Master and Fool (39 page)

"You went on
your own."

"Yes. And
look what it did to me. I murdered the one man who could have helped us."
Tawl's voice hardened as he spoke. "I can't let you go there alone, Jack. I'm
coming with YOU."

A cow lowed gently
from behind a wooden stall. Tawl looked at Jack He was already working on his
response. Tawl knew what it would be, but didn't give him chance to say it.
"Jack, you know what one of the last things Bevlin said to me was?"

Jack shook his
head.

"He spoke of
you and me. He said, `There is a link between you, and it is your destiny to
help him fulfill his.'" Tawl felt his emotions respond to the words. He
could clearly remember Bevlin saying them; his eyes sparkling, his voice
strained, his chest rising up and down with the sheer force of the prophecy.
For that was what it was: a prophecy, every bit as compelling as Marod's verse.
Jack was not the only one forced to live by the words of a dead man.

"But what
about Melli, Tawl?" said Jack "What will become of her?"

He had said the
one thing that Tawl hoped he wouldn't. It was so much easier to suppress his
fears when he kept them all to himself. Now Jack had spoken them out loud, and
like a floodgate opened, it let in the swell.

Tawl kicked the
stall door. "I don't know what will become of Melli!" he cried.
"I don't know. If I go back to Bren now, she might be dead by the time I
get there. If I come with you, the risk is even greater. Don't think for one
second that I'm not considering Melli. She's why I'm here today. She's why I
wake up every morning and breathe. She's the only thing that matters, and right
now I'd give anything to be by her side. But I can't. I've got to go to Lam and
follow the whole damn thing through to the end. Then, and only then, will Melli
be truly safe." Tawl was shaking by the time he'd finished. His skin was
slick with sweat.

Jack couldn't look
at him. He stared at the floor instead. "I'm sorry, Tawl. I know how you
feel about Melli."

"Then why are
we standing around wasting time? Let's get on the horses and go." Tawl
knew he sounded harsh, but he had to leave. The stables were beginning to feel
like a prison. "Come on, Nabber," he called, walking over to his
latest mount. "Let's get you up here."

Half an hour later
they were out of the city. The sun was still up and shining, but to Tawl it
made little difference what hour of the day it was. Melli was to the north and
he was heading to the south. Everything else paled in comparison to that one
irrefutable fact. He had to believe she would be all right until he returned,
that somehow time itself would wait for him. It was the only way to keep his
sanity and force his horse forward instead of back.

Kylock listened to
what Lord Guthry said. The man was concerned about Highwall's lakeborne
advances. The siege army had built a huge raft for their largest trebuchet and
had spent most of the day launching missiles at the north wall and the palace
itself. The two north towers had been damaged and the domed ceiling, which was
the palace's greatest weakness, had taken several well-aimed hits.

At times like this
Kylock never thought, he simply reacted. "Right, I want the carpenters up
on the roof tonight. I want a wooden scaffold built over the dome. I want it
strengthened with metal sheets, and I want ten score of archers up there while
they work."

"As for the
raft-"

"A storm's
predicted tomorrow, sire. The lake will be too rough for Highwall to man
it."

Kylock regarded
Lord Guthry coolly. "Never, ever interrupt me," he said. Lord Guthry
began to speak, but Kylock waved a silencing arm. Apologies held no interest
for him. "Now, I want the raft destroyed tonight. As I understand it, the
problem is the raft is beyond our firing rangetheir trebuchet can fine twice
the distance of ours. So, as soon as it goes dark, I want you to send out two
divers under the lake. They will carry skins of lamp oil with them and they'll
set the raft alight. Is that understood?" Kylock knew it would be certain
suicide for their divers. With his gaze he challenged Lord Guthry to criticize
him.

The man didn't
have the guts for it. He walked over to the desk and poured himself a cup of
wine. Kylock made a mental note of the cup he used and other surfaces he
touched.

"Is there
anything else, sire?" Guthry asked after draining his cup dry.

"Yes, I heard
a report today that thousands of dead fish were floating on the surface of the
lake."

