The Thief's Gamble

'Whereabouts do you live? Perhaps we have acquaintance in common?'

It was quite funny to watch his brain catch up with his mouth. As a gambit for polite chit-chat, that was a fine question, but was it really what he wanted to ask a woman from whom he had bought stolen property? His face reflected his dismay as he saw the conversational pit he had just dug ahead. I was tempted to claim a handful of city notables as people I had robbed. Would that count as acquaintance?

'I doubt it.' I took pity on him. 'My mother is a housekeeper.'

'Oh, for whom?' Still not the most tactful question but this time he didn't seem to notice.

'Emys Glashale. He lives east of the river, off the Rivenroad.'

Geris shook his head. 'I don't really know that part of the city. My family live on the Ariborne.'

'Oh?' I didn't have to fake a tone of interest. The Ariborne means money, but not necessarily old money. Some very shady characters try to purchase respectability with that address.

Geris glanced at me and then concentrated on a bend in the road which was badly rutted and boggy with the recent rain. His face showed eagerness to chat was warring with instructions to be discreet, doubtless from Darni. I sat patiently and we negotiated the curve without accident. Geris looked sideways at me again, and I saw his eyes brighten as they lingered on my breeched legs. I stretched them out and leaned back in the seat, which also helped to pull my jerkin tighter over my breasts.

'There are some beautiful houses on the Ariborne,' I said wistfully. 'Have you lived there long?'

As I hoped, the social code could not let Geris ignore a lady's conversation, even one as dubiously qualified as me.

'My father built the house about ten years ago, when he—' Geris broke off and hesitated. He laughed. 'Oh well, you might as well know. My father's Judal Armiger.'

'Never!' I gaped at him. 'The Looking Glass man? That Judal?'

Geris blushed but I could see he was proud of his parentage and no wonder.

'Why are you so shy about it? Judal's the greatest actor Vanam has known in three generations!' I let my enthusiasm have full rein. 'My mother told me how he formed his own company rather than seek a wealthy patron. She says everyone was astounded. And then, to build his own playhouse rather than use the temples like everyone else, well, that was a stroke of genius.'

'He's a clever man.' Geris sat straighter on his seat as pride filled him.

'Clever hardly fits it! People are still talking about the first time he staged a Lescari romance. It made the priests livid. How did he find the nerve to go and buy in a Soluran masquerade after that, just to show them what he thought?'

I laughed; I'd seen the masqueraders as a child on a rare day out with my father and I could still picture them vividly.

'He writes his own material too,' Geris boasted. 'He's survived mockery, sabotage and imitation to set the standard by which any troupe is judged.'

That had the sound of one of Judal's own lines to me but I wasn't going to quibble. He is certainly a remarkable man. Incidentally, he has made a great deal of money.

'My mother and I queued all afternoon to see The Duke of Marker's Daughter, you know.'

Geris turned eagerly. 'Did you enjoy it? What did you think of it?'

'My mother said she'd never realised one mother putting a switch across her daughter's backside could have stopped the Lescari wars before they'd got started.' I laughed in sudden remembrance of her dry tone.

'I don't think that's entirely fair.' Geris looked more than a little put out.

'I thought the play was very fine,' I assured him. 'I really admired the way the princess stood up to them all and refused to let them rule her life, no matter what.'

Geris looked mollified so I didn't elaborate; I may have admired the stubborn Suleta as a bloody-minded girl myself, but nowadays I'd be more of my mother's opinion, unlikely though that sounds.

'Well!' I shook my head in wonder. 'So how do you come to be jaunting round with that peculiar pair?' I waved a hand at the backs of Darni and Shiv.

Geris relaxed a little. 'My mentor at the University is an expert on Tormalin Empire history, especially Nemith the Seafarer and Nemith the Reckless. Something — that is, when Planir needed someone to help with some — when he wanted to know more about that period, he contacted my master. He recommended me to Darni and Shiv.'

I hoped no one was trusting Geris with anything vital. With all his hesitations, he couldn't have been more obvious with 'I've got a secret' chalked on his back.

'Didn't you want to go into the Looking Glass?' I would have sold all my aunts and cousins for a chance like that. Well, to be honest, I would have sold my aunts and cousins for a lot less, but I still could not understand how Geris could have walked away from something so exciting.

'Not really. I could never be a player.'

Well, that was true enough.

'I got interested in history when Father was writing Vamyre the Bold. I did some writing for the stage but it wasn't very good. I liked the studying best, trying to make sense of the old sages, shrine records, chronicles from the Empire, that kind of thing. Did you know the Tormalins reckoned a generation was twenty-five years, but the Solurans say it's thirty-three; that's why tying up their histories is so difficult.'

'And your father doesn't mind?'

'Father always said that we could choose our own path; he'd had to run away from home to be able to do what he wanted and he says he vowed not to be so hard on his own children. Most of the time he manages. Anyway, I've two brothers and a sister who act, a brother who writes really well and a sister who keeps things organised, so I don't think they miss me.'

He smiled, serene, content with his lot. I wondered what a strife-free family was like.

'This must sound stupid but I never knew Judal had a family; I don't think anyone ever thinks about Judal's life off-stage.'

'He'd be delighted to hear that.' Geris urged the horses to a trot as Shiv and Darni vanished into a wooded stretch of road. 'He never wants his own repute to interfere with our lives. My mother and my younger brother and sisters can walk around town without being- recognised, and that suits her just fine.'

How many children did that make? 'She must be quite a woman.'

'She is,' Geris said proudly.

I smiled; I doubted he meant it in the way I did.

We passed a waystone and I frowned as I realised we were on the Eyhorne road.

'Where are we headed? I'd have thought you'd have been heading for Col, if you're dealing in antiquities.'

Geris' smile faded and he looked at Darni's stiff back uncertainly. I persisted.

'You must have seen an Almanac, surely? They're putting an extra day into the Equinox, you know, to keep the Calendar right. It's going to be the biggest fair in years. You could find all sorts of dealers there.'

'Of course, they use the Tormalin Calendar there, don't they?' Geris frowned. 'Didn't they add a day at the same time as the Solurans, three years ago?'

I shrugged; I did not want Geris distracted by errors in the various methods of measuring a year; keeping track of who uses which system and making sure you're working from the right Almanac is enough of a pain as it is.

'So where are we headed?'

'Oh, Drede,' Geris said absently. 'Are the Tormalins adding any days at Solstice, do you know?'

'What's in Drede?' This made no sense. Drede is the sort of place that only exists because there's only so much countryside people can take before they get an overwhelming need to build a tavern.

Geris shook himself and abandoned calendar calculations for the present. 'I'm not sure I should be talking to you about it,' he admitted.