The Book of Forbidden Wisdom (24 page)

 

I
could taste blood. I could smell blood. I opened my eyes, but then the world went away for a little while. When I opened them again, the room was blurry at first, and inclined to spin, but soon my vision cleared. Silky, Renn and my father were standing and looking at me as if waiting for something. I wondered where Trey was, but only for the half second it took me to realize that the warmth and comfort I felt came from the fact that he had me cradled in his arms.

“Angel.”

It sounded as if he had been saying my name for some time. But what I wanted was my mother; I had become, for a little while, a child again.

I was perfectly comfortable in Trey's arms. I reached up to touch his damaged face.

The reaction, somehow, was not what I had expected. He almost dropped me. His expression, so far as I could read it, was one of shyness and chagrin.

“She's
alive,
” said Silky.

“I'm sorry, Lord Kestling of Montrose,” said Trey to my father. “I didn't mean to take such liberties. I'm sorry, Angel. I thought you were dead.”

So apparently it was all right to hold a woman who
might
be dead, but not a live one. There was something seriously wrong with the Arcadian rules of conduct.

“Well, I'm not dead,” I said. And then I said “Ow” because my arm ached and my head felt as if it had been hit by the butt of an axe. Which was probably the case, although my arm must have deflected the blow—­or I would still be in the quiet country. Trey made a move to put me down.

“Sorry,” he said as his arm grazed my breast. Then he grimaced, because, of course, he should have just pretended it hadn't happened. I almost slipped out of his arms.

“Don't drop me,” I said irritably, “just because I'm alive. Think of me as wounded. Which I am. Is that my blood?” There was a pool of it on the floor, dark and congealing. I must have been gone for a while, although it seemed I had spent only minutes with my mother.

“You bled like a
pig,
” said Silky.

“Thank you for that,” I said, and then, because Trey was having a hard time figuring out where to put his hands and arms, I sat up and pulled away from him.

He looked both let down and relieved.

I felt peculiar, but good peculiar, at being held. Illegally held of course. Suddenly the idea that Leth might ever have held me like that—­that he might have had every reason to expect to touch me—­was horrifying. What on earth had I been thinking to consent to such a marriage?

I hadn't been thinking about Trey.

And I hadn't been thinking about Renn. Strange, dark Renn.

My mother had been right. I hadn't known my heart at all.

Now that I was back from the quiet country, everything looked and felt different—­more vibrant. The world dripped with saturated color, and the air pulsated with sound.

Silky came and put her arms around me, and I felt myself coming more and more to my senses. I felt as if I had been traveling a great distance over the vastness of time. In fact, I was fairly sure that was exactly what I had been doing.

“I thought I'd lost you,” said my father, which was an odd thing to say, because the last I knew he had been on the side of my sadistic brother and my equally sadistic ex-­pre-­contract.

“Lord Kestling of Montrose has joined us,” said Trey, and I saw a small, ironic smile.

My father came to my side. “I couldn't let Kalo kill you,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said, although the response seemed a peculiar one even as it came out of my mouth. Thanks-­for-­not-­letting-­your-­sadistic-­son-­kill-­his-­sister. Thanks-­for-­not-­murdering-­your-­eldest-­daughter. Thanks.

I was light-­headed.

“Somebody catch me up,” I said. Given how hard my head and arm were aching, given how close to death I had obviously come, given that I was quite sure we were still in trouble, I was remarkably cheerful. Crossing the ultimate divide and chatting with one's loving, long-­dead mother had that effect.

I considered for a moment whether or not I might have dreamt Leth and Kalo, but there, close by, was the Keeper's body. And there, close by, was the Keeper's head.

“Kalo thinks he killed you,” said Silky. “We couldn't hear you breathing. Well, actually,
Trey
thought he heard you, but I thought he was—­“

“Let me tell it, Silky,” said Trey. “You're already digressing.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“When Kalo saw you lying there bleeding,” said Trey, “he lifted his axe to hit you again. Your father—­Lord Kestling, that is—­stopped him. And so did I.”

“There was some kind of commotion outside,” said Silky, interrupting. “Shouts and yelling. Kalo and Leth left us with Father as guard and went with some of the soldiers.”

I heard voices and a clamor in the distance. Meanwhile, I saw that
The Book of Forbidden Wisdom
was still closed and on the pedestal. Father followed my eyes.

