Penric's Demon (7 page)

The hunting in the mountains had been a happier chore. He’d had good luck with wild sheep, often able to take one down with a single arrow, not to mention being most nimble at retrieving carcasses from awkward slopes and ledges, a task to which his servants had cheered him on with suspicious enthusiasm. It was the one activity that had reconciled Pen to the god naturally apportioned to his age and sex. The Son of Autumn’s rule over comradeship-in-arms had less appeal, if Drovo and his friends had been anything to go by.

“Cowherds. Why?” the fellow muttered, and dipped his quill again, incurious of an answer.

An older woman entered, carrying a stack of books. An acolyte’s looped braid hung on the shoulder of proper white Temple robes, and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles swung by a ribbon around her neck. Martensbridge was noted for its glasswork; perhaps ordinary people could afford such rich aids here? Certainly this must be the librarian. She stopped and stared at Pen, more interested than hostile. “And who are you?”

He ducked his head. “Penric kin Jurald, ma’am. I’m a . . . visitor.” Because that sounded better than
prisoner
. “Learned Tigney said I might go about the house.”

Her brows rose in surprise at the divine’s name. “Really.”

Pen couldn’t tell from her tone if she thought that good or bad, but he forged on. “I was wondering if you had any books on sorcery or demons. Practical ones,” he added prudently, lest he be gifted with some thick tome in a high and soporific style. He didn’t see how the subject
could
be made boring, but he’d read—well, tried to read—some theological works from Learned Lurenz’s shelves, and didn’t underestimate the determined drabness of Temple scholars.

She took a step back, her head coming up. “Such books are restricted to those of the rank of divine and above. I’m afraid, young man, you have not yet earned the braids for them.”

“But you must have such books, yes?”
Somewhere
. He’d seen none in his survey of the shelves.

Her glance went to a tall wardrobe set against the far wall. “Locked up, certainly. Or they would quickly become the most stolen of our treasures.”

Pen stared with fresh interest at the capacious cabinet, wondering how many books it might hold. “If a divine said it was all right, would it be all right?” Could, or would, Tigney give permission?

“Such authorizations are possible, yes, but there must be need. What do you imagine your need to be?” She smiled at him with the ironic air of a woman long experienced in resisting the blandishments of her juniors angling for forbidden treats. Well, he’d always been able to get around the Jurald Court cooks . . .

“Ah, you see, I lately contracted a demon of my own, from a Temple sorceress who died on the road at Greenwell. It was an accident, truly it was, but if Desdemona and I are going to be stuck with each other, I think I’d better know more about what I’m doing than I do. Which is almost nothing, so anything at all you could lend me would be a start.” He smiled his most hopeful smile at her, trying for maximum sunniness. Trustworthiness, too; he should definitely try to look trustworthy.

Evidently, he failed, for she took a hastier step backward, her hand going to her throat. She frowned at him for a long, long moment. “If that is a jape, young man, I will have your hide for binding leather. Wait here.” She set down her armload of books on the table and hurried out again.

Pen’s glance went again to the now-riveting cabinet, and he wondered if she could possibly mean that threat literally. A librarian of the demon-god, after all . . .

The quill had stopped scratching, and Pen turned to find the dedicat-scribe staring at him as if he’d sprouted antlers from his head. “How did
you
come by a demon?” he asked, astonished.

Getting practiced by now, Pen recited the short tale, summing the disaster in as few sentences as he could make sound coherent. Fairly coherent.

The scribe’s wide eyes narrowed. “You know, none below the rank of divine are allowed to receive a Temple demon, and the gift of its sorcery. It’s considered a high and rare accomplishment. Men compete just for a place in line, studying and preparing, then wait for
years
.”

Pen scratched his head. “There must be other accidents, from time to time. I mean, you can’t control the time or place of a person’s death.” Well . . . there was one sure way that sprang to Pen’s mind, but he’d heard no rumors of the Temple doing
that
.

Lips compressed, the scribe just shook his head.

The librarian returned with Learned Tigney in tow. Pen brightened.

