“. . . porridge. I’m sick to death of porridge.”
“I’ll tell them,” Roderica said. “Stewed chicken and gravy, and no porridge.” She locked the door and pocketed the key.
Teb followed her lantern light back through the dark passages, committing the way to memory, remembering his glimpse of the locked room, remembering the old, cracked voice of the woman. The service on the tray had been of gold, with embroidered linen. The bed frame had been ornate, the carpet rich. But the door was kept locked.
He began to listen more carefully at the interminable state meals and functions for mention of the prisoner. He gleaned no information. He took himself down into the city, among the taverns and brothels late at night, to listen to gossip. He had found that if he dined with the king and lingered politely afterward, he was soon released to spend the rest of the evening as he chose.
Seastrider would not let him go alone this time. She took the shape of a great gray wolf with some difficulty, not a speaking wolf but a wild, roving wolf such as she sensed in a small band on the black mountain. Teb went among the city flanked by a natural killer. Though they were watched and followed, no one came close to him. He asked oblique questions, lounging at tables dressed in his old, stained leathers, and drank too much mithnon, for which he was sorry the next day. He learned little of real interest and felt stifled and shamed by the sick townsfolk stinking of drugs. The white powdered cadacus was easy to come by, and he was stared at strangely when he refused it.
No man would speak against the king, or against the dark leaders from the north, though one old man said, glancing around him with caution, “They aren’t afraid of the dark ones. They hide things from them. . . .” But when Teb tried to learn who they were, the old leather-faced man took panic and fled the tavern. Teb dared not follow; too many eyes were watching.
He learned nothing about the palace page, Kiri, on these night visits. He saw little of her until the morning she stood watching him from an alley that led off the main palace courtyard.
He had been talking with Prince Abisha. He left him as quickly as he could to follow her, but she had disappeared. He saw her again two days later as he left his chambers, her face dull and without expression; but her dark eyes were alive before she turned away quickly through a side door. The door seemed a private one. He didn’t follow her. Then one afternoon he saw her in the city, trading for candles at the shop he had been watching.
It was a tiny building made of rough boards set against two walls of a stone ruin. It sold only candles, yet its customers seemed many for such a place, and most of them strong young people. Kiri went in carrying a string bag. He could see her bartering a clay crock for candles. He stayed in the tavern across the way, beside its small open window. When she came out, a mob of roving boys no more than twelve were lounging around a small horse corral attached to the tavern. They saw Kiri alone and, moving quickly, were around her, striking at the heavy string bag with sticks, and then at her legs and arms. Teb left through the window. He gathered four of them by their dirty collars. The other three fled up the muddy lane. Kiri stood gawking at him.
She was not in her page’s tunic but in dirty rags, her face smeared with dirt, her feet bare. The two crocks in the string bag, those she had not traded, were broken. Thick globs of golden honey ran down through the mesh to puddle in the muddy street. Teb saw the knife in her hand and knew without her saying that she had been loath to use it on such children. She saw him looking at it and, with no false modesty, lifted her skirt and slipped it into the sheath tied against her leg.
“Children,” he said. “But they meant to hurt you.”
She nodded. “Thank you. I would have had to hurt them.”
“Yes.”
She looked down at the string bag, then emptied it into the gutter, retrieving a dozen stubby candles first, staring with regret at the pieces of broken crock scattered in the honey and mud. “Gram’s good crocks. She had them a long time.”
“Are you going back to the palace? I will walk with you.”
Above them, as they climbed, the rising hills with their crowded houses and stone ruins were all in shadow. The high ridge of the mountain above the black castle flared red with the setting sun. The smell of a hundred suppers cooking mixed with the smell of soggy animal pens.
Teb said, “He does quite a business, that candle-maker.”
“He makes the best candles in Dacia.”
Teb studied her. “It seems strange that his customers are all so . . . they’re all healthy young people.”
Her brown eyes were steady, her face lean and alert. She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s strange. That shop is the only one in Dacia where you can get candles that aren’t tallow. These candles are beeswax. Tallow candles make people cough.” She smiled at him. “I bring the candlemaker beeswax, along with my honey.”
He looked at her closely. “All you get for your wax and honey are a few candles in trade?”
“Oh, no.” She dug in her pocket and brought out a handful of small silver reppets with the face of Sardira on each. Teb looked at the coins and studied her solemn, innocent face. His good sense told him the candle shop was a meeting place. He wished he knew Kiri better. He would go back there. If the shop was such a place, and if Garit was in Dacia, then Garit might appear there sooner or later.
Teb got no real information out of Kiri. She was clever at fencing his questions. He was increasingly interested in that skill.
He left her at her door, meaning to talk with her again soon. Meantime there were other answers he wanted. He wanted to know more about the ugly games in the stadium, and whether captured rebel soldiers were tortured as a part of the entertainment. He wanted to know how many dark leaders came to Dacia for the games.
Chapter 7
“You have told me little of the stadium games,” Teb said, watching Accacia. “We have nothing like them in Thedria. There must be huge crowds, visiting dignitaries?” He busied himself breaking bread, served with the first course, of shellfish. “Are such games enjoyed often, or only on special occasions?”
“Oh, special occasions,” Accacia said brightly. “When the leaders of the north come,” she said, delicately forking a river clam from its shell. “When they come, there is gaming at night in the stadium and feasting, and slaves will dance in all the taverns.” Her golden-brown eyes were bright with excitement.
He sipped at the pale wine. “What kind of contests? Men against men, or against animals?”
“All kinds, giant cats battling wolves, or both driven to attack chained prisoners.” Her color rose with lust.
“Prisoners?” he asked casually.
“Enemies of the king, and of Dacia. There are wild horses, too, battling with drugged bulls. Only not any horses like yours, Prince Tebmund. Once,” Accacia said, tossing her chestnut hair, “once there was a unicorn brought from the lands beyond the sea, trussed up, and sold to King Sardira. It fought the king’s brown guard lizards all alone until it bled to death.”