Thick, patterned carpet gave underfoot as Alec moved across to an interior door. Finding it unlocked, he pocketed the light and took a cautious peek through.
A corridor ran the length of this level, with several other doors on each side. Halfway down the right-hand wall was a staircase leading down.
Light came up from below, and with it music and the sounds of lively conversation.
Alec stepped out into the corridor and closed the door of the bedroom behind him. Picturing the location of the study, he moved quickly down the corridor to a pair of doors at the far end. The one in question was secured with a complicated lock.
Feeling nervous and exposed, Alec tried one pick and then another. Twirling a third in, he closed his eyes and explored the wards by feel.
The master of the house evidently set great value on privacy; like those on the windows, this was no common device. The endless lessons at Seregil's workbench paid off, however. The lock gave and he was in.
A writing desk and chair stood between two tall windows overlooking the street. A glance outside found the avenue busier than ever. Pulling the drapes shut, Alec took out the lightstone and sat down to begin his search.
A few items lay arranged in orderly fashion on the polished desktop: ink wells, a bundle of uncut quills, and a sand shaker stood ready on a silver tray beside a tidy stack of parchments.
Next to these was an empty dispatch box. Finding nothing of note, he moved on to the drawers.
The wide central drawer was flanked by two narrow ones. The central one was locked but yielded readily. Inside were packets of correspondence tied up with silk cord, a stick of sealing wax, a sand brush, and a penknife.
The left drawer was lined with silk and contained four locks of hair. Each had been carefully tied up with ribbon and one, a thick curl of raven black, was adorned with a jeweled pin. Reaching over these tokens, Alec found a velvet pouch containing a thick golden ring and a small ivory carving of a nude man.
The third drawer held a more mundane collection-used blotting paper, wax tablets, styluses, a tangled skein of twine, a litter of gaming stones-but nothing resembling a correspondence case. Going to the door, Alec checked the corridor again and then continued with his task.
Pulling out all three drawers, he lined them up and discovered the narrow ones to be a full hand's-breadth shorter than the central.
The desk was a casework piece, enclosed on the bottom as well as the sides. Peering in, he saw that the cavity for the central drawer ran to the back of the desk, separated from the side drawers by thin wooden dividers on either side. These also ran the depth of the desk. Small leather-faced blocks were fixed to the bottom of the cavity to keep the drawer flush with the front skirt when closed.
Similar stop blocks were in the side drawer tracks. but there was a difference. Just behind these, the cavities ended in wooden panels that sealed off whatever space lay beyond. Inexperienced he might be, but the whole costly, overly complicated structure of the piece seemed to promise at least one secret compartment.
Sliding his arm into each of the three spaces, Alec pressed and tapped with no success. As he sat back in exasperation, wondering what Seregil would do, his gaze wandered to the dispatch box. A memory leapt to mind; Seregil toying with a similar box during their burglary in Wolde, finding a secret mechanism.
Running his hands slowly over every surface of the desk, he finally located a tiny lever concealed next to the right front leg. When he shifted it, however, nothing seemed to happen, not even a telltale click. Perspiration beaded his upper lip as he knelt and inspected the interior of the desk again.
This time he noticed something he'd missed before. The unfinished wood on the bottom of the central drawer track showed the parallel wear marks that one might expect to find; these he'd seen.
But halfway in, toward the center of the panel, a faint, curving scuff could just be made out, arcing from a point midway between the two more pronounced marks and terminating abruptly at the right-hand divider.
Looking closer, he realized that there was also the tiniest hairline gap between the lower edge of the partition and the bottom of the desk. If not for that arcing scratch, he might have passed it off as nothing more than the result of the wood shrinking in the dry winter air, causing a joint to pull apart.
He pressed the hidden lever again, at the same time pushing firmly against the edge of the partition
closest to him. Pivoting on unseen pins, the partition swung into the central opening and out over Alec's lap, revealing a small triangular compartment attached to the far end. Grinning in silent triumph, Alec lifted out a leather folder and heard the muffled crackle of parchment. Cramming it into the front of his coat, he quickly put everything else back the way he'd found it.
Back in the corridor, he locked the study door again for thoroughness" sake. No sooner had the last ward fallen into place, however, when he heard footsteps on the staircase behind him. There was no time to unlock the door or retreat to the bedchamber at the far end of the hall; the light of a candle was brightening rapidly toward the head of the stairs.
In desperation, Alec tried the door of the room next to the study; the handle turned smoothly under his hand.
Ducking inside, he put his eye to the crack of the door.
Two women had just reached the top of the stairs. One carried a candelabra and by its light he could see that both were expensively dressed and quite beautiful.
"He said to look on the second shelf to the right of the door, a thick folio bound in green and gold," the younger one said, peering around the hallway.
"This is a lucky night indeed, Ysmay," remarked her companion. "One so seldom has a chance to visit his library. But which room is it? It's been so long since I was last up here."
Jewels winked in the dark coils of the young woman's hair as she turned Alec's way. More jewels sparkled in the intricate necklace that covered her chest. In fact, Alec saw, the necklace was very nearly the only thing covering her breasts. The bosom of the dress was cut so low the top of one nipple peeped out from the fretwork of gems and gold.
"I must thank you again, dear aunt, for bringing me tonight!" the girl exclaimed. "I nearly swooned when you presented me to him. I can still feel his lips on my hand."
"A fact I pray your esteemed father never learns," her aunt replied with a low, musical laugh. "I felt just the same the first time I met him. He's one of the most charming men in Rhнminee, and so handsome! But take care, my dear. No woman has ever held his fancy for long, or man either. But now for that excellent manuscript. Which room is it?"
"This one, I think," replied the girl, making straight for the room where Alec was hiding. He pressed back against the wall behind the door, hoping for the best.
"La, this isn't it," the aunt exclaimed as the candles illuminated a bedchamber similar to the one at the back of the house.
"Is it his room?" breathed Ysmay, stepping toward the bed.
"I shouldn't think so. See that painted chest there? Mycenian work. Not his sort of thing at all. Come, my dear, I think I have my bearings now."
As soon as the women had disappeared into a room down the corridor, Alec bolted silently for the first bedchamber. Not daring to chance the lightstone again, he found the dim outline of the little window and made for it.
He hadn't gone three paces when a large, callused hand clamped over his mouth. Another seized his right arm, pinning it behind his back as he twisted and struggled.
"Hold him!" a voice hissed from somewhere across the room.
"Got him!" a deep voice rasped next to Alec's ear. The hand across his mouth clamped tighter. "Not a sound, you. And quit yer wigglin'!"
A lightstone appeared and his captor swung him roughly about to face it. Alec gave another convulsive twist, then froze with a strangled grunt of astonishment.