it had initially. ‘Tell Regli that I’m mending my family’s honour in my way, as
my sister seems to have done in hers,’ Samlor said. ‘But don’t tell him where
you found me – or how. If you want to leave here now, you’ll swear that.’ ‘I
swear!’ the other babbled. ‘By anything you please!’ The caravan-master’s smile
flickered again. ‘Did you ever kill anyone, boy?’ he asked conversationally.
‘I was a coachman,’ the other said with a nervous frown. ‘I – I mean … no.’
‘Once I pulled a man apart with hot pincers,’ Samlor continued quietly. ‘He was
headman of a tribe that had taken our toll payment but still tried to cut out a
couple of horses from the back of our train. I slipped into the village that
night, jerked the chief out of his bed, and brought him back to the laager. In
the morning I fixed him as a display for the rest.’ The Cirdonian reached
forwards and wiped his dagger clean on the sleeve of the other man’s tunic.
‘Don’t go back on your word to me, friend,’ he said.
Regli’s man edged to the helical staircase. As he mounted each of the first
dozen steps, he looked back over his shoulder at the Cirdonian. When the pursuit
or thrown knife did not come as he had feared or expected, the retainer ran up
the next twenty steps without pausing. He looked down from that elevation and
said, ‘One thing, master.’ .
‘Say it,’ responded Samlor.
‘They opened the Lady Samlane to give the child separate burial.’
‘Yes?’
‘And it didn’t look to be demon spawn, as you say,’ Regli’s man called. ‘It was
a perfect little boy. Except that your knife was through its skull.’