Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(130)

“Is there anyone out back?” he asked. “Anyone who might see us?”

Pater shook his head emphatically once more. “They’re all out front, hoping to ask the merchants a few questions before the meal begins.”

“And Tan?”

“He’s there, too! Right next to Scial Nin!”

That settled it. As the two made their way toward the back of the refectory, Pater bounding ahead, Kaden pulled his hood up over his face, trying to look nondescript. He cast a glance over his shoulder before slipping through the narrow doorway, then climbed the ladder to the tiny second story, where the doves were housed in narrow cells. He could hear their soft cooing, the gentle, delicate sound they made deep in their hollow chests. Even the musty scent of hay and droppings was a comfort, a memory of a childhood when he and Akiil had hidden in the gloom, eluding their chores and their umials. That was before Rampuri Tan. Well before.

“Here,” Pater whispered, tugging at the sleeve of his robe. The boy pointed to a place where the oakum chinking the cracks in the rock had long ago been gouged away by the fingers of novices. Feeling like a furtive child again, Kaden put his eye to the crack and grinned to himself as he peered down into the refectory.

The entirety of the long room, from the stone floor to the beams of the peaked ceiling, was given over to the broad, communal tables where the monks ate. Most of the monks were already seated, although none would take food until the visitors arrived. They spoke in low voices while some of the younger novices stole speculative glances toward the kitchen, clearly hungry, and clearly wary lest their umials notice the lapse in discipline. Kaden, however, had eyes only for the door, and so he saw the two strangers at the very moment that they entered.

A compact, blond man of middle years stepped through the doorway first. Despite the chill, he wore a sleeveless tunic of bright red leather, and even from his perch Kaden could see the muscle cording his arms and neck. He was far from handsome, his skin creased from long days in the sun, eyes hawkish and close together, but he moved with a brusque confidence. His companion entered a few steps behind, and Kaden was glad for the wall of stone to hide his stare. Pater had mentioned nothing about a woman.

The second visitor was lean and elegant in her carefully tailored riding cloak, rings flashing on half her fingers. At a quick glance she might have appeared young, but the years had left their subtle marks—a few faint lines creasing the corners of her eyes, a hint of gray streaking her long dark hair. She must have been a few years over forty, Kaden decided, and favored her right leg, as though some old injury still gnawed at the opposite hip or knee—the trail up to Ashk’lan would have been a trial for her.

Kaden started to look for Rampuri Tan, then went back to his scrutiny of the newcomers. He hadn’t seen many merchants in the past eight years, but there was something strange about these two, something off, like ripples on a pool on a windless day.

“Let me see!” Pater whispered urgently. “Come on! It’s my turn.”

Kaden relinquished his post and as Pater clambered past him, closed his eyes, trying to work out what had struck him. He called the saama’an back to mind. It was imperfect, hazy around the edges since he hadn’t had time to make a proper carving, but the details at the center were crisp enough—the man and the woman frozen in the act of entering the large hall. He studied the facial expressions, the posture, the clothes, trying to ferret out the source of his misgiving. Were they frowning? Frightened? Moving oddly? He shook his head. There was nothing to see.

“See Kaden? You don’t have to worry,” Pater whispered. “Tan’s here. He’s talking to the two of them.”

The mention of his umial’s name hit Kaden like a bucket of frigid water, jolting him back to the scene in the man’s cell nearly two months earlier, when he had whipped Kaden bloody over the painting of the slaughtered goat. Any fool can see what’s there. You need to see what is not there. It was possible that whatever bothered him about the merchants wasn’t something that he’d seen, but something that he should have seen. Kaden called the saama’an back and examined it once again.

“Now they’re talking to the abbot,” Pater narrated breathlessly. “I didn’t even know they made clothes that color.”

The abbot. Kaden stared at the image. The two merchants had traveled hundreds of leagues to sell something, and if they knew anything about monasteries, they knew that Scial Nin was the one man who would determine the success or failure of their venture. He was there, standing right inside the door, directly in front of them, and yet, in that first moment, just as they passed the threshold, neither was looking at him. The woman seemed to be peering above the heads of the monks as though searching the rafters, and the man’s head was turned sharply to the left, checking the space occluded by the opened door. Kaden let the image snap into motion, and almost instantly the two turned their attention to the abbot, smiling as they approached.