"Hardly."
"Neither am I," he said with a slow smile. "We'll have to work something else out—later, when you've slept and I'm off duty . . . and by the way, your gloves will wear better if you cut slits in the fingertips. Good night."
She listened to him clump down the steps, and let out her breath slowly. The moment she had most dreaded was past. He knew the worst about her now, and it didn't seem to bother him at all. Either he was unusually tolerant or maybe, just maybe, it wasn't so terrible to be different after all. She would have to think about that.
The knapsack lay beside her, the small oblong package, remapped by Marc, on top of it.
Burn the dead, or join them.
"Father, let go," she said out loud in a low, exultant voice. "To ashes with the past."
Chapter 9
A Matter of Honor
THE WIDOW CLEPPETANIA was making humble pie. The pastry shell was ready. The sealed pot of wine, spices, and tripe had done ten hours worth of simmering in five with the aid of a simple spell, but the kitchen was wretchedly hot nevertheless. This was not a dish that she cared to make in midsummer. Mistress Abernia had specifically requested it, however, and would shake the rafters if it was not forthcoming.
Once, the widow would have told her to go bark for it.
Now, with the advent of the ambitious Kithra, she found herself doing all she could to keep Abernia's usual ill-humor from endangering her hold on Tubain. The possibility of having to call the new servant girl "mistress" was more than the widow could stomach. No, if Kithra must wed, let her have Rothan — who was already ears deep in love with her — and manage him until he came into his inheritance. Then Cleppetty and Abernia would step down, but not before.
"Allied to a figment of someone else's imagination," said the widow out loud with a grimace. "It could only happen here."
She retrieved the clay cooking pot from the ashes and transferred the tripe to its pastry shell. Boo lumbered in from the courtyard, clamoring for the tidbits, which no one was supposed to give him. Cleppetty surreptitiously put a few choice pieces down on a saucer for him, turned back toward the south fireplace, and started violently.
Jame was sitting on the hearth.
"What are you trying to do," the widow half-screeched at her, "drive me into conniptions? Why can't you stomp through life like the rest of us?"
"Sorry, Cleppetty."
The widow gave her a hard look. "You're pale. Has your head started hurting again?"
"No, it's not that. I've just seen Taniscent. In the Lower Town. An old woman crossed the street ahead of me wearing Tanis's favorite shawl—you know, that ghastly orange and purple affair. Then she turned, and I saw that it was Taniscent herself. She looked nearly eighty, all wrinkled and blotchy—half-senile, too, I think—but she knew me. She ran, Cleppetty. She gave a panicky sort of bleat, and she ran."
"Well, what did you expect?" the widow demanded, floury fists jammed on her sharp hips. "The sight of anyone from the inn can only remind her of what she's lost. Anyway, even if that beating you gave Niggen did set the whole thing off, you didn't force that overdose of Dragon's Blood down her throat. She was a foolish, vain child and has only herself to blame. Still, she was, and is, one of us. What happened next?"
"I lost her," said Jame in disgust. "That district has been so warped by fire and decay that only those born there can master the heart of it now. Patches and her Townie friends have taken up the hunt. If they find Tanis and she isn't ready to come home, Patch says her mother will take care of her until she is. For some reason, that family seems to think it owes me something."
"That's just as well for Taniscent," said Cleppetty briskly, turning back to her pie. "You've done well, child. Now let matters take their course. Sooner or later, she'll come home . . . and an altered place she'll find it, too, what with Kithra and Marc in residence. Speaking of Marc, how have you and that big Kendar been managing? It can't be easy for a thief and a guard to share the same roof, much less the same room."
"Oh, it's not all that hard," said Jame, trying to adjust to this abrupt change of topic. "I'm only in danger from him when I have stolen property in my possession, so I never bring any back to the loft or into his assigned territory. I think he's even got used to the idea of a Kencyr thief."
"Well, why not? You've made the profession honorable. The Widow Cibbeth sends her thanks and blessings, by the way. The temple would have repossessed her godson by now if you hadn't retrieved his ransom from that pocket-picking Hangrell."
"I hate thieves who specialize in robbing old people," said Jame. "If nothing else, where's the skill in it? Oh, I know all guildsmen can't be as principled as Darinby, but it's still depressing to come across a specimen like Hangrell, whose highest ambition, apparently, is to become one of Bane's scrap-fed rats.
"But if the Talisman doesn't bother Marc, do you know who does? The B'tyrr. Cleppetty, have you noticed that he always leaves the room when I dance? That worries me. His moral sense is very good, far better than mine, and I hate to go against it. But Tubain still needs the B'tyrr, so I guess there's no helping that."
She was silent for a moment. The widow, watching her askance, saw the haunted look return to her eyes.
"Cleppetty," she said, raising her head suddenly, "do you remember what you said to me the day the beam fell, that sooner or later I would destroy someone? Was that someone Tanis, or am I still a danger to you, to Tubain, to everyone I love?"
Kithra's voice cut across the widow's startled response.
