Closer to the Chest Read online

  :Show me the damage, Mags.: The reply was immediate. Good, the Prince was probably still sitting alone where they’d left him, just waiting for Mags to report.

  Mags let the Prince see what had been done, sensing fragments of the Prince’s reaction as he went over every inch of the desecrated sanctuary. There was disgust, anger, and puzzlement, which had been Mag’s reaction, too. Because this made no sense, the Order couldn’t possibly have offended anyone this much, could they? From the solid look of the buildings, they’d been here for decades, maybe even a century or two. So why had this happened now?

  :Not as bad as it could have been, then,: was the Prince’s first open response. :I was thinking broken statuary, smashed furniture, something more difficult to deal with than paint.:

  :That was my thought. Four men to clean the paint off the floor, another half dozen to paint the walls, using the scaffolds left over from finishing the roof of Herald’s Collegium. Big brushes and a lot of red paint should take care of the walls. The Prioress approves the color.:

  The Prince considered this. :It’ll be a bit dark when they’re done. I’ll send some lanterns and brackets down as well. Sketch as much as you can stomach, write down all the raving, and stay down there in charge. I’ll be sending a crew I can trust to keep their mouths shut. Tell the Prioress that all anyone will know is that I decided since I had made a charity gift to the Sisters of Ardana that I’d make one to her Order as well and redecorated the Sanctuary under your direction while the Order was out on their exercise.:

  Mags nodded. It was a very good story, and no one was likely to challenge it. :Very well, your Highness.:

  :I’ll leave you to it then.:

  Mags let the connection between them drop, and turned back to the Prioress. “There will be a crew that will keep their tongues in their heads down here within a candlemark,” he told the woman, who had kept silent while he spoke to the Prince. “The Prince will let it be known that he decided to gift the Order by redecorating the sanctuary, and scheduled it with you to take place while most of them were out on that exercise in order to keep any disturbance to a minimum.”

  For the first time since he had met her, he saw her smile, slightly. “He’s going to make a good commander and tactician,” she said with admiration.

  Mags made a little grunt of a chuckle. “He already is,” he replied. Then he made another circuit of the walls, copying down the scrawls and the disgusting drawings. “You know,” he said, as he worked, “The paint’s still shiny in places. This looks as if every bit of it was done last night, in silence, without disturbing anyone here. They certainly carried away anything that could have been considered as evidence.”

  The Prioress folded her arms and contemplated the walls. “All I can say is, thank the Goddess that everyone still here is too old and too crippled to be larking about like this all night. If they weren’t, anyone who got wind of this would probably accuse them of doing this.”

  “Hmm-hmm,” Mags agreed, and pointed at one of the inscriptions. “Along the lines of that nonsense there, about women cooped up together turning into man-devouring monsters?”

  She nodded. “There was a lot of that sort of thing in the letters.”

  “I don’t suppose you saved any of them, did you?” he asked, not really expecting an affirmative answer.

  “Dear Goddess, no,” she said, curling her lip. “I got rid of the trash as quickly as I could. Into the fire they went, before anyone but me got a chance to read them. As I said, there are those among us who have . . . raw nerves on certain subjects. I didn’t want to take the chance of exposing them to something that would awaken old, bad memories.” She bit her lip and turned to look him fully in the eyes. “Do you really think the letters and this are linked?”

  “You said it yourself,” he pointed out. “Expressing the same sentiments. If you get any more, save them and send them to me.”

  Anything more they might have discussed was interrupted by the arrival of a wagon, loaded with sleepy workmen and women, paint, brushes, lanterns, brackets, and the scaffolding. And Mags settled down to a steady job of supervising the workers, while the Prioress kept an eye on her aged, but still curious, Sisters, until the inscriptions were covered up and the repainting reached the ceiling.

