CHAPTER 27
WE EXITED THE CARRIAGE into the bright midday sun. Tall, pale trees lined the road and the hills, their white branches shivering as if listening to a secret. The grass below them was as dark as sable, and only when the rare blades of warm sunlight pierced the canopies and fell upon the tussocks did I see that the grass was a deep, dark green. The Haza lands stretched to the east and west about me, though this tapestry of bucolic beauty ended at a border of dark ribbon: the enclosure’s tall fretvine walls, penning us in.
I paused as I looked around, struck by the sight. It was the most beautiful place I’d seen in all the Empire. Even the breeze smelled sweeter here. It wasn’t until the guards helped Fayazi exit the carriage, and I caught a glimpse of her bone-white ankle, that I reflected that every blade of grass within this cloistered world might be as altered as its mistress.
“Is it to your liking, Signum?” asked Fayazi.
“It is wonderful, ma’am,” I said, and meant it. “How big are the grounds, if I may ask?”
I looked to her axiom, expecting her prompt calculations; but it was the engraver who answered. “It is twenty-three square leagues,” he said quickly, his eyes shivering in their sockets.
“And yet,” Fayazi said, “this land is worth but a fraction of our farmlands in the inner rings. A strange thing, no?”
We advanced up the main stone stairway, the house hanging before us on the hill like a storm cloud. It was tall and rambling, a complex place with ribs of white columns and huge expanses of glimmering stained glass. Balconies at every level. Copper drainpipes winding around the columns like tree snakes. Yet the higher walls were wrought of fernpaper.
My eye lingered on these. I wondered if any had come through Suberek’s mill.
I followed Fayazi’s coterie to the top of the stairs, but there I stopped. A sculpture hung over the front landing before us, huge and long and narrow, suspended by cables from rows of tall posts. Yet as I looked closer at it and took in its gray colorings, I realized it was not a sculpture, but a bone.
A claw. An enormous one.
“Two hundred years old, that is,” Fayazi remarked. “Cut from one of the final leviathans to freely wander the Path. They were smaller in those days.”
I stared at the claw. It was at least three times as long as I was tall. I could not imagine the size of the creature that had once borne it.
“Really,” I said. “Do you know how tall it was?”
There was an awkward beat.
“No,” Fayazi said, bored. “We do not. Now. What shall you wish to see first?”
I studied her. Eyes cold, watchful. Confident.
I thought of Ana’s one command: Get to their rookery, boy, and look about. Yet I sensed that to demand to see the Haza rookery now would raise suspicion.
I told myself—wait. Chip away at her confidence. The opportunity may arise soon enough.
I cleared my throat. “Show me where he died, please.”
—
FAYAZI’S COTERIE LED me through vast, vaulted hallways, the walls all wrought of fretvine so finely braided a Legion bombard shot might have bounced off them. Fayazi walked ahead through these yawning spaces like a pale ghost haunting some ruin, and I followed, sniffing my vial all the while. There was little sound besides the clank and rattle of her bodyguard’s armor.
The walls were covered by a long silken tapestry that ran the whole length of the building. Now and then a spear of daylight shot down from some hidden window, casting a ray upon the silken tapestry and illuminating a shimmering warrior with a spear, and a chitinous, slavering creature towering over him.
“My ancestry,” she said, waving at it. “My lineage is captured there in silk. The engraver can explain it all, if you are curious.”
I glanced about as we walked. Partially to capture it all in my memory, but partially to identify the exits and entrances of this strange space, should the worst occur.
Fayazi led me down a side passage leading to a winding stair, and there we climbed up and up, strobed by the lights from the stained glass circling about us, until we came to the fourth floor. We proceeded down another hall, but Fayazi stopped before a tall stonewood door, suddenly troubled.
“It lies there,” she said quietly. “I cannot look upon it again.”
None of her coterie offered to open the door for me. I approached, grasped the handle, and opened it.
