Chapter Six

It took him a bit of exploring to find the chapel, but when he reached it the small space proved well worth the effort. The holy star was mounted over the altar, covered in gold and silver leaf. Candles were set on silk draped over the altar, waiting to be lit for night prayers.

A door at the back left was slightly ajar. Crossing the room, Tallant slipped through the door into a small storeroom. At the far end, he saw another door just barely open. Strange. Cecil didn't strike him as careless. Assuming he wasn't that careless, why would he simply leave two doors open and present such a vulnerability to possibly intruders?

The answer provided itself as he slipped through the second door—into a private garden, with high stone walls and, of all things, a ceiling made from high arching stone and panels of glass. It would have been expensive to put in place—obscenely expensive.

It was filled mostly with small flowers and plants, vegetables here and there, arranged in artful clusters and arrangements that were built around a stone walkway that wended its way through the long space. At the very back of the garden was a tree, and it looked distinctly out of place amongst all the much smaller plants. Dark had fallen, leaving only a single lantern at the base of the tree to offer light, but Tallant did not need light to know it was an apple tree.

He would be willing to be everything he owned that the tree was not more than twelve years old.

At the base of the tree, a figure sat slumped, one leg stretched out, the other drawn up, an arm draped around it. Cecil toyed with something in his other hand. His head jerked up as he heard Tallant approached. "Go away. I did not invite you here, I don't want you here. All I want is to be left alone."

"It seems to me that your problem is that you've been left alone too long. So why, now that Milton is back, are you rejecting him at every turn? As much as he loves you, as happily as he loves you, I cannot believe it is one-sided. Do you really resent him that much for being banished for twelve years on pain of your death?" In reply, Cecil said nothing. Tallant moved closer and sat nearby. When the silence stretched on, he changed subjects. "This is a beautiful garden. Has it been here as long as the castle?"

The silence stretched on, and Tallant was just deciding that Cecil would speak no further at all, when a reply finally came. "It was built by Irene's grandfather, as a gift to his wife, who was foreign and homesick." Silence fell again, then Cecil added, "She went mad, too."

Tallant frowned thoughtfully. "Tell me, was she interested in magic?"

"What?"

"Did she study magic?"

"Yes, actually," Cecil replied. "How did you know that?"

Tallant grimaced. "Was she particularly interested in the wards?"

"Again, yes," Cecil said. "Are you saying there's a correlation?"

"I'm saying exactly that," Tallant replied. "Races which do not rely on magic and use it the way my country does, suffer for it gradually when they tamper with magic too strong for them. It is like giving an especially sharp knife to a child. Hell, so far as the wards go, even I would begin to suffer were I to tamper with them too much."

"I've never read or heard of such a thing."

"It's called moon madness, or lunacy, from back in the early days of magic when no one knew precisely why some people—many people back then—went mad. These days, in magic countries, it's incredibly rare. I doubt knowledge of it came this far, since so little magic is present here."

"But we did use magic for a time."

"Only your Great Sorcerers, and they worked up to their powerful magic properly," Tallant replied. "Like your battle with that dragon today. I doubt that's how your first fight with one went, and if you had tried to fight like that your first time, you would have been killed. Magic is no different."

Silence fell again, then Cecil asked softly, "So it's not something that can be inherited?"

"The latent ability to use magic is inheritable," Tallant said, "but the madness, no. It's just the end result of studying magic improperly."

Cecil seemed to slump even further, like a man suddenly relieved of a great burden. "Irene will be happy to hear that. She said that she would rather have no children, than have them and someday force them to lock her away in the tower, or be forced to see her own children locked away. She wants children, so the news will make her happy."

"I'm glad I could help in some small way. You two must be very close, but then again you are married. It is poor form of me, but somehow I keep forgetting that." Mostly because he didn't want it to be true. For Milton, and for himself. Perhaps he was biased by Milton's stories, and his own wishes, but the marriage did not feel right.

Cecil shrugged. "We did what was right for our people."

"I'm surprised it was allowed," Tallant said, because that was true. "You and Milton were orphans taken in by the late duchess, if I recall correctly?"

"Geneva took us in, yes," Cecil said. "She was kind to us, before illness took her. Always helping any stray she came across, that was Geneva. Doing that was probably what made her sick."

