a situation. An uninvited guest, er, that is to say-someone came to the door just now, I would have turned her away, but-”
“Speak freely, man. You’re interrupting nothing of importance,” Croy told him, keeping his voice low so the merchant’s wife wouldn’t hear.
“A woman, not a lady, but-but in some state of distress, has come to the door, and begged of me that I find you, and bring you to her. Just say the word, sir, and I’ll give her a coin and send her on her way, but there was something about her look that made me think she was no beggar. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman with tattoos on her face before-”
Croy didn’t wait for the rest. He jumped up from the table and made a few perfunctory bows before hurrying through the door the footman had left open. He worried he was offending the merchant’s wife, and perhaps even his host, but hopefully they would simply think he needed to use the chamber pot.
Cythera waited for him in the receiving hall. He saw at once she had been crying. He rushed toward her and barely remembered in time not to grab her arms as he begged her to tell him what was wrong.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” she told him. “I know this was a mistake, but-I couldn’t stay in that house a moment longer. I had to get out. I’ve endangered you, now. I’m sure he was watching me when I left-and now he’ll know where you are, Croy-I’m so sorry.”
“I can take care of myself,” he told her. “What happened?”
“I’ve been punished,” she said. She clenched her eyes closed and sagged toward him. She did not touch him, but moved her face quite close to his. “I failed him.”
“Hazoth?” Croy demanded.
She nodded.
Croy looked up at the gallery that overhung the hall but saw no eavesdroppers there. He pulled a chair away from the wall for her and she sank readily into it. Kneeling down next to her, he moved his hands over hers, wishing he could be of more comfort. “What do you mean, you failed him?” he asked.
She shook her head bitterly. “You’ll think me wicked,” she said. “Please… please don’t think me wicked. Last night-you met a thief in the darkened streets, did you not? He was doing some work for Hazoth. Foul business. I was to meet him, with Bikker, and receive the goods he’d stolen.”
“He seemed a good enough sort to me,” Croy said. A twinge of something ignoble went through his heart, but he couldn’t help himself. “A… friend of yours?”
Cythera shook her head. “Oh, he’s just a cutpurse. Someone Bikker found-we needed a thief, and-well, that’s a long tale. The point is this: Hazoth decided he must die. That he knew too many secrets, and that once we had our prize, we were to kill him. Bikker offered to do it, of course, but Hazoth seemed to find it more amusing if I was to be the instrument of destruction.”
“You told him you wouldn’t do it, of course.”
Cythera turned her face away from him. “Croy, I had no choice. I must obey him. So when the business was complete, I-I asked the thief to kiss me.”
Croy’s entire body stiffened, but he said nothing.
“You understand, don’t you? What that would do? Every curse I’ve stored up over the last five years would be released at once, into the poor thief’s body. He would have been slaughtered in an instant. But he refused me. Lucky for him, he knew your name, and knew the effect it would have on me. He’s really very clever for a pickpocket. And then he ran off, and I could not give chase. When I returned and told Hazoth that the thief had escaped, he was furious. He stormed about his library, making books jump off of their shelves, and his eyes glowed with magic. I thought he was going to turn on me and try to blast me with some spell. He has a terrible temper.”
“Did he hurt you? You said he punished you-what did he do? Cythera, tell me!” Croy wanted to grab up her hands or pull her into an embrace. He didn’t, of course. It would be his death.
“He cannot. His magic is no use against me. He can’t even have his guards beat me. And that just made him angrier. So he did the thing I’ve dreaded for so long. He turned on my mother instead.”
“The cur,” Croy swore.
“He has her in one of his rooms, trapped inside a magic circle. She has languished there for so long at his pleasure, but never before has he actually taken advantage of her imprisonment. I thought… I believed that when this time came, he would use magic against her. That he would wrack her with a curse, or perhaps attack her mind with his mind. But he didn’t.”
Cythera covered her face with her hands.
“He had her whipped,” she said. “With a plain leather bullwhip. Ten strokes across her back until the skin peeled away. And… he made me watch.” She lowered her hands and stared into his face. “He made me keep count.”
Croy stood up to his full height. “Wait here while I fetch my swords. I’ll kill him. I swear it, Cythera. I will slay him, and free you and your mother from his bonds, and then-”
“Croy,” she said, very softly, but it was enough to quiet him. “Croy, if you go there now, girded as for war, he will destroy you.”
“If I die for honor, for love, for fellow feeling-”
“You’ll still die. No matter how noble the principle, you can only die for it once. And then you’ll be no help to anyone. I do not wish you to get yourself killed for my mother’s sake, Croy.”
“You can’t ask me to listen to this story and do nothing,” he insisted.
“No,” she said. She straightened the hem of her dress. “No. That isn’t why I came here. There is something you can do. Some action you can take that might help me.”
“Finally,” Croy said, with a sigh. “Tell me all.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Malden needed a plan, desperately. He needed some stratagem that would see him inside Hazoth’s house, where he might find the crown and escape with it to safety. He needed to do a great deal of thinking and hone his wits to a razor’s edge.
First, though, he needed to get drunk.
He could tell himself that he was looking for creativity in a cup, that the best plans were based on the kind of daring folly that came to one only when the mind was befuddled and the tongue loosed.
Mostly, though, he just needed to drink until he wasn’t afraid.
“Ale,” he said, and the barkeep obliged. Malden slid a wedge-shaped farthing across the bar and it disappeared. He did not have many left. He had chosen a particularly filthy tavern in one of the worst parts of the Stink, not for the ambience, but because it was cheap and his funds were small. The place had a few grimy windows made of the bottoms of old glass bottles stuck in plaster. Only a few beams of blue and green and brown light made their way inside. There was a bar made of an old door up on trestles, and behind that a stack of barrels with leaking bungs. There were a few tables but most of the patrons stood and drank from leather tankards and wiped the foam from their beards with their sleeves. A brawl had just been dying down when Malden entered, and one poor fool still lay knocked out on the floor. The serving wench stepped high over him every time she had to pass.
“More,” Malden said when he was done with his cup. The barkeep waited until he took another farthing from his purse and laid it on the bar.
The fear of death was nothing new to Malden. At their first meeting Cutbill had threatened him casually enough, and he stood up to the promise of death without quaking in his boots. That had been different, however. The threat was meant as a spur, to make him take the action Cutbill desired. It was understood by all parties that he retained an option, that he had a chance to save himself. That had just been good faith negotiation. There were countless other times over the years he’d been in mortal danger, and every time he’d kept good cheer and found the way through. Even in the Burgrave’s palace, when he faced instant death from the traps and the demon, he had known there was a way through if he was clever enough to find it.
Stealing from Hazoth, though, was another matter.
