Master and Fool (25 page)

Finding the
trapdoor barred, he had simply smashed it in, using a nearby butcher's block to
break it. When he jumped down into the cellar and found himself in the
pitchblack, being jumped by a stranger, he'd had no choice but to defend
himself. He had been surprised by the strength and quickness of his opponent,
but Tawl had yet to meet the man who could beat him one-on-one.

Then, when his
blade was ready to slit the boy's throat, Melli had screamed and lit a lamp.

The scream and the
light were two things he would be forever grateful for. Not only had Melli sent
Nabber to deliver Bevlin's letter, but she had also prevented the greatest
tragedy of all. Yes, he and this boy before him were linked together, but Melli
was also part of the join. Letting go of the boy's arm, he turned toward Melli.
Her face was pale. The lantern trembled in her hand. "I knew you would
return," she said.

The clear
certainty in her voice was the most beautiful thing Tawl had ever heard. This
brave and magnificent woman had faith in him. Suddenly nothing mattered except
feeling the warmth of her body next to his. Tawl dashed forward, scooping Melli
up in his arms. Everything had been made anew; the world was now fresh with joy
and light and hope, and the only thing that mattered was the truth. "I
love you, " he murmured into Melli's dark hair. "That's what I came
back to say."

When she replied,
"I love you, too," it was more than his heart could bear. First
Bevlin's forgiveness, then the man he'd searched years for turned up at the end
of his blade, and now this. Tawl hugged Melli tightly, his fingers spreading
wide to touch all he possibly could. She was real, beautiful, tough as could
be, and he couldn't believe she was his.

Finally Melli
pulled away. "What happened here just now?"

He suspected she
already knew. "I've found the one I've been searching for." Tawl
glanced at Jack. He was looking toward them, his face unreadable.

Melli nodded.
"Yes. Jack," she said softly. "Yesterday, he saved my life.
Months ago he rescued me from Baralis' dungeon, and months before that he
scared away a robber who was attacking me by the road." As she spoke,
Melli held out her hand and Jack came forward and took it.

He raised it to
his lips. "And you," he said, looking into the deep blue of her eyes,
"dragged me halfway across the forest when you could have left me for
dead."

Tawl looked from
Jack to Melli. His hand followed his eyes, moving gently from shoulder to
shoulder. He was glad they knew one another-it seemed right, fitting. It
connected everything into a perfect self-contained circle. Tawl did not
begrudge their friendship for an instant. Jack looking after Melli, saving her
life before Tawl ever knew her, was an unexpected blessing. Jack cared for
Melli, and that meant he had a greater ally than he could ever have hoped for.
Together they would work for Melli and her child.

"Tawl,"
called Melli softly, "Grift is badly wounded." Of the three of them
she was the least surprised by what had happened. Already, she had moved on to
practical matters.

Tawl pulled a
crate forward, stepped onto it, and then swung up through the space where the
trapdoor had been. Grabbing his sack, he jumped down and said, "Take me to
him."

Then, for many
hours, Tawl tended Grift. He cleaned his wound with witch hazel, cauterized the
broken blood vessels, stitched up the skin, and administered willow-bark tea
for fever and inflammation. Later he massaged Grift's muscles with a fistful of
lanolin and gave him a measure of brandy to help him fall asleep.

By the time he had
finished, dawn had broken. Jack and Melli had stayed awake with him, heating
the iron, brewing the tea, listening all the while to Grift's advice. At some
point during the night, Nabber had found his way to the cellar. Like Melli, he
was strangely unsurprised that the boy in the prophecy had turned up right
under their noses. He had nodded wisely and said, "Swift says the only thing
worth betting on is the unexpected."

He was asleep now,
curled up on a pallet in the corner of the large cellar, snoring with all the
boundless gusto of youth.

Bodger had fallen
asleep by Grift's side, and Maybor, far away in a separate chamber all his own,
had slept through the entire night. Jack and Melli were still awake, though.
Tawl looked at both of them. Melli was exhausted; there were dark circles under
her eyes, and her hands were shaking as she folded the last of the blankets.
Jack looked tired, too; he sat quietly on a wine barrel, head down, waiting.

