by Lynn Abbey
A raw wind blew off the harbor and through Cauvin’s loft. He could have used another layer of fleece above and below, but the winter bedclothes were still hanging from the rafters … Another froggin’ chore for the morning. Cauvin pulled off his boots, nothing more, and huddled beneath the blankets. He had no trouble falling asleep. A man who couldn’t fall asleep whenever the opportunity presented itself wasn’t working hard enough, and a man who couldn’t sleep ’til dawn was a fool.
Cauvin proved himself a sheep-shite fool a few hours later when he found himself sitting bolt upright. His nerves were jangled, and every sense strained to its utmost, trying to absorb the quiet darkness. He didn’t know what had awakened him, not a nightmare, maybe a noise. Cauvin held his breath, listening, hoping whatever had awakened him would repeat itself.
Most night noises did repeat, and most thieves eventually got caught because they didn’t know how long to remain quiet after making a noise. The best thieves knew that while an unexpected noise might awaken an entire household, honest people would stay put in their beds if no further noise stoked their suspicions. Cauvin knew what the best thieves knew—the froggin’ Bloody Hand of the froggin’ Mother of Chaos had beaten the lessons across his shoulders—but he had no talent for thieving. He’d gotten himself caught and locked in the crypt every froggin’ time they’d tested him.
Silence had been no protection in the froggin’ dank and stinking crypt, and it didn’t reassure Cauvin now.
His boots were where he’d left them, and the pitchfork he used to muck out Flower’s stall was a decent weapon so long as no one was shooting arrows. Cauvin might not have been good enough to steal for the Hand, but he slipped out of the work shed without disturbing Flower, the dog, or the chickens. The moon was past full and sinking, but bright enough for shadows and wouldn’t set until after sunrise. With the pitchfork angled in front of him, Cauvin prowled the stoneyard.
He started with the house, where Grabar, Mina, and Bec slept. Nothing appeared wrong: The door was shut, the windows were dark, and the place was quiet as a tomb. Farther on, the yard dog had its glowing red eyes on Cauvin, same as Cauvin was watching it. And beyond the dog—
The damned froggin’ gate was open—not wide-open, but cracked a handspan or two, and the heavy bar lay on the ground.
Forgetting caution, Cauvin dropped the pitchfork and raced to the gate. Rich folks put their faith in fancy locks and winched gates, but a froggin’ bar anchored on the hinge side of a door was every bit as good at keeping trouble out. A barred gated could be scaled, of course, but that’s what the dog was for; or it could be battered down, but that would splinter the bar and wake the sheep-shite dead. The yard dog wasn’t barking, and the bar wasn’t broken. Cauvin had a pretty good idea what had happened before he got to the gate.
“Bec? Becvar!” If the boy had made the noise that awakened Cauvin, then he wasn’t out of earshot yet. Cauvin didn’t shout, but his hoarse whisper would carry all the way down to the empty lot where Enas Yorl’s house had stood. “Becvar Grabar’s son—if you can hear me, get your froggin’ ass back here!”
Silence, utter and complete.
Cauvin shut the gate without barring it and tried the house a second time. The door was unlatched, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Once inside, Grabar’s snoring echoed from the walls and rafters. The man made one froggin’ racket once he closed his eyes for the night. Cauvin had moved into the loft just to get away from the noise. He didn’t understand how Mina or Bec ever got to sleep, but they managed. Listening between the honks and blasts, Cauvin heard his foster mother’s softer sounds.
Bec’s part of the room was quiet, as it should have been; healthy children didn’t snore. Cauvin eased himself in that direction. His feet found blankets on floor; they put an end to the story. Grabbing a torch from the rack outside the gate, Cauvin took off down Pyrtanis Street without lighting it.
The thought of Bee—scrawny little Bee—roaming the froggin’ streets of Sanctuary in the dead hours between midnight and dawn struck fear in Cauvin’s gut. He couldn’t bring himself to think about what might go wrong, so he blamed Molin Torchholder instead. If the froggin’ damned old man hadn’t put ideas about stealing treasure from the palace into the boy’s fool head, Bec would be safe in bed.
And Cauvin wouldn’t be standing in the froggin’ middle of the old Money Path wondering which way to turn next. He’d made up his mind the moment the Torch opened his mouth that he wasn’t going to steal into the damned palace for froggin’ love nor money, so he hadn’t paid attention to the sheep-shite’s instructions. The best Cauvin could remember was something about a tunnel beneath a run-down house in Silk Corner.
