Painted devils, p.7
Painted Devils, page 7
All these months and he still hasn’t lost the trick of catching me in the throat. “You know … I told Helga and Kirkling to wait in Felsengruft. It’s just you and me here, no interruptions. And this morning you said you wanted to take your time.”
I step closer until our knees bump, our faces only a few inches apart. Emeric goes still as my fingers slide up the back of his neck, into his hair; something different ignites in his eyes.
“So take it,” I whisper.
He does not need to be told twice.
I don’t know how long we stay there, just that we don’t leave until we’re ready, still flushed and a bit rumpled but with at least three months’ worth of lost kissing accounted for. When we return to the rite hall, I walk straight to the altar, where the cambric and the awl are waiting. Helga and Kirkling seem to have finally bickered themselves into silence; they’re scowling at each other from opposite ends of the room.
“So,” I say briskly, picking up the awl, “anyone know where we can find seven brothers?”
Helga opens her mouth, shuts it, thinks a moment. Then, with peculiar reluctance, she says, “Actually, yes.”
CHAPTER FIVE
MISS SCHMIDT
Golden evening sunlight slants through the windows of the Ros brothers’ house, catching motes of dust as Jakob hovers over a cabbage-and-wurst stew simmering in the open hearth. Little by little, the light dims as Udo moves around the main room, pulling curtains shut. Too many faces are turning toward the house now, sneaking looks just a little too casually, and the weight in the air says none of us wants any more observers than we already have.
Not Helga, cutting thick slices of rye bread at the heavy dining table beside me; not Emeric, sitting across from me, his hands tangling again. And certainly not me, fidgeting just as badly.
Jakob and Udo, it turns out, have five more brothers. But before we even get into that, there is one thing they’ve asked of me: the truth. And not about the fact that I may have forgotten their lantern in Felsengruft.
They’ve already given me so much these two months, and now I have to tell them it was all because of a lie.
(I can’t believe I actually feel bad about lying. Lying might be the most-legal thing I’m good at. If this is what being around Emeric does to me, by the end of the week Hagendorn’ll be putting up churches in my name.
In retrospect, I need to make sure the Red Blessed don’t get any ideas.)
Emeric reaches for a pocket. “Do you mind if I take notes?” he asks quietly. “It may save us some questions later on.”
My stomach twists. It’s not like I forgot he’s supposed to be investigating me too; it’s just an uncomfortable reminder that all my bad choices are going to be meticulously documented, starting with inventing the Scarlet Maiden.
I want him to leave out details for me, is the thing. Smudge out my failures until there’s just the girl I want him to see.
But one of the many reasons I’ve let him in is because we both know he won’t.
“I don’t mind,” I lie.
“Me either,” Helga adds, frowning as a chunk of bread frays on a clumsy slice. “Your knives are terrible.”
Jakob just grunts from the fireplace, but that seems to be an assent. All the curtains are drawn, and now Udo’s rummaging in a hutch in the corner. He shuts a drawer and drags a chair over to my corner of the table.
The chair legs creak as Udo sits, brow furrowed. His dark beard is longer than Jakob’s, but they have the same habit of running their fingers over it as they think, as he’s doing presently. He only says, “All right, Vanja. We’ll have the truth now.”
“What do you want to know?” My voice fragments a bit.
Jakob, Udo, and Helga trade looks.
“Everything,” Jakob says finally. “Where you really came from, why you came to Hagendorn, why you stayed.”
“I’d say you owe us that much,” Helga drawls.
Udo rumbles, “It’s not about owing.” Then he nods to me. “Go on, then.”
Whatever Emeric sees in my face makes him reach a hand across the table. It is no small relief to take it.
I told this story when it was just me and him and a fireplace in midwinter, and when we stood before a court of gods in the wreckage of a wedding. I can tell it to the Ros siblings now.
I tell them how I was born the thirteenth child of a thirteenth child. How my mother believed I was bad luck. I tell Helga how I climbed trellises, snuck in and out of castles, wore gowns of the finest silks. I tell Udo and Jakob how I stole the signet ring off the Golden Wolf himself, how I lie as easy as breathing. I tell them of curses and rubies and a foolish girl drunk on a winter’s night, and of the simple lie that grew too fast to stop.