  • • •

  Mags was glad to get back up the Hill, change out of the Whites that had (inevitably) gotten spattered with red paint, stuff himself at dinner, and go to lie down on the bed he had been forced to abandon far too early in the morning. Amily was off somewhere, but he knew Dallen had kept Rolan appraised of what was going on, and Rolan had made sure she knew what he was doing.

  He wasn’t altogether sure what she was doing, but it was probably her usual duties. That would be at least one Council meeting today, and he was quite, quite certain that the activities of the Poison Pen—or Pens—were not going to be mentioned at the meeting. First of all, they had nothing linking the letters to the Court with the desecration of the Temple. Second of all, the Prioress herself, as well as the Prince, had asked that nothing be said. And he understood why. Only too well.

  He was no empath, but it hadn’t been hard to read the shame and the doubt in the Prioress’s stiff manner. It didn’t matter that no one in the Order of Betane had done anything to earn those disgusting scrawls. The fact that the desecration had happened in the first place was enough to shake the Prioress’s faith, not in her Goddess, but in herself. Mags had seen it time and again, administering justice down in Haven. Stupid people never doubted themselves. Intelligent ones, however, went straight to self-examination whenever anything bad happened. Did I deserve this? Did I bring it on myself? Did I somehow do something that I shouldn’t have? Even though the sanctuary of Betane was now clean, painted, lit with beautiful brass lanterns, and looked better than it had before the insult, the Prioress would probably be on her knees all night in there. She’d say she was guarding it until the rest of the Order got back, but the real reason was because she was going to punish herself for “letting” it happen, and beg her Goddess’s forgiveness for whatever imaginary fault had permitted an enemy to penetrate into the Order’s heart.

  I would love to get my hands on whoever did this. But he already knew that he could administer all the punishment in the world, and it would have no effect, because the ones who had done this were stupid people, who had absolutely no doubt that they were in the right. No matter what they were told, no matter how many times they got caught and punished, they would go straight out and do it again. They knew they were right, and nothing would shake that faith.

  :I wish there was a plague that would target only stupid people,: he thought stormily. :Life would be so much easier for all the people that were left.:

  “What are you thinking, frowning like that?” Amily said from the foot of the bed. “You look as if you’re aching to get your hands on someone and beat some sense into him.”

  “If only it were that easy,” he sighed, opening his eyes, and told her what had been going on since he’d left her this morning.

  She pursed her lips, and rather than replying, went back into the sitting room. When she returned, she had a leather document case with her, and sat down next to him on the bed. “It looks to me as if we have something widespread and nasty on our hands,” she said.

  “Wait,” he interrupted her. “Let me find my notes.” The notebook, as he had thought, was under the bed where it had ended up after he’d thrown himself down onto it. She pulled a handful of what looked like letters printed on crude paper and handed them to him. He looked them over, frowning, while she perused his notes.

  “Look at this,” she said, pointing to one of the inscriptions he had carefully copied out. “I’m sure there is something with the exact phrasing in one of those letters.”

  “There is,” he said, picking it out of the group. “And this one is similar. Here’s one that’s like the inscription I wrot
e on the next page.” He looked up at her, and saw she was as troubled by this as he was. “Clearly, we have a problem. If it’s a single person, how is it that he can deliver letters up here on the Hill, and yet be down in Haven to desecrate a Temple in the dead of night? If he lives on the Hill how would he have known that the Temple was going to be empty? And if he lives in Haven, how would he deliver letters up on the Hill?”

  “And if it’s more than one person, clearly they are working together. They’re using the same phrasing, and they think entirely too much alike.” She shivered. “I’m beginning to be glad you sleep with weapons at hand.”

  He glowered at the letters. “I think you should start. I’m not always here.”

  “I think I will,” she replied. “Or . . . better still, maybe I should get one of Dia’s mastiffs.”

  “That wouldn’t be a bad idea. We’ve got the room. I’d feel better about you being alone here. Not”—he hastened to add—“that I think you are incapable of defending yourself. But you can’t be awake all the time. And if you sleep too lightly you’ll never get any rest.”

