Michael Sullivan - The Crown Tower

“Wolves?”

“Ask him about it sometime.”

“He doesn’t seem like the chatty type-and certainly not with me.” Hadrian picked up a brush from the rail and began going over Dancer’s coat. She might not need it, but he guessed she liked it just the same.

“I suppose you’re right, and all his stories are depressing anyway, but those are the sorts of tales you tell when at the age of seven you have to smother your friends in their sleep so you can survive. Royce took his first life around that age. He doesn’t actually know how old he is, you understand. A lot of the things we take for granted are alien to him.”

“How did you two meet?”

“I bought him.”

Hadrian paused his brushing. “Okay … not what I thought you’d say.”

“What did you think?”

Hadrian threw up his hands. He honestly didn’t know. “Just not that.”

“It must be my sweet disposition that misled you into thinking I was above slavery.”

“He’s your slave ?” Dancer turned her head and nudged him with her nose. Hadrian was still holding the brush but had forgotten what he had been doing with it.

Arcadius laughed. “Of course not. I am above slavery-hideous practice-and Royce would have killed me if I had tried. He really can’t abide people controlling him, which interestingly makes me both his worst enemy and his best friend. A very delicate and dangerous line to walk. Like befriending a tiger.”

Hadrian stared. “Did you say befriending a tiger ?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You’re just not the first person to compare him to a tiger.”

“Is that significant?”

“I don’t know.”

Arcadius looked at him curiously, but Hadrian wasn’t going to explain. He refused to think about it. He merely found it odd that two people had used the word tiger -two people who’d likely never seen one, but Hadrian had.

Dancer shifted weight and began whipping her tail at a fly. Hadrian remembered the brush and went back to the horse’s coat. “So why aren’t you dead? Or more specifically, why hasn’t he killed you?”

Arcadius lifted an empty bucket from a hook on the wall, set it on its end, and slowly eased himself onto it. “Standing too long hurts my back, and I was on my feet through most of the lecture. I hope you don’t mind. Age is a terrible thing-perhaps that’s why Royce leaves me to it, or perhaps there’s a sliver of humanity left in him. You see, he was imprisoned in Manzant, a salt mine. A truly ghastly place where the salt is rumored to leech the soul out of a man before taking his life. I paid handsomely for his release, on the condition he come with me. He took my advice and let me teach him.”

“Was that wise letting him out? My thought is men don’t find themselves in prison by accident.”

“It certainly was no accident, but oddly enough he’d been sent there for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“I doubt there are any crimes that man hasn’t committed.”

“You are probably right. I should have been more precise. He didn’t commit the particular crime for which he was imprisoned.” The old man winced as he struggled to shift into a comfortable, or at least less painful, position. The professor wanted to be in that stable about as much as Hadrian enjoyed riding in the rain.

“Why are you out here telling me all this? Are you trying to make me feel sorry for the guy? He doesn’t exactly invite pity.”

“I’m trying to help you understand him. To show you that he’s a product of the life he has lived and the people he has met.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m hoping you might change that. All the people he has known have hurt, betrayed, or abandoned him.”

“I can see why.”

“I think you’ll find he has hidden qualities-just as we all do. He would be a good influence on you too.”

“I’m not sure how. I already know how to kill. You think he might show me how to lose the remorse?”

“No, but you left home before your father could finish raising you. Since then you’ve lived in military camps or worse. That’s an isolated existence, a perverted microcosm, a false semblance of reality. The real world doesn’t live by rules, and what Danbury and your barracks life instilled in you is a pale reflection of what you’ll face. You haven’t really embraced the world. You haven’t seen how the mechanism works or been bitten by the beast. Just as Royce is too cynical, you’re too trusting.”

“I’m not too trusting.”

“You were almost murdered on that barge. At the very least, you already owe Royce your life. What he saw, what you missed, is proof that you could learn from him. Royce is a survivor. You’ve never seen the beast, and he’s lived his whole life in its stomach, yet managed not to be digested.

“And given that Royce deals in a very dangerous profession, he could benefit from the training your father gave you. He could use someone watching his back. For all his skills, he doesn’t have eyes on both sides of his head.” The professor clapped his hands on his thighs. “Just earlier you mentioned how the idea of soldiering was repugnant. You are tired of killing, but fighting is your talent, so what can you do? Here is your opportunity. I’m sure Royce will provide you with direction and many opportunities to use your talents.”

Hadrian stopped and this time put the brush down. Until that moment he had assumed the old man was only making guesses. Damn fine guesses, but then the professor wasn’t stupid. He had already used enough words he didn’t know, like microcosm and semblance , to prove that. Yet he was hinting at something now that suggested he knew more than he let on. Had his man, this Tribian DeVole, returned first? Perhaps he sent reports back. You’re not going to believe what this kid has been doing out here! Yeah, I can find him. Be hard not to . Maybe that’s why he mentioned the tiger. It shouldn’t bother him-it didn’t bother him. Arcadius wasn’t his father. He was just some old acquaintance who he met a couple of times so long ago he could barely remember.

The guilt returned like a weight on his chest. The news of his father’s death had been a shock, a blow to be sure, but he couldn’t deny a degree of relief-he wouldn’t have to face him and explain where he’d been and what he had done. Danbury’s death had opened the door for Hadrian’s return. That his newly won freedom was wrought from the blood of his father made it feel like a punishment. As with all punishments, once endured it’s best to forget and move on. Hadrian had thought he could leave his past in Calis, but Arcadius must have a piece of it, a secret kernel he wasn’t revealing.

“Speaking of trust,” Hadrian said. “I don’t buy this story of my father’s last wish being to pair up with this guy to steal a book. You never spoke with him about Royce and me, did you?”

“Actually I did,” Arcadius said. “I told him the day he gave me the amulet. I had only recently found Royce and we discussed him at length-the problems I was having with him.” The old man pushed slowly to his feet, wincing as he did. “But no, you’re right-I never discussed a plan where his son was sent to steal a book. Danbury was too much like you to have agreed to theft. So this task I have set before you is of my own making, but your father did feel very much as I do that you could learn much from working with Royce and he from you. If it makes it easier, consider doing this for me as reimbursement for settling your father’s affairs.”

“You’re asking for payment?”

“If it will get you to go with Royce-yes. This mission is very important to me.”

Hadrian wasn’t convinced of anything except that this mission was indeed important to the professor. If that was true, he ought to be able to get something worthwhile out of him.