Penric's Demon (14 page)

Tigney glowered down at the boggled, bedraggled Pen, but then just shook his head.

So was this to be the second lethal ambush Penric and Desdemona had faced in the space of less than a day? Ambush it clearly was meant to be, crafted by the cunning Tigney no doubt. No wonder he hadn’t troubled to tutor Pen. He must have been planning it for a week, to get this creaky old man transported here from Idau in secret. How else could he corner and arrest such a powerful demon, except by surprise? And Pen had walked her right into it. Should he get up and try to run?
Could
he get up, let alone run?
We should have gone north after all. Oh, Desdemona, I am so sorry . . .

“So, Blessed.” Tigney gestured to Pen. “
Is
his demon ascended?”

The old man frowned unfavorably at Pen, who looked up at him in dismay, but said, “No. Not a bit. All your panic seems unfounded, Tig. Entirely not worth what that vile cart did to my back, rushing me here.”

As the gray eyes squinted down, Pen was abruptly caught in that gaze, as if he were looking through two pinholes at a blinding sun, as if something huge and ancient and
present
lay just around some corner of perception. He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t run away. He thought he might even want to crawl
toward
. That elderly and unprepossessing body seemed worn like a stage costume, insubstantial and deceptive as gauze, over, yes, only a man, but also a channel to something that was . . . not a man. Not anything Pen had ever expected to meet face-to-face alive, even through such a screen.

It came to him that every prayer he’d ever said or mumbled or yawned around before had been by rote. And that he’d never be able to pray like that again.

“Can you compel his demon to speech?” Tigney asked the saint.

“If I can persuade it to stop howling in fear, perhaps.”

Clee, unwisely, tried, “But can you compel it to speak the
truth
?”

The old man eyed him. “Don’t know. D’you think I could compel you?”

Clee wilted. But, driven by whatever desperation, he essayed: “If the demon is not ascended, then Lord Penric’s behavior is his own, mad or criminal to repay begged hospitality with arson and destruction. And he should be brought before the judges for it.”

The old man snorted. “And how do you imagine the magistrates of Martensbridge could arraign a sorcerer against his will?”

Tigney cleared his throat. “Even if it is not yet ascended, I fear that it’s only a matter of time. Learned Ruchia’s was the most formidable demon in the whole of my experience. Much too powerful for this raw young man, however well-intentioned he may be. Blessed, I take full responsibility for my Temple-sworn duties, and I must ask you, as a matter of prudence, to take this danger out of this boy and the world.”

Pen, listening intently, his stomach curling, tried pointing out, “But I’m not Temple-sworn. I’m really only a guest here.”

Clee said poisonously, “In your case, that’s hardly a recommendation.”

Tigney just shook his head.

It came to Pen that for all the talk of accusations and magistrates, arguing like a lawyer was not what was called for now. If there was truly a god immanent in this chamber, it wanted another mode of speech altogether.

Pen climbed up on his knees and shuffled over to face the saint. Inside him, he thought Desdemona wept, despairing as a woman mounting a scaffold. Tigney made an abortive motion as if to restrain Pen, but the old man merely regarded him curiously, without fear.

Pen opened both hands and raised them, as he might have done before a temple altar, with less cause. It occurred to him that the attitude of supplication was identical to that of surrender on a battlefield.

“Blessed, if I speak, will the god hear?”

The sheep’s-wool eyebrows twitched. “The gods hear you at all times, speaking or silent. You hearing the god . . . that is more rare.”

Pen decided to take that for a typical obscure Bastard’s
Yes
. He swallowed, thought of bowing his head, but then decided to look up. At, or through, those terrifying gray eyes.

“Lord God Bastard, Mother’s Son, Fifth and White. Please spare Desdemona. She’s a
good
demon.” Pen considered that descriptor, in all its ambiguity—good for
what
?—and decided to let it stand. “She has no life save through me, and, by your leave, please . . . please let me serve her in her need.” And, in what was surely the most foolhardy impulse of his life, even beating out Drovo’s drunken oath to the military recruiter, added, “And Yours.”

