Rain began as Cauvin entered the Maze, pebble-sized drops that stung bare skin and left craters in the muck when they hit the streets. Growing up beside the sea, Cauvin knew the worst was yet to come. He ran along the Serpentine and reached the Unicorn’s doorway a heartbeat before the sky ripped open with deafening thunder and sheets of rain as dark as night.
The Unicorn’s signboard had been lowered and its door pulled shut against the weather, but the tavern was open for business. There were empty tables along the walls, but Cauvin ignored them. Even if he’d visited the place more often, he had the wrong attitude for a shadowed table, an east-side attitude, a Pyrtanis Street attitude, where men sweated when they worked. The Vulgar Unicorn regulars were rogues and schemers for whom breaking a sweat was the greatest sin of all. They might give Cauvin a glance as he came through the door, but not a second—he wasn’t rich enough to rob, nor tough enough to recruit.
But this night was different. Despite rain drumming the walls, Cauvin heard the commons fall quiet around him and watched heads turn his way. Hardened eyes asked silent questions. He held off a stare or two, because he’d learned the price of weakness before the Hand caught him. Once Cauvin had backed a regular down, though, there was no way in Hecath’s hells that he could sit at a community table. He chose the nearest empty wall-side table and settled into a chair that gave him a good view of both the door and the other patrons, even though that also gave them a better view of him.
By then, Cauvin’s heart beat so furiously that his hands shook. He kept the cloak around his shoulders. Froggin’ sure he wouldn’t let the regulars catch him fumbling the knots holding it closed.
Mimise, the tall, rangy wench who slept in the room beside Leorin’s, reached Cauvin first. She plunked a brimming mug of ale on the table and stayed to stare.
“Reenie’s stone-smasher. As Ils will be my judge, I didn’t believe my eyes,” she declared with her slow, Twandan drawl. “What happened to you?”
Cauvin took a deep breath, and said, “I lost a fight with the city guard.”
Mimise propped a hand on her hip and leaned away from it. “If that’s what comes of losing to the guard, then we’ve all been playing this game wrong. Reenie’s out back. You want me to get her—or has that changed along with the rest of you?”
“It hasn’t,” Cauvin answered. He broke Mimise’s stare by adding: “And it won’t, either.”
He was calmer after the Twandan left and shed his cloak confidently. Two other wenches found reasons to walk toward his table. They hadn’t cared when their sister in service was less than faithful to a sheep-shite stone-smasher, but let him show up in a pale linen shirt and a substantial cloak—Suddenly they were ready to freshen his mug before he’d taken a sip from it. Each offered to fetch Leorin, but only after telling him that she’d been with another man earlier in the day.
Still, flattery was pleasant, and Cauvin was listening to the second wench—her name was Rose or Rosa or Rosy, and she couldn’t be a day over fourteen—talk about her life at the Unicorn when Leorin emerged from the storeroom. She raked the commons with her eyes and smiled when she found Cauvin. Then she saw Rose, and the smile vanished. Cauvin could have warned Rose that the storm outside was nothing compared to the one marching across the commons, but that would only get him in trouble with his beloved, and no warning was going to spare Rose. The girl yelped and overturned an empty mug when Leorin’s hands clamped down on her shoulders like eagles’ claws.
Besides, there was no flattery to compare with Leorin caushing a rival.
“They’re looking for someone to clean up out back.”
Leorin’s voice was cold as winter, and her fingers were white. She wasn’t at all gentle shoving Rose toward the storeroom, then she flowed into the empty chair like a cat. With a changer’s narrowed eyes, Leorin sized up Cauvin’s new shirt, his freshly trimmed hair, the heavy cloak draped over the third chair.
Shite for sure, Leorin looked worried, and worry was not one of Leorin’s usual expressions. Cauvin could have repeated what he’d told Mimise and would eventually have told Rose—he wasn’t interested in other women—but silence had served him well lately, and there was no reason to change tactics in a froggin’ storm.
“Are you going to tell me what’s happened?” Leorin demanded, sobering Cauvin in a heartbeat.
He nodded. “A lot’s happened. We need to talk—”
“I can see that. Did they all die up on Pyrtanis Street?”
The question caught Cauvin by surprise, though it would be the simplest way to explain his change in fortune. “No, Grabar’s fine,” he mumbled. “They’re all fine.”
“The old man—the one that gave you the box—Did he give you more silver? Gold? Did he finally die?”
“No, nothing like that.” He and Leorin had become the center of uncomfortable attention. “Can we go upstairs? I don’t want to talk about it down here.”
“I’ve got customers to tend—regulars.” Which meant they expected good service from their favorite wench, and she expected extra padpols each time she visited their tables.
Cauvin took a deep breath before saying, “Let them wait. Rose can tend them, or Mimise—”
“That Twandan witch! If she thinks she can take what’s mine—”
Leorin spun around, looking for the tall wench. Mimise tended a table near the stairs, laughing heartily and tucking something into her bodice. It was Leorin’s tables, her regulars, and she didn’t take kindly to the invasion. She was half out of her chair before Cauvin caught her arm. Their eyes locked across the table lamp.
He was supposed to know better than to touch her in public. Strangers grabbed at Leorin nightly, and she encouraged the regulars because a caress loosened their purse strings, but Cauvin was neither a stranger nor a regular.