  “I’ll talk to her about it tomorrow.” She put the letters into the document case, and when he handed it to her, added the notebook. “And we should both see the King and the Prince and probably Father tomorrow at breakfast.” Her eyes went distant for a moment. “Rolan’s taking care of it.”

  “Most people have a personal secretary for such things,” he said, his mouth quirking a little.

  “Hush. He might ‘hear’ you. Besides, he’s no good as a personal secretary, he can’t write.” She leaned over and kissed his nose. And then his mouth. And then they forgot about breakfast appointments and Poison Pen letters for a while.

  • • •

  :Time to wake UP!: Perhaps it had been the remark about being a personal secretary, but Rolan seemed to take great glee in booting Amily out of what had been a nice, peaceful rest. But as she levered herself up on one elbow, hair falling down over one eye, Mags groaned theatrically and batted at the air, as if trying to make something invisible go away. Dallen isn’t being any kinder to him, I see.

  “It won’t work,” she reminded him. “He’s in your head, and you can’t get rid of him that easily.” She pushed the hair out of her eyes.

  “Wretched horse,” he grumbled, and blinked sleepily. “At least they woke us up with plenty of time to make ourselves presentable. Did I tell you what the Prince was wearing when I got rousted out of bed yesterday?”

  “No,” she replied, groping for her shift. She definitely remembered it going over this side of the bed last night . . . ah, there it is.

  She laughed at his description as they both washed up and put on clean uniforms. It was still dark as they left their rooms for the Palace, document case in Amily’s hand, heading for the Royal Suite.

  The Guards posted here probably would have been demoted to cleaning boots if they hadn’t known the King’s Own on sight, so the moment Amily and Mags appeared at the end of the hall, one of the men on duty started opening the door for them. They went through, side by side, with nods to both Guards, and the door closed smoothly behind them.

  Anyone who had been expecting decadent luxury in the Royal Suite would have been profoundly disappointed. The furnishings were the very best, and the tapestries warming the walls were works of pure art, but there was a definite patina of daily use on everything. In fact, the King hadn’t changed a thing after he’d inherited the title and the rooms. The colors were all muted by age, leaving the visitor with the impression that these rooms were part of an extremely comfortable, wealthy, if old-fashioned, country estate.

  The cool, damp, morning breeze came in the open windows; to take the chill out of it, a small fire burned cleanly on the hearth. The clever folding table that usually stood against the wall of the sitting room had been unfolded and set with breakfast dishes.

  It was just the King and the Prince seated at the commodious table, eating breakfast this morning. The Queen was probably still abed; she was not a morning riser. Lydia was, but she was in the first months of her first pregnancy, and at the moment, she and breakfast were bitter enemies.

  “Sit,” Kyril said, gesturing with a fork. “We’ll eat first. I’d rather not ruin my appetite with what you’re going to show us.”

  Amily was in complete agreement with that sentiment. They joined the other two in making short work of the dishes that had been set before them.

  Only when the servants had cleared everything away and left, did the King indicate that he was ready to hear what they had to say.

  The Prince was silent through all of Mags’ report, but questioned Amily closely about what Dia had told her concerning the letters she’d been given. They both pored over Mags’ notes, and the letters, with no comments except to each other, for the better part of a candlemark.

  Finally the King put all the documents back in the case with a sigh. “I wish I could say that this looks like nothing more dangerous than mean-spirited mischief,” he said reluctantly.

  “But it doesn’t,” Amily replied.

  “No, it doesn’t,” the King agreed. “There is definitely malice there. And right now, it looks as if it is limited to attempts to—” He looked as if he was at a loss for words.

  “Put uppity women in their place?” Amily suggested, delicately.

  “A little more forceful than that,” Kyril replied, steepling his hands together thoughtfully. “In fact . . . intimidate, would be closer to what I have in mind. Intimidate in the case of the Order of Betane, but shame and intimidate in the case of those letters. . . .”

  “And denigrate,” the Prince added. “Let’s not forget that. This is someone who hates women.”