"Still, from orphan to duke—that's an impressive climb. Back home, the clans would never permit such a thing unless it was the dictate of fate. Even then, they would probably resent it for a long time."

Cecil snorted. "Fate."

Tallant smiled. "I hear that word, said in that contemptuous tone, a lot in this country. Yet still I feel I am where I am meant to be." He touched his fate token lightly.

"Oh?" Cecil asked, following his movements. "What is your fate, that brings you to us?"

Back home, it was considered extremely rude to ask such a personal question—especially of a stranger. But one month abroad, met with more rude questions than he could count, and Tallant had decided it was easier to stop being offended by a slight that no one realized was being given. "It says 'your destiny lies with wolves'," Tallant replied—then suddenly wished he hadn't.

"With wolves?" Cecil repeated, voice regaining the edge it had just lost. "So what—you saw my wolves and decided that your little token was telling you to make nice with me and—"

"I'm here because I want to be," Tallant replied. "Milton is my sworn brother and I cannot imagine our paths ever diverging. He is in pain, because the brother he loves seems to hate him, and the woman he loves is missing. You seem to be in pain, too. The wolves tell me only that I am on the right path, not what lies on the path or what I should do with what I find."

Cecil sneered. "What if wolves had not appeared to tell you what to do? You would have gone off—"

"No," Tallant said sharply. "Must you twist everything? Stop forcing everything you see and hear into a bad light. I am here because I want to be, where I feel I am meant to be, wolves or not. No man knows the true shape of his destiny; he must find it in his own way."

"Whatever," Cecil said.

Tallant stifled a sigh. He sorely missed conversations about fate that were not laced with disbelief, contempt, or outright hostility. "So what is the significance of the apple tree?"

"None of your business."

Frowning, Tallant said, "My fate token was none of yours. A man who knows so much about my tattoos probably knows that asking me about the token was rude."

Another silence, and then Cecil said gruffly, "The tree represents a promise between me and Irene. After Milton left, and everything went wrong, we were all the other had. The tree we planted takes at least ten years to begin producing fruit; it's waited with us all this time. It just started producing apples this year. This particular type is called Eternity Apples."

"I see," Tallant said softly. "That's beautiful."

"Whatever," Cecil said, but it was impossible to miss the flush to his cheeks.

Smiling faintly, Tallant took pity and changed the subject. "Milton always said you were more the scholarly sort. Were you going to be a scribe or scholar, if not for the wards falling and Marden going mad?"

"Does it matter what I might have been?" Cecil asked, bitterness not quite masking the sadness in his voice. "I'm no scholar; such a path was the luxury of a peaceful land." He looked at his hands, and Tallant knew what he stared at even if in the dark very little was visible.

He had the hands of a soldier—scarred, calloused, tough, hardened. They would never be the soft, graceful, elegant hands of a scholar who spent his days reading, writing, drawing. A scholar relied heavily on his hands to do intricate, delicate illuminating, and the battered hands of a soldier were ill suited to it. Tallant wished he could help, if only because Cecil's sadness was palpable in the dark.

Gold gleamed in the palm of Cecil's right hand. The object he'd been toying with earlier, Tallant realized. A ring, set with some gemstone he could not distinguish in the dark. His wedding ring? Some other token? Though he badly wanted to ask, Tallant bit the question back.

"So how did the two of you meet?" Cecil asked, and curled his hand around the ring, then tucked it away. "You and Milton. You mentioned you chanced upon him being attacked, right?"

"Yes. I helped kill the bandits, and when the wolves came upon us, we managed to sneak away while they were busy with the corpses. We traveled together to the next town, and shared a meal and room. I was eager to get as far from home as possible, and he wished sorely to return home. As that was not possible, we kept ourselves occupied traveling. After a year, we battle-bonded. We kept traveling, fighting, whittling down the years until Milton could return home. If he had known Marden had been locked up, he would have returned sooner."

"So you think it's acceptable that he left us," Cecil said.

"I believe in fate," Tallant replied. "But that is not your belief, so I will say only this: you focus too much on the fact that he was gone for twelve years. I think perhaps you should consider that after twelve years he came straight home. That in twelve years, he never forgot you, and for twelve years carried things to bring home to you. Thank you for speaking with me. Good night."

