shortness of breath, in his voice. Tell me, tell me, over and over again.
Finally the incessant repetition wrung an answer out of her. 'The poisoning,' she said, 'almost thirty years ago.'
'What poisoning?'
'You can't stop lying, can you, no matter how futile it is. It isn't in your nature.'
She made what appeared to be a rather clumsy cut at» his shoulder, one that left her arm extended and exposed when it fell short.
As she'd intended, Thamalon instantly thrust at her wrist. She knocked his attack out of line with a semicircular parry, then, keeping pressure on his sword to hold it in its ineffectual position, charged him.
He ran backward, came off the blade, and smashed her weapon away an instant before it could shear into his throat. She tried a second cut as she ran by him, but he parried that one, too. She whirled back around to face him.
'I'm not lying,' Thamalon said, his white hair clotted with sweat, and his left profile smeared with red. 'I beg you to tell me what you mean.'
'Only weeks before your wedding,' she gritted, 'you poisoned your fiancee, a gentle, innocent girl who adored you.' Her fist clenched on the hilt of her broadsword too tightly to manipulate it properly, and she loosened her grip again.
'Someone poisoned you?' he asked, feigning bewilderment almost convincingly. Perhaps it helped that he truly was baffled as to how she'd discovered his secret. 'Why wasn't I told at the time? And how can you think it was me?'
'I know it was you,' she said, trying to bind his blade. He spun his point to avoid the contact, then thrust at her biceps. She snapped her broadsword back across her body to parry, then extended in her turn, and Thamalon took yet another retreat.
She sprang forward, lunged, and thrust at his leading foot. Once again, he took the bait. He snatched his foot back half a step, and his point flashed out to pierce the back of her hand. She whirled her arm and blade higher, avoiding his counterattack, shifted forward, and cut at his chest. He yanked the long sword back and parried. For a few heartbeats they attacked and defended, grunting with effort, their blades clashing fast as a castle bell sounding an alarm. Finally, Thamalon broke off the exchange by retreating, and the two duelists began to circle one another.
'What makes you think I poisoned you?' he asked. Shamur could tell he was making an effort to control his breathing.
'Not me.' she said, hoping to surprise and befuddle him, 'my kinswoman, also named Shamur. As a matter of fact, your venom killed her.' The instant she finished speaking, she attacked with a cut to the chest.
She obviously hadn't disrupted his concentration as she'd hoped, for he immediately sidestepped to avoid her blade while simultaneously thrusting at her sword arm. But she saw him begin to pivot on his leading foot, and adjusted her aim accordingly. He yanked his hand back just in time to keep her from severing it at the wrist. She renewed the attack, they battled fiercely for a few more seconds, and then he scrambled backward with another shallow cut along his forearm.
Shamur wasn't even sure just which of her attacks had slipped past his guard, but she supposed it didn't matter.
'Second blood,' she said.
'What makes you believe I murdered the other Shamur?' Thamalon panted.
Shamur was momentarily surprised he had nothing to say about what must be the perplexing question of her true identity. Then she realized that for the moment at least, it didn't matter to him. Whoever she might be in reality, he realized he wouldn't induce her to break off the fight by inquiring. But he hoped he could do it by convincing her he was innocent of the poisoning, and so the cool, shrewd soul that he was, that was the issue he intended to pursue.
'Lindrian told me on his death bed,' she replied. ''Now will you stop pretending?'
'I'm not pretending,' he insisted. 'Tell me exactly what Lindrian said.'
A bit at a time, she did, and about accosting Audra Sweetdreams and finding the green flask as well, the explanation broken up by fierce passages of arms whenever he permitted her to close the distance. By the time she finished, the light was failing, and the sky a somber blue rapidly darkening to black.
'Sick men sometimes lose their wits,' Thamalon panted. His unarmed hand rose to fumble with the golden clasp of his cloak.
'Lindrian was rational,' Shamur replied, looking for the right moment to attack.
'Well, then, people can be induced to lie, by magic or otherwise.'
He pulled the cloak from his shoulders and dangled it by its bloodstained collar.
'Lindrian had been bedridden for months,' she said. 'How likely is it that someone got to him in the very heart of Argent Hall?'
'I imagine it could be done.'
Shamur frowned momentarily, for Thamalon was correct. Some intruder could have penetrated Argent Hall. It was conceivable that she herself could have managed a comparable feat in her youth. But even so, she knew very well her nephew hadn't misled her, because she'd verified his assertions in Audra Sweetdreams's shop and Thamalon's own bedchamber.
'I see you're changing your tactics,' she said. 'I promise, the cape won't save you. I understand that manner of fighting, too.'
'You've known me for thirty years,' he said, circling. He flicked the cloak at her, but she discerned that the action was a harmless display intended to distract her attention from his sword, and she ignored it. 'Do you honestly believe I would have murdered a sweet young girl?'
'I've known you to be hard as diamond to get what you wanted,' she said.
'Well, I never wanted to marry Rosenna Foxmantle,' Thamalon said. He flicked the cape again, more forcefully, making the cloth snap like a whip. 'The woman was little better than a harlot.'
'And you know about harlots, don't you?' Shamur cut over his blade into the open line, then extended her arm and lunged.
He stepped back and over, shifting his left foot in front of his right and his cape hand ahead of his sword hand. The heavy wool mantle swept in a circle intended to brush Shamur's thrust to the side.
It was the defense she'd been hoping for. She let Thamalon feel the cape collide with her weapon, then instantly whipped the blade down and up into line again, freeing it of the folds of cloth that he'd hoped would hamper it. When he stepped through, putting the whole weight of his body behind a low-line stab at her thigh, she met the attack with a thrust in opposition. Her sword pressed his away and cut the inside of his leg just above the knee. It was yet another superficial wound, and she cried out in frustration.
Their exchange had brought them into close quarters, and he shoved her backward. At once, he tossed the cape, trying to drop it over her head and blind her, but she wasn't so off balance that she couldn't bat it away with her blade.
'First the lantern, then the cloak,' she said. 'You just can't hold onto a shield, can you?'
She advanced and he retreated, unfortunately not limping as far as she could tell. Above the trees, the first stars of the evening had begun to shine.
'Why would I have proposed to you… your counterpart… whoever if I weren't in love with her?' Thamalon asked. The bloodstain on his lambskin jacket looked black in the gathering gloom. 'Not for money, plainly. You Karns didn't have any.'
'For position,' Shamur said. 'Our marriage was the key to your acceptance by the Old Chauncel.'
To her surprise, Thamalon snorted. 'Perhaps you truly aren't the girl I courted so many years ago, for you certainly don't seem to understand the way things work in Selgaunt. Admittedly, our wedding helped reestablish the House of Uskevren, but it wasn't essential. Ultimately, and despite all their flowery paeans to honor and culture, most merchant nobles respect two things: money, and the strength to defend it. Once the Old Chauncel decided I had plenty of both, they would have opened their doors to me eventually.'
She hesitated, for once again, he'd made a seemingly cogent point, though not, of course, sufficient to convince her. 'I guess you simply weren't willing to wait.'
She took three leisurely steps to accustom her retreating foe to that pace, then suddenly closed the distance
