When Avani rapped on Mal’s chamber door there was no answer. Unsurprised, she spelled the latch open with a murmured cant and slipped into the vocent’s room. She could feel Mal in her head, a subdued storm buzzing always at the base of her skull. In his water-madness he’d tried to sever their link. He’d nearly succeeded, but the root of the bond remained. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. When before Avani had found joy in the warp and weave of their connection, now the feel of him made her teeth ache. On the rare occasion he—unknowingly—invaded her dreams she suffered his own lurid nightmares and woke feeling drained of strength.
She’d promised to help him, and she had managed to guide him back from the brink of delirium. Physically he seemed much improved. Her salves had healed his sea-chapped skin, her herbs his addled stomach. Two weeks in bed, three more walking amongst the living, and at last Mal appeared to be putting meat on his bones. He was less the skeleton Roue had returned to Renault and more sinew and muscle.
If he seemed a muted version of the man she remembered, less free with a smile, more often withdrawn, Avani knew that was to be expected. She’d walked in his dreams; the sea had changed something inside Mal, and not for the better. By all accounts the Lord of the Flowers had been quickly routed, but Avani feared her friend was yet battling a far more insidious foe.
The vocent’s first hours back home had been hard. Even after Baldebert had taken the ivory cuffs from Mal’s wrists he’d continued to rant and strike out at dangers only he could see. Unable to shake him from madness, the Masterhealer had counseled time, patience, and a strong sleeping draught.
“They say deep water will break a magus,” Renault told Avani as they sat together at Mal’s bedside, keeping watch. “I didn’t believe it until now.”
“He’s not broken,” Avani declared angrily, even as Mal thrashed in his sleep. She caught his flailing hand, holding it safe between her own, afraid he’d damage himself as he fought off his nightmares.
But Renault wouldn’t meet her eye. The king looked as diminished as Mal. And Liam, for all his joy at homecoming, had refused his old cot on Mal’s floor.
“He doesn’t want me here,” the lad insisted, distress turning his cheeks ruddy and making the scars on his face stand out. “He told me so himself, many times. I’m to stay away. I gave my word. I’m to sleep in the barracks with the soldiers’ lads.”
Neither Avani’s imprecations nor Renault’s quiet reassurances would change his mind.
“He’s not broken, or crippled. He’s not dangerous,” Avani said now to the deserted chamber, a challenge and a promise.
Her gaze alighted on Mal’s desk. His journal was gone from its usual spot on the tabletop. Wherever he’d taken the Masterhealer, they’d stopped first to retrieve the vocent’s black book.
She frowned thoughtfully at the empty, sunlit leather chair. She’d spent many an hour there in Mal’s absence—fretting, studying. Learning how to think like a magus. Doing her reluctant best to fill the space he’d left behind. She’d proved herself useful, and also proved a point to herself.
Renault may have thrust vocent’s black upon her, but she had no desire to keep the uniform. That office belonged always and only to Malachi Doyle. Avani meant to ensure he kept it.
“You’ve changed your clothes,” Mal said in greeting, looking up from the naked corpse arranged on his slab. A small obsidian blade glinted in his hand; his green eyes flashed under lowered brows. “Red suits you better.”
“You’ve altered your tune,” retorted Avani. Frost glistened on the narrow cell’s ceiling and walls. Old, forgotten spells kept the space cold and prevented dead flesh from rotting. The ceiling shed soft white light, illuminating the workspace below. “Only last winter you wanted me for your student.”
Mal smiled. She’d always recognized the hint of wistfulness about his mouth—and blamed Siobahn for that rueful tilt—but now she saw that pensiveness was sliding toward austerity.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I’ve had some time to reconsider. You don’t need me schooling your power, Avani. You’ve done better than I could have hoped all on your own.”
“I had help.” She drifted close, noting the journal in place on its stand and the stylus, dipped in ink, waiting. “What did you do with Master Paul?”
