Echo in emerald, p.29
Echo in Emerald, page 29
part #2 of Uncommon Echoes Series
“I—I don’t think you’re going to hurt me,” I said, stumbling over the words. “I’m not afraid physically. I just—you are—this is different.”
He ran his finger down my jawline and back up to my temple and smiled. “I’m glad I’m different.”
“I don’t know if I should be here,” I went on, speaking a little more rapidly. “I don’t know if it’s good for me or good for you.”
“Don’t worry about what’s good for me,” he said. “I’m doing just fine.”
“I don’t know what happens next. With you and me. With anything. What if things change? I don’t like change. But what if they don’t? This is all—I can’t figure out what to do now,” I ended unhappily.
“You don’t have to figure out the next day or the next year or the rest of your life,” he said. Now his hand rested on my shoulder with just enough pressure to make me think it might be a good idea to lie back down against the pillow. I resisted. “Nobody can do that. You just have to decide if you want to be here right now. I hope you do. Being with you makes me as happy as anything in the world has ever made me. I hope being with me makes you feel safe. And happy. But I think safe matters more to you than happy. You’re so strong so much of the time. So ready to fight. I hope you can be with me and let yourself be undefended.”
He was right; he understood me in ways that nobody ever had. It was too seductive—the thought that someone could read my soul and still find it beautiful, the thought that somebody else’s heart could be a safe place to come to rest. I did not want to accept his invitation to be weak, but I could not pass up the opportunity to be happy. I dropped the sheet and turned toward him, giving in to the urge to run my fingers along his skin. My hands against his chest, I deftly twisted in bed, dropping one knee over his waist so I straddled him. I felt his body respond instantly to mine.
He lifted both hands to bury them in my hair. In the other beds on either side of us, I could see, I could feel, both sets of echoes replicating our every movement. “We have a half-day’s journey ahead of us,” he said, teasing. “We shouldn’t delay.”
I bent down to give him a deep and lingering kiss. I said, “This won’t take long.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
About two hours later, we were back in the carriage and headed toward the extensive Devenetta holdings. Dezmen and I occupied one of the benches, me across his lap and his arms loosely around my waist, while the echoes sat across from us. I found this a much more enjoyable way to travel than I ever would have anticipated. Some of the time we were silent, drowsing a little, wordlessly marveling at how good it felt to sit this close, feel this shared warmth. Some of the time we talked, telling inconsequential little stories about things we remembered from childhood, or odd people we had seen on the streets of Camarria, or meals we’d eaten that had been especially memorable. None of it was important and all of it was fascinating. The tales were like the fine background stitchery on an old tapestry; they filled in the gaps, they made the picture complete.
We stopped for a late lunch at a roadside tavern and got more explicit directions to the temple on the edge of the Devenetta land. It was close to two in the afternoon before we turned down the dusty road that the barkeeper had described. It was barely a track through the heavily forested countryside and I had to think it had been months since a vehicle as big as our coach had tried to push its way through. We could hear the constant scraping sound of low-hanging branches brushing against the sides and top of the coach; I was sure I caught more than one muffled curse from the driver.
“I know that many of the temples deliberately locate themselves in remote areas so the priestesses can pass their days in solitary meditation, but this seems extreme,” Dezmen observed.
“Maybe the temple isn’t even operating anymore,” I suggested. “The tavern owner did seem surprised when you asked about it.”
“That would be disappointing,” he said. “I suppose we’ll see in a few minutes.”
And, indeed, not long afterward, the carriage emerged from the dense overgrowth onto a small clearing big enough to hold a few small buildings and a couple acres of well-tended gardens. The road—such as it was—appeared to end there as well, with a small circular drive just wide enough for the coachman to turn around.
