I nodded. Any other response seemed like a bad idea.
He escorted me out of the building. I tried my best to pick up what I could from the bits of conversations, just as I do when I’m playing. One of the guards was having troubles with a girl, another couldn’t decide what to eat tonight, and a third wasn’t sleeping well of late; then I was outside once more.
I made my way to Mirazia’s walk-up, which was in the east side of town—in the ’Tween off the Wideway. No one followed me, but I hadn’t expected anyone to. What happened to Din mattered to me, and to Mirazia, and, I’m afraid, it just didn’t much matter to anyone else.
Except, of course, if that were true, why was the Sharda interested?
And even as I asked myself that, I had the answer: He had played for the Jlsigi nobility. He had even performed in the palace. Someone liked him, and someone was unhappy that he was dead.
Well, I was unhappy that he was dead, too.
Mirazia let me in, and instantly had her arms around me, her head in my chest. We just stood like that for a while. She made no sounds, no motions.
“Cry if you wish,” I told her.
She shook her head against my chest. “I’m all cried out for now,” she said very quietly.
A few minutes later she said, “I’m sorry. Do you want something to drink? Are you hungry?”
I almost chuckled. That was so like her. I didn’t, but I let her get me some watery wine and some cheese, because she needed to be doing something.
We sat on the couch and I held her. I said, “I’m suspected of doing it, you know.”
“You?”
“Yes. Apparently I was jealous, because you and I used to—”
“They’re such idiots.”
I shook my head. “No. From their perspective, it makes sense. They don’t know us.”
“That means they won’t be looking for who really did it.”
I exhaled slowly. “Mirazia, they aren’t going to investigate. People like us, like Din, don’t matter. If anyone is going to find out what happened to him, it will be me.”
She stared at me with reddened eyes. “Torrie, don’t!”
I think we stopped seeing each other because I couldn’t get her to stop calling me “Torrie” but now wasn’t the time to object. I said, “Nothing will happen to me. I’ll ask a few questions—”
“Wasn’t it just a robbery?”
“Not just a robbery, no.”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed. “Din did something foolish,” I said.
“What do you mean?” She sounded like she wanted to get angry, which perhaps would have been good for her.
“He stole something. I don’t know how he got it, I didn’t want to ask, but—”
She glared. “He’d nev—”
She stopped in mid-outraged denial, stared into space for a bit, then looked down.
I said, “What?”
“I knew something was up. He’s been acting funny for the last week.”
“Funny, how?”
“Excited. I asked him about it and he’d, well, you know how he’d get when he had a surprise planned, like when he wrote that song about you and sprang it on you at the ’Unicorn.”
I nodded. “For the last week?”
“Yes. What did he steal?”
“The Palm of the Hand.”
She frowned. “What is that?”
“I’m not sure exactly. Perhaps it is magical, perhaps it has some other significance, but it’s important to those who worship Dyareela.”
She looked at me like I’d just turned green and grown wings. “The Hand?” she said at last. “Are you sure?”
I nodded.
“How can you know that?”
“Mirazia, think who you’re talking to. I’m a musician. I sing in taverns. I listen to gossip. I know songs and stories from everywhere about everything. That thing he showed me is an artifact of the Bloody Hand.”
“Did he know that?”
“He knew.”
She started crying again.
A little later, she said, “What are you going to do?” “Find his killer.”
“The guards—”
“Will arrest him, if they see proof, and they feel like it’s worth their time. They’re half-convinced I did it, and they didn’t even hold me.”
“But—”
“I’ll be careful,” I said.
She rested her head on my shoulder. Her hair was wavy, and that color that looks red in some light, and almost black in other light. I put an arm around her, but did nothing else; didn’t even think of doing anything else.
“How will you find his killer?”
“I don’t know,” I lied. “I’ll think of something.”
I held her, and a little later she said, “Tor, tell me a story?” When we’d been together, she had often said that after we made love. I’d tell her old stories, or funny stories, or ballads taken out of verse until she fell asleep. I wasn’t about to make love to her tonight.
“All right,” I said. “One day a man set out from Lirt to find Shemhaza. He had a mule, enough food for a year, and just kept walking inland. Every night, he’d stop and build a fire and eat his dinner and sleep and get up early the next morning and continue walking. One night he stopped in the middle of a forest, but when he woke up, it was raining. He was too wet and cold to want to continue, so he built up the fire thinking to stay as warm as he could until the rain stopped. The rain didn’t stop that night, so he found a dead tree, cut it up, and added it to the fire. The rain continued the next day, so he took branches that he hadn’t burned, and his spare clothing, and built a sort of shelter. The rain continued, day after day, and he was determined not to leave until he was dry. One day a pair of travelers came along on their way to Shemhaza and asked to share his fire. He agreed, and they made a good meal together.
“As the rain continued, one of them went out to hunt, and was able to snare a coney, out of which they made stew. They constructed a better shelter together, and cut down trees for firewood and shelter, and the rain continued.
“Soon more travelers arrived and joined them. When the rain finally stopped, winter had begun, and so they remained. When spring came, some of them planted corn and rye, and others hunted. By this time they had made a large clearing in the forest, with a dozen homes made of wood. There were a husband and wife there, and by the time the roads were good for travel, she was great with child, so they all stayed to help her and to care for the child. By the time she and the child could travel, the rains had begun again, and the crops were ready to be harvested, and so they stayed another year, and more joined them.
“One day, a stranger arrived and asked the man if he could stay to get out of the rain. The man said of course he could. The stranger said, ‘What is the name of your village?’ ‘Shemhaza,’ said the man. And it is there still.”
I stopped talking. She was asleep. I half carried her to her bed, undressed her, and covered her up. Then I went back into the other room and fell asleep on the chair.
The next morning, I puttered around her pantry long enough to eat some of her bread and cheese, and left some out for her. I felt stiff from sleeping in the chair and rather unclean from sleeping in my clothes. I put both feelings behind me and went out into the bright Sanctuary morning.
Somewhere in or around the city were those who still followed the way of Dyareela—probably several groups, in fact, none of whom agreed with each other about what exactly the Mother Goddess wanted. All of them happy to cut each others’ throats, in a city happy to cut all their throats. I had to find one of those groups. I glanced down at my unstained hands, thinking about dying my nails red, but I rejected the idea as soon as I thought of it; getting myself killed by some outraged citizen would do no good, and a musician cannot hide his hands for very long.
I took myself back to the ’Unicorn. It wasn’t especially busy—just a few of the hardcore drunks—but that was okay. Pegrin wasn’t working. The man behind the counter was a fellow called the Stick, whose permanent bad temper matched my permanent good mood. The Stick didn’t mind if I played a little; I told him I felt like practicing in front of an audience. He muttered something in which I caught the word “audience” and pointed to the stage.
It was funny, because it remains one of the longest shows I’ve ever done: I just sat there, mostly running through instrumentals, and tried to pick up pieces of conversation around me. I’m pretty good at that—at least, when there’s something to listen to. It is the hardest thing there is … playing, and at the same time trying to put together scattered bits of overheard conversation into the one piece of information you need.