The Bitterbynde Trilogy by Cecilia Dart-Thornton Page B

four and a half heartbeats, but it would seem longer until, accelerating to meet the cobblestones at 980 miles per hour, the descending note of a scream was cut off. This realization apparently illuminated Sheepshorn. He softly swore an oath and propped, shuddering, against the wall.
    Ustorix shrugged.
    Cramp seized the eavesdropper’s leg, and he shifted minimally. The forgotten stirrup, by his foot, rang against stone. Heads turned.
    â€œMethinks I heard a sound there before.”
    Crouched, heart pounding, the nameless one saw them draw back the curtains of harness and tack, peering down at him.
    â€œWhat is this?” Ustorix’s tone dripped with the acid of disgust.
    Spatchwort uneasily choked out, “It’s an ill-made thing that goes about with one of the menials, my lord. A half-wit and a mute.”
    â€œFrom whence?”
    â€œThey say he’s a peddler’s son who was caught in a cave-in near Huntingtowers during that tremor in Autumn, or else some servant’s get, abandoned on the road.”
    â€œWhat’s it doing here, spying on us? Hey, Poxface, what do you think you’re doing? Come out of there.”
    As the discovered youth scrambled to obey, the lift-shaft rattled. In its remote depths, a cage began to ascend shakily. But before it hove into view, a deep voice boomed through the gatehall. Breathing hard, two men stood at the top of the stairwell—the dun-robed Chief Steward of the Household and the Master at Swords, cloaked in scarlet.
    â€œDamn my eyes,” uttered the former quizzically.
    â€œWhat brings you here, my lord Ustorix?” inquired Mortier, Master at Swords. “Do these louts trouble you? Something fell to the courtyard below this gate, and voices were heard up here. Others follow now, to investigate.”
    Ustorix paused a moment before replying. He eyed the spy reflectively.
    â€œMy dear teacher, this creature here has stolen sildron from the treasury. Two of my servants discovered him, but instead of returning the sildron, they decided to play games with it. I was about to put a stop to all that when one of the common, blood-beggared scoundrels elected to try and kill himself.”
    â€œCommendable action on your part, my lord, I’m certain your father will be proud to hear it.” The Master at Swords bowed graciously.
    The lift-cage rose up in the shaft and bumped to a stop. The lift-keeper pulled back the folding iron grid, and several men strode forth. Mortier peered more closely at the disfigured youth.
    â€œMost interesting,” he murmured nasally. “I was not aware of this boy. Take him away. Assuredly he shall be well punished.”
    And he was.
    He had known what Grethet, his keeper, would say:
    â€œWho beat you? Did they see you? Did they see it is not only your face that is so repulsive?”
    Early, she had informed him of the loathliness of his flesh. He had gone to great pains to conceal the skinny frame from which he himself now always averted his gaze, but in the end his punishers had not bothered to uncover more than his back and shoulders for the whipping. A severe lashing, it cut deep and bloodily. The wounds began to weep and brought on a fever.
    For weeks he lay ill in the darkness of the candle-store, with only the spiders to hear his moans of agony. Grethet would come in to wash his wounds with herbal decoctions and impatiently pour water into the parched and choking well of his mouth. In his delirium he thought himself trapped in the stories he had heard in the servants’ kitchens, his liver being torn out over and over beneath some lonely mere, drowning in his own blood.
    Eventually he recovered, but the scars remained.
    When a Windship was due in before dawn, he used to creep out of a crumbling window and seat himself upon a narrow roof-gutter, buffeted by the breeze. In that hour, the ground and trees were black. The eastern horizon, between dark gray shoals of clouds, was singed