The Grave thief

'Some friends of mine are spending the evening in a tavern. Come on; let's join them.'

Vesna directed Mihn down the other side of the staircase, away from the watching Harlequin, carefully not touching him. He'd seen Mihn fight; his reactions were almost preternaturally swift and destructive.

It was only at the bottom of the stair that Mihn breathed again. He turned his back on the watching Harlequin. 'When you say tavern-?' he began.

Vesna chuckled and dared to clap the man on the shoulder. 'Yes, I mean brothel, but they serve damn fine wine, and the other'd probably do you good anyway.'

He dragged Mihn towards the barbican and away from the motionless Harlequin.

'Come on, my friend,' Vesna continued cheerfully, 'one of the girls is rumoured to be as much of an athlete as you; it should be quite a meeting.'

CHAPTER 12

Mihn and Count Vesna looked a strange pair as they rode eastwards through the near-deserted streets of Tirah. The temperature had plummeted since nightfall and the cold glitter of starlight illuminated the frost on every stone and roof-tile. It didn't take them long to reach Hamble Lanes, where many of Tirah's smaller merchants lived and worked. It was a far cry from the mansions of the truly wealthy, bustling during the day and pleasantly peaceful in the evening, except during the depths of winter, when, like the rest of the city, it took on a ghostly mien. It might have lacked the grandeur of the Old District south of the palace, but the shops and small workshops occupying every yard did good trade, so the buildings were large and the stone gargoyles plentiful.

Through the chimney-smoke Vesna could see the coloured lights of the College of Magic shining from its five slender towers – the college eschewed the shutters and heavy curtains most used to keep the cold at bay. The chill night air had driven most people indoors already, and those few still out had hurried on by, not wanting to attract the attention of anyone on horseback.

'Do you mind if I ask you a question? A personal one, I mean?' Vesna's voice sounded unusually loud, but it elicited only a considered nod from Mihn. 'I mean this out of curiosity rather than condemnation, but why stick to your vow when you're trying to find a way to serve Isak's needs? You're exceptional with that staff, hut it's not the best weapon for your skills. You've served a long penance already, isn't that enough? You shouldn't suffer for the rest of your life.'

'1 feel it is the right thing to do.'

'You say you failed your people,' Vesna persisted, 'and I won't presume to argue the point because I don't know your customs, but I would say the punishment is done.' He reached for his tobacco pouch and began to stuff the bowl of his pipe. 'I'm right in thinking you'd be able to take me if you had a sword?'

Mihn pushed back the hood of his cloak and turned to face his companion. His face looked otherworldly in the pale moonlight, his dark eyes unreadable. 'It would be closer than you think; you underestimate your own skills.'

'But you'd expect to win, if we fought?'

'Barring luck, yes. You are a soldier first and foremost, while I trained as a classical duellist. If it were a formal duel my chances would be better.'

'And with Eolis?'

Mihn turned back and looked down the empty street ahead of them. 'Are you asking if I could kill Lord Styrax and deny Isak's dreams that way?'

'Could you?'

'Could anyone?' Mihn countered. 'There is no way of knowing that until it's too late. In a duel I suspect he is unbeatable, for that is how the Gods intended him to be. I would have a better chance using an assassin's weapon, and even then, would I ever get close enough?'

'I suppose not.' Vesna could hear the disappointment in his own voice and realised he had been hoping that Mihn's prodigious skills would provide the answer.

'Whatever the chances,' Mihn said in a firm voice, 'I will not use an edged weapon again. The more I think on it, the more I believe my duty lies with Isak himself. My failure was one of the mind or soul, not the body, and it is not my body that shall secure my atonement.'

Vesna struck a sulphurous alchemist's match and put it to the filled bowl of his pipe. The shadows seemed to deepen around them in the sputtering light. They continued in silence for a while. The houses of Hamble Lanes slowly thinned as they neared the city wall.

'Did I ever tell you how my father died?' Vesna said suddenly. ' 'You did not.'

The count drew on his pipe and exhaled. A small cloud of smoke obscured his face for a moment. 'He died in a duel when I was a young man, fighting a knight twenty years younger than he over the honour of a cousin.'

'That sounds a waste of life to me.'

'Honour's a funny thing. Sometimes it makes demands you'd prefer it didn't.'

'How sorely was the cousin's honour offended?'

'Oh, not badly, but nonetheless my father felt the boy didn't deserve a kicking for so trifling a reason.' He grimaced. 'A telling-off would have sufficed, so I was told.'

'There was no magistrate to intervene? I was led to believe this civilised nation of yours has a tradition of law.'

Vesna turned to look at Mihn. In the near-darkness he couldn't tell if Mihn's words had been gentle mocking rather than condemnation.

'Unfortunately,' he continued at last, 'magistrates have sons too, sons they are loyal to, whatever the faults. Less a flaw of civilisation I think, than one of humanity.'

'So it was an excess of pride all round that led to your father's death,' Mihn said solemnly. 'A great shame.'

'The odd thing is that my father knew the likely outcome of a duel; he was past fifty, and he'd never been anything more than a decent swordsman.'

'Yet he offered battle all the same? Because of honour.'

'The boy was family; that was all that mattered to him. He used to say "there are those you are related to who'll never be your family, and those of a different tribe you'll gladly call 'brother'. Never stand aside when those you consider family are assailed."'

'So the insult could not be ignored? Bruises heal in a few weeks, death rarely so.'

'Someone had to stand up for those who could not, that was how my father saw it,' Vesna said sadly.

'I think I can guess the rest of the story,' Mihn said, still looking straight ahead.

'Who says there's more to tell?'

'There's more.'

'How do you know?' Vesna heard the wariness in his own voice. M ihn had a way of encouraging those with guilty thoughts to hear an unspoken reproach when he spoke.

'I know because I know you, and I know stories. Tales are not told without a reason. But first, I have the conclusion of the tale. Your father died, you discovered this when you returned home from whatever trip you had been on. Had the old man waited, he would have been alive perhaps even today. A bully does not kill the father of one destined to be a hero without finding himself taken to account, and you are here to tell me the story.'

Vesna found himself nodding at Minn's words. 'He was the first man I killed.'

'You were away being schooled in arms? He probably only saw the child you'd once been. How many strokes did it take?'

'Three.'

Mihn was silent for a while. Eventually he spoke again. 'And your reason for telling me?'

Vesna sighed. 'Honour can get you killed. It will if you seek to protect it often enough.'

'Yet sometimes there is more to life than that – sometimes a stand must be taken in full acknowledgement of the price. Your father realised that. He wanted those he considered family to realise he valued them above his own life.'

'In defence of those you consider family,' Vesna continued, eyes fixed in the distance.

'I hear a question hanging in the air.'