The Three Lands Omnibus Part 62

He found his path blocked by the seven-year-old boy.

The younger boy had wheat-colored hair that fell over his s.h.i.+mmering blue eyes; he wore a brown tunic with a hood, a miniature version of the robes worn by the priests of the Unknowable G.o.d. His hands, small and delicate, grasped the railing carefully. He was smiling broadly.

"I saw you on the balcony," he announced with pleasure. "I'm Gareth." He lifted his hand to his heart and his forehead in the free-man's greeting.

The older boy, after a momentary a.s.sessment, continued on his way, brus.h.i.+ng past Gareth. Gareth, undisturbed, trotted behind him in his wake.

"You're from the borderland, aren't you?" he said breathlessly. "Are your parents new emigrants, or has your family lived in Emor for a long time?" He waited a respectable interval for a reply. When none came, he added, "Our patron comes from the borderland, you know. *Tenant Griffith."

The borderland boy, without looking back at Gareth, wove his way around the tapestry-covered altar-table in the center of the sanctuary. Upon it, in a brazier, the eternal flame of sacrifice burned. The crystal bowl, filled with water, flanked it on one side. On the other side rested the symbolic Cup of Friends.h.i.+p. The cup was only half-filled with wine; the borderland boy guessed that the Jackal had drunk from it.

"He once led the Chara's border mountain patrol guard," Gareth said, still following the borderland boy like a buzzing fly. "They're the bravest soldiers in the world a they stop men from breaching the border between Koretia and Emor. *Tenant Griffith was the one who persuaded the Chara to let our priests enter this land and start a house of wors.h.i.+p here, and ever since he retired from the patrol he has given lots and lots of money to help the priests. He spends nearly all his time here-"

The borderland boy spun round then, swiftly, like a hunted animal turned at bay. He did not touch Gareth, but the younger boy, seeing his expression, fell abruptly silent.

"Leave me at peace." The borderland boy's carefully s.p.a.ced words were too quiet to be heard by the priests walking past the boys toward the northern door leading to the remainder of the house, but Gareth staggered back, as though the borderland boy had downed him with a blow. Without watching to see what further effect his words would have, the borderland boy turned and began walking down the sunlit corridor.

The corridor was lined neatly with doors at regular intervals. A few of the doors were open, and the borderland boy could see that they led to living quarters and study chambers, now clogged with priests and orphan boys. Above the doors, the walls jutted upward into a clerestory, with unshuttered windows allowing light to fall onto the slate floor. Narrowing his eyes against the afternoon glare, the borderland boy paid no attention to the men and boys he pa.s.sed in the corridor, but made his way resolutely toward the door at the end of the corridor, like a soldier entering valiantly into battle.

The door was ajar. The boy opened the door noiselessly, as he had seen his father do, and had a moment in which to survey the room before the others noticed him.

It was a small chamber, with windows set high in the walls, so that the room seemed filled already with dusk. Lamps had been lit against the coming night. The northern-most windows glowed, though, and the boy knew that the glow must come from the reflected light of the Chara's palace. He turned his eyes away from the brightness.

Amidst the spa.r.s.e furnis.h.i.+ngs of desks and stools stood half a dozen men, five wearing priests' robes. The sixth man, though his back was to the door, turned immediately and gestured to the boy to close the door. The boy did so, and then went to stand by the soldier.

The soldier draped his arm around the boy's shoulders and smiled at the High Priest. "My eldest son, High Father," he explained. "I would have brought him to you long before this, but whenever I come to visit here, it seems that my son is always busy with his brothers and sisters or is away in the mountains, playing Hunter and Hunted with our village's children."

"That is hardly surprising, given his father's work." The High Priest did not smile at the boy, but he bowed his head in greeting. "Yes, I can see the resemblance. You have your father's eyes a and perhaps a little of his discerning spirit? His ability to see into the hearts of men is a gift from the G.o.d, and he has repaid the G.o.d many times over for that gift."

"Hardly, High Father." The soldier shook his head. "I have so much time to catch up on a so many years spent without knowledge of the Unknowable G.o.d, so many years certain that no G.o.ds existed. Since the time that you opened my eyes to the reality of where my debt lies, I have been toiling daily to offer what sacrifices I can."

