circumstance, you and I both. It was not I who set a trap for you. The scroll
did.’
‘For me? But why?’
‘I speak with imprecision. The trap was set not for you qua you. It was set for
someone to whom it meant the death of another. I judge that you qualify, whether
or not you know it. Do you? Make a guess. Trust your imagination. Have you, for
example, recognized anybody who came to the city recently?’
Jarveena felt the blood drain from her cheeks. She folded her hands into fists.
‘Sir, you are a great magician. I recognized someone tonight. Someone I never
dreamed of meeting again. Someone whose death I would gladly accomplish, except
that death is much too good for him.’
‘Explain!’ Enas Yorl leaned an elbow on the table, and rested his chin on his
fist … except that neither the elbow, nor the chin, let alone the fist,
properly corresponded to such appellations.
She hesitated a second. Then she cast aside her cloak, tore loose the bow that
held the cross-lacing of her jerkin at her throat, and unthreaded it so that the
garment fell wide to reveal the cicatrices, brown on brown, which would never
fade, and the great foul keloid like a turd where her right breast might have
been.
‘Why try to hide anything from a wizard?’ she said bitterly. ‘He commanded the
men who did this to me, and far far worse to many others. I thought they were
bandits! I came to Sanctuary hoping that here if anywhere I might get wind of
them – how could bandits gain access to Ranke or the conquered cities? But I
never dreamed they would present themselves in the guise of imperial guards!’