CHAPTER XI

Sergeant Calipari had his feet up on his desk, and a page torn out of an accounting book in his hands. He didn’t look up when Jona drifted in from the street. “Corporal Jona Lord Joni,” said Calipari, “You’re late.”

Jona grunted and snatched the page from Calipari. “What’s this?”

“Nothing, if the fellow I took it from is honest. A few missing digits, though.” Calipari leaned back in his chair. He shook his head at his Corporal. “You need to get more sleep. You look like you were out all night.”

“Got drunk,” said Jona. “Threw rocks at ships. What’d you do?”

“Franka’s boy came in town working for a fellow with some new horses. I took him to the dog fights. Kid lost big. I lost less,” Calipari said with a smile.

“What’s going down today?” Jona gestured at the empty desks. “I don’t see the scriveners.”

“They weren’t late. Got them on the rounds like anybody. Get the privates some experience for when they rank up to corporal. Sunshine’s good for their health.”

Jona scoffed. “That’s a bad idea, Sergeant. You think they all come back in one piece?”

“Maybe. Lieutenant wants us to head to Lord Sabachthani’s place. Trouble with some noble. You’re a noble, he says, so send you. Small stuff. Ain’t worth his time.”

“You’d think he’d be falling head over heels to help her.”

“You’d think,” said Calipari. “I heard she requested you personally. You making friends, Lord Joni?”

Jona sat down. He didn’t like anything about being requested by Sabachthani. “I had tea with her once or twice.”

“Big favor,” said Calipari. “She collects.”

“I may be a lord, but I’m just a corporal. Can we at least get the Lieutenant?”

“Huh, right, let me just ask him real nice…” said Calipari. “Nobody wants to get closer to Sabachthani than they have to. I’m coming with you. Nobody’s ordered me on it, but you can’t handle this by yourself.”

Jona believed this was a set-up, but he couldn’t prove anything. The carpenter would think nothing of throwing Jona to the wolves. Sabachthani was more dangerous than wolves. Perhaps it was an accident of his time with Lady Sabachthani, but that was even worse. He didn’t want her attention. Either way, Calipari’s presence should have been a relief, but under the circumstances it worried Jona more than any conspiracy against him by man or bad luck.

***

The doorman bowed and spoke into a tube that sank into the ground at his feet. He pressed his ear against the tube until vague sounds emerged from the tube that sounded almost human. The doorman bowed, and waved the two city guards up the main door.

Jona tossed the fellow a coin. The doorman winked, and slipped the coins into a hidden pocket. Bribing the doorman was how Jona snuck into the parties during the dry season.

Calipari hadn’t even seen it happen. He was busy trying to sneak a peak at the monsters hidden in the willow grove. They were barely visible behind the trees. A trail of mud was trampled down in the grass where the heavy things walked back and forth

to the gate.

In the yard, there was a conspicuous absence of birdsong.

Calipari looked up at the house. “Do you think it was a servant?”

“Maybe,” said Jona, “We’ll see. Do you know what got stolen?”

Calipari shrugged. “Nope,” he said. “Bet it was a servant.” He gestured with his thumb at the willow grove. “Bet it was those things.”

“You want to handle that hanging?”

Calipari chuckled.

Jona stretched his neck straight. He twisted his natural scowl into a big, fake smile. “You ready to introduce yourself?”

Calipari smiled, too. He and Jona pulled little cards from pockets, printed with name, rank, and station house. Jona’s was grimy, and bent in the corner. Calipari’s was clean and white. Jona reached up to the main door and grabbed the knocker. The knocker was carved like whale’s open jaw and Jona pounded its heavy tongue.

The doors swung inward. A butler bowed. “Guardsmen?” he said. “From the king?”

“Sergeant Nicola Calipari, by your request.” The sergeant held out his card in one hand, offering the other for a shake. The butler took the card, and ignored the hand.

“Lord Joni,” said Jona, his own card out and hand extended. The butler shunned even his card.

The butler turned to Sergeant Calipari.“My Lord Sabachthani is indisposed. Perhaps the Captain could come calling tomorrow.”

Jona snatched the butler’s hand and forced a quick shake. He shoved his card into the man’s lapel. “I was requested by Lord Sabachthani himself, and I’m here.” said Jona. He’d explain this to Calipari later. You can’t let the help push you around—they’re only the help. If you’re worth anything it’s your right to push.

The butler turned to Jona. “I was addressing the commander.”

