by Lynn Abbey
“I can’t.” The words hurt his throat. “All my froggin’, sheep-shite life I’ve done what I’m told—”
“Then do it again. Do what you’ve been asked to do one more time. Now’s not the time to quit, Cauvin.”
“froggin’ shite for sure, it’s the right time.” Cauvin struck out for the gate again. “What do I do after the majordomo takes me to Arizak? You heard the Torch; I’m on my own. Tell him my little brother’s missing and we froggin’ think the Bloody Hand of Dyareela’s got him ‘cause we know the Hand’s back in Sanctuary ’cause they tried to kill the Torch … Froggin’ sorry, but no, that wasn’t his body you burnt the other night.
“Shalpa’s midnight cloak, Soldt—he’ll have me thrown in the dungeon! And if he doesn’t—what? The Hand isn’t just in Sanctuary, the Hand is here, in the froggin’ palace. They got the Torch, Soldt. They didn’t kill him straight off, but they froggin’ sure got him. His plans aren’t perfect. He doesn’t know everything. And me—I don’t know sheep-shite about anything.”
They passed between the great iron-wrapped Processional doors. Cauvin veered left, toward Pyrtanis Street.
“I’m going home, Soldt. If Grabar’s still there, he and I can go looking for Othat in the Crook.”
Soldt stayed with him, saying nothing until they were well beyond the gate and its guards, then Soldt spun Cauvin against the wall and held him there with an implacably extended arm pressed to his breastbone.
“Can you hear yourself? Othat is nothing. The Hill is nothing. The Hand is in the palace, and I believe you, Cauvin, if you say you recognize them, feel them. And that’s why you’ve got to get to Arizak. He’s the only one who can root it out.”
Cauvin twisted the Torch’s ring from his finger, then swept his forearm to the inside of Soldt’s elbow. The assassin’s arm bent and Cauvin got away from the wall. “Then you take the gods-all-be-damned ring to Arizak. You do exactly what Arizak tells you to do!” He brandished the black ring in Soldt’s face.
“Don’t be foolish.” Soldt sidestepped Cauvin’s arm. “You’re the chosen one.”
“Frog all, he’s been complaining about me since I hauled his bony ass out of the Thunderer’s ruins. You know these people. You live in their world. You take the Torch’s place.”
“I was born on a boat, Cauvin; I don’t live anywhere. You do. Sanctuary’s your home. You’re not going to leave—”
“Watch me.” Cauvin forced the ring into Soldt’s hand. “You do it, Soldt, or it’s not going to be done. I was born sheep-shite stupid. I’m afraid of my own memories. I’m afraid to remember what I did and why.”
“Cauvin—you made a mistake; everybody does.” Soldt clasped Cauvin at the wrist, but muscle for muscle, Cauvin was the stronger man, and Soldt couldn’t make him open his fist or take back the ring. “You trusted Leorin. You trusted the woman you love, and she betrayed that love. Now you’ve got to make it right.”
“Bec got picked up by the froggin’ Hand. I can’t make that right. I’m stupid, I’m afraid, and I’m a gods-all-be-damned coward.”
“You’re wrong, Cauvin. You’re neither stupid nor a coward, and if you’re afraid, we’re all afraid.”
Their argument had begun to draw attention from the passersby on Governor’s Walk. Soldt released Cauvin’s wrist. He took a backward step, blocking the way to Pyrtanis Street, but giving Cauvin all the room he needed to return to the palace … or the Maze.
There was one mistake he could make right.
Striding along the Governor’s Walk, opposite the palace gate, again, Cauvin dared a backward glance. The black-clad assassin was gone. He shouldn’t have been surprised or angry—he’d declared his freedom—but he was both.
“She ain’t come back yet,” the Stick snarled from behind the bar when Cauvin entered the Unicorn’s commons.
Cauvin left the tavern without another word, crossed to the opposite corner, and studied the Unicorn’s outer walls and windows. Unlike most of the buildings in the Maze, the Unicorn shrank as it rose, retreating from the nearby streets rather than leaning over them. There were shutters on every second-story window, and a single ledge running beneath them. Once Cauvin had determined which shutters blocked Leorin’s room, it was simple enough to wait until the street was clear before making his way to the ledge. He stuck the blade of his Ilbarsi knife between the shutters and popped the latch.
