The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (903 page)

‘You can't be serious.'

‘Why not? That's his name.'

‘The castellan is bundled like a corpse and you don't find that somewhat unusual?'

‘Could be afraid of the sun or something. No reason to be suspicious. You never met any strange people in your day, Tor?'

And Torvald Nom glanced across at Scorch, and found he had no reply to that at all.

 

‘I see you have found another candidate,' Studlock said. ‘Excellent. And yes, he will do nicely. Perhaps as the Captain of the House Guard?'

Torvald started. ‘I haven't said a word yet and already I'm promoted?'

‘Comparative exercise yields confidence in this assessment. Your name is?'

‘Torvald Nom.'

‘Of House Nom. Might this not prove a conflict of interest?'

‘Might it? Why?'

‘The Mistress is about to assume the vacant seat on the Council.'

‘Oh. Well, I have virtually no standing in the affairs of House Nom. There are scores of us in the city, of course, with ties stretching everywhere, including off-continent. I, however, am not involved in any of that.'

‘Were you cast out?'

‘No, nothing so, er, extreme. It was more a question of…interests.'

‘You lack ambition.'

‘Precisely.'

‘That is a fine manicure, Torvald Nom.'

‘Er, thank you. I could recommend…' but that notion dwindled into a painful silence and Torvald tried hard not to glance down at the castellan's bandaged fingers.

At this moment Leff appeared from round the other side of the main house. His lips and his eyes were bright orange.

Scorch grunted. ‘Hey, Leff. Remember that cat you sat on in that bar once?'

‘What of it?'

‘Nothing. Was just reminded, the way its eyes went all bulgy and crazed.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Nothing. Was just reminded, is all. Look, I brought Tor.'

‘I see that,' snarled Leff. ‘I can see just fine, thank you.'

‘What's wrong with your eyes?' Torvald Nom asked.

‘Tincture,' said Leff. ‘I got me a case of Greva worms.'

Torvald Nom frowned. ‘Humans can't get Greva worms. Fish get Greva worms, from eating infected conch.'

Leff's bulging orange eyes bulged even more. Then he spun to face the castellan.

Who shrugged and said, ‘Jurben worms?'

Torvald Nom snorted. ‘The ones that live in the caverns below? In pockets of green gas? They're as long as a man's leg and nearly as thick.'

The castellan sighed. ‘The spectre of misdiagnosis haunts us all. I do apologize, Leff. Perhaps your ailments are due to some other malady. No matter, the drops will wash out in a month or two.'

‘I'm gonna have squished cat eyes for another month?'

‘Preferable to Greva worms, I should think. Now, gentlemen, let us find the house clothier. Something black and brocaded in gold thread, I should imagine. House colours and all that. And then, a brief summary of your duties, shifts, days off and the like.'

‘Would that summary include wages?' Torvald Nom asked.

‘Naturally. As captain you will be paid twenty silver councils per week, Torvald Nom. Scorch and Leff, as guards, at fifteen. Acceptable?'

All three quickly nodded.

 

He felt slightly shaky on his feet, but Murillio knew that had nothing to do with any residue of weakness left by his wound. This weakness belonged to his spirit. As if age had sprung on to his back with claws digging into every joint and now hung there, growing heavier by the moment. He walked hunched at the shoulders and this seemed to have arrived like a new habit, or perhaps it was always there and only now, in his extremity, had he become aware of it.

That drunken pup's sword thrust had pierced something vital indeed, and no Malazan healer or any other kind of healer could mend it.

He tried forcing confidence into his stride as he made his way down the crowded street, but it was not an easy task.
Half drunk. Breeches at my ankles. Worthwhile excuses for what happened that night. The widow Sepharla spitting venom once she sobered up enough to realize what had happened, and spitting it still, it seems. What had happened, yes. With her daughter. Oh, not rape – too much triumph in the girl's eyes for that, though her face glowed with delight at her escort's charge to defend her honour. Once the shock wore off. I should never have gone back to explain—

But that was yesterday's nightmare, all those sparks raining down on the domestic scene with its airs of concern, every cagey word painting over the cracks in savage, short jabs of the brush. What had he expected? What had he gone there to find? Reassurance?

