Toll the Hounds полностью

‘And you think it’s that different among the nobleborn?’

He laughed.

Fury hissed through her, and to keep from lashing out she quickly began dressing. ‘It’s typical,’ she said, pleased at her calm tone. ‘I shouldn’t have been surprised. The lowborn always think we have it so easy, that we can do anything, go anywhere. That our every whim is answered. They don’t think-’ she spun to face him, and watched his eyes widen as he comprehended her anger, ‘-you don’t think that people like me can suffer.’

‘I never said that-’

‘You laughed.’

‘Where are you going now, Challice? You’re going back to your home. Your estate, where your handmaids will rush to attend to you. Where another change of clothes and jewellery awaits. After a languid bath, of course.’ He sat up, abruptly. ‘The ship’s carpenter who stayed in this room here, well, he did so because he had nowhere else to go. This was his estate. Temporary, dependent on the whim of House Vidikas, and when his reason for being here was done out he went, to find somewhere else to live — if he was lucky.’ He reached for his shirt. ‘And where will I go now? Oh, out on to the streets. Wearing the same clothes I arrived in, and that won’t change any time soon. And tonight? Maybe I can wheedle another night in a room at the Phoenix Inn. And if I help in the kitchen I’ll earn a meal and if Meese is in a good mood then maybe even a bath. Tomorrow, the same challenges of living, the same questions of “what next?”’ He faced her and she saw amused irony in his expression, which slowly faded, ‘Challice, I’m not saying you’re somehow immune to suffering. If you were, you wouldn’t be here, would you? I spoke of limited worlds. They exist everywhere, but that doesn’t mean they’re all identical. Some are a damned sight more limited than others.’

‘You had choices, Cutter,’ she said. ‘More choices than I ever had.’

‘You could have told Gorlas no when he sought your hand in marriage.’

‘Really? Now that reveals one thing in you that’s not changed — your naivete.’

He shrugged. ‘If you say so. What next, Challice?’

His sudden, seemingly effortless dismissal of the argument took her breath away. It doesn’t matter to him. None of it. Not how I feel, not how I see him. ‘I need to think,’ she said, inwardly flailing.

He nodded as if unsurprised.

‘Tomorrow evening,’ she said, ‘we should meet again.’

A half-grin as he asked, ‘To talk?’

‘Among other things.’

‘All right, Challice.’

Some thoughts, possessing a frightening kind of self-awareness, knew to hide deep beneath others, riding unseen the same currents, where they could grow unchallenged, unexposed by any horrified recognition. One could always sense them, of course, but that was not the same as slashing through all the obfusca shy;tion, revealing them bared to the harsh light and so seeing them wither into dust. The mind ran its own shell-game, ever amused at its own sleight of hand misdirection — in truth, this was how one tended to live, from moment to moment, with the endless exchange of denials and deference and quick winks in the mirror, even as inner proclamations and avowals thundered with false willpower and posturing conviction.

Does this lead one into unease?

Challice Vidikas hurried home, nevertheless taking a circuitous route as now and then whispers of paranoia rose in faint swells to the surface of her thoughts.

She was thinking of Cutter, this man who had once been Crokus. She was thinking of the significance in the new name, the new man she had found. She was thinking, also (there, beneath the surface), of what to do with him.

Gorlas would find out, sooner or later. He might confront her, he might not. She might discover that he knew only by arriving one afternoon at the loft in the annexe, and finding Cutter’s hacked, lifeless corpse awaiting her on the bed.

She knew she was trapped — in ways a free man like Cutter could never comprehend. She knew, as well, that the ways out were limited, each one chained to sacrifices, losses, abandonments, and some. . despicable. Yes, that was the only word for them.

Despicable. She tasted the word anew, there in her mind. Contemplated whether she was in fact capable of living with such a penance. But why would I? What would I need to see done, to make me see myself in that way?

How many lives am I willing to destroy, in order to be free?

The question itself was despicable, the stem to freedom’s blessed flower — to grasp hold was to feel the stab of countless thorns.

Yet she held tight now, riding the pain, feeling the slick blood welling up, running down. She held tight, to feel, to taste, to know what was coming. . if. . if I decide to accept this.

She could wait for Gorlas to act. Or she could strike first.