
Stephen tried to wrap his head around the situation. “So…you don’t want to lock me up?”
“Fortunately for you, both the Motherhood and the guard are sufficiently embarrassed by the whole affair that they have mostly decided to ignore it. Your ill-conceived jailbreak has been somewhat confused by the fact that Miss Angelica was being held for a non-existent crime. No one is terribly pleased with you having beaten up...” she checked her notes “…seven guards, but the Temple will be offering a generous payment and in one case, a pension.”
“But the damage—”
“Paladin Stephen, if I am to believe reports, you were berserk for an entire day, yet somehow the entire injury that you did, in a city full of people, was breaking a man’s leg. Who was attacking you.”
“But the guards at the jail?” Stephen shook his head. “I don’t remember what I did to them.”
“Then let me enlighten you. You choked one, who will be eating soup for a week but is otherwise unharmed, and the other one ran away. He’s the pension. Apparently now he’s been branded a coward and can’t command discipline among the prisoners.” She waved her hands. “I am sorry to inform you of this, my dear paladin, but your berserker fit did slightly less damage than the average bar fight. I am aware that you were apparently killing machines under certain circumstances, but I fear those circumstances have not been met.”
“…oh,” said Stephen, in a very small voice.
“The primary damage appears to have been a statue of a warrior outside the jail. We have numerous reports of a man matching your description violently attacking the statue and eventually toppling it. It was an expensive statue and the grandson of the sculptor is very upset.”
Stephen sank deeper into his chair.
“You have been released to the Temple for discipline, you are forbidden from carrying arms in the presence of the Archon for a year and a day, Judge Gucciard wants a personal apology, and I am supposed to dock your pay to cover the statue, but since I don’t actually pay you, we’ll just let that bit pass.” She waved a hand. “Consider yourself disciplined. No dessert for a week. Etc.”
Stephen bowed his head.
“Really, I’d appreciate it if you at least checked with me before you go haring off and taking all your fellow paladins with you. Although apparently that’s technically Istvhan’s fault, so no dessert for him, either.”
“Yes, your holiness.”
Beartongue sighed. “Stephen, really. Have I ever been less than reasonable in the time you’ve known me? Do you really think that if you came in and said that it was an emergency and you were breaking Grace out of prison that I wouldn’t hand you a crowbar and a rope?”
“No, your holiness.”
“Damn straight.” She turned to Grace. “As for you, Miss Angelica, I have no control over your dessert situation. However, I fear that in order to exonerate Paladin Stephen of the charge of kidnapping, I was forced to claim that you were the mastermind of the jailbreak.”
“I was,” said Grace hurriedly. “I absolutely was!”
“But—” Stephen began.
The Bishop made shushing gestures at him. “Hush, you. It’s easier if you don’t leap on this particular sword. Miss Angelica, all charges have been dropped except for that one, and I believe that I have brokered a useful solution. If you are willing to recreate the smell of the clay men for us, as soon as possible, then the guard has agreed not to pursue charges for that against you or your accomplice here.”
Grace blinked. “That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“I won’t go to jail?”
“It is the belief of the Rat that your talents will serve the community far better in this way.” She coughed. “Zale was all for charging the Motherhood with false imprisonment and wringing money out of that particular stone, but Zale is in a mood and I have persuaded them that this is a better solution for their client. You can, of course, refuse and go that route, but it will drag this all out interminably.”
“Gods, no!” Grace shuddered at the thought.
“Then you can go home,” said the Bishop.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Grace expected to feel relief or shock or joy. Mostly, though, she just felt confused. After everything, she could just…go home? Like nothing had happened? Was that possible? There had been assassins and poison and DuValier and the Crown Prince.
“Right…” she said. “Right. Uh…but Bishop Beartongue, your holiness…what happened?”
“Eh?” said the Bishop.
Grace waved her hands helplessly. “With the Crown Prince and everything. What was going on? Is it over?”
Beartongue groaned and dug the heel of her hand into her forehead. “What happened, Miss Angelica, is that we were all caught up in someone else’s game. We’ve been catching the edge of a power struggle in Charlock and thinking that it must have something to do with us.”
Stephen raised both eyebrows. “The Crown Prince mentioned his brother last night.”
“His brother, next in line to the throne—or anyway, he was until this all happened. Now I suppose the question is whether he can claim deniability or not. To make a horribly complicated story as short as possible, someone, most likely the Prince’s brother, hired DuValier to assassinate the Prince.” She waved her hands. “We still don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, but I believe that they felt an assassination here in Archon’s Glory would make investigation much more difficult for the authorities in Charlock. The Prince’s brother could consolidate power at home and even if it did eventually get traced back to him, he’d be able to bury it. Possibly he could even arrange for a war with us to really muddy the waters.”
Stephen’s lips went white. Grace put her hand on his arm.
