Chapter 005| The Father's Clasp

The 25th of the Cold Moon, a quarter before the Hour of the Hare, the Tomb Undervault.

Ion sat beneath the second whale-oil lamp and opened his tool-bag.

In the hidden compartment of the tool-bag—the layer beneath the coroner's knife in its sheath—there was a sheet of silver paper, and folded within the silver paper, a black tooth-shaped shard half a knuckle in size.

Two days ago Ion had pried the shard from the inside of the old king's breastbone with the silver probe, wrapped it well in silver paper, and carried it back to the Undervault.

Two days ago in the Throne Hall, the moment the Church's and the Guard's people left, no one had looked back at his tool-bag. Ancient law set down what the coroner must hand over, what he must examine, what he must write—it did not set down what he might carry away. No one asked, so he took it.

In seventeen years, this was the first time Ion had carried something away from a corpse.

He took out the shard, set it on the table, and lit it by a bronze mirror reflecting the lamp.

The shard's surface—Ion had not noticed it in the hall two days ago—

—had fine writing on it.

That fine writing grew out from inside the metal—it was not on the surface.

The 空 on the old king's tongue—those strokes he remembered. These characters he did not.

Ion took up the greypen—this time he used a special one, left him by his grandfather, that Ion called the twin-bone greypen—its barrel was whittled from a single whale-bone, and over it lay a thinner skin of silver. Ion had found it eleven years ago in the depths of the Undervault, in the same archive box as the third volume of the Tomb Rites.

The writing made by this pen, two hours after leaving the dry air of the Undervault, would of itself fade a layer, blurring to a faint smear. Set back in the Undervault, the strokes slowly rose again.

This was the lore of House Greypen.

In seventeen years, Ion had written with the twin-bone greypen twenty-three times. What he wrote each time, no one outside the Undervault had ever read.

Today he would write the twenty-fourth time.

He spread out a sheet of copy-paper and, with the twin-bone greypen, copied down those fine characters on the shard's surface, one by one.

When he had finished—he counted—there were three characters in all.

The first two he did not know.

Copying the third, his pen stopped. This one he had seen.

He had seen this character. Not on page 47 of the Tomb Rites—somewhere else.

He thought a moment, and could not place it.

He set down the pen, returned the shard to the silver paper, and tucked it back into the hidden compartment.

From the depths of the Undervault, he walked to the seventh cabinet.

The seventh cabinet was his father's. His father had died twelve years ago; the belongings of the Undervault's chief hierophant were taken in by the Undervault, and this one cabinet was left behind. In it were his father's records, which in eleven years Ion had read at least forty times—every page of them.

But what his father left was not only records.

At the very bottom of the seventh cabinet was a small, unlabeled sandalwood box. In the box were two things. A single-leaf manuscript, copied out by Ion nine years ago. And beneath it, pressed flat, a very small bronze clasp.

The clasp had been left by his father.

The day before his father died, he had put this clasp into this sandalwood box, tucked it at the very bottom. His father did not explain. His father's last words that day, spoken to Ion, were: "This post will eat up your whole life. If you can, do not take it."

The next day Ion took up the post of coroner.

From that day the clasp had lain at the bottom of this sandalwood box, and in eleven years Ion had not touched it.

Today he touched it.

A small clasp of dark bronze, giving off no light. Ion took it to the edge of the table and lit it by the bronze mirror reflecting the lamp.

The face was smooth; dragging a fingertip across it, he felt only a little cold.

Ion turned the clasp over and looked at the back—

—on the back was one very fine engraved character.

So small that, without the bronze mirror's reflection, the naked eye could not see it.

With the silver probe Ion gently scraped along the edge of the character—only to see it clearly—not to damage it.

The shape of the character came out.

It was the third word.

The same as the third word Ion had just copied from the surface of the breastbone shard—the same character.

Ion sat back down at the table.

He did not know how this character was read, nor what it meant. He saw clearly only one thing: his father had known it. The man who, the day before he died, had pressed the clasp bearing this character to the bottom of the box, had known this character twelve years ago—had known it would one day surface in the breastbone of an old king, waiting for Ion to pry it loose.

Ion's hand—holding the twin-bone greypen—stopped on the table.

A long while passed. Then he set the twin-bone greypen down.

---

At the Hour of the Dragon, there were footsteps outside the Undervault door.

Not Lucie's step. Lucie had brought the oil before the Hour of the Hare and gone. Nor Selene's—at this hour she was receiving dispatches in the Seventh Princess's Court.

The steps were hard, armored, falling in time. A soldier.

"Lord Greypen."

Ion went to the door and opened it.

Outside stood a private of the King's Guard, about twenty, his cloak the Guard's true red, a small "Gavarid" crest embroidered on his left shoulder—of the Guard's command headquarters direct.

"Lord Greypen, an order from the King's Guard command."

"Speak."

