It had also become, because of the skill of the Beysib snake-handlers in preparing decoctions of any venom or herbal, the meeting place of all the palace healers. Jihan brewed Niko's vile unguents there and occasionally, when the other residents of the Ilsig Bedchamber objected loudly enough, administered them there as well. Molin knew he had guessed correctly when he saw Beysib snake-handlers milling forlornly in the hypocaust antechamber.
"You took your own time getting down here," Tempus grumbled as the priest entered the room. He might have added more, but he fell silent when Kama eased through the doorway as well.
Molin took advantage of the lull to look around. Crit caught his eye first because he, like Tempus, was staring at Kama as if she'd grown a second head. Jihan was here as well, though her smile was warmer than Torchholder had seen before. She set down a mortar brimming with dark, spiky leaves and embraced Kama as a long-lost friend. Her movement allowed him to see the real reason they were all in the uncomfortably warm room: Nikodemos.
The Stepson lay on his back, trussed like a roasting chicken and, though he seemed to be sleeping quietly enough now, his face was bruised and his hands covered with blood. Molin took a step closer and felt Tempus's hand close around his arm.
"Leave him be," he warned.
"What happened?" Torchholder asked, retreating until Tempus relaxed. "Randal said-"
"You guessed right," Crit interrupted with a bitterness that made the priest's blood run cold. "She made her move through Niko at about the right time."
"It was Haught," Tempus spat out the name. "Niko bolted for the window saying 'Haught'. It was a warning."
Critias ran his hand through dark, thinning hair. "But not for us. Haught was making his own moves and Roxane had to stop him."
"That's what Strat says," Jihan added.
"It doesn't matter whether Strat's right or not." Crit had begun pacing like a caged tiger. "It doesn't matter whether Haught's Ischade's catspaw or Roxane's. It doesn't matter if Jihan-"
"I didn't."
"-Told Niko about the double-shuffle with the globes. All that matters is that the witch-bitch had Niko. Again."
"What happened?" Molin repeated, though by this point he was getting a pretty good idea and was more interested in the shifting alliances of the threesome.
"When Jihan tried to keep him from jumping out the window he went berserk. It took four guards to hold him until she could get something down his gullet to keep him quiet," Critias explained calmly.
Molin moved closer to Niko, this time without Tempus's interference. The young man had taken a beating, but the priest wasn't looking for bruises.
"What about the mongoose, Chiringee?" he asked, examining the bloody tears on Niko's hands and wrists. "Randal said it was attuned to Roxane."
Jinan looked at Tempus, Tempus looked at the wall, and Crit's voice was a monotone: "It attacked him-and he killed it. Ripped it apart and started to eat it-didn't he?"
The Froth Daughter reached back to grasp Tempus by the wrist. "He was berserk," she said softly. "He didn't know what he was doing. It doesn't mean anything." Glittering crystals of ice and water formed in her eyes.
Critias gave them a malignant stare. When he reached the door he gave Kama the same stare, for reasons Molin could not begin to understand, then he shoved her aside. Molin felt the muscles tighten along his sword arm. It would be the height of folly-Kama fought her own battles and Critias was as cold a killer as moved through the shadows-but the Stepson would answer for that gesture.
"Roxane has taken Stealth?" Kama asked the frozen room. None of the rumors circulating in the Maze had presumed so much.
Tempus pulled his arm away from Jihan. "Not yet," he muttered as he followed Crit from the room.
Molin and Kama turned to Jihan who, with a slight nod of her head, confirmed their worst suspicion. Kama sank back against the wall, shaking her head from side to side. The Froth Daughter, for her part, reclaimed her mortar and went to kneel beside the slate-haired Stepson.
"He was drunk," the dark-haired mercenary said to herself. "Too much wine. Too much krrf. Too much everything." She closed her eyes, purging herself of grief and Niko with long, ragged breaths.
"It's not over yet," Molin told her, daring to take her arm and realizing, with some surprise, that he looked straight ahead, not down, into her eyes. "Last night I was with Stormbringer."
Her eyes widened but she didn't resist as he guided her from the hypocaust and past anxious snake-handlers.
"I have to talk to Tempus-convince him to do something he doesn't want to do. But it's far from over, Kama."
She nodded and slipped from his grasp. "I'll want to see you again," she said, holding his hand lightly as she stepped away.
"I have a wife. Sabellia's priestess and a noblewoman in her own right. She's staying out at Land's End with my brother, Lowan Vigeles, and she'll make whatever trouble she can." Molin swallowed hard, knowing that Rosanda had her good qualities as well but that they no longer meant anything to him. "I am the priest of a dead god and the nephew of a dead emperor. I walk a dangerous path in full view of my enemies-and I would not walk any other."
Kama laughed, a sensuous laugh that could get a man in trouble. "If I cannot walk through your doorway wearing gowns and jewels then you'll find me as I am outside your windows or already in your bedchamber." Then, with another laugh, she was gone-heading back to Jihan and Niko.
Molin returned to his quarters, ordering Hoxa to prepare a cauldron of hot water and to find, somewhere, dry robes and boots. The young man procured the bathwater and the boots, but when he came from the wardrobe with a fresh robe he brought an unwelcome surprise as welclass="underline" a scarf of linen the length of a man's outstretched arms and the color of Storm-bringer's horizons.
"Have the day for yourself, Hoxa," Molin had mumbled as he drew the cloth through his fingers. "I need time alone."
He'd taken that time, sitting in a room that had been an arcane attic. Randal's Nisi globe remained not on his worktable; Lalo's triple portrait was not nailed to the wall behind him; Ischade's abandoned raven, in all its ill-tempered glory, was truly flapping from one perch to another, and now Stormbrin-ger's gift for Tempus had made its appearance as well. Unlike the other artifacts, the strip of cloth with its ordinary, girlish embroidery seemed innocent enough-until he considered that the sight of it was supposed to convince Tempus to risk sleep and a visit to the realm of Askelon.
The rain finally stopped. It would be days before the streets dried-if they dried at all before the next storm swept through. Molin tucked the scarf in a pouch and threw a cloak over his shoulder. There wouldn't be a better time to find Tempus. He didn't have to go far, just a sidelong glance out the window. The Riddler, followed closely by an exceptionally grim looking Critias, was coming to pay him a visit.
"That picture," the nearly immortal mercenary snarled, pointing above Molin's head as the heavy wood door slammed against the wall.
Pointedly ignoring the priest, Crit walked around to examine the picture closely. After touching it with his fingers he used his knife to scrape off a bit of the background-and got plaster-shavings for his efforts.