Sanctuary

by Lynn Abbey

  “Things ran late at the stoneyard.” He decided he’d stick to that. Leorin dreamt. She’d work herself up to a sleepless week if she knew the Hand was loose again and he’d tangled with them last night.

  Leorin nodded and took a solid swig of his beer. “The old pud dead yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “He give you any more silver or gold?”

  Cauvin shook his head.

  “Maybe the gods will take him tonight, now that everything’s done with the Torch.” There was a bitter edge to Leorin’s voice when she spoke the name.

  “What’s he got to do with anything?” Cauvin asked cautiously.

  “You know the gods have to be celebrating. He’s cheated Them for years. Afraid to die—and with good reason.”

  “A lot of folk call him a hero for what he did to bring the Hand down. You should have seen the crowd at the funeral.”

  Leorin took another swig of Cauvin’s beer. “Don’t go to funerals. Don’t like crowds. The Torch was never my hero.”

  Cauvin shrugged. “Mine, neither, but you know where we’d be if he hadn’t led Arizak and the Irrune through the gates—where I’d be, anyway. I think about it sometimes, when I can’t stop myself: They wanted me to make vows to the Mother—

  “Sacrifice,” Leorin corrected.

  “Yeah, that’s what they called it. I said no and thought it was over, but it wasn’t. They said they’d give me another chance, another month. The Irrune come first. I don’t know if I could have said no a second time. If I’d said yes, I’d be dead.”

  Leorin reached across the table. She seized Cauvin’s wrists and squeezed them tight, digging her fingernails into his flesh. “No, Cauvin, you would have survived.” Their eyes met, and Leorin explained herself: “I need you, Cauvin; I need you that much. You would have survived. Somehow you would have survived, just so I could find you when I needed you most.” She relaxed her grip.

  “Then you’ve got to give the Torch some credit—he’s the one locked me up by myself the night the rest of us died. Shite for sure, I’d’ve gone up in flames like everyone else.” Cauvin freed his hands and closed them over hers. “The old geezer’s not going to live much longer, love. He’ll leave me something, maybe not enough to get us out of Sanctuary, but enough to set us up. I’m about ready to jump that broom and tell Grabar I’ve done it.”

  “We can go upstairs and jump it tonight with the gods as our witnesses. The Stick won’t care—there’s nobody here. Can’t compete with roast meat and free wine. Even the regulars are out there, filling their guts for nothing. You could’ve taken a side table … we could go upstairs.”

  She was right about the regulars. Not one of the handful of men sitting in small groups or utterly alone was known to Cauvin. One of them looked an utter foreigner with a stiff-necked cloak and a hood that hid his face in shadows. The armsmaster? He’d looked Cauvin’s way more than once, looked his way and looked at his leg where the mask—and the dagger—were on display.

  Of course, he’d shot more looks at Leorin. Most men did. A score of women toted the Unicorn’s beer and wine, but only one of them was beautiful, and since no one had ever suggested that Cauvin was handsome, most men would wonder why a drop-dead gorgeous woman like Leorin gave him a special smile.

  “C’mon, Cauvin—let’s go upstairs and celebrate the Torch’s death our own way.”

  He was tempted—froggin’ gods, he was tempted to finally bed the woman he loved, but his head still rang with ghosts and gods. When push came to shove, this wasn’t the night he’d been waiting for.

  Leorin pulled her hands free of his. “What’s froggin’ wrong, Cauv? You just said you were ready. What’s ready, if not tonight? You think Grabar or the Stick’s going to parade us through the streets with musicians and goats?”

  “No.” A loud, wedding parade was nothing either of them wanted. “No, just not tonight. Maybe he wasn’t a hero, love, but he was there. As long as you and I have been alive, as long as our parents and grandparents the Torch has been pulling the strings behind Sanctuary. Who’s going to replace him?” Cauvin was hiding the truth about the Torch, but his questions weren’t lies.

  “What difference is it to you or me? What did he do, anyway? The Irrune, you see them, but the Torch. If you’d come around here last Ilsday and asked if the Torch was even alive, I’ll give you odds that three people out of four thought he’d been dead for years. People who didn’t know he was alive won’t care that he’s dead now.”

