Psalms of Isaak 01 – Lamentation

vaults, the subterfuge of two thousand years of protecting humanity from itself, had failed.

If I’d stayed, this would not have happened.

Petronus felt a hand at his sleeve and looked down at the paper. Can I ask you some questions? Neb had written there. He nodded. “Please.”

Why did you stop me?

Petronus put his hand on Neb’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “If I could see your scheming, it was only a matter of time before one of Sethbert’s scouts or guards picked up on it. How did you imagine you’d be able to assassinate one of the most powerful men in the Named Lands?”

Petronus watched Neb’s face. The corner of his mouth twitched and his eyes shifted. It was obvious that he was wrestling with how much truth to give. “You don’t have to say, son.”

The boy’s hand reached into his shirt and came out with the pouch. Petronus recognized it immediately and chuckled. “Clever,” he said. “But that alone wouldn’t have seen you to safety, even if you’d managed to kill the sed eve bastard.”

But even as he said the words, Petronus realized that the boy didn’t care at all about being seen to safety. That hardness in his eyes, and once more, the line of his face, said without words that Neb would’ve gladly traded his life for that of the mad Overseer.

“Listen well,” Petronus said. “Taking a life-even a life like Sethbert’s-robs your own soul in the end. I agree with you that he deserves death for what he’s done. A thousand deaths couldn’t be enough. But Androfrancines do not kill,” he said. Unless you’re the Pope, he thought. Unless you merely give the words to the most seasoned captain of your Gray Guard and close your eyes and pretend that there is no connection between your own words and the deeds of others.

He felt the tug at his sleeve again and looked down. I am not an Androfrancine.

“No,” Petronus said, “I suppose you are not. But someday you may be. And last year’s ghosts haunt next year’s forests.”

The boy thought about this, then wrote more. Petronus read it. “What now? I don’t know. I suppose I’ll try to find someplace for you to stay here in Kendrick. I’m only here long enough to rally some men, and then I’m back to Windwir.”

When the boy looked at him, eyebrows raised in question, Petronus’s felt his own jaw tighten. “I’ve a city to bury,” he said in a quiet voice.

The boy scratched more words onto the tablet, and Petronus was surprised to see it was a statement, not a question.

I know who you are, Father, the crisp handwriting declared, starkly black on the gray paper. Petronus stared at the words and said nothing, knowing his silence said enough.

Neb

Neb watched Petronus work the town all that next day. He stopped at the inn to talk with the lumbermen at their breakfasts. He wandered through Kendrick speaking with women and paused in the crowded village square. The large open space had filled up with the tents and carts of those waylaid en route to Windwir, waiting in shocked silence for some better destination to drop into their minds. And still waiting.

He spoke in hushed tones with the mayor while Neb watched from a distance. At first the mayor was agitated, waving the old man away. Then he was nodding, brows furrowed with anger. In the end he looked intent, and when they shook hands, the mayor left to call an emergency council meeting.

It was easy to see now how this man had become the Order’s youngest Pope. Neb had remembered his lessons-Petronus hadn’t merited much mention in The Works o sin Ordf the Apostles of P’Andro Whym, but there’d been a bit. He’d been the youngest. He’d been assassinated. He’d been a strong King and Pope. Though the book didn’t say so, Neb had heard the old men talking from time to time. “His tongue’s as silver as Pope Petronus” had become a common phrase among that generation of Androfrancines. Now Neb saw it firsthand.

The mayor sent riders out into farmlands, sent runners throughout the village, and called in everyone willing to listen within two hours ride. By the time the couriers had gone out, Petronus had sent birds to Caldus Bay and two other villages Neb didn’t recognize in care of names that Neb wasn’t close enough to read. Last, he wrote a long note in a script Neb recognized as from somewhere on the Emerald Coasts. This he attached to the strongest, fastest looking bird, and he whispered longest into its ears before lifting it to the sky.

When they finished Petronus took Neb to the inn, and they stuffed themselves on catfish stew and fried bread.

As Neb wiped the last of the stew from the bowl with his last crust of bread, he smiled at the old man. Petronus smiled. “We’ve done a good day’s work.”