T TOOK SISTER UTTA LONGER than she would have liked to clear away the books and rolls of parchment on the least cluttered chair, but when she had finished Merolanna sank into it gladly. Once she saw that the duchess was only light-headed-and no surprise; Utta was feeling a bit dizzy herself-she cleared herself a place to sit, too. This task was not made any easier by the fact that a pentecount of miniature soldiers stand¬ing at attention on the floor had been joined by at least that number of tiny courtiers, so that there was almost nowhere Sister Utta could put her foot or anything else down without first having to wait for finger-high people to clear the way. King Olin's study now looked like the grandest and most elaborate game of dolls a little girl could ever imagine. At the center of it all, as poised and graceful as if she were the ordinary-sized one and Utta
and the duchess were the inexplicable atomies, sat Queen Upsteeplebat on her hanging platform in the fireplace.
Merolanna fanned herself with a sheaf of parchments. "What did you mean, you can tell me about my son? What do you know about my son?"
Utta could make no sense of this: she had lived more than twenty years in the castle, and to the best of her knowledge Merolanna was childless. "Are you all right, Your Grace?"
Merolanna waved a hand at her. "Losing my mind, there is no doubt about that, but otherwise I am well enough. I am more grateful than I can say that you are here with me. You are seeing and hearing the same things I am, aren't you?"
"Tiny people? Yes, I'm afraid I am."
Upsteeplebat raised her arms in a gesture of support, or perhaps apology. "I am sorry if I shocked you, Duchess Merolanna. I cannot explain how we know about your son, but I can promise you it was not by deliberately in¬truding on your privacy." The queen showed them a smile tinier than a baby's fingernail. "Although I must confess we have been guilty of that in other circumstances with other folk. But I can tell you no more about any of it, because we are offering you a bargain."
"What sort?" asked Utta.
"Don't be ridiculous," said Merolanna. "You don't have to bargain with me. Tell me what you want and I'll get it for you-food? You must live a dreadful, poor life hiding in the shadows if all the old stories now turn out to be true. Surely you can't want money…"
The Rooftopper queen smiled again. "We eat better than you would suppose, Duchess. In fact, we could triple our numbers and still barely dent what is thrown away or ignored in this great household. But what we want is something a bit less obvious. And we do not want it for ourselves."
"Please," said Merolanna with an edge of anger in her voice,"do not play at games with me, madam. You tease me with the prospect of learning something about my son, which if you know of his existence at all, you must know I would do anything to achieve. Just tell me what you want."
"I cannot. We do not know."
"What?" Merolanna began to stand and then fell back in the chair, fan¬ning vigorously. "What madness-what cruel prank…?"
"Please, Your Grace, hear us out." Upsteeplebat spoke kindly, but there was a note of authority in her own voice that Utta could not help re¬marking. "We do not play at games. Our Lord of the Peak, to whom we
owe our very existence, has spoken, and told us what to do, and what to say to you."
"Is that your Rooftopper king?" Utta rose from her own chair and went to stand by Merolanna's. She set her hand on the duchess' shoulder and could not help noticing how the woman was trembling.
Upsteeplebat shook her head. "Not in the sense you mean. No, I rule the Rooftoppers here among the living. But the Master of the Heights rules all living things and we are his servants."
"Your god?"
She nodded her head. "You may call him thus. To us, he is simply the Lord."
Merolanna took a long breath; Utta could feel her shudder. "What do you want? Just tell me, please."
"You must come with us. You must hear what the Lord of the Peak has to say."
"You would take us… to your god?" Utta wondered that a few mo¬ments ago she had thought things as strange as they could get.
"In a way. No harm will come to you."
Merolanna looked at Utta, her expression a grimace somewhere be¬tween despair and hilarity. Her voice, when she finally spoke, shared the same air of resigned confusion. "Take us, then. To Rooftopper's Heaven or wherever else. Why not?"
The tiny queen gestured toward a door in the wall at the back of the li¬brary, half-obscured by bookshelves and piles of loose books. "Please know that this is a rare honor. It has been centuries since we invited any of your kind into our sacred place."
