Tarma looked him squarely in the eyes, trying to read him. Every bit of experience she had told her he was telling the truth -- and that now that the approach had been made, it would take a deal of courting before they would confide anything. She looked down at Jadrek; if eyes were the "windows of the soul" his had the storm shutters up. He had identified them; that didn't mean he trusted them. Finally she nodded. "We'll do that."
* * *
"Gods!" Tindel swore softly. "Of all the rabbit-brained-women!" He didn't pace, but by the clenching of his hand on his goblet, Jadrek knew that he badly wanted to. "If anybody had been close enough to hear her -- "
"If they're what they say they are, they wouldn't have pulled this with anyone close enough to hear them," Jadrek retorted, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth as his left knee shot a spasm of pain up his leg. "On the other hand, if they aren't, they might well have wanted witnesses."
"If, if, if -- Jadrek -- " Tindel's face was stormy.
"I still haven't made up my mind about them," the Archivist interrupted his friend. "If they are Idra's friends, they're going about this intelligently. If they're Raschar's creatures, they're being very canny. They could be either. We haven't seen or heard of the pretty one so much as lighting a candle, but if she's really Idra's prime mage, she wouldn't. Char surely knows as much about the Hawks as we do, and having two women, one of them Shin'a'in Swordsworn, show up here after Idra's gone off into the unknown, must certainly have alerted his suspicions. If the other did something proving herself to be a mage, he wouldn't be suspicious anymore, he'd be certain."
"So what do we do?"
Jadrek smiled wearily at his only friend. "We do what we've been doing all along. We wait and watch. We see what they do. Then -- maybe -- we recruit them to our side."
Tindel snorted. "And meanwhile, Idra ..."
"Idra is either perfectly safe -- or beyond help. And in either case, nothing we do or don't do in the next few days is going to make any difference at all."
* * *
"Next time just stop my heart, why don't you?"
Tarma asked crossly when they reached their suite. She shut the door tightly behind them and set her back against it, slumping weak-kneed at having safely attained their haven.
"I acted on a hunch. I'm sorry." Kethry paused for a fraction of a second, then headed for her bedroom, the soft soles of her shoes making scarcely a sound on the marble floor. Her partner followed, staggering just slightly as she pushed off from the door.
"You could have gotten us killed," Tarma continued, following the mage into the gilded splendor of her bedroom. Kethry turned; Tarma took a good look at her partner's utterly still and sober expression, then sighed. "Na, forget I yelled. I'm a wool-brain. There were signs you were reading that I couldn't see, is that it?"
Kethry nodded, eyes dark with thought. "I can't even tell you exactly what it was," she said apologetically.
"Never mind," Tarma replied, reversing a chair to sit straddle-legged on it with her arms folded over the back and her head resting on her arms, forcing her tense shoulder muscles to relax. "It's like trail-reading for me; I don't even think about it anymore. First question; can you find other sources?"
"Maybe. Some of the older nobles, like that old lady who talked to us; the ones who weren't afraid of you. Most older courtiers love to talk, have seen everything and nobody will listen to them. So -- " Kethry shrugged, then glided over to the bed, slipping out of the amber robe and draping it over another chair that stood next to it. Fire and candle light glinted from her hair and softened the hard muscles other body. " -- I use a little kindness, risk being bored, and maybe learn a lot."
"I guess I'll stick to the original plan then; work the horses, play that I don't understand the local tongue, and keep my ears open," Tarma wasn't sure anymore that this was such a good plan, certainly not as certain as she had been when they first rode in. This place seemed full of invisible pitfalls.
"One other thing; there's more than a handful of mages around here, and I don't dare use my powers much. If I do, they'll know me for what I am. Some of them felt pretty strong, and none of them were in mage-robes."
"Is that a good sign, or a bad?"
"I don't know." Kethry unpinned her hair and shook it loose, then slipped on a wisp of shift -- supplied by their host -- and climbed into her bed. The mattress sighed under her weight, as she settled under the blankets in the middle: then she sat up, gazing forlornly at her partner. She looked like a child in the enormous expanse of featherbed -- and she looked uncomfortable and unhappy as well.
Tarma knew that lost expression. This place was far too like the luxurious abode of Wethes Gold-marchant, the man to whom Kethry's brother had sold her when she was barely nubile.
Kethry plainly didn't want to be left alone in here. They also didn't dare share the bed without arousing very unwelcome gossip. But there was a third solution.
"I don't trust our host any farther than I could toss Ironheart," she said, standing up abruptly, and shoving the chair away with a grating across the stone floor. "And I'm bloody damned barbarian enough that nothing I do is going to surprise people, provided it's weird and warlike."
With that, she stalked into her bedroom, stripped the velvet coverlet, featherbed and downy blankets from the bedstead, and wrestled the lot into Kethry's room, cursing under her breath the whole time.
"Tarma! What -- "
"I''m bedding down in here; at the foot of your bed so the servants don't gossip. They've been watching me bodyguard you all day, so this isn't going to be out of character."
She stripped to the skin, glad enough to be out of those over-fine garments, and pulled on a worn-out pair of breeches and another of those flimsy shifts, tossing her clothes on the chair next to Kethry's.
"But you don't have to make yourself miserable!" Kethry protested feebly, her gratitude for Tarma's company overpowering her misgivings.
"Great good gods, this is a damn sight better than the tent." Tarma laughed, and laid her weapons, dagger and sword, both unsheathed, on the floor next to the mattress. "Besides, when the servants come in to wake us up, I'll rise with steel in hand.
That ought to give 'em something to talk about and distract them from who we were associating with last night. And -- "
"And?"
"Well, I don't entirely trust Raschar's good sense if his lust's involved; for all we know, he's got hidden passages in the walls that would let him in here when I'm not around. Hmm?"
"A good point" Kethry conceded with such relief that it was obvious to Tarma that she had been thinking something along the same lines. "Are you sure you'll be all right?"
Tarma tried her improvised bed, and found it better than she'd expected. "Best doss I've had in my life," she replied, wriggling luxuriously into the soft blankets, and grinning. "You'd better find out what happened to Idra pretty quick, she'enedra. Otherwise, I may not want to leave."
Kethry sighed, reached up for the sconce beside her, and blew out the candle, leaving the room in darkness.