“You are young, aren’t you?” Brone asked suddenly.
All the usual objections rose to his lips, but Tinwright only licked his dry lips and said, “I am twenty, Lord.”
The count shook his head. “I suppose some of the mistakes you have made are the same I might have made at your age.” He shot Tinwright a glance. “But that does not include taking Elan M’Cory out of the castle. That is a capital offense, boy. That is the headsman’s block.”
Tears again filled Tinwright’s eyes. “Oh, gods. How did I ever come to this?”
“Bad company,” said Brone briskly. “To associate with playwrights and poets is to dally with thieves and madmen—what good can come of that? But perhaps all is not up for you—not yet. If the matter of Mistress M’Cory were to remain hidden from the lord protector, then you might yet survive to an honorable old age. But I would be taking a risk on your behalf, knowing and not telling. I would make myself an accessory…” He shook his head, grimly, sadly. “No, I fear I cannot take such a risk. I have a family and lands, retainers. It wouldn’t be fair…”
“Oh, please, Count Brone.” The big man seemed to be bending a little, leaning toward mercy. Tinwright did his best to make his words sweet and convincing. “Please—I did it only to save an innocent girl! I will do anything for you if you will spare me this terrible fate. My poor mother’s heart would be broken.” Which was a gross untruth, of course: Anamesiya Tinwright would probably be delighted to see her direst predictions come to pass.
“Perhaps. Perhaps. But if I am to take such a risk—to let you go when I know that you are guilty, and to cover up that guilt!—then you must do something for me.”
“Anything. Shall I carry messages for you?” He had once heard rumors that Hewney and the others had performed such services for Brone. “Travel to a foreign court?” He could definitely think of worse fates than to leave his mother and his troubles and this entire grim city behind for a few moons.
“No, I think you shall be more use to me closer to home,” said Brone. “In fact, I could use a man with access to Hendon Tolly and his inner circle. I have a number of questions I’d like answered, and you, Matty Tinwright—you will be my spy.”
“Spy? Spy on… Hendon Tolly?”
“Oh, not just him. I have many questions and many needs. There is also a certain object whose whereabouts I need to know—it is even possible I’ll ask you to obtain it for me. I suspect it is being kept in the chambers of Okros, the new palace physician. Do not look so worried, Tinwright, it is nothing particularly valuable—simply a mirror.”
A mirror? Could it be the one Tolly had used to torture Elan? But only a fool or lunatic would go near such a thing… !
Matt Tinwright stared at the count with dawning horror. “You… you never meant to tell Tolly. He has cast you out! You only wanted a spy!”
Avin Brone sat back and twined his fingers together on his broad belly. “Do not bother your head with truth, poet. It is not your field of expertise.”
Tinwright’s heart raced, but he was angry now, angry and humiliated to have been played like such a lackwit. “What if I go to Tolly and tell him you tried to make me a spy in his camp?”
Brone threw back his head and laughed. “What if you do? Would you like him to hear my side of the story—the truth about Lady Elan? And even if trouble came to me as well as to you because of it, I have an estate happily far from Southmarch to which I can retire, and men to protect me. What do you have, little scribbler? Only a neck which will part for the headsman’s ax like a fine sausage.”
Despite himself, Tinwright lifted his hand to his throat. “But what if Tolly catches me?” He was almost crying again.
“Then you will be in the same situation as if I tell him what you’ve done. The difference is, if you do it my way, it will be up to you to keep yourself out of trouble. If I tell Hendon Tolly—well, trouble will find you very quickly, there’s no doubt of that.”
Tinwright stared at the old man. “You… you are a demon.”
“I am a politician. There is a difference, but you are too green to understand it. Now listen carefully, poet, while I tell you what you must do for me…”
13. Licking the Needle
“It is said that in the earliest years of Hierosol, when it was still little more than a coastal village, a large Qar city called Yashmaar stood on the far side of the Kulloan Strait, and that trade between men of the southern continent and this fairy stronghold was one reason for Hierosol’s swift growth.”
Barrick Eddon. What a strange, strange name. For a moment Qinnitan could not understand why it ran through her head as she lay in the dark, over and over like the words to one of the prayers her father had taught her when she was a child. Barrick. Barrick Eddon. Barrick…
Then the dream came flooding back. She tried to sit up, but little Pigeon was sprawled against her, tangled with her, and it would be too difficult to pry herself loose without waking him.
What did it mean, that vision? She had seen the flame-haired boy several times in dreams, but this last time it had been different: although she could not remember everything they had said to each other, they had shared what she remembered as a true conversation. But why had such a gift been given to her, if it truly was a gift? What did the gods intend? If the vision came from the sacred bees that she had served, the Golden Hive of Nushash, shouldn’t one of her friends from those days, like Duny, have come to her in dream instead? Why some northern boy she had never met or even seen in waking life?
Still, she could not put Barrick Eddon out of her mind, and not only because she finally knew his name. She had felt his despair as if it were her own—not as she sensed Pigeon’s unhappiness, but as if she could truly feel the stranger’s heart, as if the same blood somehow flowed through both of them. But that was impossible, of course…
Qinnitan felt Pigeon shift again and looked up into the blackness. She didn’t even know what time it was, night or morning, since their cabin had no windows and the noises of the crew outside did not give much away: she hadn’t yet learned the shipboard routine well enough to know the different watches by their voices and calls.
How she longed for some light! The sailors wouldn’t let her have a lamp for fear she would burn herself up, which was foolish. Qinnitan did not care much about her own life—certainly she would give it up gladly if that was the only thing that would keep her out of the hands of Sulepis—but she would not sacrifice the boy while there was even a thin hope of saving him.
Still, a candle or lamp would make the long hours of the night go faster. She could only sleep so much—although Pigeon, it seemed, could sleep anytime and as much as he wished. But Qinnitan would have preferred to have something to look at when she could not sleep. Even better would be a book—Baz’u Jev or some other poetry, anything to take her mind away from her situation.
But that would not happen, at least not as long as their captor was in charge. He was cruel and clever and seemed to have no heart whatsoever. She had tried everything—innocence, flirtation, childish terror—all had left him unmoved. How could she hope to trick a man like that, a man of cold stone? But neither could she give up.