"Perhaps you have been toiling in the wrong fields," contributed one of the priests dryly. It was the priest who had fetched the soldier from the balcony; he was now standing at the High Priest's right hand. "The G.o.d welcomes sacrifices, but I sometimes worry that your family is the one who makes the sacrifice, rather than you. You spend so much time here that you must seem like a stranger to them."

"My family understands how it is for me, Aiken," said the soldier with ease, his arm still firm upon his son's shoulders. "In years past, I was like a man wandering blind in the night. You have shown me a shaft of light that will lead me, in the end, to that lighted City I hope to enter one day, through the G.o.d's mercy. In the meantime, I owe a debt, and any sacrifice I make is small in comparison to what I have been given. And so I have been trying to decide for some time what gift I should give to the G.o.d that would express my full love for him a what sacrifice would cut keenly enough into me that I should truly feel the pain."

"Too great a sacrifice can be as much a sign of pride as too little a sacrifice," the High Priest commented. His gaze had been travelling ceaselessly between the soldier and his son. "Take care that you are sure of your motives for giving beyond what you have already given, Griffith."

The soldier had begun shaking his head from the moment of the High Priest's first words. "No pride, High Father a I know how little my sacrifice will appear in the eyes of the G.o.d. What I give is small to the G.o.d, yet great to me a that is why I have chosen this gift. High Father, as a sign of my everlasting love of the G.o.d, I wish to present to this house my eldest son."

The three priests at the back of the room, who had been listening attentively all this while, turned now to look at each other, raising their eyebrows. Aiken opened his mouth abruptly, but the High Priest was swifter still, saying in a calm voice, "Be a.s.sured that the G.o.d appreciates the sacrifice you have offered and that he accepts the love you have given him. We cannot accept the emblem of that love, however."

"Certainly not," said Aiken indignantly. "The boys who live in this house are orphans, or else they are dedicated to this house as babes, because their parents cannot afford to raise them. To take a boy your son's age, one who has two loving parents who care for him ..."

"Did you talk of this with your wife, Griffith?" the High Priest asked.

"Of course, High Father," the soldier replied. His eyes appeared puzzled, and he was frowning. "The sacrifice is from both of us. She finds it as hard as I do to let the boy go, but she understands where my spirit lies in this matter."

The High Priest gave a small sigh, and then said firmly, "You are both G.o.d-lovers, Griffith; that has been clear since long before this. Nevertheless, your son's best interests are a matter that the G.o.d would wish you to consider. To leave his family now-"

"I want to leave."

The boy's words, hard and without hesitation, caused all in the room to look at him. Ducking free of the soldier's arm, the boy stepped forward and endured their scrutiny.

He was shaking, and had been shaking since the moment of the soldier's announcement; bile filled his throat. Yet he tilted his head steadily to look up at the High Priest as he said, "I don't want to live with my parents any more. I want to live here."

"You see?" said the soldier joyfully, smiling at the boy. "He is my son; his love of the G.o.ds is as great as mine."

The boy did not look his way. Still staring up at the High Priest, he asked, "May I wait outside? I was talking with one of the other orphan boys before."

The High Priest's gaze travelled over to the smiling soldier, and then quickly back to the boy. "Of course," he said quietly. "I'm sure that you would like to explore this house during your visit."

The boy turned then and walked stiffly past the soldier, ignoring the hand that the soldier laid upon his head. He closed the corridor door behind him quickly, but as he did so, he could hear Aiken saying, in a changed voice, "Perhaps, in the boy's best interests ..."

Much to the borderland boy's surprise, Gareth was awaiting him.

The corridors were empty now, and all of the doors were shut. In the short time since the borderland boy had entered the chamber, the light in the corridor had turned ruddy from the setting sun. In one of the pools of light falling upon the east wall, Gareth stood, watching the borderland boy with uncertain eyes. The borderland boy, with barely a pause in his stride, walked down the corridor, pa.s.sing Gareth on the way.

As the borderland boy had expected, Gareth detached himself from the wall and hurried down the corridor beside the older boy. "I'm sorry," he said. "I talked too much before. You're the guest; I should have let you talk."

