Arrivals Page 5

  And, Writer’s balls, there will be feasts. More feasts. I think Kintyre and I are feasted out. We just want to go back to Turn Hall, enjoy the silence of the country, eat simple fare, and sleep for a week.

  So we send a hawk to Gyre with a curt note of thanks and the quill wrapped in canvas. It’s signed by the Shadow Hand with his secret sigil, (or at least the best version of it I can accomplish from my hazy memory of the complicated squiggle the Shadow Hand uses. Lordling Gyre, at least, won’t know the difference.)

  A second hawk goes to Carvel with a letter explaining the barest details of our adventure. If nothing else, he should be informed that the Lost Library has been recovered, and that its defenses have been made passive. I urge the king to send along some scholars and wizards versed in preservation magic to begin the restoration. We also tell him that Kintyre will be assuming the seat of Lysse, that we are retiring as questing heroes. And, oh, yes, the Viceroy is dead, so feel free to ransack the Ivory Tower. We make no mention of Forsyth for the present, still uncertain of how to tell people where he’s gone. Especially the people who knew he was the Shadow Hand.

  It feels strange to write of our retirement in the letter. So final. And yet, so right. So permanent. So starkly true.

  We receive nothing back from Gyre, as expected. From the king we get a long, long letter which we read, chuckle over—his use of exclamation points is excessive, even to a poet like me—and use for kindling. The king can beg all he likes. Our retirement is happening.

  And each night, after Kintyre has dropped off to sleep, I settle before whichever hearth or fire or window is available with my pipe and the mask. I practice the Word in my head, turn the mask over and over in the fire- or candle- or starlight, and try not to think of Bootknife’s face. He’d been unworthy. Forsyth has given me the secret of the mask, but ultimately, it seems to me that it’s the mask who chooses whether to bow to the whim of the intended successor.

  And, yeah, beyond my fears of being a good Shadow Hand, I fear being a worthy enough man.

  I’m a champion of good, but I have had no problem getting there through nefarious, devious, and sometimes bloody means. I have killed. I have shed blood. I have hated. I have loved where it’s sometimes not encouraged to love. I have throttled the man who is now the closest thing to a brother-in-law a Pairing allows for, bullied and teased him when he was younger, and I have threatened a Reader. I drove a stake through the heart of a corpse, mutilated the body of a fallen enemy simply to quench my thirst for revenge. I have lied to my king. I have lied to women to bed them. I have lied to my best friend in order to just be able to touch him, before he was my lover. I have lied to myself. Constantly. Daily. For years.

  Am I a good man? Am I a worthy man?

  This question keeps the mask in my hands, and in my saddlebag, and away from my face. I’m not vain—I have scars enough on my face and arms, and one particularly nasty one that bisects my torso and was nearly my end at the Battle of the Walking Woods, where we lost Stormbearer. And I wear all my scars proudly, proof of my valor and, yeah, my pigheaded foolishness. But I don’t think I could honorably bear the scar of melted flesh on my face if the mask rejected me. Not at all.

  ✍

  Returning the final quest item, the Parchment that Never Fills, is easier than we feared it would be. With the enchantment broken on the Lost Library, the main gates have remained open, and the vines shiver and strain to get a good look at us, but don’t attack or entangle.

  This time, Kintyre insists on being the one to stick his neck out. So I wait at the bottom of the spiral stairway that leads to the balcony and the pedestal from which Pip snatched the paper, my sword at the ready. But no great guardian creature ambushes us from the dusty shadows of the stacks, and we are back out of the sneeze-inducing tomb of cobwebs and decaying paper faster than a lad having his first go at a nymph. It’s not even midmorning by the time we emerge. We’re sheathing our swords and chatting about whether we’d rather spend the night at the Library or try for Gwillfifeshire and the Pern before sundown when we both realize that something has changed in the courtyard.

  It takes a moment to realize that the problem is with the horses. The buggers have somehow multiplied. Well, not the horses themselves, no, but there’s some other four-legged creature with them. Big as a horse—bigger than Stormbearer was, and he was huge—and the color of sandstone. It’s sitting beside Dauntless, who doesn’t seem to mind that it’s grooming the horse’s mane with a massive great tongue.

