Chumley patted his chest, trying to get his breath back.
“I presume, my dear sister, that I am engaged in a counterpoint to what you intend to do here. Or do I fail to recognize the knot in the scarf around your neck?”
Tananda sighed and sat down on the step. “No, you're right. I've been hired to assassinate your friend.”
His big furry brow lowered. The usually even-tempered Troll looked angry.
“Why? Why take the contract? Cordu is an old friend of mine, if not of yours.”
She noticed a torch on the wall and lit it with a lick of magik force.
“Read the contract before you get upset, Brother,” Tananda said, handing it over.
The brow lifted at clause three. “And she signed it?”
“She didn't even read it through. But it'll hold up before the Guildmaster, and that's all I care about. Mums would get so upset if the Guild punishers came looking for me. She might get blood on that new Djinni carpet she just had put in.”
Chumley shivered. Their mother was a force to be reckoned with.
“So, what are you going to do?”
“Well,” Tananda said. “I would say at this point, what are we going to do? He's your friend.”
“Come and talk with him, Little Sister,” Chumley said, wrapping her in a fond fraternal arm. “I think you will find what he has to say most interesting.”
“I was a fool,” Cordu said, pacing up and back in his own bedchamber. This room, Tananda noted with an eye toward interior decorating, was much more a male's idea of a cozy hideaway. The heads of animals stared glassily at her. Three very large, red-scaled hunting beasts lay asleep in front of a crackling fire. A suit of armor stood beside the doorway, holding a tray containing a square, cut-crystal whiskey decanter and a clutch of glasses. Cordu, rather a good-looking male of the Nobish type, poured out beverages for each of them. He held up his own glass in salute. Tananda surreptitiously used a thread of magik to test her own whiskey for poison. Chumley noticed her movement.
“Tsk tsk,” he said.
“Sorry,” she said. “I'm on duty.”
“I understand,” Cordu sighed. “I am glad that you are willing to talk to me. Rennie won't.”
Chumley poured himself another glass of whiskey. “Casting my mind backward, Cordu, I seem to recall that you and Renimbi cared for one another.”
“We do — I mean, did. We have been best friends all our lives. That is why I thought she would understand — the mistake I made. I had no idea that she would go so far in her displeasure as to hire an assassin. Truthfully, it's not entirely my fault. Her father and I… well, it is all a misunderstanding. I know he has always wanted to join our two realms. Perhaps you know that they were one country, three hundred years ago.”
Tananda and Chumley shook their heads.
“My studies of your history are more of the first and last,” Chumley said. “The ancient origins of your people, and most recent, social studies, if you like. So many dimensions, so little time.”
Cordu found a map in the bookshelf that sat underneath the arched window and unrolled it to show them.
“The arrangement makes sense, for our mutual prosperity and defense. This part of the continent is one big river valley, best defended at its mountain passes on the circumference. My father and I had discussed it with our ministers and found it to be workable, so I went to the Tue-Khan with a diplomatic proposal. We would write a treaty that left our realms each under separate thrones, but as one with an open border to allow easy movement. I stressed that our peoples were of one blood, as close as kin could be. He got the idea into his head that I must marry Renimbi to seal the arrangement. And, well, there was a lot to drink. And, well … I didn't really read the document that he shoved underneath my nose early the next morning.”
“Why would the Tue-Khan even do such a thing?” Tananda asked.
“It's his dream. He had told us ever since we were children that he hoped we would marry. My father, too, wished that Renimbi and I would marry. He found every opportunity to throw us together, even leaving us alone in romantic settings.” Cordu's cheeks deepened in color to bronze. “For our parents' sake we tried. But we never really hit it off as lovers, and our relationship has only gotten worse over the last few years. It was with genuine regret that we decided it could never be. My father came to terms with our incompatibility. That is when I married Larica. Rennie and I agreed we would stay best friends. I still love her dearly, but not romantically.”
“But after the, er, meeting with her father, you did press your suit to Renimbi?”
“Well, yes, I did. What with the document and all, I believed I had no choice. Larica is not happy about it, but she understands the customs of our culture. At first I thought that it could work.”
“But Renimbi soon disabused you of that notion,” Chumley said.
Cordu looked sheepish.
“Well, yes. She sent back all of my presents in pieces, except the horse. My page told me that she threatened him with a sword, too.”
“Sounds serious,” Tananda said, grinning.
“But the upshot is that her father and I signed a compact. I am as good as married to Renimbi already. We don't even need the priests to solemnize the union. That is why she wants me dead. She has more or less become my second wife.”
Tananda shook her head. “Worse than I thought Renimbi doesn't know it's already happened. She thinks she can forestall it by having you killed.”
He sighed. “I was a fool.”
“You certainly were. But why can't you simply have the document vacated? Doesn't the Tue-Khan want his daughter to be happy?”
“I am afraid he has gotten what he always wanted, and he has convinced himself that we will eventually settle down and go along with it,” Cordu said sadly. “I have tried to ask him to void the marriage contract, but he won't. As long as it exists, Rennie and I are husband and wife. Hence,” he said, sighing, “your arrival.”
Tananda looked at Chumley. “How did you get involved?”
“Oh, Cordu sent a message out to all of his old mates from school. What? We used to be on the skeet-shooting club together. Birkley, from Cent, is up on the roof. He's got a spear he uses as a focus for his wizardry.”
Tananda fluttered her eyelashes. “I've always had a thing for Centaurs,” she purred. “Especially ones with magikal spears. Anyone else?”
“Krans, from Imper, is hanging around outside, watching for intruders. He's deadly with a crossbow. I don't think any of us anticipated the method of your arrival, except for Chumley, who insisted on being in my chamber with me. And he was right to do so. If it had not been you, a friend, I might be dead already had Chumley not been here.”
“Do you think that she will send another deadly envoy?” Chumley asked.
“No, and no other Guild assassin would take the contract as long as I am in the picture,” Tananda said. “That's not to say she won't send an amateur.”
“No, she won't do that,” Cordu said. “Rennie always goes for the best. She thinks it's only her due, as a daughter of the Tue-Khan of Eyarll.”
“Good,” Tananda said. “That gives us a chance to brainstorm. If I'm the only femme fatale you're waiting for, then why don't we get your friends in? I always think better in the presence of a lot of good-looking men.” She flirted her eyelashes at Cordu.
“Spare me, my lady,” he said, laughing. “I'm already in trouble with two women. I don't need a third.”
The Centaur and the Imp had plenty of suggestions.
“Flood her with other suitors,” Birkley said. “Shell forget about you.”
“One thing you have to know about Rennie,” Cordu said, “she is always faithful to promises. The other thing you must know is that she never forgets a grudge. No.”