though, she … um-m … she “expressed disappointment”.’ He cocked his ruddy
head. ‘Yon’s quite a girl. I thought you loved her.’
Cappen Varra took a fresh draught of wine. Old summers glowed along his tongue.
‘I did,’ he confessed. ‘I do. My heart is broken, and in part I drink to numb
the pain.’
Jamie raised his brows. ‘What? Makes no sense.’
‘Oh, it makes very basic sense,’ Cappen answered. ‘Broken hearts
tend to heal rather soon. Meanwhile, if I may recite from a rondel
I completed before you found me –
‘Each sword of sorrow that would maim or slay,
My lady of the morning deftly parries.
Yet gods forbid I be the one she marries!
I rise from bed the latest hour I may.
My lady comes to me like break of day;
I dream in darkness if it chance she tarries.’
A FEW REMARKS BY FURTWAN COINPINCH, MERCHANT
The first thing I noticed about him, just that first impression you -understand,
was that he couldn’t be a poor man. Or boy, or youth, or whatever he was then.
Not with all those weapons on him. From the shagreen belt he was wearing over a
scarlet sash – a violently scarlet sash! – swung a curved dagger on his left hip
and on the right one of those Ilbarsi ‘knives’ long as your arm. Not a proper
sword, no. Not a military man, then. That isn’t all, though. Some few of us know
that his left buskin is equipped with a sheath; the slim thing and knife-hilt
appear to be only a decoration. Gift from a woman, I heard him tell Old
Thumpfoot one afternoon in the bazaar. I doubt it.
(I’ve been told he has another sticker strapped less than comfortably to his