Part 51 (1/2)

For a moment Eldyn couldn't fathom Dercy's expression-it seemed at once sad and hopeful-but then the young man's blond beard parted in a grin. ”It seems the time I spent at St. Adaris counted for something, after all. Brother Garus used to bore me to tears with his stories of how he was once a priest at St. Galmuth's, but I'm glad for them now.”

”As am I,” Eldyn said. He glanced back at Sas.h.i.+e, then lowered his voice. ”But have you heard-do you know if the archdeacon will hear our pet.i.tion?”

Dercy's smile vanished. ”I don't know. He might, but they say he is a very busy man. The good news is that you are allowed to stay until the archdeacon either agrees to hear your request or denies it, and it sounds like that could take days. In the meantime, you'll be safe here.”

Eldyn looked again at the statue on the altar. She seemed to be gazing down, as if at someone kneeling before her, and he wondered if it was with benevolence she looked or with retribution. Yes, they were safe here, but for how long? A few days, perhaps. And even if they were granted sanctuary, how long could they dwell here in a cathedral? What sort of life would that be for Sas.h.i.+e, trapped like a bird in the high-vaulted church?

”I'm tired,” he said quietly.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he turned around. Dercy gazed at him, worry in his blue-green eyes.

”Maybe you should try to sleep.”

Eldyn shook his head. ”That's not what I meant. I want to end this. I'm tired of running from him, I'm tired of letting him be the master of this game. I won't play it anymore, not by his rules.” Strangely, as he spoke these words, his fear and weariness receded. ”I don't care how it ends, but I want this to stop now.”

Dercy gripped his arm. ”Then you have to stop running. It will never end if you don't. You can't just keep responding to what he does. You have to be the one to take action.”

Eldyn understood. It was like the play at the Theater of the Moon. No matter how far the silvery youth ran, he could not escape the sun king. The only way to end it was to confront the king himself, to destroy his pursuer. Even if it led to his own destruction.

I would do it, Eldyn thought. If it would free Sas.h.i.+e from Westen, then I would do it, no matter the cost.

”Only how?” he said aloud. ”He is stronger than I, and he can wield a gun. What power do I have against him?”

Now Dercy was grinning again. ”You do have power. I've seen it, and so have you. He may have fists and guns at his disposal, but you have something else. If you're going to defeat him, you have to do it in your own way.”

Eldyn looked down at his hands, and as the light turned from red to gold, he thought he knew what Dercy meant. His father had called him weak, and all these years Eldyn had believed him. Only he wasn't weak. He just hadn't understood the nature of his own strength.

”So how do I do it?”

Dercy studied Eldyn for a moment. Then he glanced at Sas.h.i.+e, still sleeping on the bench, and his grin broadened. ”You do it by giving him exactly what he wants.”

They bent their heads together, whispering like the priests beneath the vaults of the cathedral.

I T WAS AFTERNOON, and sunlight bathed the cathedral of St. Galmuth's as one of the great bronze doors opened a fraction. A moment later a lithe figure slipped out. The young woman had dark hair and fair skin, and if any eyes saw her (and indeed, certain eyes were watching for just such a thing) they would have considered her a very pretty thing.

She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder, then hurried down the steps of the cathedral to the street below. She unfurled a parasol and raised it against the brilliant afternoon sun, shading her face, then looked left and right, as if unsure of which way to go. After a moment she chose left and moved down the street with the crowds, deeper into the Old City.

Again, if eyes had been watching, they would have seen seconds later how a tall form separated itself from the dimness of a doorway and stalked down the street after her.

The figure of the young woman wove among the crooked lanes of the Old City, then pa.s.sed through the Lowgate into the danker ways of Waterside. Men cast her looks as she went, as if stumbling upon a flower in the midst of a rubbish heap. Coming upon such a thing, what man would not crave to pluck it? However, it was broad daylight, and there were redcrests here and there. No one accosted her.

At last the young woman stopped before an inn on a narrow lane. The sign over the door read The Golden Loom. From beneath her parasol, she drew out a silk handkerchief and gave it a flutter.

It was the sign he had been waiting for. He appeared from a shadow and approached on long legs, clad in velvet and leather. His mane of hair fell over broad shoulders, s.h.i.+ning like gold in the sunlight. She gasped as he appeared suddenly beside her, then the white curve of a smile appeared in the dimness beneath the parasol.

”I knew it,” she said, her voice very soft. ”I knew if I came here you would find me.”

”So I have, my sweet. I've been waiting for you, and you have not disappointed me. I am pleased with you. Very pleased.” He smiled, and bent his face toward hers.

She lowered the parasol further. ”Not here!” she whispered.

He withdrew, a bemused expression on his handsome face. ”You are right, of course. In my delight to see you, I forget my manners. Besides, there are those who, if they noticed me, would not look so kindly upon me as you do. It is best if we go inside.”

