The key that Simon had brought with him was now lost; he would have to forge another, with whatever crude tools could be made to fall to hand. The only one accessible to Simon at the moment was the dead playwoman’s despised half-brother.
His name, Simon bad found easily enough, was currently Da-Ud tam Altair, and he was Court Traitor to a small religious principate on the Gulf of the Rood, on the edge of The Incontinent, half the world away from Druidsfall. Since one of his duties was that of singing the Rood-Prince to sleep to the accompaniment of a sareh, a sort of gleemans harp (actually a Charioteer instrument ill-adapted to human fingers, and which Da-Ud played worse than most of those who affected it), Simon reached him readily in the guise of a ballad-merchant, selling him twelve-and-a-tilly of ancient High Earth songs Simon had made up while in transit to the principate; it was as easy as giving Turkish Delight to a baby.
After the last mangled chord died, Simon told Da-Ud quietly:
‘By the way… well sung, excellence… did you know that the
Guild has murdered your half-sister?’
Da-Ud dropped the fake harp with a noise like a spring-toy coming unwound.
‘Jillith? But she was only a playwoman! Why, in Gro’s name-‘
Then Da-Ud caught himself and stared at Simon with sudden, belated suspicion. Simon looked back, waiting.
‘Who told you that? Damn you – are you a Torturer? I haven’t – I’ve done nothing to merit -‘
‘I’m not a Torturer, and nobody told me,’ Simon said. ‘She died in my bed, as a warning to me.’