The Hawk And His Boy (27 page)

“I’m worried about that girl. I fear she’ll never be well.”

He frowned. “Would any child who’s lost their family at such an age ever become well?”

“I’ve held her while she sleeps. She’s as fragile as a sparrow. Doubtless, she’s older than our Magret, but less than half the weight. When she’s taken by nightmares, her heart races and she pants as if she is running, as if there’s some horror chasing her. I can’t help but think the thing is chasing her still, sniffing along her trail. Perhaps, one day, it’ll find its way here and so her nightmare and waking day will merge into one. Not just for her, but for all of us.”

“Sibb.”

She sighed and laced her fingers through his.

“I can’t shake the thought from my mind, Owain. Such eyes she has. She’s always staring and not noticing anything about her. Perhaps she sees things we cannot see. Sometimes she seems to focus on Loy—”

“Her devoted dog,” he said, smiling.

“I can’t help but think of our own in her stead.”

Her hand tightened on his.

“Find them, Owain. Find them and kill them.”

The Lord Captain of Hearne and his men rode out that afternoon. The troop was twenty strong—the best of Hearne. Some of the older ones had seen battle during the Errant Wars, when Owain Gawinn had been but a young sergeant and the forces of Hearne had been commanded by his father, Rann Gawinn.

Their saddles creaked with the weight of their gear and provisions. On their backs they bore spears and quivers bristling with arrows, muffled by their cloaks. They received scant notice from the folk in the streets going about their business—the vendors at their carts, the shoppers sniffing over turnips and fingering bolts of cloth, the drifting rabble, and the urchins—they made grudging way for the troop, action that stemmed more from the need for their own safety from the stamp of hooves rather than from any regard for the regent’s men.

This lack of regard was due to no fault of the Lord Captain of Hearne. On the contrary, he had always been pleased by the blind eye the people turned to him and his men. He considered that his job was to allow folk to go about their lives while he dealt quickly and quietly with those who broke Hearne’s laws. And he did that job well enough so that he had achieved a kind of facelessness for his men.

When the troop reached the city gates, however, a cheer went up from the soldiers standing watch. Owain reined in under the shadow of the tower, and a man strode forward. His hair was white but his back was as straight as a sapling. He held a spear in his hand.

“Bordeall,” said Owain.

“My lord,” said the other, touching the spear shaft to his forehead. His voice was deep and raspy.

“Hearne will be in good hands while we’re gone.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

Another soldier came forward and both men turned in some annoyance.

“My lord Gawinn.”

“Arodilac Bridd,” said Owain. “You would do well to observe the propriety learned under the patience of my sergeants. Did they teach you nothing?”

Arodilac flushed red at the rebuke.

“Forgive me, my lord,” he stammered. “I merely wished—is there no chance of—?”

“None,” said Owain, cutting him off. “You will remain and serve here. Curb your patience, my young cub. Do not be so eager to rush into battle, though likely we’ll see none on our hunt.”

“It isn’t because of my uncle wanting me kept from danger, is it?”

“No,” said Owain, though it had been precisely for that reason. “Bordeall, I’d ask you to see that my household is well. My wife has some womanly fear concerning the foundling we took in. Perhaps send a man by, now and again, to have a word with my doorkeeper and see that the child is well enough.”

“Assuredly, my lord,” said Bordeall. “Might I not make that Arodilac’s duty?”

“Certainly,” said Owain, and looked sharply at the young man, for his mouth was opening. Arodilac shut his mouth with a painful click of teeth and backed away.

“The city is yours.”

“Thank you, my lord. Good hunting.” Bordeall turned away to bellow at the soldiers at the gate. “Present!”

