Echo in Onyx Read online

  “There it is,” the footman said as we rounded a busy corner. We hardly needed his announcement because the structure in front of us was so obviously a temple to the triple goddess.

  It was situated on a small greenfield, a tiny verdant island in the middle of the busy city—and like an island, it could only be reached by a bridge. In fact, there were three, all wood, all arching over a merry little stream that encircled the temple; one bridge was white, one was black, one was red. The building itself was shaped like a three-leafed clover, each “leaf” the size of a small house and topped with a cone-shaped tower. The walls were made of piled gray stone worn smooth with age and blackened with lichen where they weren’t striped with ivy. The whole complex exuded an air of ancient wisdom and hard-won peace, as if the building itself had endured so much turmoil and soothed away so much suffering that nothing could disturb it now, or anyone inside its walls.

  From where we stood, gazing over the black bridge, we could only see the front of one of the round towers. It was set with a large door made of age-hardened wood that was banded with polished metal. On a pedestal before the door was a life-size statue of one of the goddess’s incarnations—a woman with her arms stretched out to either side. Justice. My assumption was that the representations for mercy and joy could be found at the other two doors.

  “What a lovely temple,” Marguerite murmured. The boy smiled widely, as if she had directed the compliment at him.

  “Shall I wait for you?” he asked.

  “Oh, please don’t. I don’t know how long I’ll be and I’m sure you’re very busy.”

  “That I am,” he said. He bowed smartly and set off back the way we’d come.

  Marguerite led the rest of us across the painted bridge, and our feet made a pleasing, hollow sound as they struck the wood. But she strode right past the door for justice, and the three of us trailed after her. The next door we came to featured the goddess in her pose of joy, hands lifted over her head and her face wreathed in delight. Marguerite made a sound that might have been a snort, and we all kept walking. In the end, we entered through the door guarded by the spirit of mercy. Marguerite bowed her head, touched her fingers to her heart, and stepped inside.

  This temple was even more dimly lit than the one in Oberton, since the windows were narrow slits in the walls and candles supplied the only other light. It took me a moment to clearly make out the arrangement of the interior of the tower, but it was simple enough. There was a series of pews set to face a small dais placed against the curved outer wall; on the dais was a statue of the goddess for mercy and a handful of flickering votives. The pointed ceiling overhead was lost to darkness. I assumed that the other towers were laid out in a similar fashion, though each chamber no doubt featured one of the other two incarnations of the goddess.

  In the center of the tripart building was what appeared to be a walled chamber made of ornately carved wood. I supposed it served a prosaic purpose—hiding necessary supplies such as candles and cleaning materials—but the scrolls and whorls inscribed on its walls were so beautiful that it had a decorative function as well. More practically, it served to somewhat block a visitor’s view, so that no one had a clear line of sight from one of the round towers to another. A way to further segregate the joyful from the troubled and the guilty, I thought.

  There were about ten people already scattered through the pews in the tower where we had entered. “Let’s sit for a while,” Marguerite murmured, and we all slid into the very last row, Patience and Purpose between Marguerite and me.

  The other three bowed their heads and seemed to fall instantly into a contemplative state. I mimicked their pose, but I was busy cutting my eyes from side to side, trying to take in more details. The other people sitting in this section seemed to represent all classes of society, from an elderly high lord to a serving girl who looked younger than I was. I could see two white-robed priestesses moving among them, offering comfort or absolution. Two of the supplicants left while I watched, and three more entered through our door and took seats near the dais.

  One of the priestesses slipped into our pew and sat beside Marguerite. She was three people away from me, but I heard her ask in a soft voice, “Is there something that distresses you, my daughter?”

  Which was the first time it occurred to me that Marguerite might think it was a good idea to confess to the sin of murder.

  Before I could do more than go cold with horror, I saw Marguerite shake her head. “No. I mean, many things, but nothing more than the day-to-day troubles of the world.”