It was dark within, but the smell of old blood was overpowering. I let my eyes adjust until I finally beheld one of the grandest rooms I’d seen in all my life: a huge, sprawling chamber piled up with treasures and fineries—and yet all seemed to fade in the presence of the twisted, towering growth protruding from the side of the room.
I walked to it carefully, yet I was now familiar with the sight of dappleglass: the curl of the roots, the thick clutches of leaves, and the tiny, sickly smells of the blooms. Like in Daretana, the shoots had both burst through the ceiling and eaten into the floor, and the wood flooring was dark and stained around it. Here and there I saw fragments of wood and clumps of dark moss. It had bloomed from old Kaygi Haza while he rested in bed, I guessed, its roots eating through the sheets and the moss and then into the flooring below; and then it had punched up, cracking through the very ceiling.
Fayazi’s voice floated in through the open door: “We cannot remove it. It has wound its way into the very fabric of the house. To remove it would mean completely demolishing the room.”
I asked her how it all happened, and standing at the door she gave me the full account: her father had been sleeping peacefully during the early morning of the seventh of the month; yet then, just before sunrise, he’d awoken and begun calling for help, saying he was in tremendous pain. His attendants had arrived just in time to witness the inevitable carnage: a trembling column of greenery erupting from just below his left collarbone, growing until the man himself was eaten alive. It was just as Commander Blas had died, then.
I snuffed at the mint vial and glanced around the room, engraving it within my memory. Books and silks and tapestries and paintings were all about me—but so were many casks and barrels of wine, and many silver ewers. One of them glittered at me, encrusted with emeralds and emblazoned with the Haza symbol: a single feather standing tall between two trees.
I returned to the door. Fayazi gazed back at me. “Have you found anything, Signum?” she asked.
“I’ve seen many things, ma’am,” I said, “but I don’t know yet if any are significant.”
Something in her face twitched strangely. “He didn’t ask for me, you know.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“When he died. When he was in pain. He rang for his servants, but…he did not call for me. I had no idea it’d even happened, until I awoke. They all let me sleep, untroubled, and I awoke to this. Perhaps…perhaps it’s all still a bad dream.”
The axiom reached out and took Fayazi’s arm. “Do not speak so, mistress,” she said. “He was unwell.” She shot me a glare as if I’d provoked these comments. “You can take no lessons from such a death, mistress.”
Fayazi nodded, her face smoothing out and returning to its blank, unreadable state. “What next, Signum?” she asked.
“Show me where he bathed, please,” I said.
—
THEY TOOK ME down the hall and out onto a parapet of the main building, where a tall, white bathing house awaited us. I studied it as we approached, eyeing the thick shootstraw pipes running down the main building’s walls, which brought water in from somewhere above. A tank mounted on the roof, I guessed.
But most notably, the entire bathing house appeared to be built of fernpaper panels. More than twenty of them, by my count. And all white and pure as snow.
Fayazi’s guards opened the door to the bathing house, and I entered. The space within was dominated by a complex bathing apparatus built of brass and bronze pipes. The hot water was fed in from above, I reckoned, and then distributed into a circular set of tall spigots that were accompanied by a small crank. When one turned it, the apparatus would feed water up through the spigots to rain down upon the huge circular, white-tiled tub about them.
“The steam room, he called it,” said Fayazi, standing at the door. “It was what soothed his joints. They had many grafts to help him with his age—applied through an awful process, inserted into the bones of his thighs—but he always said hot water helped most.”
I touched one of the bronze handles, thinking.
“We considered acquiring some of the more extreme vitality suffusions from the Empire, you know,” Fayazi continued behind me. “The ones used by the imperial conzulates, for example. But the side effects seemed unwelcome.” She watched me. “Are you familiar with the conzulates, Signum?”
I knew of conzulates—they were the only rank higher than prificto, and essentially directed the Iyalets—but I knew nothing of their nature. I shook my head.
