“Oh, yes.” The Mother smiled at his surprise. “Natural sisters, I mean; not the many keiso of the House. Indeed, one of her sisters is apprenticed to one of your guests of the previous evening: Mage Ankennes. A family that owns diverse gifts, one surmises.”
Taudde thought he managed some appropriate, vacuous phrase. He hoped he had. He was momentarily too stunned to know what
he said, or even to be sure he spoke at all. Moonflower’s
sister
was Ankennes’s
apprentice
. Pieces of a puzzle he had barely glimpsed fell suddenly into place, like an unforeseen harmony resolving a long-standing discord.
Thus
Moonflower still lived, though Miennes was dead. Though was it the sister or Mage Ankennes himself who had protected the young keiso?
Taudde took a deep breath, collected himself, and since he was still in Cloisonné House made himself turn to the remaining part of his purpose. He rapidly found that he had been quite right: The keiso House was an excellent source of information. Through a few moments of inconsequential converse, Taudde discovered that Miennes was known to have died, but that there was no rumor of sorcery tainting his death; that there was a slight stir within the Laodd but no one knew precisely what had caused it; that only an hour previously Prince Tepres had sent a request for Moonflower’s company for an engagement the following evening.
Taudde could not, unfortunately, manage to discover anything useful about Ankennes’s current activities or future intentions, but then he had not really expected to. The slight disturbance in the Laodd was promising, however. He thought he might try to get out of Lonne as soon as he left Cloisonné House and discover by that trial whether or not Ankennes was currently otherwise occupied.
“If I may,” he murmured at last, as he took his leave. He tried to give the impression of a man struck by a sudden thought—since he was just that, it was not difficult. “The other evening, the keiso were all extremely charming—all that I had been led to believe, I assure you. But I know the servants of this House also worked very hard to make the occasion a success, as you’ll understand was very important to me. In Miskiannes, it’s the custom for a man of means to offer a gratuity to servants who render good service. Of course, I understand that Cloisonné House cares well for all its dependents. But I wonder whether you might permit me to indulge my custom, even if it is not the custom of Lonne.”
The Mother of the House appeared surprised but approving—indeed, she was probably accustomed to being charmed by most of
the desires and eccentricities of Cloisonné’s clients. He continued, as though casually, “The head of the servants on that evening seemed to me to be a young woman. I believe her name is Leilis? I would like… that is, I wonder if I might impose upon a moment of her time, on behalf of all the servants who assisted on that evening?”
“Yes,” the Mother of the House agreed readily. “That would be Leilis. She is a very competent young woman; Moonflower is fortunate to have gained her good opinion. I’m sure Leilis would be pleased by such a request. I shall pass on to her your intention, and any gratuity you should kindly offer, but I regret that Leilis herself is not within the House this evening.”
Taudde’s heart sank even before he’d ever consciously realized what Leilis’s absence from Cloisonné House on this particular day might mean for him—especially if she was a particular friend of the young Moonflower. Then, as he truly understood what the Mother of the House had said and what it might mean, he paused, reordering his immediate plans once again. Then he extricated himself with careful haste from the Mother’s company and from Cloisonné House entire and called for Benne.
Benne brought the carriage up as Taudde emerged from Cloisonné House, and leaped down from his high driver’s seat to place the step. Taudde took his place within the carriage and leaned forward to say in a deliberately absent tone, “Let us go down to the shore, if you would, Benne. Where the cliffs come down to meet the sea, near the Nijiadde Falls.”
The big man nodded and touched the reins, and the horse tossed its head and started forward.
The streets were crowded at first, but shortly Benne turned the horse down less-traveled ways that took them away even from these travelers, toward the sea. Even from this distance, the sound of the waves crashing against the broken shore was clearly audible.