Froggin’ hell—every house in Silk Corner was run-down. Every froggin’ house in Sanctuary needed repairs; that’s what kept Grabar’s stoneyard in business. Cauvin would be all night and most of tomorrow if he had to check the cellar of every house in Silk Corner, and he’d have cheerfully wrung the last breath from the Torch’s froggin’ neck—or anyone else’s neck, if there’d been a neck nearby to wring.
But there wasn’t. Cauvin was alone, and he had to choose one end or the other of the doglegged street. He chose the south end, farthest from the palace, because his first thought was to choose the north end, and Cauvin’s life was the history of making the wrong froggin’ choice whenever it counted. That’s how the froggin’ Hand had caught him—He’d run left when he should’ve run to the froggin’ right.
Cauvin marched up the street, scarcely able to tell the abandoned houses from the occupied ones. Halfway along, he heard a scuffle seething in an atrium’s depths.
Not my froggin’ concern, he thought, not this froggin’ night.
He kept going until his ears caught a single word, thin and desperate—
“Feathers—!”
There couldn’t be two souls in Sanctuary who made up their own curses. Cauvin surged into the atrium without pausing to plan his attack, except to switch the torch to his left hand and move the bronze-weighted thong from his neck to his hand.
The first Hiller never knew what was coming at him. Cauvin broke the torch over his head, then booted him in the face as he fell. He grabbed the second from behind—one handful of hair, the other twisting up the Hiller’s belt—and hurled him at the nearest solid-seeming wall. While the Hiller spun and groaned, Cauvin loaded his fist with bronze and broke the bastard’s jaw with a single punch. He landed a kick at the second Hiller’s crotch before he collapsed.
The other Hillers—there were at least three more—knew Cauvin had waded in by then. Two of them shifted their attention to the new target. Cauvin dodged fists aimed at his face, but endured punches to his gut and flank before locking his left arm around a set of shoulders and pummeling a face with his metal-loaded fist until the froggin’ Hiller’s arms were dangling. Cauvin finished that Hiller off by running him headlong into a stone pillar. Both the pillar and the Hiller collapsed.
A sheep-shite Hiller who’d missed Cauvin’s head each time he’d swung must have decided his chances weren’t going to get any better now that he had the lion’s share of Cauvin’s attention. He backed out of reach, then ran away like a froggin’ rabbit.
That left one Hiller in the atrium—a short and scrawny bastard who held Bec in front of him as a living shield. When Cauvin advanced, the Hiller wrapped his hands around Bec’s chin and scalp and began to twist. Bec gave out a terrified squawk. Cauvin stopped in his tracks. He knew that maneuver, how quickly it could kill a man, woman, or brother. He’d learned it from the same red-handed trainer who’d taught him to ignore pain and fight with a lump of metal weighting his fist. A shiver of fear that was not for Bec’s survival shook Cauvin’s spine. Holding his breath, he circled right to get a better view of the bastard’s face.
There was only darkness in the shadowy moonlight, but if there’d been sunlight Cauvin knew with cold, sinking certainty, the patch of darkness behind Bec’s shoulder would have turned bloodred. Cauvin wasn
’t fighting the froggin’ Irrune or Wrigglie street scum; he was squared off with his own past.
Cauvin’s every instinct was to cut and run, and if it weren’t his brother between him and the Hand, his froggin’ instincts would have seized control of his feet. But it was Bec with a face as bright as the moon and rigid with terror. Cauvin mastered his fear and, meeting eyes he couldn’t see, strode forward.
His sheep-shite life wouldn’t be worth living if the Hand finished what he’d started, but he had a chance. If the Hand wanted Bec dead, the boy would have been dead before Cauvin set foot in the atrium. He raised his weighted fist.
“Let him go, or I’ll rip your froggin’ guts out,” Cauvin snarled, and, to his astonishment, the Hand gave Bec a shove forward, then took off for the street.
Bec gasped and staggered to his knees. Without hesitation, Cauvin caught the boy before he fell completely. The Hiller Cauvin had smashed into the pillar wasn’t moving, but the others were. Probably they wouldn’t be interested in continuing the fight now that their Bloody Hand leader had fled, but Cauvin wouldn’t take that chance. He hoisted Bec onto his shoulder and lit out for Pyrtanis Street.