“But if they wanted to kill him, why send an assassin who wasn’t any good at it?” asked Grace.
“Aha!” The Bishop pointed a finger at her. “An excellent question. That was what tripped us up. We kept thinking it had to be something to do with the Archon or the Motherhood. But it really had nothing to do with us at all. A failed attempt needed to be made on the Prince’s life so that the successful attempt could be blamed on the same people. It was all about controlling the eventual investigation so as to exonerate the Prince’s brother. ‘The Prince has been assassinated by unknown people’ is a far different investigation than ‘Assassins targeted the Prince and succeeded on the second attempt.’”
“And then we foiled the first attempt on accident,” said Stephen.
“Exactly.” She slumped back in her chair. “Frankly, I’d be surprised if that was the only attempt. Deliberately failing to assassinate someone is far more tricky than you’d think, given how many people manage it by accident. But again, we don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, so that’s only a guess. At any rate, DuValier presumably ran out of pseudo-assassins and had to scramble to find a new scapegoat. The Crown Prince’s interest in Miss Angelica’s perfumes was the opening he needed. A woman with no family ties and a somewhat—forgive me—cloudy past was a godsend for him. All he had to do was frame you and then put a word in the Motherhood’s ear.”
“Doctor Piper!” Sudden guilt twisted Grace’s gut. “I told DuValier about him—I completely forgot—is he okay?”
“Piper’s fine.” Beartongue nodded once, thoughtfully. “There’s another puzzle piece, then. Someone broke into his office and tried to steal some of his notes. He drove them off with a bonesaw.” Her lips twisted as if she were eating something sour. “And as profoundly as it pains me to admit it, the Motherhood was genuinely acting in what it thought was the best interests of Archenhold. By making you seem like a single disturbed soul, acting alone, they hoped to prevent war with Charlock. That’s why they tried to discredit your character so profoundly. Little birds in the court tell me that DuValier was pushing for an argument of misguided patriotism, but the Motherhood refused.”
“I am still not inclined to be charitable,” growled Stephen.
“You don’t need to be. But if it makes you feel any better, the Motherhood gentleman demanding that you all be shot by the guard has been demoted and sent elsewhere for his…ah…‘excess of zeal.’” She grinned. “You should have seen Jordan’s face. Thought he was going to keel over right there.”
“So it’s over?” said Grace. “People aren’t going to come after me?”
“I can’t swear to anything. I’ve been two steps behind this whole time.” She sighed. “I swear, I’m getting old. I should retire, but then it’d be someone else’s problem, and I don’t dislike anyone enough to do that to them. That said, I don’t think there’s any reason for anyone to come after you.” Her eyes flicked to Stephen. “You could consider keeping a bodyguard around for a bit, of course. If it would make you feel better.”
Grace felt her cheeks warm. “I should go. Marguerite’s probably wondering what happened to me.”
“Ah,” said Beartongue. She cleared her throat. “That is another matter I wanted to discuss with you.”
“Is Marguerite okay? She didn’t get in trouble for breaking into the Crown Prince’s bedroom, did she?”
The Bishop pursed her lips. “As near as I can tell, Marguerite is unlikely to get in trouble for anything.”
Grace grinned. “She can usually talk herself out of anything.”
“No,” said the Bishop. “I mean that she’s been dead for six years.”
“Come again?” said Grace.
Beartongue tapped her fingers on her desk. “The spy for Anuket City known as Marguerite Florian died six years ago. The body was identified by three witnesses. She was in Anuket City at the time.”
“What?”
“I don’t believe that you’re saying that Grace has a ghost as a landlord,” said Stephen. “Are you?”
“A ghost, no,” said Beartongue. “An impostor, yes.”
Grace shook her head, unable to process this. “She’s not an impostor. She’s my friend.”
“That, I suspect, is true,” said the Bishop. “But your friend is not Marguerite Florian.” She leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers. “There is another spy from Anuket who matches the same general physical description. They lost contact with her four years ago, and she is presumed to be dead or working for another power.”
It was too much, too fast. Grace could not quite get her head around any of it. Marguerite, an impostor? Did it matter? Why did it feel like betrayal? It’s not. She changed her name and left her job, that’s all. You did the same thing. It had nothing to do with you.
She forced a laugh. “How bizarre. Well, I’ll ask her, although she presumably has her reasons.”
“I suspect that it may prove more difficult than you think,” said the Bishop gently. “But I’ve kept you too long. I’m sure you want to go home, not stand around and listen to me speculate.” She made a shooing motion. “Paladin Stephen, take this nice woman home.”
Forty-Seven
The workshop was very quiet. Grace opened the door with her heart in her mouth.
It was clean. She’d been sick with dread, imagining what it would look like after the Motherhood men had searched it, but everything had been tidied and put to rights. She wouldn’t be able to find anything for a week, but at least it wasn’t a jumble of broken glassware and spilled herbs.
