Closer to the Chest (29 page)

“Then we'll go,” he said, glad enough to give in to her whim to make up for all the nasty thoughts he'd had about her last night.

The ride down was . . . idyllic, was the only word that seemed to fit. The torrential rain had washed everything clean, the road was clear of even a hint of debris. There was that exploded tree in Companion's Field, of course, and probably more downed trees and limbs, but out here there was no sign of last night's destruction. Haven was awake, people eager to get out and
do
things while the air was cool after the heat and lethargy of the last sennight or more. They actually caught up with and overtook the cart carrying Ardana's worshippers to the new venue; the driver recognized them as they passed and waved; they waved back.

The service was nothing like what Mags had expected. He had anticipated a lot of talking; prayers, homilies, at least one sermon and probably more, based on what he'd been
enduring at the Temple of Sethor all this time. But once the little chapel filled—not just with the old devotees and the Sisters themselves, but with additions to the flock in the form of what must be their neighbors and some of the Sworn of Betane, Mags was treated to something that was incredibly peaceful.

There was a lot of music. Hymns, which seemed to take the place of prayers and which he
much
preferred, even if he and Amily were the only ones not singing. Interspersed with the hymns were musical interludes performed by two of the Sisters, one on a small organ, the other on an enormous harp, the biggest such instrument he had ever seen. Evidently they were all supposed to meditate on the lesson in the hymn they'd all just sung during these interludes. The music was simple, the words straightforward, and even though this was nothing like a Bardic performance, Mags found himself enjoying it a great deal more than he had thought possible.

After they had gone through this for about a candlemark, the Abbess mounted the pulpit and Mags braced himself, for this was the moment when the High Priest of Sethor would harangue his congregation for what always seemed like forever, and left him with a throbbing headache.

But instead of a harangue, the Abbess cleared her throat gently and began. “Perhaps it may seem odd that I, a member of a celibate and chaste Order, should speak on the subject of marriage and family. But we Sisters are as married to the Order as you good people are married to each other, and we consider ourselves a true family. And—” her eyes twinkled with amusement “—trust me, my dear friends, the road of our family can be, at times, as rocky as yours might be. So if you will forgive my boldness, let me talk about the marriage that is the true partnership of equals, and the family that gives each member that greatest of gifts, respect.”

The homily was all about husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, respecting each other and each doing the job he or she does best without getting into a competition over it—
“Neither a competition in boasting nor one in complaining,” said the Abbess with another twinkle. “And always keeping in mind that as hard as your job is, your partner has one that matches it. Not at that instant, perhaps, but in another candlemark, or a day, or a sennight, your partner's job will be harder than yours, while you appear to be at leisure.”

Her words painted a picture—perhaps a touch idyllic, but what was the matter with that?—of the sort of family Mags had seen in Lydia's and Amily's and that, until now, he had not realized he longed after. When the Abbess finished and stepped down from the pulpit, he found himself with a strange ache in his throat, and the feeling that he had seen something he wanted with all his heart that just . . . might . . . be within his grasp.

Then there was more music, and the ceremony came to an end.
No wonder them folks was willin' to come all the way down here for this,
he thought to himself, as Amily got up to intercept the Abbess before she retreated back into the main building.
An' no wonder these local folks have been comin'.
And for a moment he wondered if he had arranged to send Katlie to the wrong people—

:No, you didn't,:
Dallen replied firmly.
:The Sisters are excellent women, but they would only succeed in comforting, not strengthening. They don't understand how someone can have the kind of low opinion of herself that Katlie does. Sister Thistle would . . . well she is absolutely the wrong person to deal with someone like that girl. We made the right choice.:

Mags saw that Amily had succeeded in intercepting the Abbess and Sister Thistle; Mags headed in their direction, but found himself being accosted by an old couple who looked absolutely determined to speak with him.

Well, Amily don't need my help . . .
With a smile he turned to the old man and nodded. Taking that as encouragement, the old gentleman tucked his wife's hand in the crook of his arm and smiled back. “We're told, Meya and me, that you're
responsible for our cart, Herald,” the old fellow said. “And if that's so, then we'd like to thank you ourselves, and if it's not, we'd like you to carry our thanks to the Herald that
is
.”

“That would be me, Amily, an' the Prince,” Mags said truthfully. “We had the ideer, the Prince made it happen.”

