"Now what makes you think that!" His laugh was one of genuine amusement. "A'Va? How childish you are! A'Va is surely a figment of men's imaginations. I don't serve anyone. Not even Va. It's all illusion, don't you know that?"

He leaned towards her, and, utterly revolted, she took a step backwards. For a splintered moment she felt she was breathing in flames, and her lungs were filling with something sticky, tarry, dread-filled...

She took another step away, and snapped back into normality. "How dare you, you filthy mudworm!"

He'd tried to do something to her, but she was not quite sure what, just that it was vile. "Get out of my sight. Leave this palace with your lackeys, or I'll kill you right now where you stand."

"You don't have that power. No one has," he said. "You don't know the first thing about me, Fritillary. You never did."

With that, he turned, thrust open the doors and walked back into the audience hall. Once again the guests parted before him like the bow wave of a ship. His retainers fell in behind him, and he was gone.

He betrayed himself.

She'd pulled his strings and he'd danced, exactly as she'd intended. She should have been glad; instead, she was aghast.

12.

The Task Assigned

He mustn't be afraid. Not until his job was done, and all the pitch-men were dead, along with Fox, because he was worse than all the rest put together. Maybe when they were all dead he could live again, reclaim something of what he'd had.

He just wished he understood everything better. Right now, after all the guests had gone, and he was in the Pontifect's workroom with her, he was still trying to make sense of everything. Her secretary, Barden, was there, and so was Proctor Brantheld. Barden was one of the oldest men he'd ever seen. He limped along with a stick when he walked, and when he stopped he looked as if he had to sit down or fall over. His face had as many wrinkles as lines on a map and his voice sounded like dry leaves blown by the wind.

I'd hate to be that ancient...

He looked from Barden to where the Pontifect and Proctor Brantheld sat and tried to follow their conversation, but it was mostly about things he didn't understand, and people he didn't know. He felt lost.

Oh, Da, why did you have to die?

He'd never been in a city as big as Vavala before; such a place had no need of itinerant scribes and petition writers. Scribes had shops here. He'd seen one. As for the Pontifical Palacehe'd never seen any building as large, let alone been inside one. Why would anyone build a house with rooms so huge? Even a fairground man on stilts would not be able to touch the ceilings! So ridiculously ornate, so monstrously hugeand so cold.

His wildest imaginings had never included the idea that a lad like him would ever meet the Pontifect, surely the most powerful woman who'd ever lived, and yet here he was listening to her squabble with her agent lawyer. Right from their first meeting, he'd been disconcerted to discover that Fritillary Reedling looked so... so ordinary. Tall, greying, sombre, rather like someone's great-aunt.

She couldn't really be ordinary, of course. She had a witchery for a start. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he did. And she had an air of command that made any thought of disobeying seem not only disloyal, but clay-brained. Which made it doubly odd that Agent Gerelda Brantheld was always arguing with her.

Their present disagreement concerned what action should be taken on the pitch-men surrounding the city. Gerelda wanted the Vavala guards to fight them, but the Pontifect disagreed. In the end Gerelda turned to him, saying, "Perie, tell her reverence what you sense about Prime Valerian Fox. Why did he scare you so much?"

"Because he's rotten in here," he replied. He tapped himself on the chest. He didn't even have to think about that; he knew it. "So... so old inside. He's not like us."

He wasn't sure that they understood what he was trying to tell them, because even to his own ears his words sounded a little ridiculous, and Barden was pinched around the mouth as though he didn't like the reference to being old. He struggled on, trying to explain. "You have a witchery," he said to the Pontifect.

She nodded. "Yes, that's true. So do you. People with witchery always recognise one another."

"The thing that's wrong with pitch-men? I can feel that wrong thing the same way as I feel your witchery. Only your witchery isn't bad. It just... is. But pitch-men feel wrong. Horrible and sticky inside, like a big tar-pit. Prime Fox is worse than a pitch-man. It's like hehe makes the pitch."