When I am done, the only sound is the furious scuttle of Emeric’s charcoal over paper. Then Udo leans forward, dropping something onto the table with an oddly familiar click.
A small, perfect ruby casts a fringe of glimmering red over the smooth oak.
“Found it the first night you stayed,” Udo says evenly, “stuck in the bottom of the bucket. You must have missed it.”
I feel like the stool’s been kicked out from beneath me. “You … knew? This whole time?”
The unspoken question hangs even heavier in the air: And you didn’t tell anyone?
Udo leans back. “Jakob said you probably had your reasons.”
“And I was right.”
“Were you, though?” Helga grouches into the rye.
“You’re not angry with me?” I ask.
“I wish you’d asked for help the honest way.” Udo folds his arms. “We would have got your rubies for a fair price. But that’s a lot of faith to put in a strange town. With a story like yours, I can’t fault you for acting the cynic.”
Emeric coughs politely. “May I ask a few questions?”
“Go ahead.” Udo’s tone is friendly enough, but his granite eyes narrow.
“Thank you.” Emeric slides the Queen of Roses card into the notebook, then flips to a clean page. “At any point in time, did Miss Schmidt solicit you or anyone you know for money, goods, or services on behalf of the Scarlet Maiden?”
My throat goes abruptly dry. I don’t know what’s worse: how that question feels like a sentencing or how he called me “Miss Schmidt.”
“No,” Udo says firmly.
Helga tilts her head. “Does getting help with the rubies count?”
Udo waves a hand. “Fine, apart from that.”
“And the statues?” Emeric asks. “The chapel?”
“The chapel was Leni’s idea,” Jakob says, gathering bowls off a shelf. “Statues … Who came up with the statues?”
Udo shrugs. “The Red Blessed.”
“They came to me with the plans,” I add. “I mean, I did tell them the Scarlet Maiden would approve.”
Emeric nods but doesn’t look up, his charcoal still scratching away. “Did you ever witness Miss Schmidt fabricate signs to suggest the existence of the Scarlet Maiden?”
“Miss Schmidt” again. I feel sick.
Broad knuckles give my shoulder a light rap. “Help me serve the soup,” Jakob says, and hands me a stack of bowls.
I get up so fast, I almost knock my stool over, as Udo issues another hard “No.”
“Again, the rubies,” Helga hums.
“I think the prefect boy can do his own job,” Udo says shortly.
Emeric’s own stool creaks. “If you’re trying to cover for—”
“All we gave Vanja, we gave freely.” Udo’s voice turns hard. “She took nothing that wasn’t offered, and if she lied to folk, it was because they asked her to.”
Jakob ladles soup into a bowl. “Everyone who went along with the Red Blessed was an adult of sound mind who ought to have known better.”
There’s a knock at the door. Udo gets up to open it, still radiating belligerence. It doesn’t help that he finds Kirkling on the stoop.
“Pardon me,” she says. “I need to speak with Aspirant Conrad.” Her eyes catch on the kettle. “It can wait until after your supper, though.”
“Join us,” Jakob calls over his shoulder.
Kirkling takes a step back. “That isn’t necessary.”
“We need to discuss this sacrifice business.” Jakob tips his head to the table. Udo moves to let the proctor reluctantly enter, shutting the door behind her.
“I will compensate you for the meal,” she says, stiff. “As will Aspirant Conrad. His impartiality cannot be in question.”
“I don’t think anyone can question that,” I respond a bit frostily, placing a bowl in front of Emeric with perhaps a bit too much force. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him look up at me, startled, but I ignore it.
“So, you need a drop of blood from each of us.” Jakob hooks mugs on his fingers and joins the table as Udo sets down a pitcher of cool milk, then passes around spoons. “The brothers, that is.”
Udo takes my previous seat. Good manners would say he’s giving Kirkling his chair, which happens to be by Emeric’s corner. It also conveniently allows him to glower at Emeric unobstructed.
It does create an awkward moment when the last two seats left are one next to Emeric and one farthest from him, opposite Kirkling. I drop onto the far stool. Jakob settles by Emeric with just a quirk of his eyebrows.
