Death & Magic (The Barefoot Healer, volume I)

Death & Magic chapter 18

Chapter 18

“Are you sure this is a safe place to meet?” The voice was Eskalyn’s. And what was he doing here?

“I think it’s called ‘hiding in plain sight,’” said Lorgrim. “Everybody knows I like to visit the garden after dinner. What could be more unremarkable than the First of the Council wandering by and deciding to discuss a few academic matters with me?”

Eskalyn pushed the door closed and approached Lorgrim warily, like a wolf sneaking up on a lone sheep. He stopped on the opposite side of the flower bed from Lorgrim, his back to Adramal. “Academic matters? Is that what we’re calling this now?” He went around the end of the flower bed and stood a few feet from Lorgrim. He never took his eyes off the seated man. Adramal saw now that he had a satchel similar to Lorgrim’s, if not identical. He held it as though he would rather die than let go.

Lorgrim held out his satchel. Eskalyn took a deep breath, and then lifted his satchel off his shoulder and snatched Lorgrim’s. At almost the same time, Lorgrim took Eskalyn’s satchel. From the way the satchels swung from their straps, Adramal judged what had been Eskalyn’s to be much heavier than what had been Lorgrim’s.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” said Lorgrim, treating the First of the Council to an insipid smile. He opened the satchel and peered inside.

Eskalyn recovered a little composure. “Good day.” He backed away from Lorgrim, towards where Adramal and Perinar were hiding. When he reached the nearer end of the flower bed, he turned, and his gaze swept past the potted shrubs. Adramal held her breath. He didn’t see them — or gave no sign that he’d seen them. He tugged the door open and went through.

Lorgrim leaned back in his chair, giving the sky a much broader smile than he’d given Eskalyn. He looked inside the satchel again and chuckled. He reached for the edge of the flower bed and used it to pull himself to his feet. As he left the garden, the tapping of his cane seemed somehow jaunty. Adramal thought the old fellow would have danced if he could.

She turned to Perinar, who seemed as baffled as she was. Why was Lorgrim — who wasn’t even a member of Kyturil’s Council — ordering about the school’s most senior wizard? And what was in those satchels?

She waited until she could no longer hear Lorgrim’s cane before standing up and stretching. Perinar stood as well. Only now did she notice how scared he looked.

“I think my sketch is complete enough to identify the plant,” he whispered. “We should go to the library.”

Adramal had almost forgotten their original reason for coming here. She brushed the worst of the detritus from her clothing. The seat of her dress was damp.

Adramal peered around the door frame, looking both ways along the corridor. “He’s gone,” she said, ducking back into the garden.

“Did you see which way he went?” said Perinar.

“No.”

“It was probably right,” he said, pointing towards the stables, the direction from which they had entered the garden. “We’d better go left.”

They crept along the corridor. Adramal was torn between the need to move slowly, for silence, and the need to move quickly, to get away from where they were likely to meet Lorgrim. The floor here was littered with grit, and she cringed at the sound of it crunching under their feet.

At the end of the corridor was a large, high room, bare except for an unidentifiable tapestry on the far wall. Two doors, both closed, led in opposite directions. A thin layer of dust covered the floor. Sunlight slanted through narrow, high-up windows.