The man and his wife beamed. “We went to
one
service at the old place, where they have that Sethoras or whatever his name is,” said the old man. “Or, I did.
Meya
was made not welcome, but told me to go anyway and see what's what, and a nastier, more hateful lot of so-called holy men, I never saw.” He looked as if he would have liked to spit, but was too polite. “It was all
women must submit
and
women are not fit,
more trash like that. Ugh. We were ever so glad to come up here to our dear Sisters again, thanks to the Prince, you, and Herald Amily.”

Mags was properly modest, and thanked them; they thanked him and the Prince and Amily a few more times, then realized that the wagon was probably waiting for them and hurried off. Mags waited politely for Amily to disengage herself from the Abbess before joining her.

“You look like you got some good news,” he said. “Which I'd like to hear, good news bein' in short supply lately.”

“Come on then, we should be getting back up the Hill,” she replied. “The guards that the Prioress sent here are certainly keeping things quiet. Having them here makes the Sisters feel secure, and the Abbess tells me they are back to their old selves. Not only are all the old adherents coming down, but as you saw the neighbors have decided to join, too.
And
there are three new Novices, the first in ages. Sister Thistle tells me that they are slowly replacing the manuscript copies that were destroyed, but work is going faster than it did back at the old Abbey because it's so much more comfortable here.”

They had reached the Companions by that point, and Mags raised an eyebrow. “Really? They ain't bakin' in the heat?”

Amily shrugged. “Maybe not. I know that great stone building stays cool, but cold fingers have trouble drawing.”

They mounted up, and the Companions ambled out onto the road again. Mags told her what the old couple had said to him.

“The Prince will be pleased,” she observed. “But . . . ugh. That matches with everything you've seen there. I wish they would fail miserably, and I would
love
to discover one of them is our Poison Pen.”

Mags sighed. He couldn't blame her. But he had been haunting the place for sennights now, and so far . . . while there might be—probably was—a link to the vandalized shops, not by any stretch of the imagination could he come up with one to the Poison Pen. “Those toughs down in Haven I told you about were saying the same things
before
the High Priest opened up the Temple. And we're still lookin' at the same problem we had afore; with everyone we got watchin' now, an' the Guards on alert, how could someone from down in Haven be getting up the Hill to wreak havoc?”

“Isn't that just the question.” She bit her lip. “It would actually be easier for someone on the Hill to have vandalized the Abbey and the Priory than someone from Haven to have gotten on the Hill. I think I dislike logic and facts. A lot.”

At the moment, Mags was inclined to agree with
her.

T
he gazebo was now the place of choice for Mags, Amily, Jorthun, Nikolas, and sometimes Dia to meet. It would be impossible for an outsider to overhear them talking. Even if Mags and Amily were followed, there was no way anyone could get near the thing. Jorthun had
never
brought an outsider up here, so even if the Poison Pen was a Farseer . . . he'd never be able to Farsee inside the gazebo.

And that was the current topic of interest. “He or she has to be a Farseer,” said Mags. “There ain't no other explanation 'bout how that Poison Pen bastard knowd how what was diggin' under Katlie's skin and concentrated on it.” He scratched his head. “I'd give a lot t'know how whoever it was aimed in on Katlie, though.”

There was no need for a servant to wet down the reed screens that had been let down around all four walls of the gazebo today. It was hot, yes, but not the punishing heat that had clamped down over all of Haven before the great thunderstorm. The breeze that filtered through the walls of the gazebo
was adequate to keep them all comfortable. And not for the first time, Mags admired the sheer efficiency of Lord Jorthun's household. For this delicate structure to survive the storm, someone must have come up here before it broke, disassembled it and stored it somewhere safe, then put it all back up again the next morning.

Lord Jorthun looked at him from across the gazebo. “Oh,” he said, calmly. “It's a
he.
I'll stake my reputation on it.”

Nikolas raised an eyebrow. “I've seldom known you to be mistaken, but how can you be so sure the Poison Pen is a man? Aren't women usually the ones—” He caught sight of his daughter glaring at him, coughed, and didn't finish the sentence.

“It didn't take long to deduce,” Lord Jorthun said smoothly. “If the Poison Pen was a woman, why attack the Sisters of Ardana? They are a chaste and celibate order and after no one's man. They are taking no man's job, or at least, they are taking no job that a woman with conventional ideas of men's and women's roles would consider to be a ‘job.'”

Amily's brow wrinkled. “I'm not following.”

“It is exceptionally clear that the Poison Pen has rigid notions of what the roles of men and women should be. Fiddling about making pretty drawings is not the sort of thing a manly man does, not in the eyes of a woman.” Jorthun massaged his right temple a little. “And that was the key, right there. There was absolutely no reason to attack the Sisters of Ardana on either the grounds of being man-stealing hussies, or stealing men's jobs.”