  “S’at a lion?” Kintyre asks, thumbs hooked into his belt as we both pause on the portico.

  The horses are on the far side of the wide, also-sandstone courtyard, so it’s a bit hard to tell. I squint and blink, and I’m not sure if it’s the distance, or how exhausted I still am from all this travel, but, yeah, it kinda looks like a lion. The body isn’t quite right, though. Strange proportions, like an artist drew it based on a description of lions, never having seen one themselves. But it’s not eating the horses. Just licking. Grooming.

  “I think so,” I say, scratching my nose. “Funny ears, though.”

  Kin drops his palm to Foesmiter’s pommel and runs his hand over the ornate gemstone butt. “Think we ought to . . . ?”

  “The horses aren’t spooked,” I say, resettling my satchel so it won’t unbalance me if we do need to fight, or flee. I put my hand on my own sword. “Let’s go slow?”

  Kin grunts his agreement, and we pick our way across the jumble of flagstones and debris.

  Dauntless sees us first. He whickers a welcome, and steps away from the creature grooming his mane. It lets him go, so we stop a few lengths away and let Dauntless nose at Kintyre’s shoulder. Karlurban doesn’t seem any more perturbed than Dauntless, though he doesn’t move either toward or away from the predator beside him. And then the great cat bounds away, quicker than I expected. I lose track of the lion-thing long enough for it to sneak up around my unguarded left flank.

  I catch its open mouth in my peripheral vision and shout, startled, and prepared for pain. Foesmiter leaps into Kintyre’s hand, and I reel back, away from the creature’s—

  “Oh! Uhg!” I say, as a sandpaper tongue laps over my shoulder, up along my bare neck, and across my skull. I can feel the globs of spittle in my hair.

  Kin, the arse, just laughs.

  “Suppose this is Pip’s Library Lion, then,” I say, and it’s not really a question. I shove the damned cat away as it tries to nuzzle into me. It’s strong enough to knock me forward a few steps. “Oi! Shoo, you!”

  It’s not that I don’t like cats; the feral cats that used to hang about my pa’s forge and beg for scraps of my dinner were nice enough, but I’m already feeling prickly about my height right now, and others’ assumptions about my place at Kin’s side because of it. The last thing I want to contend with is an oversized fluff-ball that will make me look even more impish.

  The creature flops onto its back on the weedy flagstones and looks up at me, enticingly, an expanse of temptingly fluffy tummy the size of a bedroll on offer. I have known too many barn cats to fall for that ploy, however.

  I clamber onto Dauntless and scrub at the back of my head. “Come on, Kin. Let’s go.”

  Kintyre snorts at me, but mounts. “What, scared of the kitty?”

  “No, I just . . . we’re done here, aren’t we?” I cluck Dauntless into motion, and Karl lurches to follow, never liking to be left behind. “No point in lingering. I have half my mind on the Goodwoman Pern’s game pie already, and if we want to make it by sundown, we have to—”

  The cat bounds in front of the gates, blocking our horses with a yowl that sounds like a rusty pulley and recrimination.

  “Oh, go on with you. Shoo!” I say to the Library Lion. “I’m not Pip, to coddle you!”

  Kintyre pulls up behind me. “It’s sort of—”

  I swing around in my saddle and point a sharp finger at my lover. “Don’t you dare say it, Kintyre Turn.”

  Kin grins at me,
all cheek. “Cute.”

  “No.”

  “I bet it’s lonely, stuck here with only the books for company. Forsyth said it followed them halfway to the—”

  “No.”

  Kintyre grins wider. “Imagine what a sight we’ll make when we return to Turnshire with such a creature at our command.”

  “No!”

  “Imagine how respected we’ll be as lords if we have such a pet!”

  “I said no, Kin,” I say, but I can already see that my protests are in vain. The cat has come around to purr and nuzzle against Kintyre’s leg, and subsequently Karl’s whole flank, as if it knows where it’s oversized dish of cream is going to come from. Kintyre is running his hand over its velvety ears, entranced by the texture.

  Oh, my silly, narcissistic blockhead. What a soft touch the great lunk is. Kintyre reaches down and scruffles the cat’s ruff gently, and its purring increases in volume. I can see it there, in Kin’s eyes, the desire to be surrounded by the loyal and unquestioning adoration of an animal— Algar Turn never let his sons have any pets, aside from fiercely trained bloodhounds, which were no good for playing with.