“Please, Leorin,” he pleaded, their eyes still locked. “Let it go. Just this once—I need to be alone with you.” He released her.
As suddenly as it had arisen, the tension departed. Leorin was all smiles, brushing her fingers lightly across Cauvin’s wrist, gliding around the table to stand with her body against him while she toyed with his fresh-cut hair.
“You’re sure?” she asked.
Cauvin nodded. He couldn’t see Leorin’s face for her breasts, and what he was sure of had nothing to do with leaving Sanctuary. The storm, the lewd chuckling from the wenches and regulars, none of that mattered as he followed Leorin up the stairs. He found the tortoiseshell clasp that tamed her golden hair and removed it as she unlatched the door to her room. He’d dropped his cloak on the floor and started on her bodice laces before she’d closed the door.
Neither of them needed lamplight to find the bed.
The long knife clattered to the floor, followed by belts, boots, and shoes. Cauvin wrestled with Leorin’s bodice until the braided laces were hopelessly tangled. He solved that problem by yanking them hard enough to tear the cloth. Her breasts moved freely then within her gown, but the gown itself was securely laced in back.
Men’s clothing was simpler. Two slipknots kept Cauvin’s breeches snug at his waist, or loosened them entirely. While Leorin used one hand to untie those knots and peeled his new shirt over his head, Cauvin grappled blindly with her gown. Leorin moved on to the leather baldric, which was snared in the remains of her bodice and couldn’t be lifted over his head.
Her fingers sought the clasp and her shriek of pained, enraged surprise almost certainly echoed through the commons despite the storm.
Too late Cauvin recalled the quills worked into the broker’s purse. Meant to stymie a thief; they’d gotten Leorin instead. He located her stung fingers.
“Sorry,” he murmured, pressing her fingertips to his lips.
“Don’t touch me!”
Leorin exploded out of his arms, raking his cheek with her nails and elbowing his gut for good measure.
Cauvin caught a handful of gown. “I said I’m sorry.”
He attempted to lure Leorin back to the bed, but she’d have none of that, lashing out with her fists and snarling, “Leave me alone! Don’t touch me!”
The blows didn’t hurt, but Cauvin had to let her go. She threw herself through the dark room, striking first the bedpost, then the floor on her way to the corner where the ceiling came closest to the floor. A stray thunderbolt brightened the room, showing Cauvin the anguish he couldn’t otherwise hear: Leorin with her knees tucked under her chin, clawing her own flesh until it bled. Before darkness returned, he was off the bed and fumbling with the lamp on her dressing table.
Thank the froggin’ gods the lamp was full—Leorin was usually careful about such things—and there was a flint-and-steel striker dangling from its handle. Cauvin struck a flame and left the lamp on the dresser, where it shed flickering light into Leorin’s corner.
“Leorin?” Cauvin approached cautiously, on his knees. “Leorin—I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He spoke softly, calmly. “The person who gave me the baldric showed me how it was rigged against snatchers, but I forgot. Sheep-shite stupid me forgot what she showed me—”
Leorin lifted her head. Cauvin held his breath, half-expecting her to surge for his eyes the way an injured animal might its rescuer. But the face she showed him, shiny with tears, wasn’t masked with anger, nor even fear. It was empty, achingly empty, as if she’d never seen Cauvin before and, perhaps, didn’t see him now.
“Leorin? Leorin, it’s all right. Come back—”
Cauvin reached for her arm. She cringed and he froze, waited, then reached closer. With his third reach Cauvin’s hand circled hers.
“Come back, Leorin. It’s only dreams and memories.” The dreams and memories and the darkness Cauvin had escaped.
An inch at a time, Cauvin drew Leorin into his arms. The storm peaked with howling winds, crashing shutters, and bright-as-day thunderbolts. He flinched when they fell close enough to shake the walls, but he kept hold of Leorin and she, lost within herself, was blind to the storm. A few moments passed, or maybe a few hours—Cauvin had let his mind go gray and lost track of time. The rain had gentled when Leorin began to shiver. Cauvin wrapped her in blankets pulled from the bed.
“Storm’s over,” he suggested, and Leorin began to cry in earnest.
Leorin cried until tears had washed away whatever memories had risen earlier. First one arm, then the other emerged from the blanket cocoon. She caressed his shoulders, his back. She pulled his face to hers and gave him a kiss fit for waking the dead; but it was a wasted effort. Cauvin never loved Leorin more than when she needed him, but it was a chaste love at cross-purposes with passion or lust.
“No.” He pushed her away. “Not now. That was a bad one, Leorin. I wasn’t sure where you were, or who you thought I was, or if you were coming back.”
“You worry too much.”
“And you don’t worry enough. Sanctuary’s not a good place for you—or me either. Too many memories. We’ve got to get out of here. I collected forty shaboozh today. With them and the coronations I got the other day—it’s enough, Leorin. We can pay a ship’s captain. We can go to Ilsig in style—”
“A ship to Ilsig?” Leorin’s eyebrows arched. Her voice was acid. “Frog all, Cauvin, Ilsig’s the last place I’d go. You haven’t made any promises to some froggin’ sea captain, have you?”
