‘Er, thank you. I could recommend. .’ but that notion dwindled into a painful silence and Torvald tried hard to not glance down at the castellan’s bandaged fingers.
At this moment Leff appeared from round the other side of the main house. His lips and his eyes were bright orange,
Scorch grunted. ‘Hey, Leff. Remember that cat you sat on in that bar once?’
‘What of it?’
‘Nothing. Was just reminded, the way its eyes went all bulgy and crazed,’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing. Was just reminded, is all. Look, I brought Tor.’
‘I see that,’ snarled Leff. ‘I can see just fine, thank you.’
‘What’s wrong with your eyes?’ Torvald Nom asked.
‘Tincture,’ said Leff. ‘I got me a case of Greva worms.’
Torvald Nom frowned. ‘Humans can’t get Greva worms. Fish get Greva worms, from eating infected conch.’
Leff’s bulging orange eyes bulged even more. Then he spun to face the castellan.
Who shrugged and said, ‘Jurben worms?’
Torvald Nom snorted. ‘The ones that live in the caverns below? In pockets of green gas? They’re as long as a man’s leg and nearly as thick.’
The castellan sighed. ‘The spectre of misdiagnosis haunts us all. I do apologize, Leff. Perhaps your ailments are due to some other malady. No matter, the drops will wash out in a month or two.’
‘I’m gonna have squished cat eyes for another month?’
‘Preferable to Greva worms, I should think. Now, gentlemen, let us find the house clothier. Something black and brocaded in gold thread, I should imagine. House colours and all that. And then, a brief summary of your duties, shifts, days off and the like.’
‘Would that summary include wages?’ Torvald Nom asked.
‘Naturally. As captain you will be paid twenty silver councils per week, Tor shy;vald Nom. Scorch and Leff, as guards, at fifteen. Acceptable?’
All three quickly nodded.
He felt slightly shaky on his feet, but Murillio knew that had nothing to do with any residue of weakness left by his wound. This weakness belonged to his spirit. As if age had sprung on to his back with claws digging into every joint and now hung there, growing heavier by the moment. He walked hunched at the shoulders and this seemed to have arrived like a new habit, or perhaps it was always there and only now, in his extremity, had he become aware of it.
That drunken pup’s sword thrust had pierced something vital indeed, and no Malazan healer or any other kind of healer could mend it.
He tried forcing confidence into his stride as he made his way down the crowded street, but it was not an easy task.
But that was yesterday’s nightmare, all those sparks raining down on the do shy;mestic scene with its airs of concern, every cagey word painting over the cracks in savage, short jabs of the brush. What had he expected? What had he gone there to find? Reassurance?
Years ago, he would have smoothed everything over, almost effortlessly. A murmur here, a meeting of gazes there. Soft touch with one hand, the barest hint of pressure. Then again, years ago,
Oh, he’d growled those three words often in his head. But did they refer to the young man with the sword, or to himself?
Arriving at the large duelling school, he made his way through the open gate and emerged into the bright sunlight of the training ground. A score of young, sweating, overweight students scraped about in the dust, wooden weapons clattering. Most, he saw at once, lacked the necessary aggression, the killer’s instinct. They danced to avoid, prodding the stick points forward with a desultory lack of commitment. Their footwork, he saw, was abysmal.
The class instructor was standing in the shade of a column in the colonnaded corridor just beyond. She was not even observing the mayhem in the compound, intent, it seemed, on some loose stitching or tear in one of her leather gauntlets.