For one gut-churning moment Cauvin thought Leorin was asleep in her bed, but it was only her clothes. She’d emptied her baskets onto the mattress and seemed to have been sorting their contents into piles before she left with the chore unfinished. He cleared himself a space among them and settled in.
The sun came around. It poured through the shutter slats and made bright lines on the floor. Light never reached the mattress, never reached the gray emptiness where Cauvin tried to hide from his memories. In time the sunlight faded and the emptiness of Cauvin’s mind filled the room.
A familiar voice rang down the corridor not long after sunset. Two familiar voices: Leorin and the Stick.
—“I had my own affairs to attend to.” That was Leorin.
“What about my affairs?” That was the Stick. “You have chores to do during the day—this place doesn’t clean itself! You’re not here by day, you don’t work by night.” The barkeep’s voice shrank to a whisper, but they were on the other side of Leorin’s door, and Cauvin heard every word. “You’re a risk, Leorin. If I’ve got to take a risk, I’ve got to take more money. Say a shaboozh … a soldat or two?”
“Keep your threats to yourself. I don’t owe you another padpol until midsummer. I’m here, little man, whether you like it or not. Talk to your master, if you don’t believe me.”
The latch hook rattled. Cauvin tucked his knees under his chin. Light flooded the room when the door opened—Leorin had a froggin’ lamp in her hand. She swept it back and forth as she entered the room. Her eyes showed white when she saw Cauvin on her bed, but she swallowed her surprise—and kept a firm grip on her supper trencher as well. She shoved the door shut with her foot and leaned against the jamb.
“Stay in there,” the Stick snarled, and pounded the door for good measure. He never guessed there was a man waiting in his risky wench’s room. “Stay there until midsummer, but don’t show your face downstairs until I say you can.”
Leorin closed her eyes and kept them shut until the Stick’s heels were pounding the floorboards, then she studied Cauvin. He couldn’t make sense of her expression, but possibly his was no easier to read. He had no intention of being the first to speak. It had the makings of a long, quiet night until Leorin set the trencher and the lamp on her dressing table.
“Sorry I’m late. I thought I could settle my affairs in one morning. I forgot, this is Sanctuary. Everything takes longer.”
“Affairs?” Cauvin asked, taking one word and turning it into a question, the way the Torch or Soldt would.
She hesitated. “No need for secrets between us, is there? I had a few coronations and bits of jewelry with a goldsmith down on the Wideway. No way I leave anything valuable here; this place leaks like a sieve. And no reason to haul my wardrobe onto a boat and off again. I’d only have to replace it anyway when we got to Ranke—or Ilsig. Which passage did you arrange?”
“I didn’t,” he admitted.
“If you need more money—” She reached between her breasts for a jingly leather pouch. “I can loan you a coronation or two.”
Cauvin’s love hadn’t lessened, it had simply retreated. He couldn’t hate her or trust her, but he was curious, in a cold way, to hear her lies. He cast his net to pull them in.
“It’s not money. I didn’t go down to the wharves today—”
Leorin scowled and quickly tucked the pouch in a dressing-table drawer.
“There were problems when I got back to the stoneyard. My brother’s disappeared.”
“You don’t have a brother.”
“Bec’s my brother.” He’d been surprised by her tone
, but not left speechless. “We figured out that he’d been outside the city walls when the storm began. We can’t know for certain. All we know is that he was gone when the storm broke, and he hasn’t come back since.”
“That’s terrible,” Leorin said, and managed to make the words sound sincere. “Mina and Grabar, they must be in a frenzy. Their precious little boy wandering outside the walls where he doesn’t belong. Who knows—” She paused. “In Sanctuary, you have to think the worst. He could have gone to a neighbor. That crazy woman—What do you call her? Batty Something? She lost all her children, didn’t she? I wouldn’t trust a son of mine around that woman.
Poor Batty Dol, but maybe, if Cauvin hadn’t known what had happened, he would have been willing to suspect Batty. And maybe Leorin didn’t know what had happened to Bec. Whatever else she’d done, Cauvin didn’t think she’d gone out to the ruins.
Cauvin said, “Batty’s harmless and as frantic as Mina,” then he cast another net. “At first light, Grabar and I went out to the ruins where I’d hidden the Torch—”
“Now there’s another one I wouldn’t trust. Like as not, he took off with Bec, and you’ll never see either one of them again.”
