Kingfisher(35)

“So there you have it,” the magus finished. “I would never call Mystes Halliwell wrong about her conclusions. I can only say that what fragments I have seen for that argument tend to be either fairly modern, or, if very old, imprecise and speculative, with only the weakest of scholarly underpinnings.” He paused, reached again for the licorice. “As far as where it is, that’s a completely different thicket of argument, and every bit as dense.” He proffered the bag, then took a piece himself. Chewing, they looked at one another, startled, suddenly, at the angle of light through the tower windows.

Perdita glanced quickly at her watch. “I’m due at the sanctum in five minutes. Luckily, it’s just the guardian’s watch, keeping the peace and discouraging men and other such strangers from entering. Thank you, Lord Skelton. I’m not sure exactly what you said, but I’m fascinated by it anyway.”

“Thank you, Princess,” Sylvester said, looking pleased. “It’s high time I put my ideas in order; I’ll have to explain all this at the Assembly. Mystes Ruxley can deal with the practicalities of sending the knights across the realm searching for an ancient mystery. He’s best at mundane details, despite his calling. But then, Severen himself was never a subtle god. Just rich.”

Crossing the yard from the keep to the sanctum tower, Perdita was surprised to see her half brother wheeling his electric bike along the sward.

“Daimon?” she called, and he started, then glanced back at her and reluctantly waited. “What are you doing? You look as though you’re sneaking out of here.”

“I am,” he said. “Or I was.”

“You look strange,” she said, frowning at him. “All awry, somehow. I’ve hardly seen you for days. Not that I would anyway since you’re busy doing knightly things. Like creeping through the sanctum gardens to the back roads beyond the practice field. Are you all right?”

He started to speak, shook his head a little, and started again. “Yes. I think so. And, yes, I am trying to slip away.”

“Affairs of the heart?”

“Oh, yes. Very much so.”

“Is she married?” He stared at her. “Well, you don’t seem entirely happy. Whatever it is—”

“She’s not married,” he said shortly. “You’re prying.”

“Of course I’m prying. I’m your sister.”

“Half. Half sister.”

Something in the emphasis tossed her a clue; her eyes widened. “You know something,” she breathed. “You found out something. About the other half. Daimon—”

He shifted edgily, began to walk his bike again, quickly. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing—” He seemed to feel her eyes boring into his head as she kept up with him; he stopped, said without looking at her, “I’m thinking something through. Just let it go. It’s mine to figure out.”

“Are you—”

“No,” he said, with an odd, sharp urgency. “No more.”

She took a step away, swallowing; he moved again, doggedly, his eyes on the route he would use to escape to or from whatever troubled him.

“Let me know,” she said, too softly for him to hear except with his heart, “if you want to talk.”

She hurried up the sanctum-tower steps to the royal chamber; she had pulled the long guardian’s robe over her head and was putting on her sandals, when the door opened abruptly. Both the queen and Mystes Halliwell stood in the doorway, the mystes emitting incandescence like a burning stove. The queen’s face wore a familiar, guarded expression. Perdita assumed that the fuel that stoked the mystes’ ire was either Leith or Lord Skelton.

“Sorry I’m late,” Perdita said; she saw the book in Holly’s hand, then, and guessed Lord Skelton.

“Princess Perdita,” Holly said stiffly, formally, as she tended to when she was beyond furious. “Please come with us.”

Perdita did so, hopping on one foot as she finished tying her sandal.

The mystes led them into the sanctum, past its birthing and healing pools, its meditation streams, its fountains for worship and for drinking. The place was empty, soundless but for the faint rill of the goddess’s waters flowing in from the antechamber. Holly did not stop there but headed for a closed door made of unadorned black wood in the back of the sanctum. A wooden sconce beside the door held an unlit candle. Lit, it requested privacy for those within. Holly barely waited for Perdita to light the candle before she flung open the door. The room was not empty. It was, however, occupied by the one woman who would not have fled from the look on Mystes Halliwell’s face.

“Aunt Morrig,” Perdita exclaimed as she recognized the darkly clad figure beside the pool, her aged face a pale blur in the dimness.

“My fault,” Morrig said. “I didn’t light the candle. I come in here sometimes to remember my dead. They become more numerous when you’re as old as I am. And they seem to have much more to say.”

The heart of the sanctum held only one broad bowl of a pool, lined with river stones. Water flowed silently out of a blue-green marble globe in the center of the pool. Above the water, the ancient face of the goddess, carved in moon-white marble, gazed from the domed ceiling down at its own reflection. The pool was ringed with candles. Marble benches alternating the colors of the goddess were scattered around the water. It was a place for stillness and solitude, built for those who mourned.