Spears gleamed as they rose in a flourish. With a jingle of harness and the clop of horse hooves on stone, the troop rode out through the gates and onto the road that curved away east, over the bridge and across the river and then down through the long, green reaches of the Rennet valley. The sky was clouding over. It would be raining again soon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

THE JUGGLER’S MISTAKE

Nio tightened his cloak around his throat when he stepped out the front door. It was just past twilight and stars winked down from the dark sky. He was late, but it wouldn’t hurt the Juggler to be kept waiting. A cold rain was falling. It had been a strange summer for weather, almost as if the earth was no longer sure of the seasons. He wondered what the fall would bring. An early snow, perhaps. The streets were nearly empty of people, and the only ones he passed hurried along with their heads down, intent on reaching their homes and the warmth and welcome and firelight waiting there.

Once, a long time ago, he had wanted the same kind of life.

Cyrnel. He had loved her—that much he was sure of. But when he tried to recall her face, there was only an impression of beauty and a blur in his memory. He remembered freckles on her arms and a low, laughing voice. She smelled of fresh bread and the sunlight on the wheat fields in the valley east of the Stone Tower in Thule. The school bought their milk and cheese and grain from her father, the farmer. Nio remembered the look of the cheese more clearly than the farmer’s daughter: small, white rounds smelling of caraway. The cook had been stingy with that cheese. Nio almost smiled to himself at the thought.

Perhaps he had wanted to marry her. He would have had a home to hurry back to at night. Someone waiting for him, other than the old ghosts sleeping inside the books in his library. But he had chosen the ghosts. Or perhaps they had chosen him. Some days he wasn’t sure.

It was dark by the time he reached the south market square—an ugly, cramped plaza hemmed in with shops shuttered against the night. The rain had turned into a mist heavy enough to blur the shapes of buildings and the lights shining from windows. The stars and the moon could not be seen at all. It seemed he was alone in the city, for the mist also had the effect of muffling noise. Even his boots on the cobblestones only whispered.

Nio smelled the butcher’s place before he saw it. A cloying scent of offal and blood filled the air, and the mist felt greasy with it. The stones there were stained dark. He turned west and walked down the street called Forraedan. It was narrow enough to be more of an alley than a street. He fancied he could almost stretch out his hands and touch the houses on both sides as he walked. The mist thickened, and close by he heard water dripping.

Seventh house on the left, the Juggler had said. He passed the fourth. The street turned sharply to the right where the fifth house stood, though it was puzzling to make out where one house ended and one began. They were built right up against each other, sharing their walls and a common sweep of roof that loomed overhead. Perhaps he should have been counting doors instead of houses. Fancy a brothel being hidden away in this warren. But then he came to the sixth house and the street ended against a stone wall taller than the houses themselves. A door opened behind him, further back up the street. He turned.

“You’re late,” said the Juggler. The fat man was standing about twenty feet away. A lantern hung from his hand and cast a glow on the wet cobblestones.

“I was reading and lost track of the time.”

“Ah,” said the Juggler. “I’ve never gone in much for reading.”

“There’s no seventh house,” said Nio. His voice was mild. “You did say come to the seventh house, didn’t you?”

“I did,” said the fat man.

“There’s only this wall.”

“Yes,” said the other, nodding. “There’re only six, and then this wall. It’s not a house, as you see. It’s the back wall of a warehouse where an old man makes candles, he and his family. Candles made of grease, boiled in cauldrons and poured into his molds. Nothing to steal inside. Only thousands and thousands of candles. We leave him alone, we do, and in return—well, he’ll use just about anything to make his grease with. Just about anything. We keep ‘em well supplied here. It’s convenient for us.”

“Where’s the man called the Knife?” asked Nio.

“Ah, the Knife,” said the fat man, laying one finger alongside his nose and looking concerned. “Well sir, I says to him, come on out tonight as there’s a gent who wants to talk with you. But he says no, I’ve got better things to do than that—you go tell him I’ll see his gold first before meeting. That’s what he says to me. See now, sir, he’s a difficult lad, the Knife is—always has been, always will. Won’t come to heel when you call him, and even the Silentman knows that.”

“That won’t do. I’m afraid you’ve disappointed me.”

