Ria clapped, and below, the surgeon lowered his knife. She leaned toward him. “I told you. I am redeeming your kinship. I am paying for salvation with blood.”
Vlad Li Tam stared down at his grandson and realized his mouth was moving. “What do you want from me? Do you want information? Do you want money?”
Her laughter was an upbeat song set to a minor key. “No, not at all. I do not lie to you, Vlad. All that is required of you is that you watch and listen.” She paused. “I told you it would hurt.”
What is he saying? Vlad leaned against the straps, feeling them bite into his flesh as he strained himself to hear the son of his son. The voice was low and it burbled. His mouth foamed pink.
“Give him water,” Ria ordered, and a black-robed man stepped forward with a cup even as the cutter retreated to wipe his knife clean and select another from the table.
The words took shape, and Vlad Li Tam’s sob shook a cry from his lips though he worked hard not to let it.
Not having the option of writing it out, his grandson now offered up his last words there beneath his grandfather’s tortured stare.
It was a poem of honor and sacrifice composed in blood and pain.
Vlad Li Tam felt the hot tears coursing his cheeks, heard their pattering upon the floor. He forced their eyes to meet and he kept watching, even after the cutter returned his latest knife, even after Ru Li Tam’s eyes rolled back in his skull from the pain of its touch, even after the poem had once more become a shriek.
Later-hours later, it seemed-when the boy was still and quiet, Ria smiled. “Tomorrow,” she said, “we should have time for three.”
Vlad Li Tam heard a croak and realized it was his own voice. He swallowed at the dryness in his mouth and tried again. “Cut me instead.”
“Oh,” she said, glancing to her table of knives, “I will in due time, Vlad.”
I want you to feel something for me. Vlad Li Tam tried to look away from the lifeless body there on the table. He’d felt it on the dock, but already it had taken a new hold upon him. He felt it growing.
Despair.
Vlad Li Tam did not feel the hands that unstrapped him from the table and caught him when he fell. He was only vaguely aware of the men who carried him back to his room to place him on the floor near the door.
All he saw was the mouth of his dead grandson moving slowly, repeating the lines of the poem he’d composed beneath the knife.
Weeping, Vlad Li Tam repeated the words back to himself and kept doing so through the night, curled into a ball with his fist against his mouth. He lay there reciting the poem until the chime sounded the next morning.
Then the men arrived to bear Vlad Li Tam into another day.
Petronus
Petronus hung to the edges of the crowded market and meditated to retain his calm. Esarov’s men stood near him, and he saw uniformed Entrolusian soldiers at the far end of the square. Commerce hummed and buzzed around them.
He’d looked for Grymlis but had not seen him. When the time had come to leave, it was predawn and he’d not had the heart to wake him. They’d ridden to the city and waited for noon in the basement of an inn near the docks.
Now, they waited for the signal-a red scarf waved from a rooftop. When they saw it, they looked to the balcony two buildings over and Petronus’s breath caught in his throat.
Standing calmly between two soldiers was a familiar man, older to be sure but well preserved in the thirty years since Petronus had last seen him. Petronus nodded to the man beside him. “Yes,” he said. “It’s Charles, to be sure.”
Above them, a blue scarf waved.
They waited another three minutes, and then the man to his right touched his shoulder. “It’s time.”
Petronus looked up and chose his path through the crowded square. With a glance to the men beside him, he took a deep breath and set out, his eyes planted firmly on the far side of the market. As he moved slowly, he found himself wondering exactly how everything would play out from this moment forward. Until now, he’d had some voice in the matter, but once he passed Charles, once he gave himself over into the hands of Erlund’s men, Petronus knew that his voice would be muted. It would be Esarov and Erlund’s game now.
He saw the balding crown of Charles’s head bobbing its way through the crowd, moving toward him at a leisurely pace. When they made eye contact, it was like lightning striking twice.
From afar, Charles appeared to have aged well, but up close, he was haggard and worn down. He weighed fifty stones less than he should, and though his clothes were new, they were ill fitting upon him. As he approached, the Arch-Engineer scowled and Petronus watched his hands.
This was a foolish trade, Father, Charles signed once the crowd parted enough for them to see one another.
Petronus inclined his head slightly. Perhaps, he answered. Are you well?
They met in the middle and briefly embraced. “I am as well as I can be,” Charles whispered. Petronus heard heavy emotion in the man’s voice and wondered exactly how the time had gone. Charles had been Sethbert’s prisoner first, and that could not have been easy. And Ignatio, Erlund’s new spymaster, had a reputation for cruelty though his master seemed more civilized.
Petronus released him. “Rudolfo is coming for you,” he said. “He can be trusted as you trust me.”
Charles nodded. “Did my messages get out?”
Petronus looked up. Ahead, the guards were craning their heads above the crowd, keeping watch on the two old men. “At least one did,” he said, then his hands moved. Is it true? Is Sanctorum Lux what I think it is?
His answer was a simple gesture. Yes.
The guards were moving into the crowd now, slowly, and Petronus resisted the urge to question Charles further. His words tumbled out now even as he steeled himself for the rest of his walk across the market. “You serve the Gypsy King now, Charles,” he said in a low voice. His hands pressed a final message into the man’s shoulder. Serve him well; preserve the light.
He thought for a moment that he saw tears in the old Arch-Engineer’s eyes, but he didn’t look closely enough. He didn’t want to know.
Instead, he willed his feet to carry him forward and willed his heart not to be afraid. If Esarov’s scheme worked, he’d be free soon enough. If it didn’t, he’d find that reckoning he had expected to face.
He pushed past Charles and into the crowd, carefully rehearsing his lines. The soldiers met him, and each took an elbow with firm hands, escorting him that last twenty steps. Lysias waited for him, his face dark with worry.
“General,” Petronus said with a nod. “It’s been a while.” He’d last seen the man during the parley that finalized peace following Resolute’s suicide and Sethbert’s removal from power.
Lysias blinked at him, and Petronus wondered if he reached for a fitting title before finally giving up. “It’s not safe here,” he finally said, dropping any need for an honorific. “We need to go.”
Petronus smiled. “One moment,” he said. Then, he pulled himself up to full height and turned toward the crowd. Already, the soldiers on each arm tugged at him, and he shook off their hands violently as he raised his voice over the square.
“Hear me,” he shouted. “I am Petronus, last true son of P’Andro Whym and last Pope of the Androfrancine Order, reigning King of Windwir.” He saw Lysias’s look of surprise out of the corner of his eye and wondered if the general had truly thought Petronus would vanish silently and willingly into one of Ignatio’s many basements. He also saw the confusion upon the soldiers’ faces as they looked to their leader for direction, but this was not his intended audience. He turned and took in the openmouthed, wide-eyed stares of the people in the market. Their voices died down as they took in the old man in his simple, travel-worn robes. “I am Petronus,” he shouted again, “and I give myself willingly into the hands of your Overseer, invoking my rights by monarchy.”
He opened his mouth to shout again, but now the hands were firm upon his elbows and he was being steered-nearly dragged-out of the crowded square and toward a waiting wagon.
Lysias drew alongside him, his face red. “This was supposed to be a quiet affair.”
Petronus smiled. “You’ll forgive me for spoiling your silence.” Behind him, he knew Esarov’s men were already spiriting Charles away through a series of alleys and windows and basements. He would be out of the city by nightfall and under Rudolfo’s protection in two days’ time if all went according to plan.
After that, Sanctorum Lux awaited.
The firm hands were now lifting him up into the wagon and closing the iron-reinforced doors. Most of the market now watched, and Petronus felt pleased with himself.
So far, he thought, things were off to as good a start as they could be.