They were all silent. He thought even the Pontifect paled, as if his words had reminded her of something.

Gerelda said softly, "Consign Fox to a choiceless grave; the good-for-nothing scum of a man can't be A'Va, can he?"

"If A'Va exists," Barden said in his measured, slow way of speaking, "then surely he must always have existed, by definition. Valerian Fox's birth, however, is well documented, as are his boyhood and university days. He is forty-eight years old, the son of the Ardronese ambassador to Lowmeer at the time, Harrier Fox. Valerian's mother was a Lowmian noblewoman. She died not long after he was born."

"I've known him from our university days," the Pontifect added, "when he was in his twenties."

"Fox did mean to kill you today," Gerelda told her, frustration making her snappish. "Perie identified a servant as a pitch-man, so I asked the guards to refuse him entry. He's being questioned now, but from first reports he seems more confused and, well, stupid than anything else. Either that, or he's a good play-actor. He was trailing behind Fox's party as though he belonged to them, but when the guards intervened, Fox's secretary said they didn't know him. It's my belief that was a lie and he would have killed you if he'd been given the chance."

"Possibly." The Pontifect smiled at him. "And if so, I am indeed grateful to you and your witchery, Peregrine Clary. Gerelda, even if Fox planned my assassination, I think he had a second reason for wanting to come. He wanted to see if he could contaminate me with his, well, with his pitch, for want of a better word."

"And failed, I assume. Why would he want to reveal himself to you like that?"

"Maybe he thought he had a chance of success. A chance worth taking. After all, he must have known Saker escaped his nullification and would therefore have immediately come to me with what he knew. Fox wasn't saying much about himself that I didn't already know or guess." She shrugged. "Still, it was good of him to clarify it. One thing we should bear in mind is that as far as we know, no one with a witchery has ever joined the lancers. That is worth remembering."

Gerelda stared at her, frowning, with a peculiar expression on her face, half disbelief, half worry.

"We tell ourselves," the Pontifect continued, "that we are Va-cherished. But this contamination spreads, whether it is the Horned Death or Peregrine's pitch. In the meanwhile, Fox is goading us into acting before we know the nature of what we're fighting."

"You think the Horned Death and the pitch are the same thing?" Gerelda asked.

Peregrine shivered.

"No. They may have the same cause, though," the Pontifect said. "One kills, and the other makes such fools of the infected that they will leave their families to fight for a cause that doesn't really exist."

Gerelda fell silent. Barden, who was sitting beside her, rested his hands and chin on top of the walking stick he'd propped between his knees, as if he was too tired to hold his head up.

"Remember this," the Pontifect continued. "Clerics died of the Horned Death in Ustgrind, or so we are told. The whole of the Institute of Advanced Studies was wiped out, that's for certain. The Lowmian Prime sent that news; Saker confirmed they were all reported dead, and the cause was given as the Horned Death. Shrine keepers in the heart of Shenat hill country in Ardrone also died of the Death, or so we are told. That news came from Prime Fox. They certainly died of something."

When no one said anything, the Pontifect continued, "Anything told to me by Fox, I want confirmed. So I had agents check. No one could be found who actually saw a shrine keeper with the symptoms of the Death while they were still alive. Not one. As for the Institute in Lowmeerit was closed to the public, so no one, not even Saker, actually saw the suffering of the clerics. Afterwards, the building and the bodies were burned."

"You're saying they died of something else? Murdered, perhaps?"

The Pontifect shrugged. "All I'm saying is that we have no evidence one way or the other. You're a lawyer, Gerelda. You know the value of evidencelook for it."

Gerelda nodded. "So, what's my task?"

"I want you to leave for Lowmeer as soon as possible. I would very much like you to go with her, Peregrine. I think your talent for identifying pitch-men is of great importance to us all. I know you have experienced a terrible loss, and you've behaved with great courage and dignity and strength of purpose. I have no right to ask you to help us, but I do. I ask you to serve Va-faith. The best way to do that at the moment is to go to Lowmeer."

