The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(43)

Maude gripped him by the arm and said something I could not hear, silencing him.

The shelf creaked beneath my shifting weight. Sweat pooled in my palms. “I want to get down,” I told the Scribe.

“Shhh.” He sniffed the air, then drew closer. “I won’t let you fall.”

He put a cold finger under my chin and lifted it, baring my throat to him. He sniffed that, too. “Strange, that Aisling has sent you to me in this fashion. I’ve never felt a Diviner’s pulse before. Even stranger, that you come under the wing of a heretic.”

Once, back at the cathedral, a merchant had tried to pull One’s shroud off. He’d scratched her cheek. A moment later he was on his face, motionless, bleeding into the gravel. A gargoyle had hit him so hard in the head his skull had cracked. At the time I’d been reassured that such volatile, terrifying beasts were looking out for the Diviners. It was only after that I became unsettled. Volatile, terrifying beasts were, after all, difficult to read—impossible to predict.

I knew the machinations of the Harried Scribe’s inkwell, knew how to read his portents. And yet sitting on a shelf with him, so far above the ground… I was at the hands of something volatile, terrifying. Wholly unpredictable.

“I haven’t been sent,” I managed. “I’ve come because of my Diviners—”

“We await your questions, Scribe,” Maude called from below.

The Scribe forgot me, dropping my chin to look down upon the others. “Since you are a king, and these, I suspect, your appointed knights, I will transpose my questions into that which you can understand. Love, faith, and war—the virtues of knighthood.”

Rory rolled his eyes.

“Let us begin with a question of love.” The Omen flung his ink and vanished, reappearing on a shelf below me and pulling free a leather-bound book. “What, according to the Seacht’s poet laureate, Ingle Taliesin, does a king gift his bride upon their wedding night?”

I could tell by the tight lines of Maude’s, Rory’s, and the king’s mouths that none of them knew the answer. After a moment’s deliberation, King Castor said, “A dower share of his land and wealth.”

The Harried Scribe grinned, cleared his throat, and began to read.


How keen the young king to take up his bride, how noble and steadfast is he.

With wine, with brine, the vows are all said, his heart hence taken by she.

But, pray, what gift should he tend his new queen—what token could ever compare?

No silk is so soft as the touch of her skin, no portrait, no jewel, so fair.

Perhaps a song, composed in her name, or maybe an altar, a shrine.

Or even the moon, brought down from above—

Nay. His cock will do fine.



The Scribe let out a raucous laugh. I stared at him, dumbfounded. “That’s horrendous.”

Below, Maude was rubbing her brow. “Poet laureate my ass.”

“Never trust anything written in rhyme,” Rory muttered.

“Not well-read, I see.” The Harried Scribed composed himself. “I find courtly love rather banal. But a laugh from the belly is a welcome occasion.” He snapped the book shut, vanished, then reappeared on the shelf next to me, making it shake. “Onto faith, then.”

This question required no book. The Harried Scribe leaned forward, perched like a gargoyle upon his shelf. His rasp dripped with mirth. “What was the name of the first Diviner? The foundling child who came to the tor and named the Omens?”

The trio beneath me balked. “The abbess does not speak it in her Divination story,” Maude called. “It’s never been spoken.”

The Scribe toyed with the sleeve of my cloak. “Is that your answer? That the first Diviner was without a name?”

Another biting moment, then King Castor said, “It is.”

“Pity. Once more, you are incorrect.”

King Castor and Maude were unmoving and Rory the opposite, slouched, boot tapping, hand fidgeting incessantly in his pocket.

Only one question remained.

“What was it?” I whispered. “The child’s name?”

“All that matters is that I know it and they did not know it.” The Omen rolled his jaw, his shoulders, joints cracking, pointing to his shelves. “Knowledge is mine to bear, and theirs to beg. Even if they manage to get the next one right”—his lips peeled back in a grotesque smile—“they are condemned.”

I looked down at the others and felt as though I was dreaming—prickling, sweating, afraid. “Please. You must be aware that Diviners have gone missing from the tor. I’ve left Aisling in search of them—”

The Scribe threw his ink before I could finish and vanished, then appeared on a shelf across the room. “My final inquiry,” he called down to the king and Rory and Maude, “is a riddle of war.”

“Another lovely poem, I hope,” Rory deadpanned.

“The Seacht keeps its books, but also its forges, its armories and arsenals. This composition, I penned myself.” The Scribe held out a leaflet. I was afforded the barest glimpse of its cover.

A moth.

Once more, the Omen cleared his throat and read.


Not hefty in weight or long in the arm, it’s thin as a reed in the ground.

Kept sharp or kept dull, however you’re fond, its customs and merits abound.