“Aye, and I’m disappointed the same!” said the fat man. He shook his head sadly. “I begged the lad nicely. Just a few minutes’ chat and then you’ll have your gold. But he wouldn’t have none of it. Tell you what we’ll do, sir. Why don’t you hand over your bag of gold and I’ll see the Knife gets it. That’ll put him in a better mood.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

At the words, two shapes materialized out of the darkness behind the Juggler. They were both large men—the sort of brute that Nio had seen in the Goose and Gold. He sighed inwardly. The evening could have been spent in a more pleasant fashion, reading a book in his library and smoking a pipe.

“Tsk,” said the fat man. “We’ll just have to take it from you, then.”

“I don’t think so,” said Nio.

This seemed to please the Juggler. He smiled, his teeth gleaming in the lamplight.

“Then we’ll have to kill you.”

The two men behind the Juggler moved forward. Knives appeared in their hands. The darkness and mist blurred their faces so their eyes were only gouges of shadow and their mouths black holes. Skulls, thought Nio. He sighed again. One of them reached for him, a big, bony hand. Moisture gleamed on the skin, and the lamplight picked out scars across the knuckles.

He whispered a word and time slowed. The air thickened around the two men approaching him so that they swam through it. Their limbs were ponderous and weighted. He stepped to one side. Their eyes could barely follow him. The Juggler stood frozen behind them, huddled against the stone wall of the building. The light cast by his lantern seemed to have congealed and turned a yellowish gray. Water dripped from an eave overhead, falling so slowly that he could have plucked them from the air, one by one, like jewels.

The darkness in the street behind the Juggler trembled, and then a wisp of it separated, clotting together to form the shape of the wihht. On unhurried legs, it started forward and reached for the fat man.

“
Na, hie aerest
,” said Nio. The thing obeyed, veering, and made for the closer of the two other men. Shadow closed on flesh and grew, flaring up like a flame leaping into life, but without light or heat—only darkness that surged with quick movements. A scream cut off into silence. The second man was turning, turning slowly until he saw the shadow reaching for him. His eyes widened, and then he was blotted out in a wave of darkness. Only seconds, perhaps, went by. Nio was not sure, for the spell of slowing still held sway within the confines of the cobblestones and walls and dark, shuttered windows that looked on in silence.

The mass of shadow receded until there was only the wihht standing there. The two men were gone, although a few damp rags of clothing fluttered to the ground around the wihht’s feet. It turned toward Nio and seemed to smile. He could not rightly tell in the little light there was, but it seemed now that the features of the thing were finer and more human.

“And this other?” it said, voice still hoarse and awkward.

“
Bidan
,” he said. Wait. He bound it into patience with his will woven into the word. Yet, even though the word and his will held, the wihht walked at his heels as he advanced toward the Juggler. The lantern trembled in the fat man’s hand, his fingers white-knuckled across the handle.

“You chose poorly,” said Nio. The other only stared at him, eyes huge in their sockets. Behind them, the wihht chuckled.

“Though this night has proven disappointing,” continued Nio, “as you have brought no Knife, we must talk, you and I. Perhaps you know nothing I would find valuable, but I must make sure. I hope you understand. Now, where is the Knife?”

But the fat man remained silent, frozen except for the lantern trembling in his clutch and his eyes flickering from Nio’s face to the shadow waiting behind and then back.

“
Cweoan
,” said Nio. Speak.

“I don’t know, my lord!” stammered the Juggler. His face shone with sweat. “He did a big job some nights back. A real big job! Did it with one of my boys. He owes me money now, but the Guild ain’t paid up yet!”

“What was the job?”

The words came in a rush, but Nio knew the answer already.

“A box lifted from a rich merchant’s house. Just a little box, but it had something valuable in it. It wouldna been so or the Knife wouldna run the job. Usually, those jobs are left to the burglars—and he ain’t a burglar, he’s the bleeding Knife! I saw the box myself, right after it was nicked. The Knife was carrying it when he entered the tunnel underneath the Goose and Gold—the inn where you and me first met.”