"Through that door? But it's locked," said Merolanna. "Olin always talked about how the storeroom here at the top of the tower hadn't been opened since his grandfather's day-that the key was lost and that nothing short of breaking it down would ever get it open."
"Nor would it," said Upsteeplebat with a tone of satisfaction. "It has been wedged on the far side in a thousand places and the key is indeed lost-at least to your folk. But now the Lord of the Peak has called for you, so my people have labored for two days to remove the wedges and other impediments." She waved her hands and three of her tiny soldiers stepped out from their line along the base of the fireplace bricks. They lifted trumpets made of what looked like seashells and blew a long, shrill, tootling call. As if in reply, Utta heard a thin scraping noise, and
then a metallic plink, as of a small hammer striking an equally small anvil.
"All praise to the Lord of Heights," Upsteeplebat said, "the oil was suf¬ficient to loosen the lock's workings. It was the matter about which my council argued and argued. Now pull the door, please-but gently. My sub¬jects will take some while to climb out of the way."
"You do it," Merolanna whispered to Utta. "Small things, oh, they make me jump so."
Utta cleared the books piled on the floor, then did her best to move the book cabinets without tipping them-no easy task. The door resisted her pull for a moment-she wondered if the Rooftoppers had remembered to oil the hinges as well at the latch-but then, with a shriek that made her wince, it swung toward her.
"Carefully!" came Upsteeplebat's piping cry, but there was no need. Utta had already taken a step back in dismay from what she took to be half a dozen huge spiders dangling in the doorway before she realized they were Rooftoppers hanging from ropes like steeplejacks, slowly climbing back up to the top of the doorframe.
Most of them looked at her with anxiety or even fear-and small won¬der, since she was dozens of times their size, as tall in their eyes as the spire of a great temple-but one tiny climber who seemed barely more than a boy kicked his legs and gave her a sort of salute before he disappeared into the darkness above the door.
"Fare you well," Utta whispered as the rest of the climbers also reached the safety of the doorframe. She turned to the queen, who still stood on her platform in the fireplace like an image of Zoria in a shrine. Utta could not help wondering if that was coincidence or more of the Rooftopper s planning. "Your people are brave."
"We fight the cat, the rat, the jay, the gull," said the Rooftopper queen. "Our walls are full of spiders and centipedes. We must be brave to survive. You may enter now."
Utta leaned forward into the doorway.
"What… what do you see?" Merolanna's voice quivered a little, but she had been at court for most of a century and was good at masking her feelings even in the most extreme of situations. "Can we get on with this?"
"It's dark-I'll need the torch."
"A candle only, if you please, Sister Utta," said the queen. "And if you'll
be kind enough to take my good Beetledown on your shoulder, lie Will help you to walk carefully in our sacred place."
The little man, who had been standing silently on the hearth, now bowed. Utta got a candle on a dish-they had been left everywhere around the room, as if Olin had liked to use dozens at a time-then lowered her hand and let the Rooftopper climb on.
Merolanna stood, not without a little huffing and wheezing. "I'm com¬ing with you. Whatever it is, I want to see it."
"I will join you inside." The Rooftopper queen lifted her hand. The royal platform slowly began to rise upward, back into the fireplace flue.
"Do thee step careful, like un told thee," said Beetledown. The voice so close to her ear made Utta itchy. She lifted the candle and led Merolanna through the open door.
The floor of the room beyond was scarcely half the size of the one in the king's library, but the room itself extended farther upward: with candle lifted, Utta could see the rafters of the tower top itself, latticed with what she first took for spiderwebs, then realized were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of rope bridges, none any wider than her hand. Some were only a foot or so long, but a few stretched for a dozen feet or more in sagging parabolas braced with slender crosswires.
"Watch tha foot!" cried Beetledown. Utta looked down to see that she had nearly stepped on a ramp that led from the floor to an old rosewood chest no higher than the middle of her thigh. The lid was flung back and the hinges, badly rusted, had given way, so that the lid hung unevenly, half resting on the ground, but it was the inside of the chest that caught her eye. A row of tiny houses had been built inside it, along the back-half a dozen simple but beautifully constructed three-story houses.
"Merciful Zoria," said Utta. "Is this where your people live?"
"Nay," said Beetledown, "only those as tend the Ears."