"And if he refuses?" Gerelda asked.

"I will see that he is housed at one of our seminaries where he can study, if he chooses. It will be his choice, his free choice."

He stared at her, his heart thumping. His overwhelming reaction was one of relief. At last, someone who recognised the gnawing need inside him, the need to do something to rid the world of pitch-men. To get rid of that dark, tarry contamination. He didn't want to be safe; he didn't want to be a student. He wanted to find out why his father had died. He needed to know what made men kill and eat someone who'd never done them any harm.

"I'll go wherever you want," he said eagerly, and held his breath in case she changed her mind.

"I thought you would. Barden, talk to the tailor about some new clothes for him, will you? Garments suitable for every possible occasion."

Gerelda strode with Peregrine down the centre of the street leading to the docks, following a contingent of the Pontifect's guards. In the first dawn light their uniforms were colourless; in the emptiness of deserted streets their steps echoed. Behind her another ten guards marched. She'd complained to Fritillary that being accompanied by guards drew attention to them and where they were going, but Fritillary had just smiled. When a drunken band of men spilling out from a tavern laughed at them and made vulgar remarks about unwanted crims always being thrown out of the city in the dead of night, she realised why.

Damn Fritillary, she's always one step ahead of me! The guards were part of their disguise.

But still, this was rattling, dizzy-eyed madness.

She was Lowmian, but she wasn't from a noble family, and one thing she knew for certain was that she didn't want to have to deal with any court. Yet here she was, about to embark on a barge to travel down the River Ard to the port of Borage and, from there, to board a flat boat to Ustgrind. In her baggage, which she'd been told was already on board, she had letters from the Pontifect to the Lowmian Prime and to the Regala Mathilda. But she still had no idea how she was going to bring Peregrine and the Lowmian heir, Prince-regal Karel, together in the same room. Her real skills lay not in understanding court etiquette, but in the interpretation of legal documents, or in researching and uncovering the many ways that people tried to cheat one another.

Fritillary Reedling, this time you've asked too much.

At her side Peregrine said, "I've never been on a barge. In fact, I've never been on a boat, only a winch-ferry."

"Perie, I think in the next month or two you are going to do a lot of things you've never done before."

There was only one person on the wharf, other than a handful of bargees seeing to the loading: an old man, leaning on a walking stick and wrapped up against the night-time cold. By the light from the lantern beside him, he looked frail.

"Oh, beggar me speechless, is that Secretary Barden?" she muttered. "You shouldn't be here," she told him as they stepped on to the wharf and the guards dispersed to block public access to the dock. "And alone, too."

He gave a smile. "Ah, Agent Brantheld, this is the very hour when I can't sleep, and the aches and pains beg to be gently eased into their daily routine."

"The Pontifect sent you?"

"Indeed no. She would be quite annoyed with me if she knew."

"Then why are you here?"

"To ease your mind, perhaps. To offer my advice, for what it is worth."

"I could certainly do with plenty of that."

"First, why don't you get this young lad settled into a bunk on the barge? Then we will chat while the barge captain waits for the tide to turn. I believe there is at least half an hour yet."

She did as he suggested, and when she came back up on deck it was to find Barden propped up against a bollard waiting for her. Without any more preliminaries, he said, "You really must stop worrying about the Pontifect. She is quite capable of looking after herself."

"Those lancers up in the hills aren't going to go away. There will be other assassins, too."

"She knows that. Proctor, have faith in her. If the danger becomes too great, she will abandon the Pontifical Palace in order to save Vavala. She has been marshalling our defences."

She sat down on an upturned wooden bucket next to him. "Defences?"

"It's odd, but people without witchery always underestimate witchery power, simply because witchery is almost never misused."

"You have a witchery?"

