Master and Fool (18 page)

A thin gust of
wind razored down the alleyway and Jack pulled his goatherding cloak close.
Coming to a crossroad, he took a turn to the left.

Hard though
pulling away was, it wasn't the hardest part of the drawing. Not for him,
anyway. The hardest part was generating the
spark:
the thing that gave
the sorcery its life. Always, right down to the last time he'd drawn sorcery in
the bakers' lodge, he used the image of Tarissa to conjure up the power. It
seemed violent emotion was the only way he could make it happen, and perhaps
that was the reason why he had never gotten very far with Stillfox's teaching.
It wasn't easy for him to conjure up false emotion.

Stillfox had tried
to show him other ways, telling him over and over again to
`focus your
thoughts on forming the intent, '
but Jack had focused until he was
owl-eyed and head-sore and nothing had come. In fact, up until the morning in
the bakers' lodge, he wasn't even sure if he knew what focus meant.

Reaching the end
of the street, Jack chose a second turn at random. Picking a path down the
center of the road, he steered well clear of the filth-strewn gutters.

Jack sighed to
himself and the newly arrived night. His learning was far from done. In his
heart he knew it wasn't right to use his anger toward Tarissa as a spark. He
should have paid more attention to Stillfox, should have tried harder, should
have practiced more. One day, thought Jack, he would return and finish what he
had started. He owed it to Stillfox
and
himself.

For the time
being, though, that was in the distant future. Finding Melli was what he had to
do now.

Five days he'd
been in the city, and he was still no closer to discovering where she was.
Strangely, Jack wasn't too worried. He felt sure that something would turn up.

In the meantime
all he had to do was find food each day and a doorway to sleep in each night,
neither of which was turning out to be difficult. Somewhere along the way he'd
even picked up a new pair of shoes-he had an unsuspecting cobbler to thank for
those. Not once had he gone hungry, but there'd been more than a few times when
he'd been tempted to mug the first man he'd seen with a full skin of ale: so
far his skills hadn't extended as far as acquiring a decent drink. All things
considered, though, he wasn't doing too badly, and he was actually enjoying
having to rely on his own resources for a change.

As for tonight,
well, it was about time to find a place free from the wind. Jack looked around.
Without realizing it, he had made his way to Bren's southern wall. It loomed
high above the rooftops, less than a meadow's length away. Cutting a path
toward it, Jack quickened his pace. It seemed as good a place as any to find
shelter for the night.

Just as he altered
his course, Jack heard the sound of footsteps behind him. He looked back and
saw a man running up the street. Close on his heels were a group of armed men.
The man ran faster than anyone Jack had ever seen. His golden hair streamed
behind him, and his chest rose and fell like a waterpump. As he came closer,
Jack could see his face; his eyes were bright with fierce intensity, and his
mouth was a sculptor's tale. In his hand he held a beautifully polished sword.

The man passed
Jack in an instant, not even seeing him, his sights set firmly ahead. Jack
followed his gaze: he was making for the wall.

There was
something about the sight of the man, something about his hard and beautiful
face and his terrible focused intensity, that affected Jack deeply. His golden
hair provoked memories of dreams long past.

Hardly aware of
what he was doing, Jack sprang toward the pursuers. He wanted to give the man
time to escape: he didn't know why, perhaps it was the brightness of his blade
or the sheer desperation of his plight, but Jack felt in his soul that the man
needed his help.

He made a
blundering leap into the snarl of armed men. Surprise was the only thing he had
on his side. Then men were forced to stop in midstep to deal with this new
development. Jack fell facedown on the ground like a drunkard. He did not draw
his knife. He felt a blade trained upon his spine and another at the back of
his neck. Two of the men carried on running after the golden-haired one.

That meant four
had stopped for him. Jack hiccuped loudly. He could deal with four alone if it
came to it. "You stupid, drunken fool!" said one of the men, pushing
his spear into Jack's thigh. "What d'you think you're doing stopping
Kylock's guard in full chase?"

"Sorry,
mate," mumbled Jack, "I thought you were a press gang, what with the
war and all." He didn't bother disguising his accent. The city was
crawling with troops from the kingdoms making ready for the war.