"You can talk without cease," said the borderland boy, not looking his way. "I'll be here for the next six years."

"Will you?" Gareth channelled his delight into a skip and a leap. "Are you coming to live here, then? You'll like it here, truly you will. You'll have lots of friends. I'll be your friend if you'd like."

The borderland boy stopped then. They had reached the end of the corridor, and all that lay before them was the rectangular doorway to the sanctuary, leading to the narrow pa.s.sageway between the tiered seats. The borderland boy considered for a moment the empty sanctuary, which held only fiery specks of dust, twisting through the air under the evening light. Then he turned to Gareth, who was waiting anxiously beside him.

"If you want to be my friend," he said, "where's the cup?"

Gareth gaped at him for a moment, and then hopped in his place, saying, "Wait here. I'll be right back. Don't go away!" He darted past the borderland boy into the sanctuary.

The borderland boy turned his back on the sanctuary and looked down the corridor he had just travelled. The sun's rays were crawling up the sides of the wall now, leaving a pool of darkness collecting on the ground. The door he had travelled through was shut.

Gareth arrived at his side, panting in his haste. In his hand was a bejewelled cup, with the berry-red wine of Koretia inside it. "It's from the altar," he explained. "I don't think the High Priest would mind, though. What we're doing ... It's a sacred vow, really."

The borderland boy had turned his back halfway on the shut door at the other end of the corridor. He reached out and took the cup from Gareth, slowly raised it to his lips, and sipped from the wine of friends.h.i.+p. Gareth, his face flush from the evening light, wriggled with delight.

Unnoticed by both boys, two men stood at the other end of the corridor, with the door behind them flung wide open. The soldier gestured toward the drinking boy, raising his eyebrows. The High Priest looked for a long moment at the borderland boy, as well as at Gareth, whose face was alight with a smile. Then the High Priest nodded heavily, and the two men turned to re-enter the chamber.

If they had waited a moment longer, perhaps their thoughts would have changed, and if so, the destiny of the Three Lands would have taken a different course.

It may be that the High Priest would not have recognized what he saw. Though a wise man, he was still relatively young, and he had always seen darkness in shapes that were easily recognizable: in the vicious look of a murderer holding a thigh-dagger, in the angry expression of a man who hated the G.o.ds, in the petulant pout of a self-centered woman. This was where he was accustomed to seeing darkness, and he had not yet learned the many shapes that darkness can take.

The soldier might have been wiser, for within his family a seed had been planted long ago, so many generations past that the family tales told without words of the many methods by which his ancestors had prevented that seed from growing. The seed had not skipped his own generation, and if he had wished, he could have spoken to his children the warnings that his father had given him. Such a thought had never occurred to him, though, and he had not recognized the signs of the seed in his eldest son.

What happened next would perhaps have alerted him to the danger and awoken him to the darkness he had turned his back on when he entered joyfully into the light. But he had turned away too soon, and so he did not see what Gareth saw in the moment that the borderland boy lowered the cup from his lips.

Quentin-Andrew son of Quentin-Griffith was smiling.

At age ten, Quentin-Andrew already had darkly beautiful eyes. His smile, calculated to the slightest degree in the manner of its curve, would have driven women wild later in his life if he had ever bothered to bestow it upon them. As it was, the smile caused Gareth to wriggle again, clearly overwhelmed by the gift he had been offered. As Gareth reached out to take the cup and drink from it, his hand brushed the borderland boy's, and Quentin-Andrew felt a warmth enter him, such as he had never felt before. His smile increased, and Gareth laughed with joy.

Not until five years later, in the final moments of his life, would Gareth learn that Quentin-Andrew had smiled that day because he was imagining Gareth's death.

CHAPTER TWO.

They brought him to the dungeon of the Jackal's palace, the great building that had once housed hundreds of people. Just a handful remained now. The people in the Koretian capital had scattered, harried by the dark thrust of war, so that the only people left in the capital were the southern soldiers and the palace officials and lords whom they guarded. The lords and officials well knew what fate awaited them if they were captured; none of them had dared venture beyond the protective cordon of the Southern Army.