Tigney shook his head, back and forth, once, slowly.

The Saint of Idau raised his hand and laid it on Pen’s forehead, in some beginning malediction. His lips parted. Stopped. His look grew inward for an instant more deep than long. Fathoms deep. The eyebrows climbed in surprise. “Huh! There’s a first.” His hand dropped back.

“What?” said Tigney, nearly squirming with anxiety. “The white god takes the demon, yes?”

“No. Spits her back. Says He doesn’t want her. At least not yet.”

Tigney blinked, stunned. Pen’s breath caught.
What, what, what . . . ?

Clee protested, “But you must!”

The saint eyed him sourly. “If you want to argue with the god, go to the temple. Not that you’ll get much save sore knees, but it’ll spare my ears.” He made to lever himself up with his cane.

Pen cried aloud, “
Wait
, wait, what . . . Blessed, what does that
mean
?”

The old man eyed
him
glumly. “It means congratulations. You’re a sorcerer.” He pursed his lips, and added more judiciously, “The gods do not act for our ends, but for Theirs. Presumably, the god has some interesting future in mind for you—for you two. This is not a blessing. Good luck. You’ll need it.”

Tigney, aghast, said, “But what should we
do
with him?”

“No idea,” said the saint. He paused. “Though it would likely be prudent not to let him get killed on your doorstep.”

His eyes still wide, Tigney said, “He’ll have to be sworn into the Order.”

The saint’s lips quirked up. “Weren’t you listening? He just was.” He wrinkled his nose. “Though not, I suppose, to the
Order
as such . . .” He shuffled toward the hall, grumpily mumbling, “Ah, Lord Bastard, my
back
 . . .”

At the doorway, he turned around. “Oh.” He pointed to Penric. “That one tells the truth”—his finger swung to Clee—“that one lies. Have fun sorting out this tangle, Tig.” His cantankerous voice floated over his shoulder: “
I’m
going back to Idau.”

*
   
*
   
*

Clee was taken away by a couple of husky dedicats, Pen was not sure to where. With more painfully sincere politeness than heretofore, Tigney suggested Pen might like to rest in his room a while. Pen, swaying on his feet, did not demur, and neither did Desdemona, who had gone very silent indeed.

All Pen’s meager possessions had been turned out and strewn across his bed, though nothing save Ruchia’s book appeared to be taken. Clee’s things were in no better form, and for the first time, realizing Tigney had known nothing, Pen wondered what the divine had first made of it all when both men had gone missing last night. He wasn’t quite able to muster sympathy.

He cleared his bed without ceremony, stripped out of his clammy clothes, stole Clee’s blankets to throw atop his own, and climbed in, more exhausted than he’d ever been even after the most futile, sleet-soaked hunt. When he slept, he dreamed uneasily of fathomless eyes.

*
   
*
   
*

He woke in the early afternoon, ravenous, and went to beg food in the kitchen, where dedicats or acolytes who had missed meals were, depending on the mood of the servants, sometimes allowed charity. His extended to dry bread, some pretty good beer, and a random but generous assortment of leftovers from lunch.
Hunger makes the best sauce
, he remembered his mother intoning to him, vexingly, but there was nothing left on his plate but a smear by the time he’d done.

A dedicat found him there, drooping over his place. “Lord Penric,” she said. “Learned Tigney begs you will attend upon him upstairs.”

She led him not to Tigney’s workroom, but to a larger chamber at the back of the house. Pen hesitated in the doorway, taking in the intimidating committee assembled around a long table. Tigney was present, and two older divines in the robes of the Bastard’s Order, but also one in the neat black gown of the Father’s, black and gray braid on the shoulder, with a notebook and quill before him. A bulky man whom Pen guessed by the chain of office around his neck was a city magistrate sat next to him. A middle-aged woman in a fine silk gown, protected by an over-robe of scarcely less elegant linen, tidied a stack of papers, and rearranged her own quills and ink. All stared back at Pen.