"Let's get
some sleep," said Tawl, laying his hand on Jack's shoulder. "It's too
late to talk now. Tomorrow I will tell you everything."

Jack looked up. He
managed half a smile. "I feel like I've been to heaven and hell and all
the places in between tonight-"

Tawl matched his
smile. "You're not the only one," he said softly.

Tavalisk was
eating fish. Not just any old fish, mind, it was the very creature that Gamil
had bought him as a pet. The archbishop's chef had prepared the small fish
whole: guts, head, fins, and all. Tavalisk now had the once-aggressive little
fish by its tail and was sucking it into his mouth, scraping the scales off
with his teeth as he went.

Once that was
done, he swallowed it intact and spat out the scales into a cloth. There! That
would certainly teach the little devil not to bite the hand that fed him.

Footsteps
pitter-pattered behind. They were followed by an apologetic cough.

"Come in,
Gamil," said the archbishop, sighing. "As you see, the door is
open." Every door in the palace was open today. Every door, every window,
every coy virgin's blouse. It was high summer in Rom and the heat was
unrelenting. The city was festering, and even in the hallowed ground of the
palace, the smell of fertile, abundant decay was unmistakable.

As a rule,
Tavalisk did not fair well in the heat. His many rolls of flesh became a
breeding ground for odors, and the fine silk beneath his armpits grew
uncomfortably wet with sweat. At times like this, when even the
thought of
moving
his considerable bulk off the chair was enough to cause discomfort, the
archbishop liked to remember back to his far distant past.

He had not always
been a chubby man. In youth he had been beautiful-too beautiful, some had said,
with his sensuous lips and smooth skin that never wanted a razor's edge. When
his mother died and he was thrown out on the streets, he was but seven years
old. He soon came to learn all the ways that a pretty child could earn money in
a city full
of
priests. He would wait outside the great libraries of
Silbur, sitting on the steps close to the important meeting houses where men of
influence and men of God met. Here, his strikingly feminine looks would catch
the eye of scholars, clerics, and noblemen.

First three
coppers, then two silvers, then one gold to take him home.

Most young boys
hung around the old fish market, the more traditional place for such delicate
assignations. But not he. No. Tavalisk knew he was special. Different. He
wanted no dealings with the tawdry merchant classes, with shopkeepers who stank
of their wares and farmers in town to buy feed. No, he solicited only from the
top ranks of Silbur's society. They smelled better, they washed regularly, they
were superior in every way.

Except for the
sex, of course: that was always the same. Tavalisk had learnt the value of
appearances during his time on the streets. To attract the eyes of the men he
most admired, he styled himself anew. He dressed like a nobleman's son who had
fallen upon hard times. He changed his voice, his manners, and his bearing.
Affectation came naturally to him, and he soon sloughed off the dirt and
manners of the street.

He would sit
outside the library, perhaps with a sketchbook and a length of charcoal, and
pretend to be engrossed in high thoughts of art and beauty. Men always
approached him. A conversation would take place, followed by a little casual
touching-the man always touching
him,
never the other way around-and
then an offer would be made: supper, the man's apartments. Supper would be a
heady affair. The man--drunk on wine, lust, and Tavalisk's own beauty-would
become pathetic; begging for favors, kneeling at his feet. Either that, or he
would blow out the candles and show him the whip.

As the years
passed, Tavalisk learned to refuse the whip, learned to tease, to toy with the
men, to create obsessions in them. And then to blackmail them.

Even then he was a
hoarder. He saved nearly all of what he earned. Fine clothes were his only
expense. Everything else was paid for by his friends. By the time he was
nineteen, his savings had grown to substantial proportions. Money allowed him
time to think, and he began to realize two things: one, that his beauty was
slowly fading with his youth; and two, that if he was ever to make anything of
himself, he would have to shape himself anew. In his current incarnation as a
male prostitute he was known to too many people in Silbur.

As providence
would have it, at the exact time that Tavalisk was coming to these conclusions,
he met a man who provided him with the perfect solution. He was an aging and
infirm priest called Venesay. This man, besides having conveniently poor
eyesight, was revered as a great scholar, a man of letters, and a renowned
traveler. Tavalisk quickly ingratiated himself with him and soon found that
Venesay was interested in a disciple more than a bedmate. Of course, the fact
that Tavalisk could warm his bony body at night was an added bonus, but really
Venesay yearned for a son.

