“Those toll-roads will bleed a man dry.” Regol took a forkful of beef from his plate. Despite his confidence, something in the action declared him an irregular user of cutlery.
“I thought ring-fighters were handsomely paid. Especially successful ones. And surely you must be successful to be known so far from Verity?”
“I win more than I lose.” Regol shrugged, chewed, swallowed. “And I’m careful with my money. It has to cover a lifetime. Nobody lasts too long in the ring. There’s always someone getting better while you’re getting worse. And when the time comes to quit, many leave the ring unfit for other work.” He cut more meat from the joint before him. The smell of it set Glass’s mouth watering. “Besides. I wanted to see something more of the empire than what you can glimpse clattering along the toll-road.” He paused, considering. “That village, Bru? I came from near there. Born in a barn. My parents sold me to a child-taker.”
The inquisitors looked up at that. The Church of the Ancestor took a very dim view on any who would sever the bonds of family for as little as money. On the other hand the fruits cut from the tree in such a manner were invaluable to the church. Children given to the monasteries and convents by a parent could be taken back; those sold from their families and arriving later on the church’s doorstep could not.
“Did you see them?” Glass asked.
“Them?” Regol looked up from his meal, flashing her a dark glance from beneath his brows. Glass made no reply. They both knew what she meant. Regol returned his gaze to his knife and fork, cutting his meat ever smaller. “My father died a few years ago. I saw my mother in the crowd that gathered when I rode in. She didn’t recognize me.”
Glass leaned back and let the young fighter pretend to concentrate on his food. Properly Regol should not be allowed to address a prisoner, but Brother Pelter had needed him. The inquisitor had engaged Regol as additional security, offering the promise of Sherzal’s gratitude as well as a handsome purse. Glass welcomed the company. Regol for his part, once realizing that Glass had been the abbess of Sweet Mercy, had been keen to talk about the blade training, then the Caltess forging, and gradually, like an artist revealing their subject from a confusion of lines . . . Nona Grey.
With her trial jury watching on Glass knew she had to guard her tongue where Nona and her escape were concerned. She knew that keeping Regol happy and continuing to offer his protection was certainly among Brother Pelter’s motives in letting him talk with her. But a stronger motive for Brother Pelter was doubtless the desire to give her enough rope to hang herself with. Even so, she told the ring-fighter as much of the truth as she dared.
Brother Pelter perhaps had never known the emotions that rule the young. He might claim that he was old enough to forget such passions, but Glass had as many years as Pelter, and her first loves still burned bright among the dusty archives of her memory. They waited around forgotten corners, waiting to surprise her at the strangest of times. Glass saw in Regol’s careful dance around the missing girl an interest she recognized. She saw a domino standing, others lined behind it. She saw the time to push it. “We always hope that other people will see past the skin and bones we wear, Regol. These masks we’ve been given. We hope they’ll see us. Some spark, some flame, something special, something that’s of worth. Some people are born without that sight. Some mothers find they lack it even when they look at their children. They are as crippled as the blind. Worse perhaps. Your mother didn’t see you when you returned because she had never seen you. I would know my Able after fifty years unseen, though he were old and grey himself.” Her fingers still remembered her child’s hair. The clean scent of him as a baby still haunted her at unexpected moments, causing her breath to catch and her heart to ache.
Glass watched Regol. He seemed still a boy to her—young man he should rightly be called but she could still see the lines of the child that Partnis Reeve had purchased for the Caltess. She had watched him, watched his sarcasm, the lightly mocking smile, the sardonic airs and assumed ennui. She knew armour when she saw it. And who wears such heavy armour if they are not vulnerable without it?
“All I know is my mother didn’t see me. Just the clothes and the horse . . .”
“The fault isn’t yours, boy.” Glass picked at the penitents’ bread. “She may lack that sight. But it’s burning in your eyes. And you’ve seen the flame in others. In someone. In someone who could be precious to you.”
Later Glass would speak again of Nona Grey. Of how she fled the Inquisition and of the manner in which Lord Tacsis had promised her life would end. Later but not now.
• • •
UNDER REGOL’S PROTECTION their luck had turned within the day and a third senior inquisitor, Brother Dimeon, had been located and won to the cause. It hadn’t been hard for Brother Pelter to convince him. Brother Dimeon’s antagonism towards the abbess was well known. Glass had kept him on a tight rein and at a low rank during her tenure. Since her departure Dimeon’s star had risen swiftly.
With their party complete, Pelter had directed that they