“So?” Amily asked. Mags was pretty sure Amily's eyes were lighting up, but she was trying to hide her enthusiasm. He knew why. She
hated
the idea that the Poison Pen could be a woman. And it irked her that he refused to leave the idea that it could be a woman out of his calculations. Such as they were. So far . . . he was coming up blank, except that he was
fairly sure that
someone
who was a Sethorite was behind the shop vandalizing.

“Only a man with a vendetta against women who step out of their destined places as wives and mothers would see the Sisters of Ardana as a worthy target. The Sisters of Betane of the Axe, yes, a woman would view them as being utterly unwomanly, but the Sisters of Ardana? Never.” Jorthun nodded decisively. “There they were, doing what old women should do; get out of the way, tend bees, and paint pretty pictures.”

“Wouldn't a woman be just as inclined to see them as being unwomanly because they do all that studying? Competing with men intellectually?” Nikolas asked skeptically.

“In my experience, no, a woman would not consider that competition, and as for the studying in and of itself? In that sort of woman's mind, as long as the Sisters weren't trying to corrupt younger women into their intellectual lifestyle—and remember, at that point they had no new younger Novices—what they did with their time until they died would be of no consequence.” Mags was a little startled. He'd rarely heard Jorthun wax so eloquent on anything. “But to a man with rigid ideas about the proper place of women? To a man like that, no matter her age, any woman who steps out of the proper sphere must be beaten back into her place. And no woman should presume to display her intellect, for the sphere of intellect is the domain of men, only.”

“But . . . what about the shops?” Mags ventured.

“At the moment, I am sure that the one vandalizing the shops in Haven is entirely separate from both the Poison Pen and the vandalizing of the Sisters of Ardana and the Temple of Betane.” Jorthun paused to collect his thoughts. “The incidents may be—I will go so far as to say
are probably—
connected, but it is two different individuals or even groups. Had it been the same, the Poison Pen could not have resisted leaving written messages, but all he has left is wreckage.”

Mags let out his breath at that. “I couldn't see a connection,” he confessed.

“Oh I am sure there is a
connection,
and I am exceedingly suspicious that the connection is the Sethorites, but the where and how of putting it all together.” Jorthun's brow furrowed. “However . . . you mentioned a Farseer and I am totally in agreement with you. It would explain how someone in Haven—in the Sethorites, even—could know what to put in those letters, who to send them to, and when to send them.”

“Katlie—” Mags ventured.

“Nothing we need to concern ourselves with now. She's protected from the Poison Pen by the best people possible. There will be time enough for discovering how he managed to find Katlie to target her after we've caught him.” Jorthun's mouth thinned into a hard line. “It's tempting to concentrate on her, but at this point, she's inconsequential to catching him, because I will not use her as bait. She's too fragile.”

Mags heard that with relief, although Nikolas frowned a little. Then again, Nikolas hadn't seen the poor girl when he'd pulled her out of the water and handed her over to the Healers. And he hadn't talked to her, or seen her when Amily was trying to talk to her.

He knew exactly why Nikolas wanted to do that. And he honestly didn't blame his mentor a bit for considering the idea. He also knew if Nikolas saw Katlie, he'd put the notion right out of his mind.
It's a lot easier to think of using someone when you haven't looked into their eyes.

“But that brings me to what I was thinking, when Mags insisted the Poison Pen must be a Farseer,” Lord Jorthun continued. “Is there any way a Farseer can be kept from seeing what is transpiring up here on the Hill? Or at least prevented from seeing inside the walls around the Palace grounds?”

“No,” said Amily and Nikolas together, in tones of deep regret.

“Yes,” said Mags at the same time.

The silence in the gazebo at that was so profound that every bit of breeze whistling in the reed blinds seemed overly loud. Everyone stared at him. “Maybe,” he amended. “I'm not sure. But I think . . . a definite maybe.”

Nikolas continued to stare at him, but then narrowed his eyes speculatively. “Are you thinking of—”

“Aye,” Mags said, nodding, anticipating where his mentor's thoughts were going. “That . . . thing that's connected to the stone in the middle of the table in that room in the basement of the Palace. The one I . . . uh . . .
talked to
when I was a Trainee and Amily was taken by the Sleepgivers, except we didn't know that was what they were called. The thing that makes powers stronger.”

“Thing?” said Amily, bewildered.

“Go on,” urged Lord Jorthun, leaning forward.