He held out his arm, and she accepted it. Inside it was cool and dim, but she traded her parasol for a fan, using it to conceal her face as he spoke to the innkeeper. Coins changed hands. A private dining chamber was reserved. Wine was delivered, and sweet things to eat, then the innkeeper was told not to disturb them.

When they were alone again, he moved to the door and locked it. Then he poured wine for them both and handed her a gla.s.s.

”You need fear no prying eyes in here,” Westen said. ”The innkeeper and I have an...arrangement. He can be trusted. Pray set down your fan and let me see your lovely face in full.”

”Draw the curtains first.”

He laughed. ”What a modest thing you are!” But he did as instructed, and then she set down the fan and smiled at him. It was a lovely expression, demure but not too timid. And if her cheeks were powdered and rouged a bit more heavily than usual, and her lips painted a deeper red, he seemed not to notice. He sat beside her, took a long drink of wine, then set his hand atop hers. She started to pull away, but he clasped his fingers about her own, holding her hand in place.

”You need not fear,” he said. ”No one recognized you here, not with your fan before your face. Nor were you followed from the cathedral. There is no way your brother can know where you are.”

”My brother!” she said scornfully. ”How I am glad to be away from him. Would that I never saw him again!”

He raised an eyebrow. ”You speak ill of him, yet I know he loves you deeply. Do you not love him in return?”

”Do I love him? Nay, I loathe him! He has been my captor and my tormentor all these months. He has imprisoned me in wretched hovels, never letting me see the light or breathe the air. If he professes to love me, then it is as a man loves a pearl he locks away in a musty box where no one can ever see it. It is a wonder I have not wasted away.”

Alarm suddenly crossed her face, and now it was she who clasped his hand tightly. ”You aren't going to take me back to him, are you? Please, I would rather you take out your gun and end my life. I won't go back to him!”

”Now, now,” he said, lifting his other hand to her chin. ”You need not speak so wildly. You are free of him forevermore-I promise you that. If ever I would ask you to go back to him, it would be only for a short time, and then only to help me punish him.”

”To...to punish him?”

”Yes, to punish him for how he has wronged you and how he has wronged me.”

For a moment she gazed at him, then her lips curved in a smile. ”I like the sound of that.” She pushed his gla.s.s toward him. It was full again, and he did not seem to notice that her own gla.s.s was suddenly empty, though she had taken only the smallest sip. He raised the gla.s.s to her and tilted it back, drinking deeply.

W ATCHING THE HIGHWAYMAN drink, Eldyn felt not fear but rather a kind of thrill he had never known before. He had dreaded that the trick might be exposed under the harsh light of day, but the parasol and fan had served their purpose, and here in this dim chamber the illusion was less likely to be discovered.

As Dercy had told him, it was easy to make people see what they wanted to see. He had only to powder his face and put on the frock Dercy had brought him-one of Sas.h.i.+e's own, retrieved from their rooms in Lowpark-and he was already much of the way there. People had always said brother and sister were very alike in looks.

There in the cathedral, beneath the watchful gazes of saints, Dercy had taught him a glamour to make him seem smaller, finer, and more pale. It was easier to work the illusion than Eldyn had thought. Yet he had done it with the coin in the tavern, and it was not so different than weaving the shadows-save that it was light he was shaping, not darkness.

The rest of the trick was up to him-to move delicately and speak with a soft voice. At first it was a great effort and required much concentration, but, strangely, the more he did it the easier it became. By the time they had entered the private dining chamber at the inn, he felt like he was on a stage giving a performance.

Eldyn's audience set down his cup.

”By G.o.d, I have a great thirst,” he said, and he filled both their cups again. Then his gaze fell upon Eldyn, roving up and down. ”And I daresay I am hungry as well.”

Eldyn pushed the plate of sweets toward him, but the highwayman pushed them back.

”That's not what I meant, as you know well.” He leaned over the table. His breath was warm and wine-scented. ”Sas.h.i.+e...it's a pretty name. I always thought you pretty yourself, but today you seem more than pretty. You're like an angel. The sight of you goes to my head more than the contents of this gla.s.s. I confess, I had thought to punish your brother through you. I see now that I can, but not in the way I thought.”

Eldyn took the chance to switch their cups again, then smoothed a lock of gold hair back from the highwayman's brow. ”Whatever do you mean, my dear? What were you thinking of doing before now?”

”It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I know what we must do. I had thought you a creature in his power, yet you have a will of your own. With you I can accomplish what I have not been able to do on my own. Then, when it is revealed to him that you are mine and that I have made you happy in a way he never could, it will ruin him far more than any hurt I might have delivered to him. He will be utterly defeated.”