Liar's Moon

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

It was only a little different visiting the Keep as a free woman with a pass. I looked considerably more respectable than I had on my last visit, but the guards on duty still sneered at me, grabbed my basket and pawed through it, and made lewd comments as I pushed my way past them. I flinched from the stench and the roar of the other prisoners, banging on their bars or wooden doors as I climbed up through the prison’s ranked tiers to Queen’s Level, where Durrel’s cell was located. The royal prisons were divided into three levels of worsening conditions, having nothing to do with the severity of the prisoners’ crimes, and everything to do with their ability to pay for their lodging at His Majesty’s convenience. The cells on the highest floors were reserved for nobs and gentry with wealthy friends who could bring them bribe money. Accommodations were said to be relatively pleasant — emphasis on relative — a private cell with a window, furniture, books and wine if you could afford them. Folk with more modest means were kept down a level on the Mongery, three or four to a cell, with meat once or twice a week and maybe a clean chamber pot, if someone paid for it. And deeper still was the Rathole, little more than sewers where Queen’s and Mongery prisoners were dumped once they’d exhausted their funds, left to rot in the sunless dungeon and kill each other over crumbs. How long a prisoner lasted on each level depended directly on his ability to keep up the bribes.

  Queen’s Level seemed curiously empty today, as if the weekly bribes had come due and the other prisoners had fallen short of their rents. At that thought, my belly tightened and I hastened down the narrow corridor, toward the cell I remembered. Trotting down the row of cells, darting glances from barred door to barred door, I spied a pocked, pale face against the tiny, grilled window of the cell across from Durrel’s. Bony fingers curled around the bars, and a muddy brown eye tracked me down the hall.

  “Milord’s got a visitor, he does!” cried out a shrill voice from the cell. “She looks good enough to share!” I turned and made a rude gesture at him. A mistake; something foul flew toward me and splatted into my sleeve. I jumped, swearing, but it seemed to be rotten vegetables, and not . . . something worse. He was lucky I was in a good mood today.

  I brushed my fingers against Durrel’s cell door as his neighbor’s taunts continued. “Milord,” I called softly. “Are you still in there?”

  I had to stand on tiptoe to see inside. Someone had cleared away the filthy rushes, but the smell of a chamber pot that had needed changing days ago made me gag, even from outside the cell. Durrel was folded up on the bed, staring at the ceiling, but at the sound of my voice, he propelled himself from the bed to the door.

  “Celyn!” His voice, cracked and thin, was filled with so much hope and fear it hurt, like an ache in my throat. His fingers reached through the little window. I hesitated, but found my hand gripped in his. He held on so tightly I used the force of his grasp to pull myself closer to him.

  “You look like hells,” slipped out of my mouth. There were dark smudges under his eyes, and his scraggly beard showed up every contour of his boyish face. In the daylight now, I could see how much weight he’d lost.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Oh, but I have a pass.” I flashed it at him.

  “Do I want to know where you got that?” he said.

  “I should be offended,” I said, forcing cheer into my voice. “It’s completely legitimate!” As if anything from the hands of a Greenman could really be called legitimate. “It answers one question, though. I think we can credit Lord Raffin for our little rendezvous the other night.”

  “Damn. I’m sorry, Celyn. I had no idea. What the hells is he thinking?”

  “He’s thinking his friend is in trouble and nobody seems to be helping!” Durrel didn’t answer, and I didn’t know what else to say, so we stood there, with the door between us, a long, stupid moment. Durrel finally broke the silence, moving back to where I could see him. “I see you’ve met my neighbor, Temus,” he said, gesturing at the stain on my arm.

  “He has good aim. He should talk to the guards about being released for the wars.”

  Durrel smiled faintly. “What’s that?” He nodded toward my basket, where I had the shirt I’d bought from Grillig.

  “Oh. It’s — here.” I handed it up, and watched as he shook out the now-wrinkled linen, took in the mended patch in the sleeve and the slightly worn hemline.

  “I was going to bring you one of Rat’s, but he only has nice things,” I said. “This one, well, I thought it would be less of a shame if it got —”

  “Befouled?”

  “Something like that.”