The dead woman on the slab was old, her skin wrinkled. Her eyes, one brown, the other a cloudy blue, were open and staring. Her hair was sparse, brushed back from a high brow and hanging in long gray hanks; age spots freckled her hands, and face, and the tops of her feet. There were holes in the lobes of her ears for adornment, and circles of paler skin around most of her fingers where she’d worn rings.
“Do with Master Paul?” Mal bent over the corpse. Wielding polished obsidian, he slit her neatly throat to groin. Avani heard the hiss of escaping vapors but the incision was bloodless. “What does one do with a man like that but send him on his way with a cautionary word? Paul’s spent too many years on his knees before his god. He’s forgotten that just as the throne relies on the temple, so does the temple rely on the throne. If Wilhaiim falls to their expansion, so too will the temple.”
“He didn’t like to hear it,” Avani guessed. She looked at the pages of Mal’s journal so she didn’t have to witness the grandmother being taken apart beneath his knife. She saw he’d begun the day’s entry already. He had a clean, efficient hand, pleasing to the eye. She remembered the smell of the fine leather binding, the texture of the costly paper. More than once she’d fallen asleep with her hand on a page, her fingers tracing the shape of earlier entries.
“Of course he didn’t like to hear it. Nor was he cowed. He’s promised me his god will blot the temple’s enemies from the earth and that Wilhaiim will do far better with the theist’s favor than without.”
“I’ve heard talk on the streets, and in the temple.” Avani steeled herself and looked up. “There are people who whisper the Red Worm was a sign of the one god’s disapproval.”
Mal set aside his knife. The magus didn’t crack the corpse’s rib cage as Avani expected but instead reached for a set of matched silver forceps. He bent over the woman’s abdomen and used the forceps to catch and peel back the skin around the edges of the incision, revealing muscle and fat. A flick of his fingers locked the forceps in place.
“Ai, Goddess.” Avani slapped a palm over her eyes. She wasn’t cursed with a delicate constitution, but Mal’s clinical assault seemed to her the worst sort of indignity. “What are you doing?”
“Examining Greta’s womb,” Mal replied. “If you’re going to vomit please do so in the basin.”
“I won’t vomit.” But Avani turned her back to the slab before taking her hand from her face. She tried to concentrate on the shine of frost on the far wall and the comfort of cold air in an otherwise steamy summer, but she couldn’t ignore the slick sounds of Mal’s exploration. Only force of will kept her from plugging her ears like a fretful child. “What are you looking for?”
Mal made a thoughtful noise. “Greta’s husband believes she was anticipating.”
“Pregnant, you mean,” Avani inferred. “Impossible.” She resisted an urge to swivel back around and peek. “Why, she must have been seventy if she was a day.”
“Closer to sixty.” Mal spoke over the damp splat of intestines on stone. “Not impossible but not probable, either. Still. Baron Belmas is convinced.”
“Belmas?” Avani wrinkled her nose. “I’ve met him. He wanted new curtains for his bed, from which he rarely rises. He’s afflicted with the palsy, if I recall. Barely able to sit up against his cushions, the poor old man, let alone sire a child on his wife, herself past childbearing age.”
“Yes.”
“Then what makes Belmas think—”
“Greta told him so. He claims she was obviously increasing, her belly had grown taut. She’d begun to set up a nursery, promised him an heir by end of summer.” Mal cleared his throat. “She was mistaken, of course. Here, be brave. You may not see another such as this in your lifetime.”
Avani hesitated, but curiosity won out. She joined Mal near the body then goggled at the rounded mass of tissue he held cupped in gore-covered hands. She felt a twist of nausea deep in her own gut, but fascination beat back disgust.
“What is it?”
“No idea,” Mal confessed. “I’ve come upon only one other before, and that excised from a young woman’s bowels. Andrew called it a ‘malignancy’ and believed it was a result of black bile run amok.” He hefted the mass in his hands. “It was not so large as this one, but similar. See the tiny vessels running along the surface, feeding the whole? Bring me my scales, I want to get its weight.”