"Tend the ears?"
"Step careful, please. And watch tha head, too."
Utta looked up just before walking into one of the hanging bridges. Up close, she could see it was much less simple than she had thought: the knot-work was regular and decorative, the wooden planks clearly finished by hand with love and care. She resolved to move even more slowly. Just the loss of one of these bridges to her clumsiness would be a shame.
"Did you ever imagine such a thing was here, under our noses?" she asked Merolanna.
"This castle has always been full of secrets," the other woman said, sounding oddly mournfull.
'They moved deeper into what might have once been a simple storeroom but had long since become a weird, magical place of miniature bridges and ladders, of furniture turned into houses, with small wonders of fittings and drapery inside them that Utta could only glimpse, and tiny lanterns glow¬ing in the windows like fireflies.
"Where are all your people?" she asked.
"There be only few of we folk who live in this place-only those who serve the Lord of the Peak direct and personal," the little man explained. "Those stay inside, so as not to be trod on by giants." He coughed, a sound like a bird sniffing. "Beggin' tha pardon, ma'am."
Utta smiled. "No, that sounds very sensible. How long have your people been here, hiding from us blundering giants?"
"Forever, ma'am. Long as remembered. The Lord of the Peak, he made us and gave us this place for our own. Well, not this place, 'haps-this room we took for ours in my great-grands' day. But our lands, our walls, our roofs, we have had forever."
"But then why is your god named the Lord of the Peak?" Utta asked. "If you have always been here, what mountain can you know?"
"Why, the great peak your folk do call Wolfstooth," Beetledown said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world-which, to him, it doubtless was. "That is where the Lord lives."
Utta shook her head, but gently, so as not to dislodge the little man. Wolfstooth Spire, the castle's central tower, was the Rooftopper's Xandos- the home of their god! What a world this was, both his and hers. What a strange, wonderful world.
The queen now appeared from a hidden door somewhere on the far side of the room, riding in a chariot drawn by a herd of white mice, with a small phalanx of soldiers behind her. She 'waved in an imperial sort of way, then led Utta and Merolanna a little farther down what was clearly the attic room's main thoroughfare, between rows of chests and other furniture- each, Utta had no doubt, converted into temples or mantiseries or congre¬gations of sisters, all in service to the god who they believed lived at the top of a nearby tower.
Upsteeplebat's chariot drew to a halt at the end of the aisle; her mice set¬tled on their haunches and began most unceremoniously to groom them¬selves. Against the wall, at the end of a sort of plaza a couple of yards across
made when the furniture had been pushed hack was a high dresser of the kind used by wealthy women. Its drawers had been pulled out, the bottom most the farthest, the topmost the least, and a fretwork of ladders and ramps connected the drawers together. More of the spidery steeplejacks were at work here, but it took a moment for her to make out what they were doing. A long bundle, almost like an insect wrapped in webbing by a spider, was being carefully lowered down from the topmost drawer to the floor.
"Could you kneel, please," Upsteeplebat said in her high, calm voice. "We have delicate work to do, and all of us will be safer if you are sitting or kneeling."
"Can we get on with things?" Merolanna grumbled. "This dress isn't meant for such games. If you'd told me I'd be down on the floor like a child playing tops I'd have worn my nightclothes instead."
Utta could not blame the dowager duchess for complaining. Though she herself was in good, healthy fettle, and much more conveniently garbed in a simple robe, her old bones did not particularly enjoy the exercise, either.
When they were seated, a small troop of soldiers and a trio of shaven-headed creatures (whose delicate features Utta guessed must be female) brought out a cushioned bed made from what had obviously once been a jewel case. The bundle from the uppermost drawer was lowered into it, then unwrapped to re¬veal a Rooftopper woman with dark hair and pale skin, dead or sleeping.
"I present to you the Glorious and Accurate Ears," the queen said, "whose family has for centuries been our link to the Lord of the Peak, and who will today, for the first time, share the Lord's words straightly with your folk."
The trio of priestesses, if that was what they were, stepped forward to stand at the head and either arm of the Ears. They lit bowls of some stuff that smoked and waved them over her and then began to chant words too quiet to be heard. This went on for long moments; Utta could feel Merolanna shifting impatiently beside her. In the quiet room, the rucking and crinkling of the duchess' dress sounded like distant thunder.