Calipari barely hid his laugh behind a frown. “I’m no commander,” he said, “I’m just a sergeant. The estate asked for some king’s men, and we came. Can we help you, or not?”

The butler gestured into the entryway. Jona and Calipari stepped inside.

The butler left the two in the drawing room and disappeared. Calipari made to sit down on a giant leather divan, but Jona stopped him, pointing to the window. From here, the insect leg of one of a guardians could be seen jutting out from the willow grove.

The seneschal entered from a door behind a bookshelf. To Jona, he looked no different from the butler: an older man, with the sniveling air of the courts about him, and no title or wealth to justify his behavior. When the talking started, Jona ignored it. Seneschals were nothing worth talking to. Calipari didn’t know that, nor did he realize he was being patronized by the proud seneschal.

Jona looked out the window at the yard, waiting for anything.

A pack of dogs ran across the grass like a yellow cloak blowing away in the winds.

Jona shivered. Not one of them had made a sound.

The seneschal could be stalling, hoping to get rid of them. Lady Ela, Sabachthani’s daughter, might come down at any moment. The house staff had their own political maneuverings.

Jona and Lady Ela had last danced together when Jona sneaked into her last ball. Ela had heavy feet, and she tended to get lost in her own dress. She didn’t like to talk when she was dancing. She let Jona call her just Ela when no one was looking. If they ever found themselves alone in a crowded room, she liked to ask him about the people outside the walls of the Sabachthani estate, where the rest of Dogsland lived.

He told her about the criminals he met, and the criminals he let walk away. He told her about the love affairs of men and women who do not have palaces.

If Jona were richer, he might have gone so far as to call her a friend. As things stood, they only spoke when Jona had crashed a party to which he wasn’t invited. Sometimes, she invited him to tea at someone else’s house to show off how merciful she was to the less fortunate noblemen. This was the first time he had ever been in her home with her permission.

The seneschal and Calipari were still talking and none of it mattered. The seneschal was trying to stall them until the masters of the house were truly unavailable. It was his job to get rid of people, even if they were requested. Lots of people were requested. If anyone else was visiting and they were more important, it didn’t matter what was stolen or what was wanted from the king’s man. Calipari didn’t even realize it. Jona could linger, and let this problem fester, face it another day. He could let the seneschal push them both into the street in an hour. Or, he could face this problem directly. The carpenter had liked Jona better when he had a hard touch.

Jona coughed loudly, and snapped his finger at the seneschal. “Stop wasting our time. In criminal investigations, every minute counts. How exactly can the king’s men help Lord Sabachthani?”

The seneschal held his breath. He paled. “No need to be rude, Lord Joni,” he said. “My Lord Sabachthani requests your assistance with the theft of a dog.”

“His what?” said Calipari.

The seneschal told them about the dog that was found in an Anchorite convent.

Jona scoffed. “So the dog ran away,” he said, “and some nuns took it off the street. So what?”

The seneschal nodded. “Yes, perhaps. However, the dog’s basket turned up in the convent as well,” he said, “and this basket wound up in the Mother Superior’s room.”

Jona looked out the window. “Imam’s flock was never much for your fellow after that valley in the war,” he said.

“How do they know it’s Lord Sabachthani’s basket?” said Calipari, “Can it be proven that the basket found in the convent is the one that went missing?”

“Of course,” said the seneschal. “I’m afraid I know nothing else.”

Jona stood up from the divan. He walked slowly over to the window. He turned, and stared down at the seneschal. He was tired of all the posturing. “So your master asks the assistance of the King, but cannot even bothered to send anybody down that knows anything?”

“Corporal Lord Joni, my Lord Sabachthani is indisposed.”

“What about the Lady of the house? Any noble asking king’s men to do their dirty work for them ought to do it face-to-face. Ain’t that the law as it is written?”

“No need to be rude…”

Jona dragged the old man to his feet by his lapels. Then Jona smashed his knee into the old man’s groin and threw him onto the floor.

Jona turned to Sergeant Calipari. “Just the help,” he said. “He’s useless to us.”

The seneschal gasped for air, his face twisted and red.

Calipari stood up from the divan. “Lord Joni, I hope you know what you’re doing. I don’t think that was called for.”

“Well, I think it was, and I’m the one they asked for. They demand I show my face, then refuse to look me in the eye? That’s rude. I’m still a nobleman, and they know it. If Lord Sabachthani doesn’t like us questioning his staff to our satisfaction, then he had better speak to us directly,” he said. “My throat is parched. Let’s go find the kitchen and see if we can’t get some tea. If our host was treating us with respect worthy of the king’s finest men, we’d have been offered tea ages ago.”