“Near as large as a newborn babe,” Avani said sadly, looking into Greta’s empty eyes. “Is it what killed her?”
“I suppose it would have, sooner rather than later,” replied Mal. “But, no—” as he set the malignancy on the scales Avani placed next to the corpse, his visage turned ominous “—Belmas’s wife is on my table because she was murdered. Why else?”
After Mal recorded the mass’s weight in his journal, he used his ebon knife to slice a piece from the globular mass. He placed the sample into a clear vial of brandy wine preserve then capped it tightly, sealing it away for further study. Then he returned Greta’s cold intestines to her belly before sewing her flesh carefully back together. By the time he’d finished with needle and catgut, and cleaned his hands, Avani was peppered with gooseflesh and missing the season’s unceasing heat.
Mal pretended not to notice her shivers, but she could feel his amused sympathy through the remnants of their link. Almost she relished the connection, but for the underlying wrongness that reverberated along the edges of his compassion.
“Hennish leather,” he teased. “Warmer than silk, more practical in a vocent’s cold-room.”
Avani ground her teeth to keep them from chattering.
“Just show me,” she growled. “Before I freeze to your floor.”
Mal laughed but complied. Gently he turned Greta from back to stomach, his touch competent but compassionate as if the corpse was still capable of self-respect. Avani knew better. The spirits she’d encountered seemed to care not at all about the shell they’d left behind.
“She’s not here,” Mal said as he adjusted the corpse so Greta lay on her right cheek. He shut her staring eyes then smoothed her thin hair.
“I know.” But Avani caught herself squinting into the corners of the room in search of Greta’s ghost.
“Do you see them everywhere now, I wonder? The legions of the dead?”
“Nay.” Avani hugged her ribs tightly. “It’s not as bad as that, yet. I hope it never will be.”
“As do I.” Mal’s mouth went flat. “For your sake.” He blinked and shook his head, and then walked his fingers down the dead woman’s spine. The yellow stone on his thumb, twin to the one hanging around Avani’s neck, flashed.
“You see the discoloration here,” he continued after a moment, “on the backs of her arms, and legs, and on her buttocks. Like bruising, but different. The blood settles in the lowest parts of the corpse, after death. She was lying on her back, when they discovered her, the stiffening in her limbs just beginning to relax.”
“Discovered her where?” asked Avani.
“In an alley off a back street, just east of the Fair. Hastily hidden beneath a scant scattering of garbage. Whoever killed her wanted her found quickly.”
“Why?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Mal’s shoulder brushed Avani’s arm. His body radiated heat. He smelled, as he always did, faintly of apples. “But it was well-done, and efficient. Up through the ribs and into the heart. Left the knife in the wound to minimize blood spray.” He shook his head. “Greta’s the second such I’ve seen in a handspan of days. The first was called Michael Moonstone; he was a prostitute of some repute. They found him on Whore’s Street, not far from the apartment he called home. Murdered with his own belt knife, up through the ribs and into the heart, as I said. Also skillfully done. I’m afraid this killer knows what he’s about.”
“He.” The small, blue-edged hole was almost lost in the folds of the old woman’s skin just below her armpit. Anyone else might have missed it but Mal was no stranger to death. “A man did this?”
Mal reached below his slab. He pulled a simple linen shroud from a basket, unfolded the fabric with a snap of his wrists, and covered Greta’s body, leaving only her face visible. He tucked the sheet around her shoulders, hips, and feet, then went to wash his hands at the pump in the corner of the room.
“She’s not tall,” he replied as water splashed. “But by all accounts she was strong for her age. She liked to ride, and hunt, and—if I recall—had a tongue on her acerbic enough to tan hide.” He dried his fingers on a flannel, brow furrowed. “A kill from behind and around like that, it’s not difficult if you know what you’re doing, but he—or, yes, she—would have had to get an arm around Greta’s throat, bend her backward. There are bruises beneath her chin, but they’re minimal. She didn’t struggle for long.”
