The castle was strung with parchment lanterns, and in every corner stood little altars to Madi Surazem covered with greenery, with pale helle¬bore blooms, firethorn, and holly surrounding white candles, each arrange¬ment a silent prayer that the swelling within the belly of Moist Mother Earth would bear forth in another spring of healthy crops.
But what crops? Tinwright thought And who to harvest them? The fairies have laid waste to all the western and northern lands. It was strange that he should be the one fretting about such things. His father had once called him (exaggerating only slightly, Tinwright had to confess) the laziest and most self-centered youth on either side of Brenn's Bay. Now he watched the courtiers in their masks and finery trip out into the garden and come back in, soaked from the rain and laughing, only to rush out again, and felt like a despairing parent himself. He wondered if his earlier idea, however poetic, might not be wrong: the dead could afford to make merry, having nothing to lose. The people around him seemed more like children, play¬ing games beneath a teetering boulder.
Something bumped him and almost knocked him to the floor. "Sing us a song, minstrel!" shouted a drunken voice. Swaying in front of him, wear¬ing a mask with an obscenely long nose, was Durstin Crowel, one of Tolly s closest followers, a red-faced young lord who would have looked more nat¬ural, Tinwright thought, on a platter at the center of a banquet with a quince stuffed in his mouth. Crowel stood in the middle of the corridor with four or five of his friends, none of whom looked any better for drink than the Baron of Graylock. He was soaking wet and wearing a dress. "Go on," Crowel said, pointing an unsteady finger at Tinwright. "Sing some¬thing with some swiving in it!" His companions laughed but they did not move on. They had sensed an edge in Crowd's tone that meant more in¬teresting things might be coming.
"Go to, then!" one of them shouted."You heard! Uncertain us, minstrel!"
"It is a costume, only," Tinwright said, backing away. At least they did not seem to have recognized him behind his bird mask. Sometimes it was good to be beneath the notice of the great.
"Ah, but my dagger is real." Crowel pulled something with a long, slen¬der blade from his bodice-the noble seemed to be dressed as a tavern maid. "To protect my dear virtue, you see…" He paused for the laugh, which his friends dutifully provided, "so I'm afraid you will sing-or I will make you sing." He belched and his friends laughed again. "Minstrel."
For a moment it seemed as if it would be easier simply to do it-to mop and mow a little for the benefit of these drunken arsewipes, to play the part and sing a sad song of love and let them mock him. He knew enough of Crowel to know the man had beaten at least one servant to death and crip¬pled another, just in the time he had been living in the Tollys' wing of the residence-surely it was better simply to give the man what he wanted.
But why should I think they will stop at mockery?
"My lord's command," he said aloud, and bent his knee in a bow. "I will be pleased to sing for you… another day."
Tinwright turned and ran for the residence garden. He was out into the cold rain before Crowel and the others realized what had happened.
This was the part of the plan I didn't think about as carefully as I might, Tin¬wright admitted to himself as he huddled soaking wet in the lee of a tall hedge. The wind was chill and sharp as a razor-he thought he could feel his skin beginning to turn to ice. Still, he was not ready to go back inside. He was fairly certain that Graylock hadn't recognized him, so all he had to do was stay away from them just for tonight. He considered sneaking back to the room he shared with Puzzle, but if he didn't go back through main halls of the residence he would have a long walk back in the biting, bitter wind.
Better just to wait until they drink themselves to sleep.
In any case, he was feeling more than a little sorry for himself when he realized he had not heard voices or seen movement in the garden for some time.
If they're not looking for me out here, at least I could find somewhere a little more warm and dry to hide, he thought. He pulled the minstrel's floppy cap down over his ears again-he had already nearly lost it to the wind several times-and wrapped the thin cape tight around his shoulders, wishing he had picked a more sensible disguise.
/ could have been a monk with a hood-or a Vuttisli reaver with a fur-lined hel-met! But no, I wished to show my legs to the ladies in a minstrel's hose. Fool.
He found one of the covered arbors at last; it was only when he had thrown himself down on the bench with a loud grunt of despair that he realized someone else was already sitting there.
"Oh! Your pardon, Lady…"
The woman in the dark dress looked up. Her eyes were red-she had been crying. An ivory-colored mask sat on her lap like a temple offering bowl. Tinwright's heart jumped, and for a moment he could not speak. He leaped to his feet, bowed, then remembered to take off his mask.
"Master Tinwright." She turned away and lifted her kerchief, drying her tears in a slow, deliberate fashion. Her voice was hard. "You find me at a disadvantage. Have you followed me, sir?"
"No, Lady Elan, I swear. I was only…"
"Wandering in the garden? Enjoying the weather?"
He laughed ruefully. "Yes, as you can see I have quite immersed myself in it. No, I was… well, I must be frank. The Baron of Graylock and some of his friends had taken it into their heads that I should entertain them, and it wasn't clear how much I should have to suffer for my art." He shrugged. "I decided that I would entertain them with a game of hide and seek instead."
"Durstin Crowel?" Her voice grew harder still. "Ah, yes, dear Lord Crowel. Do you know, when I first came here, he asked Hendon if he could have me. 'I'll break her for you, Tolly, he said-as if I were a horse."
"You mean he wanted to marry you?"
For the first time she turned to look at him, her face a mask of bitter amusement. "Marry me? Black heart of Kernios, no, he wanted to bed me only." Her face twisted into something else, something truly disturbing. "He did not know that Hendon had other plans for me. But yes, I know Baron Durstin." She composed herself, even tried to smile. "Very well, Master Tinwright, you are forgiven for your intrusion. And in fact, you may keep the arbor for yourself and I'll tell no one where you are. I must go back in¬side now. Doubtless my lord and master is looking for me."
She had risen, the mask halfway to her face, when Tinwright at last found the words.
"What is he to you?"
"Who?" She sounded startled. "Do you mean Hendon Tolly? I should think that was obvious, Master Tinwright. He owns me."
"You are not his wife but his sister-in-law. Will he marry you?"
"Why should he? Why should he pay for a cow whose milk is already his?"
It sickened him to hear her speak so. He took a breath, tried to find calm words. "Does he at least treat you well, my lady?"
She laughed, a cracked, unpleasant sound, and put the white mask to her face so that she seemed a corpse or a ghost. "Oh, he is most attentive." Her shoulders slumped and she turned away again. "Truly, I must go."
Tinwright grabbed at the sleeve of her velvet gown. She tried to pull away and something tore. For a moment they both stood, half in, half out of the rain.
"I would kill him for causing you unhappiness," he said, and realized in that moment it was true. "I would."
She lowered the mask in surprise. "Gods help us, do not say such things! Do not even go near him. He… you do not know. You cannot guess what evil is in him."
Tinwright still held her sleeve. "I… would not treat you so, Lady Elan. If you were mine, that is. I would love you. As it is, I think of you day and night."