"Impossible, indeed, to ask our company to risk so much. Life cannot be bought by gold. Death cannot be bribed by gold. Double the price."
"A third again as much."
She glanced at Anji. He had his head tipped slightly and appeared to be looking not at her but at Toughid's boots, with his mouth pulled tight as if he were trying not to smile. He flicked a finger against his chin as he sometimes did, to her chin, when they were alone, and she sucked in a breath to give her a volley of courage.
"Two-thirds again as much."
"You'd do better to ride back to the place you came."
"Master Calon, surely you do not expect me to believe you offered us everything you and your consortium possess in your warehouses and stock? No merchant of your undoubted prosperity offers his best price first. Something must always be held in reserve. Yet we are as you see us. We have no reserves, except what this payment will bring us. We are at the mercy of fate. Two-thirds again as much."
"Half again as much."
She nodded. "Agreed."
Eliar laughed. "She has bested you, Calon. Take that!"
The merchant shook his head, giving a slow smile. "I am impressed. And I am also desperate, although it appears to me that while your desperation is equal to my own, you are not undone by it, as I am. I agree, as spokesmen for this consortium, as you term it. The rest of the payment to be delivered upon completion of the tasks."
Anji stepped forward to shake hands with Master Calon in the traders' manner, each man's right hand grasping the elbow of the other as a seal to their agreement. After a hesitation, Mai stepped forward as well. In Kartu, only widows without husband or son to act for them dealt in public legal contracts. Master Calon grasped her elbow, squeezed, and let go without any surprise or answering hesitation; it seemed he considered her presence perfectly natural in a transaction of this kind.
"Let Sapanasu, the Lantern of the Gods, give Her blessing," he said in the cadence of a ritual utterance, "and Her curse to any who turn their back on what they have sworn in Her name. Let it be marked and sealed."
"Let it be sealed," repeated Anji.
"Let it be sealed," said Mai.
Lights scattered and flared along the outer wall as a swarm of torches moved out from the gates to engulf the singleton and escort it toward the walls.
"An irrevocable step for all of us," said Master Calon. He blew out his breath. "I need a drink!" He gestured toward the darkened city and the distant torchlight. "I wonder what that is all about."
40
He was dreaming, walking along the shore near Haya that he knew from his childhood. The strand ran for mey ahead in a curve that faded at length into distant hills whose heads were shrouded in rain clouds, although here where he walked the sun shone, its light winking on smooth waters. His feet crunched on coarse sand. The rhythmic shush and suck of waves along the shore and the shrill cries of seabirds overhead kept him company.
A mist rose off the surface of the wide bay. It boiled into a silver fog that rolled toward the land like a watery beast shouldering up out of the depths. On the crest of this fog, as on a wave, lifted a rider mounted on a winged horse, and it surely was Marit riding that horse because even at this distance he would know her anywhere. He ran toward the water, to meet her. The foam of the cresting wave broke over the form of rider and horse, obliterating it; he was left behind with wavelets lapping his toes and his hands grasping air.
"Reeve! Reeve Joss!"
The low voice woke him, or possibly he woke himself, moaning aloud. He stirred and sat, and found that he could sit. The bit of rice and water taken earlier had strengthened him. His head ached, but he could blink without wanting to pass out.
After all, he was only hearing things. He could see nothing in the blackness. The air smelled of rotting things and sickness and worse, a foul smell lightened only because it was rather dry, not at all fresh. Thank the gods.
"Reeve Joss!"
The hatch scraped open to reveal a light lowered through to dangle, swaying back and forth on a line. A hand appeared, fingers slender and strong. It fastened the lantern's looped handle to a hook set in the ceiling off to one side, too high for him to reach. He blinked back tears as his eyes adjusted, and when he was able to look up past the light, he saw a face looking down at him through the hatch as hands lowered a rope until its end curled on the floor.
"Hurry up," she said. "Are you strong enough to climb?"
The rope had been knotted at intervals to provide footholds and handholds.
"Very thoughtful," he said, for it took him a moment-he was thinking slowly- to recognize her. "But I'll take my chances with someone who hasn't already tried to kill me."
"As usual, you men always jump to conclusions about what we women intend. It's quite tiresome."
"When I met you last, you tried to kill me."
"Are you sure?"
"Hmm. Let me think. A naked knife. A mostly naked woman. I admit that part was appealing."
"Why in the hells would I come to kill you stripped to the waist?"
He chuckled, although it sounded exceedingly like rolling pebbles in his mouth, a trick he had tried when a lad with predictable results. He felt now, too, as though he had swallowed something small and hard that wedged in his throat. There was still a little water left in the cup, and he sipped at it and recovered and could speak.
"I thought it was a clever ploy to distract my attention."
She laughed as she grinned down at him. The flame of the light gave her complexion a glowing cast, bathing it in gold. Her eyes were very dark, heavily lidded. Her mouth was lush and very red. Delectable.
"Aui! The hells," he muttered. "I'm delirious."
"No doubt. All the better reason to climb that rope and escape your prison."
"With your help?"
"I'm the one with the rope."
He lifted a hand and was pleased he had strength enough to gesture in a casual way, reflecting a degree of unconcern he did not, in fact, feel, not with her hanging over him in such a position that he got a look right down her vest to the rounded shadows beneath. He remembered-very well-the curves she had on her.
"I'll pass."
"You'll wait for the justice of this corrupt council? I think you'd do best to be well shed of them, for they've been colluding with all manner of folk who will be happy to kill you once they have conquered Olossi. Which they are like to do if you can't get a message to the northern reeve halls, which I wish you would do by climbing this rope, calling your eagle, and leaving this place as soon as ever you can."
"Oh. Slow. I beg you. That was too much and too fast, my sweet."
"I've not given you permission to call me your 'sweet.' "
"Maybe not, but you ask me to trust you. That should give me a few privileges, don't you think?"
"Why shouldn't you trust me? You're such an easy target now that had I wished to kill you, you'd be dead already."
"It is a great comfort, knowing that. Why did you try to kill me before?"
"As I said, you misread the signals."
"A knife thrust at my guts is a strange way to signal something other than murderous intent."
"I had to protect myself. I wasn't sure who had sent you. You might have been on the side of our enemies."
"Who did you think had sent me? Who are your enemies? And who are you?"
She looked away, over her shoulder, then back down at him. "Best we get you out of here before we're interrupted, then I'll tell the tale."
"So, again, you're saying I must trust you."
"Or stay here. Your choice."
"How did you get here? Where are the guards?"