Lord Guthry
nodded. He was a large man with a red face and graying hair. He had been the
late duke's closest military advisor. "Aye. I saw that with my own eyes
this morning. Mighty strange it is."

"I don't
think there's anything strange about it at all," said Kylock softly.
"I think Highwall's poisoning the lake."

"You could be
right, sire." Lord Guthry was a man who tended toward caution. "The
best thing we can do is warn everyone not to draw from the wells for a few
days, just in case. It will give the poison chance to dissipate. There's no
possible way that Highwall could have poisoned the entire lake. If they've done
anything at all, it's to the water around the shore."

"Yes, you're
quite right," Kylock said. He thought for a moment, then added: "I
only want the warning passed on to the military. There's no need to panic
everyone in the city"

"But the
women. The children-"

Kylock's hand was
on the desk. With one quick movement he overturned it. The wine jug and cups
went crashing to the floor. Papers floated slowly down.

Lord Guthry took a
step back. The color drained from his face.

Kylock took a
quick breath. His gaze flicked over the cups on the floor. No longer could he
tell which one belonged to his guest. All of them would have to go. When he
spoke, his voice was calm. "Just do as I say. Women and children never won
a war."

Oh, how Lord
Guthry wanted to speak; the words practically pushed against his lips. But he
didn't say anything. He simply bowed and took his leave.

Only when the door
shut behind him did Kylock see fit to remove his gloves. With the desk
overturned the chamber was in disorder. It disturbed him, and he had to turn
his back on the chaos of cups and papers to think clearly. More and more these
days, everything had to be perfect for him to concentrate; one fleck of ash on
the grate, one curtain fold amiss, and his mind would go no further than the
fault.

People disturbed
him more than ever, too. All of them were dirty, disgusting. Fingers that
picked noses, raised glasses; hands that held sexual organs to piss with,
minutes later were cupping the salt. The smell of sex, sweat, and urine could be
detected on every palm.

His chambers
reeked of Guthry's breath. Of his last meal and his last drink and the slow
decay of his teeth. Kylock could hardly bear it. Never again would he let that
man enter his private domain.

Catherine was to
have stopped all this. Beautiful, innocent Catherine. Only she wasn't innocent.
She was a whore, just like every other woman. And she had died a whore's death,
and with her went his last hope of salvation.

Or so he had
thought until last night.

He had visited
Melliandra out of curiosity. She was due to die the next day, and he thought it
would be interesting to see fear in her eyes. And indeed it had been. She was
more beautiful than he remembered, her eyes large with terror, her bottom lip
trembling while she pretended to be brave. But then he had ripped the clothes
from her back and everything changed.

The fire glowed on
her skin, accentuating her belly's curve. Like a holy statue she was surrounded
by light. Her breasts heavy with pregnancy, her stomach swelling with the new
life beneath-she was a symbol of the only thing that was good in women: their
ability to renew life.

As long as
Melliandra was with child, she was beyond all womanly vices. Pure like an
angel, she had been cleansed by a force of nature. When she gave birth to her
baby, she would give birth to him, as well. Once her womb had been purified by
the passage of new life, he would take her and be made anew. Melliandra had
been sent to him as his savior, and he would use her to wash the sins of his
mother away.

Catherine had
failed him. His mother's death had left him strangely unmoved. Now more than
ever he needed someone to sacrifice herself for him. Life was crowding too
close; it teemed, it reeked, it drove him forward into oblivion. He had to
start again. His very being must be freshly shaped.

Melliandra would
be the vessel in which he cleansed his soul. Her child's life would be
short-not even a full step in the dance of fate-but it would live long enough
to do what it was conceived for to clear a sacred path for the king.

If there was
anything in life worse than traveling, Nabber couldn't think of it. He had a
lot of time to try, too. For nearly nine weeks now he'd sat on the back of
Tawl's horse, spending his mornings wishing for midday and spending his days
wishing for dark. And never had there been a less profitable, less comfortable,
and less interesting thing to do.