Halfway down an alley shortcut, Bec, who’d started wiggling the moment they’d cleared Silk Corner, slipped free.
“Leave me alone!” the boy protested. “I’m not hurt.”
A little voice at the back of his sheep-shite mind told Cauvin to ignore the wide, woefully ineffective punches Bec promptly threw at his gut, but no froggin’ little voice stood a chance against the aftermath of a four-against-one brawl with the Bloody Hand of Dyareela. Before he could stop himself, Cauvin had clamped his hands over the boy’s shoulders and shoved him against a wall.
“Not froggin’ hurt? You could’ve been froggin’ killed, Bec! Froggin’ killed. Eshi’s tits! You’d be dead now, if I hadn’t come along. Froggin’ worse than dead—”
Undeterred by earlier defeat, the little voice shot another notion through Cauvin’s mind: When he’d left the stoneyard he’d thought Bec was just ahead of him, but the boy had been long gone by then. Still, if Cauvin had awakened later, he’d have missed the scuffle; he’d have missed it, too, if he’d awakened much earlier. Froggin’ sure—it couldn’t have been any froggin’ accident that he’d woken up exactly when he had.
Maybe he should hie himself out beyond the west gate and say a prayer or two at Sweet Lady Eshi’s altar—a thankful, respectful prayer that didn’t mention Her most obvious attributes. Or, maybe he should start asking questions about the Torch’s god, Vashanka.
Shaken and sobered, Cauvin released his brother. “Frog all, what’s the froggin’ matter with you, Bec? Didn’t I tell you the Torch’s damned games were too froggin’ dangerous? Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t going to the palace? Did you think that was a froggin’ invitation for you to go instead?”
Bec wrapped his arms tight around his chest. “Somebody had to. If you wouldn’t, then it had to be me. I remembered everything Grandfather’d said about getting into the palace and getting out again, so I did what he said. I got the picture right here—” He patted his shirt above his heart. “I got it, and I kept it.”
“He’s not your froggin’ grandfather, Bec. He’s the froggin’ Torch. Maybe he’s a froggin’ hero in this town, but he’s a froggin’ hero because he doesn’t care who froggin’ lives or dies—not him and not you or me, either.”
“That’s not true!” Bec protested loudly. “He said there’d be no trouble getting into the palace, and there wasn’t. All the trouble came on my way home. You can’t blame Grandfather for that. My fault. Get mad at me, if you’ve got to get mad at someone.”
Cauvin shook his head. Bec was slippery in ways he couldn’t fathom; he could feel his anger slipping away. He would have let it go altogether, but for one thing—“Frog all, Bec, that wasn’t some sheep-shite drunk from the Hill with his hands around your head—that was a priest of the froggin’ Mother of Chaos. A Bloody Hand priest, Bec. You’re so froggin’ clever, Bec—the froggin’ Hand was froggin’ waiting for you!”
“If I’d’ve turned right, instead of left, when I came out, nothing would have happened,” Bec protested. “Nothing. You’ll see—” He pulled folded-up parchment from the waist of his breeches.
“You’ll see when I give this to Grandfather tomorrow.”
Cauvin snatched the parchment out of Bec’s hand, doing what the Hand had failed to do, if he and not Bec were right about the Hand. He held it above Bec’s desperate reach. In the moonlight, the sheepskin didn’t look worth killing or dying for.
“It’s mine, Cauvin! I went and got it, not you. Give it back, so I can give it to Grandfather tomorrow.”
“Froggin’ hell.”
Cauvin shoved the wad into his boot and, when Bec lunged for it, shoved the boy away.
“I’ll tell!” Bec shouted his threat. “I’ll tell Momma and Poppa what you’ve been doing out at the redwall ruins. How you’ve got the Torch holed up out there and that you’ve held out on the silver and gold he gave you. I’ll tell them that you made me—”
“You do that,” Cauvin shouted back. “You tell your sheep-shite parents whatever the froggin’ hell you want to tell them. Go ahead, get me thrown out of the stoneyard—Then what, Bec? Then what? Weren’t you paying attention? I’m talking about the Bloody Hand. A priest of the Bloody Hand of Dyareela had his hands on your neck, Bec—even if it were a froggin’ complete accident. Don’t you froggin’ forget that the Torch says—in so many froggin’ words—that him and the sparker got ambushed by the Hand two nights ago. Was that another froggin’ accident? Two froggin’ accidents involving the froggin’ Hand? Do you think anything Lord-High-and-Mighty Molin Torchholder does is a froggin’ accident? You think Dyareela’s froggin’ Hand believes in accidents?”
