The transition from a military commander to a forensic investigator felt like a slow descent into a different kind of swamp. Deacon spent the following days oscillating between the public duties of the Castellan and the secret sessions in the southern granary. The rain had turned into a biting, relentless sleet that glazed the stone streets in treacherous ice, further isolating the city and keeping the curious indoors. In the cold, high room of the granary, the air was thick with the scent of damp wool and the rhythmic, maddening drone of Thorne's voice.
Staff Sergeant Rodriguez had become a master of the transcription. She sat on a low stool by the oil lamp, her rough hands—more suited to the grip of an axe—delicately moving a quill across scraps of parchment provided by Major Kiley. She was no longer just recording names; she was mapping a criminal enterprise. The Latin was a layer of encryption, but the core of the message was logistics: weights, measures, dates of transport, and the names of the river captains who had moved Oakhaven's lifeblood out through the southern gate while the people were told the harvest had simply failed.
"It's systematic, Hayes," Rodriguez whispered as Deacon entered the room, shaking the ice from his cloak. She pointed to a fresh sheet of parchment. "Thorne keeps repeating the name 'Valerius.' According to the host body's memories, Valerius was the factor—the middleman—for a merchant guild based in the southern port of Oryn. He didn't just buy the grain; he facilitated the bribes to the Imperial grain inspectors to look the other way. And the 'Iron Seal' isn't just a metaphor. It's a physical ledger, bound in iron, kept in the crypts beneath the chapel."
Deacon looked at Thorne, who was currently reciting a list of tithes paid to Father Marius's predecessor. The Corporal looked like a ghost, his skin translucent in the dim light. "If that ledger exists, it's the only thing that can protect us. If I can prove the Church was complicit in the starvation of their own flock, Marius won't dare whisper a word about my bastardy. He'll be too busy trying to stay off the executioner's block."
"How are you going to get into the crypts, Sir?" Rodriguez asked. "The chapel is Marius's fortress. He has acolytes there twenty-four hours a day, and the crypts are sealed. You can't just walk in with a squad of soldiers without starting a civil war."
"I'm not going in with soldiers," Deacon said, his mind already formulating the acquisition plan. "I'm going in with a 'pious request.' I'm the Castellan who saved the city with a 'Holy Relic.' I have every right to want to pay my respects to the ancestors who allegedly provided it. I'll request a private vigil in the crypts to 'commune' with the spirit of the House."
He knew it was a gamble. Marius would be suspicious, but the narrative of the Holy Relic was too powerful for him to deny publicly. Deacon would need a specialist for the lock-picking and the silent movement. He needed Tate, but Tate was still tethered to the Widow Elms.
He left the granary and made his way toward the Alchemist Guild tower. He needed to check the status of Staff Sergeant Blake's new communication system. The tower stood tall against the gray sky, the large, ornate weather vane at its peak shifting slightly in the wind. As Deacon watched, the vane jerked, then stopped, pointing toward the eastern mountains. It jerked again, stopping at a specific angle.
It was the semaphore system. Blake was testing the gear ratios.
Inside the workshop, Blake was a man transformed. He had abandoned the glassmaking furnaces for a complex array of brass gears, counterweights, and a long, mechanical lever system that ran from the workshop floor all the way to the roof. It looked like the internal workings of a giant clock, stripped of its face. .
"The synchronization is holding, Sir," Blake reported, his eyes bright with the fever of a technician who had finally found his rhythm. "I've built three localized chronometers—one for you, one for the Major, and one for me. They're spring-loaded and calibrated to within ten seconds of each other. We can now schedule the semaphore bursts. I'm using a substitution cipher based on the degree of the vane's rotation. Thirty degrees is a 'clear,' sixty degrees is a 'hazard,' and so on."
"Good work, Blake. I need a message sent to the Major immediately," Deacon instructed. "Tell him I'm initiating the 'Vigil' mission at the chapel crypts in forty-eight hours. I need a distraction. I need him to report a 'medical emergency' at the seminary that will draw Marius and his senior acolytes away for at least two hours."
"A medical emergency, Sir?"
"Tell him to use the 'Putrefaction of the Humors' again. Tell him the apprentices are showing symptoms. Marius is terrified of the plague; he'll run to the seminary to oversee the 'cleansing' rituals personally. That gives me the window."
Deacon watched as Blake moved the heavy levers, the gears groaning as the weather vane high above shifted into its coded positions. It was the first modern communication network in the history of the world, built on the bones of a medieval tower. He felt a brief moment of pride, but it was quickly eclipsed by the realization of what he was about to do. He was going to rob a church to save a lie.