‘Talon will avenge his people when he kills everyone responsible for the obliteration of the Orosini. Which means he may not rest until he faces down and destroys the man behind that genocide.’
Magnus’s eyes narrowed, the pale blue becoming icy. ‘You’re going to turn him into a weapon?’
Robert nodded. ‘He will need to kill the most dangerous man living today.’
Magnus sat back on the seat again and folded his arms across his chest. He looked towards the kitchen as if trying to see through walls. ‘You’re sending a mouse to beard a dragon.’
‘Perhaps. If so, let’s ensure the mouse has teeth.’
Magnus shook his head slowly and said nothing.
Talon hauled water up the hill and saw that Meggie waited for him and that she was frowning. She was the antithesis of Lela, tiny where Lela was voluptuous, fair to the point of pallor where Lela was dark, plain where Lela was exotic, dour where Lela was exuberant. In short, at not even twenty years old, she was more than halfway to being a middle-aged scold.
‘Took you long enough,’ she said.
‘I didn’t realize there was a rush on,’ said Talon, now comfortable with the idiomatic Roldemish he was being told to use almost exclusively.
‘There’s always a rush on,’ she snapped.
Following her up the hill, Talon asked, ‘Why did you come down to meet me?’
‘Kendrick said I was to find you and tell you you’d be serving again tonight in the dining room.’ She wore a shawl of drab green which she gathered tightly around her shoulders as she walked before him. The days were growing cold and the nights colder; autumn was turning to winter and soon snow would come. ‘There’s a caravan from Orodon to Farinda staying over tonight, and it seems there’s someone important travelling with it. So, Lela and I are assigned to the common room with Lars, and you and Gibbs to the dining room.’
‘You could have waited until I got back to the kitchen to tell me that,’ Talon observed.
‘When I’m told to do something, I do it at once,’ she snapped. She picked up her pace, hurrying on ahead. Talon watched her stiff back as she walked in front of him. Something struck him oddly for a moment, then he realized what it was; he liked the way her hips moved as she climbed the hill. He felt that same strange stirring in his stomach he often felt when he was alone with Lela and wondered about that. He didn’t particularly like Meggie, but suddenly he found himself thinking of the way her nose turned up at the tip, and how on those very rare occasions she smiled at something, she got tiny lines – crinkles Lela called them – at the corners of her eyes.
He knew that something had passed between Meggie and Lars for a while, but that for some reason they were barely speaking to one another now, while everyone spoke with Lela. He pushed away his discomfort. He knew what passed between men and women – his people were open enough about sex and he had seen many women naked at the bathing pool when he was still a child – yet the actual fact of being close to a young women caused him much distress. And these people were not Orosini – they were outlandish – though after an instant’s further thought he has to concede that now he was the outlander. He did not know their rituals, but they seemed to make free with their bodies before they were pledged. Then he realized that he didn’t even know if they did pledge. Perhaps they didn’t have marriage like the Orosini at all.
Kendrick had no wife as far as Talon was aware. Leo was married to the heavy woman, Martha, who oversaw the baking, but they were from some distant place called Ylith. Perhaps here in Langadore men and women lived apart, only … he shook his head as they reached the outer gate to the stabling yard. He didn’t know what to think. He resolved to speak of this with Robert should the opportunity arise.
He noticed that Meggie was standing in the porch, waiting for him. ‘Fill the barrels,’ she instructed.
Softly he said, ‘I know what to do.’
‘Oh, do you?’ she returned, her meaning obscure.
As she turned to hold the door open, he waited, then moved past her. As she closed the door behind him, he put down the large buckets of water and said, ‘Meggie?’
‘What?’ she said, turning to face him, her face set in a half-frown.
‘Why do you dislike me?’
The openness of the question took her aback. She stood speechless for a moment, then she brushed past him, her voice soft as she said, ‘Who said I didn’t like you?’
Before he could answer, she was gone from the kitchen. He picked up the buckets and carried them to the water barrels. He really didn’t understand these people.
After dinner that night, Talon sought out Robert, who stayed in a room at the back of the inn, on the first floor. He knew he had a life-debt to this man. He knew that until he was released from that debt, he would serve Robert de Lyis for the rest of his life, or until such time as he saved Robert’s life. But he was uncertain as to the plans Robert had for him. He had been numb with grief and overwhelmed by the changes in his life since Midsummer, but now with winter fast approaching, he had come to think about the future more and wonder what his fate would be after the spring came, and the next summer was upon him.
He hesitated before the door; he had never intruded upon Robert’s privacy before, and did not even know if such an approach was permitted. He took a breath, then knocked lightly.
‘Come in.’
He slowly opened the door and leaned in. ‘Sir, may I speak with you?’
Robert’s room contained only four items of furnishings, a bed, a chest for his clothing, a small table and a stool. He sat upon the stool in front of the table, consulting a large object, which appeared to Talon to be many parchments bound together. Next to it rested a candle, the room’s only illumination. A water basin and a pitcher indicated the table’s other function when Robert was not using it for his work.
‘Come in and close the door.’
Talon did so and stood awkwardly before Robert. ‘Is it permitted?’ he asked at last.
‘Is what permitted?’
‘For me to ask you a question.’
Robert smiled. ‘Finally. It is not only permitted, it is encouraged. What is on your mind?’
‘Many things, master.’
Robert’s eyebrows went up. ‘Master?’
‘I do not know what else to call you, and everyone says you’re my master.’
Robert waved to the bed. ‘Sit down.’
Talon sat, awkwardly.
‘To begin with, it’s appropriate for you to call me “master” in front of anyone well known to us, but when we are alone, or with Pasko, you may address me as “Robert”. Understood?’
‘I understand that is what I am to do. I do not understand why.’
Robert smiled. ‘You have as keen a wit as you do an eye, Talon of the Silver Hawk. Now, what is it you wished to see me about?’
Talon composed his thoughts, taking a few moments to weigh his words. Then he asked, ‘What are your plans for me?’
‘This concerns you?’
Talon lowered his eyes for a moment, then remembered his father’s words, that he should always meet another man’s gaze and always face a problem directly. ‘It concerns me.’
‘Yet you have waited for months to ask.’
Talon again fell silent. Then he said, ‘I have had to consider much. I am without a people. Everything I know is gone. I do not know who I am any more.’
Robert sat back. He drummed his fingers lightly upon the table and said after a while, ‘Do you know what this is?’ He touched the large bound sheaf of parchment.
‘It is writing, I think.’
‘This is called a book. In it is knowledge. There are many books with many different kinds of knowledge in them, just as each man is a different kind of man.