Quentin-Andrew saw none of those men and women during his forced march through the bowels of the palace. All that he saw were soldiers, grim-faced, confronting their coming doom with short words and tight lips. Some were old men, others were boys; not many were left to fight for the freedom of Koretia and Daxis. They glanced at Quentin-Andrew without interest. He wondered for a moment whether they failed to recognize his northern uniform and simply thought that he was a southern soldier who had been arrested for crimes. Then he realized that the men would have regarded him in the same empty manner if he had been the Jackal himself, rising from the dead to lead his people in their final battle. The southern soldiers were husks, void of all thought and hope; they were reserving their energy in order to die in an honorable manner.

The dungeon corridors were thick with tar-filled smoke from the torches; the soldiers escorting him coughed into their fists. Quentin-Andrew idly noted how little had changed in this place since he had been there last. Here was the same rough stonework, arching in a low ceiling that was blackened with torch-smoke; here were the same moans and cries, seeping like blood from under the doors; here were the same shadows, fluttering over him like the wings of a carrion bird. And there, straight ahead, the same golden glow- A door opened next to him, he was thrust without preliminary through the doorway, and he found himself in a cell hot with fire.

The light was harsh to his sight. His eyes were slow to adjust, and when they did, he saw nothing that he had not expected. The instruments on the wall, the tools on the table a they were as familiar to him as the toys of his childhood. He wondered, dimly, why his heart pounded in his chest, as though he were in a strange place.

The door had closed behind him. He heard the rasp of a key turning in the lock, and the part of him that was examining this room with professional interest gave a small smile. The locked door was a mistake. It was better at the start to leave the prisoner with hope that he might escape a better, in fact, to allow that hope to linger as long as possible. That made the moment when the hope died all the more delicious.

As a soldier unbound his arms and wrists, Quentin-Andrew looked over at Randal, who was pulling off his cloak and hanging it on one of the hooks that was intended for other purposes. Without surprise, Quentin-Andrew saw that the young man's gaze was already fixed on him. Randal smiled as the borderlander looked his way, and he said, in a voice that sounded serious, "I hope that you approve."

Without meaning to a and the fact that he had not meant to told Quentin-Andrew immediately what level of man he was dealing with a Quentin-Andrew s.h.i.+fted his gaze back to the objects of the room: the rings, the chains, the pulleys, the irons glowing on the fire. Beside him, Randal said in a matter-of-fact voice, "When I was hired last year, our subcommander gave me permission to stock this place in any way I wished. I made up my list based on the reports we'd received of the methods you use. I didn't think that I could improve upon perfection."

Quentin-Andrew's mouth felt dry; he wondered why it was taking so long to recover from the effects of the gag. He turned his attention back to the soldiers. Only two of Randal's men had remained in the room. The older one was checking the heat of the fire, while the younger one was carefully inspecting the tools to see that they were ready. Quentin-Andrew noted this with professional approval.

Randal snapped his fingers at the first man and nodded toward a shadow-smothered corner. Then, having delegated the early duties, he pulled himself onto the table, stained with black blood, and sat there, swinging his legs like a schoolboy.

"I had mixed feelings about taking this a.s.signment," reported Randal in the same light voice. "You're the hero of my childhood. I used to lie awake at night, dreaming that you would come and ask me to be your apprentice. I knew, of course, that I couldn't hope to reach your heights, but what man could? Since you never came, I learned everything I could about you: I studied your techniques, I recorded your questions in the few cases where the prisoner was released alive a I even received permission from the subcommander to examine the bodies of the men you had questioned, whenever those bodies were returned to our army.

"It was like gazing on the work of an artist. What you did here-" He reached up with his hand and briefly indicated a spot on his body. "It never would have occurred to me, even if I'd lived as long as the Jackal did. Yet you knew ... How in the names of all the world's G.o.ds did you know? You knew what it would do to a prisoner. The first time I used that technique I felt like a bard stealing another man's song, yet the results were too beautiful to throw away. Neither I, nor any man living, will ever be able to match you in what you do.

"It seems such a shame to destroy you."

The fire roaring quietly in the corner was p.r.i.c.king Quentin-Andrew's body with heat. With the sluggishness of a mind that has not been roused to curiosity for many years, Quentin-Andrew wondered why he continued to feel so cold.

