In the Lion’s Mouth

Cengjam Gaafe: The Third Interrogatory

Méarana plucks a diminished seventh on her harp. “So,” she says. “The extra bug was ‘the discord note.’”

“How nice to hear of the enemy,” Graceful Bintsaif adds, “picking themselves apart.”

Bridget ban says nothing, but sips her coffee and watches the Shadow through lowered lids. Méarana plays a goltraí, something sad but hopeful. She uses her sky-voice, so that the keening appears to emanate from a far corner of the sitting room. Olafsdottr glances briefly in that direction before realizing the trick, then listens for a time in silence.

Bintsaif, finding no reaction to her jibe, shrugs and settles back and the Shadow, as if sensing that motion, turns abruptly toward her and jabs a finger in her direction. The junior Hound flinches, but only a little. Olafsdottr grins. “Do not be too happy, turtle egg,” she says, “oover the misfortune of oothers.” Then switching to Manjrin, she adds, “Fates deplore happiness. Seek always balance.”

“Is that why Dawshoo took such a desperate gamble?” Bridget ban asks. “By courting disaster, did he hope the Fates would award him success?”

“Never good, gamble with Fates. They load dice. You have never been married, have you? Any of you.”

A moment of silence ensues. No one speaks.

“Ooh, it is a chancy thing at best, this marriage thing; and one ill-advised for those in our profession. It is a deep union, I am told; deeper than pair-bond contracts, for it is a mingling of the hearts and not only a meeting of the minds. It has a sort of life of its own; and so may have a sort of death. It is a fragile thing—a spark in a blustery wind—and wants constant vigil to keep alight. Yet, even with the best of wills, even with a common intent, it does not always survive. It is always sad,” she says, lifting once more her coffee to her lips, “to see what began in hope to end in strife.”

When she sets it down again, her face is more sober than at any time since entering Clanthompson Hall, not excepting the moment when she had found two guns and a knife aimed at her heart. “Our confraternity is closely knit. More so, I think, than your Kennel. We trace our ‘ancestry’ through those who taught us. The students of a common master count themselves as brothers. We know our teacher’s teacher, and his before. We train and practice together in the Abattoir, deep within the Lion’s Mouth. In this struggle that now consumes us, I have killed my brother. So, Graceful Bintsaif, do not rejoice that he chose one path and I another. For I do not.”

She turns once more to face the junior Hound. “Do not celebrate the failure of hope, even if it be the hopes of your enemies. The Confederation bore much fruit, and some of it was bitter and some of it was sour; but it salvaged much that was good from the wreckage of the Commonwealth, and there were times in our history that will shine whenever men gather and sing of the past. Even when your dog has gone mad and you must put it down, you still recall the bounding puppy that you raised.”

Méarana notices her mother’s grimace. Bridget ban too had once owned a dog and had carried out that dread and terrible service. The harper wonders if Olafsdottr knows that and has used the imagery to a purpose.

“I recognize perhaps half of the agents your tale has mentioned,” the Hound says. “Oschous and Dawshoo, I do not know; but of the others, I have fought two, and thought one no longer quick. Do you have the names of all?”

“No.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“No.”

“I could compel your telling.”

“No.”

Bridget ban had leaned forward as she pressed her guest. Now she leans back again into her chair, and sets her coffee cup aside. “The Two Jacques were in it for the game when I knew them, though I encountered only the Dwarf. They would serve any master, could they but test their lives against their skills. But Gidula struck me as a faithful servant of the Names. What turned him to treason?”

The Shadow retreats behind her grin, spreads her hands in ignorance. “Who can say what stone on life’s path sent them stumbling off?”

“And you. The Shadow we knew a case of years ago did not chafe under Those of Name. What stone lay in your own path? That, you can surely say.”

Méarana awaits an answer, but she does not think it forthcoming. The Shadow will tell her tale in her own way, and not to the tempo her host would set.

Olafsdottr lifts her cup. “My coffee has grown cold,” she says.

Bridget ban leans forward again. “I want to know,” she says implacably, “why devoted servants of long-time tyranny turn against their masters.”

The Confederal Shadow smiles. “And that kenning’s grasp, would not we all. And in the course embrace the tyrants’ fall.”