Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [168]
Cauvin cut him off. “That the last thing you wanted was Lord Naimun’s froggin’ father back in Sanctuary, poking his nose into your accommodations and trailing his full-grown Dragon-son in behind him. Sorting out the palace is your problem, I just want my money—our money—so we can keep warm this winter.”
Another slip of the tongue. He wasn’t a good liar, especially when he was wrestling a guilty conscience.
Mioklas stood tall and silent, his hands folded calmly, intricately beneath his chin while his eyes all but disappeared. “The welfare of Sanctuary is not a shadow play with puppets dancing behind a sheet. Lives and livelihoods are at stake here—your own and your father’s. You’ll do a lot worse than shiver up on Pyrtanis Street if that wound kills Arizak this winter and the wrong son inherits.”
Cauvin considered saying something snide: When there’s no froggin’ wood in winter on Pyrtanis Street it doesn’t matter who’s in sheep-shite palace, or: Froggin’ sure, I’ve already done worse than shiver. Then he considered what the Torch might say, or black-cloaked Soldt. He kept his mouth shut, sensing that silence, along with quickly raised eyebrows, was more powerful than words.
“I’ve known you since your father pulled you out of the palace,” Mioklas informed Cauvin. “You’ve got a strong back, and you’re good with your hands, but you haven’t the least notion what’s good for you or Sanctuary—”
Cauvin pointed at Mioklas’s nose. “I know which one of Arizak’s sons is right for Sanctuary—” He folded his fingers into a brawny fist. “And his name isn’t Naimun per-Arizak.”
“Brevis!”
The bodyguard approached Cauvin’s back. The man could kill him, no questions asked: It was a crime to attack a nobleman, but neither the trial nor the punishment occurred in Hall of Justice at the palace. And if Brevis didn’t kill him, Grabar would likely toss Cauvin out the door when word got back to Pyrtanis Street. Cauvin lowered his arm, yet didn’t unmake his fist. Brevis stopped, waiting for his master’s next words—
“You and every other pigheaded Wrigglie in Sanctuary. The lot of you haven’t got the sense Great Ils gave a single ant. Young Arizak—the Dragon—do you think he’s going to build walls with stone from your precious stoneyard? The Dragon and his sikkintair of a mother won’t—”
“This pigheaded Wrigglie’s tired of listening to some other pigheaded Wrigglie tell me what I’m thinking. I wasn’t thinking about the froggin’ Dragon!” Cauvin wasn’t thinking at all. He’d burnt his bridges with Mioklas, with Grabar, with Sanctuary itself. He was free—and reeling, as though he’d drunk three mugs of beer without pausing to breathe. “There’s a better brother for Sanctuary!”
“Nonsense—”
“Raith,” Cauvin spat back.
“Raith? He’s a boy—” Mioklas paused with his mouth open. When he spoke again, it was with the slow, falsely patient tone strangers used with children or idiots. “Ah, you think the city would thrive best with an unbearded child for its prince? Do you think the city would govern itself? Good idea, Cauvin, but you’re not as clever as you think you are. What Sanctuary needs is a prince who relies on his advisors to govern for him.”
“And you’d be one of the advisors?” It was the obvious question for Cauvin to ask, though a sheep-shite stupid one, with a bodyguard standing behind him.
“Not alone, I assure you. I am neither so ambitious nor so bold as Lord Torchholder was.”
This time Cauvin’s silence wasn’t deliberate.
“Don’t get me wrong—Lord Torchholder was a great man,” Mioklas went on. “Absolutely fearless. Never