Helga looks like she’s trying not to laugh. “Yes, she gave Vanja an awl and a kerchief to collect the blood. Supposedly that will give the Scarlet Maiden enough power to hold back the hellhound.”
“You know I don’t muck around with the gorge for a reason.” Jakob sighs. “Hellhounds. Honestly. And blood’s the only alternative she gave?”
Udo mutters something into his soup about the other option.
Emeric looks increasingly nervous. “It is.”
“Then you’ve a fair bit of traveling to do.” Jakob sets a strange little dice-sized wooden box on the table, then gives it a tap. The sides fold down flat—and continue unfolding with a nigh-endless supply of wooden tiles, spreading across the table. A few squares keep tossing and turning, but the rest settle into a smooth surface that blooms with the lines of a map. It centers on the Haarzlands’ corner of Lüdheid Principality, thick with forests and hills that spill out from Boderad’s Gorge. Even the rivers in the area all seem to share the same source as the Ilsza.
Helga whistles. “Where’d you get that?”
“One of Ozkar’s toys.” Jakob prods a still-flipping tile. “You know how he is; it wasn’t perfect, so he had no use for it. Anyway, the good news is you have to go to only three places for the others. You’ll find Dieter to the east, in Dänwik, working at the Golden Bine.”
“I thought he had a gig in Glockenberg,” Helga says.
Jakob gives her a significant look. “He … moved on.”
“Oh,” she says delicately. “I see.”
Jakob’s finger moves northwest across the map, from the modestly annotated Dänwik to an area that merits not just a drawing of a city straddling a river but also two separate names: Rammelbeck and Welkenrode. He taps the river’s western bank. “Erwin works the docks in Rammelbeck. He may be a bit difficult to track down. Ozkar…”
“Ozkar’s just going to be plain difficult,” finishes Helga. “He’s still in Rammelbeck too?”
“Welkenrode.” Jakob points to the eastern riverbank. “Moved his workshop over around midwinter. And Henrik’s in Welkenrode, too, at the Konstanzian Imperial Abbey.” He glances at me a moment, then continues, his finger moving to a town in the lowlands north of Hagendorn. “Last you’ve got Sånnik. He’s in Kerzenthal, helping with the family farm. He’s getting married at the end of April, actually, so I’d say you could get all seven of us at the wedding, but…”
“Pff.” Helga snorts. “Only Henrik will probably show. And you two, if you’re done with shearing.”
Jakob moves his finger in a loose loop over the map. “You’ll have to get a coach in Glockenberg, and from there, it’s three days and some to Dänwik, then five from Dänwik to Rammelbeck-Welkenrode. With clear roads and fair weather, it’s four more days to Kerzenthal, then another four to come straight back here. Shouldn’t take more than a month if you hurry, but you’ve plenty of time until midsummer.”
Kirkling speaks up for the first time. “The Library of the Divine in Dänwik could be useful to your investigation, Aspirant Conrad, as its records may date back to the days of the Scarlet Maiden. And the Imperial Abbey at Welkenrode has augurs whose insight could help.” Then she seems to recall that her one purpose in life is to be a blight on mine, because she adds, “It would also be … inadvisable to let Schmidt out of your sight while you’re investigating her.”
“What did you want to speak to the boy about?” Udo asks in the tonal equivalent of a TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT sign.
Kirkling dunks a slice of bread into her soup. “I suppose this much isn’t confidential: Aspirant Conrad, now that you have begun your Finding, at the close of every day you will provide me with a verbal status report in private. Today’s will be brief because of the short notice, but from tomorrow onward, you are expected to show a full prefect’s command of the facts of your case. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Proctor Kirkling,” Emeric says with a forced sort of tranquility, as if the prospect of a daily quiz isn’t the greatest thing that’s happened to him since the invention of the T square.
“Our belongings have arrived, so tomorrow I will arrange transportation to Dänwik. Be ready to depart in the afternoon.”
“If that works for Vanja.” Emeric glances to me, but I find my own gaze skating away.
Udo makes a noise of uncut disapproval. “She shouldn’t go on her own. One of us ought to help her track the others down and convince them.”