  Yeah, he grew up with wealth and comfort, but really, Kintyre had so very little. He ran away from home so that he could live. And I, who grew up in a household forever on the teetering brink of poverty, had a childhood that was warm and full of love, and laughter, family, and the adoration of my parents and siblings. I had everything, in that respect. And Kin, nothing.

  “Fine,” I say, heaving a great sigh so my lover understands just how much of a burden I find capitulation to be. “But we’re bypassing Gwillfifeshire, and it won’t be me that cleans up its droppings in the foyer, or hires a whole new hall boy to keep the fur off the tapestries.”

  Kintyre just grins at me, the beaming smile of a thrilled little boy in the adventure-weary face of a man, because of course I’ll be the one doing those things.

  ✍

  The first snowfall catches us with our dicks out. We’re on the road just outside of Lysse when the first flakes start catching on our eyelashes and hair. Kintyre’s always been a bit of a woman about the cold. It’s a good thing we’re already headed for Turnshire, ‘cause he’d have us running back here for Forssy’s best whiskey and the Hall hearths faster’n a rabbit that had scented blackberry jam.

  “We’re nearly there,” I say as Kin tries to turn Karl off the main road and toward the small border town with the inn that has mulled wine I’ve immortalized in scrolls. “Plow through, and we’ll be home by nightfall.”

  “Home,” Kin snorts. He pulls his shoulders back, flicks the tail of his hair back over his shoulder, and sits up straight like a lord. But the magnanimous expression on his face is strained. The smile is thin and fractured. He’s worried, Writer, he’s worried.

  About what’s ahead? Yeah, well. Me, too.

  To cover it, Kin whinges. Kintyre whines more than the Library Lion, who, as we’ve learned, dislikes being left alone for any reason, and firmly believes that it has every right to curl around us as we sleep like a furry, protective pillow. At first, it was nice to have the cat’s extra body heat and the warmth of its fur to keep away the chill, late-fall air. But in the weeks we’ve been making our way northward, the cat hasn’t left us alone to sleep once.

  And this has made Kintyre and me cranky. Very, very cranky. Yeah, I refuse to engage in any sort of bedsport with the Library Lion watching.

  Kintyre was right, though. I gotta give him that. We do make one hells of a sight riding the Market Road up to Turnshire with a massive lion-bear-thing gamboling behind us like a winsome kitten. We cut through the squashed central square and continue on to Turn Hall, but slow as we approach, our pace turning positively sluggish the closer we get. I think this is maybe the first time I’ve ever come up to Turn Hall the front way. And it’s definitely the first time I’ve been filled to the eyeballs with reluctance and uncertainty. I’ve always had the swaggering assurance that I was coming as a guest of the lordling—then, later, the lord—and would be welcome.

  Oh, there will be a warm welcome, yeah. But after that, what?

  Forssy let Cook have the run of the kitchen garden, and he’d let the rigid and regimented back gardens go a little bit wild and woolly after Algar Turn drank himself into a back-stair tumble. I never got the full story, but the fall had something to do with why Forssy rarely employed pretty young misses in the house—too much temptation for the ill-behaved, he’d said once. Too much temptation for his father when the late Lord Turn had been in his cups, anyway.

  In the back of Turn Hall, the ivy has grown willy-nilly over the red brick facade of the hall’s rear wall, and the covey forest that abuts the edge of the eastern wall is boarded with seedling trees encroaching on a manicured lawn spotted with clover, buttercups, and a galaxy of twinkling starflowers like a negligent and particularly colorful pox. Creeping vines that flower blush pink in the spring and wine-red in the summer flow in verdant curlicues around the base of the back courtyard fountain, and the fishpond in the midst of the lawn on the west approach is thick with bull rushes and lily pads that delight frogs, fairies, and the hungry trout alike. Even the low stone wall that separates the lord’s lawn from the tenant’s fields is dusted with lichen and the gossamer nests of Kiss-Me Frogs’ eggs, made from the hair stolen from maiden hairbrushes.

