The Mazer (25 page)

A flash of white caught her attention. A handkerchief, edged with lace, fluttered beside the child’s cap. That hadn’t been here when they’d come in! Who’d put it there? Marchus—or Arpad?

“Goodbye gardens of darkness,” she whispered, touching the little bow on the cap. “And goodbye, Hortus.”

But Hortus was no longer in the cave. He was free, just as he’d asked. He was on his way to Ashenwood, the Round Tower, Yewlith, and his eyes burned through her little box into her mind, urging her out of the cave and down the stony slope after the two men who had almost reached the river.

***

He woke from a deep, troubled sleep. The bell hadn’t rung; it must still be early. He was Legator. At last! Pity the trees didn’t know. How would they, unless he told them himself? Great Aspen wasn’t up to it, though. And Great Oak couldn’t tell his leaves from his branches. Fungus and fig had served him well so far. Only fire and fell remained.

He hadn’t wanted it to be like this. He’d have preferred all the trees to recognize his authority without having to kill any of them. Still, now he could tell Great Ash he had achieved what they had wanted all along. They could proceed with their original plan.

Did he need Great Ash any more? He’d become Legator without his help, and he had the people’s support. But it was only half a legatorship without the approval of a great tree. Nobody had seemed concerned about that. No-one had asked what would happen if the trees didn’t know who was Legator. Yet he could feel it in the air above, in the earth beneath: the trees thought there was no Legator and that Silva had turned against them.

No. He’d need the Ash. They’d build a new Albatorium around him. They’d grow new trees, with Great Ash as their master. It had been done before. It would be so again.

He sat up, shuffled his feet into his shoes, took his bag with the Mazer in it, and left the chamber. He’d crept over to Silva’s cell last night and spied through the door. She’d been asleep, or had pretended to be. Now the underfloor was silent, everyone exhausted after the excesses of yesterday. The torch by the guards’ office burned low. Where was the guard, anyway? Asleep, too, no doubt.

Silva was curled under a blanket, her hair splayed out on the dirty floor. He watched her for a moment, then padded up the steps around Great Aspen’s trunk. The Great Hall was empty, but there was movement in the kitchen. Winifred never stopped. She’d be tough to replace, but he’d find someone who needed the work more than she, not some busybody whose main interest seemed to lie in pleasing the palate of the Treasurer. Not Lisette, though. She couldn’t cook!

Up to the library. Silent as usual. He despaired of the scribes up here, Marchus most of all. What should have been the greatest part of the Albatorium, after his own laboratory, of course, was an infuriating warren of dusty shelves and even dustier scribes. Not his fault! Marchus held sway over affairs here, forbidding any innovation. He had, however, decided to go along with old Marchus. Anything to keep the interfering dolt away from the laboratory.

In the archive, dull firelight glowed through the open door from Marchus’ office. Two scrolls lay on the desk, so Bassan picked one up and opened it just enough to read the first few lines:

For Winifred: Recipes from the Heart

By Filibert Muchbright

And the other scroll?

Filibert: Most Bright Recipes from an Albatorium Cook

Penned by Winifred Whiteacre

Bassan laughed. Were these love poems dressed up as recipe collections? What sickening piffle! He threw them back onto the desk and strode out. Could Marchus be in the family history archive?

He shoved the door open and squinted into a large, airy room, filled with the shadowy pink light of the coming dawn. A draught caught some leaves on a bench nearby and blew them onto the floor.

Bassan kicked the door shut and cursed. He set his bag on the bench and bent down to pick up the leaves. Fresh, they were; they’d stay that way for a while. How they did it, nobody knew, not even him. This one, a large maple leaf, had a lot to say! An old tree, not newly planted as they often were in the burial gardens.

“Lie with me, dearest child,

For the song that I sing

To soft cheeks and bright eyes

Only comfort can bring.

Now your time in the gardens

Of life has begun.

I shall stand; I shall grow;

You shall walk; you shall run!

And this Maple shall guard you

Through sun, wind, and rain,

Until those who have lost you

Shall hold you again.”

