'Will five Marks cover it? Tormalin?' Casuel reached for his money pouch.
The widow blinked. 'That would do handsomely.'
She kissed her sleeping baby's fluffy head and laid the child in a wicker crib, then to Casuel's profound relief laced her bodice, looking up at him with a smile teasing her lips. 'Bargaining prices for books not the same as haggling for horses then, is it?'
Casuel made a half-bow. 'I can drive as hard a bargain as any man, madam; my father is a pepper merchant and taught me his trade well. However he is a man of honour and has also taught me that one should offer charity, not seek advantage, when encountering widows and orphans.'
Besides, the money would put some decent clothes on their backs so the widow needn't present her family to her relations as beggars, he thought with some satisfaction.
'And you don't get drunk on holy days and you remember your mother at every shrine to Drianon, I take it.' There was more humour than irony in her voice now. 'Let me get the children to bed and then I'll tell you what I know. All I ask is you stitch that bastard up tighter than a festival fowl's arse.'
She looked at the pot over the fire and bit her lip. 'You'd better step out for something to eat; we've nothing to spare, I'm sorry.'
The third chime of the night was sounding before Casuel finally made his way back to the marketplace and the inn, elation filling him as he strode along, despite the repeating taste of a pie which he now suspected had contained horsemeat. A breeze blew a gust of warm soapy air across his path.
'Allin!' he exclaimed, remembering her with a guilty start. 'No matter; she can't have come to much grief in a wash-house.'
Nevertheless he quickened his step but was held up by a man at the door, whom it appeared, having drunk rather too much, had inexplicably decided this was the time to dispute the cost of his laundry.
'Excuse me.' Casuel pushed past to see Allin deep in conversation with the washerwoman.
'If he's taking advantage, you can stay here. Just to do the linens, nothing more. We'll look after you.'
'Evening, your honour.' The redhead greeted him loudly and stepped into his path, his cloak over her arm.
Allin scrambled to her feet, cheeks red, her hair freshly dressed with ringlets coiling in the damp air.
'Are you ready?' Casuel enquired curtly, taking his cloak and handing over a Mark. 'I think we should return to the inn. I want to make an early start tomorrow.'
The washerwoman gave Allin a rough kiss of farewell. 'You know where we are, dear.'
Casuel tutted impatiently as Allin tied her shawl about her.
'Did you find the widow?' she enquired as they picked their way back to the inn through the dim moonlight.
'I did.' His good humour returned. 'You know, this should be quite straightforward. According to her, Lord Armile barely knows what he's got on his shelves. He simply inherited the collection along with the title. I think I should find something to impress Usara, and perhaps even Planir.'
Almost as satisfying, an extra Mark had persuaded the widow to deny all knowledge of the library should anyone else come enquiring, Darni or Shiv, for instance. Casuel decided not to burden Allin with that detail.
He strode into the inn and halted on the threshold, surprised to see it as busy as before.
'Excuse me, I bespoke a room earlier.' He held up a hand to intercept the maidservant, her hair now coming loose from its pins and her apron stained with ale and food.
'Yon's the door to the stairs. Find one of the maids up there to bother.' She brushed past him, sweeping up a handful of flagons from a table as she went.
'Excuse me—' Casuel began indignantly but the girl was gone.
'Come on,' he snapped at Allin crossly and pushed through the carousing farmers to the stairs. Once upstairs he was none too pleased to find his bag shoved under a bed in a room crowded with nine others.
He went into the narrow corridor and beckoned a harassed maid with an armful of well-worn blankets.
'That's right, your honour. You in there and the lady in the women's room upstairs.'
'We bespoke two chambers,' he began indignantly.
'There's none to be had on a market day.' The woman made to push past him, annoyed when Casuel prevented her. 'There's no use kicking up about it. If you don't want the bed, I can let it five times over.'
Casuel coloured at her tone. 'Oh all right then.'
He escorted Allin up to the long garret above, relieved to find a group of clean, decently dressed farmwives already there. He returned to his own bed and dragged out his travelling bag, deciding to make some notes before he settled down.
Casuel drew a shocked breath, his grievance at the petty annoyances of the inn evaporating.
'Raeponin pox the lot of them!'
Someone had been going through his things! He shuddered with distaste at the thought of grubby sneak-thieves pawing through his linen, however slight the disturbance. He checked his various volumes, laying them on the bed, and reached down to the bottom of the bag for his packet of papers and letters. It was still sealed with his own signet but as he brought his candle closer Casuel could see the tell-tale smudges where the wax had been lifted off with a hot knife blade. He cracked the seal and sorted through his notes, hands shaking with indignation.
'Greetings.'
Casuel turned, surprised to be addressed in oddly formal Tormalin. A blond man in neat travelling clothes had taken the bed next to him.
'Good evening,' he replied curtly.
'You're a long way from home.' The stranger shook out his blankets and smiled.
What business was that of this undersized fellow? 'I travel in the course of my trade,' Casuel replied repressively.
'You deal in books, I see?' The blond man's eyes were blue and cold, despite the warmth of his smile.
'Among other things.' This curious character could answer a few questions himself, thought Casuel. 'I don't recognise your accent, where do you hail from?'
'I have travelled from Mandarkin.' The man's smile broadened. 'I find it much warmer here.'
If you're Mandarkin-born, I'm an Aldabreshi, Casuel thought. That lie might satisfy peasants who've never travelled more than ten leagues from their homes, but he had met several Mandarkin in Hadrumal and this man's accent was nothing like theirs. Something was not quite right here.
He yawned ostentatiously. 'Excuse me, I'm for my bed.'
Casuel took off his boots and breeches and got beneath the soft blankets, promising himself a thorough bathe and complete change of linen when he returned to a civilised hostelry.
'Raeponin only knows how anyone's supposed to sleep with that row going on,' he muttered to himself as the hubbub from the tap-room continued unabated.
Men in various states of drunkenness and undress began entering the room and Casuel huddled under his blankets in an attempt to isolate himself from the unsavoury gathering. The room gradually quietened, the thick darkness broken only by intermittent snores, usually interrupted by a kick from a neighbouring bed.
Surprisingly, it seemed Casuel had barely closed his eyes before the morning light was streaming through the shutters and the maid was hammering on the door to announce breakfast. He dragged himself reluctantly from the blankets, temples pounding and eyes gritty, unrefreshed after a night of unexpected and peculiar dreams. Conversations with Usara, other people he knew in Hadrumal, that scrying he'd done of Ralsere and Darni, all manner of inconsequential nonsense and memories had jumbled together, rolling over and around in his sleeping mind.
Allin soon gave up trying to engage him in conversation over breakfast and they departed shortly after in gloomy silence.