Peter Brett - The Painted Man

Rojer looked up hopefully.

'Probationary license,' Cholls said, taking a sheet of paper and a quill. 'You're only to perform under the supervision of a master of the Guild, paid from your take, and half of your gross earnings will come to this office until I consider, your debt closed. Understood?'

'Absolutely, sir!' Rojer said eagerly.

'And you'll hold your temper,' Cholls warned, 'or I'll tear up this license and you'll never perform in Angiers again.'

Rojer worked his fiddle, but out of the corner of his eye, he was watching Abrum, Jasin's burly apprentice. Jasin usually had one of his apprentices watching Rojer's performances. It made him uneasy, knowing that they were watching him for their master, who meant him only ill, but it had been months since the incident in the guildmaster's office, and nothing had ever seemed to come of it. Master Jasin had recovered quickly and was soon performing again, raking in accolades at every high society event in Angiers.

Rojer might have dared to hope the episode was behind them, save that the apprentices came back almost every day. Sometimes it was Abrum the wood demon lurking in a crowd, and others it was Sali the rock demon sipping a drink at the back of a tavern, but however innocuous they might seem, it was no coincidence.

Rojer ended his performance with a flourish, whipping the bow from his fiddle into the air. He took his time to bow, straightening just in time to catch it. The crowd burst into applause, and Rojer's sharp ears caught the clink of metal coins in the hat as Jaycob moved about the crowd with it. Rojer couldn't suppress a smile. The old man looked almost spry.

He scanned the dispersing crowd as they collected their equipment, but Abrum had vanished. Still, they packed up quickly and took a roundabout path to their inn to make sure they could not be easily followed. The sun was soon to set, and the streets were emptying rapidly. Winter was on the wane, but the boardwalks still held patches of ice and snow, and few stayed out unless they had business to.

'Even without Cholls' cut, the rent is paid with days to spare,' Jaycob said, jingling the purse with their take. 'When the debt's paid, you'll be rich!'

'We'll be rich,' Rojer corrected, and Jaycob laughed, kicking his heels and slapping Rojer on the back.

'Look at you,' Rojer said, shaking his head. 'What happened to the shuffling and half-blind old man that opened his door to me a few months gone?'

'It's performing again that's done it,' Jaycob said, giving Rojer a toothless grin. 'I know I'm not singing or throwing knives, but even passing the hat has gotten my dusty blood pumping like it hasn't in twenty years. I feel I could even…' he looked away.

'What?' Rojer asked.

'Just…' Jaycob said, 'I don't know, spin a tale, perhaps? Or play dim while you throw punchlines my way? Nothing to steal your shine…'

'Of course,' Rojer said. 'I would have asked, but I felt I was imposing too much already, dragging you all over town to supervise my performances.'

'Boy,' Jaycob said, 'I can't remember the last time I've been so happy.'

They were smiling broadly as they turned a corner and walked right into Abrum and Sali.

Behind them, Jasin smiled broadly.

'It's good to see you, my friend!' Jasin said, as Abrum clapped Rojer's shoulder. The wind suddenly exploded from Rojer's stomach, the punch doubling him over and knocking him to the frozen boardwalk. Before he could rise, Sali delivered a heavy kick to his jaw.

'Leave him alone!' Jaycob cried, throwing himself at Sali. The heavy soprano only laughed, grabbing him and swinging him hard against the wall of a building.

'Oh, there's plenty for you too, old man!' Jasin said, as Sali landed heavy blows to his body. Rojer could hear the crunch of brittle bone, and the weak, wet gasps that escaped the master's lips. Only the wall held him upright.

The wooden planks beneath his hands were spinning, but Rojer wrenched himself to his feet, holding his fiddle by the neck with both hands, swinging the makeshift club wildly. 'You won't get away with this!' he cried.

Jasin laughed. 'Who will you go to?' he asked. 'My uncle has already assured me the city magistrates will turn a deaf ear to your obviously false accusations…if you should even live to tell tales. Go to the guard, and it's you they'll hang.'

Abrum caught the fiddle easily, twisting Rojer's arm hard as he drove a knee into his crotch. Rojer felt his arm break even as his groin caught fire, and the fiddle came down hard on the back of his head, shattering as it hammered him to the boardwalk again.

Even through the ringing in his ears, Rojer heard Jaycob's continued grunts of pain. Abrum stood over him, smiling as he lifted a heavy club.

332 AR

'Ay, Jizell!' Skot cried as the old Herb Gatherer came to him with her bowl. 'Why not let your apprentice take the task for once?' He nodded at Leesha, changing another man's dressing.

'Ha!' Jizell barked. She was a heavyset woman, with short grey hair and a voice that carried. 'If I let her give the rag baths, I'd have half of Angiers crying plague within a week.'

Leesha shook her head as the others in the room laughed, but she was smiling as she did. Skot was harmless. He was a Messenger whose horse had thrown him on the road. Lucky to be alive, especially with two broken arms, he had somehow managed to track down his horse and get back in the saddle. With no wife to care for him, the Messenger's Guild had produced the klats to put him up in Jizell's hospit until he could do for himself.

Jizell soaked her rag in the warm, soapy bowl and lifted the man's sheet, her hand moving with firm efficiency. The Messenger gave a yelp as she was finishing up, and Jizell laughed. 'Just as well I give the baths,' she said loudly, glancing down. 'We wouldn't want to disappoint poor Leesha.'

The others in their beds all had a laugh at the man's expense. It was a full room, and all were a little bed-bored.

'I think she'd likely find it in different form than you,' Skot grumbled, blushing furiously, but Jizell only laughed again.

'Poor Skot has a shine on you,' Jizell told Leesha later, when they were in the pharmacy grinding herbs.

'A shine?' laughed Kadie, one of the younger apprentices. 'He's not shining, he's in loooove!' The other apprentices and stripers in earshot burst into giggles.

'I think he's cute,' Roni volunteered.

'You think everyone is cute,' Leesha said. Roni was just flowering, and boy-crazed. 'But I hope you have better taste than to fall for a man that begs you for a rag bath.'

'Don't give her ideas,' Jizell said. 'Roni had her way, she'd be rag-bathing every man in the hospit.' The girls all giggled, and even Roni didn't disagree.

'At least have the decency to blush,' Leesha told her, and the girls tittered again.

'Enough! Off with you giggleboxes!' Jizell laughed. 'I want a word with Leesha.'

'Most every man that comes in here shines on you,' Jizell said when they were gone. 'It wouldn't kill you to talk to one apart from asking after his health.'

'You sound like my mum,' Leesha said.

Jizell slammed her pestle down on the counter. 'I sound like no such thing,' she said, having heard all about Elona over the years. 'I just don't want you to die an old maid to spite her. There's no crime in liking men.'

'I like men,' Leesha protested.

'Not that I've seen,' Jizell said.

'So I should have jumped to offer Skot a rag bath?' Leesha asked.

'Certainly not,' Jizell said, '…at least not in front of everyone,' she added with a wink.

'Now you sound like Bruna,' Leesha groaned. 'It will take more than crude comments to win my heart.' Requests like Skot's were nothing new to Leesha. She had her mother's body, and that meant a great deal of male attention, whether she invited it or not.