“They think I'm keeping
The Book
from you until they return,” he said. “They want to be here when Angel reads it.”

“Are you?” asked Silky. “Are you going to keep Angel away?”

“No, daughter,” said Father. “I'm tired of Kalo's greed and malice. I had always thought that Angel was my problem child, but I see that I was wrong.”

“All this
way,
Angel,” said Silky. “And we're finally alone with
The Book
. And you can't read it. If only Mother had told you the secret of the reading.”

“If only,” I said. “Now will somebody help me over to
The Book
so that I can at least take a look?”

“You
do
know how to read it,” said Trey.

“Yes,” I said. “I do.”

And I felt more in control, stronger, more certain than I had in a long time—­maybe ever.

My father moved toward me, but Trey intercepted him and gave me his arm to lean on, which was about as far as etiquette would stretch under the circumstances. He almost slipped on blood as we approached the reading stand. I looked down.

“Move the Keeper's head,” I said. “He deserves better.”

My father came over, picked up the head, and put it back next to the Keeper's body.

With Trey's help I clambered onto the podium.

The book was a thing of dark and magical beauty. I opened it, and it was as if power were flowing into my fingers. Whatever was there, I knew I wouldn't be left unchanged. The strange markings and notations, the captions under the picture, seemed to rearrange themselves in front of my eyes.

I was reading.

I was reading
The Book of Forbidden Wisdom
.

I turned a page. And then, after a moment, I turned another.

And another.

The world had fallen silent; there was nothing except the markings in
The Book
in front of me.

I read fluently and carefully.

 

I
was ready to find the deeds to the lost lands. I was ready to find the power to rule Arcadia under my fingertips. And as I read the first page, I did think it might be an enormous Book of Land, like the ones that were signed at weddings. I found, too, on the second and third pages, that I was looking at dozens of deeds, either pasted into
The Book
(those were easy to read) or scribbled directly into
The Book
in code. An odd thing about the code: I knew it as if it were the first writing I had learned: the squiggles—­letters; the dashes and squares—­punctuation. My mother must have twined that language into me, and I didn't know when. It was as if I had understood these markings all my life.

After having read only the opening pages, however, I realized that this was no book with the deeds to lost lands. Not in the sense that anyone had ever thought.

This was not a book that would give greater power to the landed.

This was a book with the power to
undo
the Great. To unmake. To unravel the social fabric of Arcadia.

“Well?” asked Trey, and I realized that I had been focused entirely on the book before me. Everything else had fallen away—­thoughts about Silky, Trey, Renn, my father. There was only
The Book
of Forbidden Wisdom
.

“Give me a little time,” I said. “If I read it, it's ours. If I get out of here alive, they can't take it away. Think of my memory. And let me read.”

The notations on the first pages had been recent land transfers. Big ones. Some I knew about. A section of prime meadowland had gone to the Nessons, and I remembered when that had happened, but none of the details. I could scarcely make out the hand of the previous owner. The signature was an illegible scrawl.

Now I looked at other deeds, some coded, some not, and the pattern was similar. Large land transfers were being made to Great Houses from ­people I'd never heard of who could barely write their names.

I heard noise outside the room. “
Hurry,
” said Silky, and she wrung her hands with impatience.

But there was no hurrying. “I need to figure this out,” I said. I turned the page.

I was expecting more deeds of sale, but I found myself looking at coded marriage transactions that had resulted in the shifting of land and power. I couldn't read half of the names involved—­they were smudged and blotted—­but then I saw a name that surprised me.

“Angel?” said Trey.

“Don't let anyone in,” I said.

“You read,” said Trey. “We'll take care of the rest.”

I looked at the familiar name again.

Lady Brynne of the House of Tonnow.

She had married a man named Cor. No title. No other name. But he had brought to the marriage table twenty thousand hectares of timber. And Tonnow, I knew, had been a poor House in the past.

I paused.

Because I knew Lady Brynne of the House of Tonnow. She had been invited to my wedding, although we all knew she wouldn't come. She lived in seclusion in the rambling castle that belonged to the family, and she had not been seen outside that castle for years. It was said that she had vowed never to marry. Being single was allowed if the family approved.

But here was a contract certificate, eight years old. Lady Brynne had been married years before my almost-­wedding—­she would have been ten at the time of the contract.

Cor. His signature on the documents was like a child's scrawl. His age was given as thirty-­two.

