Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Odd to feel that her body was not her own. She rose, quite unexpectedly, and edged backward, but there must have been another door into the chapel that she hadn’t seen before because, instead of backing into the corridor she’d just come down, she found herself in a gloomy, dank passage illuminated by a single flickering torch.

The light was bad, but with her salamander eyes she saw a trio of guards standing at a heavy wood door exactly like a dozen other such doors set into the corridor behind her. The stone walls seeped moisture. The floor stank of earth and cold. No fine lofty ceilings here. No skilled artisans had toiled to make this place a pleasure to look at or walk through.

“Ach, here’s the key,” said one of the guards. “Poor lads. I hate to think of their heads being stuck up on the wall just for stealing a bit of bread because they was too poor to buy none at market.”

“A bit of bread is one thing,” objected the second guard, “but stealing the king’s bread is quite another.”

“Tchah! King’s bread, indeed.” The third guard laughed coarsely. “That basket was headed for the king’s whorehouse, if you please.”

“Still, what belongs to the king is meant for the king, not for beggars like these two.”

They got the key turned in the lock and with some effort shoved the door open. “Come on out, lads,” said the third guard.

Not more than fourteen, the two boys had the weary, pinched look of children raised in constant hunger, starved rats. One was weeping. His companion was trying to be brave.

“We was just hungry,” whimpered the weeping one, a familiar refrain which had been sung once too often.

“Nay, give them not the satisfaction,” hissed his companion. “We’ll go bravely to our death—”

“Bravely enough, lad,” said the third guard. “I’m under orders to pardon you and turn you loose. Here’s a silver lusira for your trouble. Use it wisely, and get you out of the city. My lord king has a long memory for people who have crossed him, and if he ever recognizes you, he’ll cut off your heads right in the street.”

The weeper wept copiously at this news of reprieve. The brave lad dropped to his knees, trying to kiss the hands of the third guard while at the same time clutching the precious silver to his breast. “I pray you, friend, how can we thank you? God will bless you for your mercy.”

“It’s not me you should be thanking. I would have let you hang. But there is one at court who chooses the rose of mercy over the sword of justice.”

“Ai, Lord and Lady!” breathed the brave one in the tone of a child who has just recognized the visitation of an angel. “Was it that one, who we saw in the square next to the lord king?”

“Truly, that one. Don’t forget that some walk closer to God than do the rest of us sinners. You can thank him in your prayers.” Two of the guards, working together, dragged the door shut. It scraped noisily over the stone floor, the sound grinding and echoing down the corridor.

With a grunt, the first guard led the two boys away. Liath did not move while the others lingered.

“You could have kept the silver and let them hang,” whispered the second guard. “How do you dare go against the king’s wishes?”

“The king will have forgotten the incident in a week’s time. Poor lads, they hadn’t any harm in them. I remember being that hungry and desperate once. But don’t ever think I’d have kept the silver, boy.” The third guard’s voice got tight as he chided the other. “Not when you know who gave it to me to give to those poor lads. We get two meals a day in the king’s service. They’ve nothing, all the poor wandering in the streets while the king raises taxes in order to buy more soldiers for his army.”

“How would he have known, the one who gave it to you, if you’d have kept it? You could have let them go and kept it for yourself. That’s a month’s wages!”

“Tchah! He’d know.”

“And he’d punish you?”

“Truly, so it would be punishment, to be called before him and have to look him in the eye who is a better man than any of us. I’ve no wish to go standing there before him while he forgives me for giving into temptation, not a word of blame from him, who knows how sinful humankind is and how we struggle with the evil inclination. I’d rather not sin than be shamed before him.”

“Oho, is that why you’ve not been to Parisa’s brothel in the last month?”

“So it is, lad, and I’ll never go again. I’m courting a young woman who’s a washerwoman down by the Tigira docks. I mean to marry her and live a Godly life.”