“You bulbous, petty thief!”
That got his attention. The granite-fleshed man secured his towel and crossed his arms under what, Detan was disturbed to realize, were the male equivalent of bosoms.
“Are you accusing me of something, little man?”
“You and your foul aficionados stole my and my man’s clothes and tossed them to the vents!” He pointed at the singed edge of his hat. “This dear old thing barely escaped your brutality.”
Grandon grunted. “If your clothes were burned it was probably because the cleaning staff thought they were rags. You have no proof.”
“Proof! I have all I need!” He took the hat off and waggled it at Grandon. “No one would be stupid enough to go to the vents without a guide.”
“A terribly stupid thing to do indeed, sirra.”
“Yes. As I was saying, no one would brave the danger of the vents alone, and therefore you and your gaggle are the only ones who had access to the thing! A simple task, to tip them over the edge from your tub.”
“He does have a point, sir,” the steward said, and Detan jumped a bit because he’d damned near forgotten New Chum was standing right smack beside him.
“A point? That rat? Do you have any idea who I am?” Grandon hauled himself up to his full height and pinched his face in a way that might have looked hawkish on a narrower man, but in truth just ended up looking constipated.
“I reckon you’re Renold Grandon.” Detan tapped the guest list poking out of the steward’s breast pocket. “Like the paper says.”
“You’re blasted straight I am! Got a ten percent ownership in Aransa’s selium mine, and I will not be treated like this by some withered example of wormwood.”
Detan re-adjusted his slipping towel. He was not about to back down on account of an accurate insult.
“And do you have any idea who I am, Grandon?”
“Oh, sirra, I don’t think that’s really nec–”
He shushed Tibs with a wave of his hand. His heat was up again, something about this fellow just didn’t sit right in Detan’s mind, and some things were worth sticking your neck out over. Things like his own sorry pride.
“Yes, I do.” Grandon smirked.
He swallowed. Had he miscalculated? Had he swindled this overinflated sack in the past? Is that why he got his goat up so easily?
“Oh yes.” Grandon trudged forward and stabbed a finger at Detan’s chest. “I know your type, boy. You spend your time slithering about the downcrust scraping together coin from sap to sap until you’ve got enough in your filthy fist to think you can make it up here with the Right Sort. Well, you’ve pushed the buttons on the wrong man, you swine. I will have you run out on the Black Wash with the morning sun for the mild inconvenience you’ve caused me and mine. You understand? I will see you burn for wasting my time.”
Detan put his hand out and laid it flat on the big man’s chest. He quirked a smile, saw Grandon’s confusion, and gave him a light shove. Grandon had to either take a step back, or topple.
He stepped back.
“So. You don’t know who I am.”
Grandon opened his mouth, but Detan stepped toward him and Grandon gulped air as he took another step back to avoid coming chest-to-chest with him. Rage colored his cheeks and chest like an allergic reaction. Detan pressed on before he could recover his momentum.
“My name is Detan Honding.” He shoved a hand out. “And the pleasure’s all mine, Grandon.”
The big man narrowed his eyes at the extended hand. His friends went quiet. “You’re not a Honding.”
“Check the guest list.”
“You lied on it.”
Detan sighed and turned around. He caught Tibs’s eye as he turned, and he had his lips pressed together like it was the only thing keeping him from using some mighty cruel words. Oh well. He was in it now.
He reached back and lifted the hair that hung above the nape of his neck. There, burned in white scar flesh with puckered pink edges, was his family crest. A pickaxe and sword, crossed over the full sail of an old sea ship with the three stars of the landed below. A bit redundant, those landed stars, as the Honding family had been the first of them all to claim land rights on the Scorched. They’d earned it, the whole damned continent, by finding the secret veins of selium gas with sensitives they didn’t even know they had.
“Thought all but Dame Honding died off. Thought her nephew died in a mining accident,” Grandon croaked. It was a lame protest. There were people who would fake a crest, sure, but not a Honding one. There were easier things in the world to pretend to be.
“Sorry to disappoint you then, Grandon, but here I am.”
Grandon wasn’t a landed man, but he knew his manners. He backed off with a grumbled apology.
“Now, the steward here is going to have a look around your cubbies. If you’re clean, then we’ll forget about all this. If not, well, we’ll work that out when we come to it.”
The steward glided forward as if shaking down one of the wealthiest men in all Aransa was just another daily toil, and gave a good and thorough search of Grandon’s cubbies and all his accomplices. Out came Detan’s fine leather money pouch, and then Tibs’s cloth pouch stuffed with Ripka’s.
Tibs gave him a hard look as he took his pouch back, no doubt wondering just what in the fiery pits Detan’s plan had been if they’d ended up losing all their money and the stall tab for their flier. It seemed to Detan he couldn’t rightly complain. They’d gotten it back, after all.
“We have robes you can borrow,” the steward said. “Until the watch captain gets here to take your statements. I will order some new clothes for you right away, sirs.”
“No need to get the Watch involved, but I won’t be the one wearing the loaner robe.” He grinned over at the steward. “You handy with a needle and thread, New Chum?”
“Yes, sir.”
The steward sent Grandon and his companions on their merry way with nothing more than a thin robe each to their names. At least they smelled fresh, and Detan figured they might think twice before messing with a dirty sod next chance they got. He sighed. More than likely they’d go whining to their friends about those bully Hondings. He clenched his jaw. It’s not like his aunt would ever hear about it, and people probably wouldn’t believe them anyway. They’d think he’d just gone and got himself swindled by an imposter.
Which was half right.
“Hold still, sir.”
Detan grumbled as he forced himself to stand still. It wasn’t easy with Tibs glaring at him like that, but even old Tibs had to admit he looked good in his new ensemble. Grandon’s friends had sported some pretty refined taste, and one had been remarkably close to Tibs’s measurements. Only Detan needed the adjusting – he’d always been weirdly narrow in the shoulders compared to other men his size. He figured it made him better at getting out of tight spots. Or into them.
“You know we can take your measurements and send for a whole new set of clothes, sir,” the steward mumbled around the pins held between his lips.
“It’s the principle of the thing, New Chum. I want Grandon and his pals to see me strutting about in their own suits. Serves ’em right. And anyway, these seem fresh made.”
And their inner pockets were stuffed with tickets to Thratia’s fete. Tickets Grandon and his chums had gone and forgotten all about when they’d realized they’d be marching home in loaner robes.
“I suppose they were made for the party tonight, sir. We’ve been busy all day with people coming in to get cleaned up for it.”