Kane flashed me a quick, dangerous look. Then he shook his head and said to Arch Uttam, 'Thierraval always keeps to himself after a performance. It is his way.'
'Excluding oneself from others is also an error,' Arch Uttam said. 'Therefore your minstrel will have a different way today. Go fetch him.'
But Kane only glared at Arch Uttam, and did not move.
Arch Uttam finally looked away from him. He turned his anger on Estrella, the smallest and youngest of our company. He pointed at the cart and commanded her: 'Go open that door, right now girl! Or do you wish to stand in defiance of one of Lord Morjin's priests, which is defiance of Lord Morjin himself?'
Estrella had no choice but to carry out Arch Uttam's command. She ran over to the cart and opened its door. After looking inside, she turned toward Arch Uttam and shook her head. With quick motions of her hands and a look of puzzlement on her open, expressive face, she made it clear to Arch Uttam. and everyone else, that Thierraval was not inside the cart.
'What?' Arch Uttam cried out. He glared at Estrella. 'What are you saying, mime? Speak in words!'
'She cannot speak.'
'Mute, you say?'
'As silent as the sky. But her meaning is plain enough: You won't find Thierraval inside the cart. As I told you, he always vanishes after a performance.' 'What trick is this, Juggler?' 'No trick at all, priest. You might say it is part of our act.'
Arch Uttam drew himself up stiffly and sneered at Kane as if he refused to handy words with a lowly player. He whipped about, turning to face Lord Mansarian. He pointed at the cart as he called out, 'Go bring me that minstrel!'
Lord Mansarian bowed his head to him. He threw back his red cape, drew his sword and came down from the box. After hurrying across the square, he brushed Estrella aside. He practically leaped up into the cart. I heard him banging about inside as if striking his sword's pommel against the cart's floor and walls. I could only guess at Lord Mansarian's reaction in coming face to face with Bemossed hiding there, and Bemossed's response to this search. I commanded my arms and legs not to move; if I could have stilled my racing heart, I would have.
And then Lord Mansarian stepped out of the cart and dosed the door. He called up to Arch Uttam: 'The minstrel is not inside.'
I could not keep my breath from bursting out in a rush of relief.
And then Arch Uttam called down to Lord Mansarian: 'What? Are you
Arch Uttam stared at our cart as if he might order it chopped to splinters with axes. Then he stared at Lord Mansarian. When this grim-faced Crucifier, famed for ferreting out errants from hiding places in their houses, declared that no minstrel hid inside it, even a high priest of the Kallimun had to accept this.
At last, Arch Uttam said, 'The minstrel must have slipped away somehow when we were discussing these players' errors. It would seem that they are adept at sleight of word as well as prestidigitation.'
He looked past the food-sellers' stalk and the courtesans' pavilion at the many rows of tents of the army's encampment. He cast his gaze down upon Estrella and said. 'Tell me where he went! You must know.'
But Estrella only held out her hands as her eyes grew wide with mystification and she shook her head.
'Speak!' he commanded her. 'Do not mock me any more!' Kane's voice rolled out like a dark thunder as he called up to Arch Uttam: 'She cannot speak any more than you can fly!'
Arch Uttam seemed ready to order Kane put to death on the spot. He snapped out, You mock me. too. You say the girl cannot speak. We shall see. Lord Mansarian!'
He commanded this butcher to take hold of Estrella, and bring her forward. Although Lord Mansarian may have stood in debt to Bemossed, he did not extend his gratitude to Estrella. I watched helplessly as he did Arch Uttam's bidding. He escorted Estrella up the steps of the box and over to Arch Uttam so that they stood between the priest and King Arsu. Lord Mansarian damped his bronze-shod arm across Estrella's trembling body so that she could not flee. Her dark, wild eyes found out mine as if pleading with me not to let anyone harm her.
'Don't be afraid,' Arch Uttam said to her as he rose up from his chair. 'For the true of heart there is nothing ever to fear.'
King Arsu's guards did not like anyone outside his entourage to approach very close to him, not even a weaponless young girl. King Arsu seemed not to like this course of events either. He said to Arch Uttam: 'Can we not get on with the celebrations?'
'We must always celebrate truth.' Arch Uttam said in a deadly calm voice. He placed his fingertips on Estrella's jaw to tilt her face up toward him. 'I think this girl has something of the look of the Sung. And the look of defiance.'
Next to Arch Uttam, still sitting at the edge of the box. King Angand looked on with interest. He seemed to question whether Estrella ought really have had her origins in the people of Sunguru. And then Lady Lida touched King Arsu's arm and said, 'If the girl really cant speak, then she can't be held accountable for defiance.'
Before King Arsu could say anything. Arch Uttam barked out,
'Yes, Arch Uttam,' he said as his arm tightened across Estrella's slender chest. His scarred face seemed as empty of life as a steel mask. 'Thumbscrews would loosen her tongue, if it was stuck. A little fire applied in the right places would make her sing.'
I traded a quick look with Kane. I could see his black eyes, like mine, looking for a way out of the violence moving toward us like a fog of blood.
Arch Uttam smiled at Lord Mansarian. He seemed to be testing him; I sensed that this had become a ritual with them: the High Priest of Hesperu trying to make sure of the devotion of a once-noble man who had gone from being a rebel to Hesperu's greatest murderer.
'I might prefer a flaying,' Arch Uttam told Lord Mansarian. 'But even you, I think, might have difficulty peeling the skin off a girl'
If Arch Uttam was trying to frighten Estrella into speaking, then he failed. Or perhaps he was still trying to find some act or abomination so utterly cruel that Lord Mansarian would refuse to carry it out.
'I could take the skin off her hand,' Lord Mansarian said, 'like a glove.'
I noticed Lida's fingers moving against King Arsu's wrist, and King Arsu suddenly called out: 'This is no day for torturing children!'
Arch Uttam only smiled at this. He said to Lord Mansarian, 'You yourself once resisted the truth, did you not?'
'Even as I resisted Lord Morjin,' Lord Mansarian said.
'And you did this of your own will, did you not?'
'Freely, I did.'
'And so who was to blame for the torments you suffered?'
'Only myself,' Lord Mansarian said. He let his eyes look down upon Estrella. 'But there can be no resisting the Red Dragon's
I sensed the sincerity in his voice, as well a deep loathing of himself. Clearly he blamed himself, and not Morjin, for whatever evil had befallen him.
'Perfect and glorious!' Arch Uttam called out as he caressed Estrella's face.
His bony fingers now touched beneath Estrella's jaw and felt down along her delicate throat. He used them to force apart her jaws. He positioned her so that the sun streaming through the box's silk covering illumined her open mouth. He grabbed up a cloth and used it to take hold of her tongue. Then he pulled it out as he rudely stuck his fingers down her throat until she coughed and gagged.
As it happened, he had once been a healer of some reputation. And this former healer who now hunted down healers in the Red Dragon's name, loudly announced: 'There is nothing wrong with this girl, in her body, that keeps her from speaking. And so there must be something wrong in her mind: some error of thought.'
He let go of her, even as Lord Mansarian maintained his hold. He wiped his fingers with the cloth. Then he continued: 'All errors of thought can be corrected with right thoughts. And no thought can be more perfect than that of Lord Morjin himself.'