“Jona, I hope you know what you’re doing…”

“Don’t mind about the help. They’re pushing us around because they think they can. No way to let them treat you.

I can’t remember where the kitchen is, but it’s around here somewhere.”

The seneschal had crawled on his hands and knees to the door, in too much pain to stand. He got his hand on the door knob, but struggled to open it.

The two soldiers walked off in no particular direction, away from the injured servant. Calipari stopped the first maid they saw and asked her for the way to the kitchen. Apparently, it was on the other side of the house. They moved in that direction.

Calipari whistled. “Your place anything like this?”

“No,” said Jona. “We sold all this furniture and stuff.”

In the kitchen at last, the two men drank very expensive tea sweetened with golden sugar a soft, warm brown like expensive molasses. It was the first time Calipari had ever had sugar like that. He reached his hand into the huge bag of sugar and cupped out a handful, then licked it from his palm, amazed.

Jona watched, curiously. It was the kind of thing a child would do. He didn’t get any sugar around his house, but he knew enough not to do that.

“This all going according to plan, Lord Joni?” Calipari raised an eyebrow.

“I think we’re about to have the friendliest meeting with Lady Ela Sabachthani we’ll ever have in our lives, and then we will never be invited here again. If she’s really nice to us, it means she’s going to garnish our wages for that sugar.”

“It’s worth it,” said Calipari. He ran his tongue up his palm.

***

In just a few moments, Lady Ela Sabachthani arrived in the kitchen, smiling as widely as her lips could bend. She was as beautiful as her money, in a fine dress and a face painted like her own portrait made in skin.

“Gentlemen!” she said. “My Lord Joni, it’s been too long since I’ve seen you last. I simply must throw another party. How is your mother?” She kissed Jona on each of his cheeks, leaving a trail of white powder acrosss Jona’s face from the powder on her cheeks.

Jona bowed deeply. “My mother probably sewed your dress, my Lady,” he said. “You look absolutely marvelous this morning. It’s a welcome change from all the vagrants and foreigners I deal with all day.” He kissed her palm. At this, her smile fell into something real.

Sergeant Calipari bowed just as deeply, but she ignored him.

Jona didn’t let go of her hand. “I’m so glad you took the time to meet with us in person,” he said. “Your staff didn’t seem to have a clue what actually happened in your house.”

Lady Ela poured herself a cup of tea, took her hand away to stir some sugar into it. “This is not an internal matter,” she said. “Someone from outside the estate—from your beloved city, Lord Joni—entered our home, and stole one of my precious dogs. This individual then took my dog to an Anchorite convent. The dog was discovered by the Mother Superior of the convent, in her room. The animal has already been returned to us. Our internal investigation revealed that an outsider was to blame.”

Jona nodded. “Still,” he said, “you must understand our skepticism. Why risk so much over a dog?”

Her laughter was like crystal bells ringing. “That is your concern, not mine,” she said. “My father and I thought nothing of it, except that we believed the king might like to know our thief was stained with the stink of demons. It would seem perhaps a demon’s child is loose in our fair city.”

“Demon?” said Calipari. Now it was his turn to laugh. “Elishta’s been sealed a thousand years. The Nameless were driven underground. Now they’re stealing dogs and running around a convent?”

Ela didn’t look at the sergeant when he spoke. “You are the investigator, my Lord Joni,” she said. “And you… whoever you are.” She took Lord Jona’s hand and pulled him closer. “As for me, many who fear demons fear my father as well. I don’t want to know anything else about this whole mess.”

Jona bent his head. “Of course, my Lady.”

“Lord Joni, I appreciate your attention in this matter,” she said. “I love to know a man will come when I call him.”

Jona smiled, as gracefully as he could. He didn’t like the implied comparison, but she was right. He was her dog, as was anyone. Her father was a powerful man, and she, a powerful woman. He kissed her hand again.

She shook Calipari’s hand, and paused. “Sergeant, you appear confused.”

Calipari nodded. “I am, Lady,” he said. “Dogs usually don’t go quietly.”

She nodded. “We cut out their tongues, first. They can still vocalize a little, but it’s hardly all we do.”

She disappeared into the depths of her house, leaving the two men alone in the kitchen.

Calipari drained his cup. “Well,” he said, “good tea.”