“Conzulates never age, and never stop growing,” said Fayazi quietly. “They grow and grow and grow. Some get to be about as big as houses—and just about as mobile—before they’re released from their service and given the sword. When taking that into consideration, steam seemed a much more preferable choice…” She paused. “You don’t think the air in here is still tainted, do you?”
I ignored her and walked around the tub, noticing how the edge had been stained here and there with rings of red and yellow. Wine, I supposed, from many cups or casks or ewers placed there during long baths. I traced one ring with my finger.
“Well?” demanded Fayazi. “Do you?”
I walked to the far wall and stooped and studied the lining between the fernpaper panels. The seam was filled with a dark paste—still soft.
“It likely would be dangerous in here still,” I said. I looked over my shoulder at her. “Unless the air had been vented out, taking the spores with it.”
Fayazi was silent at that.
“Were the fernpaper panels in here replaced, ma’am?” I asked.
“No,” she said simply. “Not recently, to my knowledge.”
“Are you sure? This seam is soft and new, and removing any panels would allow the air to circulate.”
“The lady has spoken her mind,” said the axiom sharply. “And she said no. You know more of this contagion than we do. How should we comprehend its behaviors?”
“There was a fernpaper miller that fulfilled an order,” I said. “His name was Suberek. We have indication that he delivered this fernpaper order here.”
“We have no knowledge of this,” said the axiom.
I ignored her and looked to Fayazi. “It would be a very large order, ma’am. And being as this fernpaper work appears new, it makes me wonder.”
There was another awkward beat. Fayazi glanced at her axiom, then shrugged. “My house and staff are vast,” she said. “I do not know everything that occurs here. Perhaps an order was placed. If so, I do not know where it is now. Do you know all that the Iudex does, or all the Empire, Signum?”
“And you still deny that the ten dead Engineers were ever here at all,” I said.
“We do not invite junior officers to our events,” the axiom said simply. “Unless it is at special request.”
I gazed at the three of them: the gentrywoman, the axiom, and the engraver. Studying their faces was like trying to read emotion in a piece of polished glass. I thought myself contained and controlled, yet these were indisputably masters at it.
“Was the poison delivered here, Signum?” Fayazi asked.
“It was delivered here, yes,” I said. “But the agent of contagion isn’t here. Because the water isn’t heated here, is it?”
“No,” she said. “It is not.”
“Then take me there, please.”
—
I HAD TO climb a ladder onto the back roof of the halls to access the water tank. It was a huge contraption, bigger than a slothik or a crackler, and its bronzed surface shone like a miniature sun. Fayazi’s coterie watched from below as I aligned my eye with the length of its shootstraw pipe, which ran down to the roof of the bathing house.
“How does the water get up here?” I asked.
“The servants bring it up in buckets,” called Fayazi. “How else? Then they light the stonewood fires beneath and send it down to the baths.”
“And this is what happened after the party, ma’am?”
“Yes. Of course.”
I opened the top of the tank and peered in. It was wide and rounded with a small grate in the center.
And there, lying in the middle of the grate, was a small strip of something dark. Though it was hard to see in the shadows within the tank, I had no doubt what it was.
My eyes fluttered, and suddenly I was not leaning down into a water tank: I was back in Daretana, watching as Princeps Otirios held his hands up about eight smallspan apart.
A slender slip of grass…not big at all. Odd to think such a small thing could kill a man so horribly.
I swallowed as the memory released me. “That’s it,” I said hoarsely. “It’s still here.”
—
I RETURNED TO the coterie and informed them of what I’d found. “Don’t use or tamper with or touch any of the bathing mechanisms,” I told Fayazi. “I frankly shouldn’t have looked into the water tank. I’ll call the Apoths when I return, and they’ll dispose of the contagion accordingly.”
For the first time, Fayazi looked rattled. “But…but how did it get in there at all? We had guards at all the hallways, and…and for the love of Sanctum, we had telltales at the entries to the estate! We made all the attendees march past them as they entered! That’s how we keep contagion out!”