The two men who
had dashed ahead came running back. They were both out of breath. "He got
away, Captain," said one of them. "One of the sluice gates was open
and he jumped right into it."

"Why didn't
you follow him?" barked the captain. "Once he was in, he fixed the
gate so that me and Harold couldn't open it. If you'd been there with your
spear, we could have pried it open."

The captain
stabbed at Jack's thigh with the spear. "This drunken bastard kept me from
him." He hissed a mouthful of foul curses, kicking Jack in the abdomen with
each one.

Jack tasted blood
in his mouth: he must have bitten his tongue when he landed. He endured the
kicks passively, groaning a little for effect. Now that the golden-haired man
had escaped, he had his own neck to save.

"Kylock and
Baralis ain't gonna be pleased about this," said another man. "We had
Catherine's murderer right in our grasp . . . " He shook his head.

"Now listen,
you lot," said the captain, "ain't no one here gonna mention that we
got stopped by an ale-crazy fool, d'you hear? I'm not having anyone thinking
we're a gang of bungling amateurs. If anyone asks, tell 'em the champion had
accomplices on the wall who shot at us." The captain surveyed each of his
men in turn. "Is that clear?"

"Aye,"
said the rest of the men in unison.

"What do we
do about this one here, then, Captain?" said the one who had his blade to
Jack's spine.

"Let him go,
Civral. He won't be telling any tales." He kicked Jack one more time.
"Will you?"

Jack twisted his
neck around and said, "No, sir. No tales from me." He smiled, adding,
"Got any beer on you?" Bracing himself for another kick, Jack was
surprised when the captain began to move away.

"Come on,
lads," he said. "We gotta get back to the palace and tell 'em to call
off the search." He turned to the man named Civral. "You go to the
gate and tell old Greengill to search the area just south of the wall."

Realizing that he
was being let off, Jack rolled around in the dirt for good measure. The captain
watched him with distaste. "Dirty beggar," he said as he walked away.

Jack waited until
the men had rounded the corner before picking himself off the ground. He was
filthy: horse dung, slops, and mud clung to his cloak and britches. His thigh
was bleeding, but nothing that a few minutes worth of pressure wouldn't stop.
Brushing himself down, he decided to head toward the wall. For some reason he
wanted to see the place where the man had escaped. He found the sluice gate
straightaway. It had been jammed up against the stone and was impossible to
move. Jack ran his fingers over the metal grille. He knew it had been madness
to help the goldenhaired stranger, but somehow it just felt right.

After a few
minutes he settled down against the grille, making a bed of it for the night.
Sleep came quickly and his dreams, when they came, were all of the man he had
helped escape.

Melli knew it
would be better just to lie in bed a little longer and wait for the nausea to
pass. She knew that was the right thing to do, but she didn't do it anyway.
Instead she swung her feet onto the floor and sat herself up. The all too
familiar churning in her stomach sent her fumbling wildly for her bowl. As
always she found it just in time--even when there was no Tawl to find it for
her.

Melli's whole body
heaved and she vomited into the bowl.

"You all
right in there, miss?" It was Nabber, shouting through the door. The boy
had ears like a bat.

Melli spat to
clean her mouth: for some time now she had given up trying to be ladylike about
the whole affair. All sorts of unpleasant things were happening to her body,
and surrounded by a household full of men, there was no one who could tell her
how to deal with them or what to expect next. So she had come to treat her
pregnancy with a sort of suspicious stoicism: she was constantly on the lookout
for new symptoms, and when she found them, no matter how distressing they were,
she would grit her teeth and deal with them like a man. She absolutely refused
to have a fainting fit over a rash on her neck or a bout of constipation.
Maybor's daughter was made of hardier stuff.

"Should I
call for Grift?" came Nabber again.

Grift was as near
to an old wife as a man was likely to get. He had a remedy for everything from
toothache to lost limbs. Melli adamantly refused to take his advice about
morning sickness. There was no way she was going to eat three unripe apricots
every night. "No, Nabber," Melli said, walking to the door.
"Don't call Grift." She opened the door. "I want to talk to you,
instead."