“No, the Torch was still there, surrounded by corpses.”
Cauvin watched Leorin’s whole body stiffen—with surprise? Disappointment? Panic?
“Sweet Mother of Night! How could that happen? You said the froggin’ pud was wounded and dying! How could he kill anyone who came after him? I mean, did he say what happened? Was he still alive? Is he still there, or did you move him?”
Cauvin’s nets were half-full. Leorin knew what should have happened overnight, but not what had happened. She was the one casting nets now, because the Hand always looked for a scapegoat when it failed: The Bloody Mother had to be appeased.
One moment Cauvin didn’t know what to say. The next, his thoughts seethed with lies.
“He’s dead … now. He looked me in the eye, and said, ‘Cauvin, I name you my heir,’ with his last froggin’ breath. Me, a sheep-shite stone-smasher, heir to the froggin’ Torch, and him the richest man in Sanctuary. I hid his body—We’ve got to find Bec, first. But afterward, when that’s settled, I’m taking his froggin’ corpse to the palace. Shite for sure, I won’t get the Torch’s whole treasure, I’ll get something else, I’ll tell the whole city Arizak burnt the wrong froggin’ corpse. I swear to you, Leorin, when we step off the ship in Ranke, we’ll start our new lives in fine style.”
“We don’t need the Torch’s money.”
Any doubts lingering in Cauvin’s mind vanished when he heard those words from Leorin’s mouth. He couldn’t think of a time, even before the Hand, when gold and silver hadn’t been foremost in Leorin’s thoughts. She didn’t want him talking to Arizak.
Leorin didn’t want him looking for Bec either. “That boy will turn up in a day or two whether you’re out looking for him or not. He’ll tell his parents some sweet story, and you’ll get the blame, same as always. How long have you been here? You must be hungry.” She ripped into the bread on her trencher. “Sweet Mother, I’ve had it with the Stick. I can’t wait to get out of this place.”
Cauvin took the piece she offered him and wondered if she thought he hadn’t heard what had gone on between her and the Stick in the corridor.
“I get so tired of him and his threats,” Leorin continued. She brought the trencher over to the bed and set it on a heap of her clothes beside Cauvin. “Help yourself. Imaging him, telling me not to come downstairs tonight! Does he think that Twandan whore can keep the peace in the commons? Let her try! Mark me on this, Cauvin: They’ll be breaking tables before the night’s out. And the Stick’ll be climbing the stairs on his knees, begging me to come down to make everything right again.”
Leorin plucked a good-sized morsel of meat from the stew. She leaned across the trencher, dangling it a few inches from Cauvin’s mouth. He reached, intending to take the morsel from her hand, but she snatched it away and hid her hand behind her back. When Cauvin lowered his hand, Leorin let him see hers again.
Frog all—she wanted to play lovers’ games, which reminded Cauvin of the scolding he and Soldt had received from Galya. Galya probably wouldn’t approve of Leorin. Shite for sure, Mina didn’t.
When Mina served supper, she served it the Imperial way with four trenchers, four knives, four spoons, and four dainty Imperial forks for capturing food that couldn’t be speared or ladled. At the stoneyard, two to a trencher was uncivilized; a man and woman sharing one was froggin’ indecent. If Grabar wanted a morsel from Mina’s trencher, she’d jab it up with her fork then deposit it on the edge of his trencher and, shite for sure, she wouldn’t dare look at his face while the morsel was moving.
No froggin’ wonder, then, that Cauvin had daydreamed of sharing his trencher with Leorin, whose table manners were far less Imperial than her looks. He’d wasted whole evenings imagining a trencher shared on this very mattress. And now, when the moment was in his froggin’ grasp, he wasn’t in the mood to enjoy it.
“Oh, stop worrying about Bec!” Leorin chided. “I’m telling you, he’ll turn up. There’s no reason to worry anyway. He’s not your brother.” The morsel fell back into the stew; Leorin returned to her dressing table. “What you need is wine.”
Leorin had brought a flagon up with the trencher. She shook a few drops of water from a goblet already standing on the table, then filled it from the flagon. From his perch on the mattress, Cauvin couldn’t see the either the goblet or the flagon, but he could see Leorin’s arms. By watching their movements, he knew she’d added something to the goblet she handed him with a parted-lips smile.