“Quiet down there!” a faceless stranger shouted from the upper story of one of the buildings surrounding the brothers.
They said shame couldn’t kill, but the froggin’ shame of knowing that he and Bec had been sharing their anger—and their secrets—with strangers hurt Cauvin worse than the bruises he’d gotten in the atrium. Shame or something similar took the wind out of Bec’s sails, too. The boy began to shiver violently, then threw himself against Cauvin.
“I was scared,” Bec whispered, “scared like I’ve never been before.”
“So was I.”
Bee’s arms tightened into an unexpectedly strong hug, and his head pressed against one of Cauvin’s growing bruises, but Cauvin didn’t care. He wrapped his arms around the boy.
“You’re safe now. C’mon, let’s get home.”
He unwound the boy and got them moving toward Pyrtanis Street.
“Cauvin …?” Bec asked softly after what was, for him, a lengthy silence.
“What?”
“Cauvin, that one, that one that you said was a Bloody Hand priest. I’m not so sure. He never said anything, but the way he was holding me—what I could feel against him—well, I think he was a woman.
“Man or woman, it was still a Hand.”
“But how could a priest be a woman, Cauvin? Women are priestesses. And I’ve never heard of priests and priestesses serving the same god. Even yesterday, when Grandfather told me his tale and you an’ he were arguing, you said priests, not priestesses.”
Cauvin sighed and dropped an arm around Bec, pulling him close so they walked side against side and could talk with whispers. “There were women among the Hand,” he admitted. “Dyareela is a goddess, but She’s a froggin’ god, too. A herm-something. Every time they initiated a priest, they made a priestess, too, to be—”
His voice broke on a reef of memories. If it had only been beatings, Pendy might not have killed herself and Leorin might not have chosen to make her home above the Vulgar Unicorn; but Dyareela was a froggin’ love goddess—and god—as well as the Mother of Chaos. There was nothing Dyareela craved more than the raw power of sex, especially if somebody wound up hurting afterward.
“To b
e like seamen?” Bec asked eagerly.
The question jolted Cauvin. “Seamen? What have froggin’ seamen … ?” Then he remembered the boy’s curiosity and disdain the night before after he’d visited the Broken Mast. “No. She’s got—Dyareela’s got the private parts of men and women. A herm-something.”
Bec pulled away, shaking his head and his shoulders, too. “No—that can’t be. Either there is one, or there isn’t, right?” The boy waited futilely for Cauvin to say something. “I’m right, aren’t I? I’ve got to be right—you’ve either got one or you don’t.”
“Gods and goddesses are different.”
“Not that different. There’s a statue of Father Ils at the fane. He’s all naked and he’s got one and that’s all he’s got. He’s got no titty-bits.”
“That’s Father Ils, Bec, not Dyareela. Dyareela didn’t need any sort of lover. She could do for Herself.”
“Furzy feathers! Does Grandfather know?”
The danger with answering any one of Bec’s questions was that there’d always be a second, worse than the first.
“I don’t know if Grandfather knows, I don’t care, and you don’t either.” Cauvin realized he’d said “Grandfather” and groaned.
“Grandfather should know, if he doesn’t. Something like that’s got to be important. Do Momma and Poppa know? Should we tell them?”
“Froggin’ no!” Cauvin snarled back, loud enough to draw more unwanted attention. “Can’t you get it into your sheep-shite skull”—he cuffed the boy behind the ear for emphasis—“the Hand’s on the streets again and you’ve got to keep your froggin’ mouth shut ’cause if you don’t, there’s no telling who’s going to overhear you—”
Bec just stood there, an arm’s reach away, rubbing the spot Cauvin had slapped.
Cauvin felt small and shamed by his outburst. “Froggin’ gods, Bec, I didn’t mean to hurt you, but we’ve got to be careful, both of us—so careful it froggin’ hurts.”
