remarry, and sire an heir more to your liking.'
He scowled. 'It's clear why I was never able to understand you, woman, but it's becoming painfully obvious that you never understood me, either, and since I wasn't trying to conceal my true nature, that's a puzzle. But I suppose we have more immediate questions to ponder. We know now that the children are in graver peril than we supposed. Should we stop prowling the city incognito and go home, so we can look after them?'
Shamur frowned as she mulled it over. Finally she said, 'They still have guards, Erevis, and the walls of a fortified mansion to protect them. Moreover, judging from our friend the butcher's admittedly garbled account, they did a fair job of fighting on their own behalf.'
Thamalon snorted. 'That must have been a fluke.'
Shamur felt a reflexive surge of anger. They'd quarreled so often over Tamlin and Talbot, he belittling them, or so it had seemed to her, and she defending them. 'That's unkind and unfair.'
To her surprise, he hesitated, then said, 'Yes, I suppose it is. Whatever their flaws, Tazi and Tal at least know how to swing a sword. Tamlin, too, perhaps. But be that as it may, you were observing that even with Jander and Brom gone, the children still enjoy a fair amount of protection.'
'Yes, and I hope they have the sense to be careful from now on. So perhaps in the long run, we'll serve them best by holding to our present course and tracking down Master Moon. Whereas if we emerge from hiding, he might well go to ground for a month or a year, then strike again when we relax our guard.'
'You have a point,' Thamalon said. 'I guess it's on to the Scab, then.'
Shamur attached the scabbard of her new sword to her belt, and the two nobles headed south, away from the waterfront and into the warehouse district. A frigid breeze chilled their faces and plucked at the folds of their cloaks. Snowflakes began to fall from the leaden clouds overhead.
'Are the children truly as feckless as you make them out?' she asked after a time.
'Of course they are,' he said. 'If you weren't always so keen to disagree with me, you'd perceive it, too.'
'Do you think the estrangement between us is somehow to blame?'
'I don't know,' Thamalon replied. She sensed that he felt as uncomfortable contemplating the possibility as she did. 'I tried to be a good parent. So did you. Who could do more?'
'I wonder if I tried hard enough,' she said. They halted at an intersection to let an ox cart laden with garden statuary go by. 'How could I have, when my children don't really even know me?'
'Don't think that,' he said. 'Yes, you wore a mask for them as you did for everyone else. But the love and care you gave them were genuine, were they not? That was your true self, shining through.'
'I hope so. Still, my situation must have influenced the way I treated them. It surely poisoned the bond I shared with Thazienne. From early on, when we first realized what a young hellion she was, I tried to mold her into the kind of staid, proper noblewoman that I myself hated being, and looking back, I don't even know why. Was I jealous of her for fencing, wrestling, and enjoying the life of the streets when I could no longer do those things myself? Am I that petty and spiteful?'
'Judging from my own experience,' said Thamalon, 'yes.' He grimaced. 'No, never mind, I shouldn't have said that. Your coldness toward me has no bearing on your performance as a mother. Actually, I believe you always meant well in your dealings with all the children, Tazi included. What's more, you were right to think she needs some reining in. Eventually, her penchant for theft is likely to land her in serious trouble.'
'You may be right,' she said, picking her way around a mound of filthy slush. 'After all, that's what happened to me.' They walked a few more paces. 'I've been thinking about what you said before. You were right. I couldn't emulate my grand-niece's warm, gentle nature for very long. Once we were married, I had to change, in order to push you away.'
Thamalon laughed an ugly little laugh. 'You don't have to keep reiterating that you found me repulsive. I've already gotten the message.'
'That's not what I meant.' They strode past a furniture maker's factory whining and banging with the sounds of lathes, saws, and hammers. Shamur had to raise her voice a bit to make herself heard over the racket. 'You didn't repel me. You were sweet and loving, and that was the problem. I realized the affection wasn't actually for me but for a dead girl, that your fondness would turn to rage and loathing if you ever discovered I was an impostor, and somehow that made our closeness too strange, difficult, and even painful to bear.'