“And what makes you think it will be able to block Farseeing?” Nikolas probed, as Amily looked from one to the other of them, even more bewildered.
Did I never tell her about that? Maybe I forgot . . . oops.

“I think it's worth waking it up again to see if it can help. It's blocked things in the past, like the interference of the Sleepgivers' amulets with protections on the Palace. It might be able to block Farseeing.” It was a gamble, he knew, but it was a gamble in which there was nothing to lose. It didn't harm him to talk to the stone, or library, or whatever it was. And the worst it would tell him was that it couldn't do that.

And I can't believe I didn't think of this until today.
Was this another manifestation of that odd inability to think of the old magic of Vanyel's time except as something in the past?

So think about it as a Mindmagic thing.

“The thing is . . .” he continued, still pondering out loud. “There might be other consequences. It might block Farseeing
out
of the area, too. So people up here wouldn't be able to Farsee down in Haven.”

“It's worth it,” Nikolas replied, grimly. “We can always
send our Farseers to the other side of the Palace Walls. Or keep one or two here, and send the rest to lodge with Lydia's uncle until this is over. I don't want any more girls bullied into throwing themselves into the river, or off the top of a building, or hanging themselves.”

Well, good,
Mags thought.
I believe he's given up on using anyone as bait.

Nikolas turned to Lord Jorthun. “You warned us, and you were right. You were completely right about him escalating things, Steveral. I am sure that it is the fact that we thwarted him from getting letters to his victims as easily as he once could that made him concentrate on Katlie Gardener. We were lucky once, thanks to quick thinking by Lirelle, Amily, and Mags. We may not be so lucky a second time.”

“But Nikolas, if we do this, if we block Farseeing up here at the Palace and he
is
a Farseer, this will only frustrate him further, and he
definitely
will escalate,” Lord Jorthun warned. “If his intelligence is cut off, he may actually become frantic with rage, and more dangerous, not less.”

The four of them exchanged long looks. It was obvious to Mags that Lord Jorthun and Nikolas were both weighing all their options. Amily was just anxious, and he didn't blame her at all. They'd already had such a close call with Katlie . . . when the Poison Pen escalated, what would he escalate
to
? How much worse could things get? Was it possible even the Royal Family could be threatened?

“Well, nothing else has worked,” Nikolas said at last. “And we've learned next to nothing about him.
If
this works, and the letters stop, or at least become more general, we'll know for certain he
is
a Farseer and he's not on the Hill.”

“Well,” Amily said slowly. “One thing at a time. First Mags has to find out if this can be done. If it can't, we've lost nothing. And maybe this stone can tell him something else he might try instead. If it can be done, and we do it, and the
Poison Pen
isn't
a Farseer, or
is
on the Hill, the letters will remain the same, and we'll not have harmed anything.”

“All good points,” Lord Jorthun replied, nodding his silver head gravely.

“The question is,” she continued. “If the letters don't change, how can we tell where and what he is or isn't? How will we know if he's on the Hill, or if he's getting his information by some means other than Farsight?”

“I'll think about that,” Nikolas said slowly. “But . . . I do have one idea. The people here up on the Hill have been subject to quite a bit of persecution at this point. It might be worth it to gather everyone together and have the King explain what has been happening. Just . . . get it all out into the open, as we did with the Trainees. And at that point . . .” he paused. “You know, people who have been subject to an ongoing campaign of bullying and harassment are very likely to think very differently about Mags using his Mindspeech powers freely among them than, say, people who have not been subjected to the same treatment down in Haven.”

“As in . . . they might could give me permission to go all open and just start sifting through their heads?” Mags asked. “It'd be all right to do that?” He blinked and thought about that.
:Dallen?:

:If they give permission, it's ethical. And anyone who doesn't give permission could be considered a suspect. So . . . it's really a winning situation no matter what.:

“I think your Companion is probably suggesting that anyone who objects is going to become an object of suspicion,” Jorthun said shrewdly.

“Aye.” He smirked. He couldn't help it. “There's no win there for 'im, if he
is
on the Hill, is there? Either I find 'im, or he refuses, an' everyone figgers who it is. That's a lotta highborn who have a lotta connections who can make life pretty miserable for someone that don't cooperate.”

“Or the King could politely suggest that anyone who doesn't wish to cooperate should relocate. Far, far away. The Border, perhaps, or if they have estates, their own estates,” Nikolas pointed out. “Anyone who did would
always
be under suspicion, there would probably be a great deal of money spent making sure he lost every ally and friend he had, and so far as he would be concerned, his reign of terror would be over since he would be under watch constantly. I would make certain of that, personally.”