At last the priestesses stepped back and bowed their heads. The silence continued. Utta began to wonder if she or Merolanna were expected to ask a question, but then the woman in the bed began to move, first to twitch as in a fever-dream, then to thrash weakly. Suddenly she sat up. Her eyes opened wide, but she did not seem to be looking at anything in the room, not even the two giant women. She spoke in a surprisingly low voice, a slurry string of quiet sounds like bees buzzing. The priestesses swayed.
"What does she say?" demanded Merolanna.
"She says nothing," the queen of the Rooftoppers corrected her. "It is the Lord of the Peak himself who speaks, and he says, 'The end of these days comes on while wings, but it bears darkness like an egg. Old Night waits to be born, and unless the sea swallows all untimely, the stars themselves will rain down like flaming arrows. Those are the words of the Lord of High Places."
Vague, apocalyptic prophecy was not what the dowager duchess had come to hear. "Ask about my son," she said in a sharp whisper. But Utta could tell that a bargain was being struck, even if she did not yet know with whom they were bargaining-the Rooftoppers and their queen? Their god? Or simply this one Rooftopper oracle?
"We have been told that you know something of this woman's son, O Lord of the Peak," Utta said slowly and clearly, hoping that if the Rooftop¬pers spoke her language, so did their god. "Will you tell us of him?"
The woman thrashed again and almost fell from her bed. Two tiny, shaven-headed priestesses stepped forward to hold her as she mumbled and rasped again.
" 'The High Ones took him, fifty winters past, " the queen said, translating or simply amplifying the Ears' quiet mumble. " 'He was carried behind the cloud of unknowing mortals call the Shadowline. But he yet lives. »
Merolanna let out a little shriek, swayed, and collapsed against Utta, who did her best to hold her upright: the duchess was of a size that she would destroy much of the Rooftoppers' religious quarter if allowed to fall. "She will thank you for this news-but I think not today," Utta said, a little out of breath. She bent closer to Queen Upsteeplebat. "Can your god not tell us more?" she whispered. "Is there a way to find her child?"
For long moments the Ears lay like a dead woman-much like Merolanna, who seemed to have fainted. Then the tiny shape stirred and spoke again, but so quietly that Utta could only see her lips move. Even the little queen had to lean against the rail of her chariot to hear.
"The Lord of High Places says, 'The world's need is great. Old Night pecks at its shell, yearning to breathe the air of Time. This castle's priest of light and stars once owned a piece of the House of the Moon, ancient and powerful, but now it has been taken. Find where that stolen piece has gone and in return Heaven will speak more of this mortal woman's son."
With that the Ears fell into a deep, deathlike sleep. When it was clear she would speak the god's words no longer, the priestesses wrapped her up again. This time the tiny soldiers moved in and carried the entire bed away into the shadows like a funeral bier.
Utta held Merolanna, who groaned like a woman in a bad dream, and wondered and wondered at the surpassing strangeness this day had brought.
The duchess stirred in her bed and sat up, hands clawing out as though something had been pulled away from her.
"Where are they? Did I dream?"
"You did not dream," Utta told her. "Unless I dreamed the same dream."
"But what else did that little creature say? I cannot remember!" Merolanna fumbled for the cup of watered wine on the chest by her bed, drank it so fast that a pinkish rivulet spilled and ran down her chin.
Utta told her the rest of the Ears' pronouncement. "But I can make no sense of it."
"My child!" Merolanna fell back against the pillows, her chest heaving. "I gave him away," she moaned, "and now the fairies have him. Poor, poor boy!" In halting words, she told Utta of the child's secret birth and disap¬pearance. Utta was surprised, but not astonished-the Zorians did not be¬lieve humans could be perfected, only forgiven.
"If the little people's oracle spoke correctly, that was almost fifty years gone, Your Grace," she told Merolanna. "Still, we must try to understand the god's words-if it really was a god who spoke. A piece of the Moon's House, the little woman said. And that it belonged to the castle's priest of light and stars."