I was confused and disgusted by the gross illegality of it—­she had been contracted two years before the age of consent for girls.

I raised my head. Noise came from beyond the room.

“I'm going to brace the door,” said Trey.

I looked back down at
The Book
—­unfolding events were far less real than its contents.

Here was another marriage contract. This time between Wilcomb Surry and one Jane Upton. Wilcomb was the man Kalo had once tried to match with Silky.

I had never heard of Jane Upton, something that was seemingly impossible. I knew all the marriageable men and women of the Great Houses—­I knew all of the heirs and the rankings of the children.

Jane Upton? Never heard of her. And she had a low name, like that of a vagabond.

If she were indeed a vagabond, of course, it would explain why I had never heard of her, but it made her marriage to Wilcomb Surry impossible.

Impossible.

I only became aware of the world around me when someone actually began trying to force the door. I looked up from
The
Book
in time to see Renn and Silky trying to wedge it closed.

“Read,” said Trey.

And it slowly dawned on me what I was reading.

The landless, the vagrants, the casteless in fact owned great swaths of land: they carried the deeds to the lost land—­only they didn't know it. Outright stealing might have revealed everything; these thefts had been accomplished through secret marriages. Generations of men and women of no repute had been used and robbed of their inheritances.

Jane Upton and Wilcomb Surry. I saw the details of the land transaction at the marriage: the meadows of Champlain passed from Jane Upton to Wilcomb Surry. But I had been invited to no ceremony.

The land transfer would explain the Surrys' rise in prominence. The meadows of Champlain were famous for grazing and farmland.

I could smell land greed.

In the place for Jane's signature there was an
X.

Trey moved to the door. Renn and Silky were already there; Renn was futilely trying to shove Silky behind him.

“Lord Kestling?” said Trey. “We need to block the door.” There was a scrambling noise outside, and I thought I heard Kalo's voice and the sounds of fighting in the near distance.

My father joined the others at the door—­my father, who had never before acknowledged Trey—­except to banish him from my presence. And now, here we were, and Trey and my father were united by a common enemy.

“Hold the door,” Renn said. “Hold it.”

“Hurry, Angel,” said Silky.

I bent my head to the task and kept reading.

Jan Creepow transferred land to Lord Hastings.

Lady Juliet married Egg Morton, who signed with an
X.

There was a clamor outside.

“They've left the door,” said Trey.

I turned another page. And here I stumbled on something that, had it been known, would have outraged all the Great Houses of Arcadia. It was a signed marriage contract—­a full contract—­between Pea and Karn of the House of Nesson.

This was all wrong. Pea was pre-­contracted to the House of Nesson, yes—­to Leth's brother—­but she was only six, six years too young to marry, to have a full contract. It was cruelty—­barbarism. No wonder the Nessons had kept the contract hidden.

I began to see that Arcadia was rife with secret marriages and alliances; they ran like skeins of wool through the fabric of the country. They held Arcadia together. No wonder this knowledge was forbidden.

But where was the wisdom in
The Book of Forbidden Wisdom
?

I turned another page.

And there was the House of Montrose. Gwen Pan married Lord Kestling Montrose.

Lord Kestling was my father.

But who was Gwen Pan?

In a small hand below the marriage contract, someone had written in code, “Kalo, newly born to Gwen Kestling five months later. Lord Kestling keeps the child.” The words were in a black square, as if they were somehow important.

And, indeed, they were.

I looked up at my father. For a moment I felt pity for Kalo. He was the son of Gwen Pan, whoever she was. Gwen Pan had brought two things to her wedding with my father: a mountain covered in rich timber, and someone else's child inside her.

Kalo existed to torment us all because my father had once shown charity and let a baby live. And I couldn't condemn my father for that.

But what had happened to Gwen Pan? Everyone knew of my father's marriage to my mother. The story was legendary—­the Bards still sang of it. The ceremony had lasted three days, and extraordinary amounts of food and drink had been consumed. Whole oxen. Songbirds inside ducks inside turkeys inside great white geese that dripped vast amounts of savory fat into the fire as they rotated on the spit. Skin artists not only decorated the bride and groom but also painted the signs of the House of Montrose and the House of St. Clare onto the hands of the guests. The men and women danced, separately, throughout the night. At midnight, the greatest display of fireworks ever seen in Arcadia exploded in showers of white fire. And finally the wedding ­couple was put to bed.