Gardens of life, indeed! He slapped the deathleaf back onto the bench. There was no sign of Marchus.

“Where are you, Marchus? Where’s your family in here, then? Your leaf? Where’s that? I know. Over there, in that ancient cabinet! Stuck onto a single page, with no reference to any parents, brothers, or sisters. You love your archive, don’t you Marchus? You love history. And why is that? Because you have none! Dumped by a frightened mother by the March of Quagfen. Found on a stormy night by a fisherman’s wife, taken to the Albatorium, brought up by the scribes? No wonder you love the dark, where you can imagine the family you never knew. That’s why people put up with you, Marchus. They feel sorry for you. That’s why Wystan never got rid of you, why Lisette runs up with food for you. She’s the daughter you never had, isn’t she?”

Better than the daughter he’d never had himself? No. He’d never wanted to marry. He’d had higher goals. And look! The Zabal leaves were no longer kept within the common cabinets around the room. They’d been moved to one of the center tables, where islanders could pore over copies of Legator leaves kept in large, bound books. Here was his family table; a large, impressive copy of his own leaf should be on top now that he was Legator. But no. A copy of Wystan’s birthleaf lay there instead.

“Oh dear, Wystan!” said Bassan. “You don’t belong here any more. To the back of this book you shall go as soon as Marchus gets to work.”

He wouldn’t turn to the next page. No, he’d look at the original in the top drawer. Not an aspen leaf as so many were, but a large leaf from Great Oak, recording Father’s birth in 1052. Underneath it, Father’s deathleaf, dated fifty-four years later.

The day the news had come, he’d fought his way through the gale to Oakenwood. Shipwrights had gathered down at Deep Dock, gazing at plank, barrel, clothing and sail, swirling and tossing in the waters below. There was Wystan, nine years old, screaming at Mother, who leaned over the dockside, reaching out to the debris, railing against the waves until men of the guard dragged her back to safety. Another ship lost. The best men gone. Their hopes, like the mastwood that crashed against the huge dock wall yonder, shattered.

He’d run up the cliff path to Oakenwood. There was no den at that time, no greenhouse, only Great Oak, his strong branches heaving in the gale, the last of his autumn leaves spinning into the air. He flew with them to a clearing in the wood, finding a tall, cracked tree stump, its bark black from the lightning that had cut into it and sheared away its upper trunk and crown. He clambered inside, cowering in its rank darkness, until the cruel calm of the spent storm settled upon them.

He raised his head and peeked out. This stump knew death. Had its roots wondered what had happened above? Had they felt the trunk split, the heartwood rip? Were they fighting for their own lives, drowning in a hopeless, bitter sap of death? Yes, they were. Their fear trembled beneath his feet. They’d fight to the end though, just like Father. Had they heard the shriek of oak tossing on the waves? He had. He could hear it all. Father’s shouts, the scream of falling sail, the icy roar of the wave that had pulled them in, plunging them into a world they had never understood and would never escape. Father! How had you ever imagined you could conquer the sea? A black, wet, wordless world, empty of thought, filled with the sickness of salt that fed its churning tides. Not like the trees. Trees. And man. Tied together, tighter than a sail to the mast. Who could undo this endless knot? Nobody. Not him, Bassan, son of Reystan, son of Avren; not the dying oak that held him close. Did it know he was there? Could it sense his warmth, his touch? What words would this tree speak, if speak it could? Had anyone ever understood the power of these trees? If anyone could…

He’d pushed himself up and glared at the woods around him, yelling, “Listen to me, you trees of Oakenwood! I am the son of Chief Shipwright Reystan, lost at sea in a ship furnished by your timber! Powerful you may be, but not strong enough. You were weak in the storm. But I am Bassan! One day, I shall be as mighty as my father! And before I die like this old stump, I will understand you, your roots, your leaves, your words, your very thoughts. Oh yes, and I shall become master of you all!”

