Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [231]
“That’s enough!” Grandfather declared. “Give me my staff now.” He pulled the blackwood out of Bec’s hands. “You were in no danger of being eaten. That man you met in the tunnels—and he is a man, no monster. That man is the greatest mage in Sanctuary and, perhaps, the entire world. His name is Enas Yorl and, as Vashanka will be my judge, I thought he’d escaped this city years ago. But my loss—his loss—is Sanctuary’s gain. Do you know the empty corner between here and the Crossing?”
“Batty Dol says it’s haunted. Momma says it’s not, but she won’t let me play there.”
“I think both are right. That’s the corner where Enas Yorl’s house stood, and if he’s still in Sanctuary, then his house is, too—sometimes. And it would seem, as well, that he still pays heed to what happens to his neighbors—”
Bec saw hope. “Does that mean he’s killed Strangle and Leorin, crushed the Hand, and gotten Cauvin safe away?”
Grandfather took Bec’s hand in his own. Being touched by him was as bad as being touched by that monster-magician, but Bec held his breath and didn’t have to run away.
“I don’t know, Bec, but if I believe you—and I know I can—then Soldt and Enas Yorl were both watching out for you and Cauvin. They saved you, with Cauvin’s help—”
Bec pulled his hand away. “That’s not good enough, Grandfather. Can’t we do something?”
“A dying old man and a boy short of his full growth? No, Bec, there’s nothing we can do except wait … and pray. Have you prayed?”
“I prayed to Shipri on the way home.” Bec lowered his eyes, ashamed to be his mother’s son and admit that he prayed to a Wrigglie goddess.
“Then pray to Shipri again. Pray to them all. I prayed to my god when I knew I was dying. He sent me Cauvin. If he ever decides to claim it, your brother has everything that’s mine to give, including my luck. And except for leaving Sanctuary, I’ve been a very lucky man—though I was an old and dying man before I understood—”
“Bec!” The voice was Momma’s, and she was below the loft. “Becvar! I’m making breakfast. Fresh eggs and all the rashers of bacon you can eat!”
Bec’s mouth watered. He glanced longingly at the hole in the floor. The ladder creaked—
“Furzy feathers! Momma! Don’t!”
Momma didn’t like spiders. If she got caught by the webs Bec had battled, she’d fall for sure. But her head and shoulders grew through the hole, no trouble at all.
“Come down from here. It’s all—” Momma said, then she noticed Grandfather sitting up with his staff raised beside him. In her best Imperial, she said, “Lord Torchholder. You’re—You’re—What can I do for you, Lord Torchholder?”
“You can bring your son’s breakfast to him when it’s ready. He will be eating it here with me.”
“Yes, my lord. The eggs are fresh, my lord, and the bacon’s the best we can afford, but our bread’s gone stale, and we have no wine that’s worthy of a lord.”
“Don’t worry yourself, mistress; I shall not be eating. I’ve eaten enough for one lifetime. Now, hurry, mistress, he’s a boy, and he’s hungry!”
Bec had never seen his mother overwhelmed before. She begged Grandfather to taste her eggs and bacon, or maybe her porridge. It was Momma’s life wish, she said—her late father’s life wish—to serve a great lord a meal from her table. Grandfather relented and asked for a single egg, boiled in water.
“An honor, my lord. The honor of my life,” Momma said on her way down the ladder. “I shall be forever grateful.”
Once she was gone, Bec scampered over to the hole, looking for spiderwebs.
“What are you doing?” Grandfather asked.
“There were spiderwebs when I came up the ladder.” He stirred his arm in the empty gap. “Sticky, stinging spiderwebs. Momma hates spiders. She’s afraid of them. Where’d they go?”
“Your Momma hadn’t been consorting with the Bloody Hand of Dyareela.”
Bec stiffened. “I did not. I’m not old enough to consort!”
“But you had been within their sphere, and they had both tried and tempted you. The warding detected that.”
“Warding?” Bec folded his arm close against his belly. Bilibot told