  “Sometimes it is those everyday worries that weigh most heavily upon our hearts,” the priestess observed. “Life can be very hard even when it is completely ordinary.”

  “How do you bear it, then?” Marguerite asked. “Your own sufferings, as well as everyone else’s?”

  The priestess lifted her hands, palms up, then let them fall gracefully to her lap. “I deposit them in the care of the goddess,” she said. “She makes all burdens light.”

  “So I am not praying enough.”

  “You are not trusting enough,” the priestess corrected. “You pray, but you do not truly believe the goddess will lighten your load.”

  “I had a friend in Oberton. A priestess,” Marguerite said. “She could convince me the goddess looked after me—looked after everyone—but I find it harder to believe now that I am in Camarria.”

  “You are a newcomer to our city, then. Will you be staying?”

  “Just a short time. A month.”

  Which was enough to let the priestess know that Marguerite was one of the high nobles brought to the royal city at Prince Cormac’s invitation—if she hadn’t already figured that out by the escort of echoes sitting alongside her in the pew. “A month can be a long time when you’re uneasy and sad,” the priestess answered.

  “A day can be a long time,” Marguerite said. She glanced around the circular chamber, tilted her head back to look toward the tip of the pointed ceiling. Patience and Purpose and I copied her actions. I still couldn’t make out anything above us except smoke and swirling darkness. “I thought I would feel better once I was here.”

  “Maybe if you come back tomorrow. And the following day, and the following days. You will feel a cumulative peace.”

  “I’ll try that,” Marguerite answered. “But I miss my friend.”

  “Write her a letter,” the priestess suggested. “We send couriers daily between the temples of all the principal cities.”

  “You do?” Marguerite said, so artlessly that I instantly realized she had known this in advance. Taeline must have told her that all the temples were in constant communication. Marguerite had found a way to send secret messages back to her lover in Oberton without having to worry that anyone in the palace—such as an inquisitor or his nephew—would read her correspondence. “And you would be willing to include a note from me in your packets?”

  “Certainly. Your friend will send her reply to us and you may pick it up here as well. Our couriers cover the ground much more rapidly than ordinary travelers—I believe the trek to Oberton takes only three days in each direction.”

  “Then I might hear from her within a week. Oh, that’s marvelous! You’ve lifted my spirits immensely! So if I return here tomorrow with a letter—”

  “Or I can bring you materials and you can write a note before you leave,” the priestess offered.

  “That would be so kind of you! Thank you! I would be so grateful.”

  “I will return in a moment,” the priestess said, rising and exiting the pew.

  I sat there seething, too far away from Marguerite to express my opinion of this particular development. Not that it was my place to express my opinion or to even have an opinion about my mistress’s behavior. But our situation was perilous enough already without adding this element of intrigue. To be carrying on a forbidden dalliance while she was in the royal city as the top candidate to become the prince’s bride—all while concealing her connection to
a so-far undiscovered murder! Never, upon observing her heart-shaped face and gentle manners, would you guess this woman could be so breathtakingly rash.

  The priestess returned to leave writing materials with Marguerite before she stepped to a nearby pew to minister to a new arrival. Marguerite spread the paper on her knee and scribbled a few hasty words before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a folded note—clearly something she had written back in her rooms late last night or early this morning. If I had had any doubts, they were now laid to rest. She had known before she left Oberton that this method of communication existed.

  Maybe she had planned to be strong; maybe she had told herself over and over that she would not write her to her forbidden lover while she was in Camarria. But our terrible journey had weakened her resolve, or left her so confused and afraid that she reached for any kind of comfort. I found some of my anger softening as I realized how trapped and desperate she must feel, how alone and undefended. I only hoped she had been circumspect in whatever words she had committed to paper. Maybe Taeline and her fellow priestesses were too high-minded to peruse the letters of strangers—but maybe they didn’t want to become unwittingly entangled in treason, either. If I were an abbess who had agreed to carry mail for any secretive parishioners, I would be reading the contents of anything that fell into my hands.

