Master and Fool (72 page)

Baralis closed his
lips.

She held the glass
out before her like a shield. "He thinks I am his one chance of
redemption. Take that away from him and he will never forgive you.
Never."

Baralis formed a
fist to wipe the blood from his chin. His eyes were as dark as slate. "You
have just made a fatal mistake, Melliandra. Do you really think you can hold me
for ransom? I have shaped men and countries, lives and fates. I have changed lineages
of kings and signed death warrants for dukes, and no silly little girl from a
family filled with fools is going to get in my way."

Baralis was
shaking now. His beautiful voice was honed sharp like a blade and each word was
a cutting blow. "Don't think for one moment you can get the better of me.
Don't even think it in your dreams. Take me on and I will win every time. I
know of nothing but victory: it is what I live for. And you, my dear
Melliandra, with your proud, flaunting ways and your fast-working tongue, are
nowhere near a match for me."

He took a step
toward her. Melli raised the glass. Baralis smiled, and Melli suddenly felt
like a child with a child's toy.

"So you think
I can't harm you, eh? I could kill you now in a hundred different ways and
Kylock would never know who did it. I could stop your heart, or harden your
liver, or clot the blood in your brain. I could block the air in your lungs, or
halt the juice in your belly, or prevent the poison in your kidneys from
getting out. There is nothing I couldn't do to your body." Baralis waved a
dismissive hand at the glass. "That, my dear Melliandra, has just cost you
your life. If you refuse Kylock again, then I will design a death so slow and
painful you will beg for the end to come. Accommodate his wishes, however, and
I will kill you with one clean blow. The choice is yours."

Baralis looked at
Melli a few seconds longer, and then turned and walked away.

The second the
door closed behind him, Melli dropped the glass. The shard had cut a deep pit
in her palm, and she hadn't even felt it. Cradling her left arm, she lifted
herself off the chest and made her way over to the bed. Settling amidst the
covers, hugging her frail limb close, Melli gave way to the blinding tension
that had been building inside of her and cried herself into a frenzy.

She was tired of
being strong, sick of being on her own, incensed by all the waiting. Where was
Tawl when she needed him? Why hadn't he come to save her?

As a rule, Madame
Thornypurse always closed early on nights when the pits were covered. No
matches meant no spectators, and no spectators meant no loot. Heavy sleet,
rain, or snow didn't prevent the matches from being fought--a desperate man
would fight under any conditions-but it did make it hard to keep the torches
lit. A fight in the dark was as good as no fight at all to the bloodthirsty men
of Bren.

Still, even though
tonight was deemed too wet to fight, Madame Thornypurse was enjoying a rare
boom in business. Tomorrow morning a large portion of the new recruits were
going on a four-day training expedition north of the city, and they were out in
search of a little feminine comfort before they left. Of course, they didn't
pay well-these days no one did-but a bucketful of coppers was better than
nothing at all. Things had settled down a bit compared to right after the
victory over Highwall, but there was still little profit in whoring. Which
meant that Madame Thornypurse had to take anything she could get.

A sharp rapping
came at the door. Madame Thornypurse was in the process of rubbing rat oil into
her scrawny neck, so she sent Franny to see who it was. Half a minute later
Franny returned. " Two gentlemen to see you," she said.

Madame Thornypurse
put the lid firmly on the rat oilon cold nights such as these it could get
cloudy unless it was well covered. "What's the look of them?"

"One looks a
bit simple, but the other's quite handsome. Both big, they are."

Madame Thornypurse
peeked her coifed and powdered head around the comer into the main room. Half a
dozen blackhelms were currently lounging beside her girls. Her practiced eye
knew immediately that the men had reached the stage where no more money would
be spent: they were too drunk to eat, drink, or wench. A few more customers
more would not go amiss. Gathering her second-best shawl about her, Madame
Thomypurse made for the door.

"Gentlemen,
gentlemen. Come out of the cold." She held a hand out for kissing. Neither
man took her up. "I have a warm fire, strong ale, and the best girls in
town."

