Garth carefully unrolled the parchment. Harrald had read it previously, and now Garth strained over the unfamiliar script. It was hundreds of years old, and its author had formed his characters with peculiar curves and hooks that made reading difficult.
“Well,” he grumbled, then bent closer, wishing there were an index or table of contents that appeared on the opening part of the scroll. Slowly he began to work his way through, Ravenna sitting patient and quiet at his side.
“Here,” Garth exclaimed, tapping the parchment after half an hour, “is the reference to two rival claimants and the ordeal that the Manteceros must administer.”
Ravenna bent forward. “Is there anything else? Anything about making the claim?”
Garth frowned, his finger tracing gently down the scroll. He mumbled under his breath and unrolled it further.
“Damn!” he muttered feelingly. “Nothing more. There’s a total different change of subject.” He turned to look at Ravenna and grinned. “How a woman may test which of two brothers would make the better husband.”
Ravenna’s mouth twitched, but all she said was, “Marsh women do not take husbands.”
Garth’s grin widened slightly, then he bent back to the scroll. There was still at least two thirds of it to work through, and he wanted to check every entry, just in case there was another reference to the Manteceros.
And then, he supposed morosely, they would have to check every book in the library one by one, for he and Harrald had already checked the obvious books and gleaned all they could. Somewhere there had to be a reference to the riddle…surely?
Well, checking every book would, at the least, keep them out of mischief until spring and the summons to the Veins arrived.
“It won’t do you any good,” a soft voice said, and both Garth and Ravenna, their heads bent close over the scroll, started violently at the feel of a hand on each of their shoulders.
A tall, thin monk with dark hair that fell over sharp black eyes stood behind them. As soon as he had touched them, the monk had withdrawn his hands and now they were hidden within the voluminous sleeves of his habit.
“What do you mean?” Ravenna asked, irritated and a little unnerved by the sudden intrusion. Neither the monk nor Garth took any notice of her question.
“You!” Garth breathed, profoundly shocked.
The monk smiled, a cold movement that did nothing to reassure either Garth or Ravenna.
The marsh girl looked between the two of them. “What is it?”
“It’s the street trader,” Garth whispered, wondering if he and Ravenna could flee. He shifted his feet beneath the bench. “The one who gave me the medallion.”
“And I still sense it about your neck, young master,” the monk smiled, and this time there was more warmth in his face.
“What?” Ravenna said again, still confused. “Did you say the trader?”
Now the fat monk who had originally brought the scroll appeared behind the thin, dark-haired one.
“Is there anything wrong, Brother Vorstus?”
Brother Vorstus—if that was indeed his name—turned to face his plumper brother. “Not at all, Brother Jorgan. My young friends here have completed their study of the scroll, so perhaps you could return it to its resting place.”
Garth opened his mouth to protest, but Vorstus’ hand was suddenly back on his shoulder, and all Garth managed was a small squeak of pain as Brother Jorgan leaned forward and gathered the scroll into his arms.
“Will you be staying with us much longer, Brother Vorstus?” Jorgan said conversationally as he carefully rolled the scroll.
Vorstus’ hand still gripped Garth’s shoulder tightly; Ravenna noticed that there was a peculiar symbol tattooed onto the back of his index finger. “A few more weeks, my friend. Perhaps until spring arrives. Then I shall undoubtedly find more pressing tasks to the north that need my attention.”
Jorgan was almost finished rolling the scroll. “We shall be sorry to lose you, Brother Vorstus. Your commentary on some of the more obscure works in our library has proved most enlightening.”
Vorstus gave a small bow and a self-deprecating smile. “I but do my best, Brother Jorgan. Tell me, is the rear discussion room still free? I would like to talk awhile with my young friends here.”
Garth was getting sick of being referred to as this man’s “young friend”, but he narrowed his eyes speculatively. The man wanted to talk?
“Assuredly, Brother Vorstus. Done! I’ll leave you to it then,” and Brother Jorgan bowed and was away, bearing the scroll back to its resting place.