Dezmen and I disembarked, followed by all our echoes, and took a moment to study our surroundings. The nearest building, a square block of gray stone, was clearly the temple; from the outside it looked to be about the size of a large bedroom suite. The clay roof, a bright terra-cotta, was a cheerful contrast to the aged and pitted stone of the walls. The whole eastern half of the building was blackened with age—mold, I thought, or maybe centuries of smoke from where the priestesses had burned off garden waste. The plain wooden door was half open in welcome, and I felt a nervous leap of my heart when I recognized the symbol painted on the front. A simple triangle accented with other small shapes. Just like the necklace around my throat.
There were two buildings behind the temple, set a little distance off the road. One, about the size of the sanctuary but even plainer-looking, I assumed to be the residence for any priestesses that served there; the other, a wooden hut, was probably used to store gardening tools and maybe house chickens. I didn’t think there was room for a horse. Any priestesses who lived there either relied on parishioners to fetch them supplies and ferry them to appointments, or they were very good walkers.
“Looks like the right place,” said Dezmen, sounding much calmer than I felt.
“I hope someone is here,” I answered.
“One way to find out.”
Dezmen and I stepped into the temple, followed by Scar, Red, and his echoes; I noticed all three of the men had to duck just a little to make it through the small door. Inside, it was as dark as dusk since there were only two small windows and neither one was well positioned to catch the afternoon sun. We stood there a moment, looking around, but there wasn’t much to see. To my right was another small door, which I was guessing led to the tiny room where Nadine Burken had vomited through a wedding ceremony so many years ago. Before us were about six wooden pews, all facing a low dais. There were no statues of the triple goddess on display, as there were in so many temples, but there were three embroidered hangings on the wall behind the altar, and those depicted the goddess in her familiar poses.
A lone woman sat in the first pew, her head bent in prayer, but a moment after we entered, she rose to her feet and turned in our direction. Even in the dim light, I could see that she was very old, with sparse gray hair and seamed and wrinkled skin. Yet she was wearing the red robes of joy, and when she spoke, her voice was warm and lilting.
“A blessed afternoon to all of you,” she greeted us. “Have you come to seek the goddess’s benediction or merely to pray?”
Dezmen and I hadn’t even discussed what to say to any priestess we found at the Devenetta temple, but I stepped forward, suddenly certain of what I ought to ask. “I’m always happy to receive a benediction, but I have come here with questions that I thought you might be able to answer,” I said.
“I will tell you anything I know,” she said, slowly winding past the pews in our direction. As she got close enough, I realized her large milky eyes might be partially blind, but even so she made her way to us without a misstep. “I’m Mallory.”
“I’m Chessie. He’s Dezmen,” I said.
“And how may I help you, Chessie?” she asked.
“I was born in this region, but moved away when I was young,” I said. “My mother always told me that this was the temple where I received my first benediction. Both of my parents are dead now, and I thought it would be a comfort to see my name in their handwriting. I wondered if you would let me look at the records from the year I was born?”
From the corner of my eye, I could see Dezmen nodding in approval. I must say, I was pleased with myself for having come up with the stratagem. Something had occurred at this temple around that time, we just had no idea what, and if I could flip through the pages of its documents, maybe that something would become clear to me.
“You may see any of the records we have, but so many of the early ones are missing,” Mallory said sadly. “Imagine, this temple has been standing for three hundred years! But we only have the records for the past couple of decades.”
“Why? What happened?” Dezmen asked.
“There was a fire near the altar. All the cabinets where we kept our papers went up in flames. That whole wall was burning.” She waved at the eastern side of the building, where I had already noted the smoke damage. “The roof—gone! It took us two years to rebuild.”
I risked a quick look at Dezmen, who was frowning. After the trail of bodies we had learned about on our quest, news of a fire seemed highly suspicious. “How awful,” I said.
Mallory sighed. “Awful indeed. Worst of all was that the abbess died trying to save the records. We found her body right by the cabinets.”
I was sure Dezmen was thinking what I was. Another murder. “That’s just terrible,” I said. “When did it happen?”