  Then again, it had always been clear that I didn’t have the necessary temperament to work in a temple.

  In a few minutes, we were rising to go. Marguerite paused to hand her letter to the priestess, thanking her again in a low voice and receiving her three-part benediction. She paused again before the row of lit votives to speak a silent prayer. Along with Patience and Purpose, I bowed my head in imitation of Marguerite’s pose, but I at least was formulating my own request. Great goddess, I beseeched, keep her safe. Keep all of us safe. Do not let us make a single mistake.

  Too late, probably. We had already made so many.

  We were barely across the bridge before someone fell in step beside us as if he was a favored and expected companion.

  “Lady Marguerite,” he said in a cheerful way. “May I escort you back to the palace?”

  Nico. I was so surprised that I stumbled to a halt, which would have instantly betrayed us all if Marguerite hadn’t also frozen in place. But her reaction was one of outrage and suspicion—unlike mine, which was mostly confusion and terror. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  He swept her a bow that would do the prince proud. “Nico Burken. I work at the palace. Lourdes sent me to see you safely back, since you dispensed with the services of the footman.”

  “I do not require the services of a footman—or an inquisitor.”

  At that, he had the effrontery to grin. “So you do recognize me. I thought you might.”

  “I recognize your name. If I’ve ever seen your face before, I’ve forgotten it.”

  The insult made him grin even more widely. “No. Well, it’s part of my job to be invisible.”

  “Then you might exhibit those skills and vanish now.”

  He laughed outright. “The housekeeper at Lord Garvin’s mansion must be a much meeker creature than Lourdes if you think I want to risk incurring her wrath!” he exclaimed. “I can’t possibly abandon you now. She’d have me executed.”

  “I feel certain that is an exaggeration,” Marguerite said in a polite voice.

  “I assure you, it is not.”

  “Then you inspire in me a desire to give you the slip so that upon your return to the palace, you are instantly arrested.”

  He crossed his arms and smiled at her, a coaxing expression. “I promise you, I am not as bad as Brianna would have you think,” he said.

  I had to muffle my gasp at his outrageousness. How dare he mention my name? How dare he think to discuss me with my mistress? It was unbelievable.

  “If anything, she perhaps cast you in too flattering a light,” Marguerite said.

  “Well, that’s good to hear! She’s forgiven me after all!”

  At that, Marguerite laughed. I realized to my chagrin that she had been playacting this whole time and that she was in fact greatly entertained by Nico’s appearance. He had probably known it from the start.

  “I would not be so sure of that,” Marguerite warned him. “Brianna is fiercely loyal, and she will not forgive you if you harm me in any way.”

  Now his expression grew cynical. “It’s the rare employer who can say that with certainty about a servant.”

  “If you doubt Brianna’s loyalty, you don’t know her well enough to be courting her.”

  He let his gaze wander past Marguerite’s face toward the faces of her echoes, or what he could see of them through the netting. I tried not to hold my breath as he glanced in my direction and then behind me. I felt both melting relief and a peculiar sense of disappointment that he had looked right at me but failed to see me. “And yet, she has left you to walk a strange city alone,” he said in a soft voice. “Not the behavior of a most devoted maid.”

  “I am not alone,” she said, gesturing at the three of us. We all recreated her motion.

  “You may as well be,” Nico said. “If trouble came for you, the echoes would neither defend you nor run for help.”

  Well, he’s wrong about half of that at least, I thought, and I was sure Marguerite was silently thinking the same thing.

  “Is Camarria so dangerous, then, that a woman cannot walk abroad safely under bright sunshine?”

  “I would wager your own city is not regulated so well that crime is unheard of,” he countered. “I don’t recall seeing too many high nobles traveling around Oberton unescorted.”