Vorstus lifted his hand from Garth’s shoulder. “I can explain,” he said calmly, then he turned on his heel and walked towards the back of the great hall.
Garth and Ravenna shared one suspicious glance, then they pushed the bench back and hurried after him.
Vorstus led them through a small door set in the back wall of the hall, then down several narrow and dimly lit corridors until they reached a closed door.
He put his hand on the handle. “I can explain,” he repeated, and grinned, making his thin and hawkish face appear years younger. “Believe me.” Then he was through.
The room was small but comfortably furnished, with a large window that opened out into a little garden courtyard—Garth noted that it was still drizzling outside. A small fire crackled in a grate, and Vorstus motioned them to several armchairs grouped about it.
“Please, sit.”
“Who are you?” Garth asked firmly as he sat down.
Vorstus settled into a chair across the fire from Ravenna and Garth. “My name truly is Vorstus, and I truly am a monk.”
“Between masquerading as a street trader,” Garth mumbled, remembering how the man and his merchandise had mysteriously disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Vorstus’ smile expanded momentarily, but he did not comment. “And how strange that I should find a marsh woman here in this library. I thought, lady of dreams, that you had little use for the world of books.”
Ravenna’s eyes widened—and lightened, Garth noticed. “I am willing to search any way that might provide answers,” she said softly. “But you, methinks, are more mystery than answer.”
Vorstus took a deep breath and relaxed back into his chair, his fingers drumming lightly against the armrests. “Let me share some—not all, mind—of my secrets. Then you can decide if you are willing to share some of yours. Brother Jorgan only knows me as Brother Vorstus from a companion order of Ruen, come south to visit Narbon’s admittedly excellent library. True enough, as far as it goes. But apart from my regular order, I belong to a slightly,” he hesitated, “irregular order known—and I would thank you not to mention this to anyone else—as the Order of Persimius.”
“Persimius is the name of the old royal house,” Garth said slowly. “What is the connection to this secret order of yours?”
“Close, young man, very close. We were founded by an ancient king, Nennius by name—”
“He was the king who adopted the Manteceros as his emblem!” Garth cried.
“Shush!” Vorstus hushed, irritated. “These walls are only of one stone’s thickness. Yes, the same man. Our society is dedicated to the protection of the Persimius family itself.” He tapped the tattoo on the back of his right index finger that Ravenna had noticed earlier. It was the outline of a quill. “Our mark. You can always recognise our order by this.”
“And you are dedicated to protecting the Persimius family?” Ravenna smiled innocently, her toes stretching out gratefully towards the fire as her eyes locked into those of Vorstus. “Then you haven’t been doing a very good job recently, have you?”
Garth grinned behind his hand, and Vorstus grimaced guiltily.
“Witch! But, yes, we have been remiss in our duty, and it stings our consciences. Garth,” he took another deep breath, and now Garth noticed that he trembled. “Garth, we know that you found Maximilian down the Veins.”
For a long minute there was no sound in the
room save the crackling of the fire and the light rain against the windowpanes.
“Ah…” Garth hedged, unable to stop an anxious glance at Ravenna.
“We know it, Garth,” Vorstus repeated softly. “For the past sixteen months we’ve had our suspicions about Maximilian’s whereabouts. We have kept the Veins and those who go in and out under close watch. Imagine our surprise when the young son of Joseph Baxtor should return from three weeks in the Veins to ask questions in marketplaces about the Manteceros, and search this library for any clue he could find about the creature’s relationship with the Persimius family. When I appeared in the market wearing the disguise of a trader, your hand and eye flew instantly to the medallion of the Manteceros—a small test I devised—and now, greatest surprise of all, you appear in the company of a lady of dreams. One who could take you to the Manteceros itself. Tell me, have you talked with it?”
Garth closed his mouth, but Ravenna answered, her eyes steady on the monk. “Yes. I took Garth to the Manteceros.”