  “I can’t explain it, love, but it matters who takes his place. The whole city’s going to change when he’s gone. I feel it.” That told the simple truth. Even if he told Leorin everything that had happened in the past few days, he couldn’t explain an hour of it.

  “Well, you keep on feeling it, then.” Leorin stood up. “I’ve got customers to tend.”

  She didn’t—at least not beer- or wine-drinking customers. Leorin put a sway in her hips and strode over to a wall-hung table where two men—neither of them the man in the stiff-necked cloak—were deep in conversation. In no time she was sitting in one man’s lap, toying with his beard.

  Another reason for Cauvin to be angry with Molin Torchholder: The froggin’ old pud had come between him and Leorin. Cauvin sipped his beer. He didn’t want to think about the changes barreling into his life with the Torch not yet dead, so he listened to the conversations around him.

  The men with Leorin were the loudest and talking about how the new emperor in Ranke didn’t look half as Imperial as she did. He heard her laugh and say something that included the words “gown” and “upstairs.” When Cauvin glanced over his shoulder again, there was only one man sitting at the table.

  It wasn’t jealousy. Leorin had been taking men upstairs since before they’d found each other two years earlier. She might stop after they jumped the broom; she might not. Cauvin never worried because Leorin didn’t care about any of the men she bedded, any more than she cared about her Imperial beauty. But until tonight, she’d never taken a man upstairs to spite him.

  Slowly Cauvin finished his beer. He’d given the Torch’s armsmaster ample time to see him. If he gave any more, Leorin would be coming downstairs. That was a froggin’ moment Cauvin wanted to avoid. He dropped a chipped and blackened soldat on the table and left the Unicorn.

  The funeral feasting had been cut short by a cold rain that numbed Cauvin’s bones before he’d escaped the Maze. Even so, he took the long way home, up the Processional and along Governor’s Walk, passing close to the palace. The gates were barred; the smell of smoke seeped through cracks in the wood. The stoneyard gate was closed, too, but not barred. Cauvin bribed the yard dog with affection, then carefully stowed his new knife behind the grain barrel. Grabar and Mina would ask questions if they saw it, so would Bec, and though the froggin’ questions would be different, Cauvin didn’t want to be answering either batch.

  Chapter Ten

  A storm descended in full fury not long after Cauvin wrapped himself in blankets. It hammered Sanctuary with mighty peals of thunder and lightning bright enough to see through closed eyes. Rain pounded the loft’s wooden walls, rattling the shutters and flicking cold water onto Cauvin’s face. There was a board beside the window. He could have propped it against the shutters—he’d nail it over them before the month ended—but getting out of bed was more work than he cared to do after midnight.

  Wild storms were common visitors in spring and summer. This one was late, but Cauvin would have slept through it if he hadn’t been burdened with a storm-god’s memories. The skies were quiet before he slipped into restless sleep.

  Hours later, aching cold shoulders awakened Cauvin from a dream about Leorin. He’d tossed and turned himself out of the blankets and nearly out of his shirt. Straightening them quickly, he tried to recapture the dream-stuff before it fled. He was partially successful and could have lain in the straw a while longer, imagining the pleasure he’d denied himself last night, but he’d opened his eyes while rearrang
ing the blankets and knew that dawn was in the froggin’ loft.

  If shirking could solve problems, Cauvin was more than willing to give it a try; and this time maybe shirking could. If he didn’t go back to the red-walled ruins, then the Torch would die. Eleven years ago Cauvin could have lived with leaving a man to die—he wouldn’t be alive if he couldn‘t—but he’d put all that behind. Cauvin didn’t believe he owed the froggin’ Torch life for life, but he couldn’t let a froggin’ root cellar become any man’s tomb.

  He blinked Leorin out of his mind and found his boots.

  The stoneyard stood on high ground, along with the rest of Pyrtanis Street, so it didn’t froggin’ flood out like most of Sanctuary, and for thirty-odd years Grabar had been thickening its dirt with stone chips. Even so, after a nightlong rain, the yard was a quagmire. Cauvin stuck to the paving-stone paths. Several stones shifted beneath his weight; he knew what he’d be doing as soon as the ground dried.

  Grabar said as much while Cauvin splashed trough water on his face.

  “Got to reset those stones before the wife or the boy gets hurt.”

