She looked at him with astonishment. “What, have you done your foul deed already, killed one of the gods’ innocents, and now you wish me to nurse her through it?”
He hung his head, praying for patience, although he was a bit uncertain as to who might be the best recipient for the request. Zosim, his own patron godling, was notoriously uninterested in that particular virtue, or in fact by virtue in general. In the end, Tinwright offered his prayer to the goddess Zoria, who was reputed to be good with things like this.
If she will even hear me, now that I have so long delayed her poem. But how could he help it when his muse, Princess Briony, Zoria’s earthly avatar, had disappeared? That was the beginning of my downfall. But I was raised up such a short time only! Zoria, surely I deserve a little pity?
Whether it was the goddess’ doing or not, after a moment he did feel a little calmer. Elan was beginning to stir as if she swam upward from great depths, her eyes still closed, her pale face troubled and confused.
“Listen carefully, Mother. I have rescued Lady Elan from someone who means her harm.” He didn’t dare tell her that the man he had saved her from was Hendon Tolly, the castle’s self-appointed protector: his mother had a deep and unreasoning reverence for all kinds of authority and might march straight out and denounce them both. “She is sick because I had to give her a medicine to spirit her out of the palace and away from this man’s clutches. She has done nothing wrong, do you understand? She is a victim—like Zoria, do you see? Like Blessed Zoria herself, driven out into the snows, alone and friendless.”
His mother looked from him to Elan with deep suspicion. “How can I believe that? How can I be certain you are not making a fool of me? ‘The gods help those who fill their own fields,’ as the book says.”
“Till. Till their own fields. But if you don’t believe me, you can ask her yourself, when she awakes.” He pointed toward the corner of the room and the tiny table set by. “There is a basin and cloth. She needs bathing, and… and it didn’t seem proper I should do it. I will bring back some food for both of you, as well as some more blankets from the palace.”
The idea of blankets from the palace clearly intrigued her, but his mother was not going to be convinced so easily. “But how long must I stay? Where will I sleep?”
“You can sleep in the bed, of course.” He had opened the door and he was partway out already. “It is a big bed. Very nice, too. The mattress is full of soft, clean, new straw.” He took another step back. He was almost out. Almost…
“It will cost you a starfish,” she said. “Every week.”
“What?” Outrage boiled up in him. “A silver starfish? What sort of mother tries to pickpurse her own son?”
“Why should I work without wage? If you do not wish to help me, your own blood, you can hire some girl from one of those taverns in which you’ve always spent your time.”
He stared at her. She wore that look he hated, her flush of anger from earlier now turned to one of victory—the look that said she knew she’d get her way. Did the gods really speak to her? Could she somehow know that Brigid had sworn she would no longer help him, that he was backed into a corner with no escape, at risk of his very life?
“Mother, do you realize that if somehow the word gets out that the Lady Elan is here, the… the man who seeks her will have me killed? Not to mention what he will do to her, this poor innocent girl?”
She had her long arms folded across her chest now. “All the more reason why you should not begrudge me the pittance I ask. No price is too great to pay for this girl’s safety. I cannot believe any child of mine would balk at such a small matter.”
He stared at her. “I will not pay you a starfish every tennight, Mother. I cannot afford it. I will pay you two each month until she is well enough to leave. You will also be fed and have this room to call your own.”
“I will have a room and bed to share, you mean. Share with this unfortunate woman, carrying the gods only knows what contagion, the poor thing. Two and a half each month, Matthias. Heaven will reward you for doing what is right.”
He couldn’t imagine heaven cared very much about half a starfish a month, but he needed her more than she needed him, and she had sensed it, as she always did.
“Very well,” he said. “Two and a half every month.”
“And to show earnest… ?” she asked, holding out her long hand.
“Earnest? ”
“You want me to take care of her, do you not? What if I must go to the apothecary?”
He turned over his last starfish.
He walked beside the rickety piers at the northwestern end of Skimmer’s Lagoon, kicking a lump of dried tar. The smell of fish and salt hung over everything. Despite the horror he had just called down on himself to buy freedom of movement, he was in no hurry to get back to the royal residence.
The woman I love, and for whom I have risked my life, loathes me as if I were vermin. No, not true—vermin she would hold blameless by comparison. I survive at court only by the goodwill of the very man I have cheated of his victim, and who will murder me without a thought if he ever finds out. And now I have been forced to pay my last money to hire my own mother—a woman I would gladly have paid even more money to avoid. Could my life be more wretched?
Matt Tinwright only realized later that in that very moment the gods had surely heard his provocative words and had begun to laugh. It must have been the richest jest they had heard all day.
“Hoi,” said a large shape that had stepped out to block the walkway in front of him. “Hoi, what a surprise. I know you! You’re the limpcod I owe a beating to.”
Tinwright looked up, blinking. Standing before him were two big men dressed like dock roustabouts. Neither was the remotest bit pleasant to observe, but the nearest one had a pale, doughy face that struck him as sickeningly familiar.
Oh, heaven, what a fool I was to tempt you! It’s that cursed guard from the Badger’s Boots—the one who wanted to pound me into jelly for stealing his woman. The thick-bodied man wasn’t dressed as a soldier now, though. Was that good? Or bad?
“I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me, sir…” he said, looking down as he stepped to one side. A hand as big as an Orphanstide ham shot out and curled in the collar of his jacket, stopping him midstride and holding him rigidly in place.
“Oh, I think not, neighbor. I think I know you well enough—though I didn’t know who you’d be when we were sent looking for you. Now my question is, should we beat the guts out of you now and risk the silver we’re to be paid for delivering you?” He turned to his almost equally ugly companion. “Do you think His Nibs’ll still pay us if we bring this sack of shit in with a few broken bones?”
His comrade seemed to be giving it real thought. “The big man has a bit of a temper and I wouldn’t want to cross him. He wanted this one alive, that’s all I know.”
“We can say he stumbled and fell into the wall a few times,” suggested Tinwright’s tormentor, grinning. “It won’t be the first time one of our prisoners went and had a wee accident.”
Prisoner? Big man? What was going on here? Until this moment, Tinwright had only felt the sickening anticipation of a beating. He had survived a few of those, although the thought terrified him. But this sounded like they actually planned something worse.