“No,” Cauvin confessed. “I just got the shaboozh.” He found the broker’s purse and showed her its secrets. “What’s so bad about going to Ilsig? Just the other night, you wanted to follow a merchant to the kingdom.”
Leorin paused in her coin counting. “Look at me, Cauvin. Do I look like I belong in froggin’ Ilsig? If I’m leaving Sanctuary, I’m not going where I look like the froggin’ down-on-her-luck, Imperial whore. Ten days with that merchant, and everything he owned would have been mine—ours. We wouldn’t have stayed in Ilsig, not one day longer than necessary.”
“I want to take care of us, Leorin. I can earn enough that no one would ever think you’re a whore, Imperial or otherwise, here or in the heart of Ilsig,” Cauvin proclaimed before he could stop himself.
“No.” Leorin stroked Cauvin’s cheek. “But, if I’m leaving, I’d sooner go to Ranke. Froggin’ sure I could turn heads there. You know I could.”
Cauvin clenched his jaw.
“Oh, Cauvin, don’t sulk. It’s business … opportunity there for the taking. You’ll have me long after I’ve lost my looks, but until then, I can make us rich!”
“You may look Imperial, but inside you’re just another Wrigglie. What chance have we got in a city where we don’t speak the froggin’ language?”
She called him a child and a fool, but she did it in Imperial, using the gutter words every Wrigglie understood, then she went on with words he didn’t understand in his ears, but—perhaps—could have read, if she’d written them out.
“Enough!” he snarled. “You’ve made your point. I don’t want to argue with you, Leorin, I just want to get you out of Sanctuary before something bad happens.”
“What ‘bad’? We’ve been through the worst, haven’t we?” She shook out the last of the shaboozh. “froggin’ gods, Cauvin—you’ve got forty-two shaboozh here. Forty-two froggin’ shaboozh on top of four coronations and twenty-three soldats. That old pud you’re working for must be made of gold and silver. What’s his froggin’ name, anyway?”
“It’s not the same pud. I got the shaboozh from Lord Mioklas on the Processional. You remember I built a wall in his perfume garden last spring?”
“Forty-two—that’s just a start, just for your labor. He still owes for the stone, doesn’t he? You’re finally taking your share first?”
“Something like that,” Cauvin confessed. “I want to get us out of Sanctuary.”
“The Ender, can you tap him again?”
“What Ender?”
“The froggin’ Ender pud who gave you the coronations and soldats! Is he good for more?”
Cauvin squirmed uncomfortably. “I never said I got those coins from an Ender.”
“Frog all—who but an Ender has bright, shiny coronations and soldats in this city?”
The Torch, Cauvin thought, but didn’t say. Having held Leorin in his arms and kept her safe as she wandered through her waking nightmare, he’d convinced himself that the only path for him and Leorin was the path out of Sanctuary, to Ranke or Ilsig, by land or sea, the sooner the better.
“Forget more coronations or soldats or shaboozh. We’ve got the money to leave, and once we’re out of Sanctuary none of this will matter …” Cauvin was hoping out loud and cringing inside because if he let his guard down, then all his suspicions came roaring back to life.
“We can never have too much gold and silver, Cauvin. Never. If there’s silver to be had, then let’s have it. If there’s gold, so much the better.”
Cauvin answered by scooping up pile after pile of shaboozh from the planks between them. Leorin reached for his wrists.
“What troubles you, Cauvin? If you’d rather stay here in Sanctuary—If you’re doing all this just for me—?”
“No. No, I want to leave Sanctuary.”
“You never did before. You didn’t when I told you about the merchant.”
Cauvin tucked the closed purse within the heap of his cloak. “All this had barely started then. I didn’t know where it was leading.”
“Where all what was starting and leading?”
He shook his head. “I can’t talk about it. I want to—that’s why I wanted to come up here—but I can’t. I can’t separate the good from the bad, even in my own mind.”
“Don’t try.” Leorin slid her arm around Cauvin’s shoulder, more friend than lover. “If you’re in trouble—If it’s more than collecting what you’re owed—”
“No—that’s the easy part, the good part, the part I can believe happened, because the rest of what’s happened to me this week, I don’t believe it myself. It started the morning when they found the bodies at a Pyrtanis Street crossing.”
“The bodies? Oh—the Torch and the Ender—the old pud’s spare son? Nothing hard to believe about that. A sparking Ender cut down on the streets. A froggin’ old pud. Only bit that’s hard to believe is that the Torch was alive to murder. That was one unnaturally old pud.”
“He didn’t die, Leorin,” Cauvin whispered. “The Torch didn’t die on Pyrtanis Street. I found him the next morning. He was getting the snot stomped out of him on the Promise of Heaven—”
“Where on the Promise?” Leorin demanded.
“Inside the old Temple of Ils. All I saw at first was a Hiller pounding an old man—”
“Did you recognize him?”
“Not hardly. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman getting pounded—”
“No, the other one—you said a Hiller. Did you recognize him?”
Cauvin shook his head. “Some rat from the Hill. He couldn’t fight me and knew it. I’d’ve followed him when he ran, but the old pud—the Torch—he was in bad shape.”
“He was in the temple of Ils?” Leorin demanded.
froggin’ sure, the Torch was an Imperial priest with no business in an Ilsigi temple, but froggin’ sure Great Father Ils hadn’t been seen on the Promise of Heaven lately. “He must have gotten himself lost. I said he was in bad shape and so old you’d froggin’ swear a good sneeze would blow him apart.”
