The cupola is disturbingly well organized. On one side a canvas tarp, rolled and tied, sits beside crude woven baskets of food and black skins full of water or wine. On the other, a neatly collected pile of scat, bones, and the remains of a city guard, probably the missing man from Quiet. The floor glistens as if recently mopped. In the middle lies Tristaban, wrists bound behind her, mouth gagged, body bruised and bloody. Holestar’s head sits nearby, as does his body, the belly torn open.
Herse smiles, lowers the crossbow, and puts a finger to his lips. Tristaban shivers a nod. He climbs all the way into the cupola, keeping his head below its low walls. He lifts her onto her knees, pulls her gag loose then plucks a ball of dirty cloth from her mouth. She coughs and spits. He shushes her soothingly, and she remembers how to act alive.
“Are you all right?” he says, pointing at several aloe leaves tied on like bandages with thread.
“It ate him,” she says. “I watched it eat him.”
“Listen.” Herse holds her cheek. “Who’s he with?”
“What? A company?” Tristaban says. “None. It’s Jeryon.”
“Who?”
“The captain of the Comber.”
So the rumors are true. Jeryon was given the captain’s chance. Herse should have known. Chelson had to have seen something in Livion.
“He was going to trade me for their confessions,” Tristaban says. “Livion’s. And my father’s. He’d ruin us.” Her eyes dart to the crossbow. “You have to do something.”
“Of course,” he says. “We’re partners.”
His hand is still on her cheek. She smiles. “I like the sound of that word when you say it.”
He pats her cheek and crouch-walks to the wall.
She twists to watch him. “Cut me loose,” she says.
He shushes her and peeks over.
“I have to ask,” Ject says. “Did you take Chelson’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Is she all right?”
“Yes.”
“Up there?”
Jeryon nods.
“Good.” Two fish, one hook. “Why don’t you come down from there? My neck’s getting a crick looking up like this.”
Jeryon stiffens. He says, “With your men waiting to take me?” He plies the reins. The dragon swings its head to watch Ravis and Oftly.
“I’ll call them off. Stand down! To me!”
This breaks the spell cast over his first guard. Ravis reluctantly lowers his crossbow to his side.
Ject’s guards edge around the tower, crossbows half-raised, confused. The general says, “At ease. We’re all friends here.”
“Is that everyone?” Jeryon says. Ject nods. “Put the weapons down.”
“Let’s go one better,” Ject says. “Ravis, lead the detail inside so the captain and I can talk.”
“They’ll stay out here where I can see them.”
Ject shrugs and flutters his hand. His men lay their weapons on the walk.
Ravis turns away from the dragon to put his down, and with his eyes directs Oftly’s to the eave. The first guard slashes a finger toward himself and to the dragon as he turns back. Oftly understands. They couldn’t climb onto the dome before being attacked, and even if they could the rider is far enough from them that he could take off before they could attack. If Ravis struck at the dragon’s neck, that might distract the rider enough for Oftly to get to him.
Keeping the detail in view, Jeryon backs the dragon up the dome and edges east and west to make sure no one is on the walk. A shadow shifts in the corner of his eye. He glances at the cupola. The girl isn’t watching him. He’s not surprised. He left her half-catatonic. She’s probably seen enough in the dome to put her off meat for life. Satisfied, he returns to Ject.
“At least someone in this city isn’t a liar,” Jeryon says. He gives a little downward tug on the dragon’s halter, and it rests on its elbows, which causes the crossbow bolt whistling toward the back of his head to only graze his scalp.
5
* * *
As the city guards assemble in ranks on one side of the plaza and the tanner stirs up his cohorts on the other, some in the crowd sink back into the city, but the pressure pushes the rest near boiling.
In front of Rego the six-fingered man, the pig-tailed girl, the father and his son surround the man who would take three coins. Several come to his defense, while others offer themselves up for two. Jostling turns into shoving. The boy starts crying and his father tells him to shut up, which makes him cry louder and makes the girl tell the boy to shut up. Now the father turns on the six-fingered man, who says he has no idea who the girl is. Meanwhile the girl picks both their pockets, and the bidding drops to thirty pennies.
In the middle of the plaza a woman in an old tunic and well-tended leather pants screams. The crowd parts, repelled by the realization that the man standing beside her has a crossbow bolt plunged through his eye and out the base of his skull. He blinks his good eye and collapses. The crowd turns on the guard while Rego traces the bolt’s trajectory back to the dome and sees a man falling from the widow’s walk, trailing fire.
Herse ducks behind the wall as quickly as he looked over it to fire and pulls a new bolt from his quiver. Tristaban says, “Did you get him?”
He shakes his head.
“You have to,” she says, “but free me first.”
“You’re safer tied up,” he says, and sits down so he can put his foot in the crossbow’s stirrup.