Tawl set a hard
pace--especially after Toolay-and it was up every morning before dawn, riding
long hard hours until noon, then half a day more until dusk. It was enough to
kill a man.

It wouldn't have
been so bad if they were traveling through lands exotic and unfamiliar; there
would be scenery to appreciate, strange creatures to pocket, and new food to
stuff in his pack. As it was, they were making their way down the barren
peninsula north of Rorn, and there was nothing more interesting than ground
rats and rocks. It was a sad testament to a man when all he had in his pocket
was a large rodent and a chunk of limestone.

It was high time
they reached Rorn. If they didn't get there soon, Nabber was quite sure he'd go
under the barrel. Or was it
over
it? Well, one way or other there'd be a
barrel in his future and he'd very probably end up dead in it. According to
Swift, guilt wasn't the only thing that could be the death of a pocket. Lack of
practice was another. "A
pocket who loses his feel might as well hit
himself over the head with a mallet, "
Swift would say.
"Either
that or wait till the bailiffs do it for him. "
Losing your feel was
the one thing that kept pockets awake at night. Fear of it sent them out onto
the streets in sickness, bad weather, and plague. A pocket simply couldn't
function unless he had his feel.

Nabber had
intended to get some practice in Toolaystay a few days, do a little pocketing,
add to his dwindling contingency-but Tawl had put a stop to that. One mention
of Melli in danger and the knight had turned into a demon. He'd had them out of
the city in no time, galloping through the streets without as much as a please
or thank-you to anyone. It had been the same ever since. If they came to a
river, then they'd cross it then and there, not bothering to trek downstream
and look for a bridge. If there was a ditch, they'd jump it; if there was a
tavern, they'd ride right past it. When they met other travelers, Tawl would
ask them if they had news of the duke's widow, and when they didn't, he just
turned his horse and moved on.

He hardly talked
at all. Anything that might slow him down was not tolerated. There was no washing,
no cooking, no resting. There was riding and sleeping and nothing else.

At least they
hadn't heard from Skaythe in the past few weeks. Tawl must have aimed a decent
arrow, for there had been no sign of old Bad Leg since the night on the bluff.
A fact that pleased Nabber no end: his arm was only now out of the sling and he
didn't fancy having to put it back there any time soon. He'd had enough of
splints, bandages, and slings to last a lifetime. The only good thing about
being injured was the brandy, and they'd run out of that two days past Toolay.

Nabber looked up
at the sky. There was no time like midmorning for outstaying its welcome. It
had been midmorning for the better part of a day now-Nabber was sure of it.

He let his gaze
drop down onto the horizon. He was sick of blue skies and eastern breezes, sick
of rocks and hills and dust. Just as he was about to direct his gaze elsewhere,
he spotted a speck of white in the distance. A speck of white with the ocean as
its backdrop.

"Rorn!"
he cried. "Tawl, it's Rorn." Tawl nodded. "We'll be there by
tonight."

Nabber could
hardly believe it. Over the past few days, they'd traveled through a few
villages and seen a good number of people on the road, but nothing prepared him
for Rorn's closeness. "None of this seems familiar, Tawl," he said.

"We've
traveled close to the coast this time. When we left all those months back, we
went straight up the middle. That's where most of the towns and villages are.
There's little but hills this way."

"You can say
that again." Nabber beamed at the back of Tawl's head. Now that he'd seen
the city, he felt like jumping off the horse and running all the way to the
sea. Rorn was his home; it was where his business associates lurked, where
Swift held court, and where he knew every street, alleyway, and crevice.

"We'll stop
here," shouted Tawl to Jack.

Was it midday
already? What had happened to midmorning? Nabber tapped on Tawl's shoulder.
"I could manage a bit further before we stopped."

Tawl laughed: his
first in a long time. "Either my hearing's going, or someone snatched
Nabber away in the night and replaced him with you, instead. Since when did you
start volunteering to spend more time in the saddle?" As he spoke, Tawl
guided his horse from the track. There was a stretch of grass on the sheltered
side of the hill and he headed toward it.