The cliffs where the mountains came down to the sea were gray as wet slate. The sheer white walls of the Laodd loomed over the city, powerful and cold as ice poised for avalanche. Beside the Laodd,
the Nijiadde River plunged down from the heights and shattered into roaring spume in its broad lake; then the river poured in wild haste from that lake along its narrow channel to the sea. There, where the incoming waves battled with the river’s powerful current, the rugged rocks were black as charcoal. It was like no other shore Taudde had ever seen. It possessed, poised between the steady roar of the Nijiadde River Falls and the constant ebb and flow of the sea, a unique music that he had never yet been able to capture, though he had tried repeatedly during his time in Lonne.
Now Benne drew the horse to a halt on the edge of this shore. They had come out farther than the road led, but not very much farther, for the harsh rocks here were not easily navigated by wheeled vehicles. The horse sidled and tossed its head, restless in the cold salt-laden wind that broke against the cliffs and came down along the shore from odd directions. Benne set the brake and slid down from his seat to stand by the horse’s head. The big man took hold of the animal’s bridle and patted it reassuringly, then turned to look inquiringly up at Taudde.
Of course Benne had come before with Taudde out to this shore. Taudde had come down to the edge of the sea half a dozen times, covert and solitary, compelled by the rhythm of the waves against the rocks and the slow receding music of the outgoing tide. When he’d come here with Benne, he’d thought it was safe enough. He’d believed any man from an inland country might reasonably be expected to find the sea compelling. Now… now Taudde bent to fetch a packet of papers and a good-quality quill pen out from their packet in the carriage. The quill was magecrafted, inelegantly but with some attention to detail; one might use it to sketch for an hour without the ink needing renewal. It was not the sort of item bardic sorcery could make, and Taudde had already purchased a good many such quills to take home with him when he finally quitted this city.
He tossed the papers to the rocks at Benne’s feet and followed this with the quill pen. The wind tried to snatch the quill away and send it spinning out over the sea, but Taudde checked that errant
gust with a low whistle. The quill fell straight and struck the papers point down, with an audible little
shick
. It stayed there, its sharpened tip embedded in the packet like a miniature dagger.
Benne watched the quill fall, then lifted his gaze.
Taudde took out his small wooden flute and turned it over in his fingers. He did not look at the instrument he held, but only at the other man. When he spoke, his voice was not loud but pitched to carry over the sounds of sea and wind. “I wondered how it was Lord Miennes came to discover that I am from Kalches. Then I wondered if perhaps Ankennes had discovered it. Then at last I realized I should wonder how it was that
you
discovered it.”
Benne straightened his shoulders and stared back at Taudde in, of course, silence. Yet neither did he shake his head or otherwise try to deny the accusation. It occurred to Taudde that Benne, voiceless, was almost as helpless in the face of disaster as the horse would have been: No more than an animal could a mute offer excuses or plead for mercy. His broad, coarse face had set in the blank expression of a man preparing to endure whatever a harsh fate might mete out.
“How did you discover me?” Taudde asked him.
There was an almost imperceptible pause. Then Benne went to one knee and bent to retrieve the packet of paper. He pulled the quill free and took out a single leaf of paper, supporting it on his other knee to write. Even under these straitened circumstances, the man wrote a quick neat hand. Finishing, he held the paper out toward Taudde.
Taudde took it and read,
My lord, you were not subtle enough. I saw a Kalchesene sorcerer once, and heard him speak. I heard that quality in your voice, lord, and sometimes I heard you play. I watched you listening to the sea.
Taudde looked again at the other man, lifting an eyebrow. He crumpled the paper absently in his hand and tossed it into the wash and ebb of the wave that broke on the rocks. Quickly waterlogged, the bit of paper sank into the water and followed the retreating waves out to sea. Taudde let his eyes follow the path of the waves for a moment, then turned back to Benne. “I knew perfectly well a
mute need not be deaf. And yet I see that sometimes I forgot this. I am sure many others have made the same mistake. Miennes owned the house I have been renting, yes? And placed you there to spy on those who might rent it?”
Benne gave a curt nod, and waited.
“Yes,” Taudde repeated. He studied the other man. “Was it Miennes, then, who cut your tongue?”
