next room of her house, trying not to think about how good she smelled. It made his heart ache.
Her dining room table was covered with a cloth that had ten lumps beneath it.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Gwinvere asked.
Agon raised an eyebrow at her; she laughed. He pulled the cover cloth off and gasped.
On the table were ten unstrung short bows. They were adorned with simple, almost crude scrimshaw of men and animals, mostly horses.
“Gwinvere, you shouldn’t have.”
“That’s what my accountants tell me.”
He picked one up and tried to bend it.
“Careful,” she said. “The man who . . . procured these bows said you need to warm them by a fire for half an hour before you string them. Otherwise they’ll break.”
“They really are Ymmuri bows,” Agon said. “I’ve never even seen one before.” The bows were one of the marvels of the world. No one but the Ymmuri knew the secret of their construction, though Agon could plainly see that somehow they used not only wood but also horn and glue from melted horse hooves. They could punch an arrow through heavy armor at two hundred paces, a feat only Alitaeran longbows could match. And these bows were short enough to be used from horseback. Agon had heard stories of the lightly armored horse lords riding circles around heavily armored companies, outside the range of traditional archers, shooting the entire company to pieces. Every time lancers charged, the light Ymmuri on their little ponies fled, shooting arrows the whole way. No one had yet figured out how to counter such an attack. Thank the gods no one had ever united the Ymmuri, or they would overrun all of Midcyru.
The bows would be perfect for Agon’s wytch hunters. He caressed the one in his hand.
“You know the way to a man’s heart, Gwinvere,” he said, delighted as a child with a new toy.
She smiled and for a golden moment he smiled too. Gwinvere was beautiful, so smart, so capable, so formidable, and now as she looked in his eyes, somehow fragile, rocked by the death of Durzo, the man she’d loved for fifteen years. Gwinvere was deep and mysterious, and though he’d thought himself too old to be stirred by such things, he was stirred by her beauty. Her smell—gods, was that the same perfume she’d worn all those years ago? It shook him to his core. But there, at his core, he saw his wife. Whether she was dead or alive, he might never know. He could never mourn, never move on, never give up hope without giving up on her and somehow betraying her.
His smile dropped a notch, and Gwinvere saw it. She touched his arm. “I’m glad you like them.” She walked to the door, then turned. “Just tell your men that each of those bows cost more than they’ll make in their lives.” And she smiled. It was a smile to give them a ramp back up to levity. A smile that told him she saw, she knew, and though she didn’t reciprocate his interest, she wouldn’t use it against him.
Agon barked a laugh, accepting her lead. “I’ll take it out of their hides.”
More shocking than the mugger’s words was his face. He was the same man whom Kylar had sworn he’d seen briefly from Count Drake’s window the day Vi tried to kill him.
Kylar dosed the man with poppy wine, and took him to a home for the treatment of addicts. Addicts from wealthy families, of course. The treatment itself was simple: mostly, time. The attendants administered teas and other herbs of doubtful usefulness, restrained the addict, cleaned up the diarrhea and vomit, and waited. The walls were thick, the cells separate and private. Kylar had no trouble with the guards, who took one look, saw an addict, and let them in.
“Please restrain me,” the Ladeshian said as they entered a tiny cell. There was a writing desk, a chair, a basin and pitcher, and a bed, but the walls were blank brick. It was deliberately spartan. The fewer things in the room, the less likely a suicide attempt would be successful.
“I don’t think you’ll get out of control for a few hours at the least,” Kylar said.
“Don’t be so sure.”
So Kylar bound him to the bed with the thick leather straps and the man looked relieved. He smiled his gap-toothed addict’s smile. It turned Kylar’s stomach. Hadn’t this man once had a brilliant smile?