"Before the Hour of the Hare tomorrow, the Throne Coroner's findings of examination are to be delivered to the King's Guard command. The original, and one copy."

Ion nodded. "Understood."

"One more thing." The private drew a dispatch from inside his cloak. "Today, at the Hour of the Dragon, an Extraordinary Synod in the High Sanctum. The Pope presides. The Throne Coroner is to attend, and take his place in the line at the third position on the east side of the Holy Seat."

Ion was taken aback.

By ancient law, the Throne Coroner does not attend the Extraordinary Synod. In seventeen years, Ion had never gone once. In the Undervault's records, the previous coroner had gone once—that time was written down as a "special summons," the Synod wanting him to examine a corpse on the spot—and not long after, he was "dismissed by the Throne itself."

Today's dispatch did not summon him to examine anyone. What it said was: take his place in the line. Tomorrow at court he was to step into that row of the heads of the seven great houses, to stand there and let the seven princes and princesses look him over.

Something in Ion's chest bent.

"Why?" he asked.

The private did not answer at once.

"Lord Greypen, it is a Church dispatch," the private said. "The Guard only conveys. It does not explain."

Ion took the dispatch and asked no more.

"My thanks."

The private bowed and withdrew.

Ion shut the door.

He went back to the table and sat down.

The Undervault's whale-oil lamp had burned all night; the oil was nearly gone. Lucie would come again at the close of the Hour of the Snake to change it.

Ion spread out the Guard's dispatch and read it through.

The dispatch was cleanly written, no character miscopied, the whole of it only those few words—take his place in the line, the third position on the east side of the Holy Seat—not one line of explanation more.

The third position.

Ion closed his eyes a moment.

The first position on the east side of the Holy Seat was the Pope. By ancient law, the second was Gavarid, captain of the King's Guard. Only at the third did it fall to the three great houses of the Tomb Hierophants. House Greypen had not touched that place in eighty years. House Silverhall, in four hundred years, had stood in it but once. As for the third house, the unnamed one—it needed no mention at all.

The Church had set him in the third position, and it was no idle filling of a gap—it was staged for the whole hall to see, the seven princes and princesses among them, that they might see it clearly: this greypen of House Greypen now stood where the Pope could see it.

Ion sat a long time.

After a while he took up the twin-bone greypen and, on the copy-paper, wrote a line:

"The third word—the same character as my father's bronze clasp."

When he had finished, he folded the copy-paper and tucked it into the hidden compartment of the tool-bag—beside the shard.

What this character stood for, he still did not understand as he wrote it down. He understood only one thing: twelve years ago, with this character, his father had left him—the man he was today—a word he never spoke aloud.

---

At the Hour of the Snake, Ion walked out of the Undervault, out into the Tomb Gallery.

The gallery was very long. In seventeen years he had walked it at least eight hundred times.

This morning he walked it more slowly than usual.

Halfway along he stopped and looked at the bronze statues on the gallery wall—that row of statues was the heads of the three great houses of the Tomb Hierophants down the generations, one to each generation, thirty-six in all.

Counting down the row of House Greypen, twelve. House Silverhall, twelve as well. When it came to the third house, the bronze bases stood but the seats bore no one. One seat empty might mean some generation's statue had broken and gone unreplaced. Twelve seats empty in a row was no broken statue gone unreplaced.

These twelve empty places—Ion had walked past them for seventeen years, and only today stopped to look.

He went over and reached out to touch one of the empty places. The bronze base was flat, worn smooth, without even the square seal a statue's pedestal would press into it—as if nothing had ever stood there. His fingertip slid toward the edge and caught on a very faint depression. He leaned close and felt over it again.

It was a character. Cut small, cut shallow, all but invisible to the naked eye.

The same as the back of the bronze clasp, the same as the breastbone shard—the third word, not a stroke different.

Ion drew his hand back.

Who the third house was, he did not know. He knew only that this character clung to them: clung to the vanished heads of the house, clung to his father's bronze clasp, clung to the old king's breastbone. Of the three great houses, Greypen and Silverhall still stood; the third had dropped out of the records. To drop out is not to die out. A name can be scraped from the rolls, a surname can be changed, a man can take a new name and live somewhere else.

Ion walked out of the Tomb Gallery, out to the front of the Undervault.

Outside the Undervault door, a thin layer of snow had just fallen before noon.

Before he came out, he had closed the clasp in his fist. The whole way out of the gallery, the clasp lay against his flesh and slowly took on a little warmth. When he opened his hand now, the clasp had been warmed through by his body—no longer the cold thing from the bottom of the cabinet.

He pushed the door open and drew it shut behind him. The clasp had to go back to the bottom of the box in the seventh cabinet, the copy-paper into the hidden compartment, and the findings of examination due before the Hour of the Hare tomorrow had not yet seen their first character set down.

【Ch. 005 End · The Tomb Undervault → the Tomb Gallery · The 25th of the Cold Moon, the Hour of the Hare → the Hour of the Snake】