Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [187]
“A figure of speech, only. I don’t mean a true curse … no drinking blood or turning into a wyre. Only Lord Torchholder considers it a curse—the curse that keeps him tied to Sanctuary. He speaks of the city as though it were a living creature that can’t be mastered or taught; it requires a keeper—for its secrets, if nothing more. Lord Torchholder would say that Sanctuary chose him, and now that he’s dying, it’s chosen you to replace him.”
“froggin’ sure, the Torch and froggin’ Sanctuary can just forget about me replacing him. Sanctuary can keep its own froggin’ secrets …”
Cauvin’s voice trailed as he recalled the dreams and visions of the last week. Had the Torch gone through similar turmoil? Were they adversaries or kindred victims? Hard to believe—Impossible to believe that anyone or anything—including Sanctuary—could make a victim of the Torch. The old pud was pulling the strings. He had to be.
“I can read,” Cauvin declared.
“The city’s not going to offer you a written—”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Yesterday, when you handed me that map of the bazaar, I could read it. I never learned letters, never needed them. Before I was supposed to meet you, the Torch sent me after that froggin’ blue-leather mask. To get it, I went digging in the Maze—digging in the froggin’ cellar of what used to be the Vulgar Unicorn. I tripped something—”
“Defensive wards—Sanctuary’s a desert where sorcery’s concerned. Takes a lot of pull to set them. Not so in other cities. You’d have them at your stoneyard, in addition to a dog.”
Cauvin disagreed. “Not defensive. The froggin’ Torch wanted me to touch that froggin’ brick before I went into the cellar. It wasn’t enough that I got the froggin’ mask; I froggin’ had to meet the froggin’ black ghost who’d worn it. Then, yesterday, you handed me that map. Soldt—” Cauvin met the assassin’s eyes—“Soldt, I can read a language I can’t froggin’ speak except for cursing.”
He hadn’t considered what reaction he’d get for his confession, but it wasn’t the dead-stop, slack-jawed concern plastered on Soldt’s moonlit face.
“What?” he demanded. “What’s going through your mind, Soldt?”
“Nothing.”
“froggin’ sure that’s not ’nothing’ on your face. Shalpa’s mercy, if you know something, tell me.”
“I said to him once, ‘How do you keep all that treasure safe?’ He said it was in caches throughout the city and warded. The wards were tough enough to turn an unlucky rat into a turnip, subtle enough to pass him through, him—Lord Torchholder—alone.”
“So, if these wards were so tough, how did I get through? It felt like there were froggin’ fireflies inside my skin, but no froggin’ turnips.”
“It recognized you, Cauvin. Lord Torchholder’s warding recognized you, which means in some essential way you and Lord Torchholder are one and the same. I wonder if you can read Caronni or the northern script, Nisi.”
“Froggin’ shite. I’ll kill that old pud. If he’s not dead already, I swear I’m going to froggin tear him limb from bony limb.”
“I couldn’t let you do that, lad.”
They’d come to Sendakis Street, where Tobus the dyer had a redbrick house and wanted another beside it; and where a man headed for the Inn of Six Ravens had to turn south.
“You’d kill me?” Cauvin asked before they separated.
“I’d stop you. While Lord Torchholder lives, I’ll protect him.”
“You weren’t there last week.”
Soldt shrugged. “I didn’t expect to be here now.” He hesitated, choosing his words, or his lies. “My work in Caronne finished sooner than I’d expected, and the winds were highly favorable.”
“Not highly. If the winds had been highly favorable, you’d have taken care of the Hand, or died trying, like any good bodyguard.”
“I’m not Lord Torchholder’s bodyguard. I’m not beholden to him, nor he to me. I’m not Rankan, either. I don’t attend Lord Serripines’ Foundation Day festivities.”
“What are you and he, then?”
“Say we’ve become useful friends.”
Cauvin asked a question with his eyes alone.
“Ten years ago—No, more nearly fifteen. Time flies. I accepted a goodly number of coronations from nameless faces, with the promise of more