could turn me against you.'
He smiled, looking touched, puzzled, and embarrassed, with all of a player's artifice. 'I do understand that, Mother, and I'm grateful. But I swear, everything's fine.' His eyes narrowed. 'Is this going to turn into another argument about my acting?'
Recognizing that he had no intention of confiding in her, she allowed him to divert the conversation into the old, familiar squabble. 'I've always encouraged you to take an interest in the arts,' she said, 'theater included. But why must you lend your talents to vulgar claptrap devised for coarse and ignorant minds? Why not something more respectable? You could perform in the court masques for a refined audience of your fellow nobles.'
'I could,' he said, 'if I wanted to act in the dullest plays ever written. Tragedies where everything happens offstage, and the characters just stand around lamenting it. But I'm afraid I'd keep falling asleep in the middle.'
'You,' she said, smiling, 'are a perverse and willful boy, and I daresay we should have switched you more often when you were small.'
They talked a bit longer, and as usual, she found herself bombarding the feckless lad with the advice he so sorely needed on virtually every aspect of his life. His shaggy hair and slovenly attire. His unsuitable friends. His curious reluctance to court the eligible daughters of other merchant-noble Houses. Meanwhile, his secret trouble went undiscussed.
She consoled herself with the reflection that it couldn't be so terrible. Talbot had too much of a mild and unassuming nature to have blundered into a genuinely desperate predicament, even if it seemed dire to him. One way or another, he'd flounder his way out again. He'd have to, because she'd run out of time to assist him.
When she ventured in search of Thazienne, her daughter and middle child, she heard her before she saw her. Tazi was practicing in the training hall, and the crunch and clatter of her sword, chopping apart a wooden dummy, echoed through the corridors of the great house.
Shamur hesitated at the sound. Some time ago, on one extraordinary night, Tazi had seen her mother perform feats of which the dignified, pacific mistress of Stormweather Towers was supposedly incapable. Though the girl still didn't understand how such a thing could be, she alone of all the household knew that Shamur was something other than she seemed. No doubt for that reason, the older woman now felt a pang of anxiety that Thazienne would somehow divine her present intent. The object hidden beneath Shamur's voluminous skirt, which had scarcely troubled her hitherto, suddenly felt heavy and awkward, likely to clank, trip her, or otherwise reveal itself at any moment.
But her trepidation notwithstanding, she couldn't bear to depart without seeing Tazi. She'd just have to make sure she didn't give herself away.
The salle was a drafty, high-ceilinged room where a chill hinted at the winter cold outside. Concentric rings inlaid on the hardwood floor defined the dueling circles. Live blades, blunted practice weapons, ash and whalebone singlesticks, bucklers, targes, and kite shields hung on the walls, along with a row of battered wicker fencing masks.
Tall and slim, her short black hair sweat-plastered to her head, clad in a man's ratty tunic and hose, Tazi advanced and retreated at the far end of the room. Her long sword flashed in precise attacks, cutting wood every time and returning to a strong guard afterward. She'd nearly completed the task of hacking the upper half of the dummy into splinters.
''Thazienne,' Shamur said.
The younger woman pivoted. 'Mother,' she said, sounding terse and impatient. 'What is it?'
'I hadn't seen you today,' Shamur said. 'I wanted to, that's all.' She advanced and took Tazi in her arms.
At first, surprised and discomfited by her mother's display of affection, Thazienne stood rigid in her embrace. It was scarcely surprising. The two had been at odds almost from the day Tazi was born, for all that Shamur loved her and believed that the girl reciprocated her affection. At last Thazienne relaxed and rather gingerly returned the hug.
It was only to be expected that Tazi stank of sweat. But Shamur could also feel that the girl's heart was pounding and that she was panting raggedly. Moreover, a grayish pallor underlay her tawny skin.
'You're pushing too hard,' Shamur said.
Thazienne scowled. 'I'm fine. I simply need to build up my stamina. Which is what I was doing when you interrupted me.'
A year ago, undead creatures had attacked Storm-weather Towers, one grievously wounding Tazi before the household guards destroyed it. The hoydenish girl, from the cradle possessed of an energetic and adventurous temperament, lay bedridden for months, an ordeal that nearly drove her mad. Now that the healers had finally released her from the prison of her chamber, she exercised obsessively, fighting to cast off the last vestiges of her infirmity and regain the strength and agility she'd enjoyed before.
'I want you to be careful,' Shamur said. 'Pace yourself. Otherwise, your exertions are likely to do more harm than good.'
Tazi rolled her sea-green eyes. 'Of course, Mother,' she said in a tone that made it clear that, as ever, she would do precisely as she chose. 'Anything you say. Was that all?'
'No,' Shamur said. 'I know that when you feel ready, you'll resume stealing, if, indeed, you haven't already.' She'd discovered that Tazi practiced burglary for sport on the same night that the girl had witnessed proof of her mother's secret talents. 'Be careful then, too. I know you're adept at thieving. I know that as you catfoot through the shadows, or find some fat lord's hidden coffer and pick the lock in a trice, you feel untouchable. But you're not. Things could go horribly wrong in an instant. You could lose everything, even your life.'
Shamur expected Tazi to jeer at her warning, so she was surprised when the sweat-soaked, black-haired girl frowned at her thoughtfully. 'What's troubling you, Mother? Why are you saying this now?'
Shamur silently cursed. She'd resolved to make certain that Tazi wouldn't suspect anything was amiss, yet she'd failed almost immediately. Now she needed to shift the focus of the conversation. 'What troubles me is your poor judgment.'
'I don't have poor judgment!' Tazi snapped.
'Of course you do,' Shamur said in the condescending voice that always infuriated the girl. 'You're still a child, so I suppose I shouldn't blame you when you behave like one. But until you grow up, you'll need a mother's guidance, thankless task though it may be.'
Tazi responded with a torrent of abuse. She'd never been able to resist a quarrel, particularly when her mother sought to instruct her, and this occasion was no exception. Shamur judged that within a minute or two, the girl had forgotten all about her murky suspicion that something unusual was afoot.
Strangely, this last quarrel, echoing all the others through the years, afforded Shamur a sort of bittersweet pleasure. She had to force herself to break it off.
Afterward, as she went to fetch her riding gloves and cloak, the three conversations came back to her in all their triviality. It seemed to her that she hadn't said anything meaningful. Not even / love you. Not even good- bye.
But however inadequate, the partings would have to do. For now it was time to put love aside and fan the fire of her hate.
Brom Selwick hated the cold. As the gangly young man with the wispy, patchy, and generally risible chestnut goatee waited in the courtyard, he shivered and, beneath his weather-stained gray woolen mantle, hugged himself for warmth. His eyes roamed over the complex roofline of Stormweather Towers, a hodgepodge of shapes and architectural styles that somehow managed to meld into a unified and graceful whole, and he tried not to think about the all the varieties of delicious warmth- crackling hearth fires, eiderdown comforters, hot tea, mulled cider- awaiting him inside the mansion.
It was difficult not to think of them, however, because he had no real need to linger out of doors. His master hadn't commanded his presence. Still, he couldn't quite bring himself to retire inside. Several months previously, Thamalon Uskevren had engaged Brom to be his household mage, and the young man felt a keen imperative to prove himself worthy of his new responsibilities. To that end, he tended to hover officiously near his employer
