Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [78]
“Who said anything about going to the froggin’ palace?”
“You did—you told Grandfather you’d get his papers: the scrolls, the picture of gods—the one used to be painted on the temple walls—”
“He’s not your froggin’ grandfather, Bec, and I’m not risking my neck breaking into the froggin’, sheep-shite palace!”
“But you said—”
“I froggin’ lied, all right? Same as he froggin’ lied when he gave me that froggin’ worthless oath of his. Forget it, Bec. I’m coming out here alone tomorrow and I’m hauling that pud’s froggin’ ass down to the palace—where it belongs—unless I’m froggin’ burying it instead.”
Bec protested until Cauvin knuckled him across the back of his head. Not hard—but hard enough that Bec sidled around the piledup bricks in the cart and stayed out of reach until they got home.
Chapter Eight
Supper at Grabar’s stoneyard was fish soup thickened with all the leftovers on Mina’s sideboard, including last night’s mutton stew, because, as she announced with the ladle in her hand—
“Hearth’s going to be cold tomorrow.”
Arizak was sending his friend Molin Torchholder to his god with full Irrune ceremony: pitch-soaked shroud wrapped around him, wagon beneath him, wood piled high above him, wailing women, pounding drums, and enough animals sacrificed to serve a feast to the whole city. The Irrune didn’t care who came—they didn’t let outsiders worship their god, Irrunega—but the residents of Sanctuary had never been known to pass up a free meal, no matter who was serving it or why.
“There was a cart came down the street this afternoon, collecting wood for his pyre,” Mina explained as she handed Cauvin his bowl. “I gave up the slats from an old wine barrel—that’ll please the gods—for the good he did for all of us. But you, Cauvin, you owe him more. I set that aside—” She pointed at a length of ornately carved wood propped by the door. “’Twas the top of the stairs outside my grandmother’s room. Can’t get wood like that these days. Can’t find a carver, even if you found the wood. Show some respect for your good fortune. Take it down to the palace and put it on the pyre. Shove it in deep, where it’ll burn hot.”
Cauvin agreed without saying a word. He didn’t want a froggin’ fight with Mina, not where it might concern the froggin’ Lord Molin Torchholder and especially not with Bec sitting at the froggin’ table, big sheep-shite grin across his face. He didn’t want to talk about Molin Torchholder at all, but Grabar had already paid a visit to the Lucky Well and gotten a leg up on tomorrow’s holiday.
“Damn shame,” Grabar decided, then repeated his judgment: “Damn shame a man like that couldn’t die in his bed—”
“Mind your language,” Mina hissed.
“Well it is, and damn the man or woman who says otherwise. He was a hard and proper bastard, but he always came in right-side up after a storm. Never raised a finger or did a favor except there was something in it for him. But a fair bastard just the same—”
“Husband!”
Grabar wasn’t listening. “Waste o’ wood,” he continued, “building that pyre. The gods won’t need smoke and flame to find the Torch; he’s drinking with them already, I’ll wager. Better to put men in the streets to find the bastards who murdered him.”
“There’s a reward—ten gold coronations from the reign of Abakithis,” Mina added. There was, after all, no offense in calling a murderer a bastard and money was money.
Bec whistled through his teeth. “Furzy feathers! Ten coronations! Everybody’s going to be looking everywhere for ten coronations. I’m going to look.”
Cauvin caught his brother’s eye and made a dire face. Ten coronations, though, gold coronations from the days when there was froggin’ silver in a soldat—that was enough to set a man up for life if he weren’t too particular about his work. Bec was right: There’d be folks poking into every froggin’ corner of the city and outside it, too. Somebody was sure to march through the old redwall ruins. No one would mistake the wounded old man for a murderer, but it would be one shite-sure mess—
Or, maybe not.