  Without hesitation, Durrel stripped off his own filthy shirt and shook the clean one over his head. I could see the lines of his ribs, the points of his narrow shoulders, a taut belly that barely held his trunk hose on — he looked like he’d been a prisoner here longer than a fortnight. Weren’t they feeding him at all? Or was it life with Talth that had wasted him?

  “Who’s Rat?” he said, coming up for air. The new shirt was far too large; I had guessed him at a bigger man.

  “My, uh, roommate,” I said, and, for something to say, so I didn’t keep staring at his too-thin body, I explained about Rat’s skills at acquiring the exotic and rare.

  “Sounds like a useful fellow,” he said. His voice was warming up, a cheerfulness creeping into it now that seemed all wrong, somehow. He leaned his head back and took in a deep breath of stagnant, stinking air, as if it were fresh and breezy as a spring meadow. “You’re a miracle,” he said. “You have no idea how good it feels to get into something clean.”

  And why was I the one bringing it, and not his father? “I should have brought you a razor,” I said instead.

  He gave a mirthless laugh, so harsh and quick it startled me. “I’m supposed to have a beard, aren’t I?” he said, his voice bitter. “I’m mourning my dead wife.” He dropped his hands and turned from me, pacing away from the door.

  “I went to Bal Marse,” I said, and he halted, turning back.

  “Bal Marse! But why?”

  “I want to help you. I thought I might find something.”

  His drawn face turned curious. “And did you?”

  “It’s been stripped bare.” I explained about the missing furniture, the empty rooms, the open gates and door. “The place is abandoned.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why —”

  “Barris said the property came to you on Talth’s death. Is that true?”

  “Wait — you talked to Barris?” He sounded alarmed. “Celyn, hold on. What are you up to?” I looked at him impatiently, until he finally sighed. “Fine. Yes, technically I did inherit Talth’s house in the city. But since I’ve been in here since she died, I really have no idea what’s going on with it. Her family probably came in and took away anything that wasn’t strapped down. That would be like them.” He resumed pacing. The ceiling was so low in places he had to stoop. “And there was nothing there? No files, no ledgers or records?” When I shook my head, he continued. “I’ve been thinking maybe the murder had something to do with her business dealings, but that’s probably just the captivity talking.”

  “No, it seems likely,” I said. “What kind of business are we talking about?”

  “Well, the Ceid shipping business, primarily, but Talth also owned some properties in the city. Houses to let, or something. I really wouldn’t know. She wasn’t that . . . receptive to the idea of my participation in her work. She liked to say I was just —” He stopped abruptly, his face clouded. “Just the studhorse.”

  I winced. The implication was obvious; the Decath were famous for their horse farm, and the comment gave ugly credence to Koya’s claim that her mother was interested only in the title and heirs that marriage to Durrel would provide. “That’s horrible,” I said, but he just shrugged.

  “Sometimes she’d have callers, late at night, and she’d entertain them downstairs, but she always sent me up to my rooms, like a naughty child.”
/>   “And you don’t know what they might have been involved in?” Durrel shook his head, one curt flick that was barely noticeable. I wanted to press him for details, but it was obvious he didn’t want to talk about his marriage.

  “There’s something else.” I pulled myself closer to the door, and spoke as quietly as I could. “I found magic at Bal Marse. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Magic? Are you certain? Of course you’re certain.” Durrel knew about my odd affinity for Sar’s touch; it had been one of the reasons he’d saved me. I explained what I had seen at the Round Court at his house.

  “Did Talth have magic?” I said.

  “No. Definitely not. I’d have known about it.” I believed him; Durrel had spent years living with a magical cousin, always keeping an eye out to make sure she was protected, her secret safely concealed. He didn’t have my ability to spot the Breath of Sar on somebody, but he had a knack I trusted. “Do you think it has to do with her murder?”

  “It might not.” But I wouldn’t put money on it.

  Durrel was silent a long time. Finally he spoke up again. “Celyn, this is too dangerous. I’m sorry I got you involved. You should go home and forget about me.”

  Fat chance there. “You didn’t get me involved, remember? And besides, I want to help. I owe you.”

  “Owe me?” He stood close to the window again, looking down, a curious expression on his scruffy face. “How do you mean?”

  “You saved my life,” I said. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten?”