The stupid-looking
man in the felt hat lunged forward. Clasping a hand over her mouth, he yanked
her out onto the street. Madame Thornypurse tried to scream, but her lips were
pressed tight against her gums. The second man slammed the door shut, and then
Madame Thornypurse was dragged into the alley at the side of the building.

Her first thought
was for her shoes: silk-the slush would ruin them. Her second thought was for
her complexion: the freezing cold would dry out her skin. Only when these
considerations had whipped through her mind did she actually begin to panic.
She might be robbed, raped, killed, or maimed!

The felt-hat man
drew a knife. Raising it to her recently oiled throat, he said, "One
scream from you and you're dead." Madame Thornypurse nodded vigorously.
Her eyes flicked to the front of the building. Surely Franny would notice she'd
gone?

"Now,"
said the felt-hat man, easing up his hold on her mouth. "Tell me what you
know about Melliandra." Madame Thomypurse's hearing was nowhere near as
good as her sister's, but she was certain she heard screaming from inside the
building. Screaming and the sound of furniture being upturned. "What are
you doing?" she cried. The knife came closer. "You didn't answer my
question." The lights in the brothel started to go out. Smoke, lots of it,
began billowing from the spaces beneath the shutters. Madame Thomypurse's knees
buckled under her. Her business was under attack! The strong arm of the man stopped
her from falling to the ground. Even in her distraught state, Madame
Thornypurse could appreciate the man's firm grip. She tried a little feminine
wheedling. "Sir, if you could only tell me what exactly you want to know,
I'll be more than pleased to help you." She finished her request with what
she hoped was a beguiling smile.

"Listen very
carefully, woman. I need to know where Baralis is keeping the Lady Melliandra.
I've had it on good information that your sister runs the palace, and if you
don't tell me everything you know in the next thirty seconds, then my boy
inside the building is going to stop smoking your customers out and he's going
to start burning, instead. Is that clear?"

As the man was
speaking, the light from the building across the way caught his face. Madame
Thornypurse recognized his features at once: it was Tawl, the duke's champion.
Strange, but his voice wasn't at all as she remembered it. He sounded a lot
more dangerous now.

The second man was
standing at the corner of the building, keeping an eye on the front. People
were running past the alleyway, screaming about ghosts and smoke. So much for
the blackhelms!

Madame Thomypurse
was, above all, a practical woman. She had no intention of having her throat
cut in a heroic attempt to guard her sister's secrets. If the man wanted
information, then that was what he was going to get. "Come to think of it,
I
have
heard a few things," she said with a teasing pucker of her
lips. Madame Thornypurse prided herself on being able to flirt with anyone--even
potential murderers. "You know, one or two things here and there."

"What
things?"

"Well, Lord
Baralis charged my sister with looking after the little bitch. First they held
her in one of the northern turrets, then there was some sort of incident with
fire, so they moved her to an annex not far from the nobles' quarters. Too good
for her sorts by far, I'd say."

Tawl relaxed and
lowered his blade. He took several deep breaths. "Has she been moved since
then?"

"I don't
know. I haven't seen my sister for over two weeks now. Bit strange it is, as
she usually pops in at least once a week with-" Madame Thornypurse caught
herself. She wasn't about to tell him about Mistress Greal's penchant for
smuggling dead noblemen's valuables away from the palace and then selling them
for a tidy profit. "-kitchen scraps for the hens."

"Has anything
happened in the palace these past couple of weeks to stop her from coming to
see you?"

Madame Thornypurse
patted the hair around the nape of her neck. "Can't say. But last time I
saw my sister she mentioned that the little bitch was near her time."

Beneath the rim of
the felt hat, Tawl's face visibly hardened. "Go on," he said.
"Get back to your business. One word to anyone about what happened here
tonight, and I'll personally return to burn the place down-and I won't come
knocking first. Now get out of my sight."

Madame Thomypurse
never moved faster in her life. Her second-best shawl went flying to the mud
and her skirts flew up around her knees. She ran past the second man and up the
stairs to her door. A steady stream of smoke billowed out of the building, and
after gritting her teeth and calculating the smoke-resisting capabilities of
rat oil, Madame Thornypurse ran straight into the flow.