The saint had apparently gone back not to Idau, but to bed, for he sat fully dressed in plain townsman’s garb on a cushioned chair in the corner, eyes half closed as if dozing. Pen did not feel the god within him now, to his relief. The immense absence did not seem to leave an empty space, precisely, so much as one reserved, freed of all life’s clutter and waiting for its Guest again.

Tigney rose and ushered Pen to a chair at the foot of the table, facing the room’s window. He could see all the interested faces around the board, and they could see his even better.

“Learneds, Your Honor, milady.” That last, by Tigney’s respectful nod, was directed to the woman in silk. “I present to you Lord Penric kin Jurald of the valley of Greenwell, as discussed.” Tigney did not present Desdemona. Pen thought she was awake, within him, but still very silent; exhausted, cautious—a mode, he was beginning to realize, not characteristic of demons—still afraid of the saint?

Tigney sat to Pen’s left; the magistrate straightened up and frowned down the table. “This committee is here assembled to inquire into the unfortunate events of last night,” he said, formally. If he’d been trained as a lawyer, Pen suspected he could parse more implications out of that. Not a trial, yet—inquest, was that the term? The magistrate went on, “We have thus far taken the testimony of Learned Tigney and Blessed Broylin of Idau, and the testimony and confession of Dedicat Clee.”

“Did Clee finally stop lying?” Pen asked Tigney.

“Mostly,” Tigney grunted. “We think.”

In his corner, the saint snorted softly, but did not look up.

“There remain some points of confusion and uncertainty,” the magistrate went on. Pen did not doubt it. “In aid of their resolution, we request that you take oath before the gods of the truth of your tongue, and recount what you experienced for our records.”

Pen gulped, but, coached through the wording by the Father’s divine, readily did so. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to lie about anyway. Maybe he was still too tired.

Under the prodding of the magistrate, Pen repeated his account of the events of the past day, in a deal more detail than his first bald report to Tigney. Quills scratched furiously. Every once in a while, another member of the committee would ask some shrewd or uncomfortable question, by which Pen began to grasp what a gullible idiot he had been. Remembered terror and outrage yielded to some embarrassment.

At least he was not alone in that last. The magistrate asked Tigney, “Why did you choose to lodge Lord Penric in Dedicat Clee’s room? Was there no other choice?”

Tigney cleared his throat. “No, but Clee was, I thought, my trusted assistant. The two were of a like age. I thought Clee might keep an eye on his doings, maybe draw him out and find any falsehoods in his tale. And report to me.”

Pen’s eyebrows scrunched. “You set him to spy on me?”

“It seemed prudent. Your story was . . . unusual. And as you yourself have found, some men will do questionable things in hopes of gaining a sorcerer’s powers.”

Pen thought throat-cutting went a bit beyond
questionable
, but Father’s divine looked up from his note-taking and asked, “If Dedicat Clee had not been placed so close to temptation, do you think he might not have generated his scheme in the first place?”

Tigney shrank in his seat. After a long pause, he muttered, “I do not know. Maybe not.”

The woman in silk and linen pursed her lips, her own busy quill pausing. “In all your observations last night, Lord Penric, was there anything to tell you which of the brothers first originated the plan?”

“I’m . . . not sure,” said Pen. “Up till the castle caught fire, they seemed very united and, um, loyal to each other. Lord Rusillin seemed more willing to abandon the hunt at that point, but then, he thought I was about to drown in the lake. In his, er,”—not
defense
—“so did I.” Pen blinked. “Is there any word from Castle Martenden today? I mean, apart from Clee. I couldn’t tell if he’d come back because his brother had thrown him out, or to prepare some ground on Rusillin’s behalf.” If the latter, he had certainly failed. Mucked it up beyond all repair, possibly. Pen could hope.

“That will be another point to clarify,” the woman murmured, her quill scratching again. “Or maybe not.” A slight, strange smile turned her lips. “Dedicat Clee claims the notion was his brother’s, over a dinner with too much wine.”

“But then, he would,” observed one of the other senior divines. By her slight frown, the woman did not seem to find this helpful.