Only one or two of the other players came close to his size, and one of them looked more like an ogre than a man. The other was the notorious head of the troupe, the playwright and chief owner of the playhouse. She was a vulgar, pipe-smoking woman whose name, Quickly, was the punch line for half the jokes among the working class. Darrow was not surprised to hear in his eavesdropping that Tal-bot's parents did not approve of his involvement with the players.
Most surprising, Darrow discovered that Talbot Uskevren was an appealing fellow, at least on stage. Even when he played the unscrupulous moneylender in Favors and Fivestars, he pleased the audience with his character's unintentional mockery of his own profession.
Darrow lingered after each performance, watching the players mingle with the audience. Talbot seemed popular among the groundlings, though Darrow noticed that he artfully avoided the overtures of his fellow nobles when they inquired about the health of his family or invited him to meet their eligible daughters. It wasn't hard for Talbot to escape, for very few nobles attended the plays, and those who did paid extra to sit in the gentleman's gallery, delaying them long enough for Talbot to see them coming. In any event, the young man seemed far more comfortable with the common folk, much more than could be affected by a noble who practiced slumming as a mildly dangerous diversion.
Sometimes Darrow followed Uskevren and his friends after they left the playhouse. Invariably they arrived not at some exclusive salon or festhall but the public alehouses.
Darrow remembered the names and faces of Talbot's most frequent companions, notably Chaney Foxmantle.
Stannis asked about all the gossip Darrow had overheard each night, even that which had nothing to do with Talbot Uskevren. Darrow tried to remember everything said near him in the playhouse itself and in the taverns afterward. He knew his master was much less interested in common clack than he was in any hint of scandal among the Old Chauncel. Unfortunately, relatively few of the upper class would stoop to being seen at the playhouse. Fortunately, most of their servants were frequent visitors.
The vampire had been absent from Selgauntan society for two decades, but he had an uncanny knack for identifying the children of his contemporaries by Darrow's reports of the servant's descriptions. Their scandals delighted Stannis to no end.
"Rilsa Soargyl," he chortled, enjoying the sound of her voice on his tongue-or whatever it was he had beneath that golden veil. "Every bit the slut her mother was. What else did you hear?"
Darrow relayed the gossip as many times as Stannis commanded, pouring him goblet after goblet of deep red wine. When he was especially pleased with Darrow's report, Stannis insisted his servant enjoy a drink for himself. The wine was old, dry, and sour, and Darrow did not much like it. He thought at first he lacked the refined tastes of a noble, but later he decided the Malveen cellars were simply long past their prime. Whatever dire magic had transformed Stannis's dying body had, perhaps, altered or even dulled his once refined palate.
One night Darrow noted that the wire rack that held the bottles was nearly empty. When he informed Lord Malveen, Stannis said, "Fetch us some more from the cellar, beneath the pantry. You will need this." He removed a tarnished key from his golden veil and laid it on the table. "But first tell me again what you heard about Tamlin Uskevren today. Did you say the girl was pregnant or indignant? I was laughing too hard to hear, I'm afraid."
As Darrow finished repeating the most recent rumor about Talbot's older brother, Stannis waved at his veil as his head tipped back in a yawn.
"It is nearly morning, my pet. Let us resume tomorrow."
Darrow stood and bowed. He had been practicing the bow after observing gentlemen meeting on the street. The gesture still felt clumsy, but it seemed to please his master.
Stannis rose gracefully from the broad couch to glide over and into the grand pool. Once submerged, his dark body broke into a black cloud and sank down to the bottom of the pool. There it gradually faded, oozing through unseen vents and passages to the vampire's hidden lair.
Darrow assumed that his master slept in the murky depths of Selgaunt Bay during the daylight, rising to feed off the boaters who lashed their vessels together and huddled against the darkness. He also assumed that the master's spawn were taken from the same source. Should he displease Stannis, Darrow feared, his fate would be the same as the boaters. As he left the River Hall, Darrow touched the coin of Tymora where it lay beneath his livery and whispered a prayer for the goddess to spare him such a fate.
He briefly considered putting off the trip to the wine cellar, for he loathed the thought of entering the pantry. While he had restored the kitchen more or less to working condition soon after his arrival, he had taken one look inside the pantry and shut the door again.
Darrow lit a lamp and approached the door. Rats had gnawed ragged passages at the bottom, letting a faint and earthy stench of decay waft out. Darrow braced himself and opened the door.
He looked in, holding the lamp high. Twenty years ago, no one had taken the trouble to clear out the stores once House Malveen was abandoned. Rats scurried from the light to crouch in the black shadows. From the surrounding shelves, moldering lumps spilled over onto the floor, where rilled fungus grew on twisted furrows of accumulated dirt and gods only knew what else.
Wincing at the sight, Darrow moved the lantern this way and that, daring not step into the room until he had found his destination. The cellar door was all the way in the back. Darrow approached timidly, grimacing at the thought of stepping on a rat or something worse. He fumbled briefly with the lock, then pulled at the door. It moved grudgingly, opening only a foot or so before the scraped filth held it firm. Darrow tried to kick away the blockage, but his nerve broke as the rats scurried over to investigate the new avenue. Darrow retreated before them, pushing through the narrow opening.
His first step slipped away, and Darrow grabbed the door handle to keep from tumbling down the stone stairs. Dark slime had formed on the steps, and there was no railing to hold. For an instant Darrow considered fleeing, but one thought of his master's burning eyes made him press on. He descended with painful caution, half-crouching over the precious light.
The sound of dripping water greeted him at the bottom, where the stairs ended in a long cellar. Beads of moisture crawled slowly down the walls. Those that did not vanish into the thousand ragged cracks in the stone pooled in the corners or in a great sagging depression near the middle of the room.
All along the left wall stood rusted iron racks. Those nearest the stairs were barren. Darrow raised the lamp to see beyond, but all he could see was the shifting shadows of a thousand empty sockets. He walked farther into the cellar, avoiding the pooling water where he could. Beyond the center racks, he glimpsed the shattered remains of wooden crates. He moved closer to examine them.
Something hissed above him. Darrow spun around, holding the lamp up like a warding talisman. An oily black shape oozed across the ceiling to merge once more with the shadows. Before his eyes could follow it, something else rushed across the floor toward him. It was far bigger than a rat.
Frantically, Darrow raised the lamp, but a heavy blow struck it from his hands. It crashed against the floor, oil spreading in a dark crescent beneath the broken glass as the fire fluttered on the wick. In the dying light, Darrow was nearly blind. Clammy hands clutched his arms and a cold tongue pressed against his cheek, searching. The smell of dead fish and seawater-