Breath of Angel (28 page)

“Your sights are set on Lord Rejius, then.” Paullus held three fingers close to his hairy chest and raised his curly black eyebrows at Caepio.

Caepio made the sign of the Tree. Paullus scanned the room. Melaia held up three fingers, as did the others.

Paullus nodded. “You should know, then, that Lord Rejius’s men keep an eye on me. That crowd you brought to my doorstep helped not a whit.”

“Lord Rejius allows you your freedom?” asked Melaia. “Doesn’t he sense your presence?”

“He knows I’m not fully committed to the Angelaeon,” said Paullus. “Nor am I fully committed to his kind. The lordly Rejius is completely wary of me.”

“Do you think he’ll send his men here, then?” asked Melaia.

“No doubt,” said Paullus. “The question is whether they’ll invite you or arrest you.”

B
efore sunset, Paullus and Caepio were summoned to Alta-Qan. They did not return that night.

By midmorning the next day, the mood in the tavern cellar was as tense as a bowstring holding an arrow taut. Jarrod, his hair hanging over one shoulder, leaned motionless against a column beside the stairs and gazed out the high window on the opposite wall. Livia, too, sat still, her eyes closed. Trevin inspected a dagger Paullus had loaned him. Pym lugged in a jug of water.

Melaia slipped Dreia’s book out of a waist pouch Caepio had given her and flipped it open to the blank pages. The first, as she expected, was still dark. The page with the swaying lines still swayed. But it was the page with the wavering shadows that she wanted, and it didn’t disappoint her.

As she stared, lines sharpened, and she saw the back of a man looking out a window. A sword hung at his side. A guard, she decided. She wondered if this was another part of the room in which she had seen Hanni. Melaia exhaled slowly. Even if they made it into the palace, how would she ever locate that room?

She thumbed backward through the pages and stopped at what appeared to be a poem.

The harps
. The whisper came clear and near, as if someone stood at her side.
The harps
.

Melaia looked up. Beside her, Pym splashed his face with water from a basin. A small woman with pale blue skin and frothy white hair twirled in the shower of droplets as if she were dancing in a waterfall: Seaspinner.

The harps
, whispered Seaspinner, fading.
The harps
.

Melaia leaned closer and was splashed. Pym laughed and handed her a wet washcloth. She thanked him and mopped her face as she turned back to the poem.

The living tree had to be the Wisdom Tree. The music, then, was from harps made of its wood. Three harps. Was this the riddle that told where Dreia had hidden them? “One shall wake.” The runes on Benasin’s harp spelled
Awaken
. But awaken what? Or who?

Paullus and Caepio tromped down the stairs, their voices tense.

Melaia clapped the book shut. “What happened? Did you see Hanni? The girls?”

“The harps?” asked Livia.

“We spent the night under lock and key and saw very little,” said Paullus.

“Fortunately, my actor-peasants have been spreading generous reports about the new entertainers in town,” said Caepio, “so we ranked better than dungeon dwellers.”

“We were held in the stewards’ quarters,” said Paullus. “And questioned.”

“But you weren’t arrested,” said Trevin.

“On the contrary,” said Caepio, “we were invited. We perform tomorrow.”

“Then I have to reach Hanni and the girls tonight,” said Melaia. “I have to warn them.”

“We can’t risk it,” said Jarrod.

“Wait,” Livia said. “We’ll be pressed for time tomorrow, and we may be watched closely. We have no notion of where the harps are held. Wouldn’t it be to our advantage for someone inside the palace to know our plans and stand ready to help?”

“Not at the cost of our entire mission,” said Jarrod.

“The person inside would have to be trustworthy, they would,” said Pym.

“Who better than Hanni and the girls?” Melaia asked.

Jarrod huffed. “And how do you propose to send a message to them? They’re no doubt under guard.”

“I’ll go myself and find out.” Melaia hungered to see Iona and Nuri and Peron to prove to herself that they were all right.

“Pardon my memory,” said Jarrod, “but the last time you headed off to rescue your friends, it was a disaster.”