"Priest? Do they mean Father Timoid? But he is gone!" Merolanna tossed her head as if in a fever. "Why should some god send this message to torture me?"
"Perhaps they mean Hierarch Sisel." Utta reached out to take the duchess' hand, hoping to calm her. "He is the highest priest of all, so…"
"But he is gone too, to his house in the country. He told me he could not bear to see what the Tollys were doing." Merolanna tried to calm her¬self. "Would he be the priest of light and stars, though? He is the great priest of the Trigon, and they are air, water, and earth…" She moaned again. "Ah, if only Chaven were here. He knows of such things-he stud¬ies the stars, and knows almost as much about the old tales of the gods as Sisel…"
"Wait," said Utta. "Perhaps that is who it means. Chaven is a priest of sorts-a priest of logic and science. And his is the particular study of light and the stars, with those lenses of his. Perhaps Chaven had some powerful object that is now lost."
"But Chaven is the one who's lost!" said Merolanna. "He's vanished! And that means my son is lost forever…!"
"No one simply disappears," said Utta."Unless the gods themselves take them. And the Rooftoppers' god, at least, does not seem to know what's happened to Chaven, so perhaps he is still alive." She stood. "I will see what I can discover, Your Grace."
"Be careful!" Merolanna cried as Utta moved to the door. She extended her arms again as though to draw the Zorian sister back. "You are all I have left!"
"We have the gods, Duchess. I will pray for my gracious lady Zoria's help. You should do the same."
Merolanna slumped back. "Gods, fairies… the world has run utterly mad."
Utta called in the little maid Eilis. "See to your mistress," she told the girl. "Take good care of her. She has had a shock."
But who will see to me? she wondered as she left Merolanna's chambers. Who will take care of me in this mad time when legends spring to life at our feet? Zoria, merciful goddess, I need your help now more than ever.
Even to Matty Tinwright, who had never found it easy to say no to a celebration or a feast, especially if someone else was paying the tally, it seemed a bit much. Surely with an invading force just across the river-an invading force of monsters and demons at that-all these fetes and fairs were a waste, if not worse?
Perhaps Lord Hendon is only trying to divert us from our troubles. If so, he had set himself a hard task, because troubles were plentiful. The creatures across the bay had not attacked the keep, but they had certainly cut off all sup¬plies coming to the overfilled castle from the west, and the short, terrify¬ing war had emptied the valleys to the west and south as well, so there were no cattle or sheep being driven in from Marrinswalk and Silverside and no wool or cheese from Settland, only such supplies as could be brought in by ships, which lay crammed in Southmarch harbor like drift¬wood against a seawall.
Despite all this, the merriment went on. Tonight, to celebrate the first evening of Gestrimadi, the festival in honor of the Mother of the Gods, there would be a public fair in Market Square and here in the castle a great supper and masked fete, with music and dancing.
And yet surely there has not been a darker Dimene-month since the Twilight folk last marched on us, two hundred years gone?
It was strange, Tinwright thought, that a place as solemn and silent dur-ing the day as this should spring to life so feverishly at night, as though the chambers were tombs which discharged their occupants only after sunset, so that they could dance and flirt in imitation of the living.
It was a powerful image, and he thought suddenly that he should write it down. Surely there was a poem in it, the courtiers emerging from their stony dens at nightfall, wearing masks that hid everything but their too-bright eyes…
But Hendon Tolly and his circle will not like it, and these days that is a very dangerous thing. Didn't Lord Nynor disappear after being heard criticizing the Tollys' rule? Still, the lure of the idea was strong. He decided that he could write it and keep it hidden until better times, when his foresight would be recognized, and his brilliance (if not his courage) honored.
Poets are not made to be hanged, he reminded himself. They are made to ad¬mired. And even if I could only be admired for being hanged, I would choose obscu¬rity, I think. No, he would stay alive. In any case, he had other things to live for, these days…
"Oh, most effective, Master Tinwright!" said Puzzle approvingly. Now that he had been picked up by Hendon Tolly's set, however mockingly, the old jester had developed a loud heartiness to his tone that Tinwright found irritating. Strangely, though, his wrinkled face suddenly crumpled into sad¬ness. "You will captivate many a young heart tonight, that is certain."