From the dark corner, the older a.s.sistant emerged, holding several objects, long and black and keenly crafted in a way that made Quentin-Andrew's heart ache. He had never had equipment that fine during his years of work; the Northern Army had been forced to wage war with makes.h.i.+ft tools, scarce at all times. Quentin-Andrew had not even had an a.s.sistant since the day that the man who helped him had been foolish enough to listen secretly as the Lieutenant questioned a spy who had to be broken quickly. Perhaps the a.s.sistant had merely wished to improve his own skills; perhaps he held hopes of rising above his official. Quentin-Andrew had never discovered the truth, for the a.s.sistant had lost his wits shortly thereafter.

Quentin-Andrew had been puzzled by this event; his special technique was supposed to affect no one except the prisoner. But the end result had been that no one was willing to be the a.s.sistant's replacement. This had pleased Quentin-Andrew: he could accomplish more on his own.

Now Randal turned to inspect what his a.s.sistant had brought him. After shaking his head at the first object offered, he carefully studied the remaining objects. As he did so, he said, "Your special form of questioning a you know what I'm talking about. You wouldn't be willing to teach that to me, I suppose? No?" Quentin-Andrew had said nothing, but Randal had glanced at his face as he spoke and extracted his answer from there. "Well, I suppose it's just as well. I'm not sure I'd have the skill to survive such training. If it could be taught in the abstract- But of course it can't; you'd have to demonstrate it on me. And even if we had the time for that, I wouldn't want to play the odds and see whether I could be the only man you ever failed to break."

He made his decision, reaching for the one with knots, and then turned to look at his prisoner. Quentin-Andrew waited with practiced stillness to see which direction Randal would take. He could tell Quentin-Andrew to do it to himself a that would be the right technique for some prisoners. And if he decided the matter that way, Quentin-Andrew would know that he was in the hands of a man who had not yet learned his trade.

A smile flitted across Randal's face, as though he had guessed Quentin-Andrew's thoughts once more. "Strip him," he said without moving his head to look at his a.s.sistants. At this word, the men came forward.

Quentin-Andrew did not try to resist them. Between here and freedom stood a locked door, a guarded exit, hundreds of soldiers, and a moat that was bridgeless at this time of night. There was no sense in wasting strength he would need soon. The only question that was left a and as yet it had not reached the surface of his mind a was how great his loyalty was to the Commander, and how much he was willing to endure for the Commander's sake.

Randal, watching as his a.s.sistants laid hands upon Quentin-Andrew, said, "I owe you a second debt you may not know of: you make me and all of the other torturers in the Great Peninsula look like the G.o.ds of daylight by comparison. My father ..." Randal paused considerately as one of the a.s.sistants tore Quentin-Andrew's tunic open. Then he continued, "My father was ready to disown me when I took up this profession. He told me that he'd rather have an a.s.sa.s.sin in the family than someone who did this type of work. Then a few years ago we received word that you'd broken six men in one day. My father said grudgingly that at least I wasn't as bad as you. *You only break men's bodies,' he told me, *but the Lieutenant breaks men's spirits.'"

Randal rose, reached over to a small ledge nearby, and tossed an object there into the waiting hand of his older a.s.sistant. Quentin-Andrew, as he was thrust face-forward against the wall and his arms were raised above him, had a moment to wonder why Randal chose to bind his prisoners with soft leather straps rather than rope. Had he found an advantage to this method over the burns caused by the coa.r.s.e cords of hemp? Or was Randal still in the experimental stage that Quentin-Andrew had underwent thirty years before, testing various methods to see which ones worked best? Over time, Quentin-Andrew reflected, it was all too easy to become constrained within old patterns, to miss taking advantage of new ideas and new techniques. Quentin-Andrew had long since given up hope of being taught something he did not already know; now a touch of idle hope reached him that this episode would at least be worth his time in terms of education.

He heard a footstep and turned his head. Randal had walked over to stand beside him; the young man was caressing, with absent-minded habit, the knotted line of the object he held. "Of course my father was wrong," he said quietly. "We both know that the breaking of the body means nothing. It is only when the spirit is broken that the prisoner gives forth his information. That's why, in a certain way, I've been looking forward to this a.s.signment. You are a new challenge: how does one break the spirit of a man who is rumored to have none?" Randal gave a half-smile. "I grew up on stories telling that you were a demon in human form, and though I've heard tales like that about myself during the past few months, none have sounded as convincing as the stories told of you. They say that no man alive has seen your spirit a even to your Commander you are a mystery. Is it true that there's nothing left of you in the Land of the Living? Was your spirit eaten by a demon long ago?"

