Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [221]
"Well." Lucius smiled. "Some of us spend freely."
"Oh, indeed." Master Piero didn't quite return his smile, but there was a hint of one hovering about his lips. Clearly, I thought with some annoyance, Lucius was his favorite student. "You do your part, Lucius Tadius."
"But…" Brigitta narrowed her blue eyes. "Master, are you saying you favor closing the University?"
"No, child," he said gently. "You have not been listening. I am saying I favor my students looking deeper into the causes that move men's hearts. I am saying that you are children of wealth and influence." He did smile, then. "You may not have it to wield here and now, but for most of you, it is your birthright. When you do, I want you to do so wisely."
With that, he left us for the day.
We argued over his lesson all the way back to the students' quarter; all of us except Eamonn, who pronounced himself too hungry to think. It hadn't sat well with Akil, and Brigitta was perturbed, unable to see past the threat to the University. Vernus said little, while Lucius argued both sides of the matter. He did it well, though betimes I think he merely did it to revel in his own cleverness.
For my part, I felt the burden of an obscure guilt.
Of course, there was little new in that. Whatever else I'd accomplished, I was still deceiving my friends; lying to Master Piero. Evasion was subtle kin to a lie, he'd said, and I was filled with evasion.
To my unexpected delight, when I returned to the insula, I found Canis struggling with his half-staved barrel. I was so relieved to see him, I nearly embraced him. "Canis! You're alive."
"Should I be otherwise?" he asked mildly.
"No, of course not." I helped him pound the broken slats, held in place by rusting strips of metal, into a semblance of their former shape, covertly studying him as I did. He looked marginally clean; cleaner than I'd seen him. There were fading traces of a bruise on his right cheekbone, and the knuckles of his left hand were scabbed. "Were you in a fight?"
"Weren't we all?" Canis smiled broadly at me, revealing a gap where a molar was missing. "You did try to warn me, Imriel. Thank you."
"Where have you been?" I asked.
He pointed in the direction of the Great Forum. "There is a barber who let me sleep in the baths until it was safe. I swept his floor and he pulled my tooth for free, although he made me bathe first." He looked thoughtful. "It hurt quite a bit."
"The tooth or the bath?" I inquired.
"Both," Canis said. "The attendant scubbed very hard."
I laughed. "Canis… you can't go on living in a barrel. Why don't you let me ask about lodgings at the insula? I have coin, I'd be glad to „ pay.
"Oh, no!" His brown eyes widened. "Please, don't."
"Why ever not?" I asked him.
He looked away, his jaw working unconsciously as he probed at his missing tooth with his tongue. "Because it would take away my freedom," he said at length. "And I like it, Imriel. I like it very much. I live upon the kindness of others, and every day I see and learn so much. And yet I am beholden to no one, and no one is beholden to me. My life is my own, and I carry it with me." He looked back at me, guileless as a child. "Haven't you ever wanted to be free? To shed your name, to shed your very self?"
"Oh, once or twice," I said wryly.
Canis beamed at me. "Then you understand!"
"Yes." I sighed. "And no." I clapped a hand on his shoulder. "No mind. I'm glad you're well. I was worried."
"You're very kind," he said obligingly.
I thought my recent expedition into the art of blackmail and extortion. I thought about Claudia and our violent lovemaking; and about the shadows that lay behind it. Valerian House, and Sephira in bonds, jerking as the whip kissed her skin. Saying farewell to Sidonie, and gripping her arms hard enough to bruise. Phèdre; the look in her eyes when we recognized one