“And you stayed with him until he died, then you took what he had on him?”
“The Torch didn’t die, Leorin. He’s still alive. I wanted to take him to the palace. Shite for sure that’s where he belongs, right? But, no, he won’t go to the palace. We’re arguing and suddenly he says: ‘Where were you going when you found me?’ And me—the sheep-shite idiot—the next thing I know, I’m on my way with him in the gods-all-be-damned mule cart.”
Leorin drummed her fingers against the leg of her dressing table. The rapid movements made the lamp tremble and filled the room with flickering light.
“The Irrune,” Cauvin continued, “who knows who they burnt on that pyre. But the Torch won’t go back to the palace. He is dying; he’s just taking his own froggin’ sweet time about it.”
“Where were you going? You weren’t working on Mioklas’s perfume garden—”
“No—Grabar heard that a dyer over on Sendakis Way was going to be marrying off his son. We put new bricks on the front of the dyer’s house, so Grabar figured that when he set his son up, he’d want the fronts—”
“Where, Cauvin? I don’t care about bricks or dyers. Where did you take the froggin’ Torch?”
“Outside the walls, up into the hills, to the old estate where we got the bricks to do the first front.”
“Sweet Mother, there must be twenty old estates in the hills out there. Which one? What’s its name?”
“How should I know? Nobody lives there. Nobody’s lived there since before Grabar and Mina were born—that’s what she says. She recognized the place from our description, but she didn’t know the name—never had, I guess.”
“To the east? The west? Near the Red Foal? The White?”
“What’s the difference? Pretty much in the middle, then. It’s brick-built but the bricks were imported. You can’t make red bricks with Sanctuary sand, Sanctuary clay. I tell Grabar I’m going out to the red-walled ruins, and he thinks I’m out there smashing bricks out of the walls, not waiting on a man too stubborn to die.”
“The Torch is still alive? Still alive in an abandoned estate built from red bricks?”
“Well—” Cauvin thought about the storm. It had packed a punch, but the winds had pretty much died down. Sanctuary got worse from afternoon squalls in summer. A few roof tiles might have blown loose, a few shutters unhinged themselves, nothing more. He’d have no trouble getting back to Pyrtanis Street, but outside the walls, in a crumbling ruin of red bricks? “He was alive when I left yesterday. Today’s the first day I didn’t go outside the walls. He’s had me running errands. That first night … it was the Torch who sent me to the Broken Mast after that box.”
“You were fetching for Lord froggin’ High-and-Mighty Torchholder and you didn’t tell me? Just some old pud! All Sanctuary’s buzzing about who killed the froggin’ Torch, who killed the sparker from Land’s End, and you sit right here on my bed keeping secrets?”
Cauvin couldn’t hold Leorin’s glower. He looked at his naked feet. “I didn’t tell anyone. I wanted to. I wanted to go to the palace and get the old pud out of my life, but that’s not what he wanted—and I’m here to tell you, that withered old pud that he is, there’s no winning an argument with Molin Torchholder. He says that his enemies think they killed him there at the end of Pyrtanis Street and that there’s no froggin’ point to letting enemies know when they’re wrong. I didn’t even tell Grabar. He sends me out every morning with the mule, thinking I’m breaking my back smashing bricks and I’m running ragged for Lord Molin Torchholder! You know how Mina would be if she thought she could get her hands on an Imperial lord.” He almost mentioned how Bec had gotten the secret out of him and was calling the Torch “Grandfather” as he wrote down the old pud’s memorial—but he already felt sheep-shite foolish enough.
“So, who does the froggin’ Torch think murdered him?”
Cauvin continued to stare at his toes. “That’s one of the reasons I didn’t tell you—I didn’t want to get you frightened, but—according to him—it was the Hand, a red-handed Servant of the Bloody Mother. If he’s right, they’re back in Sanctuary … and all the more reason for us to get out, Leorin. We got out alive; there’s no way we could be lucky a second time.”
He reached out to take Leorin in his arms, but she eluded him. She threw off the blanket, stood up, and said, “Please, Cauvin, have mercy.” Her tone was anything but merciful. “The Hand returned to Sanctuary? Do you think they’re sheep-shite fools? Molin Torchholder broke the Hand into a thousand pieces, then burnt the pieces, and scattered the ashes to the winds. Shite for sure there’s a Mother’s priest somewhere who’d love nothing better than to lay the bastard’s beating heart on the Mother’s altar, if only he’d set foot outside Sanctuary. There’s nothing left of the Hand inside Sanctuary except bad memories and nightmares.”
“They nearly got Bec,” Cauvin informed her, lifting his head. “The boy followed me”—that was a lie, but it would stand—“and wound himself tight with the old pud and decided to do him a froggin’ favor—after I told not to. The froggin’ sprout got jumped coming home. Froggin’ sure it was the grace of the damn gods I got there in time. I dreamt the boy was in trouble—”
Leorin scowled. She said, “You’ve always said you don’t dream,” as though this were the most potent lie Cauvin had ever told.
“I’ve been dreaming a lot since the Torch didn’t die—”
“You should have told me.”