  But the front approach of Turn Hall? That is the exact opposite. Algar’s penchant for rigid control still stands here. Forsyth was always too afraid to change anything, afraid of not being able to be what he thought his people wanted, afraid to step out of the box his father had built around him and his role as lordling.

  And now, Kin and I are faced with an austere and frigid facade of cream-colored marble threaded with russet and gold veins. The wall is blank and without personality, save for the heavily, overly ornate gold-leaf cornices and sills. Geometric bushes are attended to meticulously, and separate a white stone drive from a ruthlessly rich-green carpet of even grass, dusted now with snow.

  In short, Turn Hall is the exact portrait of the last lordling who held power at this seat, who had ruled Lysse for a decade: staid, boring, and predictable on the public face, disguising a wonderfully complex, colorful, and gently passionate secret life.

  In the first coat of snowfall, the oxymoronic, bland ostentation of the front drive is muted. Dauntless cuts through the untouched snow primly, with Karl doing his best to stay in his hoof-holes, far as I can tell with the way the younger horse is jerking and sidestepping under Kin. But the Library Lion leaves no paw-prints on the drive at all.

  Writer’s calluses, that’s eerie.

  The front door opens as soon as we gain the front portico. We haven’t even dismounted yet. Writer’s calluses, that’s eerie. A groom shoots down the stairs to take the reins of our horses, and the butler meets us on the top step, studiously not looking at the great cat who seems torn between following the horses or following us.

  “Go on,” Kintyre shoos the beast. “Go with Dauntless and Karl. There’s room enough in the stable for you.” The cat meeps in protest. “I’ll come visit you once we’re settled, you silly creature. Off with you.” The cat goes.

  I will never stop being amazed and annoyed that the Library Lion both understands and obeys my lover. But not me. Brat.

  “Master Kintyre,” the butler says, flicking his eyes behind us and down the drive tellingly. “Well come.”

  “Ah, thank you . . .”

  “Velshi,” I whisper to Kin, annoyed that I have to remind him of his own damned butler’s name.

  “Velshi,” Kintyre repeats without missing a beat. “Good to be home.”

  “If you and Sir Dom will come in, we can, ah, send up a bath and a hot meal?”

  Kintyre takes the not-so-subtle hint in stride, and we are both relieved to leave the chill air and the soft, gentle snowfall behind us. But Velshi doesn’t close the door. He doesn’t even come back inside.

  “Pardon me, sir, but . . . is, ah,
is Master Forsyth behind you?” The butler asks it in a small voice. Tremulous. Like he’s waiting for us to impart the news of the lordling’s death. In a way, I think, we are.

  Kintyre sways on the spot, knees weak. He grabs the doorframe in a white-knuckled grip. If he were a maiden, I’d call it a near-swoon. With his free hand, he gropes out for my hand, and I let him bury my fingers in his broader palm as he turns to face his Head of Staff.

  “Ah. No, Velshi,” he says softly. Velshi sucks in a horrified gasp, his face immediately draining of all color. He takes a reeling step backward. Kintyre rushes to add: “But not for the reasons you think. He lives, believe me. He lives. I . . . close the door, Velshi. And assemble the staff in the, uh . . .”

  “In Forsyth’s study,” I suggest softly.

  “Yes, the study,” he says, nodding slowly. “Assemble the staff in the . . . in my study. We have something to tell you.”

  Part Three

  Turn Hall has more employees than I thought. In our past sojourns here, I only ever saw the valet and the butler. Sometimes the cook. Yeah, and once a chamber maid and a hall boy each. Even with Forsyth’s reduced complement—he always felt conspicuous having too many people wait on him when he was a bachelor alone—I’m counting near to twenty folks, both inside staff and out. There’re gardeners, and a little scullery maid, and footmen, and cleaners, and grooms, and the Writer only knows what else the rest of these poor sods do to earn their bread and beds.

  It’s a lot more people dependent on this estate than I thought. And a lot more people to share our roof, our lives, and our privacy with than I was expecting. By the Writer, it’ll be almost like being back in Bynnebakker for Solsticetide, except that all of these people won’t be jammed into one room every night. There won’t be gleeful shouting, and pinching, and screaming with laughter, and dancing, and making cutting remarks about the last letter I sent home or the most recent adventure to be disseminated by my printer.