“I’ll go with her,” said Trevin. “I know the palace.”

“Every servant from Redcliff knows you by sight,” said Jarrod. “You’d be no more hidden than an uncloaked Erielyon.”

Paullus eyed Melaia. “I can get you in.” He scratched his hairy chest. “I’d not go with you, understand, but I can send you with a message for my friend Cilla. I usually send a boy, but you’ll do, I wager.”

“Unbind your hair,” said Livia. “We’ll make you look as unlike yourself as possible.”

“I’ve costumes in the trunks.” Caepio rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Something like a street woman, you think?”

“Some face color?” suggested Trevin.

Melaia scowled at him. “I’m a priestess.”

“Do you want to enter the palace or not?” asked Livia. “It was your notion.”

Caepio headed upstairs. “I’ll bring a choice of clothing.”

“I don’t like it,” said Jarrod. “I don’t like it at all.”

Midafternoon, Melaia arrived at Alta-Qan’s side gate disguised as a tavern maid, her red brown hair loosely hanging to the waist of a plain sea green gown that fit more snugly than Melaia liked and showed more skin than she had ever dreamed of showing. The gatekeeper questioned her, but when she told him
she carried a message from Paullus to Cilla, he looked her up and down, winked, and sent her in.

She followed Paullus’s directions to the handmaids’ quarters, a boxy whitewashed building near the back wall behind the palace. There she snagged the first maid she saw. The girl’s close-set eyes barely peeped over the pile of garments in her arms.

“I’ve come with a message for Cilla.” Melaia held up a coin as Paullus had instructed.

The maid rolled her eyes. “And if it’s not the busiest days he’s wont to ask for her,” she mumbled. “With the wedding and this, that, and the other.”

“Whose wedding? When?”

“Lord Rejius, of course.” The maid narrowed her eyes. “Where’ve you been that you’ve not heard? Day after the morrow. We’re all of us like to be driven to madness afore it’s over, with all the preparations.”

“I simply bring the message,” said Melaia. “Will you call for Cilla, or shall I find someone else?”

The maid eyed the coin. “Cilla, she’ll be lucky if she can get free. But she can tell you with her own mouth if you want.”

Melaia tucked the coin into the maid’s waist sash, and off the girl waddled.

“Lord Rejius’s wedding.” Melaia clenched her jaw. He meant to keep his promise to return to Redcliff with Hanni as his queen. But so soon? She sighed. At least a bride would not be held in the dungeon.

Melaia turned her attention to the palace, a big box itself, three levels high. Taller towers rose at each corner. She saw few guards, but as she stilled herself, she sensed a sickly color, a dirty dun shade coiling around the guard at the postern gate. Two draks glided high above one tower, while one lone drak drifted down to the dome of the temple.

She felt the impulse to duck into the shadows, but she stood her ground, trusting her disguise to protect her from whoever might be watching. And Livia had said angels couldn’t sense Nephili, so she should be safe from the malevolents. She hoped Livia was right.

A buxom woman with a head of brown curls bobbed down an outer stairway of the palace. Melaia recognized her from Paullus’s description. She wore a gown of pale rose, not as fine as that of nobility, but of higher rank than a washmaid. And Melaia sensed her as an angel, muted yellow. Very muted. No doubt she could work here because she, like Paullus, gave allegiance to neither the Angelaeon nor the malevolents.

Melaia stepped toward her. “Cilla?”

“That’s me.” Cilla flipped back her curls as she glanced around the yard.

“A message from Paullus,” said Melaia.

“I heard. But it’s a hard time for me to be leaving, and he should know that.”

Melaia lowered her voice. “Paullus’s message was a way to get me into the palace. I’m a priestess, and I must see Hanamel and the three girls Lord Rejius brought here.”

Cilla put her hands on her broad hips. “Then Paullus
doesn’t
want to see me? The dolt.”

