pretend I was his nursemaid and when he was naughty, I’d—”
“Spare me.” It was a loss to have her stop, but she’d have gone on for ten minutes, and not skipped a single detail.
“Then what do you want, Durzo? Now you’re staring at your hands again.”
He was staring at his hands. Gwinvere could be more trouble than she was worth, but her advice was always good. She was the most perceptive person he knew and smarter than he was by a long shot. “I want to know what to do, Gwinvere.” After a long moment of silence, he looked up from his hands.
“About the boy?” she asked.
“I don’t think he has it in him.”
When Azoth came around the corner, Rat was sitting on the back porch of the ruin the guild called home. Azoth’s heart seized at the sight of the ugly boy. Rat was alone, waiting for him. He was spinning a short sword on its point. Spots of rust interplayed with the winking of the waning moon on bright steel as it spun.
In this unguarded moment, Rat’s face seemed as mutable as that spinning steel, one moment the monster Azoth had always known, the next moment an overgrown, scared child. Azoth shuffled forward, more confused and frightened by that glimpse of humanity than soothed. He’d seen too much.
He came forward through the stench of the alley that the whole guild used as their toilet. He didn’t even care to watch where he put his feet. He was hollow.
When he looked up, Roth was standing, that familiar cruel grin on his lips, the rusty sword pointing at Azoth’s throat.
“That’s far enough,” Rat said.
Azoth flinched. “Rat,” he said, and swallowed.
“No closer,” Rat said. “You’ve got a shiv. Give it to me.”
Azoth was on the verge of tears. He took the shiv from his belt and held it out, handle first. “Please,” he said. “I don’t want to die. I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me.”
Rat took the shiv.
“I’ll give him that he’s smart,” Durzo said. “But it takes more than intelligence. You’ve seen him here with all the other guild rats. Does he have that . . . ?” He snapped his fingers, unable to find the word.
“Most of them I only see in the winter. They sleep on the streets the rest of the year. I give them a roof, Durzo, not a home.”
“But you’ve seen him.”
“I’ve seen him.” She would never forget him.
“Gwinvere, is he cunning?”
Rat tucked the shiv in his belt and patted Azoth down. He found no other weapons. His fear dissolved and left only exultation. “Don’t hurt you?” he asked. He backhanded Azoth.
It was almost ridiculous. Azoth practically flew from the force of the blow. He sprawled in the dirt and got up slowly, his hands and knees bleeding. He’s so small!
How did I ever fear this? Azoth’s eyes bled fear. He was crying, making little whimpers in the darkness. Rat said, “I’m going to have to hurt you, Azoth. You’ve made me. I didn’t want it to be this way. I wanted you with me.”
It was all too easy. Azoth had come back to the guild already destroyed. Rat didn’t like it. He wanted to do something to seal Azoth’s humiliation.
He stepped forward and grabbed Azoth’s hair. He pulled him up to his knees, enjoying the little cries of pain the boy gave.
He owed what would come next to Neph. Rat didn’t particularly like boys more than girls. He didn’t see much difference. But Rat never would have thought of this as a weapon if Neph hadn’t told him how much it broke a person’s spirit to be forced.
It had become one of Rat’s favorites. Anyone could make a girl scared, but the boys in the guild feared him more than they had ever feared anyone. They looked at Bim or Weese or Pod or Jarl and they melted. And the more he had done it, the more it stirred him. Just looking at Azoth now, on his knees, eyes round with fear, made Rat’s loins stir. There was nothing like watching the fire of defiance roar high and then, quickly or over many nights, die, flare up again, and die forever.
“A wetboy has to lose himself,” Durzo said. “No, abandon himself. To be a perfect killer, he has to wear the perfect skin for each kill. Gwinvere, you understand, don’t you?”
She recrossed her long legs. “Understanding is what sets courtesans apart from whores. I get under the skin of