Benne hesitated, then nodded again. He extracted a second leaf of paper from the packet and wrote quickly, then offered the paper to Taudde. It read,
Lord Miennes desired a servant before whom men would speak freely. He bought me from the stone yards and had me taught to read and write. When I had nothing, Lord Miennes gave me everything. Then he told me why he had purchased me. He offered me a choice: to have the cut made in my tongue or to return to the stone yards.
“A hard choice.” And a cruel one. Taudde absently tossed this paper after the other and wondered how many big, simple-looking men had been offered the choice Benne described before Miennes had found one who chose as he desired. And whether any of the ones who had chosen to return whole to the stone yards had actually survived their choice. And further, considering the hidden cleverness in the man before him, whether Benne, too, might have guessed that his only real choice most likely lay between mutilated life as Miennes’s servant and death. He asked, “And Nala?”
Benne gave an emphatic shake of his head.
“No?” If Benne had been able to speak, Taudde might have listened for truth or deceit in the tones of his voice. Miennes had made a better spy than he had probably realized with that mutilating knife. Even so, Taudde believed the man was telling him the truth. He asked curiously, “What is she to you?”
Not by so much as a flicker of the eyes did Benne reveal the calculations that passed through his mind as he wrote his response: What answer did Taudde expect? What would be the best answer for Nala, or for Benne himself? But the subtle shift of the big man’s breathing suggested to Taudde that those calculations were there.
He took the paper Benne held out to him and read,
Nala is just as she seems: a woman hired to keep the house in order. Lord Mienneshashad woman spies, but Nala never even knew that the house was his. She has been a friend to me. I beg my lord will not harm her. I swear she does not know the truth about me. Nor the truth about you.
“Well, I think that is probably true,” Taudde allowed, looking up. He watched a little of the tension leave the man before him. In fact, he thought Benne had not tried to deceive him, not at any moment since Taudde had made his accusation, which spoke well of his courage. Or at least his sense.
“What would you do now that Miennes is dead,” Taudde asked him, “if I opened my hand at this moment?” Then he answered his own question: “You would go immediately to Mage Ankennes, or to the Laodd—that might even be more likely. You could inform some lord there of the bardic sorcerer who had the effrontery to come into Lirionne. Into Lonne itself, no less. You would surely be well-rewarded for that information. You would gain the favor of a powerful man—most likely a place in his household—”
A forceful jerk of the head denied this scenario. Benne wrote quickly and offered the paper to Taudde with a sharp gesture. The note read,
I swear I would not. I know what place any great lord would give me: He would make me again into a spy. I would sooner find a place with a scribe in the Paliante. Or down by the docks, where the ships come in from the islands. I understand the speech of Erhlianne, of Samenne, of the outer islands, I write those languages, I could find a place with a reputable scribe. I beg my lord will permit me to seek such a place. I swear I will not reveal you to anyone.
On consideration, it did indeed seem possible that Benne would prefer the role of scribe to spy. It even seemed likely. Taudde thought about what the big man’s life had been since his tongue had been cut: Able to write but forbidden to reveal this skill, he was twice separated from the normal discourse of men. By Lord Miennes’s order. Surely he could not have loved his master. Could
he? Taudde said slowly, “A man under threat will make any claim. From what you tell me, you served Miennes for years. Would you wish me to believe you would not desire vengeance for his death?”
Benne’s wide mouth crooked a little at this. He shook his head and made a deliberate gesture of negation, of denial. Taking another leaf of paper from the packet, he wrote briefly. The words, when Taudde took the note, were very clear:
To Lord Miennes, I was a tool to be fashioned as he wished. His death frees me. I beg my lord will free me also. I swear I will not trouble you again.
Taudde crumpled this paper, too, and dropped it into the surf after the others. Then, absently, he ran the smooth length of his flute through his hands, fingering its stops and frets. He said slowly, “Bardic sorcery is not without its limitations. But the limitations of sorcery are not the same as those of magecraft. You say you wish to find a place with a scribe? I offer you better: You may accompany me to Kalches, if you wish. Where we shall see whether sorcery will stretch so far as to restore your voice.”