“Why would someone do such a thing? Murder an old woman with one foot already in the grave?”
“I’m on my way to ask Belmas the same,” Mal said, making for the door. “I suspect he may know a thing or two about it, especially as the knife I pulled from Greta’s side bears his device on its blade. Coming?” the vocent inquired. “Could be a diverting afternoon. It’s not often I get to accuse bedridden barons of contriving to murder their wives. Renault will be incensed.”
“Nay. You’re enjoying yourself,” Avani accused. “It’s unseemly.”
“As you wish.” Mal tossed her a grin and a wave before vanishing down the hall, leaving Avani alone with the baron’s wife.
“Bless you,” Avani told the shrouded corpse sadly just in case the woman’s spirit lingered somewhere out of sight. “Be at rest, if you can.”
Admiral Baldebert caught up with her at sunset as she perused crocks of fresh honey beneath a beekeeper’s brightly colored tent. The beekeeper was a new addition to Wilhaiim’s busy Fair; a young woman with hair white as the moon and unusually delicate features, she’d lately become the darling of many unattached yeoman. Avani, who appreciated good stock, thought the woman’s honey was an incomparable treasure.
“This one is the clover,” the beekeeper said, pointing Avani toward a small blue crock. “I kept it aside for you, as I know it’s your favorite. I’ve not got much of it left, I’m afraid, now that the best flowers are fading.”
“Ah, honey. Nature’s elixir. A cure-all for every ailment. Also a staple on my tea tray, although tea, as such, is decidedly difficult to come by in this city.”
They had exchanged few words but Avani knew him at once from the sharp edges of the syllables on his tongue. Baldebert’s accent sounded like home and made her pulse jump. She turned, relieved to see the admiral had not escaped the palace alone; Russel stood guard at his back.
“I’ve not had real tea since I was a child,” Avani acknowledged. “Even Deval cannot get a good supply in. The leaves are as precious as gold.”
“More precious, in Roue.” Baldebert inclined his head. “I’ve met Deval; your king introduced us. I believe he thought yon island tongue would make me feel more at home.”
“Deval sent you after me?” Avani asked, amused. She knew her friend lately preferred the temple library to the company of other people.
“No. I spotted you all on my own. You’re one of a kind. I enjoy rarity.”
Standing at Avani’s elbow, Baldebert made a show of casting a professional eye over the crocks on the beekeeper’s table. The lass tossed him a flirtatious wink, but he didn’t appear to notice. Two steps behind, Russel scanned the evening crowd for threat. Most of the people hurrying past seemed content to attend their own business, but several stopped to scowl and mutter. Russel chased them away with a sharp word. Baldebert paid them no mind at all.
“This, the clover, is indeed well-done.” He dipped a finger in sticky nectar. “It’s the color that gives it away. And, of course, the taste.” He thrust the finger in his mouth, sighing loud pleasure. “Perfection!”
Over his shoulder Russel grimaced, embarrassed by the man’s affected airs. The beekeeper hid a laugh in her hand. But Avani caught the glitter of guile in the admiral’s desert eyes and wasn’t fooled.
“It’s yours, then, Admiral,” she said. “My gift to you.” She drew the correct number of coins from her pouch, setting them on the beekeeper’s waiting palm. “Take it with your tea and think fondly of Wilhaiim.”
Baldebert puffed in honest pleasure. “It happens I have a few leaves to spare, carried across the Long Sea, come to me by way of the Black Coast.” He clutched her hand and executed a tidy bow over her fingers, nose to knuckles, blond curls flopping. He straightened. “Have tea with me tomorrow, in the garden Renault’s set aside for my private enjoyment. My gift to you.”
Russel shifted uneasily. The beekeeper watched Baldebert’s little courtship with avid fascination.
“Yes,” Avani said. “Of course. Thank you, my lord.”
“‘Admiral’ will do.” He preened with enthusiasm, adjusting the medals and ribbons on his captain’s uniform. “Tomorrow, then. I look forward to it.”
