He’d taken every abuse and accepted it.
Soon, guilt-stricken by their own cruelty, some young luxiats had come to beg his forgiveness, and ended up confessing much more. With his intellectual gifts and deep study, the old Quentin had once been on track to becoming High Luxiat. Now he was a slave. As he listened, he condemned no one who came to him, and he seemed to be able to understand everyone, from high to low. He was a convicted murderer, but oddly also the most devout luxiat they knew.
Among the young luxiats at least, he’d become an important figure.
He thought he was merely an oddity, like a good-luck charm to them, but Karris knew he was becoming more than that. The young luxiats gave him alms.
And then, as Quentin’s new reputation spread, so, too, did strangers.
It made him enemies among the older luxiats, who’d hated him already for rubbing their own shortcomings in their faces and now hated him more for being so apparently righteous, and admired (a convicted murderer, admired!) on top of it all.
Which now helped her understand what he meant about the donated jewelry he wore becoming a contest. As luxiats or lords gave to him, and saw their piece soon thereafter being worn, they might feel proud of it, but soon it would be gone—sold for another’s bread. His wearing of it was to be a reminder that they didn’t own it any longer, and if that stung, then good. If they gave without feeling a pinch, how did that help them learn to sacrifice? His no longer wearing it would be a further sign of how Orholam gives gifts, not that they may be hoarded but that they may be used. If that pained them, too, then that was good as well.
If, on the other hand, seeing him wear their jewelry started to give lords bragging rights, he would stop, and that could pain them, too.
He continued his studies—Karris had ordered him to do that, mainly so that he must always be among the luxiats—but he also volunteered in the worst precincts of Big Jasper, where he worked at charity hospitals and fed the poor, often helping in the sculleries himself. He’d been beaten and robbed several times—the gold clothing was the sign of an easy and lucrative mark. Once he’d been hit so hard he’d lost his hearing in one ear.
But he had no fear whatsoever, nor would he countenance stopping his work.
Of all people, white-bearded High Luxiat Amazzal had put a stop to the muggings. Karris’s agents had reported that the old man had gone into Overhill himself, in plain clothing nearly as old as he was. He’d shown some toughs something (her agent couldn’t see what) that made them very nervous. Then old High Luxiat Amazzal was taken to a building where some very powerful people with illegal interests were reputed to spend time gambling together. After half an hour, he left.
She got a note the next day from Amazzal: “Certain wayward sheep from my old flock have contacted me. They’ve noticed young Quentin’s good works and wish them to continue. They tell me that henceforth, as well as they are able, he will be protected.”
It was an odd construction—like it was their idea, not his. Like he hadn’t paid for it with some kind of coin or another. But he hadn’t been summoned by them, Karris was sure of that. She’d deployed a dozen spies on Amazzal, searching his offices, delving into his finances, following him everywhere he went, intercepting his correspondence and looking for codes, and noting every book he touched in case it was being used as a cipher key. Amazzal had been one of her prime candidates for being the Old Man of the Desert, the head of the Order of the Broken Eye.
Instead, his only secrets appeared to be secretly doing good works and depleting his own family fortunes at a rate that suggested he hoped to die without so much as a danar to his name. Though Amazzal looked the part perfectly, with his flowing beard and imposing voice, he wasn’t a great High Luxiat.
But it looked more and more like he was a good one.
Nice as it was to find out that some men who appeared to be good actually were good, it also meant that in surveilling him, Karris had wasted time and resources.
She was running out of both.
“I’ve something very hard to ask of you,” she said.
“I’m your slave, by law and by choice. You needn’t ask,” Quentin said.
Damn he was a weird kid.
“It’ll be difficult and dangerous. It would put you in the company of a hardened murderer.”
“I’m a murderer myself,” he said.
Not a hardened one. “Any misstep could mean your death, and others’. It may be too hard for you.”
“It won’t be more than I can handle.”
“You trust me too much,” Karris said.
He laughed suddenly. “I don’t trust you at all!”
She stepped back, offended. She was the White. And Quentin’s owner.
“I’ve offended you. I’m sorry,” he said. “But you misunderstand. I mean I don’t place the locus of my trust in you or on your judgment, but in Orholam alone. You needn’t take on His burden. Being the White would be too much for anyone to bear alone!”
She got it then, though he was so intelligent that he forgot that others weren’t as quick as he was. He didn’t need to trust her, because he trusted Orholam, who had put her in her position. Her choices mattered . . . but also didn’t in some way that somehow made sense to luxiats, but never quite had to Karris.
Holy people can be so exhausting.
Well, she deserved whatever trouble Quentin gave her for what she was going to do to him. She said, “I’m sending you to someone who’s killed a lot of innocent people—I don’t know, twenty, twenty-five? All dead at my behest.”
Quentin blanched. “You’ve ordered twenty murders?”
“I’ve ordered my agent to do what was necessary to accomplish what had to be done.”
“To what end?” His voice, not low to start with, pitched squeaky.
To what end? It was the kind of archaic phrasing you’d hear from a kid who’d grown up with a wide variety of friends: friends writ on papyrus, friends writ on sheepskin, and friends writ on wood pulp—but not many of flesh and blood.
Karris said, “I want you to be her handler.”
“Her—what? A handler? Me?”
“But I want you to do something harder than that. I want you to be her friend. Orholam’s told me that you both need one, desperately.” Almost as much as I do.
“Who are we talking—wait, you can’t be serious.”
* * *
Karris stepped out of the room a minute later. Her young Blackguard Amzîn was waiting, precisely where he was supposed to be, with perfect posture and alertness.
“Good kid,” Karris said, closing the door behind her.
She saw the flicker of doubt in his eyes. She gave him leave to speak with a gesture.
“Isn’t that the luxiat who murdered that girl?” he asked.
She nodded. “Sad story, huh? Promising young talent gets elevated too high too soon. Ends with a young woman with a bullet in her throat.”
Amzîn got a pained look on his face, but it was the wrong kind of pained look. He could tell she was doing more than repeating the facts, but he had no idea why.
She said, “You and me, Amzîn. You’re the promising young talent. Let’s do our best not to reprise the part where someone takes a bullet because of it, eh?”