Nabber spit on his
palm and slicked back his hair. "Me, miss?"

"Yes. Come
inside." Melli returned to the bed, pausing to kick the bowl under the
frame.

Nabber followed
her in. He made a great show of brushing himself down and pulling his britches
up. "It's an honor to be invited in, miss," he said. He looked around
speculatively, and Melli guessed he was appraising the worth of the waterclock
and the various other contents of the room. "Right nice set-up you have
here, miss."

Melli smiled.
"Thank you, but none of it's mine. It's all Lord Cravin's."

"Aye, he's
just the sort for secret stashing."

"It's just as
well for me that he is, or I would have nowhere to hide."

"I'd find a
place for us, miss. You just say the word." Nabber looked at her with all
the confidence of youth.

"I believe
you would, Nabber." She indicated a chair and bade him sit. "I want
you to call me Melli from now on."

"Say no more,
Melli," he replied, regarding the chair warily. "Though I'd prefer to
stand if you don't mind. Good friend of mine, name o' Swift, always maintained
that a man heard nothing good sitting down."

Melli was
surprised to hear herself laugh. After yesterday, when she had learnt that Tawl
had left her, she thought that everything was coming to an end. But there were
no ends, just heavily veiled beginnings. The duke's death had been a beginning,
and so was Tawl's departure. Life always continued, and laughter was never far
behind.

Leaning forward,
she said, "Nabber, I want you to tell me all you know about Tawl. Who his
family were, why he left the knighthood, what he was doing when you met him. I
need to know."

"He will come
back, you know, Melli. He promised me he would." Nabber's face was a
picture of conviction. He believed very deeply in his friend.

Nabber pulled a
handkerchief from his ever-present sack and handed it to Melli. "Right.
Where d'you want me to start?"

Melli was
surprised and then touched by Nabber's attention. She thought she had concealed
her sadness well. "Tell me about when you met him."

Nabber took an
actor's breath. "Well, that was in Rom. Beautiful day it was, a good many
months back now. Tawl had just returned from the cursed isle of Lam, and he was
looking to deliver some letters. I volunteered to help him find the addresses.
Even then it was obvious he needed me, and we've been together ever
since."

"What was in
the letters?"

Nabber shrugged.
"I can't say. What I can tell you is that he went to Larn to talk with the
seers about a boy. He was on a quest, you see, to find this boy, and he'd come
up blank. Well, Larn put him straight, and me and him were traveling to find
this boy, when-" Nabber's narrative came to a dead halt.

"When
what?"

Nabber was silent
for a minute, thinking. "When the man who sent Tawl on his quest got
killed."

Melli detected
something strained about the boy's voice. "Killed?"

Nabber dashed ahead.
"Aye. It sort of set Tawl going, you know. If he did find the boy now,
he'd have no one to take him to, so he just lost all his will to carry on. And
then we ended up here, in Bren--him fighting in the pits, me making sure he
didn't get beaten. Teamwork, you know." Melli nodded slowly. "Was
giving up the quest hard for Tawl?"

"Harder than
I can say. He lived for finding the boy. Sworn to it, he was. For a man of
honor like him to give it all up. . . " Nabber shook his head. "It's
a tragedy."

"Is there any
way we could persuade him to continue his quest?"

The effect this
simple question had on Nabber was nothing short of amazing. He began to pace up
and down the room, shaking his head and muttering. Once or twice, Melli heard
the word "Swift" muttered under his breath. After half a minute,
Nabber turned to face her. From his sack, he pulled out a sealed letter. It
looked old and pocket-weary, stained yellow with time and sweat.

"This,"
he said, holding the letter up, but not out toward her, "could have changed
everything."

"What is
it?"

"Letter from
a dead man."

A breath of cold
air passed over Melli's body. She pulled the bedclothes about her. "The
man who sent Tawl to look for the boy?"

"That's the
one. Bevlin he was called. Nice man, couldn't cook, though. He sent this letter
to the Old Man in Rorn, with instructions that he give it to Tawl if he
died."