The Spirit Lens by Carol Berg Page B

crucible and such came from his stock, so I decided to make good use of them while I waited for you to arrive. Never thought to hear you’d got yourself thrown in jail. You were to be the hidden partner.”
    “Exactly so,” I said. “So Orviene told you of the mule?”
    “No. The woman Gaetana’s chambers are right across the passage from Orviene’s. While I was with Orviene, one of her adepts brought her a message that ‘the verger would not release the dead mule.’ ”
    “Are you sure you heard the report accurately from such a distance?” Across a passage?
    “I’ve a spell . . . my staff . . . it’s not important.”
    “Not important ?” Sorcery could trick the senses; it could not alter their quality, any more than it could enable a man to eat poison without consequence.
    “Gaetana was furious. Agitated. She felt”—he closed his eyes and waved his hands about his head as if grasping for the right word—“betrayed. This . . . this mule’s death . . . this risk of their exposure . . . isn’t supposed to be happening, which means we must take advantage before they seal whatever wall of secrets has been breached.”
    “Without thinking hard, I can devise fifty possibilities that would bring an agitating message to Gaetana. The last thing we need is to fly off on imaginings.”
    “I must see that corpse,” he said. “You are the planner, the leader, so make it happen before they burn the creature.”
    Impossible that he could have surmised so much from a message muffled by two walls and a passageway. Yet his belief was as undeniable as a hurricane.
    “All right. I’ll do what I can. Find the deadhouse. Get you in there today.” And then find a way to renege on my agreement with Damoselle Maura without jeopardizing my chances for Ilario’s position. “Surely you could have come up with a simpler scheme to see the body than to engage me as your assistant. Something to do with Orviene’s questions, the deadraising . . .”
    “But they’ve no idea I know about the mule. Don’t you see? If they suspect I can hear beyond walls, they’ll never trust me near them.”
    Unreasonably reasonable. “All right. But I cannot work with you beyond this. I must have the freedom of opportunity Lord Ilario’s employ can give me.”
    “Do what you must, but get me in to see this new corpse. What use is a plan if it hides the very truth we need to examine?”
    That was inarguable.
    I hadn’t even poked my arms into my discarded doublet when the mage dragged a crate of jumbled metal strips, spools, and packets into the center of his circumoccule. “Hold on. We’ve work to do while you consider your course. Lay the strips of tin to either side of the lead. The bronze links should lie at the sixteen compass points. You are capable of determining true compass headings, are you not?”
    My bewildered fumbling for my compass must have impressed him as a no , for he snatched up his staff, rubbed his thumb on some particular bit of carving, and used the soot stick to place sixteen marks on the scarred mahogany rim of his circle.
    “Braid the linen, cotton, and silk thread together and lay it around the outer edge. Then fill in all the gaps and holes with wood shavings; there’s a rasp in the box, and I don’t care which wood you use. Spread a thin layer of sand over all. When you’ve done, I’ll seal the ring with fire.”
    Exasperated, I shook my head. “Master, I’m not going to—”
    “I might as well have use of you while you’re in my service. Meanwhile I’ll write the list of materials I need from that housekeeper or whatever she is. She pities you, so you should be able to get whatever I want. I doubt she’ll be so generous when I’m on my own again.” He vanished into the other room.
    Mumbling unseemly responses at his vanished back, I snatched up the spall pouch I had laid aside with my doublet. I had no intention of continuing his humiliating little game of master and servant now Maura had