“Our welcome is wearing very thin,” said Jona.

Jona felt sick. How had the Sabachthanis been able to determine that the thief was demon-stained? He wanted to climb out the window and run. But he wasn’t one to live his life among the harts and boars of estates, rooting through the roots or trash heaps for food, always vigilant. He was not a dog, running for his life. Not yet. He snatched Calipari’s tea cup and threw it hard into the rubbish bin, along with his. They both shattered.

Calipari grimaced. “She do something to you?”

“Yes,” said Jona. “Let’s go.”

Hunters were coming. They were always coming for men like Jona and Salvatore. Hunters like my husband and I.

***

Sergeant Calipari wanted to check the convent’s borders before going in. Nothing looked obviously suspicious. “Tell me this, Corporal,” he said, “how does a demon child enter an Imam Temple that accepts no visitors? Do they walk through walls?”

“Temple has doors, even if they’re locked. Windows, even if they’re high off the ground.”

“Still, follow me a bit,” said Calipari. “If you were going to bust into this, how would you?”

“Keys,” said Jona. “I know what you’re saying. Inside job.”

“Either that or a stupid job,” Calipari replied. “Demon was bright enough to get into Sabachthani’s estate and this convent. There anybody you know works inside both places? Musician? Delivery-man?”

“Not this far apart. Not a demon child, neither,” said Jona. “Someone with the stain would stay clear of any place they still want to hunt them down. This is all mixed up. We could be a message from Sabachthani about something, but what I don’t know,” he went on. “I wouldn’t put it past Sabachthani. Our time’s nothing to her. Imam flock won’t even let Lord Sabachthani into a poor man’s temple after what he did to the red valley, nevermind what else he does. We get in there and send a message for her. King’s not going to live forever. People got to get ready for it.”

“Lord Joni, you may take sides in all that stuff. I don’t. I’m a king’s man in the Pens and nothing else. If it turns out we’re messengers for Lady Sabachthani, we’d best be good ones, and pay all respects to Imam while we’re there. I like my neck where it is.”

***

Jona yawned. “You almost done?”

Calipari stayed down, his nose on the floor, kissing the fourth of the white marble Stars of Imam. He stood up slowly, and finished with a bow to the altar before returning to sit down next to Jona.

“Feel better?”

“If I’m about to push some anchorites around, I’d like to pray about it first.”

“You think Imam has it out for you?”

“I don’t think Imam would mind grinding me down for less. Same thing I think about Lord Sabachthani. I should have hung back on this one. There’s a reason none of the officers want in.”

“If Ela sent for me, she wasn’t asking for someone to bow and scrape. She doesn’t know you from anybody. She knows me. She asked for me.”

Calipari rubbed his knees. “You’re going to make me bow and scrape a lot more, I know it…”

The first floor was a commoner’s temple to Imam. Above it, anchorites that lived for their death in whole floors full of girls, all the rooms as quiet as tombs. The fourth, Jona knew, had cells for the girls, with windows open to Imam’s stars, though it was hard to see any stars through the city’s lamplight and sea clouds.

Jona looked up at the ceiling and tried to make out any sort of noise. There was nothing.

As they waited, a nun came out from a door behind the altar. She stopped to kiss the heavy stones and the bells before she came to the rails that separated Imam’s chosen from the people of the city. She frowned at the two king’s men. She waved her hand for them to approach, and to be quick about it. Her impatience was like a stone anchoring her flowing, black robes. The two king’s men sat before her.

“There is no need for you here,” she said. “The wicked lord has his abomination back.”

Calipari rubbed his hands along his pants legs. “The thing is… All due respect, Sister…”

“We will take care of what happens here. Our girls belong to the stars. They are not to be bothered by earthly things.”

“Sister, with all due respect… More trouble than us in the world, and we are the ones trying to do something about it.”

The nun folded her arms.

“The thing is, the Sabachthani say that there’s demon stain on it. Whoever took the basket was of the Nameless. Demon children coming into your convent is serious business. Merits a bit of an investigation if it’s true.”

“He would know after what he did to that valley.”

“He would know,” said Jona. “So, we want to know if anybody saw anything, maybe talk to them.”

“I have already learned everything. This matter was taken seriously.” She paused. “One of the older girls mentioned seeing something in her daily confession,” she said, grudgingly. “She had assumed it was a nightmare, but it must have been your demon.”

“What did she see?” Jona asked.