Quentin-Andrew's arms were beginning to ache. He inwardly recorded this information without interest, along with the fact that his body felt far more comfortable now that his clothes were gone. The heat that was making droplets of moisture begin to dribble down Randal's face touched Quentin-Andrew only lightly, and now that he was facing away from the fire, the light no longer bothered him. He felt secure in the cool darkness, and as yet nothing touched the surface of his spirit to suggest what was taking place at lower depths.

Randal, still stroking the object in his hand, grew suddenly still, his smile fading. Then he said, in a very quiet voice, "Ah. Now, that I would not have guessed. You see? I have become your apprentice despite the different paths of our lives; your presence here is teaching me things I did not know about you. I am looking forward all the more now to our time together."

His gaze flicked over to the a.s.sistants, and he gestured with his head. Quentin-Andrew heard the soft scuff of boots retreating as the men gave Randal the room he needed. Randal took a step back, judged the distance, and stepped back once more, stretching his arm in readiness. "I won't bore you with the usual pleas for cooperation," he said. "You know the information I want; you know what will happen if you refuse to speak. Do you need more time to decide?" He paused but an instant before saying, "No. Well, then ..." He reached out his arm again, allowing the object to unfold at full length; then he glanced at Quentin-Andrew and smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid I've never had the benefit of watching you do this. If my technique is somewhat slipshod, that's why." He pulled his arm back.

In the moment before the blow landed, Quentin-Andrew became aware, as he had not been before, of various noises around him: the sc.r.a.ping of metal as one of the a.s.sistants picked up the next tool, the low scream of the fire nearby, and the hard and rhythmic pounding of his heart. And it was at that moment, in the bare second before the whip touched fire upon his flesh, that two appalling facts worked themselves to the surface of his spirit.

He was afraid. And what was worse, Randal knew that he was afraid.

Already his visit to the Jackal's palace was proving to be a disappointment, Quentin-Andrew reflected as he lowered the unconscious guard to the ground. From all that he had heard about the G.o.d-man who ruled Koretia, he would have expected the Jackal to have trained his soldiers well, yet it had taken only one pebble pitched in the right direction to distract the attention of the royal residence guard for as long as was necessary. The Jackal had best not prove to be as foolish a man as his guards, Quentin-Andrew thought as he turned his attention to pulling the guard behind the glowing arch that marked the entrance to the royal residence. If the Jackal was, then Quentin-Andrew's trip to this palace was in vain.

Pulling from his belt a flask of strong cider, he trickled a small amount into the guard's mouth, then placed the flask in the guard's limp hand, allowing the cider to collect in a pool on the floor. This done, he glanced down the corridor he had just travelled. The guards were still on patrol further into the dungeon; the corridor was deserted and quiet, except for the sobs emanating from a cell nearby. Quentin-Andrew appreciated the sobs, not only because they made his body grow warm in a comfortable manner, but also because they had covered the sound the guard's head had made when it was. .h.i.t with the iron.

Quentin-Andrew carefully laid the iron aside in the shadows; he would not be needing that now. What was needed from this point on was not force but guile, as well as swiftness. It would not be long before the patrolling soldiers noticed the absence of the guard, and by that time he must be at his destination.

He turned. The corridor behind him was kept purposely unlit, but Lieutenant Quentin-Griffith had taught his eldest son how patrol guards moved in the dark; he had also taught his son what tricks border-breachers used to get past the border mountain patrol. A smile entered into Quentin-Andrew's eyes. He wondered what his father would think if he knew to what use his son would put that knowledge tonight.

Then the smile disappeared. Quentin-Andrew never allowed his thoughts to dwell long on his childhood.

Slowly, steadily, he moved forward until he could see the glow around the corner ahead. He paused a moment, wis.h.i.+ng that he could see the faces of the guards he was approaching; so much depended on what type of men they were. But that was a risk he must take. He waited to allow his eyes to adjust to the light; then he sprang suddenly around the corner and began running with all his might.