Maybe. I guess I arrived with my own brush.

Years ago, he would have smoothed everything over, almost effortlessly. A murmur here, a meeting of gazes there. Soft touch with one hand, the barest hint of pressure. Then again, years ago,
it would never have happened in the first place. That drunken fool!

Oh, he'd growled those three words often in his head. But did they refer to the young man with the sword, or to himself?

Arriving at the large duelling school, he made his way through the open gate and emerged into the bright sunlight of the training ground. A score of young, sweating, overweight students scraped about in the dust, wooden weapons clattering. Most, he saw at once, lacked the necessary aggression, the killer's instinct. They danced to avoid, prodding the stick points forward with lack of any commitment. Their footwork, he saw, was abysmal.

The class instructor was standing in the shade of a column in the colonnaded corridor just beyond. She was not even observing the mayhem in the compound, intent, it seemed, on some loose stitching or tear in one of her leather gauntlets.

Making his way along one side of the mob getting lost in clouds of white dust, Murillio approached the instructor. She noted him briefly then returned her attention to the gauntlet.

‘Excuse me,' Murillio said as he arrived. ‘Are you the duelling mistress?'

‘I am.' She nodded without looking at the students, where a couple of fights had started for real. ‘How am I doing so far?'

Murillio glanced over and studied the fracas for a moment. ‘That depends,' he said.

She grunted. ‘Good answer. What can I do for you? Do you have some grandson or daughter you want thrown in there? Your clothes were expensive…once. As it looks, I doubt you can afford this school, unless of course you're one of those stinking rich who make a point of dressing all threadbare. Old money and all that.'

‘Quite a sales pitch,' Murillio observed. ‘Does it actually work?'

‘Classes are full. There's a waiting list.'

‘I was wondering if you need help. With basic instruction.'

‘What school trained you then?'

‘Carpala.'

She snorted. ‘He took one student every three years.'

‘Yes.'

And now she looked at him with an intensity he'd not seen before. ‘Last I heard, there were seven students of his left in the city.'

‘Five, actually. Fedel tumbled down a flight of stairs and broke his neck. He was drunk. Santbala—'

‘Was stabbed through the heart by Gorlas Vidikas – the brat's first serious victory.'

Murillio grimaced. ‘Not much of a duel. Santbala had gone mostly blind but was too proud to admit it. A cut on the wrist would have given Gorlas his triumph.'

‘The young ones prefer killing to wounding.'

‘It's what duelling has come to, yes. Fortunately, most of your students here are more likely to stab themselves than any opponent they might one day face, and such wounds are rarely fatal.'

‘Your name?'

‘Murillio.'

She nodded as if she'd already guessed. ‘And you're here because you want to teach. If you'd taken up teaching when Carpala was still alive—'

‘He would have hunted me down and killed me, yes. He despised schools. In fact, he despised duelling. He once said teaching the rapier was like putting a poisonous snake into a child's hand. He drew no pleasure from instruction and was not at all surprised when very nearly every one of his prize students either got themselves killed or wasted away as drunkards or worse.'

‘You did neither.'

‘No, that's true. I chased women.'

‘Only now they're too fast for you?'

‘Something like that.'

‘I am Stonny Menackis. This school exists to make me rich, and yes, it's working. Tell me, will you be sharing your old master's hatred of teaching?'

‘Not as vehemently, I imagine. I don't expect to take any pleasure in it, but I will do what's needed.'

‘Footwork.'

He nodded. ‘Footwork. The art of running away. And forms, the defensive cage, since that will keep them alive. Stop-hits to the wrist, knee, foot.'

‘Non-lethal.'

‘Yes.'

She sighed and straightened. ‘All right. Assuming I can afford you.'

‘I'm sure you can.'

She shot him a quizzical glance, and then added, ‘Don't think about chasing me, by the way.'