He clutched the crock of honey to his breast as he marched away, Russel trailing after. The beekeeper smiled, delighted.
“Look out for that one, my lady,” she warned. “He’s a heartbreaker, I can tell.”
But the chandler in the tent next door glowered. He spat onto the cobbles, narrowly avoiding boots and skirts.
“A menace, you mean,” he said. “And a pirate. He deserves to be hung like any other thief, for stealing away our vocent. Just you wait. Wilhaiim will have retribution.”
Avani selected a ragged chunk of dripping honeycomb from an earthenware bowl on the table. While the beekeeper secured the dripping treat in a small jug, Avani studied the busy Fair crowds. What she saw made her heart clench in undiluted sorrow. For although they’d stopped the Red Worm before the plague had savaged the city entire, relief was bittersweet. The flea-borne disease had been particularly virulent amongst the enfeebled and the young; it had taken Wilhaiim’s newest generation alongside the city’s eldest.
The Fair—deserted while the Red Worm ravaged the city—was running again. At first glance the crowds seemed unchanged; merchants and customers called robust greetings back and forth, while roaming minstrels plied their most cheerful tunes. But their boisterous noise did not make up for the lack of children’s laughter or infants’ cries.
Almost everyone in the crowd had lost someone to the plague; most of the families in the city were now childless.
“It’s a perilous time,” the beekeeper agreed, catching concern writ clear across Avani’s face. “All them mums and das without their babes to hug close at night—why, they’re looking for someone to blame.” She slanted her head in the direction of the chandler’s stall. “You’d be wise to warn your new friend: the city’s not in a forgiving mood. He’d best be on guard.”
“But Roue had no hand in the Worm.”
The beekeeper shrugged as she passed Avani her honeycomb. “Who’s to say? They took milord away, didn’t they? Him who could have saved all those lost babes. Took him from us when we needed him most.”
She looked at Avani across her wares, fierce and clear-eyed, a different woman from the coquette she’d appeared in Baldebert’s presence. A chill ran up Avani’s spine.
“Oh, I mean the pirate no harm myself, for all that I lost a niece and two nephews and my sister’s not come out of her cottage since we sent their bodies into the temple fires. I’m not that sort of woman. Like my gentle bees, I’ve no heart for vengeance.” She wiped a sticky hand across the front of her apron, shaking her head. “But there are others who speak of blood for blood. Tell His Majesty. Roue should hurry home across the seas, and soon.”
The beekeeper’s warning kept Avani awake long into the night. She tossed beneath the summer-weight blanket she’d loomed from skeins of fine-combed wool. The wool was a gift from Peter Shean’s wife; a rare, soft variety produced by the long-legged, black-muzzled sheep found on northern foothills. Avani had once dreamed of having such sheep in her own pasture on Stonehill Downs. It seemed a distant aspiration now, as she fidgeted on the wide bed in her sumptuous chambers, so very far from her small cottage on the bleak crags.
She threw off the blanket and lay spread-eagled on the mattress. Heat and worry pressed heavy on her chest. The chamber was as dark as the backs of her eyelids, the air too still. She could smell the aromatic perfume of the honeycomb emanating from the shallow bowl in front of the gold-skinned idol on her hearth. Honey for protection and braided sweetgrass for purification. As she’d laid the offerings at the small statue’s feet, she’d asked for blessings upon Wilhaiim and upon the spirit of the poor old woman who’d been murdered and left like so much refuge in an alley. Avani knew Greta, at least, would now rest easy in the Goddess’s arms.
She’d asked, also, for the Goddess’s quiet shelter against Mal’s battered mind but as she breathed slowly in and out, Avani could feel the vocent’s power beating like the wings of an angry bird. She’d confined him to one corner of her skull, but if Mal wasn’t careful he would soon overflow her walls. She knew he’d be mortified if he realized he had so little mastery over his boundaries. He was a proud man, already disheartened by Renault’s new tendency to treat him gently. She dreaded the explosion of temper that would come when he discovered his growing loss of control.