“It’s just dreams, not nightmares or terrors. The important thing is, I dreamt Bec needed rescuing, and I went out after him. I wound up fighting the Hand in an old courtyard off Copper Corner.”
“How do you know it was the Hand?”
“The bastard getting ready to twist Bec’s head around wore red silk over his face.”
“Sweet Mother, Cauvin—that doesn’t prove anything. Why did you wear the red silk in the first place? It was as much to frighten people as to hide your faces. So, what better way to wait in an alley or courtyard than with some red silk wound over your face? Froggin’ gods—you fell for it quick enough.”
“All right—it was more than the silk, it was the way he fought, the way he had his hands around the boy’s head, all set to snap his neck. I know what the Hand taught me, Leorin. I know it when I see it. If that bastard wasn’t consecrated Hand, then he was froggin’ taught by them.”
“Maybe not everybody who walked out of the palace decided to live like a sheep-shite dog smashing stone for stewed meat twice a week.”
“I know every one the Torch set aside, every orphan who walked out of the palace the day after … everybody who’s left.” Cauvin was on his feet. His right hand had become a fist. He didn’t remember either act.
“You didn’t see me walk out, did you, Cauvin? The froggin’ Torch never did anything for me.”
Leorin’s words were fists in Cauvin’s gut. It wasn’t merely that she was right; Leorin usually was. But he’d never considered that Leorin might not be the only orphan who’d survived the Hand’s collapse without the Torch’s help.
“We’ve got to leave Sanctuary,” Cauvin said. His fist fell open to his side. “Anyone who doesn’t want to meet the Hand again has to leave—” Grabar and Mina, Swift, Batty Dol, and everyone else on Pyrtanis Street marched past his mind’s eye. Even rich Lord Mioklas on the Processional and Gorge of the city guard, who wasn’t a bad sort. And Bec. Mostly Bec. “They’ve got to be warned. I’ve got to tell them!”
“You haven’t told anyone what happened? The brat hasn’t?”
Cauvin shook his head. “He came up with his own lies.”
“But you’ve told Grabar and Mina about the Torch?”
Another headshake. “He doesn’t want anyone to know. The old pud’s clever. He’d have my liver if he knew I was telling you.”
“Me, in particular?”
“No, any—” Cauvin’s breath caught on that he.
“What did you tell him about me?” Leorin demanded. “You’re keeping secrets. Gods all damn you, if you’re keeping secrets!”
Secrets! Cauvin was drowning in them, froggin’ secrets and lies. He wanted to tell her everything, just to be free again—“When I came here to the Unicorn, what—two nights ago, three?” Time blurred for Cauvin with Leorin glaring at him. “It was because the Torch sent me to meet someone.” The colder Leorin’s eyes got, the more Cauvin realized there were worse fates than drowning in secrets. “I didn’t see him, but he saw me … and you.”
“And wondered why I was here, not out at Land’s End?”
Suddenly there was a branch within a drowning man’s grasp. Seize it and he’d be safe, with another lie, another secret hanging over him. “That, and other things, too. I told him that we’d known each other a long time—before the pits and in them. You know, he didn’t recognize me. The froggin’ pud didn’t remember locking me in a room after the Irrune took the palace, but he swore he’d have remembered you … if he’d seen you.”
“So?”
“So, you’re right—the Torch didn’t help you get free of the Hand. So he thinks—He thinks you must have had the Hand’s help.”
“I told you!” she snapped. “The Whip dragged me along until I got the drop on him. One slit clean across his froggin’ belly. His guts fell out, and I was alone … days away from Sanctuary.”
“That’s what I said, but he didn’t believe me. The Torch believes you left with the Hand and came back the same way.”
“Sweet froggin’ Mother, Cauvin! You sound as though you believe it, too.”
“Where do you go when you’re not here?”
Leorin seized the water jug with both hands. “So that’s the froggin’ bone!” She raised the jug shoulder high. Water sloshed over her hair and gown. “It’s not the flea-shite Torch and it’s not the Hand—it’s you! Have you forgotten that the froggin’ Stick doesn’t pay us wages? I buy every froggin’ mug I serve, and the froggin’ Stick charges rent for this flea-shite room on top. If it’s been a slow week—and between the damn froggin’ Dragon and a froggin’ funeral for a corpse that wasn’t the frog-all Torch, this has been one froggin’ slow week—and I need the rent, or padpols for the Sisters of Eshi or, Sweet Mother forbid, I’ve torn a hole in my shoes, the froggin’ gods know I can’t turn to you. ‘Til this week, you’ve been poorer than dirt, but don’t hear me complaining, do you? I do what I have to do and get what I need from my regulars. It’s what I know how to do, Cauvin. I don’t froggin’ enjoy it, but I do it because I’ve eaten dirt, and it doesn’t froggin’ fill your stomach.”
Ashamed, Cauvin said, “I didn’t mean that.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“I meant—I froggin’ meant that you were so close to them. You can think like them, and sometimes you’re as froggin’ cold. It’s hard not to wonder, that’s all. The Torch had me take his doubts to a S’danzo—”
Leorin’s arms trembled. It seemed she would heave the jug, but she set it down hard on the dressing table instead. “There’s a froggin’ poor joke. I’d sooner be Hand than S’danzo. Why don’t you jump her broom?”