“This will get you in the right mood. Drink up!”
“A toast,” Cauvin suggested quickly.
He offered Leorin the first sip and was bitterly unsurprised when she rushed to the table. She came back with the flagon in her hand.
“To our future!” she proposed, and when Cauvin was slow to respond, added. “To my husband. Tonight’s the night! Forever and always, I give my life to you.”
Cauvin listened as Leorin recited a vow of marriage. He couldn’t move. The room spun, as if he’d drunk poison through his fingertips. He wanted to hurl the froggin’ goblet at the wall—but that would expose his suspicions before he’d gotten enough out of her to save Bec.
“Cauvin—it’s just wine. It’s not going to kill you. Aren’t you happy … excited.”
“I am,” he muttered, adding: “and surprised,” before he could stop himself.
Shite for sure, Leorin was most likely telling the truth: With the Torch dead—because he’d told her—and him declaring that he was the Torch’s heir, the last thing Leorin wanted was his froggin’ corpse on her mattress. What she’d want was him completely under her control—asleep? unconscious? paralyzed? obedient?
Obedient would be best, then she could simply lead him to the Hand. There were potions that could make a man cut out his own froggin’ heart, but they were sorcerous in nature, and sorcery was froggin’ expensive. Leorin never wasted money. She wouldn’t have an obedience potion hiding among the perfume bottles on her dressing table unless she needed it. Leorin couldn’t have known. Shalpa’s froggin’ midnight cloak, she couldn’t have known he’d be waiting in her bedroom! The same reasoning weighed against unconscious or paralyzed, but not against asleep.
Leorin did suffer from nightmares; so did Batty Dol. Batty mixed up her own sleeping powders and sold them for a padpol each—Cauvin knew because he’d bought them, sometimes, for Pendy. Leorin would part with a padpol. She’d have sleeping powders on her dressing table.
Cauvin thought a moment. He could handle a sheep-shite sleeping powder.
“To our future,” Cauvin agreed, tipping the goblet against the flagon. “To my wife. Forever and always, I give my life to you.”
He put the glass against his closed lips. Peering over the rim, he could see that Leorin needed both trembling hands to steady the larger flagon again
st hers. She wasn’t smiling when she lowered the flagon. Shite for sure, Cauvin had never seen anyone look more frightened. They were playing games, the froggin’ most dangerous games imaginable; and Leorin, in deep with the Hand, had more to lose.
Wedging the goblet between the mattress and the wall, Cauvin seized his new wife by the arms and hugged her tight. Leorin fumbled the flagon, spilling wine on him, her, the clothes, the mattress, the trencher, and everything in between. She made mewling sounds, like an orphaned kitten.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” he reassured her.
With one arm Cauvin clutched her tight; with the other he swept the wine-soaked clutter onto the floor. Then, while kissing his bride and easing her onto her back, his fingers found the goblet and tipped it sideways—just another stain sinking into the feathers.
Froggin’ sure, Cauvin had never imagined that their first time would be like this, tainted with betrayal and poison, but he was a man and Leorin was a willing woman who knew her way around a mattress. Cauvin could play the part of an eager husband. After a moment, it wasn’t playing, even though each kiss, each caress, each pounding heartbeat scarred him worse than ten long years in the pits.
Cauvin collapsed onto Leorin’s shoulder with a groan.
“Cauvin?” Leorin whispered in his ear. “Beloved? Are you asleep?”
The question cut through Cauvin’s soul. He held her tight and clenched his teeth to keep from screaming. She kissed his lips, his eyes, along his neck. Cauvin rolled onto his back. Leorin’s long golden hair swept his skin, softer than silk and shimmering in the lamplight.
“I love you so much, Cauvin, I wish I could die right now.”
“Me too,” he agreed and held her steady as she balanced above his hips.
“Cauvin? Cauvin, are you asleep?”
He wasn’t, but the time had come for silence.
Limb by limb, Leorin freed herself from his weight. She sat up, cradled Cauvin’s head in her lap, and wound herself around him. He felt her breasts and her tears; and, for a moment, he thought he had been wrong about everything. Then she slid off from the mattress.