Tinwright looked down at the forest-green hose, which had a disturb¬ing tendency to twist between ankle and crotch so that each leg's seam looked more like a winding country road than a straight royal thorough¬fare. The colors were pleasing, though no real traveling minstrel ever wore such peacockery as this. It was a party costume that had belonged to Puz¬zle's dead friend Robben Hulligan, and the old man was actually weeping now to see him in it.
"He was fair of face and shapely of leg, my good old Robben." Puzzle rubbed his eyes. He had dressed for the masked fete himself in a black man¬tis' robe, and it suited him strangely, making his long, dour face seem for the first time to have found its proper setting. "He too loved the ladies, and the ladies loved him."
Tinwright didn't say anything, He had heartd this Robben-talk before and know the old man would have his say no matter what Tinwright did.
"He was murdered by bandits, poor fellow," said Puzzle, shaking his head. Tinwright could have recited the rest of his speech with him, so many times had he heard it. "Taken by Kernios long before his time. Have I told you of him? Sweet singing Robben."
Tinwright was even thinking of going to the temple for the services, just to avoid the rest of the old man's maundering, but was saved that igno¬minious fate by the arrival of a small boy, a page, bearing a message to Puz¬zle from Hendon Tolly's squire.
"Ah, it seems I am wanted!" the old man said with a pleasure he could barely contain. "The guardian wishes me to sit with him during the feast, so that I may entertain him."
The guardian must be trying to keep himself from eating too much, Tinwright thought but of course did not say: he was fond of Puzzle, if a bit tired of spending so much time with him. The old fellow's recent rise in favor had made him cheerful, but had made him a bit boastful as well, and Matt Tinwright's more dubious fortunes made it hard sometimes to enjoy his friend's triumphs. "Does it say anything about me?"
"I fear not," said Puzzle. "Perhaps you could come with me, though. I could sing my lord one of your songs, and surely…"
Tinwright thought back on the disastrous and humiliating reception he had received the last time he had tagged after Puzzle. That made it much easier to remember something that was true, if not useful to a man in search of advancement: he had decided he truly disliked Hendon Tolly. No, more than that-Tinwright was terrified of him. "Fear not, good friend Puzzle," he said aloud. "As you pointed out, there are doubtless many fair young faces and firm young bosoms that await my attention tonight. I hope you will have good fortune at the guardian's table." He could not help dispensing a little advice, though, since Puzzle these days seemed as innocently smitten of attention as a child. "Be careful of that man Havemore, though. He does not love anyone, and will go to subtle lengths to be cruel."
"He is a good enough fellow in his way," said Puzzle, quick to defend any of the wealthy, powerful men who had so unexpectedly taken him up. "When next you come with me, you will see and know him better."
"Let's hope not," said Matt Tinwright under his breath. If Tolly was a
predator, Tirnan Havemore was a scavenger, a graveyard dog that would snatch up whatever it could find and hold onto it with stinking jaws. "Me well and be merry, Uncle."
He waved as Puzzle went out, and then realized he had forgotten to ask him whether Hulligan's borrowed costume was buttoned correctly in the back. He wished he had a dressing-mirror, but only a rich man-or at least a man who made poems for rich men-could afford such a thing.
Ah, Princess Briony, where did you go? Your poet needs you. At least you ap¬preciated my true quality, if scarcely anyone else did… or does…
The castle was strung with parchment lanterns, and in every corner stood little altars to Madi Surazem covered with greenery, with pale helle¬bore blooms, firethorn, and holly surrounding white candles, each arrange¬ment a silent prayer that the swelling within the belly of Moist Mother Earth would bear forth in another spring of healthy crops.
But what crops? Tinwright thought And who to harvest them? The fairies have laid waste to all the western and northern lands. It was strange that he should be the one fretting about such things. His father had once called him (exaggerating only slightly, Tinwright had to confess) the laziest and most self-centered youth on either side of Brenn's Bay. Now he watched the courtiers in their masks and finery trip out into the garden and come back in, soaked from the rain and laughing, only to rush out again, and felt like a despairing parent himself. He wondered if his earlier idea, however poetic, might not be wrong: the dead could afford to make merry, having nothing to lose. The people around him seemed more like children, play¬ing games beneath a teetering boulder.