“Almost twenty-four years ago,” she said promptly. “I remember, because it happened only a few months before dear Lady Tabitha was married to the king. Chezelle loved that girl so much. She would have been so proud to see Tabitha on the throne.”
At the name, I started so violently I was sure even half-blind Mallory had to notice. I couldn’t bring myself to speak, so it was Dezmen who repeated, “Chezelle?”
“The abbess. The one who died in the fire.”
“Such a tragedy,” Dezmen murmured. “You have all my sympathy, even so many years later.”
I found my voice. “Yes, I am very sad for you—and sad for me that I will not get a chance to see my records,” I said. “I don’t suppose you kept copies of anything anywhere that didn’t burn?”
Mallory wrinkled her forehead, as if remembering something. “No, but—there was one book, of all the ones we had, that survived the fire. Chezelle had kept it wrapped in silk under her bed, because it contained the official notice of her installation as abbess. I believe that book contains about five years’ worth of records—we do not perform many ceremonies here, as you might guess, so it takes us some time to fill a volume! You are welcome to look through it if you like.”
I didn’t feel particularly hopeful, but I didn’t see any reason to refuse. We had come all the way to Empara, all the way to this tiny temple hidden away in the great forest, looking for a clue we weren’t even sure we would recognize. If there was a chance it was buried in the single saved record book, then I must try to find it.
“I think I would,” I said in a hesitant voice. “Maybe—maybe there will be some other document about my parents in your book. I’d like to see it.”
“It’s in the house, still under her bed—Laurianne’s bed now, of course. I’ll just go fetch it for you.”
She made her way somewhat unsteadily out the temple door while the rest of us found seats. Scar and Red and I sat in the back pew, Dezmen and his echoes in the row before us, turned to face us.
“A fire? The abbess dead? These are not coincidences,” Dezmen said the minute Mallory was out of earshot.
“The abbess named Chezelle?” I added. “It makes no sense, and yet somehow all these pieces are connected.”
“I feel sure the answers are here,” he said. “I just don’t know if we’ll find them.”
A few minutes later, Mallory returned, carrying a large and awkward volume. It appeared to be a couple of hundred pages that had been collected between two pieces of heavy pasteboard; holes had been punched in each individual page, and the whole mass tied together with thick gold ribbon. I supposed that allowed the priestesses to add more pages every time they recorded a new event.
“Here you go, my dear,” she said, laying the volume in my lap. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
Dezmen and his echoes had stood up at her approach. “Perhaps you could show me around the grounds while Chessie goes through the records?” he said. “It is such a pretty place.”
“It is! And with such history,” Mallory answered. “Walk with me up to the altar and I will show you the stones inscribed with the names of the founding priestesses.”
They strolled to the front of the church, talking softly, while I began turning the pages of the record book. Beside me, Scar and Red moved their hands as if they, too, were leafing through a volume, but I scarcely noticed. The first few documents recorded births and benedictions that had occurred nearly thirty years ago; they were followed by a cluster of death notices that had all been written in the same two-week period. Some kind of plague had visited this corner of Empara, no doubt. The following month had seen two weddings and Chezelle’s ordination as abbess. The following month, one benediction and no other activity.
I didn’t think I was interested in events that had occurred quite so long ago, so I gently turned a whole sheaf of pages, getting close to the back of the book. I found myself looking at dates from twenty-four years ago. The year before Tabitha married Harold. It was remotely possible that something I was interested in had happened in that time frame, so once again I began examining the documents one by one. I didn’t even look up when Mallory, Dezmen, and his echoes filed past me and out the front door.
Here was news of a wedding. A birth. A benediction. Two deaths. Two more births and two more benedictions. Another wedding. Most of the documents had been signed by Mallory or another priestess whose name appeared to be Sasette (it was hard to read her cramped handwriting). But now and then Chezelle’s name appeared at the bottom of a certificate in a lovely, flowing script. I assumed Mallory and Sasette were responsible for most of the day-to-day functions of the sanctuary, but that Chezelle presided over the ceremonies when one of the nobles of the region came to the temple.