  Marguerite hesitated a moment, as if searching for an excellent retort, then shrugged and capitulated. She made another slight gesture, indicating that Nico should fall in beside her, and they began pacing slowly back toward the palace. Patience and Purpose followed closely behind them; I trailed after them all. “You might be right,” Marguerite admitted. “But there are times I cannot think clearly when anyone is nearby, so I ordered Brianna to stay behind. I assure you, she was not happy about it.”

  “If I had been her, I would have snuck off behind you anyway.”

  Marguerite glanced over her shoulder, managing to catch my eye just before I turned my own head. Her face was prim, but I could tell she was laughing inwardly. “I hadn’t thought of that. Do you think she’s skulking around here somewhere?”

  “No, as far as I can tell, she hasn’t left the palace.”

  “Then again, there are a lot of doors,” Marguerite pointed out. “You can hardly have been watching all of them.”

  He grinned again. “You’d be surprised.”

  “I hope you are not planning to stalk poor Brianna wherever she goes, every single day that we are in Camarria,” Marguerite said. “She is quite independent, you know. I don’t think she would appreciate being closely watched all the time.”

  This was even worse! Now Marguerite was prepared to talk about me, perhaps even give Nico romantic advice! I was so incensed I wanted to ball my hands up and howl. But I had to just stroll along behind Marguerite as if I didn’t have a thought or a reaction of my own.

  “I think perhaps no one realizes how closely everyone is watched—all the time,” Nico said, his voice unexpectedly serious. I felt a chill shiver along my shoulder blades. He couldn’t possibly realize we had been engaged in a perilous adventure that we could only pray had been witnessed by no one. “The king employs a band of inquisitors. Someone is always paying attention.”

  “I will strive to keep that in mind.”

  “Will you bring your maid with you the next time you decide to explore the city?”

  “I cannot promise you that I will,” Marguerite said.

  He waited a moment, as if expecting her to elaborate on that. When she didn’t, he finally said, “Why not?”

  Because she has to shadow me all the time in another guise. Because I have to play a most hazardous game—and so far even
you, clever inquisitor that you are, have not realized exactly what charade I must maintain. Of course she could not say either of those things. “I might have other tasks I need her to perform. I might have other days when I am craving solitude.” She glanced at him. “I might have deeds to carry out for which I do not want a witness.”

  He snorted. “So you fear your ‘fiercely loyal’ maid might turn spy for your father or the crown?”

  “Why, no,” she said sweetly. “But perhaps I fear an overeager inquisitor might use blandishments—or torture—to induce her to tell tales on me.”

  He gave her a slow, sober look as he guided her across the street at a busy corner. I couldn’t remember this particular intersection from our walk this morning. Nico must be taking us back by a different route. “You shouldn’t say such things,” he told her, “if you don’t want me to start wondering just what sorts of activities you plan to embark on.”

  “Maybe I said it just to make you start wondering,” she answered through a demure smile. “Maybe I thought it would be amusing to get you worked up over nothing.”

  “That’s a risky form of entertainment,” he said.

  “There’s something about Camarria,” she murmured. “It makes me reckless.”

  Goddess save my sinful soul, I thought. I had been wrong when I’d thought this conversation couldn’t get more appalling.

  “Well,” said Nico, “you’re not the only country girl to say so.”

  Marguerite laughed—and a second later she gasped. The echoes and I all did the same. We had rounded the unfamiliar corner and come upon a scene of candy-colored delight. We were in a wide, open plaza filled with nothing but flower stalls, bursts of color so varied and so intense that the eye could hardly take them all in. The air was as sweet and heavy as honey. All around us was the muted roar of commerce as vendors called to customers, buyers bargained over prices, and dropped coins rolled and clattered in the street. Over the whole scene arched one of Camarria’s famous bridges, a spun-sugar white stone with lacework balustrades. Over it a few couples meandered hand in hand, while groups of women paused to show each other their floral purchases.