Something bumped him and almost knocked him to the floor. "Sing us a song, minstrel!" shouted a drunken voice. Swaying in front of him, wear¬ing a mask with an obscenely long nose, was Durstin Crowel, one of Tolly s closest followers, a red-faced young lord who would have looked more nat¬ural, Tinwright thought, on a platter at the center of a banquet with a quince stuffed in his mouth. Crowel stood in the middle of the corridor with four or five of his friends, none of whom looked any better for drink than the Baron of Graylock. He was soaking wet and wearing a dress. "Go on," Crowel said, pointing an unsteady finger at Tinwright. "Sing some¬thing with some swiving in it!" His companions laughed but they did not move on. They had sensed an edge in Crowd's tone that meant more in¬teresting things might be coming.
"Go to, then!" one of them shouted."You heard! Uncertain us, minstrel!"
"It is a costume, only," Tinwright said, backing away. At least they did not seem to have recognized him behind his bird mask. Sometimes it was good to be beneath the notice of the great.
"Ah, but my dagger is real." Crowel pulled something with a long, slen¬der blade from his bodice-the noble seemed to be dressed as a tavern maid. "To protect my dear virtue, you see…" He paused for the laugh, which his friends dutifully provided, "so I'm afraid you will sing-or I will make you sing." He belched and his friends laughed again. "Minstrel."
For a moment it seemed as if it would be easier simply to do it-to mop and mow a little for the benefit of these drunken arsewipes, to play the part and sing a sad song of love and let them mock him. He knew enough of Crowel to know the man had beaten at least one servant to death and crip¬pled another, just in the time he had been living in the Tollys' wing of the residence-surely it was better simply to give the man what he wanted.
But why should I think they will stop at mockery?
"My lord's command," he said aloud, and bent his knee in a bow. "I will be pleased to sing for you… another day."
Tinwright turned and ran for the residence garden. He was out into the cold rain before Crowel and the others realized what had happened.
This was the part of the plan I didn't think about as carefully as I might, Tin¬wright admitted to himself as he huddled soaking wet in the lee of a tall hedge. The wind was chill and sharp as a razor-he thought he could feel his skin beginning to turn to ice. Still, he was not ready to go back inside. He was fairly certain that Graylock hadn't recognized him, so all he had to do was stay away from them just for tonight. He considered sneaking back to the room he shared with Puzzle, but if he didn't go back through main halls of the residence he would have a long walk back in the biting, bitter wind.
Better just to wait until they drink themselves to sleep.
In any case, he was feeling more than a little sorry for himself when he realized he had not heard voices or seen movement in the garden for some time.
If they're not looking for me out here, at least I could find somewhere a little more warm and dry to hide, he thought. He pulled the minstrel's floppy cap down over his ears again-he had already nearly lost it to the wind several times-and wrapped the thin cape tight around his shoulders, wishing he had picked a more sensible disguise.
/ could have been a monk with a hood-or a Vuttisli reaver with a fur-lined hel-met! But no, I wished to show my legs to the ladies in a minstrel's hose. Fool.
He found one of the covered arbors at last; it was only when he had thrown himself down on the bench with a loud grunt of despair that he realized someone else was already sitting there.
"Oh! Your pardon, Lady…"
The woman in the dark dress looked up. Her eyes were red-she had been crying. An ivory-colored mask sat on her lap like a temple offering bowl. Tinwright's heart jumped, and for a moment he could not speak. He leaped to his feet, bowed, then remembered to take off his mask.
"Master Tinwright." She turned away and lifted her kerchief, drying her tears in a slow, deliberate fashion. Her voice was hard. "You find me at a disadvantage. Have you followed me, sir?"
"No, Lady Elan, I swear. I was only…"
"Wandering in the garden? Enjoying the weather?"
He laughed ruefully. "Yes, as you can see I have quite immersed myself in it. No, I was… well, I must be frank. The Baron of Graylock and some of his friends had taken it into their heads that I should entertain them, and it wasn't clear how much I should have to suffer for my art." He shrugged. "I decided that I would entertain them with a game of hide and seek instead."
