The Hawk And His Boy (25 page)

She was probably married and fat now. She probably even had grandchildren by now. He could not remember her face.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

STILL WAITING FOR GOLD

The Silentman received the return of Arodilac Bridd’s ring with pleasure.

“Well done, Ronan,” he said, tossing him a purse of coin. “Our client, the regent, will be pleased.”

He was sitting on his stone throne, raised by a dais several steps up from the floor. As usual, his face was blurred and his voice muted by an obscuring charm. His form was shrouded by a cloak of black silk. Standing to one side was the short figure of Dreccan Gor, advisor to the Silentman. Dreccan was known for his wisdom and feared almost as much as the Silentman himself, though this was largely due to the fact that the advisor also served as chief steward to the regent of Hearne. Such an unusual association served the Guild well, as it allowed the Silentman to always stay one step ahead of the regent.

“Easiest job I’ve ever done, my lord,” said Ronan.

The Silentman nodded and Ronan had the impression that the man was smiling. There was no way to tell through the blur. He had his suspicions about who the Silentman was, but no proof. Anyway, it was not healthy to voice such suspicions out loud.

“A question, my lord?” said Ronan.

The Silentman inclined his head.

“If I might step closer?”

Not that there was much chance of anyone overhearing them. The court was crowded and noisy with conversation and music. Besides, no one came near the Silentman unless bidden.

“Approach,” said the Silentman. Ronan stepped up onto the dais and lowered his voice.

“Is our client pleased with the chimney job?”

“You want your money, don’t you? The client is coming soon to collect. You know the rules of the Guild, Ronan. Satisfaction first for the client, and then you’ll get your gold. Don’t try my patience.”

Ronan bowed and retreated back down the steps.

The court was busy that night—petitioners with grievances and jobs, thieves being given instructions, a trio of musicians jangling through the latest court tunes in one corner. The place was full of torchlight and shadow and the radiance of a fire burning on the hearth halfway down the room’s length. A table sagged under the weight of its bounty: roast chicken, ham, breads and cheeses, cold sausage, kegs of ale, and baskets overflowing with fruit. All courtesy of the Silentman.

Ronan slouched against a pillar and chewed on a chicken leg. He fingered the purse in his pocket and added numbers in his head. He would have enough now, once the payment came through for the chimney job. Before the week was out, if the Silentman was to be trusted.

The chimney job.

The little girl. She had said the boy was alive. What had his name been? Jute. But that was impossible. No one survived a dose of lianol like that. Still, she had sounded certain.

Ronan shook his head. It was not possible.

We all have our jobs to do.

The boy stared up at him from within the chimney,
falling backward. Vanishing down into darkness.

Just like himself.

Years and years of falling down into the darkness.

The stone ceiling seemed to be lowering. The lamplight swam in his eyes. The air was hot and stifling. Faces blurred by. Voices babbled around him. Ronan flung the half-eaten chicken away from him. His stomach clenched. Someone said something to him. He mumbled a reply, not knowing what the other had said or what he had said in return. He needed to get out.

The doors to the Court of the Guild swung shut behind him and he stood for a moment, breathing in and out and trying to quell the nausea inside. He looked up and down the stone passage. No one in sight. The place was silent. On the edge of his mind, however, he could hear the whisper of the ward that governed passage. It pushed its way into him, examined him, recognized him, and then retreated.

The first time Ronan had walked the underground passage as a novice member of the Guild, years ago, no one had bothered to explain the uniqueness of the ward guarding the passage. He had memorized the twists and turns and counted his steps. When he emerged once more into the sunlight, he retraced the way in his mind as he walked the streets of Hearne. But he found that the path only led him in a circle that meandered back to where he started. Later, it was explained to him that the ward guarding the passage was crafted to constantly manipulate the passage, forever shaping new routes beneath the city. It rearranged itself so that no one ever walked the same way to the Court of the Guild. The passage moved even as people walked within it, hurrying or slowing them on their way to the court. And for those who had no business with the Silentman? Why, they never found their way out of the passage. Ronan had come across such intruders before, but the rats always found the bodies first.

It didn’t matter what direction the passage chose. If you were walking away from the Court of the Guild, it would find an exit for you. The only trouble was, the ward spell was so powerful you could never be certain where you would find yourself when you exited. There were numerous places throughout Hearne the ward could choose from. It was irritating to emerge at the opposite end of the city from where you started.

Lamps burned on the wall every once in a while, but flames were so meager and the distances between them were always so great that most of the passage was plunged into gloom. Something scurried away in the shadows. A rat, most likely.

Scurrying away like himself.

Abruptly, the passage turned a corner and ended at some stairs.

“The stables on Willes Street,” said Ronan to himself, guessing.

At the top of the stairs was a wooden door. He opened it and shrugged. He was not in the stables, not that he had expected to be. He had never guessed right before. He was in the cellar of the Goose and Gold. He stepped through a door concealed within a wine barrel.

Something crashed and he heard a gasp.

“Now look what I’ve done!”

It was one of the serving girls. She crouched down onto the floor to pick up some pottery shards.

“Just filled it with ale, too.” She scowled at Ronan. “Gave me a turn, you did.”

“Sorry,” said Ronan. He shut the door behind him. It was built into a fake wine cask that sat at the end of a row of casks. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, it was impossible to detect the lines of the door.