“I believe Schmidt is seventeen,” Kirkling returns, “making her an adult and citizen by imperial law. Besides, she will be safe in the custody of the prefects.”
“‘Custody’?” Now a NO TRESPASSING sign is posting up in Jakob’s voice too. “Vanja hasn’t been charged with anything. Udo’s right—one of us should go.”
In near-perfect unison, he and Udo both look at Helga.
“No,” she says immediately. “No teenager melodrama.”
Jakob points with his own slice of rye at his brother. “Sheep shearing’s this month, we have to stay. And, Helga, you haven’t seen the rest of the family in, what, two years?”
“Auntie Gerke’s too old to make the walk to town for house calls.”
“She can stay with us. Or we’ll send Sonja’s eldest. They want to apprentice for a hedgewitch.”
The siblings go back and forth, but eventually it’s clear Helga does want to go and is arguing only to harass Jakob. She stomps off after supper with no real spite; Udo, on the other hand, maintains a frosty front toward Emeric even after Emeric singlehandedly cleans up dinner. Then, peculiarly, Udo offers the house to Kirkling.
“Jakob’s got to close down his workshop, and Vanja and I have to put the sheep away for the night,” he says. “You two need a private place for your report. This will do.”
“Much obliged,” Kirkling answers. Udo and I head for the door only to get snagged on her follow-up question.“Oh, is the … sleeping arrangement still acceptable?”
Every eye turns to me, but I feel Emeric’s more than any other.
I … I don’t know why I’m angry with him, just that I am. But I also got him into this mess in the first place.
“It’s fine,” I lie again, and follow Udo out.
We get halfway to the barn before he says, “I’ll handle the sheep myself. You can go get ready for bed.” He pauses. “Going to be a chilly night. May want to warm up your room.”
When I connect the dots, I am delighted at Udo’s unprecedented craftiness. “Right, chilly,” I say. “Good night, then.” I turn to go, then find I have a parting question of my own: “Udo? Why are you all helping me?”
When he answers after a moment, all he says is “You had your reasons. We have ours.”
Then he continues on toward the barn, whistling into the early twilight. Baffled, I head to my lean-to.
It’s dim inside, the dwindling light casting a periwinkle glow, and I take care not to make too much noise. The little iron door in the back of the chimney is piping hot, so I use a rag to ease it open. There’s a faint hiss of embers—
Then, more important, voices.
“… your case thus far.”
Udo, that deviant.
“Very little I can say for certain.” Emeric’s voice carries through clear as day. “There is an entity that calls itself the Scarlet Maiden, and it commands some manner of power. It claims to have chosen me for a sacrifice. Hagendorn’s new cult worships a god also called the Scarlet Maiden. We have not proven they are the same entity.”
“‘Not … proven,’” Kirkling repeats. She must be taking notes again. “And the profane fraud related to that cult?”
“I have nothing certain,” Emeric says.
I catch my breath.
There’s an uncomfortable delay before Kirkling prompts, flat, “Truly?”
“Truly,” he confirms. “If the entity is a true Low God, then there is no fraud. I will—”
“You don’t really believe that,” Kirkling interrupts.
Emeric pauses. Then he continues with the same ironclad calm he summoned after the Scarlet Maiden speared him through the throat: “I will conduct further questioning of the locals in the morning. At present, the only incident that might qualify as profane fraud is too trivial to meet the standard for trial by the Godly Courts.”
Maybe—maybe there’s a chance this ends well for us.
“The Ros brothers have stated that, apart from the incident, they have never seen Miss Schmidt use the Scarlet Maiden for her own benefit. It seems more likely to me—”
“Spare me your guesses, Aspirant Conrad.” Kirkling sighs. “You’ve comported yourself reasonably enough for a difficult day, and this will suffice as a report for which you were not prepared. I expect more thorough work going forward. You’re dismissed.”
I hurriedly light the lantern and sneak the iron door shut before Emeric arrives, but it turns out there’s no need to rush. When he knocks at the lean-to door, I’ve had time to finish washing up, and to even scrub my hair with the nice soap I stole from Castle Reigenbach.