"No, but I do have the wisdom that comes with having lived through some bad times. And my memory tells me this much: what is out in the world now, this blackness, this pitch that Peregrine talks aboutit's always been here, all my life anyway, just not so obvious or so widespread. So if you're looking for its origin you have to go a long way back. I am looking through all the records we have in Vavala, but I think it would be more rewarding to look through those in Lowmeer."

"Those were the Pontifect's instructions too, but where do I start, apart from Fox's family? I gather they were originally Lowmian."

"Start there, by all means. I think you should also look hard at Dire Sweepers."

"The Pontifect mentioned them. I had the impression they were fighting on our side, in charge of eliminating the Horned Death!"

"She has her reasons, doubtless, but I am telling you, look into the Dire Sweepers. Saker thought they should be investigated, too. He thinks their allotted task is twofold: to murder twins at birth and to kill people suffering from the Horned Death. Saker met a man who could well be their leader."

"And his name?"

"Saker couldn't recall it. He only remembered that the man was noble and he often came to the University in Grundorp to oversee his family's patronage of that institution. Saker met him when he was a student. Which, I believe, was when you were a student there too. You may have known this fellow, as well. He'd be in his late forties now, if he's still alive. Saker said that in their last encounter, the man had a knife thrown into his back. He might have died."

"There were a number of university patrons, but it shouldn't be difficult to find out which one. Why didn't the Pontifect tell me all that?"

He stood up, shrugging. "I've no idea. And now I must be off before the crowds are about in the streets."

And that, she knew, was all she was going to get out of him. He had come down to the wharf for the sole purpose of giving her the information that would encourage her to find the leader of the Dire Sweepers. And in so doing, he had also let her know that Fritillary Reedling probably knew that name alreadyand hadn't passed it on.

"I think you are very wicked old man, Secretary Barden," she said.

"And I trust your discretion." With that remark, he picked up his lantern and hobbled away, leaning heavily on his stick.

Fritillary Reedling watched the barge leave the dock from the window of her workroom. As soon as it disappeared into the mists rising off the river, she left the room and headed out of the palace, conspicuously trailed by two of her guards.

She walked briskly, heading for the city's main oak shrine. The oak itself was the oldest and largest in all Vavala; in fact, many said it was the oldest to be found anywhere in the Va-cherished Hemisphere. Its massive main trunk was anchored not just by its roots, but also by branches that drooped from high in the heart of the tree to rest on the ground. Any one of these branches would have dwarfed the trunk of a normal oak. Above, the vast canopy spread its crown of leaves as high as the roof of the Pontifical Palace.

Over the centuries, shrine keepers had encouraged the growth of stray branches into a labyrinth of rooms with living walls and latticed ceilings of limbs and twigs. Acolytes came from all over the hemisphere to study here, just as shrine keepers came to impart their knowledge. The school, if it could be called that, was informal, ever changing as people came and went. It was said that the shrine had many unseen guardians and it was their presence that ensured order and continuity.

Fritillary halted briefly at the edge of the shade from the oak. "Wait here," she said to her guards. She ducked her head under a low spray of fresh spring growth and stood for a moment to give her eyes time to adjust to the reduced light.

Taking a deep breath, she lowered her head to look at the back of her hand.

When she raised her gaze, Akrana the shrine keeper was standing before her. No one was sure if Akrana, had once been a man or a woman; it was no longer important. Age had wrinkled and withered and twisted the keeper into a figure that was barely recognisable as human. Once Akrana must have been abnormally tall because now, even shortened by time, the rheumy eyes were still level with Fritillary's own.

"He has marked ye as an enemy." The voice that issued from between thin bloodless lips was surprisingly forceful. "Prime Valerian Fox."

Fritillary nodded.

"The so-called mark of A'Va."

She nodded again.

"There was a time afore, when there was no recognition of the existence of Va, and therefore no A'Va. The smutch had a different name then."

"Which was?"