Seraphina: A Novel Part 24

"I have maternal memories-" He scoffed at this, but I persisted. "Imlann revealed to my mother that he isn't alone in despising the peace. There's a cabal. They're waiting for Goredd to weaken sufficiently, at which point I can only guess-"

"I'm sure you don't have a single name."

"General Akara."

"Caught and modified, twenty years ago."

I gave up trying not to antagonize him. "You never informed our Queen."

"My generals are loyal," he sniffed over his shoulder. "If you wish to convince me of a plot, you'll have to do better than that."

I opened my mouth to argue, but an arm wrapped around my throat from behind, choking off my voice, and then someone stabbed me in the back.

Or tried to, anyway.

My attacker released me with a cry of dismay. His dagger made no dent in my scaly midriff; he dropped the weapon on the marble floor with a ringing clang. Comonot whirled at the sound, drawing a sword concealed in his robes. I ducked; the Ardmagar struck faster than I'd believed possible in a man of his age and girth-but then, he wasn't an ordinary man. By the time I raised my head, there was a dead priest on the floor of the apse, his robes a tangled ma.s.s of black, his life a wash of crimson pooling before the bishop's throne. His blood steamed in the frigid air.

I glimpsed the string of amber prayer beads at his throat. This was surely the priest I'd seen speaking with Josef. I rolled him over and cried out in alarm.

It was the clothier who'd threatened me. Thomas Broadwick.

Comonot's nostrils flared. This could not be good, a saarantras smelling fresh death. I heard voices and the scuffle of feet rushing up the apse toward us; the din of our brief battle had not gone unnoted. I froze in panic, not knowing whether to urge the Ardmagar to run or to turn him in myself.

He'd saved my life, or I'd saved his. Not even that was clear.

Three monks reached us, skidding to a stop at the sight of our gruesome tableau. I turned to Comonot, intending to follow his lead, but he was unexpectedly shocked and pale; he looked dumbly at me, shaking his head. I took a deep breath and said, "There's been an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt."

Comonot and I were not officially detained, but "voluntarily" confined to the bishop's study until the Queen's Guard arrived. The bishop had good food and wine sent up from the seminary kitchens, and welcomed us to peruse his library.

I would have been happy to make free with the books, but Comonot would not stop pacing, and anytime I moved at all he flinched, as if he feared I might come over and touch him. I probably could have cornered him behind the lectern if I'd had a mind to.

At last he burst out: "Explain this body to me!"

He was asking the right person. I had addressed similar questions from Orma twenty dozen times. "What specifically perturbs you, Ardmagar?"

He seated himself across from me, looking directly at me for the first time. His face was white; sweat plastered his hair to his forehead. "Why did I do that?" he said. "Why did I reflexively kill that man?"

"Self-preservation. He'd stabbed me; he was likely to go for you next."

"No," he said, shaking his jowls. "That is, perhaps he would have attacked me, but that's not what went through my mind. I was protecting you."

I almost thanked him, but he seemed so profoundly disturbed by the whole thing that I hesitated. "Why do you regret protecting me? Because of what I am?"

He regained some of his hauteur: his lip curled and his heavy lids lowered. "What you are is every bit as repulsive to me as it ever was." He poured himself a large gla.s.s of wine. "However, I am now in your debt. If I had been alone, I might be dead."

"You shouldn't have come here alone. How did you leave the entourage without being seen?"

He took several large gulps and considered the air in front of him. "I was never in my carriage. I had no intention of viewing the Golden Plays; I have no interest in your queer religion or the dramas it sp.a.w.ns."

"Then what were you doing in the cathedral? Not finding religion, one a.s.sumes."

"Not your concern." He sipped wine, his eyes narrowing in thought. "What do you call doing something on behalf of someone else for no apparent reason? Altruism?"

"Er, you mean what you did for me?"

"Of course that's what I mean."

"But you had reason: you were grateful I had saved your life."

"No!" he shouted. I jumped, startled. "That didn't occur to me until after the deed was done. I defended you without even thinking. For the merest moment I ..." He paused, his breath labored, his eyes glazed with horror. "I had a strong feeling about what happened to you. I may have cared! The idea of you hurting made me ... hurt!"

"I suppose I'd call that empathy," I said, not exactly feeling empathy myself for how much the idea disgusted him.

"But it wasn't me, you understand?" he cried, the wine already making him histrionic. "It was this infernal body. It fills with a great surge of feeling before one has a chance to think. It's a species preservation instinct, maybe, to defend the young and helpless, but I care nothing for you. This body wants things I could never want."

It was, of course, at that very moment that Captain Kiggs opened the door.

He looked embarra.s.sed. I don't imagine I looked much different. The last time we'd spoken I'd been under arrest. "Ardmagar. Maid Dombegh," he said, nodding. "You've left a bit of a mess up by the Skep. Care to tell me what happened?"

