Arna has his own theory about the coins and the figures. He imagined they were made not by spirits but by some reclusive forest dwellers, a race with clever hands and some small magic of concealment. Sometime long ago this method of barter-payment of small coins for their craft-had arisen, a way for folk who didn’t want to be found, yet who desired to sell their goods, to do trade. Somehow the idea that the small figures were a means of fortune-telling was born, and bandied about, and became for all intents and purposes the truth.
Yet he desired to make the gesture of leaving the coin, of asking Jandi’s protection. Coming events would be momentous, both for him and his House. He wouldn’t scruple to seek aid anywhere.
Returning to the road, he mounted his horse. The animal huffed indignantly at being pulled away from the sweet grass at the verge.
“When you’re quite ready, Master Arna,” said Vidor, wheeling his mount westward with an annoyed glance at his friend.
“I had to ask Jandi’s blessings on our enterprise,” replied Arna. “And with the quality of the goods in your packs, we’ll need all the help we can get.”
“You risk a beating for your insubordination,” said Vidor, raising a fist in mock rage. “And you’ll kindly remember that you’re here by my goodwill alone.”
“Forgive me, Master Druit,” said Arna, kneeing his horse until he caught up with Vidor. “I’ll make every effort to watch my tongue.”
Beneath Jandi’s Oak all was still, save for a whisper of wind along the grass that whirled and spiraled as no honest wind ought to do. And from the line of trees that over time and by human traffic had been hacked, burned, and driven farther and farther back, something patient and hungry watched the party as it disappeared into the dust of the road.
NONTHAL, TURMISH
1585 DR-YEAR OF THE BLOODIED MANACLES
Sanwar Beguine twisted a strand of long chestnut brown hair around his finger, letting it bite deep. He watched, fascinated, as his pinched skin grew red, then purple before he released the hair.
Four more hairs lay on an unmarked piece of paper on his desk. He put the one he had been playing with down and contemplated them. Each was at least the length of his forearm, from his elbow to the tip of his middle finger: thick hairs, almost coarse, that varied from the color of the very wood of his desk to pale amber. They were strong hairs, unbroken. He picked up his jeweler’s glass and examined them minutely. Under magnification, the substance of each hair looked like thick glass, with a clear core in the center. The ends of all five hairs had the tiny bulb that had rooted the hair in Kestrel’s scalp.
Vorsha had wept when she gave them to him the night before.
From a slot in his desk Sanwar pulled another length of clean, thick paper. He took three of Kestrel’s hairs, looped them neatly, and folded them securely inside the paper, making a tiny packet. He tucked this in a pocket inside his coat and returned to his contemplation of the other two.
It was his intention to make Kestrel an amulet. He’d told Vorsha the truth about that. But that required three of her hairs. He had different plans for the other two. They would help him answer a question that had lingered in his mind ever since he’d seen his niece toddle down the hallway outside the children’s wing, clutching her nurse’s hand. Now, when he saw the girl in unguarded moments, laughing with her sister or reviewing a vendor’s tally sheet, he wondered.
He yanked at a tuft of his own hair, wincing. Examining the resultant hairs between his fingers, he selected the two that were longest and placed them next to Kestrel’s, flicking the rest off his fingers and onto the floor. His hairs were coarser and curlier than the girl’s and of a more uniform brown. He looked at them through the glass. The tints were similar, but then, his hair was the same color as his brother’s.
The simple-seeming construction of his desk hid many small drawers and compartments. Sanwar tapped an inset, smooth-headed wooden screw on the right side with his middle finger, giving three discreet, forceful taps. In response, a small, spring-loaded door opened on the side, revealing a small space just big enough to hold a rounded ceramic bowl, the size of a man’s cupped hand.
He placed the bowl on the flat surface of the desk, beside the paper that held Kestrel’s hairs and his own. The glaze on it was uncrazed, the green of corroded copper. The bowl was otherwise undecorated. Sanwar pulled a clean, soft cloth from his pocket and wiped the already-clean interior until not a speck of dust could possibly remain.
Quickly he coiled all four strands of hair into the bowl. Another compartment in the desk held small glass vials filled with various powders. He removed two-one filled with a yellowish white powder. The other contained a powder so dark it looked black, but when grains of it were exposed to the light, it proved to be a deep red.
Sanwar sprinkled a goodly amount of the light powder into the bowl, and a scant smatter of the red. He paused and took a deep breath.
Arna knew that Nonthal was nowhere near the glory it had once boasted, years ago when Turmish was the center of trade of a significant portion of Faerun, and that its central market was like as not a mere shadow of what had existed there before. How glorious must that age have been, therefore, when the remnant was so brisk, and bustling, and filled with all manner of shops and stalls hawking everything from spices to silks, amulets to baskets of many varieties of apples. Here was a farm-woman selling poultry: chickens in willow-wand cages and quail and ducks as well, all cheeping and quacking in their precariously stacked quarters. He paused to glance at a countertop piled high with used armor, some of it scored with ominous-seeming burn marks. The merchant, a dwarf with elaborate braids in her autumn red hair and arm muscles that easily surpassed Arna’s own in girth, glanced up at him from her task of hammering out the dents in a breastplate, ran her eye over him, and turned back to her work, obviously dismissing him as a likely purchaser of fighting gear.
“Stop gawking like a country cousin on his first trip to a town temple,” muttered Vidor, hitting him lightly on the shoulder. “It’s not your first venture outside that rock you call home. And you’ve seen more goods in the caravans bound for Imaskar.”
“Sespech isn’t like this,” returned Arna. “And trade goods are packed tight when they come to Jadaren Hold.”
“Nonsense,” said Vidor distractedly, pulling a roll of paper the length and thickness of his finger from an inner pocket of his stained traveling jacket. “When the caravans come in, the undercaves of Jadaren Hold are like a pasha’s treasure trove. You and I hid there between the bales as youngsters often enough, spying out the bargaining.”
He unrolled the paper partway and frowned at it.
“Nicole Beguine’s manner is as pretty and noncommittal as his handwriting,” he said. “He salutes my clan and pedigree. He pats me on the head for my clever cantrips, as if I were a deserving student. He apologizes that he cannot make the time to discuss the matter with me in a timely fashion, and begs the pressures of business. He refers me to his daughter Ciari, who is empowered to act for the family in all ways.”
Arna snorted. “He’s good.”
“The Beguines are all very good at what they do. It’s a brilliant reply, really. Very kind, nothing you could claim was insulting, and yet it’s perfectly designed to put me at a disadvantage-to make me a petitioner begging for a favor.”
He nudged Arna, who was still looking about him at the panoply of merchant’s stalls and sniffing hungrily after the aroma of meat cooking over an open brazier.