‘I am finished with all that, or, rather, it's finished with me.'

‘Good—'

At this moment they both noticed that a woman had come up to them.

Stonny's voice was suddenly…different, as she said, ‘Myrla. What are you doing here?'

‘I've been looking for Gruntle—'

‘That fool went off with the Trygalle – I warned him and now he's going to get himself killed for no good reason!'

‘Oh. It's Harllo, you see…'

‘What about him?'

The woman was flinching at everything Stonny said and Murillio suspected he would have done the same in the face of such a tone. ‘He's gone missing.'

‘What? For how long?'

‘Snell said he saw him, two days back. Down at the docks. He's never not come home at day's end – he's only five—'

‘Two days!'

Murillio saw that Stonny's face had gone white as death and a sudden terror was growing in her eyes. ‘
Two days!
'

‘Snell says—'

‘You stupid woman – Snell is a liar! A damned thief!'

Myrla stepped back under the onslaught. ‘He gave us the coin you brought—'

‘After I nearly had to strangle him, yes! What's Snell done to Harllo?
What's he done?
'

Myrla was weeping now, wringing her chapped hands. ‘Said he done nothing, Stonny—'

‘A moment,' cut in Murillio, physically stepping between the two women as he saw Stonny about to move forward, gloved hand lifting. ‘A child's gone missing? I can put out the word – I know all sorts of people. Please, we can do this logically – down at the docks, you said? We'll need to find out which ships left harbour in the last two days – the trading season's only just starting, so there shouldn't be many. His name is Harllo, and he's five years old—'
Gods below, you send him out into the streets and he's only five?
‘Can you give me a description? Hair, eyes, the like.'

Myrla was nodding, even as tears streamed down her lined cheeks and her entire body trembled. She nodded and kept on nodding.

Stonny spun round and rushed away, boots echoing harshly down the corridor.

Murillio stared after her in astonishment. ‘Where – what?'

‘It's her son, you see,' said Myrla between sobs. ‘Her only son, only she don't want him and so he's with us but Snell, he has bad thoughts and does bad things sometimes only not this, never this bad, he wouldn't do anything this bad to Harllo, he wouldn't!'

‘We'll find him,' said Murillio.
One way or the other, Lady's pull bless us, and bless the lad.
‘Now, please, describe him and describe him well – what he normally does each day – I need to know that, too. Everything you can tell me, Myrla. Everything.'

 

Snell understood, in a dim but accurate way, how others, wishing only the best in him, could have their faith abused at will, and even should some truth be dragged into the light, well, it was then a matter of displaying crushed self-pity, and the great defender would take him into her arms – as mothers do.

Can we hope that on rare occasions, perhaps late at night when the terrors crept close, he would think about how things he'd done could damage his mother's faith, and not just in him, but in herself as well? The son, after all, is but an extension of the mother – at least so the mother believed, there in some inarticulate part of her soul, unseen yet solid as an iron chain. Assail the child and so too the mother is assailed, for what is challenged is her life as a mother, the lessons she taught or didn't teach, the things she chose not to see, to explain away, to pretend were otherwise than what they were.

Weep for the mother. Snell won't and he never would, saving all his future to weep exclusively for himself. The creeping terrors awakened startling glimmers of thought, of near-empathy, but they never went so far as to lead to any self-recognition, or compassion for the mother who loved him unconditionally. His nature was the kind that took whatever was given to him as if it was a birthright, all of it, for ever and ever more.

Rage at injustice came when something – anything – was withheld. Things he righteously deserved, and of course he deserved everything he wanted. All that he wanted he reached for, and oh such fury if those things eluded his grasp or were then taken away!

In the absence of what might be imposed, a child will fashion the structure of the world to suit itself. Created from a mind barely awake – and clearly not even that when it came to introspection – that world becomes a strange place indeed. But let us not rail at the failings of nearby adults tied by blood or whatever. Some children are born in a cage – it's already there, in their skulls – and it's a dark cage.