“Now, Malton,” the soldier said, “let us go.”
“I told you,” Malden spat, “that’s not-my name.”
With infinite care, expecting blinding pain at any moment, he put his foot down again. A tingling feeling, as if he were being jabbed with thousands of tiny needles, started to run up his leg. He held his calf perfectly still and hopped forward on the other foot, staring the whole time at the soldier.
The elf returned his stare, looking bored. How many times had he performed this duty? Yet certainly he’d never been in charge of a human prisoner before. Malden wondered how common crime was in elfin society-and how often this elf had performed this particular service.
“Do you like this job?” he asked, taking another careful hop forward. Doing so made his ankle move and sent pain lancing up as far as his knee.
“Sorry?” the elf said, when Malden had stopped grimacing. “You mean being a soldier?”
“Yes,” Malden said. “Do you take satisfaction in your work?”
“What an odd question. I was born into harness. My father was a soldier. So, too, will my sons be.”
“You have no hope of being a commander someday? Then you could torture other soldiers, instead of poor bastards like me.”
“I don’t understand you at all. Not altogether surprising, I suppose. Now, walk. I have other duties to perform before I can take my supper, and I’m already getting hungry.”
Malden found, by process of trial and error, that if he did not bend or flex his ankle in any way, he could walk. It was a slow, limping gait, but it did not cause him undue pain. He headed in the direction the soldier indicated, stumping along until he came to another room. This place had bare stone walls and was simply furnished with a table and a large basin. An elf dressed in patchwork stood at one side of the table holding a pitcher.
“Your clothes are filthy. Take them off,” the soldier insisted.
Malden did as he was told. He did not wish to be taken back to the Hieromagus to have his other leg withered. When he stood naked in the chill room, the elfin servant poured water over his head until he sputtered and cried out.
Then he was dried with towels-the elfin servant did a brisk but thorough job of it-and wrapped in a white robe. The fabric was not silk, but something like it. It felt like a very thick cobweb. He was given slippers of the same material and then told to move on again.
Strange torture, this, he thought.
Unless he wasn’t the one being tortured. Perhaps they had taken him away-so they could have Cythera alone, and defenseless.
He did not like that thought at all.
They headed next down a tunnel of the sort he’d seen before, crudely carved with an uneven ceiling. It was next to impossible to cross the equally uneven floor with one leg hobbled, but he made a point of not complaining, and the soldier didn’t shout at him to hurry. The tunnel wound back on itself, always rising higher, until it became a flight of stairs hewed through the rock. Malden mounted these steps one at a time, having to lift his cursed leg very carefully onto each riser.
At the top was a door. Elf guards stood on either side. One of them rapped sharply on the door with his knuckles, then threw it open and gestured for Malden to go in. None of the soldiers followed him across the threshold. The door was shut quietly behind him.
The room beyond the door was all of carved wood (or carved woodlike fungus, he supposed), graceful in its paneling and in the lacy rafters that held up its ceiling. The furniture had been polished until it gleamed, and was so carefully matched it seemed each piece was not placed upon the floor, but had grown, naturally, from it. The far wall of the room was a curtain of flowing water that gently plashed into a runnel carved into the floor.
A table near him held sweetmeats that looked suspiciously like honeyed mushrooms, but dyed all the colors of fresh fruit. Crystal flagons full of what Malden sincerely hoped was red wine stood on a sideboard at the far side of the door. He began to salivate just looking at the spread of hot loaves and wheels of cheese on a third table just before him.
“Her nibs thought you might be hungry. I imagine she was fucking right-I know I was when they brought me here. She didn’t know what humans like to eat, so she just had them bring everything.”
Malden’s eyes went wide. Despite the pain, he ran to a divan over by the wall-length waterfall and dropped to his knees as he grabbed Slag’s hands.
The dwarf smiled wickedly at him. Slag had been dressed in a silken robe much like Malden’s, though the dwarf’s was embroidered with an interweaving pattern of gold thread.
“But how?” Malden asked. “When they took you, I thought it was to torture you to death!”
“So did I, lad.” Slag picked at a golden thread in his robe. “Then they brought me before the Hieromagus. He made me swear I wouldn’t run away. I swore on all kinds of gods that Sir Croy wouldn’t run away, and the weirdest fucking thing happened-he bought my line. Said he knew, that he had seen the future, and that Sir Croy didn’t run.” Slag shook his head. “Crazy bugger. Then he sent me here. I had no idea why. I’m still not so clear on it. I think I’m supposed to be a pet for-” He struggled to sit up on the divan and then peered over its back. “She’s coming. Lad- whatever you hear me say, just play along, or we’re fucked. Do you get my meaning?”
“I think so,” Malden whispered back.
Slag’s face changed then. The grin disappeared from his lips and his countenance grew harsh. “Boy!” he shouted. “Stop simpering and see to my shoes.” Slag waved impatiently at a pair of ornate slippers tucked under the divan.
Malden was deeply confused, but he knew a scam when he saw one. He picked up the shoes and polished them with the sleeve of his robe.
Behind the divan, the waterfall parted, just like cloth curtains being drawn back. And then the queen of the elves walked into the room.
Chapter Seventy-seven
Every elf Malden had seen was beautiful-their graceful, exotic features, perfect clean skin, and shining hair mocked his own human looks. But if they stood beside their queen, even the elfin lords and ladies resembled a herd of warthogs.
She had the delicacy of aspect of the shadows moonlit leaves make on the surface of a tranquil pool. She had copper-colored hair that fell across her shoulders in perfect ringlets, hair held back only by the spun-silver filigree of her crown. She had eyes the color of the last day of winter, lips the soft red of the interior surface of a rose petal.
She wore a long yellow gown with tight sleeves that trailed on the floor. The garment was a rag on a woman like this. Malden could see it must have been quite elegant once-perhaps eight hundred years ago. Unlike the robes he and Slag wore, it was made of true silk. The cuff of one sleeve looked as if it had been nibbled at by mice, and round blotches of mold, in black and white, decorated its hem.
Behind her the waterfall closed again, hiding whatever lay beyond.
“You must be Sir Croy’s squire,” she said. Her voice was clear and musical. “Your name is Malton?”
“Yes,” the thief told her.
Slag slapped him across one ear. Not hard enough to hurt, but it must have looked like a nasty blow, so he ducked his head and raised his hands as if to ward off another strike.
“Yes, your highness,” Malden said, and bowed his head.
“Rise, please, and be welcome to my apartments. I fear Sir Croy has been quite at odds and ends without your services. If you ease a trifle of his cares, I shall be very glad for your company, and will find you a proper reward.”
“I’ll try to do that. Ease his cares. Sir Croy’s cares,” Malden said.
“I’ve grown very fond of your master,” she said, and came over to the divan. She reached down and tousled Slag’s hair, then walked over toward the sideboard to pour herself a goblet of wine.
When her back was turned, Malden shot a questioning glance at Slag.
The dwarf could only shrug in return.