  “Could it be a single person at work here? We thought not, given that whoever it is would have to have access to and knowledge of both the Hill and Haven,” Amily said, doubtfully.

  “It’s certainly possible,” Sedric opined. “If Mags’ little adventures with the Sleepgivers taught us anything, it’s that it’s not that hard for a stranger to walk around to deliver things around the Hill and have no one take notice, especially if it’s something that looks innocuous, like messages. All you have to do is wear Palace livery. We’ve tried to keep better track of all the suits of livery, but . . . if someone purloined a set of livery out of the stores just long enough to make his deliveries, then put it back, no one would notice anything.”

  “So someone comes up with a delivery, slips off, borrows the livery, drops off messages, changes again, and goes back down into Haven and no one’s the wiser?” Amily asked.

  Sedric shrugged. “We tried locking this place up like a fortress after Mags was kidnapped. It lasted about a week before everyone up here was in revolt. It’s just not going to happen. So, yes, it could be a single person.”

  “Uneducated?” Mags hazarded. But Amily shook her head.

  “It’s easy for an educated person to pass themselves off as uneducated, especially in writing,” she said. “And a couple of the allusions in the letters, the ones describing the women the letters were sent to as Mantids and Aura Spiders, aren’t the sort of thing most uneducated people would know about.”

  The creatures she was referring to were female insects that killed and ate their mates after mating with them.

  “So, it must be someone educated.” Mags tilted his head to the side, then frowned in thought. “That still doesn’t narrow things down any.”

  No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t even eliminate one of the Order. I am sure there are educated women among them. The Prioress, for instance . . . and we have only her word about when she came back to the Temple.

  “The letters, even the desecration, aren’t the problem,” Kyril said into the silence that followed Amily’s statement. “The problem is . . . that he’s gone from letters targeting individuals and delivered privately, to the very public desecration of
a Temple.”

  “You think he’s not getting enough entertainment by bullying individuals—” Mags said, hesitantly. “But the desecration wouldn’t have been all that public. Hardly anyone uses the Temple except the Order—”

  “Yes, but instead of individuals, who have been concealing their letters and their hurt or fear, he meant to show up an entire group at once, catching them off-guard.” Kyril drummed his fingers on the table. “That’s an escalation. He’s not content merely knowing he must be causing distress, he has to be sure he is causing it by exposing an entire group of victims to his abuse at once.”

  Mags frowned. “So you think he’s going to get more . . . active?”

  “I’d bet on it,” the King said grimly. “The more especially as the Prioress discovered the desecration too early, and you handled the cleanup so efficiently, Mags. The impact, the shock, the revulsion, the horror at having their sanctuary violated, that won’t be present. Instead, the returning members of the Order will find the delightful surprise of their Temple newly redecorated and cleaned. Their reaction will not be what he wants.”

  Amily bit her lip at that. “Do you think he’ll be watching?”

  “Without a doubt. But unless Mags was willing to go down there and violate perfectly innocent peoples’ minds by reading the thoughts of everyone close enough to see what happens when the Temple doors are flung open, there’s no way of finding him.” Kyril crushed her hopes of a simple solution with a single sentence.

  “And that’s assuming he hasn’t already found out the Temple’s been cleansed,” Kyril pointed out. “I wouldn’t bet on that. He’s already proven himself to be very clever. Or she . . .”

  So there it was, the thing that Dia, the Prioress, and Amily had all been dreading. The King had pointed out the possibility that this could be a woman, the horse was out of the barn and there would be no getting it back in again.

  “It would be easier for a woman to move about the Hill,” she said reluctantly.

  “And much easier for one to enter the Temple,” Sedric pointed out. Then he said the very thing Amily had been thinking. “We only have the Prioress’s word as to when she returned, after all. By her own word, she didn’t actually check with her underlings, she only assumed that because all was quiet, no one was ill or had died to account for her premonition. She could have desecrated the Temple herself.”