He’d jumped down to the ground, raced back to Deep Dock, grabbed Mother and Wystan, and commandeered a cart to take them to the Albatorium, where he’d stood before Legator Odalrich and pleaded for an apprenticeship in the Albatorium for himself and his brother when they came of age.

“And you, Zossimo?” he muttered, returning Father’s leaves to the drawer and moving over to the Leon table. “Marked for greatness at a young age by Odalrich, they say. Librarian for only five years when elected Legator, but no deathleaf, no entry in the catalog for you. They never wanted to believe it, did they? They couldn’t bear to write it down!”

Maybe they’d been right to accord Zossimo such respect, however sentimental. He’d been a truly great Legator. He’d known the source of the trees’ power, but he’d kept it to himself. That had been his downfall. He’d never thought anyone else had the right to share his secret. Unless he’d confided in the Almanagic. Zossimo had trusted him, after all. That strange fellow had dropped out of sight after Zossimo’s death. Wystan had mentioned him a couple of times over the years, and Trevello had heard reports that he’d been seen in the west, but apart from that, nothing.

Bassan carefully unbuttoned the straps of a leather-bound book. Silva’s leaf lay on top.

“Oho, Marchus! So you’ve changed the Leon records recently. Our dear Silva. What shall we do with her? Leave her in the cell below? Or send her to Yewlith to live out her years? And yes,” said Bassan thoughtfully, pulling a fresh wad of vellum from the back of the book, “now I come to think of it, you could almost imagine that Zossimo had asked our Almanagic to guard Great Ash, couldn’t you? Other than him, there’s only one other person I can think of from our island’s history who may have understood—”

His heart skipped a beat. He coughed, blinking at the title on the page:

The Book of Hortus

A man in a boat stared at him, disdain in his eyes.

“Hortus,” breathed Bassan, looking carefully at the picture. “You must have known I was thinking of you. What are you doing in a boat, my man? If only you knew how long I’ve been searching for you! And who put you in the Leon family book? Zossimo?”

He stumbled down the steps, pushed the child’s deathleaf along the bench and sat down to read every word until he reached the last page:

Heartwood of Ashen and Maple and Yew,

Oaken and Aspen and Elm ever true,

Rare was our friendship, and so, when I die,

Turn to each other and weep not, for I

Under your branches forever shall dwell.

Silva! My Island! I bid you farewell!

He laid the pages next to the deathleaf. He saw the island now, a green and gold leaf surrounded by glinting blue, a horse galloping up the Oakenwood road: Zossimo, on his last journey, leaving behind forever the white dome of the Albatorium and his precious Aspen, whose branches waved softly in the breeze. No. Zossimo hadn’t put
The Book of Hortus
here. This wasn’t the original. This manuscript was fresh. The hand that had styled letter and word so precisely was painfully familiar to him, the very nib of the scribe’s quill piercing his gut, ripping up through his heart and into his throat.

“Marchus.”

Harold hadn’t rung the bell. Harold wasn’t here. There would be no bell today, no alarm that would wake any of the guard. Why had he noticed Silva’s hair? Because it wasn’t hers! Those pretty curls belonged to the wife of his dear brother who was no doubt masquerading as Rath. And Marchus? Gone with them, had he? Oh yes, out in the wilds he must be with the true
Book of Hortus
crumpled under his shabby, stinking cloak!

He got up and walked over to the cabinet dated 1078. He opened it and rifled through the pages of leaves.

“Here you are,” he murmured, holding the birthleaf up against the silvery light that streamed through the high windows. It was odd that no year was inscribed on this leaf, but the three words were clear enough:

“Marchus of Quagfen.”

“May you be no more, traitor!” said Bassan as he crushed the leaf in his hand into a fine powder. He sprinkled it onto the floor and ground it into the stone with his heel as Hortus’ words raced through his mind.

Hortus. A key. The second page described the location of the first part of that key. The following poems told of two more locations—so, two more keys. Those criminals had no doubt split up to find them. Let them search. Let them find everything! It would save him having to go chasing about the island. He’d soon catch them. But where would they meet up? Back here in Southernwood?