“I want to get married right away,” she said in a quiet voice that trembled as violently as her shoulders. “Marry me now, Willem. If you don’t-if we wait even another tenday-something bad will happen. Something will keep us from …”
She started to cry harder and Willem stepped behind her, taking her shoulders in his hands. She spun on him so fast he startled away. Happily, she didn’t notice and instead pressed herself into him again.
“I love you,” he whispered to her. “Halina, my dear, dear, patient love. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me. Tell me you can forgive me.”
“I forgive you,” she whispered back, having no idea what Willem wanted most to be forgiven for.
“I’ve been beastly,” he said. “I’ve been monstrous.”
Halina giggled a little though she was still crying.
“You hate me,” he said.
“No,” Halina replied. “Willem, I could never hate you, and you’ve hardly been monstrous. You have reasons for waiting, and I understand, but … but …”
“But you’ve waited long enough,” he said.
“No,” Halina whispered. “Yes.”
“Then that’s it,” he told her, looking her in the eye and lying, though he so wished he wasn’t. “We’ll be married straight away. I’ll speak with your uncle at his earliest convenience.”
“Willem,” she cooed, “do you mean it?”
He meant to answer her but just then he saw his mother, her arms folded in that way she had of telling him he was making a terrible mistake, standing in the doorway to the sitting room.
“Really,” Thurene said, her voice like freezing rain. “I suppose I should be thankful that this is happening in the middle of the night so at least the neighbors will be spared the unseemly melodrama.”
Willem could feel Halina stiffen in his arms. He watched her try to gather herself, having no idea what to say to her or to his mother.
Halina made sure not to look at Thurene but gave Willem a moony-eyed glance then took her weathercloak and ran out the door, down the steps, and into the dark street.
“Close the door, my dear,” Thurene said, her voice still unthawed. “You’ll catch your death.”
He closed the door and leaned against it, his eyes falling to the floor as if attached to heavy weights.
“Really, Willem, the Thayan?”
Willem didn’t bother to sigh. He was so tired.
“Please tell me you didn’t mean that,” she pressed.
“I love her, Mother. I’ve already promised her-”
“What, my dear?” Thurene almost shouted, then calmed herself. “You’ve promised her what? That you’d ruin your life for her? Throw away your career and your fortune for her? Sacrifice your future for her? Is that what you promised?”
“You know what I promised,” he said. “It’s a promise I made a long time ago.”
“And the master builder?”
“What about him?” Willem asked.
“Does he know about this promise you’ve made to a foreign girl, the niece of a man you’ve told me yourself is some sort of rabble-rouser?”
“A foreign girl?” he said with a sigh. “In case you’ve forgotten, Mother, I’m a foreign boy.”
“Oh, no, my dear,” Thurene shot back. “You’re neither a foreigner nor a boy. You’ve made this city your home. You’ve told me so yourself. You’ll be a powerful man, here, Willem, and you’re no boy, so stop acting like one.”
Willem let all the air out of his lungs and sagged. His knees almost gave out on him. He put his hands over his face.
“I’m so tired,” he sighed.
“Then go upstairs and go to sleep,” his mother said. “In the morning you will go see the master builder and you will ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. You know he wants the match, and we both know what it will mean for you. Your loyalty has to be to Inthelph, Willem, at least for now. If you have to … see this little girl in the meantime, well, as I said, you’re a man, but don’t marry her, my dear. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t you dare do that to yourself.”
Willem thought of the beginnings of a thousand arguments but his mind wouldn’t let him think them through. All he wanted was to sleep.
“Inthelph has done so much for you, Willem,” his mother went on. “He is a very important senator and the master builder. He not only can arrange a title for you, Willem, but he’s willing to. Willing…. He can hardly wait to get you that title. A title, my dear! Show him you’re willing to sacrifice for him. Not that marrying that lovely girl of his is so much a sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice?” Willem whispered.
His mother couldn’t know what he’d already sacrificed for the master builder. She had no idea the extent to which he’d sold his very soul to help Inthelph maintain his position in the city, and in fact neither did Inthelph. Even though the poison had failed to kill tough old Khonsu in the end …
“Maybe …” Willem said aloud, but finished the thought to himself alone:
Maybe it is time I do a favor for Inthelph that he actually knows about.
“No, my dear,” Thurene said. “Not maybe.”
Willem nodded.
“Good boy,” his mother replied. “Now off to bed.”
42
2 Ches, the Year of the Wyvern (1363 DR)
SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH
Did you poison Khonsu?” Pristoleph asked.
Marek Rymut often thought that if he didn’t have such a wonderful sense of humor he’d have to just kill everyone in Innarlith, they were so stupid.
“No,” Marek said, suppressing the laugh with a shallow breath. “I daresay if I had, he would be dead and not locked in that trancelike state. The priests can’t seem to decide if the assassin used too much of the poison or not enough.”
He sat across a wide, marble-topped desk from a fire genasi. What made that funny, and the Innarlan so stupid, was that no one seemed to know that the up-and-coming senator was the son of a human woman and a fire elemental. They seemed to accept that he had “unusual hair.” He occasionally wore makeup to soften the deep red of his face. He told people he was Chondathan, and the idiots bought it.
Pristoleph looked deeply into his eyes and Marek finally looked away, though he was confident that the senator would see that he was telling the truth.
“You told me you have progress to report,” said the genasi, who looked down at his desktop with a distant, cold gaze that made for an attractive contrast with his fiery nature.
Marek always had the hardest time staying focused in the presence of Pristoleph. Maybe it was the man’s hair-so like fire dancing across his scalp. Or was it the equally hot embers that blazed in his deep, wine-red eyes?
“Rymut,” the genasi prompted.
With a smile and a nod, Marek said, “The butchers have finally formed their guild and have agreed to allow in the men who work at the slaughterhouse, including the day laborers and those unfortunate wretches who clean out the stalls. Can you imagine so ghastly an occupation? Really.”
“And?” the impatient senator growled.
“And,” Marek went on unfazed, “the drovers are in as well. Should one be so inclined, one might be able to bring the meat supply to a grinding halt. Oh, please do excuse the pun.”
There was no indication that Pristoleph had even heard the joke.
“Good, yes?” asked Marek.
“A start,” Pristoleph replied. The genasi turned to gaze from a window that looked out over the street in a good, but not outstanding section of the posh Second Quarter. “It’s not good enough, though.”
“No?” Marek chanced.
“The teamsters,” Pristoleph replied, still looking out the window. “The men who drive the carts, who deliver things, carry things, and move things around.”
“Ah, yes,” Marek joked. “That would be a teamster.”
“And the dock hands,” Pristoleph continued, ignoring the Thayan. “The men who load and unload ships.”