“Oh, sir! May I be permitted to read the books here?” He gestured to the locked cabinet. “You certainly can’t say I don’t have
need
.”

Tigney sighed. “Lord Penric, I’ve only just begun to unpack the Learned Ruchia’s cases. I’ve no idea yet what
needs
I am going to find in this tangle.” He eyed Pen, who returned his best starving-boy look. The divine’s expression did not so much soften, as grow shrewd. “But, while you wait, you might certainly have leave to read the books from the other shelves, here in this room when it is open. That would keep you occupied for a time, I should think.”

And feet fastened in one place, too, Pen fancied was the unspoken cap to that. But Tigney hadn’t, actually, said
No, never
. “Indeed, sir.” He tried to project dutiful resignation, pending a rematch. He realized he still had the Cedonian chronicle in his hand, and lowered his voice, showing the book to Tigney.

“When I opened this book, I found I could
read
it. Is that . . . usual?”

Tigney’s lips quirked up. “If you are a Cedonian, I suppose.”

Pen mustered a feeble smile at the heavy humor. Better than anger or thunderous forbiddings, certainly. “But I’m not. I had not a word of it until, well, just now.”

His witticism duly rewarded, Tigney granted Pen a short nod of reassurance. “Yes, it’s usual. If any demon serves a master long enough, it will take up an imprint of its rider’s mother tongue. And pass it along, in due course. Ruchia had half-a-dozen such languages at her command, all spoken as a native. Very useful to her, and to the Temple.”

“Was she a great scholar, then?”

Tigney hesitated. “Not as such.” He eyed Pen a moment more. “You were very quick to absorb it, though. It more often requires some weeks or months for such knowledge to, so to speak, leak through. But then, Ruchia’s was an unusually old and powerful mount.” He drew breath. “It is going to take me some time yet to sort through Ruchia’s effects. I may want to speak to her old demon directly, as the most intimate, if not necessarily the most reliable, witness to her affairs. If you might hold yourself in readiness here for that, I should be most grateful.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Pen, deciding to take this half-victory while he could get it. “Although . . . I don’t seem to
control
her speaking.”

“You do; you just don’t know it yet.”

Pen bit back another bid for the cabinet. It wasn’t as though he was going to be able to read all these books in a day anyway.

Tigney went on, “Or rather, if it controlled
you
, you would most certainly know it.” He looked away, grimly, making Pen wonder again about the former sorcerer’s somehow-discarded demon.

The divine turned to the shamelessly listening scribe, who had stopped even pretending to write. “Clee, when you are done with that page, come downstairs. I’ve some letters need copied before they go out.”

“Yes, sir,” said the scribe, with a dutiful wave of his quill, and went back to diligent scratching.

Tigney motioned the librarian after him; Pen glimpsed them making some low-voiced exchange out in the hall, punctuated by glances his way, after which Tigney departed and the librarian came back. She gave Pen a provisional sort of nod in passing, and took up her mysterious business at a desk in the corner.

Overwhelmed by his choices, Pen started to make for the shelf of tales, but instead went to sit at the second table and reopen the Cedonian chronicle, driven by a faint, irrational fear that his newfound skill might desert him as abruptly as it had arrived, and he’d better seize this chance while he could. A chronicle was as good as a tale, anyway, imperial courts seeming almost as fantastical as ogres’ lairs. And he really wanted to find out more about the emperor who was an engineer, who had made fountains for his people. It seemed a strangely un-imperial task; weren’t emperors supposed to go around conquering people? Which was how they became emperors, one presumed.

The scribe Clee finished his page, tidied his supplies on a shelf, and departed, with a sort of grunt-nod in Pen’s direction; not exactly a friendly farewell, but politely acknowledging his existence. Pen returned a smile and head-duck, feeling like an envoy signing a truce to a skirmish he had not known was being fought. The librarian didn’t leave until the light failed and Pen went down to seek supper. She locked the outer door carefully behind them both.

