The second time around the altar Hendon Tolly lifted the infant above his head. The crowd, which had sat respectfully, now began to clap and cheer, with Durstin Crowel and Tolly’s other closest supporters making the most noise, although Tinwright could see expressions of poorly-hidden disgust on some of the older nobles—those few who had actually attended. He wondered what kind of excuses Avin Brone and the others had made to stay away—even if he were a man of power himself, Tinwright would not want to risk offending Hendon Tolly.

A moment later, as Hierarch Sisel completed the final blessing, Matt Tinwright realized the madness of his own thoughts. He was frightened of refusing an invitation from Tolly to a child blessing, but he was smuggling poison to Tolly’s mistress.

It is like a disease, he thought as the crowd began to break up, some pushing forward toward Anissa and the high nobility, others hastening out into the cold winds that swirled through Market Square. In all respects it looked like an ordinary, festive occasion, but Tinwright and everyone else knew that just across the bay a dreadful, silent enemy was watching them. A fever of disordered thinking rules the place, and I have it as badly as anyone here. We are not a city anymore, we are a plague hospital.

To his shock, Hendon Tolly actually noticed him as he tried to slip past.

“Ah, poet.” The guardian of Southmarch fixed him with an amused stare, leaning away from a conversation with Tirnan Havemore. Elan, who stood beside Hendon, did her best not to meet Tinwright’s eye. “You skulk, sir,” Tolly accused him. “Does this mean you will not have your poem ready for us at tomorrow’s feast? Or are you merely fearful of its quality?”

“It will be ready, my lord.” He had been staying up until long past midnight for almost a tennight, burning oil and candles at a prodigious rate (much to the disgust of Puzzle, who had an old man’s love for going to bed just after sundown and for pinching coppers until they squeaked). “I only hope it will please you.”

“Oh, as do I, Tinwright.” Tolly grinned like a fox finding an unguarded bird’s nest. “As do I.”

The master of Southmarch said a few more quiet words to Havemore, then turned to go, tugging Elan M’Cory after him as though she were a dog or a cloak. When she didn’t move quickly enough, Hendon Tolly turned back and grabbed at her shoulder, but wound up pinching the pale flesh of her bosom instead. She winced and let out a little moan.

“When I say step lively,” he told her in a quiet, measured voice, “then you must jump, slut, and quickly. If there are any tricks like that in front of my brother I will make you dance as you have never danced before. Now come.”

Havemore and the others standing nearby did not even appear to have noticed, and for a mad moment Tinwright could almost believe he had imagined it. Elan silently followed Hendon out, a patch of angry scarlet blooming on the white of her breast.