Page 57 of Crucible of Chaos

Which will make for a dangerous reunion when next we meet, he thought, reflexively pressing the sword wound in his side, all too aware that it would hamper survival of the duel that was, he was sure, inevitable.But first, I need one more piece of evidence, he reminded himself.

Unlike the more ostentatious Venerance and Vigilance, the stone walls of the Tower of Humility were rough and unadorned, stained by water leaking through the wooden roof. Judging by Brother Syme’s frequent affronted glares as he led them up the dangerously rotting wooden stairs to the top floor, the novice considered the abbot’s private tower to be grander than any palace.

‘It’s not right that you should force me to bring you here,’ Syme said for the fifth time since they’d left the chapter house. He’d been privileged–as he reminded them with equal frequency–to serve as Venia’s libatiger, the monastic equivalent of a cup-bearer or page. Since the abbot’s death, Syme had been sneaking into the courtyard every night to re-bury his body, hoping every time it would finally stay put. ‘I gave up my inheritance to my sisters, praying that through spiritual service to the abbey, the gods might grant me relief from my bodily afflictions,’ he muttered as they at last reached the top floor. ‘Instead, I am surrounded by desecrators whose only devotion is to their own profane desires.Andmy foot hurts worse than ever.’

Estevar would have shown more sympathy for his guide’s discomfort had the young man not made quite so much of a fuss during their search of the tower.

‘Look,’ the monk said irritably, shoving open the door to a tiny cluttered library barely big enough to be worthy of the name, ‘I’ve shown you his bedroom, his audience chamber, his private dining room, even his lavorium– this is all that’s left, I swear to every god living.’

‘I wouldn’t make a habit of that,’ Caeda said cheerfully as she squeezed by the two men to enter the cramped chamber.

Estevar caught the sneer Brother Syme gave her as she passed him, but like Strigan, his gaze lingered on her slender body, clearly visible through the thin fabric of her white shift, but then he appeared to forget her every time she was out of his sight. That was the only thing that saved him from the beating his leering would otherwise have earned him.

‘Are we investigating or gawking?’ Caeda asked, and Estevar returned his attention to the small windowless room. Books were strewn all over the small desk and stacked haphazardly on the floor; some of those piles had served as impromptu tables for unwashed crockery. The deeply unpleasant smell permeating the room was soon explained by the presence of two chamber-pots left in the corner, filled almost to overflowing. All of which provided ample evidence that someone had indeed locked themselves inside this room every night–and that the occupant had been someone other than the abbot.

Not wanting to embarrass the boy, Estevar skipped over a book of erotic poems and instead picked up a ragged, leather-bound volume of adventure tales. ‘In the midst of a crisis in which his fractured flock were turning against one another, you expect us to believe that Abbot Venia whiled away his evenings reading sword romances?’

‘Everyone’s entitled to a break now and then,’ Syme mumbled by way of confession. ‘Besides, you’re acting like there’s some mysterious secret lair I’m keeping from you, which is a lie. You have no proof, so you can stop giving me those looks!’

Estevar turned to Caeda. ‘Perhaps the boy is right, Piccolo. We have no evidence that such a location must exist, do we?’

She grinned up at him before taking her cue and wandering over to the shelves. ‘Might the absence of evidence be its own evidence, my Cantor?’

With quick pale fingers, she traced a line along the shelves of books. There were fewer than a hundred here, but that was still a goodly number from which to extrapolate what was missing.

Brother Syme, presuming that a clue he could not find himself must therefore be beyond some village girl, loomed over her as he drummed his fingers on one of the shelves. ‘Have you ever even read a book, you illiterate street whor—’

Syme froze when he felt Estevar’s hand around the back of his neck. ‘There are altogether too many ways for a monk to die in this abbey, my young friend. Might I suggest you avoid death by rampant stupidity?’

Prudence warred with indignation and lost the battle. ‘Howdareyou?’ the novice demanded, shoulders tensing. ‘I was Abbot Venia’s chosen libatiger from amongallthe other novices– yet you would threaten mehere, inhistower?’

Estevar knew Syme was about to raise his right arm in an attempt to drive an elbow into his throat. Were it not for Caeda having retrieved his coat, he’d be forced to either back away or deliver a crippling blow to the man’s kidneys,neither option conducive to advancing his investigation. Now, however, he had more and better tools at his disposal.

‘That rather musky aroma of brine your nostrils detect comes from the pinch of aeltheca powder I’m about to toss into your face,’ he whispered in the monk’s ear. ‘The paralysis will be temporary, the short-term memory loss. . . well, soon forgotten. But rather than leave you at the mercy of whoever should enter this tower once Piccolo and I depart, might I instead offer a question for you to ponder?’

‘Which is?’ Syme asked defiantly– but that defiance was itself a sign of impending surrender.

Estevar removed his hand from the back of the monk’s throat, wiped away the slimy bit of entirely unremarkable seaweed he’d pulled from his pocket and turned Brother Syme to face him. ‘You were a nobleman’s son who gave up title and inheritance to serve a man whom you believed to be humble and righteous. Unlike your brethren, you haven’t ingested the hallucinogens that have been driving them mad.’

‘So what?’

Estevar said nothing. The young man had unwittingly revealed he already knew the answer to his own question– and that his beloved abbot would surely have banished him for his callous behaviour.

There are many paths to madness that do not require drinking poisoned wine, Estevar thought, as troubled by that realisation as by any of the other ugly truths they’d uncovered in this abbey.Cruelty breeds cruelty, and chaos breeds—

‘Ah!’ Caeda said, so entranced by her investigation that she appeared to have missed the entire exchange. ‘Of course!’

‘Go on, Piccolo,’ Estevar said, grabbing the collar of Syme’s robe and yanking him out of the way.

She started pulling books from the shelves, one book after another, only to slide each one back in just as quickly. ‘Mathematics, astronomy, history, literature. . . just about every subject one could imagine.’

‘See?’ Syme demanded. ‘I told you the abbot never left the tow—’

Caeda spun on him, pointing an accusatory finger, just like the detective in the final act ofBetween Two Midnight Murders. ‘Ah, but there it is, don’t you see? The missing clue is not the evidence, but theabsenceof evidence.’ She swept her hand back along the row of books. ‘Show me any another abbot’s library that holds not a single volume of. . . theology!’

A trifle melodramatic, Estevar thought, but he was hardly one to talk. ‘Venia’s monks were defiling his abbey, embroiled in acts of violence, debauchery and the very desecrations that so offend you, Brother Syme. One might assume a spiritual leader would seek wisdom in religious texts and occult treatises– which Venia was known to collect and yet are absent from his private library.’ Syme was slouching away from him towards the door, but Estevar blocked his escape. ‘Unless, of course, he feared the looting of his most prized possessions and instructed his trusted clerk to help him secrete them away somewhere safe– somewhere the monks running rampant across the abbey would not search for them.That, my young friend, is where you are going to lead us.’

CHAPTER 33

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