enough,” he said.
Or rather, Juring Tarness said it.
Chapter Ninety-Eight
Earlier-just at dawn-Gurrh the ogre had brought the leaden coffer to Swampwall, his home for so many years. He laid it down in the soft soil and then started bashing at it with his massive, hairy fists.
Eventually it came open. The true crown was inside, just as expected.
Malden had been there to see it emerge. Coruth the witch flew him through the air so he would not be late. He thanked Gurrh, who bowed deeply and then returned to his pipe. Then Malden approached the crown, his hands shaking it a little. He lifted it carefully and heard its voice begin to command him. Before he could be overcome, before it could make him put it on his own head, he shoved it into a burlap sack and slung it over his shoulder. Still, it continued to speak to him, made imprecations and promises and outright threats-until Malden explained to it what he had planned. Then at last, thankfully, the crown became quiet.
Later, when Malden drew the false crown to the dome of the chapel with Slag’s fishing pole, it was a simple matter to switch it with the true crown-the crown he had lowered once more onto Ommen’s head.
The transformation in the Burgrave was instantaneous. Juring Tarness resumed his control of his imbecilic descendant, and heard everything that was said within the chapel.
“You would depose me, Anselm?” Juring asked then. He looked down at the bailiff. Standing straight, he was many inches taller than his servant. “You would go to such lengths to take what is mine?”
“Milord,” Vry said, bowing low. “This was a tale, only, a fabrication spun to appease the thief when-”
“No more lies,” the Burgrave shouted. The priests and watchmen around him all drew back. Juring drew a jeweled dagger from his belt. It was one of his symbols of office, mostly for ornament’s sake. The blade was kept sharp, though, to represent the keen insight the Burgrave brought to his office. “Kneel,” he said.
Vry turned to face his watchmen. “The Burgrave is ensorcelled!” he cried. “Seize him-we must perform an exorcism at once. You, high priest, fetch the appropriate vestments and the holy thurible and-”
“I said, kneel,” the Burgrave said again. Neither watchmen nor priests moved from where they stood.
Vry tried to run. The Burgrave grabbed the back of his cloak and pushed him to the ground. Then he grabbed the bailiff’s hair and pulled his head back. “No more lies,” he said again. Then he pried the man’s jaw open and cut out his tongue.
Anselm Vry gasped and choked on his own blood. The noises he made were horrible. Even Malden flinched.
“Now,” Juring Tarness said when it was done, “someone bring me a rag. I don’t want this traitor’s blood on my hands when I lead the joyous procession of Ladymas. You, watchman-take this fool away. Lock him in my dungeon. We’ll give him a trial and see how well he speaks in his defense now. Then we’ll find some way to execute him more horrible than any we’ve tried before. Maybe we’ll force him to eat his own entrails. To swallow his own excrement, as it were.”
The captain of the watchmen did as he was told, with a bow, a salute, and no words at all. The priests cleaned the Burgrave’s hands and wiped off his dagger. While it was done, the Burgrave looked up into the dome.
“As for you, thief. Go and tell your master Cutbill that I would speak with him. Eventually. I have a long day ahead of me.”
Malden supposed that it was too much to expect thanks. He climbed back out the window in the dome and hurried away across the rooftops of the Spires.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Coruth, her own arm fully healed now, muttered to herself as she mixed herbs together in a stone mortar, then ground them together with a copper pestle. She sang a little song as she painted the resulting foul concoction across Croy’s broken ribs and the acid wounds on his arms. Whenever he tried to speak, she shushed him severely. Throughout it all, Cythera sat by his side, smiling, her face unbesmirched by sorcery. Her eyes glittered with mischief to see him almost naked in the bed, only his nethers hidden by a cloth.
If you had to lie abed for weeks and heal what should have been mortal injuries, Malden supposed you could pick few finer places to do it. Croy had been moved just across the Ladypark Common to the house of his friend, the rich merchant. There was no secrecy about the move, and had the Burgrave wished to seize Croy (for violating the terms of his banishment, if nothing else), little resistance would have been offered. Yet in the six days since Ladymas, no one showed up at the door with a writ of arrest.
It was possible that the Burgrave was only afraid this would displease Coruth. With Hazoth gone, the witch was now the most powerful user of magic in the Free City. Already old clients and new were showing up daily to ask if they might consult with her, but she refused all comers. She had much to do, she said, and once Croy was healed, there would be quite a reckoning of accounts. More than one powerful personage in the city had begun making discreet inquiries, looking to hire any magicians capable of deflecting curses.
When the witch finished her ministrations for the day, she went to the window and flew off as a flock of blackbirds again. No one knew where she went, and there was no way to follow her. Even Cythera could only shrug when asked. “Perhaps she goes to fetch medicinal herbs. Or maybe to spy on the city, and learn how it has changed in her absence. She has never kept counsel with me, even before Hazoth imprisoned her.”
“Milady,” Malden said, “you’ll forgive me if I say you have a strange family.”
Cythera smiled knowingly. “We can’t all come from noble lineages full of great heroes and comely ladies,” she said, glancing at Croy.
The knight was too busy to notice what she said. He was scrawling something on a parchment with a quill pen. “Here, Malden. Your prize. As promised.”
The thief took the paper he offered and studied it. When Croy had first come to him, looking for his help in freeing Cythera and Coruth, Malden’s first instinct had been to sweat the knight for gold. Then it occurred to him that Croy had something else in his possession, something of infinitely more use to him. The scrap of paper in his hand was what he had asked for in lieu of money. It was a grant of land, in the amount of one eighth part of an acre, in the northern part of the kingdom near the fortress of Helstrow. A very small piece of Croy’s ancestral lands. It named Malden as its new owner.
“Is it a pleasant spot?” Malden asked now.
“A rocky field, completely useless for cultivation. It overlooks a dismal bog, and in the summer it is swarmed with flies. May you find much happiness there.”
Malden laughed out loud, long and heartily. “Maybe I’ll never see it. It matters not. Croy, for this-for everything. I thank you.”
Cythera looked confused. “What would a thief want with a desolate patch of ground, not even large enough to put a house on?”
“Freedom,” Malden said. “With this parchment, I am a man of property. It makes me a landowner-with the full rights thereunto pertaining. I can go anywhere now. I can leave the city walls and not be enslaved. Here in Ness I can go to the moothall whenever I choose, and stand before the masters of all the guilds, and demand my right to speak. I could even go to Helstrow and request an audience with the king.”
“Do you want to do any of those things?”
“No!” Malden laughed. “None of them. But the power to do them-the right to do them-means I am no more a prisoner in the place where I was born. It means I’m free! I imagine you can appreciate that.”
“Oh, yes,” Cythera said, her eyes far away.
Malden kissed the paper. “My heart’s desire. One of them, anyway.”
Cythera favored him with a warning smile. Then she looked down at Croy’s scarred leg. “You should rest,” she told the knight. “Mother says if you don’t sleep twice as much as normal, the treatments will be
