A burlap sack is hidden in the bed frame

From her position, lying on the floor in the far corner of the small bed chamber Winlay could see the bottom of Mika's bed. The mattress rested on a series of ropes that were woven back and forth tightly into the frame of the bed. Nothing about the bed was at all unusual, she had slept on similar frames all her life; what caught Winlay's attention was the burlap sack that had been carefully worked into the weave of ropes.

Consumed with sudden curiosity, Winlay slid her body along the smooth stone floor until her fingers could just touch the lumpy contents of the sack. Could it be the one carried by the mysterious climber in the gardens? Her fingers seemed to move on their own as she tugged at a corner of the sack freeing it from the tightly woven bed ropes. The bag opened enough for a glimpse of white cloth to be visible. Winlay could not stop herself, again her nimble fingers worked the at the bag until the entire sack fell to the floor by her side with a dull thunk.

Picking up the rough fabric carefully in her soft hands Winlay carried the lumpy bag across the small room and placed it on her bed. One by one, she emptied the contents of the bag. She placed them neatly on her blanket, staring at the contents with a combination of wonder and guilt like a child who had found her Midwinter's gifts a week ahead of the day of celebration. When the sack was empty she surveyed the four objects that were lined up on the soft blue wool of her blanket.

On her bed lay a set of clerical robes, on one side the distinctive grey of an initiate, but the lining was the white of an ordained cleric of Xelta. A quick experiment confirmed that the robes could easily be reversed from grey to white and back again. Next to the reversible robes lay the distinctive scarlet braided cord of a Herald of Xelta. Unlike the rough hemp rope of the initiate's robes, the Herald's scarlet belt was soft and smooth, it was braided from nine silk cords that made the cord both light and strong. A scroll case sealed with a sigil she did not recognize and a sheathed knife with a harness that could strap to an arm or lower leg completed the strange collection that lay on the bed. Winlay drew the short blade from the sheath and marveled at the fine steel edge of the knife. When she lightly scraped the blade across a thumb nail, a thin curl of the hard nail twisted up against the blade, it was certainly the sharpest knife she had ever held. She carefully pressed the knife back into its sheath and turned her attention to the collection of the items.

Were they Mika's or had they been left behind by the room's former occupant? Either way, why were they here? She picked up the scroll case and admired the elegant workmanship of the container. The case was fashioned from a single piece of lightly lacquered bamboo, and capped with a twisted twine binding that was covered in wax. When she shook the sealed tube experimentally she could just make out the sound of parchment sliding inside the case. The sigil consisted of the "X" of Xelta with four tiny figures imprinted into the hard wax in the four quadrants separated by the "X" of the seal. The whole seal was only a little more than a centimeter in diameter, but in spite of the small size, the workmanship of the seal was of such high quality that Winlay had no trouble identifying every mark on the seal.

A rising (or setting) sun, a taper lizard, a magnifying glass and pick-ax were clearly visible in the sealing wax of the scroll case. But who the sigil belonged to or what it might mean defied Winlay's limited knowledge. Maybe she could research the sigil in the church library? She trembled with both fear and curiosity, now more than ever Winlay was convinced that the nimble climber in the garden must have been Mika, and she had left the convent to retrieve these items.

She could open the scroll case and see for herself what Mika was up too, or she could put everything back and pretend she had never found it? Perhaps later she could confront Sister Mika and make her explain what the items were doing in her bed chamber.

Really, Winlay knew that her duty was to take the sack and her story straight to Sister Bernadette, but after her experience with Beldan, Winlay found her confidence in the proper procedures of the Church badly shaken. Thinking of Beldan and her disastrous interview just hours before made Winlay sick in her gut again. If Brother Jerome had not been at the right place in the right time who knows what could have happened to her.