Comonot did the talking; we'd gone up the apse to speak privately, in his version. I held my breath, but Comonot let nothing slip about my background or my maternal memory. He simply claimed I'd had confidential information for him.

"Pertaining to what?" asked Kiggs.

"Pertaining to none of your business," grumped the Ardmagar. He'd had enough wine that he could no longer find the door to the mental room where he was supposed to stow his emotions. If he even had such a room.

Kiggs shrugged, and Comonot continued, detailing the swift and b.l.o.o.d.y fight. Kiggs pulled Thomas's dagger out of his belt, turning it in his fingers. The tip had crumpled grotesquely. "Any idea how this happened?"

Comonot frowned. "Could it have hit the floor in such a way as to-"

"Not likely, unless he threw it straight at the stones," said Kiggs, looking full at me for the first time. "Seraphina?"

That old, inconvenient feeling bubbled up in response to his using my first name. "He stabbed me," I said, staring at my hands.

"What? No one told me this! Where?" He sounded so alarmed that I looked up. I wished I hadn't; it hurt to see him concerned about me.

I felt around near my right kidney. The hole went through my cloak and through all my layers of gown, unsurprisingly. Could I refasten my belt to cover it? I glanced at Kiggs again; his mouth had fallen open. He had a point: I should be dead.

"Did Glisselda not tell you? I've got a ... a Saint's burthen. A silver girdle that protects me from heresy. It saved me."

Kiggs shook his head in wonder. "It's always something unexpected with you, isn't it. A word to the wise: a blow hard enough to do this"-he held up the bent dagger-"is going to leave a painful bruise, or even a laceration. I'd let the palace physicians have a look at it."

"I'll bear that in mind," I said. My back was sore; I wondered what bruised scales looked like.

"Ardmagar, the city is secured," said Kiggs. "A contingent of Guardsmen is here to escort you back to Castle Orison. I expect you to stay there for the rest of your visit."

Comonot nodded hastily; if he had once doubted the sense of remaining under guard, he did no longer.

"What were you doing here alone?" asked Kiggs. Comonot gave him almost the same answer he'd given me, his voice now soggy with melodrama. Kiggs's brow creased. "I'm going to let you reconsider that answer. Someone knew you'd be here. You are withholding information material to this case. We have laws about that; I'm sure my grandmother would be happy to summarize them for you at dinner this evening."

The Ardmagar puffed up like an angry hedgehog, but Kiggs opened the door, signaled his men, and had the old saar packed off in a matter of minutes. He closed the door again and looked at me.

I stared down at the bishop's ornate Porphyrian rug, agitated and anxious.

"You didn't help the Ardmagar escape his guard, I suppose?" he said.

"No," I said.

"Why were you up at the Skep with him?"

I shook my head, not daring to look at him.

Kiggs put his hands on his hips and wandered across the room, pretending to examine the framed calligraphic rendering of St. Gobnait's benedictio hung between the bookcases. "Well," he said, "at least we know who the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin was."

"Yes," I said.

He slowly turned to face me, and I realized "we" hadn't meant him and me. It meant him and the Guard. "So you knew him," he said lightly. "That rather changes the color of things. Do you know why he might have tried to kill you?"

With shaking hands, I rifled through my satchel, underneath the crimson gown and the gift from my father, until I found my coin purse. I emptied it onto the seat of the bishop's lectern, the nearest horizontal surface; a shadow across my hands was Kiggs stepping into the window light, drawing near to see. I picked the lizard out of the heap of coins and handed it to the prince without a word.

"That's a little grotesque," he said, turning it right side up in his hand and studying its face. He smiled, though, so at least he hadn't instantly a.s.sumed it was another illegal device. "There's a story here, I presume?"

"I gave coin to a quigutl panhandler, and it gave me this in exchange."

The prince nodded sagely. "Now the quig will think it's found a particularly fruitful street corner, the neighbors will get upset, and we'll be called in twice a week to escort him back to Quighole. But what's the connection to the dead clothier?"

Ah, now the lying had to start: there was a collapse and vision in the middle of this story, tangling it up with shame and fear. I said, "He saw the transaction. He was very upset, and he called me all kinds of terrible things."

"And yet he brought you back to the palace," said Kiggs quietly.

I looked up, shocked that he knew, but of course the barbican guard would keep records and report to him. His eyes were tranquil, but it was the calm of a cloudy summer sky: it could change to stormy with little warning. I had to tread carefully: "His brother Silas insisted that they offer me a ride to make up for Thomas's rudeness."

"He must have been exceedingly rude."

I turned away from him, tucking my purse back into my bag. "He called me a worm-riding quig lover, and told me women like me get thrown into the river in sacks."

Kiggs was silent long enough that I looked up and met his gaze. His expression was a tangle of shock, concern, and annoyance. He turned away first, shaking his head and saying, "It's a pity the Ardmagar killed him; I'd have liked to discuss these women in sacks. You should have brought this to my attention, or your father's."

"You're right. I should have," I murmured. My need to conceal myself was a hindrance to doing right, I was beginning to notice.

