Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [182]
“The Irrune,” Cauvin continued, “who knows who they burnt on that pyre. But the Torch won’t go back to the palace. He is dying; he’s just taking his own froggin’ sweet time about it.”
“Where were you going? You weren’t working on Mioklas’s perfume garden—”
“No—Grabar heard that a dyer over on Sendakis Way was going to be marrying off his son. We put new bricks on the front of the dyer’s house, so Grabar figured that when he set his son up, he’d want the fronts—”
“Where, Cauvin? I don’t care about bricks or dyers. Where did you take the froggin’ Torch?”
“Outside the walls, up into the hills, to the old estate where we got the bricks to do the first front.”
“Sweet Mother, there must be twenty old estates in the hills out there. Which one? What’s its name?”
“How should I know? Nobody lives there. Nobody’s lived there since before Grabar and Mina were born—that’s what she says. She recognized the place from our description, but she didn’t know the name—never had, I guess.”
“To the east? The west? Near the Red Foal? The White?”
“What’s the difference? Pretty much in the middle, then. It’s brick-built but the bricks were imported. You can’t make red bricks with Sanctuary sand, Sanctuary clay. I tell Grabar I’m going out to the red-walled ruins, and he thinks I’m out there smashing bricks out of the walls, not waiting on a man too stubborn to die.”
“The Torch is still alive? Still alive in an abandoned estate built from red bricks?”
“Well—” Cauvin thought about the storm. It had packed a punch, but the winds had pretty much died down. Sanctuary got worse from afternoon squalls in summer. A few roof tiles might have blown loose, a few shutters unhinged themselves, nothing more. He’d have no trouble getting back to Pyrtanis Street, but outside the walls, in a crumbling ruin of red bricks? “He was alive when I left yesterday. Today’s the first day I didn’t go outside the walls. He’s had me running errands. That first night … it was the Torch who sent me to the Broken Mast after that box.”
“You were fetching for Lord froggin’ High-and-Mighty Torchholder and you didn’t tell me? Just some old pud! All Sanctuary’s buzzing about who killed the froggin’ Torch, who killed the sparker from Land’s End, and you sit right here on my bed keeping secrets?”
Cauvin couldn’t hold Leorin’s glower. He looked at his naked feet. “I didn’t tell anyone. I wanted to. I wanted to go to the palace and get the old pud out of my life, but that’s not what he wanted—and I’m here to tell you, that withered old pud that he is, there’s no winning an argument with Molin Torchholder. He says that his enemies think they killed him there at the end of Pyrtanis Street and that there’s no froggin’ point to letting enemies know when they’re wrong. I didn’t even tell Grabar. He sends me out every morning with the mule, thinking I’m breaking my back smashing bricks and I’m running ragged for Lord Molin Torchholder! You know how Mina would be if she thought she could get her hands on an Imperial lord.” He almost mentioned how Bec had gotten the secret out of him and was calling the Torch “Grandfather” as he wrote down the old pud’s memorial—but he already felt sheep-shite foolish enough.
“So, who does the froggin’ Torch think murdered him?”
Cauvin continued to stare at his toes. “That’s one of the reasons I didn’t tell you—I didn’t want to get you frightened, but—according to him—it was the Hand, a red-handed Servant of the Bloody Mother. If he’s right, they’re back in Sanctuary … and all the more reason for us to get out, Leorin. We got out alive; there’s no way we could be lucky a second time.”
He reached out to take Leorin in his arms, but she eluded him. She threw off the blanket, stood up, and said, “Please, Cauvin, have mercy.” Her tone was anything but merciful. “The Hand returned to Sanctuary? Do you think they’re sheep-shite fools? Molin Torchholder broke the Hand into a thousand pieces, then burnt the pieces,