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“Sister Venia remains under ban in the northern kingdoms and might be recognized. It will be you, Brother Marcus.”
He sighed. “Very well.”
Anne nodded. Her calm expression never altered. Why should it? Her wishes were never refused. “There remains the unfinished business of my mother, Lavrentia, whom I thought long since dead. One among us must go to St. Ekatarina’s Convent in Capardia. Without seven to bind a daimone to our will, we haven’t the power to do what needs to be done, as we did with Bernard.” There it came, the look that none could disobey. “Therefore, it must be you who goes, Sister Venia.”
Antonia sighed, an echo of Marcus’ displeasure at having to leave the manifold comforts of the skopos’ palace. She had eaten well this night at the Feast of St. Johanna the Messenger. But she knew better than to object. “What am I to do there?”
“Gain the confidence of the sisters. Enter the convent as a guest. Discover what you can. When the opportunity arises, kill my mother.”
Anne did not keep them much longer. Antonia had only postponed her hunt, not given it up. Once she was sure that the others had gone to their beds, she made her way to the suite of chambers reserved for the use of the skopos.
The carpeted anteroom leading into the skopos’ bedchamber muffled her footfalls, so she entered in silence and paused behind the concealing wooden screen. She scented magic at work here, a perfume like that of almonds. She always wore certain amulets to protect herself against the effects of bindings and workings, what she called common magic, as easily learned by an old wisewoman as by a noble cleric. Love spells, sleep spells, invisibility spells: these she had no fear of, and the scent of almond seemed to her like a veil, one that worked as a double-edged sword in her favor. If Hugh used common magics to conceal his intrigues, then he might just be arrogant enough to believe that no person in the skopos’ palace was immune to them. Except Anne.
She peered out into the chamber. The presbyter sitting in attendance with Hugh had fallen asleep, snoring softly in a chair set against the far wall. Hugh was alone with the dying woman.
At first, Antonia thought he was actually spinning Mother Clementia’s soul out of her wasted body, a pale thread of light that writhed and curled in his hands. But she had lived in Verna long enough to recognize the aetherical form of a daimone. Marcus had been right: Hugh had bound a daimone and used it to control the skopos.
She had to admire his audacity and skill. After all, he was using his power for good. So what did it matter what means he employed?
Mother Clementia sighed in her sleep. The pink color seeped out of her cheeks as Hugh wound the struggling daimone into a red ribbon. The skopos grayed, fading. Dying fast. Only the daimone had kept her alive for so long.
At last Hugh sat back, finished. The red ribbon in his hands twisted and fluttered like a live thing, and perhaps it was now that it contained a daimone. He concealed the ribbon in his sleeve and, to her surprise, slipped his precious book out from under the shelter of the skopos’ featherbed. Antonia stepped back into the shelter of the angled screen as Hugh walked past her to the door, so lost in thought that he didn’t even scan the shadows to make sure he hadn’t been observed.
He passed out of her sight, into the anteroom. She heard low voices outside. Brother Ismundus entered to take his place in Hugh’s chair as the snoring presbyter startled awake, smiling as if from sweet dreams.
Antonia slipped out unnoticed. Hugh had already left the anteroom, but she had a good idea where he might be going.
She found him deep in prayer in St. Thecla’s Chapel. This time, she made sure to examine closely the thresholds of the two adjacent doors that led up into the galleries. He had gone far beyond the crude bindings of cloth and dried herbs that common folk used to protect their henhouses from the depredations of foxes or to lure an unsuspecting sweetheart into falling in love. Like every threshold in the skopos’ palace, meant to glorify God by the beauty of its ornamentation, these lintels had been carved by master artisans. As befit the chapel dedicated to St. Thecla, the vivid carvings represented cups and robes, her sigils. But when Antonia reached up to brush a finger over the shape of one of those cups, she felt the sting of magic on her skin. Hugh had glossed over the bright colors with a glaze. It stank of lavender and narcissus, harbingers of sleep and inattention. He had ground them into a paste and used a coating of them to disturb the disposition of any person who might climb to the gallery and thereby observe him.
But Antonia’s mind remained clear. She took the narrow steps slowly, careful to miss the eleventh step, which creaked. The gallery was empty; everyone else was asleep, or at the feast.
But she was not entirely alone. Below, illuminated by a single lamp, knelt Hugh, golden head bowed in prayer.
Maybe she was getting a little obsessed with him. She would have to be careful. In part, she missed Heribert. She had always had someone to manage before, but of course she must never make the mistake of believing Hugh to be as manageable as Heribert. Not that Heribert had proved manageable in the end—damn Prince Sanglant.
Below, Hugh whispered words too softly for her to understand. The ribbon twisted and wound around and through his fingers in a sensuous dance, one that, briefly, reminded her of that one dalliance, three months of carnal pleasure as luxurious as silk—
All at once, the ribbon went slack. The daimone had escaped him. But he did not cry out. For a long, long time he knelt in intense concentration and with his eyes shut.
Now and again she caught scraps of words, whispers spoken as though to an unseen accomplice. “Change does not come easily. …Let me not speak of torment, who sinned so grievously…. Fate guides her movements.”
All at once, he threw back his head. By the light of that simple lamp she saw such a look of bliss transform his face that she might as well have caught him in the act of lovemaking.
Ai, God, if only she knew how to bind such emotion in, gather it all to herself. People were so weak, and so transparent. Even as cunning a man as Hugh in the end wasted his substance in the throes of ecstasy. Yet his yearning was as rich as cream, and she could not help but drink it down as his lips parted and he sighed as does a man who has at last achieved his heart’s desire and the fulfillment of his most pressing physical need.
“Ai, Liath,” he murmured, like a caress. Like rapture.
Antonia licked her lips.
He jerked back, eyes snapping open. He looked surprised, almost bewildered, but the moment passed quickly and with a grimace he gripped the ribbon tightly and shut his eyes again, mastering himself. The ribbon twisted weakly in his hands. A pale thread of aetherical light stabbed down, as though from the heavens, winding down along his arm and weaving itself back into the substance of the ribbon. The lamp flared hotly, and he winced in pain.
“Damn!” he swore as the ribbon came alive, contorting and thrashing like a snake trying to escape its captor, but he had too tight a hold on it as he murmured words of binding. For an instant she could actually see the bound daimone writhing within the confines of the silk ribbon before he tucked it away into his sleeve.
Standing, he was shaking, shaken by his unseen encounter, too distressed to take any notice of his surroundings as he tucked his book under his arm and hurried out of the chapel as though to escape an inferno.
He had learned to conceal from others the emotion that blazed in his heart. But Antonia knew how to watch and to listen, how to find out just those secrets that would serve her best when the time came, finally, for her to act. Anne’s scope, for all her power, was too narrow. Anne thought only of the coming cataclysm, not of what could be built out of its ashes.
Antonia did not intend to make that mistake, but she knew she would have to have allies, whether willing or not.
