"What errands, my lord?" Emmis asked, startled.
"Whatever errands your employer sends you on; I want you out of the house while the two of us speak. The coachman will be escorting Gita back to the Crooked Candle, but I assume the ambassador can find something more constructive for you to do."
"You're done with us, then?"
"For the present."
"And have you figured out who the Lumethans hired to kill the ambassador, or where they might be found?"
Emmis regretted the snide words even as they were leaving his lips, but apologizing would probably only make matters worse; he let the question stand.
Lord Ildirin smiled at him – not a nice smile this time, not like his previous expressions. "Not yet," he said. "Have you?"
"No," Emmis said. "I'm just a dockworker and guide. I don't investigate anything."
"Of course." Ildirin glanced at Gita.
"I just help out my uncle!" she said. "None of this has anything to do with me."
"And I just help out my nephew," Ildirin said. "It seems a better use of my time than sitting around waiting to die."
Gita looked at him nervously, then turned away.
The exchange made Emmis uncomfortable; he looked out the carriage window just in time to see them negotiate the turn onto Through Street.
"We're here," he said.
Ildirin glanced out. "So we are," he said.
A moment later the carriage came to a halt, and three of the four inside passengers debarked at the front door of the rented house. Gita started to climb out as well, but Lord Ildirin held up a bony hand to stop her.
"You will stay in the carriage, please," he said. He reached for his purse and counted out eight bits; she crouched in the door of the coach, waiting, as he did. Then he held out the handful of money.
She cupped her own hands, and he poured the coins into them.
"Thank you, my lord," she said.
"You're welcome," he said. Then he called to the coachman, "Take her to Shiphaven Market and leave her there, then come back here and wait for me."
"Yes, my lord."
One of the two guards who had been riding on the back of the carriage had jumped down; the other remained in place. While Emmis and the disembarked guard unloaded Emmis's two bags, Lord Ildirin took a moment to whisper instructions to the man on the carriage, then turned away.
The coachman shook the reins, and the carriage rolled away, leaving Emmis, Lord Ildirin, and two guardsman behind. Emmis lifted his baggage, delighted to have it back. He wondered whether anything might be missing. He peered after the carriage, hoping for one more glimpse of Gita; she had saved his belongings for him, which had been kind of her, but it didn't mean he didn't think she might have gone through a few things and perhaps appropriated an item or two. She was pleasant enough, but he didn't trust her.
"Now, to meet with this ambassador," Ildirin said, and the four of them turned toward the big green door.
Chapter Sixteen
Emmis glanced sideways at the guardsman.
Lord Ildirin had said the man's name was Ahan, and had assigned the guardsman to accompany Emmis to the Wizards' Quarter. He had insisted that Emmis go away while he discussed matters of state with the ambassador, and Lar, after his initial surprise and reluctance, had agreed.
"It's nothing you'd be interested in," he had said.
That might well be true, but Emmis still resented being ordered out of his own new home. He had insisted on taking the time to put his miraculously-recovered luggage in his own room, with the door securely locked. He had also insisted on a few words with Lar before allowing himself to be escorted out the front door.
Escorted he had been, though. Emmis and Ahan had then walked from Through Street up Arena to Wizard Street, and in all that time the guard had not said a word.
The other guardsman, the one Emmis and Lar had found on Games Street the night before, had been chatty and reasonably friendly; this Ahan, though, seemed to feel that talking on duty violated proper procedure. Even smiling seemed beyond him.
Emmis could not decide whether that was a good thing or a bad one. It meant that he didn't need to explain anything, and could rest his voice after Lord Ildirin's long interrogation, but it also made him a little nervous. What was the man thinking, behind those expressionless features?
It probably didn't matter, Emmis told himself. Lord Ildirin had told Ahan to accompany Emmis, so Ahan was accompanying Emmis; he hadn't told Ahan to do anything else, so far as Emmis knew, so Ahan presumably wasn't going to interfere in any of Emmis's business.
Of course, if Ahan weren't along, Emmis might have gone somewhere other than the Wizards' Quarter. The house still needed more furniture and kitchenware, and another trip to the market to replenish the pantry would not be a bad idea.
But trying to dicker with carpenters or farmers with a soldier standing at his shoulder did not appeal to Emmis. Magicians would be less intimidated, and he really did want to talk to a theurgist about that doorway shrine; even if he couldn't work in any other questions, it would be good to settle that.
And other questions were certainly a possibility. Lar's instructions, when they had discussed Emmis's intentions, had been interestingly vague, probably because Ildirin and two guards had been within earshot. Lar had agreed that the shrine needed to be identified, and the proper treatment of the idol therein determined, but then he had added, "And of course, if anything else comes to mind, you could ask the theurgist about that, as well."
"Anything else?"
"Yes – whatever you think we might need to know."
"Ah," Emmis had said.
That could cover a very broad range of subjects indeed, from Annis the Merchant to the towers of Lumeth, from Vond the Great Warlock to hiring assassins. Emmis wasn't sure just which of those questions Lar most wanted answered, but he couldn't very well ask with Lord Ildirin and his men there.
"You'll need to pay, of course," Lar had said, handing him a purse.
Emmis had not yet looked inside, but he had felt the surprising weight of that purse, and he suspected he was carrying a couple of rounds of gold – far more than the cost of identifying a shrine. Which made the guard's presence a little more reassuring. Ordinarily Emmis was perfectly capable of defending himself from the city's more unsavory residents, but a purse full of gold was a considerably greater temptation than he usually offered.
Ahan's presence might make it difficult to ask any really interesting questions, but Emmis intended to try.
They passed Wizard Street, then Sorcery Street, then the mysteriously-named Gaja Street, and Ahan had still not said a word. Emmis glanced down Warlock Street, wondering if he might catch a glimpse of Ishta, but he did not.
Then finally they reached Priest Street, where he turned right – and stopped.
Ahan almost ran into him, but still said nothing.
"Do you know any of these people?" Emmis asked, with a gesture at the signs and shop-fronts.
"No," Ahan said. "Should I?"
"You never bought a prayer, or consulted a god's oracle?"
"No. My mother did when I was a child, but she dealt with an old man in our own neighborhood, she didn't come here."
Emmis sighed, and looked along the street again.
Theurgists were a little different from most other magicians; it wasn't always the magician's name on the signboard. Many of the signs instead announced the name of a temple or shrine, such as the Temple of Divine Peace, or the Sanctuary of the Priests of Asham.
Emmis had no idea who or what Asham was – perhaps a god, perhaps a high priest, perhaps a place, or a cult or, for all Emmis knew, a rock someone had decided was holy. He did not want to take the time to find out what Asham was, or what sort of divine peace might be offered; instead he looked further, hoping for more informative names.