He knew that he did not have far to go; he ran fast only because he wanted to come close quickly, so that the guards could see that there was no blade at his belt. Without that knowledge, they might loose their spears immediately. As it was, their spears were lowered with unrea.s.suring suddenness, blocking his path. He skidded to a halt, barely avoiding being impaled on one of the shafts.

"Thank the G.o.ds that you're still on alert," he said without preliminary, speaking in the low voice of a man who is accustomed to remaining quiet and calm, even in the face of disaster. "Come quickly; the other guard-"

"Who are you, sir, and what is your business?" The elder of the two guards was wearing the uniform of a sublieutenant. He was about the same age as Quentin-Andrew, thirty-five, and he looked grave and unshaken.

This did not bode well. Quentin-Andrew turned his head slowly, as though noticing for the first time their weapons, s.h.i.+mmering in the torchlight before the guarded doorway. The younger of the guards was chewing his lip hard in a manner satisfactory to Quentin-Andrew, though his spear was steady.

Quentin-Andrew allowed his face to fall into the proper mixture of astonishment, exasperation, and the ill-contained impatience of a man who finds himself confronted with a pair of fools. "Who in the names of all the G.o.ds do you think I am?" he asked. "Do you think I wear an outfit like this in the palace for the pleasure of being arrested? Or do I need to show you this?" He flicked up the edge of his tunic momentarily.

The tunic was Daxion and belonged to the soldier that Quentin-Andrew had killed on his way over the border; the thigh-pocket strapped around his leg, on the other hand, was of Koretian design. Only the tiny thigh-dagger, whose hilt peeked out from the pocket, belonged to Quentin-Andrew. He had bought it on the day he left the House of the Unknowable G.o.d, using the money he had taken from the priests' offerings for the poor.

The sublieutenant allowed his gaze to flick down toward the thigh-dagger only momentarily; then his eyes rose to Quentin-Andrew's face once more. "Your name?" he asked quietly.

Quentin-Andrew paused; to give his name too quickly would not be wise. Then, having apparently weighed and discarded all other options, he said in a tight voice, "Lieutenant Seaver. Of the Jackal's thieves. And if you expect me to produce proof of my ident.i.ty, then the Jackal is employing bigger fools than he was when I last visited this land."

There was a flicker in the sublieutenant's expression, as Quentin-Andrew had hoped there would be; he had gambled on the possibility that the royal residence guards would be entrusted with the names of the Jackal's spies. Quentin-Andrew had in fact met the thief whose name he was stealing. When last he saw him alive, the man's expression had been one of profound relief as Quentin-Andrew granted him the mercy-stroke. Standing nearby had been the torturer of the Daxion palace; his expression had been one of awe, having been privileged to see Quentin-Andrew at work.

That had been only yesterday. So swiftly had Quentin-Andrew broken the prisoner that the spy's arrest would not have been reported yet to the Jackal's palace.

The sublieutenant, apparently deciding to take the safer road in this matter, said, "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't let you into the royal residence. Not without the Jackal's permission beforehand."

"May the Jackal eat his dead!" Quentin-Andrew followed this up with a string of curses in Border Koretian. He did not speak Common Koretian well enough to be able to pa.s.s as a southerner; it was better that the men take him to be what he was, a borderlander. Only a fellow borderlander would be able to tell from his accent that he came from the north of the border rather than the south of it.

The younger guard's eyes were wide now; apparently he had some knowledge of Border Koretian. Switching quickly back to Common Koretian, Quentin-Andrew said, in the same quiet voice as before, "Are you two mad? Do you think I'd venture into the residence at this time of night? I wish to live long enough to complete my service to the Jackal, and entering his quarters uninvited would shorten my lifespan considerably. I thought" a he allowed the word to linger a "that you might be interested in what has happened to the other guard."

There was a moment's pause before the sublieutenant said, "Stay on alert, Orrick." The younger guard, still chewing on his lip, nodded and placed his spear in guard position across the doorway. Quentin-Andrew, without waiting to see whether the sublieutenant was following, turned and began walking rapidly back the way he came.