And, indeed, the next page I turned to was a wedding certificate signed by Chezelle and performed for a member of the Devenetta family. I squinted at it, trying to make out the name of the bride and groom.
Tabitha Devenetta.
And Malachi Burken.
I sat there a moment, so stunned that I almost couldn’t comprehend what I was reading.
The abbess of this little temple had performed a marriage ceremony for Tabitha Devenetta and Malachi Burken nearly a year before Tabitha had married King Harold. Since absolutely no one seemed to be aware of this fact, I could only assume the wedding had been conducted in stealth—a favor done by the abbess for the headstrong young noblewoman she apparently had dearly loved.
Tabitha and Malachi had married in secret! That meant she was not free to marry the king after all! Did her parents know that? Did they proceed with the negotiations anyway, knowing they were enabling bigamy, but trusting to the fanatical discretion of all the parties involved that this knowledge would never come to light?
Or—not trusting, as it turned out. Whoever tried to burn down the temple had undoubtedly also killed the abbess in the hope of eliminating all records, all witnesses, all knowledge about the clandestine ceremony.
Had that desperate act been carried out by Tabitha’s parents because they were single-mindedly determined to see a Devenetta on the throne? But if they had been willing to murder a priestess to secure their daughter’s future, why wouldn’t they have been willing to eliminate her low noble husband as well? Or instead?
They would have been. If they were so utterly committed to seeing Tabitha become queen, they would not have let one inconvenient spouse stand in their way.
Therefore, they had not been the ones to kill the poor abbess and set fire to the temple.
It had been Malachi.
It fit, it all fit, it made so much sense that I knew without the faintest doubt that this was what had occurred. Tabitha and Malachi had wed in secret, flouting her family and indulging in some grand forbidden passion. Shortly afterward, Harold had come calling, offering his crown, promising peace in the realm, if only this one recalcitrant woman would take his hand in marriage. She tried to refuse—she delayed with every tactic she could think of except the truth—but eventually she had to give in to extreme pressure and threats of dire punishment. Although, who could say? Perhaps she was dazzled by the king’s offer. Perhaps she wanted to marry him, once she’d had time to think about the life she might lead as the queen compared to the life she would lead as a low noble’s wife. If she had told her parents the truth, she would have instantly scotched the deal. She was the one who elected to keep her marriage a secret.
I frowned. But that made no sense. If Tabitha was willing to marry Harold, if no one but Chezelle knew about the marriage—and if Chezelle was dead—why would the Devenettas keep Harold waiting for nearly a year before Tabitha accepted his suit? Why had her parents locked Tabitha in a tower room for months—“like the heroine in a children’s fable,” as Nadine had said—if everyone was ready to agree to the marriage?
Because she was pregnant.
My hands went so slack that the book nearly slipped from my grasp, and I had to grab for it before it went spilling to the floor. Scar and Red made scrabbling motions at the empty air.
Because she was pregnant—with me.
My breath was fast and shallow; my thoughts were in such a whirl that I thought my head might skitter off my neck.
Malachi hadn’t seduced a housemaid and cast her off—oh, no. He’d sired a child in wedlock, and that child was the obstacle to the greatest honor any woman in the Seven Jewels could achieve.
Tabitha didn’t tell her parents she was married, but soon enough she couldn’t conceal from them the fact that she was pregnant. Together they concocted the plan—the unwilling bride, the continual delays, the long-drawn-out negotiations. Till the baby was born and bundled off with a faithful servant. Till Tabitha could emerge from confinement, wan and chastened, to accept the king’s proposal.
I leaned back against the pew and shut my eyes tight, trying to work out the rest of the details. How much of the truth had Angela known? My parentage, certainly, but probably not the fact that I was actually legitimate. She must have been Tabitha’s former governess, or perhaps her personal maid—someone who knew and loved Tabitha very well—to be trusted even with the fact of my existence.
