“How can you stand to walk here?” Mathi said, quavering.
“Ignore them. They’re only stone.”
At what seemed like an arbitrary point, the majordomo stopped. He pointed to a door. “You will sleep here. There’s a filling font in the antechamber. Whatever else you want, you must forgo or see to yourself.”
He turned to leave. “One other thing: don’t roam around-after dark. As I said, this place is a maze, and you may find unpleasant company.” Puzzled, Mathi asked him what he meant. “My lord sleeps in different parts of the house each night. If you disturb him, he may greet you with a blade in the ribs.”
Leaving the astonished girl alone in the dark, Lofotan returned to the stairs. His lamp faded until Mathi was submerged in the enormously dark house. Somewhere out of sight, a door slammed. Mathi darted inside the indicated door and shut it quickly.
Sunset streamed in the high windows. She was in a suite fit for a lord. Furniture stood around the main room in orderly ranks like disciplined soldiers, draped in ghostly white dust cloths. Mathi tugged her belt pouch around and dug out a small luminar. She spoke the illuminating word, simtha, and the crystal glowed to life.
As Lofotan promised, there was a font in the antechamber. A great conch shell had been set up as a basin. Arching over it was a golden tap shaped like a leaping dolphin. When Mathi touched it, water poured forth. She washed her hands, splashed more on her face, and drank a few handfuls before allowing the font to shut off.
She felt lost in such an enormous space. Holding the luminar by its silver handle, she walked through the great suite. Only the main room was furnished. The adjoining salons and bedchambers were empty, just frescoed walls and stone floors. She went back to the main room and pulled the cover off an elegant couch. Sitting in silence for a long time, Mathi nibbled the last of the rations she had brought from the country.
The sleeve rode up on her arm, revealing red scars. She tugged the homespun back over them. It was too soon to look at them. Worse reminders of her time in the forest still stung on her legs, but at least the long hem of her acolyte’s gown always covered them.
She set the luminar on the floor between her feet. It shone brightly, filling the space around her with hard, white light. Everything was going well, she kept reminding herself. She was exactly where she was supposed to be.
She dozed while sitting up on the couch. A loud click stirred but did not rouse her. It sounded again, and her sharp senses dragged her awake. She picked up the luminar, which had gone out. A vast tapestry of stars shone in the high windows. For a moment she heard nothing. A silhouette appeared, close to one of the glass panes. Whoever it was rapped gently for attention.
Slowly Mathi approached. At the last instant, she called the luminar to light. It blazed on, dazzling her and the mysterious figure outside. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw Treskan the scribe crouched by the window, one arm thrown over his eyes.
Mathi extinguished the light. She tried to open the floor-length window, but the catch refused to turn. Putting all her weight and strength on the handle only bent the brass.
Treskan had dropped his arm when the light went out. He tried to open the window from the outside but could not. By silent gestures he indicated to Mathi she must turn away. She did, afraid he meant to break a pane. There was a quick, small flash of light. The latch squeaked, and the scribe entered.
“Why are you here?” she whispered.
“I had to come back. I will lose my job if I fail to attach myself to Lord Balif.”
Mathi slowly shut the window. Feeling the catch, she found there was no lock on it. So why did it resist opening, and how did Treskan get in?
“Will you speak to Lord Balif for me?” Treskan begged. “You’re having dinner with him, are you not?”
“Yes, and soon.” Mathi looked down at the shabby scribe. They had traveled most of the way from the west country together for mutual company and protection. He was an odd fellow, seemingly useless one moment and amazingly erudite the next. She wondered anew how he got the window open.
Loud footsteps heralded the arrival of Lofotan. Treskan ducked out of sight. Mathi hurried to the couch and sat down demurely. The majordomo came right in without knock or announcement.
“My lord dines. He asks that you attend him,” Lofotan said. Before Mathi could reply, he turned his head from side to side, frowning. “You have had a window open?”
“Why, yes.” How did he know?
“This suite has not been aired in many months. The fresh air is quite distinct.”
Mathi went to the door. Lofotan remained, hands clasped behind his back. “How did you get a window open?”
“Oh, I tried one after another until one opened,” Mathi replied. He demanded to know which one. Outwardly blithe, Mathi took him to the exact door Treskan used. It opened under the majordomo’s hand.
“I see. Can you find your way downstairs by yourself?” He stepped through onto a broad balcony. It followed the bank of windows from one end to the other. When Mathi emerged behind Lofotan, she saw he had a short sword in his hand.
“Go back. Now.”
She did, retrieving her luminar along the way. Downstairs she followed her nose to the dining room. It was not the grand feasting hall she imagined, but a more modest, shelf-lined room she guessed was meant to be a pantry. Balif sat at a round table. A candelabra of sixteen tapers illuminated the scene.
Balif stood. “Come, girl. Sit down.”
There was only one other setting, so she sat there, at the general’s right hand. He poured spring water into an amethyst goblet.
“How came you to the Haven of the Lost?” Balif asked without any opening palaver.
She told him the story she had long rehearsed on the journey to Silvanost. Her family were beekeepers living on the edge of the great western forest. The only settlement near them was Woodbec, a military post three leagues from Mathi’s home. In the early morning hours, a band of humans on horseback raided them, killing her father outright and taking her and her mother prisoner.
Somberly he said, “And when was this?”
“Six summers past, my lord.”
“What happened next?”
Gazing at her empty plate, Mathi described how she and her mother were taken far to the north, on the open plain, and sold as slaves. Her mother could not bear her captive life and took the ultimate escape.
“How?”
“Fly agaric.”
There was no antidote for the poisonous mushroom. It was a slow death but a sure one. In silent kindness, Balif said nothing for a while. When Mathi was ready, she continued her story.
After that, Mathi’s human master, a warrior named Herndan, took her and his whole entourage east, to the Plains River. He got involved in a dispute with another human warrior, fought a duel, and was killed. All that was Herndan’s became the property of the victor, but Mathi used the confusion of her master’s defeat to escape.
“Tell me,” Balif said remorselessly.
“I am a good swimmer,” Mathi said. “I resolved to swim the river or die trying. The human males could not pursue me, weighted as they were with metal armor, so I was able to swim away with arrows flicking past my ears.”
Balif opened a covered silver tray. With tongs, he picked up a delicately poached fish fillet and laid it on her plate. The second, smaller fillet he took himself.
“I regret the arrows,” he said. “They are my fault.”
“How so, my lord? You were not there.”
He replaced the silver dome on the empty tray. “Humans have bows because I gave them to them. My apologies.”
Mathi didn’t understand. She pulled her fish apart with her fingers and ate with them too until she noticed Balif using a tiny two-pronged metal spear to get the food to his mouth. As she was provided with an identical tool, Mathi tried to emulate her host.