"Madam, come quick! It's Marc. I think he's been hurt."
Jame leaped up and was past Cleppetty out the door before she could move. Heavy feet tramped into the hall. A voice, vaguely groggy, said something about matching scars. The big Kendar was standing in the hall with Sart Nine-toes beside him and a blood-stained cloth wrapped about his graying temples.
"Just the same," he was saying cheerfully to Jame, "I bet I've got the bigger headache. After all, mine's the bigger head."
She brought him into the kitchen, made him sit down on the scullery hearth, and unwrapped the makeshift bandage.
"That's not too bad," said Cleppetty, looking over her shoulder.
"No," said Jame with relief. "More ugly than dangerous, I'd say. Just the same, you're going to be out of it a day or two, my lad."
They cleaned the wound and dressed it with a poultice of balm leaves steeped in wine. Then Jame took Marc up to the loft. Cleppetty, left alone with Sart, stopped his clumsy advances by stomping on his foot and then, when he opened his mouth to yelp, jamming a wheat cake into it. After several minutes, Jame returned.
"You always seem to be trundling Marc home," she said to Sart. "My thanks again. Now, what happened?"
"A trap happened, that's what," said the guard with a growl. "We're walking our bailiwick, see, when we hear a shout for help. It's coming from a side lane, one of those rotting dead-ends near the Temple District Wall, where the stones crumble if you stare at them too hard. Me, I know the streets well enough to be suspicious, so I hold back, but Marc goes charging straight in before I can stop him. Then the bricks start to fall. I look up and see that the whole wall over his head is giving way. So I let off a bellow. Luckily there's a doorway handy, or he'd have gotten more than a broken head. It was no accident, either. I saw the bastard looking down as the dust settled, the lever still in his hands, wanting to see most likely if his work was well done. Well, it wasn't, and now he'll squirm on the Mercy Seat for injuring a guard —as soon as we can lay hands on him, that is."
"On whom?"
"Why, didn't I say? On that creep-thief Hangrell. He won't be easy to find, though, not when it sinks into his tiny little head that every guard in the city—aye, and half the thieves, too—will be after him. The gods only know what made him do a damn-fool thing like that."
"If they don't," said Jame grimly, "I do. Wait here, Sart. No one knows the hiding holes in this city better than I, except my master. Be ready to come when I send for
you."
"Now just a minute, Talisman." he protested, stepping between her and the street door. "This man is our meat by law, and we've got to make an example of him. If we don't, no guard in Tai-tastigon will ever be safe again, or any thief, come to that, with the ban against mutual violence broken."
Cold silver-gray eyes locked with his own. "I said I would send for you. Wait."
He had not meant to step out of her way, much less to stand staring foolishly after her.
"If I were you," said Cleppetty drily behind him, "I would do as she said . . . or do you want her mad at you too?"
Sart Nine-toes closed his mouth with a snap, sat down on the hearth, and began to wait.
* * *
THE AFTERNOON light drained away. Dusk glowed and faded into night. When the message came at last, four guards were waiting at the inn.
Across the city, in the catacomb like cellars under a gutted mansion on the edge of the Lower Town, someone else also waited, nervously, starting at every hollow echo the subterranean spaces threw back. Water dripped, torches sputtered, the voices of others in hiding murmured confusedly in the distance. There! Surely someone had called his name. Here I am, here, here . . . no, nothing. Hangrell sat down again on the brick floor, sniveling a little in the dark.
Again and again, he told himself that here, if nowhere else in the city, he should be safe. Although the hand of every honest thief would be against him now, those who shared this dank, dark refuge were outcasts like himself, breakers of Tastigon or Thieves' Guild law. Both codes forbade the injuring of a guard. Hangrell would not have risked his petty revenge if he hadn't been sure (oh, so mistakenly) that he could get away with it, and that it would be applauded by the one person in Tai-tastigon whom he most wished to impress. Even now, with all plans gone awry, he hoped desperately that that individual would acknowledge the gesture and send help. He must know that it had been done to please him. Oh, why had it all gone wrong? A simple accident—that was what everyone would have called it except for the appreciative few who knew better. If it weren't for that second guard (damn him!) whom he had not seen until far, far too late . . .
Someone was shouting. Voices boomed through the halls. People were running, torches going out. "The guards!" a boy shrieked in the darkness. "The guards!"
Hangrell jumped to his feet, heart pounding. They were coming this way. He backed up, stumbling over debris, turned, and fled. Somewhere in this part of the cellar, there was supposed to be a way out. He had searched for it all afternoon in case of just such an emergency and, failing to find it, had hoped more desperately than ever that someone would be sent to show him the way.
Stone grated on stone. Ahead, the shadows on the wall fell away into a widening blackness through which a figure stepped. The thief's welcoming cry died in his throat.
It was the Talisman.
"Well, friend," she said in a quiet, almost pleasant voice. "You've really done it this time. If you had dealt with me directly, as Scramp did, we might have come to some understanding; but to injure a guard . . . that wasn't very bright, now was it?"
