“Or else?” Solon asked, dizzy. Who could know that he was here?
“Yes. Or else.” Amused.
“Or else what? You’re going to kill me in front of five witnesses?” Solon asked. He rarely drank more than two glasses of wine at any time. He was too impaired for this. Who the hell was this man?
“And you’re supposed to be smart,” the man said. “If I know what you are and still threaten you, do you think I lack the will to kill you?”
He had Solon there. “And what’s to stop me—”
The dagger jabbed his spine again. “Enough talk. You’ve been poisoned. You do what I say and I’ll give you the antidote. Does that answer the rest of your questions?”
“Actually—”
“You’ll know you’re really poisoned because any time now your neck and armpits will start itching.”
“Uh-huh. Ariamu root?” Solon asked, trying to think. Was he bluffing? Why would he bluff?
“Plus a few other things. Last warning.”
His shoulder started itching. Damn. He could have taken care of ariamu root by itself, but this …“What do you want?”
“Head outside. Don’t turn, don’t say anything.”
Solon walked to the door, almost trembling. The man had said “what you are” not “who you are.” That might have referred to being Sethi, but his other comment obviously didn’t. The Sethi might be famous or infamous for many things, but rightly or wrongly, intelligence wasn’t one of them.
He’d barely touched the street when he felt the dagger jab his spine again. A hand drew his sword from the scabbard. “That won’t be necessary,” Solon said. Was that his imagination, or was his neck itching? “Show me what you want.”
The poisoner led him around the building where two horses were waiting. Together they rode south and then across the Vanden Bridge. They were swallowed by the Warrens, and though Solon didn’t think the man had been taking turns solely to get him lost, he soon was. Damn wine.
Finally, they stopped in front of one tiny shack among many. He dismounted unsteadily and followed the man inside. The poisoner wore dark clothes and a voluminous gray-black cloak with its hood up. All Solon could see was that he was tall, obviously athletic, and probably thin. The man nodded toward the door, and Solon stepped inside.
The smell of blood hit him instantly. A little girl was lying on a low bed, barely breathing, barely bleeding, her face a gory mess. Solon turned. “She’s dying. There’s nothing I can do.”
“I did what I could,” the man said. “Now you do what you do. I’ve left all the tools you may need.”
“Whatever you think I am, you’re wrong. I’m no healer!”
“She dies, you die.” Solon felt the weight of the man’s eyes on him. Then the poisoner turned and left.
Solon looked at the closed door and felt despair rising like twin waves of darkness coming from each side. Then he shook himself. Enough. So he was tired, still drunk, poisoned, itchy, and never had been much good at healing to begin with. Dorian had said that someone here needed him, hadn’t he? So surely Solon couldn’t die yet.
Unless, of course, just making Logan stand up to his mother was all that Solon had been needed for.
Well. That’s the problem with prophecy, isn’t it? You never know. Solon knelt by the little girl and began working.
11
Momma K crossed her legs in the absently provocative way that only a veteran courtesan could. Some people fidgeted habitually. Momma K seduced habitually. With a figure most of her girls could only envy, she could pass for thirty, but Momma K was unashamed of her age. She’d thrown a huge party for her own fortieth birthday. Few of those who’d told her she outshone her own courtesans had been lying, for Gwinvere Kirena had been the courtesan of an age. Durzo knew of a dozen duels that had been fought over her, and at least as many lords had proposed to her, but Gwinvere Kirena would be chained to no man. She knew too well all the men she knew.
“He really does have you nervous, this Azoth. Doesn’t he?” Momma K said.
“No.”
“Liar.” Momma K smiled, all full red lips and perfect teeth.
“What gave me away?” Durzo asked, not really interested. He was nervous, though. Things had spun suddenly out of control.
“You were staring at my breasts. You only look at me like I’m a woman when you’re too distracted to keep your guard up.” She smiled again. “Don’t worry—I think it’s sweet.”
“Don’t you ever stop?”
“You’re a simpler man than you like to think, Durzo Blint. You really only have three refuges when the world overwhelms you. Do you want me to tell you what they are, my big, strong wetboy?”
“Is this the kind of thing you talk about with clients?” It was a cheap shot. Moreover, it was the kind of comment a whore would have been hit with enough times that she was well armored against it now.
She didn’t even blink. “No,” she said. “But there was a rather pathetically endowed baron who liked to have me pretend I was his nursemaid and when he was naughty, I’d—”
“Spare me.” It was a loss to have her stop, but she’d have gone on for ten minutes, and not skipped a single detail.
“Then what do you want, Durzo? Now you’re staring at your hands again.”
He was staring at his hands. Gwinvere could be more trouble than she was worth, but her advice was always good. She was the most perceptive person he knew and smarter than he was by a long shot. “I want to know what to do, Gwinvere.” After a long moment of silence, he looked up from his hands.
“About the boy?” she asked.
“I don’t think he has it in him.”
When Azoth came around the corner, Rat was sitting on the back porch of the ruin the guild called home. Azoth’s heart seized at the sight of the ugly boy. Rat was alone, waiting for him. He was spinning a short sword on its point. Spots of rust interplayed with the winking of the waning moon on bright steel as it spun.
In this unguarded moment, Rat’s face seemed as mutable as that spinning steel, one moment the monster Azoth had always known, the next moment an overgrown, scared child. Azoth shuffled forward, more confused and frightened by that glimpse of humanity than soothed. He’d seen too much.
He came forward through the stench of the alley that the whole guild used as their toilet. He didn’t even care to watch where he put his feet. He was hollow.
When he looked up, Roth was standing, that familiar cruel grin on his lips, the rusty sword pointing at Azoth’s throat.
“That’s far enough,” Rat said.
Azoth flinched. “Rat,” he said, and swallowed.
“No closer,” Rat said. “You’ve got a shiv. Give it to me.”
Azoth was on the verge of tears. He took the shiv from his belt and held it out, handle first. “Please,” he said. “I don’t want to die. I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me.”
Rat took the shiv.
“I’ll give him that he’s smart,” Durzo said. “But it takes more than intelligence. You’ve seen him here with all the other guild rats. Does he have that …?” He snapped his fingers, unable to find the word.
“Most of them I only see in the winter. They sleep on the streets the rest of the year. I give them a roof, Durzo, not a home.”
“But you’ve seen him.”
“I’ve seen him.” She would never forget him.
“Gwinvere, is he cunning?”
Rat tucked the shiv in his belt and patted Azoth down. He found no other weapons. His fear dissolved and left only exultation. “Don’t hurt you?” he asked. He backhanded Azoth.
It was almost ridiculous. Azoth practically flew from the force of the blow. He sprawled in the dirt and got up slowly, his hands and knees bleeding. He’s so small!
How did I ever fear this? Azoth’s eyes bled fear. He was crying, making little whimpers in the darkness. Rat said, “I’m going to have to hurt you, Azoth. You’ve made me. I didn’t want it to be this way. I wanted you with me.”