  Cauvin grunted. Grabar never worried that Cauvin might get hurt, or himself, for that matter; it was always Mina and Bec.

  “Saw you at the feast,” Grabar went on. “By yourself—where was that woman of yours? Don’t tell me she was working. The Well shut itself down. Nobody paying for what they could get free at the funeral.”

  “The Unicorn doesn’t close for funerals.” Cauvin dried his face on his sleeve.

  Grabar snorted his opinion of taverns that didn’t respect the dead. “Back to work for us: The Torch’s gone to his gods, and the Dragon’s gone, too. There’s an archway that wants building along the wharf. Figured we’d pull stone and lay it out.”

  “Today?” Cauvin asked incredulously. The stoneyard built everything twice—laid flat in the yard where they selected and shaped the stones and again upright with mortar. Cauvin’s favorite part of any job was fitting the stones together, but not when the yard was ankle deep in mud.

  “Got to get it done,” Grabar countered. “’Less you’re giving up food for the winter. If you noticed, we haven’t been busy around here, and there’s no assurance Tobus is going to buy those bricks you’ve been hauling each by each.”

  “He will,” Cauvin muttered. The Torch had said he’d take care of it. Cauvin didn’t trust Molin, but after last night, he froggin’ sure believed him. “I’ll wager you Tobus comes round today to see what we’ve got. Just wait.”

  “Meanin’ you plan to go back out there?”

  “If I have to drag the froggin’ cart myself, yes. Face it, Grabar— winter’s coming, we’re between jobs, and there’s too much mud to pull stone. It’s go out there and smash us some bricks or sit here and carve.”

  In deep winter, when building was impossible, Cauvin and Grabar sat beside an open hearth adding value to their stock by carving it. Grabar could do passable faces, male or female. Cauvin had a knack for birds—sharp-beaked hawks, mostly—and hands. He could turn a rock into a fist in an afternoon. There was a merchant whose warehouse door was framed with Cauvin’s fists.

  “Sure you’re not taking your woman out to those ruins? You seem damned determined to get there day after day.”

  Cauvin shook his head. “Not froggin’ likely.” He asked, “How’s Bec this morning?” to steer the conversation away from tender subjects.

  “Haven’t seen him, but the swelling was down last night. He should be sprightly. Boys heal fast, even spindly ones. The wife’s got the fire up. Breakfast’s cold, but there’ll be hot supper. I stuck around last night, helped the cooks with the pots and got us a leftover boar’s head. The wife had it in the pot before sunup. Now, that’s something to look forward to.”

  Cauvin nodded—red meat three froggin’ days in a row—but Mina’s cold breakfasts were nothing to celebrate. “I’ll be behind you,” he told Grabar. “Flower needs her grain.”

  And Cauvin needed to move his new knife from its hiding place to the back of the cart, where he wrapped it in canvas and tucked it beneath his tools. He felt sheep-shite foolish for hiding the weapon; he intended to wear it openly, proudly … but not until he felt froggin’ confident that he wore it properly. When Mina or Grabar asked where he’d gotten it, he’d tell them—the idea came to him like lightning—he’d froggin’ tell them that he’d found it while smashing stone out at the redwall ruins.

  Pleased with his uncommon cleverness, Cauvin entered the kitchen. Mina stood guard over the hearth. Grabar and Bec were eating through a cold breakfast of stale bread slopped in a buttery mixture of stewpot dregs and raw eggs. Cauvin had gone hungry often enough that he’d eat whatever was in front of him, even dregs and eggs. The trick was to hold his breath and gulp as fast as possible, bypassing the meal’s taste, if not its texture.

  Bec hadn’t learned Cauvin’s trick. The boy took small bites, chewed them endlessly, and stared at Cauvin the whole froggin’ time. Cauvin dodged the boy’s eyes, though not before noting that his bruises had faded and the swelling was almost unnoticeable. Grabar was right: Boys healed fast, a little too fast. Cauvin knew if he gave Bec the chance, he’d have froggin’ company out at redwalls. That was reason enough to gag down his dregs and eggs before Bec was halfway through his.

