"Then do as I say, and we need never speak of it at all," Kiva said implacably. "Matteo need never learn of what was done to assure his impressive talents and high status. I have seen how he took the death of his friend. How would he receive the truth about his mother? How would he regard the man who had a part in such a thing?"
For a long moment silence filled the room. "Go," the man said in a choked voice. "As always, everything will be done as you say."
* * * * *
Matteo slumped against the cold stone wall and stared out the single window in the door of his cell as he tried to take it all in. Andris was dead. Mystra only knew what had become of Themo. And he, Matteo, was imprisoned on a charge of carrying a weapon that was not only proscribed but also stolen.
He sighed and surveyed his prison. The hold was a rarity in Halruaa, a land of swift justice and very few prisons. The port city of Khaerbaal was more rough-and-tumble than most, and though a few minor offenders were sentenced to a few days of confinement, for the most part the hold was a place to store criminals until the resident mage could attend to his or her case. Guilt was quickly determined through magical inquiry and the sentence carried out according to law.
Matteo had no fear of the outcome. His innocence would be determined by the prison magehound. Even so, the temporary disgrace carried a crushing weight.
A shadow passed by the small, barred window, silhouetted against the flickering light of torches thrust into metal brackets on the walls outside. Matteo gave an impassive glance toward what he thought was the guard, then leaped to his feet. The light was dim and uncertain, but Tzigone's face was forever burned into his memory and he would know her anyplace.
"You!" he declared in a tone that dripped with wrath as he pointed an accusing finger at the young woman.
Tzigone rolled her eyes. "And I thought Gio's performance was overwrought. Save the drama for the supper crowd. Right now let's think about getting you out of here."
If possible, the mention of rescue only served to increase Matteo's ire. "I am jordaini, bound by the laws of the land. You insult me by suggesting that I would attempt to escape justice."
"Justice?" she repeated incredulously. "Is that what you think happens around here? I know the magehound who works the hold. He's an ugly little monkey of a man who holds a grudge against anyone better favored than he. One look at that handsome face of yours and he'll be howling for an Inquisition. If I were you, I wouldn't bet my future on the outcome."
Matteo's first impulse was to protest this as blasphemous. A magehound's word was final and fair. This was the underlying premise of his culture, the assurance of the jordain’s status and power.
Yet he himself had harbored such thoughts. How could he not? Andris was dead. Andris, who was his dearest friend and the best of them all. It was enough to make any man lose faith.
Faced with such a dark and unfathomable void, Matteo clung to what he knew. "I do not fear the magehound's judgment. Truth is a sword that cuts all bonds."
She threw up her hands. The 'truth' is that you were caught with a weapon crafted by Zanfeld Yemandi, the city's premier swordsmith."
"You said the sword was yours! he protested.
"Mine, his," she said impatiently. "I had need of it at the moment and Zanfeld did not. Who had the better claim to it?"
Matteo groaned and buried his head in his hands. Though Tzigone obviously intended to aid him, her words condemned him as surely as they informed him. When the magical inquiry was done, it would be discovered that he knew beyond doubt at the time of inquisition that the sword was stolen.
"I an undone," he muttered, slumping lower against the wall.
"Then get off the floor and do yourself back up," she said tartly. "I'll get you out of this. Trust me."
He sent her a quick incredulous glance. "Need I remind you that it was you who got me into this?"
She shrugged away his words with the same impatient unconcern that she might have in dismissing a comment about the political situation in distant Cormyr. The expression on her face clearly proclaimed, What has one thing to do with another?
Tzigone cast her eyes toward the ceiling. Then, with the air of someone who has better things to do than engage in meaningless chat, she dropped out of sight. Metallic whispers gave witness to picks and knives being employed on the lock.
Matteo walked over to the door. "I will not go with you," he said with calm finality. "If you open the door, I will pull you inside and shut it behind you."
Tzigone's face popped back into view, and she regarded him with an insouciant grin. "What woman could resist so poetic a ploy? Look at me! I'm swooning!"
"I didn't mean-"
She cut him off with a jab to the forehead with the blunt end of her pick. "How stupid do I look? I know what you meant Now be quiet and let me work."
Again she disappeared. Matteo heard the distant tread of footsteps. "Someone's coming. Go now before you're forced to join me here."
This logic finally struck a chord. The woman rose and sent a quick look over her shoulder, then leaped for the iron bracket set high on the wall. She pulled herself up onto the torch's shelf and nimbly rose to her feet. From there she reached the lowest edge of the rafter and swung herself up onto it. Swiftly she walked across the broad beam. The only sign of her passing was a silvery sprinkle of dust and the appearance of a couple of indignant spiders, disturbed from their perches and swinging like pendulums from gossamer threads.
Matteo breathed a gusty sigh of relief. Though Tzigone's understanding of life was vastly different than his, he was moved by the fact that she would try to rescue him. All the same, he was glad that she was safely out of it.
He had just settled back down on the floor when the lock began to clatter in earnest. He surged to his feet as the door swung in, ready to unleash a blistering tirade at the persistent girl.
But the face in the doorway was not what he expected, not the impish charm of Tzigone's pointed chin and big, dark eyes, but the exotic, dangerous beauty of a wild elf female.
Kiva the Magehound raised a single jade-colored brow. "You are most eager to leave, Matteo. Strangely you don't seem pleased to see me."
Matteo had no answer for that. Instead he regarded the steady, golden stare of the wemic at Kiva's side. Judging from Mbatu's expression, Matteo guessed that the wemic remembered quite well what had passed between them earlier that day. Tzigone's assurances of forgetfulness were nothing more than another of her comfortable lies.
Kiva slipped a slender arm around the wemic's waist, a gesture that struck Matteo as warning rather than affection. She glanced over her shoulder at the hold's magistrate, who was all but wringing his hands in distress.
"Deepest apologies, lady, but you cannot simply take this prisoner and go."
"Oh? And why is that?"
"He must be examined by the hold's inquisitor. You know the rules."
Kiva's smile was chilling. "I also know Chartain. He was assigned this post because he could get no other. Do you put more faith in his judgment than mine? If I say that this jordain is no thief, let that content you."
The magistrate gave one last try. "You walk in Azuth's light, lady, and speak through the sure sight of magic. If you say this man is no thief, I will swear my own life against his innocence! But you cannot deny that he was carrying a sword, though it is against local custom for a jordain to do so."
"What need have they of such weapons when they are armed with the sword of truth?" she said sweetly, neither confirming nor disputing the accusation.
Once again Matteo heard the hint of irony in her voice, a music not unlike the faint, mocking echoes of the Unseelie folk, dark fairies who haunted the mountain passes around Halruaa and played seductive tunes known to lure men from the paths into the wilderness.
"He had the sword when the militia stopped him," the magistrate stated again.
"But did he know at the time that he was carrying it? Did you?" she said, turning abruptly to Matteo.
"I did not know about the sword. The magehound does not lie… about this," Matteo said, adding subtle emphasis of his own.
Her angry gaze snapped to his, and for a long time they locked fierce stares. Matteo remembered a cobra and trainer he'd seen frozen in just such a posture. Like the snake trainer, he suspected that a misstep would cause the deadly creature before him to strike.
But after a moment Kiva's lips curved in a delighted smile. She turned to the magistrate. "You heard him. We all know that the jordaini place truth above all. Let him go at once."
Matteo's troubles did not end when the door of the hold clanked shut behind him.
Kiva wished him well in her sweet, ironic voice and then disappeared. The wemic, after a final long, challenging stare, followed the magehound, leaving Matteo entirely to his own devices.