Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [190]
Froggin’ sure, it was clear where Bec had gotten the gift for spinning tales.
“He wasn’t trying to smash stone—”
“Hecath’s hells!” Mina interrupted. “How would you know? You haven’t worked all week. You may have fooled my husband, but you haven’t fooled me. I’ve seen the cart. Empty! You’ve been idling. It’s gotten to be a habit. A bad habit—Sweet Sabellia—look at you! New breeches! And your hair cut like some Red Lantern fancy-boy. Where’d you get the money?” She gasped. “What have you done with my boy?”
Cauvin tried to dodge his foster mother’s lunge for his throat, but she wouldn’t be thrown off. In self-defense, he seized her wrists and shook her hard.
“Frog all, woman! Bec’s not smashing stone or bricks. He’s out at the ruins because the Torch is out there—Imperial Lord Molin Torchholder—and the old pud wouldn’t come inside the city, not even with a gale blown up.”
Mina was too wrought to listen, but Grabar heard and separated his wife and foster son with his hands. “What’s this you say, Cauvin? Don’t tell us lies, son. Bad as it may be, you’ll make it worse with lies. The gods all know Lord Torchholder’s dead. We saw his funeral three days past.”
“The Torch isn’t dead. I don’t know who roasted on the pyre the other day, but it wasn’t him because I found him, still alive, inside the Temple of Ils, on my way to the ruins the morning Batty said the guards found the bodies at the crossing—”
“The Temple of Ils?” Grabar sputtered, “The Torch was an Imperial pr—” He fell silent. “From the beginning, Cauvin—what leaves you thinking that the Torch isn’t dead?”
Mina wasn’t interested. “He lies, husband! Ask him what he’s done with our son! Make him answer!”
“Quiet, wife!”
Grabar rarely shouted. When he did, only a sheep-shite fool would fail to listen. Mina was many things, but not that foolish. She bit her lip white, but said nothing as Cauvin began with the guards at the Pyrtanis Street crossing. It was a long tale, too long and cold for a man and woman in the nightclothes to hear without shivering. Grabar led them all back to the house. Mina reluctantly kindled the hearth.
“Waste of wood,” she muttered. “He’s lying. All he does is lie. He’s killed our boy for money.” But even Mina realized that made no sense—who would pay Cauvin to kill Bec? So Mina found an accusation she, at least, found more believable. “He’s sold our boy … sold him to the brothels on Red Lantern Street.”
Cauvin had to defend himself against that. “Frog all—”
Grabar held up his hand. “That night, after the bodies were found, I went up to the Well. Teera told a tale—how the guard had caught a Hiller lighting out of the Thunderer’s old temple. Said he’d been sleeping off a drunk when he got attacked. The guard wouldn’t have that. They’d marked him for a thief, and soon enough he confessed he’d waylaid an old man but swore up, down, and sideways that it was a trap—the old man’s son showed up out of nowhere and pounded the Hiller, who had the bruises to show he’d lost a fight. The guard wouldn’t have that, either—except they couldn’t find the old man or his son and the Hiller had no swag—”
“Damn all liars,” Mina complained. “Our boy is missing, this one’s telling lies, and now you’re repeating lies about Hillers and ghosts.”
“Because, wife, I’m thinking that Cauvin did walk the Promise that morning, and the Torch, he’s an old man by anyone’s reckoning.”
“Lies. He tells lies!”
“Sometimes,” Grabar agreed, “but mostly he gets into fights.” He shot a sidelong glance Cauvin’s way.
“I marked the man for a Hiller. I’d’ve chased him home, except the Torch was wounded—wounded bad—but not dead. I wanted to take him to the