Always a
chameleon, Tavalisk took on his second persona: surrogate son, pupil, clerical
assistant to Venesay. Together they traveled the Known Lands. Venesay taught
him how to read and write, about philosophy, history, and the Church. It was a
comfortable time for Tavalisk, for Venesay was very rich. Fine dining in fine
cities fattened him, and servants ever-ready with plump cushions and silken
wraps spoiled him. At the same time he developed a taste for luxury, he also
renewed his interest in religion.

Venesay was a
high-ranking priest, well thought of wherever he went. He enjoyed the
veneration of his inferiors and the respect of his peers. Tavalisk began to
crave such adulation for himself.

One day Venesay
announced they were going to travel north, over the ranges and into barbarian
territory. People tried to dissuade him, Tavalisk included, but he refused to
be put off. There was a great scholar who lived there, a mystic, whom he was
anxious to visit.

The journey took
six weeks. The cold was unbearable: it chilled day and night, and the wind was
at their heels all the way. Venesay was now too old to sit a horse and was
carried through the mountains in a covered cart. By the time they arrived in
the northern territories, Tavalisk's nerves were as bruised as Venesay's bones.

The man who
Venesay came to see was part priest, part monk, part sorcerer. Rapascus, as he
was called, was famed throughout the Known Lands for his learning. Once a
priest destined for the episcopate, he had been thrown out of the Church
because of his interest in the occult. Exiled from his former land, he settled
at the foot of the great Northern Ranges. He lived like a hermit, seeing no one
and working himself to death: reading, translating, and reinterpreting holy
texts, writing religious poems and commentaries, experimenting with magic and
the occult. His keen mind never stopped probing, and his fierce desire for
answers allowed him no peace.

Venesay had long
conversations with Rapascus about God. Tavalisk had longer conversations with
him about sorcery. It was a time of great awakening for Tavalisk. He discovered
that there were more layers to the world than could be seen by the eye, and many
more roads to power than achievement alone. When the time came for Venesay to
leave, Tavalisk decided not to accompany him. He wanted to stay and learn.

With the old
priest gone, Rapascus became more specific about magic. Instead of the history
and morals surrounding sorcery, they spoke of its use and purpose. After
Rapascus discovered Tavalisk had a little inborn ability, he taught him a few
simple drawings. Months passed, and Tavalisk craved to know more. Rapascus
shook his head and said that if greatness was what he craved, then he would
have to take another route rather than sorcery's dark pathhe didn't have the
talent for it.

Tavalisk grew
bitter. He knew from reading the great man's correspondence that there was one
to whom he was teaching all his wisdom. One named Baralis. Every week Rapascus
would dispatch notebook upon notebook to the young scholar living in Silbur.
Whenever a party of merchant traders passed Rapascus' house, they would bring
letters bearing Baralis' name. Tavalisk would wait until Rapascus slept, then
he would read them all.

One night he read
that Baralis intended to visit Rapascus in order to complete his training and
learn from the great man firsthand. Tavalisk was instantly jealous: he saw
Baralis as a rival, a threat, and a favorite. Why should this person, this
young upstart whom Rapascus had never even met, be party to all the wiseman's
teachings? Tavalisk scrambled around on the desktop, searching for Rapascus'
reply. He found a letter addressed to Baralis. It was finished, but unsigned.
In it, Rapascus stated that Baralis was welcome to come and see him. He went on
to say that he had many books and gifts he would give him, and that he was
looking forward to the visit. Then, on the final line he wrote, "By the
time you come, I will be alone once more. I have taught my current pupil as
much as he is able to know."

Tavalisk put down
the letter, careful to place it exactly where it had been left. Sitting back in
Rapascus' comfortable chair, he wondered what his next move should be. He
wasn't ready to be ousted just yet. As he thought, Tavalisk absently ran his
fingers over a collection of books that were strewn across the desk. His eyes
were drawn to a slim leather-bound volume. Gold lettering rubbed onto the spine
proclaimed:
Poisons, Their Making and Their Uses.