He backed away from her, panic clawing at him. Say something, anything. "It wasn't my fault!" he heard himself squeal. "He made me do it. It's his fault that your friend was hurt!"
"Whose fault, sweetling?"
"Bane's!"
"I. . . see." Her tone jerked his attention back from the shouts of the approaching guards. "So. This was how you bought your way into his favor. Cat's paw for a coward. I was going to hold you for the guards and the Mercy Seat, my dear. Instead, I'll give you a choice, a . . . chance. Do you see the stairs behind me? They lead to the sewers, to safety. All you have to do is pass me."
The shouts were closer, almost at the mouth of the passageway. Hangrell looked wildly behind him, whining, then at the slim, shadowy form that barred the way.
"Come along, little one," it said, its voice slipping into a deep, full-throated purr. "I wait—without a knife, without gloves."
With a choked cry, he spun about and ran straight into Sart's arms.
* * *
JUDGMENT SQUARE lay sleek in the moonlight. The stalls that had freckled its surface by midday were gone now and their owners with them, leaving the great, triangular flagstones to wind-whirled debris and the small group gathered in front of the Mercy Seat. The Master of Mercy was arguing with four guardsmen while his assistant crouched behind him, tending a brazier whose coals sparkled fitfully. The wind bore none of his complaint upward. Knowing his reputation as a perfectionist, however, it was easy enough to guess that he was bitterly protesting the conditions under which these hulking guards expected him to work. What did they know of craftsmanship? What did they care? To them, only results mattered, and now they were set on creating an example. At last the Master shrugged and opened his tool case while his assistant took an iron from the fire and spat on it experimentally. The pale, thin form that sprawled on the Seat did not move as the two men bent over it. The drugs had done their work well; once again, the Master had justified his title.
On the south side of the square stood a rich merchant's house with a turret ornamented, in imitation of Edor Thulig, with three huge stone bats in high relief. On the head of the one facing north sat Jame. She was no longer regarding the scene below but her own hands, which rested, still gloveless, on her knees. With an expression of mingled disgust and fascination, she raised one and stared at it, as though it were some wild, unidentified creature that she had found scurrying across the forest floor. The abnormally long fingers flexed and arched. At the tip of each was the nail, razor tipped, fully extended.
Would she really have used them on Hangrell? Yes. Again, she heard her voice dripping black honey, felt the savage, exultant lust for blood. It had taken all her self-control to offer that wretched boy a choice at all, if only of deaths.
Ivory claws, black rage—both were a part of her Shanir nature, that terrible openness to a divine will as ruthless as it often was incomprehensible. But if it was truly another's will, how could she be accountable for its actions? Remember Ishtier, she told herself: he was a Shanir too, as every priest must be; but could she forgive him, even on those grounds, for what he had done to her? No. It was unthinkable. And yet clearly he had no influence over the god's voice when it spoke through him. It simply used him. Was she also being used when these murderous rages fell on her, and if so, to what purpose?
"No," she said out loud, recoiling from the thought. "No. I will not be used. Let me be a monster in my own right if I must, but not the puppet of some damned, indifferent god. I will be responsible for my actions, whatever prompts them. I will be free."
Such freedom would be hard to bear, but she might not have to live with it for long, Jame thought with sudden wryness. Her words in the cellar had been addressed less to Hangrell than to those others hidden in the shadows, and through them to that wretched creature's patron, who would learn soon enough what she had said and done. Defiance, insult, challenge—if she knew him half as well as she thought she did, he would swallow none of them. The uneasy, unaccountable friendship between them was at an end and war declared, her hand against his. She had no illusions concerning her chances for survival.
Meanwhile, there was no point in watching more of the sorry spectacle below. Jame climbed down and set off for home.
The Res aB'tyrr was brightly lit but ominously silent as she crossed the square to it. A sleek young man wearing a d'hen of a rich, dark fabric waited for her in the doorway. He stepped aside as she approached and bowed mockingly. Inside, seven more men leaned against the walls or slouched negligently in the best chairs. Bane sat by himself at the center table, his long, elegantly booted legs stretched out before him and a small goblet of golden wine at his elbow. He looked up as she entered and said, smiling, "I got your message."
Jame had known that this meeting must come, but had somehow never thought of it taking place here, in her home. One of Bane's companions was lounging on the kitchen threshold, anot
her in the room itself by the street door. Cleppetty stood white-faced with anger by the kitchen table, one arm thrown protectively around Kithra's shoulders. A slow, deadly rage swelled up in Jame.
"Get those men out of here," she said to Bane in a low voice. Her hands had already gone cold, her body slipped to the inner rhythms that precede violence.
"Don't be a fool," he said sharply, reading her intentions in her stance. "I would kill you."
"Get them out or you'll have to. Now."
He regarded her intently for a moment, then suddenly laughed and dismissed the others with a wave of his hand. Surprise broke the stride of Jame's growing, probably suicidal anger. She had not seriously thought that she could blackmail him with the threat of her own death.
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