Standing, Tallant brushed off his clothes and left, wending his way through the castle back to his room. Time for a chat with the other brother. Milton was lying on his bed when Tallant slipped into the room. He waited until Tallant had closed the door, then asked, "How is Cecil?"

"Sad. Hurt. Angry. He'll get better, I think. I think half the problem is that he obviously worshipped you as a kid. It's hard to reconcile that with your being human. He also mourns the fact he is no longer a scholar. But I think he will come around."

Milton nodded.

Tallant sat down on his own bed and removed his boots, then stripped out of his tunic, leaving the rest on. "So what weren't you telling me, or anyone else, at dinner?"

"I'm not sure, yet, really, but I've been in that tower where Marden is locked up. I've been all over this castle, into nooks and crannies I'm not certain even Henry knows anything about. I'm going to do some snooping tonight, to confirm or refute my suspicions, but I'd be willing to bet all that I own that Marden isn't as locked up as everyone thinks."

"We haven't snooped in months," Tallant replied. "Wake me when it's time." With that, he rolled over and let the exhaustion he'd been fighting for the past couple of hours finally have him.

*~*~*

"Time to go."

Tallant woke with a jerk, then shifted to full alertness. Sitting up, he swung his legs off the bed, snatched up his boots and pulled them on, then tucked away a couple of daggers and said, "Let's go."

Milton flashed a grin, then opened the door and slipped out. Tallant followed behind him. They moved silently through the castle halls, until Milton abruptly stopped in front of a single, locked door. He turned and motioned to Tallant, the movements of his fingers just visible in the light of a nearby torch, the only one in the hall.

Tallant stepped forward as Milton moved out of his way. Pressing his hand to the lock, he called up his magic, working carefully, delicately, until the unseen tumblers finally gave up and the door just barely opened. Tallant slid back and let Milton resume the lead. Milton's hand hovered over a dagger, but after a brief hesitation he did not draw it.

Following his example, Tallant kept his own blades sheathed. Milton slipped through the door, signaling Tallant to close it behind them. Then they began to climb the tightly spiraling stairs, keeping close enough they did not lose sight of each other, but far enough apart that an assailant would not find it easy to get both by getting one.

At the top of the stairs was a small landing, not big enough to hold more than two people easily, three awkwardly. A single torch burned low next to the door, making visible the way this one too was locked. Tallant moved forward when Milton signaled, and opened the second door like he had the first. Milton took over the lead again, as they moved slowly, silently, into the tower room.

A few moments of careful searching revealed Milton's prediction to be true—Marden was not locked up. At Milton's silent signal, Tallant summoned his magic and called forth a ball of soft but effective light. Letting it hover above them, he signaled to Milton, fingers working nimbly as he asked Safe to talk?

"I think so," Milton said, breaking the silence, but keeping his voice low. "Notice a problem?"

"You mean other than the missing duke?" Tallant asked dryly.

"No, just that one," Milton replied.

"The doors were locked," Tallant said. "Did he lock them behind him?"

Milton shook his head. "No. It's not impossible he has duplicate keys, but it is improbable. Only the seneschal holds the keys; it's a safety measure. Unless Marden stole the keys from Henry and managed to make duplicates, he could not have keys himself."

Nodding, Tallant looked around the tower room again. It was remarkably tidy—for some reason, he'd expected it to be chaos. The room was large, with a canopied bed and writing desk on one side, along with a small, low set of bookshelves that held a modest number of books.

On the other half of the room were sitting and dining areas. Something about the room was off, but Tallant could not put his finger on what. Tapestries covered the walls; large, elaborate, costly pieces that were more decorative than functional. A small one covered the single window in the room. All the others ran floor to ceiling, and were roughly the span of a man in width.

Shaking his head, annoyed that he could not grasp what bothered him, Tallant strode to the bookshelves and knelt in front of them. All books on magic, minus five slim volumes bound in green leather. Those proved to be personal journals.

Tallant flipped through the first one. After a moment, he put it back. They had been written in code; he did not have the time now to see if the code could be broken and he dare not take one with him.

