“There will be an investigation,” the professor said. “The headmaster will demand it.”
“Not a problem as long as he doesn’t bother me,” Royce said.
“I’m afraid he just may insist on arresting you.”
“Bad luck for him.”
“I won’t have you turning this university into another Colnora.”
“Shouldn’t have brought me here, then.”
Arcadius slumped in frustration. He walked around his desk and sat down looking weary. The professor was easily the oldest person Hadrian had ever known, and at that moment he looked as if he had gained a decade.
“Why did you do it?” Arcadius asked.
“He was trying to help me,” Hadrian said.
Royce looked up from his crafting to smile at Arcadius. “He flatters himself. The little brats were planning to pound him with axe handles. Knowing how fragile he is, and how you’d make me wait until he recovered, and because winter is coming, I stepped in.”
“I didn’t need your help,” Hadrian said.
Royce smirked. “Of course you didn’t. You were on top of things as always. That’s why you made five enemies in four days. Why you were suckered in by such an obvious ploy. Why you let them follow you in and block your exit, and why you failed to carry any weapon at all. But no, you didn’t need my help, just like you didn’t on the boat. You’re a crafty one you are, lulling us all into a false sense of superiority by acting the perfect fool.”
“I figured it out by the way.” Royce turned to Arcadius. “Why you want me to take him. Why you insist I get him to the top. You’ve made a bet. You’ve wagered against me I suspect. You got me out of Manzant to have a grand contest, a game for the pleasure of … whom? That’s the part I can’t figure out. Some other instructor? Some wealthy duke perhaps? Or someone I know personally?” Royce spoke this last bit with a clear tone of threat and glared at the professor with a look that caused Arcadius to take a step back. “I warn you, I’ve been challenged before. That’s how it all started, you know? Hoyte tried to kill me the same way. In case you haven’t heard, Hoyte is dead. I did him slow and left him displayed. So if you’re looking for entertainment, I can guarantee you’ll get it.”
“This isn’t a game,” Arcadius assured him. “And none of this matters anymore. Angdon has been stabbed. Restitution will be sought, which means you two must leave.”
Royce turned to Hadrian. “Get your things and saddle that horse. I’ll meet you in the stable.”
“I don’t agree with what you did,” Hadrian told him. “But thanks just the same.”
Royce shook his head. “You realize I’m just taking you to die.”
“I hope to disappoint you.”
“You won’t.”
CHAPTER 12
Grue sat at the rickety table near the only window in The Hideous Head clear enough to see out of. Someone had splashed a drink and wiped the glass, taking a circle of grit with it. Maybe they licked it off-he wouldn’t put it past some of the drunks who filled the Head each night. They wouldn’t be spending their evenings at that end of town if they had the sense Muriel gave a dog. Through the hand-sized circle of near-clarity, Grue stared across the street.
Once upon a time, the place had been known as The Wayward Traveler, a handsome establishment he had been told. The road was named after it, and the joint did a fine business for years, passing between various owners before failing. Some said it had been a gruesome murder that kept business away. Others claimed that the wife of the proprietor had run off with another man, leaving the owner too devastated to carry on. All Grue knew for certain was that the Wayward’s roof had collapsed during the winter he turned twelve. No one had touched it since then, except to steal clapboards for their hearth fires. Over the years, the Wayward had developed the perfect shade of despair gray, which, along with the other shops and homes, gave the Lower Quarter its atmosphere. Yet in no time at all the whores had made a bright eyesore of it.
The hammering had started a week ago. Intermittent drumming that came and went. A wall had gone up and then another. They had a bed in there too. He had seen the mattress carried in, just one as far as he knew. Occasionally someone walked by with a stack of planks and a satchel. Always faces Grue didn’t recognize, woodies from Artisan Row. Had to be. No one in the Lower Quarter would help them, not without his say-so.
After the rain, Grue had heard the hammering every day and didn’t like it. All that noise across the street and all that silence where he sat irritated him. He had never realized before, but he’d grown used to the pitter-patter of little bare feet and the musical rhythms of bed frames. Grue never cared for the quiet-never trusted it. Silence was the result of someone getting strangled.
The fresh-cut wood being nailed up, lacking the gray patina of time, looked naked-a pale ass grinning across the road at him. The woodies had started on the second floor that morning, and Grue had stabbed his eggs as they hoisted the lumber. He wasn’t the only one. Groups of fools had gathered to watch. Four over at the livery, two who stood in the muck of the street, and three on his own porch, as if it were a tournament viewing stand instead of the entrance to an alehouse. He had cut them some slack since it had been in the morning. Being a business owner, he never wanted to be accused of contributing to the delinquency of the Quarter. Grue himself never drank before the mist was off the fields. He was certain a priest of Novron had once told him doing otherwise was an affront to the gods, although it might just as easily have been the lyric to a song only partially remembered. Whatever the source, Grue took it to heart and refused to trust men who didn’t do likewise. Not that he would refuse to sell drinks to anyone. As Grue saw it, if Maribor didn’t prevent the sun from shining on the shoulders of the daft and the dubious, then who was he to deny them spirits? But he could never trust such vile sorts, and he respected the moral fortitude of those who lingered on his doorstep, but come midday they had better buy drinks or they could stand in the mud with the rest of the laggards.
“Putting glass in the windows.” The sound of Willard’s voice was like rocks rubbing together. It wasn’t so much Willard’s fault; he was born with gravel in his throat. The real problem was with Grue, who had drunk too much the night before. Third night in a row he had fallen asleep at that table. He glanced at the pane with the clean hole. Maybe he had been the one who splashed the drink on the glass. He seemed to recall an argument he’d had with the window the night before. Something about it being dirty.
He had expected the whores to be back by then.
He figured they’d wander around for a day or two, getting footsore and hungry. Then, as the sun set and the winds blew cold, the lot of them would knock on his door with bowed heads, sullen faces, and every one of them shivering on his porch. He had planned to make them spend a cold night on the stoop. Lessons had to be learned. A horse you broke once, and as long as you rode it regular, the training stuck, but harlots needed constant education. He especially wanted to break them of their habit of following her.
He watched Gwen from his filthy window. She was out on that broken cart pointing and shouting like some sea captain. He didn’t like it. With all this freedom, Gwen’s head was going to swell too big to fit through his door. She always had been too full of herself. The first day he laid eyes on her he knew he was looking at a headache. Even while she’d dressed in that patched and frayed skirt, there had been no doubt she was stunning. Dark-skinned, dark-eyed, and that long black hair like some she-demon from the south whose eyes spoke of wickedness-the sort men enjoyed. He offered her a job, and she had accepted. But then she tried to pretend she didn’t understand and acted as if all that was required was to just serve drinks. It took three rounds with the belt to set her straight.