  “That wasn’t the same thing,” he said. “This is dangerous.”

  “You don’t think what you did for me was dangerous?” I might have laughed, if the memory of that awful day we met, when Tegen died, didn’t still make me sick with dread. “You smuggled a fugitive — a magical fugitive — out of the city, lied to Greenmen to do it, and harbored her in your family home. And then you armed her!” I added, recalling his gift of an expensive House of Decath dagger when we’d parted.

  Durrel watched me evenly for a moment. “In my defense, I was drunk at the time,” he finally said, and there was a note of mirth in his voice.

  “You were sober enough,” I said drily. “Durrel — milord — what are you so concerned about?” I watched him, suspicious. “You know something, don’t you?”

  He shook his head, but there was more evasion than denial in the gesture.

  “Tell me! I have nothing to go on but a smear of magic in an empty house. If we can’t find out who really killed your wife —” I stopped myself. Durrel knew the stakes, and my yelling wouldn’t help. “Please, if you know something —”

  “I don’t know anything. Just that Talth did business with a lot of dangerous people.”

  “Like who? Inquisition?”

  “I don’t know,” he said again. “Criminals, maybe.”

  “Well, that’s all right,” I said, trying to sound bright. “I’m good with criminals.”

  “Celyn —”

  “Digger,” I said.

  “What? Oh, right. Sorry — I keep forgetting.”

  I actually liked the way his voice sounded when he called me Celyn, but I had a point to make. “No, I just mean, they call me that for a reason. I’m good at what I do. I can help you, if you let me.”

  There was silence as he stared down at the cell floor. His mouse-colored hair was shaggy and tousled, as if he’d been dragging his hands through it. Finally he looked up and nodded. “All right,” he said. “I trust you. But be careful.”

  I gave a half smile. Careful wasn’t my usual approach, but why press the point?

  “Celyn? I mean — Digger?” He looked up at me, and his face was open and vulnerable. “You met Barris. Did you also see —”

  “Koya?”

  Whatever passed across his face at the name was gone so fast I couldn’t identify it. He nodded. “How is she?”

  How to answer that question? Interesting? Incomprehensible? “Bearing up well, under the circumstances?” Whatever those circumstances actually were.

  Durrel gave a slight sigh. “Thank you. This can’t be easy on her.”

  “Or you,” I said pointedly. “You know what people are saying? About you and your stepdaughter.”

  He made a face, just a small wince of distaste. “It’s just gossip. Sometimes I think Talth courted it. She had a cruel streak, particularly when it came to her daughter.”

  “Could Koya have killed her?”

  There was that odd little fog to his expression again. “Of course not.”

  “Are you sure? You sound a little —”

  “Completely.” The weight of that one word killed that conversation.

  I frowned, trying to dredge up another question. “All right, didn’t you tell me it was a maid’s word that had you arrested? She claimed to see you leaving Talth’s room before the body was discovered?”

  Nodding slowly, he said, “Geirt. Her chambermaid. But I told you, she had to be mistaken.”

  “Or lying,” I said. “If we could talk to her, figure out what she really saw, or why she’d lie about it —”

  It was like a shaft of light had broken through the gloom of the cell. “Celyn, that’s brilliant. But the servants are long gone, it sounds like.” And just like that, the shadows fell again.

  “Maybe Koya knows what happened to her. I’ll see what I can find out.” Below us, the ugly bell clanged out the hour. The visiting period was ending. “Pox. I have to go. Do you need anything?”

  “I need to see my father.”

  “I’m working on it. He’s not so easy to reach, these days.” I explained about the guards at Charicaux, but Durrel only looked more confused.

  “No, you must have been mistaken. We — my father doesn’t have any retainers like that.”

  The pistol carried by the guard at the gate had seemed pretty conclusive, but I let it pass. “Don’t get discouraged. We’ll figure this out.” I forced more confidence into my voice than I felt.

  He reached a hand out the small window, and my fingers brushed his. “Thank you,” he said faintly, but I heard him.

  Behind me, Wet Onions had awakened again. “Lift your skirts up a little more, girl. I can’t see much from here.”

  I was tempted to give him a taste of what I kept under those skirts — a three-inch steel blade that I was getting pretty good at throwing — but I just gave him a tart look as I passed by. “Watch your fingers,” I said. “Someone might come by and bite them off.”