No mention of Gwen Pan.

I turned the page.

Fewer documents. More things scribbled directly onto the page. In places there were small sketches next to the writing. I read carefully, and, this time, when I realized what I was reading, I went back to the top of the page and began again.

I didn't want to believe this document, this text that lay open on the lectern in front of me. I wished I had never opened
The
Book.

But one cannot unread something; I knew that better than anyone. For the first time, I felt the curse of my eidetic memory. My mother had understood the curse when she had turned away from
The Book
before finishing it. And yet—­and yet she had made very sure that I would be trained up to read
The Book of Forbidden Wisdom
. She had left it to me to weigh and measure and use the power of
The
Book.

Across time and space, the names called to me.

Cor.

Jane Upton.

Pea.

Jan Creepow.

Egg Morton.

Gwen Pan.

S
o I did it. I turned the page.

T
here were sketches on this page. I touched the picture of a coarse-­looking woman with lank dark hair. Her face had been drawn carefully, and the eyes looked bleary. There were small earrings in her ears, and I found that detail moving. It was as if, in some small way, she had tried to make herself pretty. I was drawn to that face again and again because I recognized it.

Of course I did.

It was as if Kalo had been staring up at me from the page. It was with no sense of surprise that I saw the name scribbled into
The
Book
: Gwen Pan. But this entry concerned no transfer of land, no secret marriage.

Like all the other documents and entries on these pages, this was a certificate of death.

The cause was written in red letters.

Gwen Pan had been born; she had grown; she had married my father in secret and transferred all her land to him. She had given birth to Kalo.

And then she had been murdered.

If it had not been for the baby she had left in my father's care, it would have been as if Gwen Pan had never existed.

The crime committed against Gwen Pan was, in the end, more complete than murder. She and her name had been disappeared.

I looked again at the coarse, large-­featured face and the lank hair. Cleaned up, she might not have looked much different from any number of Great House scions. I was beginning to lose my sense of the vast difference between a member of a Great House and a vagabond.

So Gwen Pan had been murdered, and sometime after, my father had married my beautiful, vivacious and charming auburn-­haired mother. He had first married Gwen Pan's timber and, then, his House no longer poor, he had managed a match with the richest heiress in Arcadia. My father, even with Gwen Pan's holdings, did not have enough land alone to marry her, but there was, it was whispered, affection on the Lady's side. And so he took in contract my mother, the last of the House of St. Clare. The only woman alive who could read
The Book of Forbidden Wisdom.

He couldn't have known what was in
The Book
.

I didn't really need to turn another page of
The Book of Forbidden Wisdom,
but I did anyway.

Cor—­murdered.

Jane Upton—­murdered.

Jan Creepow—­murdered.

Egg Morton—­murdered.

And other names I recognized from my perusal of the earlier pages—­murdered.

I was almost at the end of
The Book
. I read, and as I did, my face must have been transformed. Finally I reached what I thought was the last page. Only a few words were on it. I almost didn't bother turning it over—­and had I not, I wouldn't have seen the ragged edge of paper that indicated a subsequent page had been torn from
The Book.

“They're coming,” said Silky.

“Stay behind me,” my father said to Silky.

“Trey and I will deal with this,” said Renn. I looked up sharply.

“Have you finished reading
The Book,
Angel?” asked Trey.

“I've got it all,” I said.

And then, without a hint that he might be doing something untoward, Trey took my hand and pulled me away from the lectern. Renn narrowed his eyes.

“Lord Trey—­“ began my father, and even Silky's eyebrows were raised by the sight of Trey and me hand in hand, but my father never completed his sentence. Perhaps he thought better of it.

They were at the door again.

“Come on, Renn,” said Trey, and the two of them blocked the door with their bodies. A second later, and our father, Lord Kestling, was with them.

“This is it,” said Renn.

I wondered if death were upon me, and I wondered if I would be with Silky, Trey and Renn in the quiet country. But I had just awakened, and I didn't want to go back to sleep.

An axe stroke cleaved through the upper part of the door and narrowly missed cleaving Renn's arm.

I wanted to live, and if I lived, I would be heard by all of them—­Great Houses, vagabonds, bards. It would be known. The secrets of
The
Book
would be known. The Great Houses were built on land greed, on theft, on land transfers from ignominious, secret marriages. The Great Houses were built on the sweat and tears and lives of vagabonds.