“Calm,” said the axiom quietly. “Calm yourself, mistress…” Again, her hand returned to Fayazi’s arm, gripping her tight.
I considered the situation. The estate was a giant place. And despite what Fayazi had just said, I knew such a giant place would offer many points of entry—but where to start?
I remembered what Ana had told me after catching Uxos: Projecting motives is a fool’s game. But how they do it—that’s a matter of matter, moving real things about in real space.
“How do the servants get up here?” I asked. “Do they take the same route we did?”
“They use the servants’ passages,” said the engraver. He pointed east along the walls. “The entrance is there, out of sight, but it is kept locked.”
I went to where he pointed and found a small, bland little door that had been built to blend in with the wall. I tried the knob, but it was locked tight.
“It was locked the day of the party?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“And it was only unlocked before Kaygi took his bath?”
“Correct.”
“Is this the only servants’ door to this part of the house?”
“There is another servants’ door inside,” he said slowly. “Just past where we entered. But it is not well used.”
We crossed the parapet, reentered the hall, and came to the little door, which had been disguised as a stretch of wall. I tried the knob—and the door fell open, revealing a narrow, dark little passageway.
I peered at the knob. The bolt had been broken from its housing, like someone had pried at it with a length of iron.
The axiom stared at the broken knob, then turned to hiss at the engraver, “How did this escape your notice?”
I interrupted as he stammered to answer. “It’s possible the poisoner knew this door was little used,” I said. “But this must be how they came up. Does this passageway connect to the halls where the party was held?”
“Of course!” the axiom snapped. “How else might the servants move about the house unseen?”
“But much of the passageways are unlit,” said the engraver. “Servants and porters usually carry lanterns with them while attending to their duties. I’m sure they would have noticed if one of the guests was running about in the servants’ passageways with a lantern.”
I gazed into the darkened passageway. “I’d like to see for myself, please.”
They had a servant with a lantern lead me through the passageways, which were often tight and cramped. I couldn’t imagine how the Haza servants maneuvered within them carrying bundles of linens or trays of food. Yet though I moved slowly, descending always down to where the party had occurred, I could spy no sign of any trespasser’s passage—or at least, any sign that was distinguishable from the servants’ own.
The servant finally led me to the vast halls on the ground floor, where I found Fayazi and her coterie waiting for me.
She cocked an eyebrow at me as I exited. “Well? Did you find any evidence indicating how this was done? Or how that damned poison was smuggled into our home?”
I dusted myself off and tried to think. It seemed unlikely that the poisoner would have been able to improvise that trip through the passageways—which would mean they’d have to at least have known the passages existed, and where they exited.
“Signum?” Fayazi said. “Are you listening?”
“Still tracing it, ma’am,” I said. “Tell me—were these doors locked during the party?”
“Not the ones down here, no. It would have been tremendously awkward if the servants had been forced to lock and unlock doors as they went.”
“So anyone could have slipped into one?”
“Yes,” said the engraver. “But there were guards stationed in the halls. And the servants, as we’ve pointed out, would have noticed someone navigating the passageways with a lantern.”
I frowned, peering along the long, cavernous halls, studying the near-invisible forms of the servants’ doors built into the walls.
“You mentioned a fire occurred during the party,” I said. “Please take me to where it happened.”
They brought me to yet another of the many halls, this one featuring a tremendous stonewood fireplace that still smelled of old soot. A few square spans of the rug before it were black and crusted, and crunched underfoot as I approached.
I knelt before the fireplace, studying the hearth and the ash pit cover. There were whitish scorch marks all along the back left corner of the firebox. Strangely patterned, almost like pale flower blossoms. I touched them and found they were not residue: the brick itself had been burned.
Then I caught a faint aroma, acrid and unpleasant. I was reminded of horse urine or something similarly foul. I leaned closer to the scorched corner and sniffed again. The scent was much stronger there.