*
   
*
   
*

Supper, plain food but abundant, was served in a whitewashed cellar refectory with a long table. Not all of the dedicats and acolytes who worked here were fed here, Pen discovered, as some lived in lodgings nearby, or were married. Tigney wasn’t present, but Clee was, and not-uncordially waved Pen to a seat on the bench next to him, where he was introduced merely as “a visitor.” Pen, tired out and hungry, was content to listen, and not talk much; Clee turned off any questions that drew too near to the real matters that had brought Pen to Martensbridge. Mostly younger folk, the dedicats gossiped, exchanged comments about their work, which seemed to be mostly administrative, ate fast, and hurried off.

The servants had the next turn at the table; coming out, Pen met Gans coming in. The groom seemed contented enough to have nothing to do and all food provided for the next few days, but still asked, “When can we go home, Lord Penric?”

“I don’t know yet,” Pen admitted. “Learned Tigney seems to be the man to decide, after he goes through Learned Ruchia’s effects.” How hard could that task be? They had all fit on one packsaddle, and had been mostly women’s clothes.
Well . . . except for the demon.
“I guess he’s her executor, of sorts.”

Gans accepted this with a glum grunt, and Pen followed Clee upstairs, where he discovered that it was the scribe’s room he was sharing. He didn’t seem as put-out to lose his privacy as Pen might have feared. The rule of the house was early to bed and rise at first light, so Pen, too, readied himself to lie down. Truly, this day felt a year long, so crowded with changes as it had been. Clee did not blow out their shared candle at once, but rather, asked a few leading questions about Pen’s family as rustic lords of what Pen was beginning to realize must seem quite a minor mountain valley.

“Are you from this city?” Pen asked in turn. The scribe seemed sophisticated enough to be.

“I am now,” said Clee. “I wasn’t born here. I was born at Castle Martenden, about ten miles up the lakeshore. My brother is baron there.”

“Oh, the same as Rolsch,” said Pen, pleased to find some connection. “You are Dedicat Lord Clee, then?”

Clee grimaced. “I should say, my half-brother.”

“Ah,” said Pen. After an awkward moment, he offered, “I have a half-uncle, who farms near Greenwell. I like him. His wife is always very kind to me.”
These thing happen
, Pen hoped this implied.
Not a problem
.

Clee snorted. “Castle Martenden is not just some fortified farmhouse. Kin Martenden have been great landholders in these parts for centuries.”

Pen thought this an unjust description of Jurald Court. Or at least, it ought to be
large, sprawling fortified farmhouse
.

“My brother is at loggerheads with the city, which covets his lands and rents and rights,” Clee went on. “The city fathers grow big in their own esteem. They’ve bought out a dozen minor lordships already that fell into their debt.
I
think the merchant guilds conspire to net the foolish that way.”

Pen remembered the ruins on the road in, and thought the city’s outlying district might have grown as much by force of arms as mercantile trickery. Although, he supposed, wealth must come first, before arms could be bought. Martensbridge was a royal free town, its charter making it unbeholden to any lords except the Hallow King of the Weald himself. It stood oddly balanced between its distant lord, and its treaties with its nearer neighbor cities with their more varied allegiances. Pen’s impression was that Martensbridge felt itself a lot more free than royal, and recalled the joking prayer an acolyte had told him over dinner:
Five gods bless and keep the Hallow King—far from us!

“What about the princess-archdivine?” Pen asked. “I’ve never met a princess. Or an archdivine, for that matter. I hope I might get a chance to see her before I go home. Is she very beautiful?”

Clee vented a laugh. “She’s
fifty
.”

Pen supposed princesses in tales always seemed to be young and lovely because when they grew older they became queens. The princess-archdivine’s title was more political, and unrelated to her marital status. “I suppose even royal princesses can have callings.”

Clee shrugged. “The archdivineship of Martensbridge has been a dumping ground for Wealdean royal spares for centuries. I’ll give this one credit, though, she’s powerfully shrewd. Besides managing Temple lands, she’s fostered the silk makers here, which has brought even more coin to her hands, which has allowed her to buy yet more territory. No one knows what will happen when the city and the princess run out of other fodder, and have to start in eating each other.”