The King's Blood(126)

The doves seemed to look at him as free entertainment, shifting on their perches and turning first one eye and then another. Capsen’s children would sometimes peek in at the doves’ holes high in the wall, stare at Marcus for a few minutes, and then flee, laughing. At night, Marcus took his revenge by tossing pebbles and small clods of dirt at the doves until they puffed up and turned reproachful backs.

At night, he had nightmares. That wasn’t new.

Dawn came in at the windows, a rising blue-white light. The doves commented to each other in a chorus of interrogative coos. The rattle of the lock came earlier than usual, and when the door swung open, it wasn’t Capsen who ducked in.

“Kit?”

“Marcus,” the actor said cheerfully. “I’ve been looking for you. I think I see now why you were so hard to find.”

“You have to get me out of here.”

“I do. But I wanted to speak with you first.”

Master Kit sat with his back to the rough stone wall. He looked older than Marcus remembered him. There was more white in his hair, and he looked thinner than he had even on the long caravan road from Vanai to Porte Oliva. Marcus pulled at his chains, setting them to rattle.

“I can talk to you without being strapped to a wall,” Marcus said. “We could skip to that part. I wouldn’t mind.”

“Do you know why we cut thumbs when signing contracts or treaties?” Kit asked, drawing a dagger from his belt. It was a simple huntsman’s blade, but sharp.

“Because that’s how you sign a contract,” Marcus said.

“But how did it get that way? Why blood and not… I don’t know. Tears. Spit. The story is that it’s been that way since the dragons, but it wasn’t always. That it began during the last war, when Morade forged his Righteous Servant and his clutch-mate built the Timzinae. Last race of humanity.”

“All right,” Marcus said. “I’ve never heard of a righteous servant apart from someone trying to convince me to buy a squire, but I’m going to assume you’re going somewhere with this?”

“I believe it was meant to show that neither party was tainted. If one or the other had been able to cheat, to force the other into agreement, the blood would show it.”

“And I’m sure you’re right. Kit? Unchain me now?”

“Come. Look at this.”

Kit pressed the blade to his thumb until a tiny drop of red appeared. The cut was tiny, no more than a pinprick, but the deepness of the blood made it seem almost black. No, there was a knot at the center of the drop, a tiny dark clot

like a flake of scab that was forcing its way up through Kit’s skin.

The scab rolled to the side, tracking bright red behind it, and extended tiny legs.

“All right. That’s odd,” Marcus said.

“Don’t touch it. They bite. I find they’re poisonous in more senses than one.”

“Not to be rude, Kit, but you have spiders living in your blood?”

“I do. I have since I became a priest of the goddess many, many years ago. I believe we all carry the mark, though I haven’t tested it.” Kit caught the tiny spider and cracked it between his thumbnails. “I had a falling-out with my brothers. I’m afraid I lost my faith, and I found there was very little room for dissent. You may recall that before I left Porte Oliva word came of a new cult, drawn from the mountains east of the Keshet. It was mine. It was men who bear the same taint that I do. The war with Asterilhold and the unrest in Antea are, I think, the first, stumbling steps toward something much larger. Much worse.” Kit held up his bleeding thumb. “And that is why you cut thumbs on a contract. Because of men like me.”

Marcus ran his fingers through the beard that had grown during his captivity. His skin was crawling, but he kept his voice steady.

“This is the thing you were talking about. The evil that got loose in the world. It’s you?”

“It’s men like me. The taint in my blood is the sign of the goddess, but it isn’t her power. Her priesthood is given gifts by her. We are the masters of truth and of lies. I told you once that I could be very persuasive and that I was very difficult to lie to. It is this way with all of us. Tell me something I couldn’t know. Tell me true or lie. It doesn’t matter.”

“Kit, I don’t think that parlor tricks—”

“I don’t think you’ll find this a cunning man’s small magic,” Kit said.

“All right. Ah. I stole honey stones from my friend when I was a boy.”

“You did,” Kit said. “Try again.”

“The first battle I was in, I lost my sword.”