And was it worth it… ?
A shadow fell over her as she leaned on the last-laid stone. “Molin,” she said.
“How do you do that, mistress? Know how someone’s coming behind you, I mean.”
She stiffened a bit. “In sun like this,” she said, “it would take a blind woman not to see your shadow’s shape. Has that new stone come in yet? We’ll need the softer stuff for the arrowshot wall.”
“It’s in. Come take a cup of something cold with me.”
She stepped down from the stone, wondering about the odd tone in his voice, schooling herself to show no reaction. Carelessly she walked in front of him to the tent he’d had set up at the site, so that he could watch the workers, and her, in comfort. She flung one flap on its door aside. Silk, she thought. And not because it makes the best tents, either.
There were only two chairs, too close together for her taste. She took the better of the two and sat waiting for Molin to pour for her. Massive and splendid, he sat down in the other chair and looked at her for a long moment before reaching out to the decanter and glasses on its table between the chairs.
Alarm, his mind sang to Siveni. Curiosity growing. Thought winding around itself, choking like ivy growing up sheer cold stone….
“Why do you live in that little hole in the Maze?” Molin said, pouring, and passing her the cup. “You could certainly afford better, with what I’m paying you.”
She took the cup and looked at him, unsmiling, wishing she had her spear with the lightnings sizzling around it; he would not be daring to ask her questions.