“Because, frog all, you’re the woman I love, Leorin. I want to get us out before the darkness closes in over both our heads. You couldn’t see yourself during the storm—the look in your eyes, the way you turn cold as death. I don’t want to lose you to the Hand! They’re back, Leorin. What do you think they’ll do if they find out you slit the froggin’ Whip?”
In silence, Leorin wrapped her arms around herself so tight it seemed she’d break. She didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. Cauvin caught her just as she began to topple.
“I ran once,” she whispered, squeezing his ribs, now, rather than her own. “And no matter how far I went, the dreams were already there, so I came back.” Leorin looked up at Cauvin, her amber eyes shining in the lamplight. “It was better here.”
“Because I hold you when you dream. Think how much better it will be when we’re in Ranke.”
“Ilsig.”
“But?”
“I’ll go wherever you go, Cauvin. Give me a day to get ready, to sell what I can; and one other thing: We’ve got to be married before we leave. No priests, no processions or feasts—just you and me. Tomorrow, at sunset, we’ll make our vows, just to each other. We’ll have one night, together and alone, together in Sanctuary. The day after tomorrow, lead me onto whatever ship, bound for whatever port.”
“We don’t have to wait until tomorrow,” Cauvin whispered in Leorin’s ear. Anger could become lust faster than any mage could cast a spell.
“I want wine, Cauvin—good wine from Caronne, perfumed oil for the lamp … and elsewhere.” With a kiss-moistened fingertip, she drew a swirling shapes down Cauvin’s chest that took his breath away. “I’ll have it all here before sunset tomorrow—” Leorin paused, then grinned. “Today! Froggin’ sure, it’s hours after midnight.”
Cauvin let go slowly. He’d been caught in the undertow once already tonight; twice was almost more than a man could endure without getting drunk on sour wine.
“You find the ship,” Leorin purred. “I’ll get the wine and the oil.”
Cauvin stood beneath a streaming gargoyle on Stink Street. The storm had scoured the roofs. He let the water splash against his face without fear and marveled that he’d walked away from Leorin again. Overhead there were stars shining through high, shredded clouds. The Irrune torches were all soaked and useless, but with every puddle turned into a mirror by the starlight, Cauvin could see his way to the Processional.
He hadn’t planned to go back to the stoneyard, but short of the ruins, there wasn’t anywhere else to go. Cauvin turned left on the Processional, toward the palace, and had the avenue to himself—or he’d thought he did. He’d passed Mioklas’s darkened mansion before he realized he wasn’t hearing the echo of his own footsteps following him.
Cauvin’s shadow raised a lantern, revealing a face—Soldt’s face. They met in the middle of the avenue.
“You’ve been following me?”
“I was at the Vulgar Unicorn waiting for you when you came downstairs. I thought we’d share a pitcher of mulled wine, but I couldn’t catch your eye.”
This was a different Soldt. If Cauvin had joined him at the Unicorn, there wouldn’t have been much wine left in his pitcher. The assassin was short of drunk, but not by much. Cauvin asked himself: Why would the Torch’s man drink himself tipsy?
“He’s dead.” Cauvin answered his own question. “The Torch is dead.”
Soldt shook his head. “Not to my knowledge, though my knowledge stops with the storm. First thing this morning I told him there was a gale-storm coming. I’d found a quiet room inside the walls—”
Cauvin guessed that he knew where.
—“But there’s no moving Lord Torchholder when his mind’s set. I could have forced him, one way or another; no doubt, that would have killed him sure as the gale. I hauled extra blankets for his bed and oilcloths to nail over the cellar way. I’d have stayed with him, damn him, but he’d have none of me. He was worried about you and what sort of trouble you’d gotten yourself into. Said I needed to keep an eye on you. And your imp of a brother.”
“Bec? What’s happened to my brother?”
“He’s home in the stoneyard, asleep in his bed—or plaguing his parents. The little demon showed up while I was collecting supplies …” Soldt laughed—a small heave at the shoulders, marking unshared humor. “At first, I was glad to see him. If anyone could move Lord Torchholder, I thought he might be the one. There’s not many beautiful women who can wheedle half so well as that boy. But Lord Torchholder was adamant, so the imp started in on me! If Lord Torchholder wouldn’t leave, then we should stay with him … telling ghost stories, no doubt. Lord Torchholder wouldn’t hear of that. He gave the boy a good scolding for insolence and said to take him home. I thought we were done, but the imp scampered. He’s got the makings of a spy in him. By the time I dug out his bolt-hole, I thought we’d be caught in the storm. The weather held—Lord Torchholder’s a storm priest. I got Bec to the stoneyard before they closed the gate.” Another shoulder heave. “You’re not truly collecting eggs from talking chickens?”
Cauvin chuckled. “Who knows? They play dumb when I’m around. Too bad Bec couldn’t persuade the Torch to move. He’s going to die alone out there—”
“That’s what he wants. He’s down to pride and fear. I tried to clean that wound—It’s hopeless. His leg’s turned black. Any other man and the flesh would have gone putrid, but Lord Torchholder’s a priest. One morning, soon, he’ll be gone but for his bones; maybe them, too. He’s a believer again, saying his prayers, making the signs. Lord Torchholder knows Vashanka’s waiting for him. I think that frightens him more than death itself. Can’t say as I disagree. If I can’t die quick, then let me die alone. Pride’s stronger than fear.”