Vorstus raised his eyebrows at her. “So much power in one so young. Interesting.”
“The Manteceros refused to help us rescue Maximilian,” Garth said bluntly. No use keeping silent now that Ravenna had spoken.
“I have no doubt,” Vorstus said softly. “It would already have verified Cavor’s claim to the throne when the man made it. The Manteceros will be displeased that another claim may well be made. It is a creature of order and will be discomforted by the mess of a counter-claim.”
“How did you know about Maximilian?” Ravenna asked.
Vorstus steepled his fingers and raised his eyes to study the ceiling. “We are a small and somewhat secretive order, but not totally unknown. Some sixteen months ago a minor nobleman—there is no point revealing his name here and now—aged and dying of the wasting disease, requested our abbot attend his deathbed.”
“Yourself,” Garth observed, watching Vorstus carefully. The man had an aura of authority about him.
“Yes. Myself. He seemed anxious to confess a sin committed many years ago and which had weighed heavily on his conscience ever since. He said that years previously he had been involved in a…well, shall we say, an abduction? Yes, that will do nicely. An abduction. A young boy, no more than fourteen, was seized by a group of men in the hire of a person that even the dying man was too frightened to name. They seized the boy, and subjected him to the horrific pain of having the mark on his right arm burned off.”
“It’s still there,” Garth muttered, close to tears, “under the scar tissue.”
“Is that so?” For the first time, Vorstus seemed excited. “Really? Well, all the more good.”
“And then what happened, Abbot Vorstus?” Ravenna asked, her eyes dark at the thought of Maximilian’s agony.
“Please, only call me Brother, lady,” Vorstus replied hastily, glancing about. “None here suspect my true identity.” He paused, then answered Ravenna’s question. “Three of the men tied the boy up—he had fainted by this stage—and carried him away. My dying sinner did not have a clear knowledge where…but he did have some idea.”
“The Veins.”
Vorstus nodded. “Yes, Garth, the Veins. But we could not be sure, and we had no way of seeing for ourselves. Even our arts could not penetrate beneath the surface…and there is no need for a monk below to confess the dying. From the Veins they go straight to the fire pits of the afterlife.”
At the mention of “arts”, Garth’s mind slipped back to Vorstus’ mysterious disappearance from the marketplace. “What ‘arts’?” he asked suspiciously, but Ravenna simply looked at Vorstus and smiled.
“Our order is dedicated to the preservation of the Persimius family, true,” Vorstus said, “but for many hundreds of years we had little to do save study ancient arts and texts as the family waxed strong and ruled wisely under the Escatorian sun. Garth, once Escator was far more than it is now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Once Escator was the centre of learning in the known world—men travelled to study at our universities and academies from most of the Eastern Kingdoms. Narbon housed the largest university, but Ruen, Harton and even Sorinam to the north had well-established universities. All gone, now.”
“What happened—” Garth began, but Vorstus held up his hand.
“Shortly, my boy. Music and enlightenment, sciences and suppositions, dreams and knowledges were once Escator’s main exports. Now the filthy gloam feeds our populations and tinkles the coin into Ruen’s treasury.”
He paused and heaved a great sigh. “Ten generations ago, gloam was discovered in great deposits along the coast by Myrna. Initial excavations were so promising that the Veins were carved deep into the earth. The Persimius family withdrew funding from the arts to sink into the Veins—only in the past generations have prisoners been used to work the rock-face—and, hungry for the riches the gloam brought them, they allowed the universities and academies to fall into ruin.” He paused. “So much knowledge and learning was lost. Now this library is virtually all that stands from those once-heady days of knowledge. This library…and the Order of Persimius itself.”
Again there was silence for long minutes. Vorstus sat in a state of reverie, and neither Ravenna nor Garth dared to disturb him.