He returned his attention to the figurine in his hand. "So what does it do?"

"Do?" I hadn't bothered to check.

He mistook the question for a deeper ignorance. "We confiscate demonic devices every week. They all do something, even the legal ones."

He turned it over in his hands, prodding it here and there with curious fingers. We were both leaning over the thing now, like two small children who've captured a cicada. Like friends. I pointed out a seam at the base of its neck; Kiggs grasped my meaning at once. He pulled its head. Nothing. He twisted it.

"Thluuu-thluuu-thluuuuu!"

The voice rang out so brightly that Kiggs dropped the figurine. It did not break, but bounced under the lectern, where it continued to jabber while Kiggs groped around for it. "That's quigutl Mootya, isn't it? Can you understand it?" he asked, turning his head toward me as he searched for it by feel.

I listened carefully. "It seems to be a rant about dragons transforming into saarantrai. 'I see you there, impostor! You think you've fooled them, that you pa.s.s invisibly in a crowd, but your elbows stick out funny and you stink. You are a fraud. At least we quigutl are honest.... ' It goes on in that vein."

Kiggs half smiled. "I had no idea quigs held their cousins in such contempt."

"I doubt they all do," I said, but realized I didn't know. I was less frightened of quigs than most people, but even I had never bothered to learn what they think.

He twisted the figurine's head back, and the grating, lisping speech ceased. "What horrible tricks one could play with a device like this," mused the prince. "Can you imagine setting it off in the Blue Salon?"

"Half the people would leap up on the furniture, shrieking, and the other half would draw their daggers," I said, laughing. "For additional amus.e.m.e.nt, you could bet on who would do which."

"Which would you do?" he said, and there was suddenly a sharpness in his tone. "My guess is neither. You'd understand what it was saying, and you'd be standing stock-still, listening hard. You wouldn't want anyone to hurt a quig, not if you could stop that from happening."

He stepped toward me; every inch of me quivered at his proximity. "However practiced you are at deception, you cannot antic.i.p.ate every eventuality," he said quietly. "Sooner or later, something takes you by surprise, you react honestly as yourself, and you are caught out."

I reeled a bit, in shock. How had he turned interrogator so fast? "Are you referring to something specific?" I said.

"I'm just trying to understand what you were doing here with Ardmagar Comonot, and why you were stabbed. This does not explain it." He wagged my figurine, pinched tightly between his thumb and forefinger. "It was no spur-of-the-moment crime; the man was disguised as a priest. Who told him Comonot would be here? Did he expect Comonot to meet someone else-someone he also intended to kill-or were you just in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

I stared, openmouthed.

"Fine," said Kiggs, his expression closed. "Better silence than a lie."

"I have never wanted to lie to you!" I cried.

"Hm. That must be a wretched existence, forced to lie when you don't want to."

"Yes!" I could hold back no longer; I wept, hiding my face in my hands.

Kiggs stood apart from me, watching me weep. "That all came out harsher than I intended, Phina," he said, sounding miserable. "I'm sorry. But this is two days in a row that someone has stabbed you." I looked up sharply; he answered my unasked question. "Aunt Dionne confessed, or rather lamented Lady Corongi's faulty intelligence to anyone who would listen. Selda was heartsick to learn it was her own mother who cut you."

He stepped closer; I kept my eyes on the gold b.u.t.tons of his doublet. "Seraphina, if you are in some sort of trouble, if you need protection from someone, I want to help. And I can't help if you give me no indication of what's going on."

"I can't tell you." My chin trembled. "I don't want to lie to you, but if I don't, then there's nothing I can say. My hands are tied."

He handed me his handkerchief. I stole a glance at his face; he looked so worried that I couldn't bear it. I wanted to take him in my arms as if he were the one in need of rea.s.surance.

My father's words from the night before came back to me. What if he was right? What if there was a chance, any chance, that Kiggs wouldn't despise me if he knew the truth? One chance in a million was still better than zero. I felt dizzy at the thought of it; it was too like hanging over the parapet of the bell tower, watching your slipper spinning through s.p.a.ce, falling to the plaza below.

It wasn't just my scales between us. He had duties and obligations and an overweening need to do the right thing. The Kiggs I loved could not love me the way things stood; if he could have, he would not have been my Kiggs. I had reached for him once, and he had been terrified enough that he hadn't protested, but I couldn't imagine him tolerating it again.

Kiggs cleared his throat. "Selda was beside herself with worry this morning. I told her you'd be back, no question, that Aunt Dionne hadn't frightened you off for good. I sincerely hope that's true."

I nodded shakily. He opened the door for me and held it, but caught my arm as I pa.s.sed. "Aunt Dionne is not above the law, first heir or not. If you wish to pursue justice for your arm, Selda and I would support you."

I took a deep breath. "I'll consider it. Thank you."

He looked pained; something important still had not been said. "I've been angry with you, Phina, but also worried."