“A black form crawling over her, as if in a dream. The black form had a basket on its back. She described the basket in great detail. She had never seen its like before, nor could she have seen it. It is promising sign for an anchorite, to show signs of prophecy so young.”

Calipari pursed his lips. “This… black form had the basket, and she can describe it in great detail? Does she know anything about the person carrying it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“May we speak with her?” said Jona.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Would you mind if we spoke with her in your presence?” said Calipari. The nun merely pursed her lips in response. Calipari tried again. “Or we could ask you the questions, and you could take them to her. We could hear her response from behind a curtain or something, or you could come back and tell us if she needed to be in another room?”

The nun turned away without explanation. She went back behind the altar, to the stairwell there.

Jona and Nicola looked at each other. Nicola cocked his head. “Was that a yes?”

Jona stood up to leave, stretching his arms over his head. “You really want to question the girl like that?”

“Of course not,” said Calipari, “How can we separate them if they show up? The girl’ll be back behind the rails.”

“You honestly think they’re coming back?” said Jona.

Calipari sighed. “No. Whatever we were supposed to do, I hope we did it.”

“Probably right,” said Jona. “Lady Ela Sabachthani won’t like it, but there’s only so much we can do, when we can’t go question anyone. I’m going to get something to eat. All this walking around the city makes me hungry.”

“Don’t think I’ll be eating anything for a while,” said Calipari. “Whole thing makes me sick.”

Jona knew exactly what he needed to do to get to Aggie before someone else got to her. Jona did not hesitate. He jumped the rails, and strode quickly past the altar to the stairwell that led up to the silent halls of the novitiates, perhaps the only man to walk that ground since the day the convent was built.

Sergeant Calipari’s head dropped into his hands. He tried not to laugh. Lady Ela Sabachthani had requested Jona, and she knew him well enough to know what that meant. Perhaps that would be enough to protect the king’s men from the complaints to come.

***

Jona climbed the stairs up to the second floor, then wound his way through the choir stands to reach the next stairwell up. Curiosity being what it was, he peered out the door to the third floor. It was all hallways, with closed doors. He wondered what the rooms might be. The Matron Mother might be breaking Aggie with a whip or even testing her body for signs of the demon stain, in her blood or in her sickness. On the fourth floor, where he knew Aggie’s cell sat, he saw the old nun in the hall, the girl standing abashed beside her. He swaggered up to them.

“What’s taking so long?” he said, eyeing Aggie. She glanced up at him quickly, then returned her gaze to the floor. She knew what a king’s man looked like.

The old nun reeled with shock and shouted and struck at Jona with every mean bone inside her body—he was a horror and a shame and the king would know of this blasphemy and Imam would frown upon it. She pushed at Jona. She was used to pushing girls, not king’s men. Jona’s body was hard as a stone wall. He walked forward unhindered.

He smiled at Aggie. “You want to get out of here?”

She said nothing, only stared down at her feet, pale, while the old nun kept shouting, pushing against Jona. Other girls emerged from the doorways to the cells, horrified to see a man standing in their holy hall. Jona gently pressed the old woman against the wall. The old nun was crying, now. He turned his head to Aggie. “You the one saw the basket?”

She nodded and took a step back. She was about to run.

Jona placed his free hand on her wrist like a vise. “I’m a king’s man, and I don’t answer to anyone but him, not Imam, not anybody. I tell you to do something, you do it. I want to go somewhere, I go. Now, you’re coming with me,” he said. “You’re coming or I’ll ring the bells down on this building, and all my boys will come through swinging bats after you, busting up the place and anyone who tries to stop them. You’re coming.” The hall around them was a riot of screams and tears and recriminations.

The old nun tried to grab at Aggie, but Jona had one hand on her, still, to push the old nun back. That’s exactly what he did. He shoved her, and she fell back into the hall.

When Jona got back to the bottom floor, Sergeant Calipari was praying again. He clearly didn’t want anything to do with whatever Jona was doing. When he saw Jona pushing through with a girl in front of him, he jumped up, looking around nervously. Novitiates crowded silently against the balcony like scared birds.

“What are you doing!?”

Jona said it before he could think about it. “She’s under arrest. You hear that, girl? You’re under arrest. Let’s get you out of here.”

Jona felt sick to his stomach. Jona had to protect Salvatore instead of the girl. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, yet. He was acting, not thinking. He was all steam and gritted teeth. He didn’t know what to do but keep doing something until Salvatore was safe. If he didn’t keep Salvatore safe, the Night King wouldn’t keep Jona safe.