C. J. Cherryh - Fortress 05 by Fortress of Ice Read Free Book Online Page B

that’s not the matter. The food is. That’s priests for you.”
    “But—”
    “You hear me, you hear me on this, lad. There was a time the pious priests—they was Bryalt ones, in this case—was preaching in the square about charity, an’ the holiday penny, and feedin’ the poor, an’ all. An’ we was starvin’, Gran and me, an’ it sounded like a miracle. We was desperate. I was, oh, about nine. An’ hearin’ that about charity, an’ believin’ what I heard, I went to the shrine to get the ’oliday gift they promised. And do you know, them rascal priests wouldn’t give me the penny for a loaf o’ bread, because I wasn’t goin’ to swear again’ wizards, when the whole reason we was starvin’ was that Gran couldn’t sell her cures on account of the town marshal put out some damned edict about wizards an’
    charms? That was when Heryn was duke in Amefel, and there was laws again’ most things, from wall to wall o’ the town, an’ a tax on ever’thing that moved, an’ there was two thieves ’angin’ at the gate that very day. Well, I was mad. An’ it didn’t fright me none. That was the first time I stole, right from the offerin’ plate. Weren’t the last, neither. I were a damn good thief before all was done. An’ I went on bein’ a good thief. I got back at the cheats as deserved it, and got paid for havin’ a sharp eye by the same guards as would ha’
    hanged me if they’d caught me at thievin’. Oh, I was clever. Well, till I met Lord Tristen, I was.”
    “Tell that time,” Otter said, snugging down against his arms, down on the warm hearthstones, full as he was and close to bedtime. They were far from the matter of Aewyn and the apples now, and a tale, one he’d heard a hundred times, was much better at settling the day’s worry than thinking about Festival and apple theft, which he hoped would just work itself out without involving Paisi at all. “Tell it, about how you met Lord Tristen.”
    “Well,” Paisi said, gathering his knees into his arms, as they’d sat many a cold night on the rough masonwork of Gran’s fireside. One could all but see the flash of Gran’s spindle spinning beside them.
    “Well, it was like this. I was on the street, me a little younger ’n you, now—” That one detail had changed slowly over the years he had heard the tale. “And I see this young man walkin’ along, looking lost, ’im wi’ the look of a noble, but all dirty an’ lookin’ as if
    ’e’d slept rough. Now here’s a young lord a little drunk an’ lookin’
    for ’is next tavern, says I to meself, an’ maybe havin’ money left on
    ’is person, an’ maybe I can find that purse. So I goes up to him, and
    ’e asks me if ’e can stay the night in my room, bein’ kind of odd-spoke when he does it. Well, now, I hadn’t any room, bein’ as Gran an’ I was livin’ in sheds and such as we could find ’em, up an’
    down the town. I says, well, a gentleman like you c’n stay up to the Zeide, can’t ye? An’ he wants to know where that is. Well, now, any fool, even a drunk fool, knows the way to the Zeide hill, which is plainly uphill all over town, from the walls up, an’ at first I’d the notion to laugh at ’im, but ’e just looked at me in that way he had.
    So, says I, I’d guide him, says I, figurin’ there’d be coin somewheres—’e ’ad no purse about ’im, such as I’d been able to see first off, but some hides it, an’ the gate-guards up there, they’d pay
    ’andsome, if so happen this was some lord’s son in trouble, an’ more
    ’n that if so happen this odd young man were some outland spy—the Elwynim was keen on doin’ in your da in those days, an’
    now an’ again they tried. It wasn’t just thieves they had hangin’ at the town gate when your da was there. So I showed me visitor up to the gate, an’ the guards took ’im in an’ give me a penny for ’t.
    But it were that look ’e had, them gray, gray eyes as could look right