Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [21]
Grabar got the last words, but they were lost in the scraping of wood against dirt as the gate closed. Alone on Pyrtanis Street, Cauvin endured pangs of regret and echoes of the things he could have said to calm his foster parents. They were both good people—better than a sheep-shite like him deserved, better than he’d have had if his blood-kin had shown up at the palace to claim him ten years before.
Lost in mulling thoughts as he walked, Cauvin was blind to the street around him. He didn’t notice the city guards until he was between the pair of them in the crossing where the bodies had been found.
“Hey, Cauvin! Where you headed?”
The men of both the guard and the watch knew Cauvin by name, and he knew them by type. No matter who sat in the palace, order got maintained by city-bred bruisers—big men, mostly, tough, and just enough older than Cauvin that they’d stayed clear of the pits even if they hadn’t always stayed clear of the Hand.
“Takin’ the mule for a walk,” Cauvin replied as the more grizzled of the pair reached into the cart to peel the canvas back from his smashing tools. “It’s too nice to keep her in the yard all day.”
Steel gray clouds were scudding in off the ocean, driven by a raw, southwesterly wind. It didn’t take froggin’ sorcery to know that the warm days of autumn were giving way to the storms of winter. Like as not Cauvin would be warming his blankets tonight with coals cadged from Mina’s hearth.
“Mind your own business, pud.”
“Always do, same as you. So, who got killed here last night? Mina says you sheep-shites hauled off two bodies.”
“Not us,” the second guard grumbled. “We’re lookin’ for the bits that might’ve got left behind.”
“Find any?”
“Not yet,” the grizzled guard said. “Pork all. We’ll be here the whole porkin’ day.”
Cauvin thought he looked familiar; if he was, then his name was Gorge and he was honest, for the guard. He didn’t know the second man from a shadow.
“Somebody important, then?”
“Atredan Larris Serripines,” not-Gorge spat, as if the name said everything that needed saying.
And, in a way, it did. Mina was right—a Land’s End sparker had come to his final grief a few hundred paces from Grabar’s stoneyard. The Enders were squirrelly. Most of them never set foot in Sanctuary. They let their gold speak for them, their gold and the Irrune.
“Good cess to you, then,” Cauvin gibed. “You’re froggin’ sure going to need it. City’s got to suffer if the Enders do. What about the other corpse? Don’t suppose the sparker slew the pud who slew him?”
“Not a porkin’ chance. The other body was one of ours,” Gorge said, throwing the canvas back over Cauvin’s tools. “Believe it or not, someone finally killed the froggin’ Torch.”
“Froggin’ shite!” Cauvin exclaimed with genuine surprise. “I figured him for dead years ago.”
Gorge shook his head. “Don’t get out much, do you pud? He was stuck to Nadalya like her porkin’ shadow an’ he stuck to Arizak the same way once he came back to Sanctuary. Can’t figure what him and a shite-face sparker were doing in this porkin’ quarter middle of last night.”
“Going to the palace,” Cauvin replied and wished he hadn’t, by the way both guards stopped cold to stare at him. “Any dog knows the fastest way from the East Gate to the palace is up the Stairs and across the Promise to the Gods’ Gate. How much do you get out?”
Gorge and not-Gorge exchanged heavy glances.
“I was sleeping alone in my froggin’ little bed last night,” Cauvin insisted honestly. “Talk to Grabar. Shalpa’s eyes—I’ve got no cause against the Torch.”
“You said you thought he was dead,” not-Gorge reminded Cauvin.
“Lay off him, Ustic,” Gorge commanded, then speared Cauvin with a stare. “Killer wasn’t you, not unless you’ve taken to throwing Imperial steel.”
“Shite, no!” He carried a knife—just about everyone did—but it wasn’t his weapon of choice. When Cauvin got into a right—which was more often than either he or Grabar would have preferred—he relied on his fists. “Imperial steel—that’s too