Chapter 6: His Desk

"I need the grain ledgers from the trial," Ysolene told Valerian. "The originals, not the copies."

"The Crown holds them."

"Then I need an hour alone with them. The judge would not look, and he told me to sit down."

He stood at the window of the study with the invitation in his fingers, and the paper turned brown at the edges.

"He dines with the Crown's priest in the village on quarter day," he said. "He won't be back before midnight."

"When is quarter day?"

"Five weeks."

She had already sat through Ignatius's Thursday dinner with a fork in her fist.

Valerian's hand on her knee had been the only thing that kept her in her chair.

She could wait five more weeks.

"His rooms?"

"The east wing. Locked."

"You can open locks."

"I can open anything that burns."

"Then I'm coming with you."

His jaw tightened. "No."

"It's my father's life in that wing."

He turned, and she saw him weigh it.

Then he took her hand.

She felt that he was hot with the beginning of the thing they had both pretended not to feel since the desk.

"Stay behind me," he said. "And don't touch anything you can't put back."

On quarter day the keep was quiet, and the sea wind knocked at the shutters.

Fenna met them at the foot of the east stair in a shawl, carrying a candle.

"He's gone, the valet's drunk, and I'll whistle if the carriage turns in the lane," she said.

"You know what we're doing."

"I know you're married to a man who's been mooning at the east wing door for nine years," said Fenna.

"Don't be stupid, either of you."

Valerian put his palm to the lock of Ignatius's outer door, and it softened and sagged.

He pushed the door open on a long dark room that smelled of cedar and cologne.

The commissioner lived in a good deal of velvet.

There was a gilt clock, and a pianoforte nobody could play.

A desk of dark wood as big as Valerian's was set square in front of the window.

Ysolene went to it first.

The top drawer was locked.

The second drawer was locked.

The third came open with a tug.

Under a pile of royal seals and sealing wax lay a bundle of papers tied with ribbon.

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