Myrmeen leaned forward. "Perhaps because he tried my patience, too."
The bald merchant of arms and men leaned back, rocked in his chair, and laughed. "If you ever get tired of your post in Arabel, I hope you will consider giving me a chance to employ you."
"In what position? On my back or bent over your desk?" Myrmeen asked bitterly, tired of thinly veiled propositions.
Pieraccinni shook his head and opened his hands. "As a negotiator. You are far too suspicious."
Myrmeen glanced around the room. There was movement from behind the red satin curtains of his four-poster bed. "Somehow I find it difficult to accept a serious job offer from a man who keeps a bed in his office."
Pieraccinni pursed his lips. "No one told you? No, from your expression I see that they did not. I never leave this room. I have a rare malady that keeps me here."
The statuesque adventurer stepped back from his desk.
"Don't worry. What I have is not contagious and what I've told you is public knowledge." He tapped his shining, bald pate. "What I suffer from has been diagnosed as a disease of the mind, but that does not make its effects any less real. If you were able to drag me beyond those doors I would collapse with fits and seizures within a minute's time. Of course, you would first have to get me out there."
Myrmeen heard the scrape of weapons sliding from scabbards. She glanced back at the shadowy figures behind the blood-red curtains. "The twins are highly protective?"
"They are, along with all my employees. Not one of them has ever had it this good before. They don't want their comfortable lifestyle to be ruined, and they are aware that my skills are all that ensure their continued employment."
"I understand," Myrmeen said.
"All I want from you is the promise that the next time you have business in Calimport, you will come to me first."
Myrmeen reached out and shook Pieraccinni's hand. "You have my word."
"And you have your daughter. May your life with her be as rewarding as it will be interesting."
Walking to the door, Myrmeen stopped midway. "That sounds like a warning. Do you know something I don't?"
"I have five sons and two daughters," Pieraccinni said. "Believe me when I say you are embarking on your most challenging and perilous adventure yet."
Myrmeen knocked twice and the doors swung outward. She left Pieraccinni's chamber without another word. The doors slammed shut behind her. The boy, Alden, appeared from a secret doorway at the other end of Pieraccinni's room. He hurried inside, rushing to the bald man's desk.
"I have need of your special skills," Pieraccinni said. "Assign Marishan your duties, then follow Lhal and her group. I want confirmation that they have left the city."
"You will have it," Alden said agreeably.
Outside the Gentleman's Hall, Myrmeen joined the Harpers. Krystin nervously glanced at every shadow, though it was midday and the sunlight was glaring. The child had made her rescuers promise that they would enter the city and leave once more while the sun was there to protect them. The nightmare people despised movement during the day.
Myrmeen had not given Pieraccinni all of the riches she had secreted in the city. She left many of the caches in place as a contingency in the event that she one day returned to Calimport, but she said nothing of this to the others.
The group stopped at a nondescript eatery for one last decent meal before the long ride to Arabel. They were greeted by a fiery-haired serving maid whose pleasant smile faded as she caught sight of the Harpers. They had been in the desert for several days without bathing or changing clothes and they had the look of ruffians.
"A private table might be best," she said as she took the small group to a pair of tables near the kitchen and promised to return shortly with tankards of ale. As she left, the girl was stopped by an older woman, who whispered in her ear, eyeing Myrmeen and her crowd suspiciously. The red-haired girl shook her head and raised her voice as she said, "You're right, of course. I would have thought their kind would keep to the Hall."
Krystin was about to hurl a heavy wooden container of ground pepper at the back of the girl's head when Lucius grabbed her arm.
"That is not civilized," he said in deep, rich tones.
"And you think I am?" she asked. "The cow has it coming."
Myrmeen glanced at her daughter. She was beginning to notice that they used many of the same phrases and wondered if Krystin was trying to emulate her. The thought appealed to Myrmeen and she smiled broadly.
An hour later, they were riding toward the city's gates, passing through another run-down neighborhood. Myrmeen drew up her mount's reins, and Krystin held on tightly as the horse neighed and brought them to a halt. Cardoc had been riding beside her, taking point.
"What is it?" Lucius asked as he raised his hand to signal the others to stop. The gaunt mage had followed Burke's orders perfectly, maintaining his visibility at all times. "What have you seen?"
"This place," Myrmeen whispered as she nodded toward a large, U-shaped building across the street. "I didn't even recognize the neighborhood, but that building is where my nightmares started. That's where I was born and raised."
"Your family had that entire estate?" Krystin said with amazement.
"No," Myrmeen said. "The family that had the building constructed left when the area was taken over by the working class and the poor undesirables, like my family. When the estate was given to the city, it was turned into cheap housing."
"But you're wealthy, cultured-"
"That came later, much later."
"It looks abandoned," Krystin said.
Myrmeen nodded. The building where she had played as a child, where she had later experienced her first kiss, now appeared to be deserted. Vines covered the walls of the two-story dwelling and overran the courtyard. The fountains had dried up. Most of the windows were shattered and covered with boards. The balcony that ran the length of the second floor was stained with mildew and its railing was shattered in several places. Strangely, while the building had not been maintained, neither had it been vandalized. There were no signs that it had been overrun with families of squatters.
"Why are we stopped?" Burke called. "What's happening?" When no response came, Burke and Varina rode to either side of those riding point. Burke was surprised by Myrmeen's softening features. The lines around her eyes and mouth, which had seemed to deepen over the past several weeks, appeared to vanish as she surrendered herself to the embrace of warm remembrances.
"Did you want to go inside?" Varina asked.
Myrmeen thought it over. Suddenly she heard her father's warm, booming laughter as he went off to work on that last, fateful morning, riding off to a private audience from which he would never return. She had clung to that image for years, then forgotten it until just now, as she saw the window of the bedroom that once had been hers, in the building's east wing.
"Yes," Myrmeen said, "for a moment. Then we'll leave."
"I have no objection," Burke said benevolently.
Krystin turned her gaze to the sun. There were many hours of daylight left, so she did not allow her fear to overcome her. Reisz and Ord followed behind the four horsemen who led the party beyond a crumbling marble fountain, upon a stone walkway and deep into the central courtyard. In moments they were flanked by the two long arms of the building, and they dismounted before the easternmost of two sets of stairs, the only way up to the second floor.
The curly-haired fighter tapped Ord's shoulder. "I don't like this," he said candidly.
"That's the joy of riding with you, Roudabush. You don't like anything."