The wind behind the gale blew cold. Cauvin shuddered. He thought about the thousandth eye of Father Ils, the eye that saw the deeds of a lifetime and weighed the soul accordingly. He’d survived the Hand by doing what he’d been told. If that didn’t appease Father Ils when it came time, then Cauvin knew exactly how the Torch felt. Cauvin shuddered again—he couldn’t change the past, but, maybe the future … ?
“Did you get a message from me? I went to see that laundress at the Inn of Six Ravens …”
“I can see that,” Soldt agreed, and added, without directly answering Cauvin’s question, “It’s no secret that he and Lord Torchholder walk in different circles, but I’ll take a look at who Lord Mioklas has been talking to lately. I’m not known through the palace, lad. The good there is, no one recognizes me; the bad is that I’ve got few connections there other than Lord Torchholder. None at all near Naimun, and that—I’ll wager—is where I’d need to look.”
With his conscience acting up, Cauvin felt obligated to add, “The Hand killed Mioklas’s father—peeled him right here, in front of his own home.”
“Meaning, he wouldn’t knowingly plot Lord Torchholder’s murder with the Hand?”
“Something like that. If he knew—If the right person proved it to him, he’d be the first looking for revenge.”
“Nothing better than a rich man’s vengeance!” Soldt laughed. “The poor man knows the gods of fortune aren’t smiling on him, but a rich man takes it personally.”
Rich men took sea gales personally, too, sending their servants out to check for damage. At Mioklas’s mansion, the keeper barked the orders while his master made a noble silhouette in front of the high door.
“Time to move on,” Soldt suggested.
Cauvin agreed. The men walked together toward the palace, which was out of the way for a man returning to the Inn of Six Ravens. Cauvin braced himself for questions and when they hadn’t been asked by the time they turned eastward on Governor’s Walk, he asked them himself.
“Don’t you want to know what happened when I went to visit Elemi? She knew my name, but she wasn’t glad to see me or the Torch’s froggin’ box. It was full of cards, S’danzo cards.”
“Women,” Soldt muttered. “I’d be more interested in knowing why you suddenly felt the need to visit Lord Mioklas on the Processional to collect the stoneyard’s debts.”
“That’s what I do. I smash stone, I build walls, and I make sure we get paid for the work we do. Last spring, Mioklas had us—me—build a wall in his perfume garden. About time he paid for it.”
“With everything else that’s happening, I wouldn’t think you’d be worrying about walls or gardens or unpaid debts. Unless you needed money. Let’s see—new cloak, new shirt—new to you anyway. Got your hair cut—”
“I’m leaving Sanctuary!” Cauvin waited for Soldt’s reaction, which was, predictably, silence. “Frog all,” he exploded. “I’m going to buy ship passage for Leorin and me. I’ve been thinking about it almost since I found the Torch, but I made up my mind today. That S’danzo, she said I was the only light in Leorin’s darkness. If I can get us away from Sanctuary, we’ll be free. Maybe Ranke, maybe the kingdom. We’ll ride that froggin’ galley out to Inception, then buy onto any ship that promises to take us far, far from the Hand.”
“You’re Lord Torchholder’s heir, Cauvin. You can’t leave Sanctuary.”
“froggin’ watch me. I don’t care how much gold and silver he’s got hidden away. I can’t be bought, Soldt. I’m not his froggin’ heir.”
“You won’t get away, lad.”
“What, are you going to stop me?” Cauvin reached inside the cloak and withdrew the Ilbarsi knife.
“Put that away. I’m trying to help you.”
“Froggin’ hells of Hecath you are. You’re his man—”
“Put it away, Cauvin. You’ve been chosen.”
“froggin’ forget ’chosen.’ The old pud can choose any sheep-shite fool he wants but, shite for sure, I’m not choosing back.”
“Lord Torchholder didn’t choose you! He wouldn’t wish his curse on his worst enemy—not that he hasn’t considered it.”
“Curse? Damn him to Hecath’s coldest hell—What curse?” Frog all, a curse could explain everything: the dreams, the veil of sparks in the old Unicorn’s basement, even the sudden ability to read languages he couldn’t speak. “I should’ve left him there. I should’ve let that froggin’ damn Hiller kick his froggin’ brains out his froggin’ nose.”
“A figure of speech, only. I don’t mean a true curse … no drinking blood or turning into a wyre. Only Lord Torchholder considers it a curse—the curse that keeps him tied to Sanctuary. He speaks of the city as though it were a living creature that can’t be mastered or taught; it requires a keeper—for its secrets, if nothing more. Lord Torchholder would say that Sanctuary chose him, and now that he’s dying, it’s chosen you to replace him.”
“froggin’ sure, the Torch and froggin’ Sanctuary can just forget about me replacing him. Sanctuary can keep its own froggin’ secrets …”
Cauvin’s voice trailed as he recalled the dreams and visions of the last week. Had the Torch gone through similar turmoil? Were they adversaries or kindred victims? Hard to believe—Impossible to believe that anyone or anything—including Sanctuary—could make a victim of the Torch. The old pud was pulling the strings. He had to be.
“I can read,” Cauvin declared.