The sky was clear and cold when he emerged from the Goose and Gold. The first few stars were emerging in the east. He breathed deeply and smelled the salt of the sea. That steadied him and he strode off, collar flipped up against the cold. He slept well that night and did not dream, even of the girl with poor Liss Galnes’s name.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

A DEATH, A DELAY, AND A WEASEL

They would have left that day for Hearne, but just after breakfast a horseman came clattering into the courtyard of the castle in Andolan. He was only a boy, but by the expression on his face, he bore sorry news.

“Stone and shadow,” said the duke. “So that’s why he didn’t come.” He stared down at the ground for a moment and then forced himself to smile—albeit grimly—at the boy.

“My thanks for your kindness. Get yourself to the kitchen and have them feed you there.”

“Thank you, my lord,” said the boy. The duke turned away, striding toward the castle steps.

“You, lad!” he yelled at a passing man-at-arms. “Find Willen and have him attend me immediately!”

Levoreth and the duchess were in the sunroom adjoining the duchess’s rooms. It was a pleasant room suited for silence, and both women liked it for that reason. Melanor was knitting what looked like the beginnings of a blanket. Levoreth was curled up in a chair, intent on a book of poetry written by a long-dead Harlech lord. The door flew open with a crash.

“Hennen,” said the duchess, dropping a stitch. “There’s no need to be stamping about so.”

“Ginan Bly is dead. He, his wife, and their babe. Torn apart by wolves—right inside their house.”

“Wolves?” said Levoreth. Her voice was sharp.

“Oh, my dear,” said the duchess. Her face whitened. “She was so happy to have borne a child.”

“I’m riding north for Bly’s farm. Willen and a score of his men will be with me as well. A couple of his lads are good trackers. If there’s a trail to find, we’ll hunt down the brutes. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone.”

He turned to go.

“But what about Hearne?” said his wife. “We were to set out this afternoon.”

“Hearne will have to wait.”

“It was not wolves that did this,” said Levoreth. But the door was already closing and the duke was gone.

She stared down blankly at the book in her lap. She flung her mind wide, ranging across the hills of the Mearh Dun toward the north and east. Earth and sky blurred through the speed of her thought. Dimly, she was aware of lives flickering by. Men, cattle, flocks of sheep scattered on the hills, dogs, rabbits in the heather, birds on the wing. Nowhere, however, could she sense wolves, even in the tangled weaving of old scents left from weeks past. Nothing. She pushed out farther, drifting up into the foothills of the Mountains of Morn.

“Levoreth!”

She blinked and looked up. Her aunt was looking at her.

“Are you all right? You had such an angry look on your face. I’ve never seen you so—”

“Ginan Bly was a good man,” said Levoreth.

“Yes, yes he was.” The duchess blinked back tears.

The duke and his men returned two days later, tired and gray-faced from the hard ride into the north. The duchess hurried down the castle steps to meet him, with Levoreth behind her. He swung down from the saddle and trudged over to his wife. Stubble covered his face and his eyes were bloodshot. His wife touched him gently, running a hand down his arm as if to reassure herself.

“It wasn’t wolves, was it?” said Levoreth. It was more a statement than a question.

“No,” said the duke. “No signs to track. Nothing at all. I’m half in mind not to go to Hearne now, but don’t fret, love—we’ll be going still. Ealu Fremman’s six sons have promised to ride the borders and there are no better trackers in this duchy than those boys. The best of the men’ll be staying on at the castle.” He shook his head. “Dolan is in good hands with them, but this is poor timing. Poor timing indeed.”

Dinner was a silent affair that night, although the duchess tried to make conversation. The duke hardly spoke at all and Levoreth was even quieter.

“I’m dreadfully sorry about the Blys,” said the duchess, putting down her fork. “But they are gone and you do them no benefit by grinding your teeth like that, Hennen. My dears, we needn’t go to Hearne. There’ll be other times.”

“We’re going to Hearne,” said her husband.

“I meant what I said,” returned his wife. “It isn’t as if the regent and his Autumn Fair cannot go on without us. After all, what are we to Botrell but uncouth country folk, smelling of horses and going about with straw in our hair?”

“We’re going to Hearne!”

“Excuse me,” said Levoreth, and she got up and left the table.

“And you’re still coming, too!” said her uncle.

“I know that,” said Levoreth. She glared at the duke and then slammed the door behind her.

Levoreth had not known the Blys well. She could not even recollect what Ginan Bly looked like, let alone his wife and child. But they were still her people. This was her land.

No.

She forced herself to unclench her fists.

No. All of Tormay was her land. Not just this sleepy little duchy of Dolan.

She locked the door of her room and blew out the candle. Outside, a sickle moon was rising in the east over the Mountains of Morn. The moon was so thin it looked like the sky’s weight would snap it in two. There was something in the air. Something—she was not sure. She leaned out the window. Her nose twitched. Heather from the surrounding hills, woodsmoke, the scent of hay and horses in the stables, a guard in the courtyard below smoking a pipe. Apples rotting on the ground in the orchard behind the castle, the musk of a fox sniffing around the chicken coop.

A fox in the chicken coop. Teeth and feathers.

They kill for pleasure sometimes. But there are other things that kill for pleasure as well.

There was something else in the air. Her nose twitched again.

Definitely. Just the barest hint.

Something dark.

There was just enough time. She had to see for herself.

A cloak around her shoulders, Levoreth tiptoed through the hall. The castle was settling into evening. She could hear servants chatting and laughing down in the kitchen. Crockery clinked together. Somewhere on the floor above, her aunt was humming to herself. Levoreth tilted her head to one side and listened. The tune was an old Dolani love song. A smile crossed her face. She wondered if her uncle knew.

Mistress of Mistresses!

Levoreth looked down. A mouse scurried out from behind a chest and stood shyly before her.