As she raced
toward the shutters in the main room, she came face-to-face with a small,
masked demon. Black from head to foot, reaching only to her shoulder, the demon
was carrying a bulky sack in one hand and a handful of smoking reeds in
another. Catching sight of her, the demon raised the reeds in greeting. Madame
Thomypurse took a deep startled breath, inhaled two lungfuls of smoke, and
promptly keeled over onto the floor.

"You should
have seen 'em run, Borlin. The old fearless blackhelms took one look at me and
scaddled for their lives. Thought I was the grim reaper." Nabber bent his
head to take a drink of his ale and a small landslide of soot skidded onto the
floor. "'Course, blocking off the chimney was the worst. That roof was as
slippery as a tinker's tongue-nearly fell to my death, I did. Worth it, though.
That place filled up so fast that by the time I'd squeezed through the back
window, I couldn't see my hands in front of my face. Hardly needed the
reeds."

"You weren't
supposed to show yourself," said Tawl. He was leaning against an old
upturned dyeing vat, and he did not look pleased. "I told you not to go
into the main room."

"I had to get
some loot, Tawl. It was only fair: last time I met the rat woman she robbed me
of my contingency." Nabber smiled, encouraging Tawl to forgive him.

Tawl didn't return
the smile. Since he'd questioned Madame Thornypurse about Melli he hadn't
smiled once. They were sitting around a pressing slab in a derelict dyemaker's
shop. As planned, they had met up with the others earlier outside of the
Brimming Bucket. Andris and his men had made it through the gate successfully,
and they had spent their time scouting around the city for a safe place to hole
up. They had managed to lay their hands on ale, fresh food, hay, and candles,
and everyone had enjoyed their best meal in days. No one wanted to risk
lighting a fire, so the place was bitterly cold, but the two candles on the
granite slab gave a cozy feel to the room, and the brandy in their bellies
warmed like a well-stoked hearth.

The dyemaker's
shop was one in a row of disused, rundown businesses located in a pitch-black
street in the southeast of the city. The roof leaked, and all the wooden
surfaces were damp; there were no doors, no shutters, few floorboards, and a
lot of drafts. The one room that had no windows to speak of was the storage
bay. Half above-, half belowground, the large, low-ceilinged room was where
Andris had made his camp.

"I say we go
in tonight," said Tawl, bringing the conversation around to the one topic
that was on everyone's mind. "We know for sure Melli's there now, so
there's nothing to stop us from moving ahead. The blackhelms aren't expecting
any trouble-as far as they're concerned they thrashed the enemy eight weeks
ago. They won't be on their guard."

As he spoke, Jack
noticed that Tawl was the only man in the room who was not sitting down. He
hadn't eaten his food, either. It lay untouched on a cloth on the floor.

Crayne shook his
head. "No, Tawl. I say we wait. We're all bone weary; we've had seven days
in the saddle without one good night's sleep between us. We need to rest."

"Crayne's
right, Tawl," said Borlin, picking his huge teeth with a chicken bone.
"We've been up since before dawn this morning. If we go in tonight none of
us will be at our best-you know that." Borlin waited for Tawl to
acknowledge the truth of what he was saying. A mere tightening of lip was all
the response he got. Borlin wasn't put off. "Besides, if we wait until
tomorrow night, there's a chance there'll be fewer trained men in the
palace."

"Why? What have
you heard?"

Borlin let Crayne
answer the question. "You were right about the blackhelms, Tawl. They all
went south to Camlee with Kedrac. The ones left in the city are a mixture of
mercenaries, new recruits, farmers, and fortune hunters. Kylock's ordered a
four-day training exercise for them just north of the city. They leave in the
morning."

"A training
mission like that won't affect the palace guard count."

"I think it
will." Crayne's voice was firm. The candlelight brought out the gray in
his hair and threw deep shadows across his face. Jack realized he had never
seen Crayne laugh or share a joke with anyone: the leader of the knights was a
serious man. Crayne continued, his eyes focused steadily on Tawl. "Who are
the best-trained men in the city now that Kedrac has taken the
blackhelms?" He answered his own question. "The palace guards, that's
who. Kylock is going to need highly skilled men to train these upstart
blackhelms, so he's bound to send some of the best guards from the palace on the
training mission."