“The city’s not going to offer you a written—”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Yesterday, when you handed me that map of the bazaar, I could read it. I never learned letters, never needed them. Before I was supposed to meet you, the Torch sent me after that froggin’ blue-leather mask. To get it, I went digging in the Maze—digging in the froggin’ cellar of what used to be the Vulgar Unicorn. I tripped something—”
“Defensive wards—Sanctuary’s a desert where sorcery’s concerned. Takes a lot of pull to set them. Not so in other cities. You’d have them at your stoneyard, in addition to a dog.”
Cauvin disagreed. “Not defensive. The froggin’ Torch wanted me to touch that froggin’ brick before I went into the cellar. It wasn’t enough that I got the froggin’ mask; I froggin’ had to meet the froggin’ black ghost who’d worn it. Then, yesterday, you handed me that map. Soldt—” Cauvin met the assassin’s eyes—“Soldt, I can read a language I can’t froggin’ speak except for cursing.”
He hadn’t considered what reaction he’d get for his confession, but it wasn’t the dead-stop, slack-jawed concern plastered on Soldt’s moonlit face.
“What?” he demanded. “What’s going through your mind, Soldt?”
“Nothing.”
“froggin’ sure that’s not ’nothing’ on your face. Shalpa’s mercy, if you know something, tell me.”
“I said to him once, ‘How do you keep all that treasure safe?’ He said it was in caches throughout the city and warded. The wards were tough enough to turn an unlucky rat into a turnip, subtle enough to pass him through, him—Lord Torchholder—alone.”
“So, if these wards were so tough, how did I get through? It felt like there were froggin’ fireflies inside my skin, but no froggin’ turnips.”
“It recognized you, Cauvin. Lord Torchholder’s warding recognized you, which means in some essential way you and Lord Torchholder are one and the same. I wonder if you can read Caronni or the northern script, Nisi.”
“Froggin’ shite. I’ll kill that old pud. If he’s not dead already, I swear I’m going to froggin tear him limb from bony limb.”
“I couldn’t let you do that, lad.”
They’d come to Sendakis Street, where Tobus the dyer had a redbrick house and wanted another beside it; and where a man headed for the Inn of Six Ravens had to turn south.
“You’d kill me?” Cauvin asked before they separated.
“I’d stop you. While Lord Torchholder lives, I’ll protect him.”
“You weren’t there last week.”
Soldt shrugged. “I didn’t expect to be here now.” He hesitated, choosing his words, or his lies. “My work in Caronne finished sooner than I’d expected, and the winds were highly favorable.”
“Not highly. If the winds had been highly favorable, you’d have taken care of the Hand, or died trying, like any good bodyguard.”
“I’m not Lord Torchholder’s bodyguard. I’m not beholden to him, nor he to me. I’m not Rankan, either. I don’t attend Lord Serripines’ Foundation Day festivities.”
“What are you and he, then?”
“Say we’ve become useful friends.”
Cauvin asked a question with his eyes alone.
“Ten years ago—No, more nearly fifteen. Time flies. I accepted a goodly number of coronations from nameless faces, with the promise of more later—much more—if I’d pay a short visit to Sanctuary and put an end to the life of a most troublesome man. Lord Torchholder was an old man even then and I—I was no older than you. A newly made master of my craft and far too confident to wonder why they’d come to me when more experienced duelists could have been found.
“Needless to say, I stalked and plotted myself straightaway into Lord Torchholder’s trap. He offered two choices; I negotiated a third. We’ve done well by each other, and Sanctuary’s become the place where I am when I’m not somewhere else. The city’s been good to me, whatever it’s been to Lord Torchholder. Most of those who think they want to hire my services hesitate before venturing into a city where the stuff of sorcery’s scarce as hen’s teeth. But messengers do come. I might leave tomorrow, or the next day, for Ranke or the kingdom, or wherever else vengeance calls. I was born on a ship, Cauvin; I have no roots. I’m not the man to serve the soul of this city.”
“Neither am I,” Cauvin agreed. “Maybe we’ll be on the same froggin’ ship. You wouldn’t get in my way, would you?”
Soldt shook his head. “Far from it, lad—but I’d try to be on a different ship. Any captain who takes money from you is likely to watch his ship founder before it casts its last mooring rope.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Cauvin took a backward stride toward Pyrtanis Street. A stray thought crossed his mind. He dug into the broker’s purse and flipped a shaboozh at Soldt. “For Galya. Tell her, thanks, but I won’t be needing that shirt she’s making for me. And, thanks, too, for passing my message to you. Maybe Mioklas is Sanctuary’s man. He’s got the wealth and the ambition … and he’ll be looking for vengeance once he finds out the Hand’s back. You can work for him.”
“Not a chance. A man’s got to have someplace where he can be seen by his neighbors. For me, that’s Sanctuary. I don’t work here— except to teach a few youngsters how to stay alive: you, Raith at the palace—”
“I’m not the Torch’s heir,” Cauvin insisted. “I appreciate the lesson you gave me, and the advice, even about changing my shirt. But this is good-bye. Leorin and I are leaving Sanctuary.”
He held out his hand. Soldt’s remained at his side.
“I’ll wish you good luck, Cauvin; you’ll need it, but I’ll hold my good-byes until I see you standing on a ship’s deck.”
“Suit yourself,” Cauvin said and walked away.