“What is it?” said Fayazi.
“Not sure, ma’am,” I said. I clambered back out of the fireplace and sniffed my vial to engrave the memory properly. “But I don’t think the ember that popped was natural.”
“Meaning someone threw some…some device into the fireplace?” asked the engraver.
“Yes. With the intention of causing a diversion. This started the fire, the guards came running—along with you—and someone slipped into the servants’ passageways and made it up to the bathhouse and back without anyone noticing.”
Fayazi stared at me, shaken. “How could they have maneuvered throughout the servants’ quarters without being spotted?”
“Don’t know, ma’am.”
“And how did they get the damned contagion in here in the first place?”
“Calm, mistress,” said the axiom quietly. “Calm…”
“Don’t know, ma’am,” I said again.
“There must have been some way!” Fayazi snapped, suddenly riled. “I thought you Iudex people were supposed to be clever!”
“You must be calm!” said the axiom. “Breathe deep the airs of this place and be calm!”
Again, the axiom held her mistress’s arm, yet this time she gripped her so tight her fingers disappeared into Fayazi’s robes. I could think of no one less calming and reassuring than this needle-eyed creature. Yet I sensed an opportunity.
“I don’t think the poison was brought in during your party, ma’am,” I said, thinking rapidly.
“Then how?” Fayazi demanded.
“I think it came earlier,” I said. “I think it was already here, waiting to be used. The murderer simply had to come to the party, pick it up, and bring it to the appropriate place. And it wouldn’t be hard to sneak something the size of a blade of grass into your estate.”
I paused. All I’d said thus far were things I truly believed; but now I would have to lie. And that had never been my greatest talent.
“Then how?” Fayazi demanded again.
“It could have come over the walls somehow,” I said slowly, “or, possibly, it was carried in by some small animal.”
“Like what?” said the engraver. “The killer used a trained mouse to sneak the blade of grass into the boiler?”
“Or a trained bird,” I said. “The estate does have a rookery, doesn’t it? For scribe-hawks?”
Fayazi paused, considering this.
“That place,” said the axiom softly, “is not for you.”
“You…you are suggesting,” the engraver said slowly, “that someone…posted the poison to the lady’s house? Carried by a scribe-hawk?”
“Possibly. You get a lot of them coming here, I’d expect. And a blade of grass would be a simple thing for such a creature to carry. Do you check your hawks the same way you checked your guests for your party?”
“Do you really think,” the engraver said, “that having had this poison carried here upon a scribe-hawk, one of the lady’s servants just took it off the bird and…what, left it lying about?”
“I would normally think it unlikely,” I said coolly, “but then, I would also think someone navigating your servants’ passages, breaking the top door open, and then you not noticing either would be very unlikely. And yet, that is evidently what has happened.”
A frosty pause. All three of them glared at me.
“Very few are allowed in our rookery,” Fayazi said. “Even I was not permitted there, until recently. Only my father and his most trusted servants possessed access.”
“I must review all avenues of entry, ma’am,” I explained. “The rookery, the walls—everything.”
“Would you still wish to see it, Signum,” the axiom said, “if you knew that we had burned all of the master’s correspondence after his death?”
I tried not to let my frustration show in my face. Of course. Of course they’d burned it all. Perhaps for contagion, but also to destroy evidence, surely.
Yet Ana had told me to get into the rookery. Perhaps there might still be something of value there.
“Yes,” I said smoothly. “Of course I would.”
Fayazi thought about it. “Then I will allow you a moment.”
“There is nothing there for him to see, mistress,” said the axiom. “We canno—”
“They tell me this boy is the one who investigated Blas’s murder,” said Fayazi sharply. She glared back at her servant. “Perhaps he can give us assistance.” She looked at me. “Five minutes, Signum, and no more.”
She turned and began walking, and I and her retinue followed.