  He gave a cackling laugh, but it was Durrel’s small chuckle I heard, all the way down the stairs and across the bridge.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As I walked away from the Keep, a pall seemed to fall over the afternoon. I wasn’t making much progress. The only real lead I had was the magical residue I’d found at Bal Marse, plus the name of a maid I may or may not be able to track down, and I had to admit that neither of those might amount to anything in the end.

  One problem was that merely seeing magic wasn’t terribly useful. I couldn’t determine anything about the trace of power I’d discovered — how old it was, how it got there, where it came from, or how to track it back to its source. The presence of magic at Bal Marse intrigued me, but without more information, it was just another tantalizing mystery. Durrel needed answers.

  I stopped at the storehouse adjacent to the bakery, squeezed into a nook out of view from the street, and pulled myself up onto the low roof. There was a loose tile near one of the chimneys, a good little spot to stash things. I pried the hot tile aside with my fingernails, leaving a line of red dust beneath it. Inside I kept the few small treasures of my life: a pair of black leather gloves; a silver bracelet; a single gold sovereign I could never bring myself to spend; and a tiny, fragile book hardly bigger than my small hand. I slipped the little book into my bodice, where it felt warm against my breastbone, and I carried it back inside, climbing gracelessly over Rat, asleep in the bed beneath the open window.

  “Uf! Gerroffme —” I do
dged flailing limbs and bedclothes to land neatly on the shabby rug. Rat propped himself up on his elbows to glare at me. “I am not taking that to the laundry this time.”

  I bit my thumb at him, then peeled off the stained sleeve and flung it at his head.

  “Cabbage,” he said judiciously, pulling it away from his face. “Nice.”

  As Rat wrangled himself into something akin to respectability, I perched on the cheese barrel in the kitchen and pulled the little book from my bodice. It was warmer than ever now, and the worn velvet of the cover flickered briefly when I stroked the plush fibers. It contained a somewhat fanciful history of magic in Llyvraneth, from the days long before Sar’s power had faded from our land — myths, songs, drawings, and legends set down by various authors through the years. I had been given this book by the only person I knew who could truly be called a mage, Master Tnor Reynart, one of the Sarists — in the truest sense of the word, followers of Sar — I had encountered at Bryn Shaer. When I met him, he had been Meri Nemair’s secret tutor in magic, and the leader of a band of refugees camping in the Carskadon Mountains, but now he was the commander of Prince Wierolf’s magical army, a small company of magic users made up primarily of those selfsame refugees, now better dressed and fed and legitimized. I had seen a taste of what Reynart’s troops could do in battle, with Meri’s powerful magical support to fuel them, and it was awe inspiring. But they were only a handful, and they weren’t nearly as powerful or well trained as the rumors claimed, and the Sarist forces were far outnumbered, even with allies from Corlesanne and Varenzia fighting alongside them.

  With a sigh, I flipped through the pages of the little magic book, seeing if it said anything to explain the stains and scratches on the Bal Marse floor. It would be helpful to have someone like Reynart here now, but as far as I knew, there weren’t any other people like Master Reynart — or if there were, somehow, knowledgeable magic users hiding in Gerse, I certainly didn’t know how to find them.

  I had tried when I first got back to town, armed with Reynart’s book. I had studied its pages — the ones in languages I could read — thirsty for the knowledge within, veiled lessons well hidden in stories and verse, and hopeful that it could tell me something about myself, about those like me and how to find them. Magic settles in the low places, the chorus of a song had told me, and so I had sought out sewers and river basins and basements in abandoned homes, never coming any closer than one crude, seven-pointed star scratched into a lintel. The charm was so old and worn, my touch could barely coax its magical light from the wood, and when I tried, it left me feeling cold and sick, my skin prickling uncomfortably at the idea of hunting down Sarists. Gerse already had people to do that, equipped with green uniforms, nightsticks, lodestones, and scalding silver irons to force magic to show itself. Whether it was the thought of leading the Inquisition straight to a magic user’s doorstep or the fear of coming too close to my brother’s work that stopped me, it amounted to the same thing. I wouldn’t do it.