"Durstin Crowel?" Her voice grew harder still. "Ah, yes, dear Lord Crowel. Do you know, when I first came here, he asked Hendon if he could have me. 'I'll break her for you, Tolly, he said-as if I were a horse."
"You mean he wanted to marry you?"
For the first time she turned to look at him, her face a mask of bitter amusement. "Marry me? Black heart of Kernios, no, he wanted to bed me only." Her face twisted into something else, something truly disturbing. "He did not know that Hendon had other plans for me. But yes, I know Baron Durstin." She composed herself, even tried to smile. "Very well, Master Tinwright, you are forgiven for your intrusion. And in fact, you may keep the arbor for yourself and I'll tell no one where you are. I must go back in¬side now. Doubtless my lord and master is looking for me."
She had risen, the mask halfway to her face, when Tinwright at last found the words.
"What is he to you?"
"Who?" She sounded startled. "Do you mean Hendon Tolly? I should think that was obvious, Master Tinwright. He owns me."
"You are not his wife but his sister-in-law. Will he marry you?"
"Why should he? Why should he pay for a cow whose milk is already his?"
It sickened him to hear her speak so. He took a breath, tried to find calm words. "Does he at least treat you well, my lady?"
She laughed, a cracked, unpleasant sound, and put the white mask to her face so that she seemed a corpse or a ghost. "Oh, he is most attentive." Her shoulders slumped and she turned away again. "Truly, I must go."
Tinwright grabbed at the sleeve of her velvet gown. She tried to pull away and something tore. For a moment they both stood, half in, half out of the rain.
"I would kill him for causing you unhappiness," he said, and realized in that moment it was true. "I would."
She lowered the mask in surprise. "Gods help us, do not say such things! Do not even go near him. He… you do not know. You cannot guess what evil is in him."
Tinwright still held her sleeve. "I… would not treat you so, Lady Elan. If you were mine, that is. I would love you. As it is, I think of you day and night."
She stared at him. Tears welled in her eyes again. "Ah, but you are a boy, Master Tinwright."
"I am grown!"
"In years. But your heart is still innocent. I am filthy and I would be¬grime you, too. I would stain you as I myself am stained, corrupted…"
"No. Please, do not say such things!"
"I must go." She gently pulled free of his grip. "You are kind-you can¬not know how kind-to say such things to me. But you must not think of me. I could not bear to have another's soul on my conscience."
Before she could turn away again he stepped forward and took her shoulders, felt her trembling. Could it be she had some feelings for him? She looked so startled at his touch, so frightened, as if she expected to be hit, that he did not kiss her mouth, although he wished to at this moment beyond any dream of riches or fame he had ever coveted. Instead he let his hands slide down her arms. As if his fingers stole her vitality where they passed, she let the mask drop clattering to the walkway. He took both her hands in his, lifted them to his lips, and kissed her cold fingers.
"I love you, Lady Elan. I cannot bear to see you, and to know you are in pain."
Her cheeks were wet, her eyes bright and frightened. "Oh, Master Tin¬wright, it cannot be."
"Matthias. My name is Matthias."
She looked at him for a long moment, then pulled his hands up to her mouth and kissed them in turn. "Would you really help me? Truly?
He was soaking with rain, but he could feel her tears on his hands like-streaks of hot lead. "I would do anything-I swear by all the gods. Ask me."
She turned to look out into the darkness. When she turned back her face was strange."Then bring me poison. Something that will cause a quick death."
For a moment Matt Tinwright could not breathe. "You… you would kill Tolly?"
She let go of his hands and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. "Are you mad? With my sister married to his brother Caradon? The Tollys would destroy her. They would burn my parents' house to the ground and mur¬der them both. Not to mention that Southmarch Castle would be left in the hands of Crowel and Havemore and others almost as blackhearted as Hendon, but not as clever. The March Kingdoms would be drowned in blood in half a year." She took a breath. "No. I want the poison for myself."
She pulled away from him again, bent and picked up her mask. When she stood, she was again a phantom. "If you love me, you will bring me that release. It is the only gift I can ever take from you, sweet Matthias."
And then she was gone into the rain.