“Our arts, boy?” Garth’s eyes flickered from the fire back to the monk as he spoke again. “Arts? Simple, but sometimes effective.” Vorstus smiled with such genuine friendliness that Garth found himself responding in kind. “But nothing like those that Ravenna here displays. Suitable for making fast disappearances from marketplaces and—sometimes—for reading thoughts. You are yet young, Garth, and have not yet learned to dissemble. Thus often I find your thoughts clear and easy to interpret. Yours, young woman,” he turned his eyes to Ravenna, “are clouded in mist as thick as that of your border lands.”
Her mouth twitched, and she inclined her head, pleased.
Garth turned the conversation back to the Persimius family. “The kings were responsible for the decline in learning and for building the Veins?”
“Assuredly, Garth Baxtor. I would find it ironic, if it were not so tragic, that one of them now labours below the hanging wall itself. Perhaps…” his voice trailed into silence.
Garth leaned forward. “Vorstus? Can you explain how Maximilian has survived so long in the Veins? My father tells me that men normally live no longer than five years at the rock-face—and even that is unusual.”
“It is the ink that his arm was marked with, Garth. Always a monk will do the tattoo, and always with the blue ink that we guard so carefully. The ink has…unusual properties. It protects against murder, for instance. Whoever abducted Maximilian could not have killed him, no matter their heartfelt desire to do so. No wonder they threw him down the Veins. But even there, even under the scar tissue, it appears the mark has worked to protect Maximilian.”
“My father told me the ink used to create the mark is rumoured to have been made with the blood of the Manteceros itself.”
But at that Vorstus only smiled slightly, and dropped his eyes.
“One of your number must have marked Cavor,” Garth said slowly.
“Yes. But then we truly thought Maximilian dead. And Cavor was closest in line to the throne—although in him the Persimius blood is thin indeed.”
Garth nodded, remembering. “My father and I treated his arm when we were in Ruen, Vorstus. The mark has not taken well. It festers, and causes him agony.”
“Really?” Vorstus sat up. “I did not know that.”
“Perhaps Cavor’s mark festers because the other mark in existence has been so badly damaged,” Ravenna said thoughtfully. She had been content to listen throughout most of the conversation, but now leaned forward, elbows on knees and chin in hand, so that the firelight trickled through her long black hair. “Perhaps the ink links both marks and both men.”
“Perhaps,” said Vorstus, looking at her with hooded eyes.
Garth ignored both remark and lo
ok. “Vorstus?” The monk swung his gaze back to Garth. “Maximilian claims that he is not the heir. He claims that he is not even Maximilian.”
Vorstus frowned. “Perhaps it is just that he has been lost below for so long that—”
“No. Not all,” Garth interrupted. “Maximilian said that he has no true claim to the throne because he is a changeling.”
“What?” Vorstus almost exploded out of his chair.
“Can it be true?” Ravenna asked. She had not moved at Vorstus’ violent reaction.
The monk’s hands trembled. “A changeling? I don’t know. Oh dear, this is dreadful…dreadful. Ah, let me think…his parents were old when he was born. Some thought his mother well past the age of childbirth when she produced Maximilian. A changeling?” Vorstus’ face had paled so badly Garth thought he might be about to faint. “Did she want to produce an heir so badly that she faked a birth—or even substituted a stillborn son with a healthy babe?”
“You would not have known when you saw the baby?” asked Garth.
Vorstus shook his head. “No. The mark can be carved into any arm with the ink, it does not have to be a Persimius arm.”
Garth and Ravenna exchanged worried glances. The Manteceros had said much the same.
Vorstus did not notice. “We were merely presented with the babe…and we marked him. No one thought that…that the queen would have…” he was unable to continue.
“Well,” Garth said firmly, repressing his doubts. “I believe that the man who labours beneath the hanging wall is the true king. Can your “arts” confirm that, Vorstus?”
The monk shook his head again, his eyes haunted. “No. Only the ordeal that the Manteceros administers can determine the true king from two rival claimants.”
“Do you know what the ordeal is?”
“No, Ravenna. It has never been administered before.”
Garth quickly informed Vorstus about the riddle the Manteceros had told them. “Vorstus, do you understand it?”