Switching his attention to the books of magic, he opened them to find that someone—Marden, obviously—had penned notes throughout the volume. Like the journals, the notes were in code—or maybe he was giving Marden too much credit and the code was nothing more than gibberish. He didn't think that was the case, however. Everyone believed Marden to be locked securely in his tower prison and he obviously wasn't.

"Here," Milton said, from the opposite side of the bed. "Look at this." He lifted something up for Tallant to see. It was a tree made of gold, with silver leaves and red glass apples, a little taller than the length of his hand. "Cecil would carve these trees, then he and Henry would cover them in gold leaf, and make the silver leaves. Marden had a glassmaker's apprentice create glass balls they used for fruit. Cecil used to be an excellent wood carver. He said it helped his hands after hours of illuminating." He sighed and set the tree back down on the small table by the bed. "I wonder where we'll find all the other stolen objects."

"I'm sure they're tucked away somewhere in here," Tallant replied, and rose. "My only question is: why does he steal them? Do you think—" They both froze at the sound of stone scraping on stone. With a snap of his fingers, Tallant banished his mage light. Then almost as one, he and Milton dove for the bed, scrambling under it. They'd only just barely settled into their hiding place when a sliver of yellow-orange light spilled into the room—from behind a tapestry.

The light came from dead ahead, slightly off to the right. It increased steadily, until a generous pool of flickering light filled the space across the room. A torch, followed quickly by a hand, an arm, and finally the shadowy form of the mad duke himself.

He was, as Cecil had said, corpulent. But he didn't move like a man overburdened by his own weight—quite the opposite. Tallant tried to make note of the tapestry that moved, all the while hoping fervently that the torchlight would not strike them in such a way as to reveal damning shadows.

But if it did, as Marden carried it to the table which held the tree, he did not notice them. Instead, Tallant waited, barely breathing, as Marden's clothes dropped piece by piece to the floor. All the while Marden muttered to himself, too low and quick to understand.

Marden climbed into bed, and Tallant wondered for a brief moment of panic if they'd be able to slide back out from under the bed later; his weight was so great that it pressed the mattress down upon them, so that he could just barely feel it. The sound of turning pages indicated Marden was reading, and it seemed to drag on forever, every minute an hour, until Tallant thought he would scream.

At last the light went out, and a short time later the sound of snoring filtered down to them. Thank the gods Marden was a snorer. They continued to wait, until they were absolutely certain. Finally, just when Tallant decided he really would scream, Milton signaled. I'll go first.

Signaling acknowledgment, Tallant watched, even more tense than before, as Milton slowly squirmed free. When Milton was well clear of the bed, Tallant moved himself. When he could finally breathe properly again, he looked at Milton, who only shook his head. They fled, moving as quickly as they could, stopping only to lock doors, before finally bolting back to the safety of their room.

Once back in their room, Tallant dropped down on his bed and let out a long sigh. "What the hell?"

Milton shook his head and sat down on his own bed. "I can't believe it. I've found little nooks and a secret room before, and Henry told me there were supposedly secret passages around, but I did not expect to so easily find one, even if that's what we were looking for."

Tallant snorted. "Indeed. I am more troubled by the fact that no one else knows about that passages"

"The castle is old—really old. I think it was here before the kingdom. Like I said, Henry told me about the secrets tunnels and rooms, but he spoke of them the same way he told ghost stories. He always said that if they had existed at all, and that was doubtful, they were long since blocked up or caved in."

"But?" Tallant prodded.

"But," Milton said with a smile, "I did find one of the secret rooms, once. After that, I was certain the rest of the tunnels and rooms must exist. Still, I figured a passage in the tower must be too good to be true."

"I would say that, unfortunately, it's all too true," Tallant replied.

Milton grimaced. "Yes, and if that is true, it's a safe bet the secret passage leading out of the castle is true as well."

Tallant matched Milton's grimace. "Now that is unfortunate. Where is it supposed to be located?"

"The church," Milton replied. "So I guess we know what we're doing tomorrow night."

"Guess so," Tallant agreed. "For now, however, I am going back to sleep."

"Agreed," Milton said, pulling off his boots and casting them aside. He blew out the lantern they'd left burning in their room and rolled over in bed. A few minutes later, Tallant could hear his soft snores. Smiling faintly, he rolled over and went to sleep.