“Of course he wants to see you. He hopes I’ll bring you back with me. After I see—”

Cilla took Melaia by the elbow and led her quickly up the stairway. “Three girls, you say? I’ve seen only two. But you may play servant and help me fit their wedding clothes. As for Lady Hanamel, we may be in luck. It’s she who must give me leave to go into the city. Whether she’ll let me go or not, I can’t say.”

Melaia wiped sweat from her forehead as she entered the palace behind Cilla. She knew better than to engage the woman in conversation, but she was frantic to know why Cilla had seen only two girls. Which two?

In a wide-windowed, sunny room where two maids toiled with needles and thread over a sheer red cloth, Cilla scooped up three soft-flowing gowns, one a deep purple and two lavender. She draped them over Melaia’s arms. None were small enough to fit Peron, Melaia noticed, but she breathed more freely, for that gave her an easy explanation. Peron was too young to be part of the wedding.

At the end of the corridor stood an arched doorway, where they passed a
guard, who simply nodded at them. A malevolent. Melaia sensed him as a dull stain, but she was too agitated to pick out the color. Past him lay a stairway.

They climbed three floors up and entered a chamber with two beds by a window on one side and a table beneath the window on the opposite wall, where Iona and Nuri sat threading shells onto red cord. Iona’s waist-long dark hair was unbraided. Dimpled Nuri looked older, thin and solemn.

As Cilla stepped into the room, Iona glanced up, red eyed, and sighed. Nuri mumbled something but did not look up at all. Melaia wanted to toss the clothes aside and run to the girls, but the heaviness of their mood held her back.

“Your wedding clothes are sewn,” Cilla chirped. “You must try them on to see if they fit properly.” She took the dresses from Melaia.

Iona stared out the window, where the sea stretched to the horizon. A drak sailed past.

“It doesn’t matter to me whether they fit or not,” said Nuri.

“Shall I tell you a story while you try them on?” asked Melaia.

Iona and Nuri turned, their eyes wide. Then they leaped at Melaia and hugged her so tightly she thought she might smother.

“Where’s Peron?” asked Melaia. “Staying with Hanni?”

Iona pulled back, a trembling hand over her mouth. Nuri clamped her arms around Iona.

Sweat ran down Melaia’s back, but she felt cold. “Where’s Peron?” she whispered.

“He sent her to the Dregmoors.” Nuri blinked back tears. “She wouldn’t stop crying, and she wouldn’t do what she was told, and he sent her to the Dregmoors—”

Cilla stood open-mouthed, the gowns hugged to her bosom.

“Fiend!” Melaia paced to the far side of the room and back, her fists clenched. A drak settled on the windowsill between the beds. She snatched a shell and hurled it at the bird.

“Stop!” Nuri dashed to the window. The shell had missed, but the drak darted away.

Iona grabbed Melaia. “That was Peron.”

Melaia felt the blood drain from her face. “Peron?” she whispered. Curly-haired, dancing Peron who fed the chee-dees, babied her cloth doll, told stories. The room blurred, grayed, crowded in on Melaia like a tunnel. She sank to her knees, her throat too tight to utter its swollen wail.

Iona knelt beside her. “She homes to us, Mellie. The hawkman meant it as a threat to us, but at least Peron is free to come and go.”

“I’ve frightened her,” Melaia murmured. “I’ve scared her away.”

“She’ll return,” said Iona.

“We shooed her off too when we first saw her,” said Nuri. “It wasn’t until we noticed her hands—”

“Enough!” snapped Cilla. “This is not the ladies’ gab-gathering. We’ll all be draks if we’re discovered.” She handed Iona and Nuri their gowns. “Try these, and be quick about it. We’ll return shortly to make sure of the fit.” She tugged Melaia to her feet. “No time to wallow.”

Melaia felt numb as she followed Cilla out of the room. But she knew Cilla was right. She would have to work around the pain.

She sniffed, squared her shoulders, and let Cilla lead her to the top room of the square tower. It was sumptuously furnished with everything a queen could want: a wide, sculpted hearth, a bed canopied in gold-trimmed red silk, ornate brass lamps, a window-sized polished steel mirror, and fresh-scented rush mats.