The Shadow Master by Craig Cormick

Author:Craig Cormick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Angry Robot, Angry Robot
Published: 2014-06-25T16:00:00+00:00

XXIX

The Nameless One examined himself in the mirror for some time, pondering the growing dark lines under his eyes and the increasing droop to his mouth. He stared long and hard until he could see his youth hidden beneath it. He had shed his leather clothes and mask and was dressed once more in his silk and jewelled finery.

This evening he wore a white silk shirt with a black and silver jacket and dark pantaloons. He came into the dining chamber where his wife waited for him at the table, and complimented her fine blue dress with embroidered white flowers on it. It was one of her favourites, and she always wore it when in a good mood. He smiled to see it. “You’re late for dinner, my love,” she chided gently.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” he said. “An urgent task that needed my attention.”

“Nothing difficult, I hope?” she said.

“Nothing too difficult,” he replied.

“Do we have a guest in the lower chamber?” she asked.

He worked his jaw a moment and then said, “You need not worry yourself about my business affairs.” She gave him a stare, as if to disagree, and then nodded her head.

“What news of the city today?” she asked him, lapsing into their regular evening small chat.

“All is calm in the city,” he said.

“Was there not some conflict?” she asked.

“It is all well now,” he said. He had told her of the conflict between the Medicis and the Lorraines the day before, and she had quizzed him about it, but he knew she would not remember it clearly today.

“Come and sit by me,” she said. He smiled and carried his chair across to her. “Yes, my dear.”

“I wish we could go for a walk after our meal,” she said. He placed a hand on hers. They would not be walking this evening. The wasting disease was a terrible thing. It left a person looking healthy and whole, but ate them away from the inside. It slowly took away strength from a person’s limbs and also the strength of a person’s mind.

He had visited the apothecaries many times for potions, some of which seemed to help and some of which did not, but they said that it was only possible to slow the wasting disease – never to cure it. The ancients had a cure for it, he had been told. But the knowledge of that was lost to them, like so much else of the ancients’ wisdom.

But he continued to urge them to try new cures. For as the disease ate away at her, he found it ate away at him too. It was making him increasingly unfeeling. Making him more careless in taking risks. Making him less skilled at the secret trade that he was so valued for.

“Will you be going out again this evening?” she asked him.

“Just for a short time,” he said. “I will not be late.”

“Always business,” she chided him.

“These are difficult times,” he told her. “One must maintain one’s interests.”

“Of course,” she said.

They supped for a while on fowl and vegetables, and then he said, “I have a present for you, my dear.

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