'I'm sure that had you revealed your true identity in the first year or two,' he said, 'I would have reacted as you say. Later on, I would still have been dismayed, but by that time you were an integral part of my life and the mother of our children. Perhaps, once I recovered from the shock, it wouldn't actually have mattered.
Since you never found it in your heart to trust me, we'll never know.'
Shamur didn't know what to say to that. She was relieved when they rounded a corner and the Scab came into view, recalling them to the task at hand.
Like much of Selgaunt, the Scab was built largely of brownstone. Some people claimed that the sandstone blocks that had gone to construct it possessed an odd, rusty tint that made them precisely the color of clotted blood. Others maintained that the walls in the rookery were the same hue as those found elsewhere, but that fanciful minds perceived them differently because of the area's sinister reputation. For while the city had other dangerous neighborhoods, the Scab was generally regarded as the worst. A maze of narrow, twisting alleys and decaying tenements, it was home to the poorest of the poor and every variety of vice and depravity. Shamur had heard that the Scepters never entered the rookery except in force, and even then with the greatest reluctance, which she supposed made it a desirable haven for the Quippers. 'Not an especially charming sight, is it?' Thamalon said. 'Not to my eye,' she agreed. 'Watch yourself in there. We mustn't look nervous or otherwise out of place.'
'Don't worry about me,' he replied. 'Unlike my father, I never made common cause with pirates or bandits. But in the bad old days, when my fortunes were at low ebb, and scoundrels of all stripes assumed one lone, friendless trader would prove an easy mark, it helped me to learn to treat with them on their own level. Shall we?'
He gestured toward the arched entrance to the Scab. Once, the gate had probably been imposing, but now it was covered with lewd graffiti and looked as if it might collapse at any moment.
When they passed through, the first thing Shamur noticed was the mingled stench of various types of waste. Like the residents of other precincts, the inhabitants of the Scab tossed their refuse into the street, the difference being that no night-carter dared enter the rookery to collect it. The smell was sickening even with the muck half frozen. She hated to think how foul it was in the summer.
She and Thamalon began working their way from one tavern to the next, for despite the evidence of poverty abundant on every side, the Scab had more than its share of such establishments, squalid little ordinaries operating in dank, low cellars, cramped rooms devoid of seating, or even out in the open wherever some entrepreneur chose to set a keg on a pair of trestles. The nobles eavesdropped on the conversations of the rough men swilling stale beer and raw spirit, and joined in when it seemed feasible. Shamur was relieved to see that, as he'd promised, her husband's impersonation of a blackguard was reasonably convincing.
She enjoyed the game of fishing for information, knowing that if they misspoke, they'd likely face a room full of naked blades. But when they were simply traversing the streets, the sordid life of the Scab depressed her. Primarily, it was the children. She saw infants gaunt with starvation. Toddlers scavenging through the mounds of trash. Gangs of ragged, hard-eyed youths ranging the streets in search of the weak and unwary, not robbing for sport as she once had, but simply to survive. Little girls selling their bodies. Even a filthy, drunken surgeon of sorts who mutilated youngsters to prepare them for a life of begging.
At this last spectacle, Thamalon gave a wordless growl of disgust. 'I've always heard it was bad in here, but I never dreamed it was this bad. There must be a way to clean up this cesspit, or tear it down and build something better. To put the needy inhabitants to work, and send the villains packing.'
'The thought does you credit,' she replied. 'Someday soon, you can explore the subject with the city council, assuming, of course, that we make it out of here alive.'
'Yes,' he said, 'assuming that.' They descended a short flight of stairs to yet another wretched cellar taproom, the sole difference being that the proprietor of this one had apparently gone to the trouble to give it a name and a sign, clumsily daubing a pair of crossed blades on the door.