  This late in the year, fogs didn’t lift, they sank into the froggin’ ground, in lungs and guts. A fog like the one hanging over the stoneyard took Cauvin back to the palace and coughing memories. It wasn’t sacrifice that claimed most of the orphans, but cold and raw fogs. The Hand said he was blessed because he never got sick; blessed meant he dug the graves.

  Cauvin tossed the harness across Flower’s back with a vigor that made the mule swipe sideways with a hind hoof. He took time to reassure her with a handful of oats. Mules were froggin’ clever beasts. They knew what they deserved. A man could whip a mule bloody and it still wouldn’t do what it shouldn’t. The Hand didn’t keep mules, not when they had sheep-shite orphans to do their work.

  Cauvin was squatted down, attaching Flower’s harness to the cart, when he saw Bec’s feet and legs in front of him. “No,” he said, answering the boy’s questions before they were asked.

  “I’ve got our lunch. Momma’s made bear’s-head stew to keep the cold from our bones.”

  “Boar’s head,” Cauvin corrected. “What makes you think ’our bones’ are going somewhere?”

  “Grandfather’s got to eat.” He set a cloth-wrapped crock into the cart and climbed in after it.

  “Shalpa’s cloak! You told Mina?”

  “Never! I asked, since breakfast was cold, if we couldn’t have hot lunch. She said we could have some skimmings, so I filled a pot. She said I should bring it out quick.”

  Skimmings were a vast improvement over breakfast, but Cauvin wouldn’t let his stomach get the better of his head. “She didn’t say anything about letting you go out to the ruins in a fog, did she?”

  Bec didn’t answer.

  Cauvin gave the last harness strap a hard yank, stood up, and targeted his foster brother. “Frog all, Bee—How much trouble are you trying to land me in? Get back inside before your mother comes out here looking for you.”

  The boy braced himself into a corner. “froggin’ no. I’m working for Grandfather, writing for him. I missed yesterday. I’m froggin’ not going to miss today, too.”

  “Watch your mouth. Mina’ll have my hide when she hears you talking like that.”

  “Then I froggin’ won’t let her.”

  Cauvin steadied himself. “Get out, Bee. Thanks for the pot; I’ll share it with him, if the rain and fog haven’t done him in, but you’re not going anywhere except back into the kitchen—”

  “Froggin’ no.”

  “Bee—”

  “I’m going with you, and we better get going before Momma comes looking.”

  The boy had always been persistent, but flat-footed defiance was something new.

  Cauvin wasn’t pleased. “I’m wa
rning you—”

  “And I’m warning you: I’m telling Momma and Poppa that when you came back from seeing her you had a great big knife tied around your leg.”

  “You’ve been dreaming.”

  “Yeah? Then why’s it all wrapped up here in the cart?”

  Bec held up the wrapped weapon. He unwound the canvas and drew a finger’s length of sharpened steel from the sheath.

  “Put that down … now!”

  Bec shed the sheath and the canvas. He pointed the knife at Cauvin’s chest. The boy wasn’t serious—at least Cauvin didn’t think he was—but that didn’t make the moment less dangerous.

  “Now, Bee. Now … and get out of the froggin’ cart.”

  “I’ll tell them what happened night before last … what really happened, how you dragged me with you and left me alone and how I got lost and beaten up.”

  “That’s a froggin’ damned lie,” Cauvin snarled, and brought his fists up.

  The boy had earned the thrashing of his life, and Cauvin was ready to give it to him, though new bruises would only make Bec’s lies more believable. If Cauvin gave in to his rage, he’d need the gods’ own luck to sleep in the loft another night. For that—and because in his gut he’d regret pounding the snot out of the boy no matter his lies—Cauvin relaxed.

  The boy crowed, “I won’t say a word … if we get going quick.” He sheathed the knife and tucked the canvas around it.

  Cauvin didn’t trust himself to say a word as he led Flower from the stoneyard. They weren’t clear of Pyrtanis Street when Bec started talking as if there hadn’t been an arm’s length of steel between them moments earlier.

  “Poppa said he saw you leaving the feast last night, alone and walking toward the Maze. Did you see her?”

  Sweet Eshi! “Yes,” Cauvin growled.

  “Did you jump the broom and make babies?”

  “No.”

  “But you will, won’t you?”

  “Leave it be, Bec. It doesn’t concern you.”