Temar looked at me. “How much time do these assizes take up?”
I grimaced. “Strictly speaking, cases raised at Solstice should be settled before the following Equinox or penalties are levied. Few Houses avoid such censure.”
“It’ll be the turn of For-Autumn before anyone can spare attention for your requests,” said Casuel with some satisfaction.
“That’s true enough, as far as the archives go, but I could make a start while you’re at this afternoon’s reception,” I said slowly. “If you tell me what you’re looking for and what Names might have the pieces, I could at least visit the Houses here in Toremal and see if anyone knows anything.” Even slight progress towards rescuing those unfortunates from the enchantment that had so nearly killed me would be a sight more productive use of my time than kicking my heels in some gatehouse with all the other sworn brought along to add to their liege’s consequence.
“I hardly think you’ll be invited in to poke round any House you please, Ryshad,” protested Casuel. “Can we please concentrate on the matter in hand?”
I ignored the mage as Temar wrote industriously on a fresh sheet of paper. “We are mostly looking for pieces of jewellery and small trinkets.”
“And well-bred Demoiselles will let you make free with their jewellery caskets?” Casuel scoffed.
“No,” I agreed, “but I can ask valets and ladies’ maids about heirloom pieces, can’t I?”
“You’ll be the one risking a whipping.” Casuel took the paper from Temar and slapped it down in front of me. “Can we please concentrate on the taxation lists. We’ve precious little time as it is.”
Temar and I exchanged a rueful glance and he bent over his notes once more. I tucked Temar’s list inside the breast of my jerkin and sorted through the letters the Esquire D’Olbriot had brought me. I recognised the writing on the first: my brother Mistal, one of those lawyers who earn their bread spinning out litigation between the Houses until the very eve of the following Festival. He wanted to meet for a drink, asking me to send the letter straight back telling him where and when tonight. I smiled briefly but wasn’t about to waste time on his raptures over some lady-love or whatever ripe scandal he’d unearthed. The next letter was creased and stained with sweat and dust, the direction simply to Ryshad Tathel, House of D’Olbriot, and written in an unpractised hand. I snapped the wax seal and slowly deciphered spidery writing that looked to have been written in treacle with a blunt piece of stick.
“Temar.”
“What is it?” He looked up.
“It’s from Glannar.” I’d made the man swear on his arm ring to write and tell me what he found out. “They’ve not turned up any of the stolen goods and there’s still no scent of any culprit.”
“Any trace of the Elietimm?” demanded Casuel.
I shook my head. “No sign of any strangers at all.”
“That’s no proof,” snapped Casuel. “They use Artifice to conceal themselves.”
“You can see all the Eldritch-men you want if you stare into a chimney corner long enough,” I retorted, “but they’ll still only be the shadows from the lamp stands.”
Temar looked at Casuel and then to me. “So what does that tell us?”
“That we know no more than we did when we left Bremilayne.” I didn’t bother concealing my own annoyance. I wasn’t about to blame the Elietimm or the Eldritch-men, not without proof, but it would have eased my mind to know the theft had just been wharf rats taking a tasty morsel.
Temar returned to his list and Casuel started leafing through his books, marking places with slips of paper and stacking the volumes in front of Temar. “These are significant events in the annals of the leading families that you must know about.”
I opened my third letter: good-weight paper precisely addressed in an elegant hand using sloping Lescari script in regular lines and faintly perfumed with something my memory told me was expensive. “Will you excuse me, Esquire D’Alsennin?” I asked formally. “It seems I have some business to attend to.”
“What?” demanded Casuel.
I hesitated; best not to raise Temar’s hopes until I knew if this speculation had paid off. “A lady I know is visiting the city.”
Casuel sniffed with censure but Temar laughed. “Can I come?”
“Not this time.” I winked at him.
“Well, you can hardly read these things for me, so by all means call on the lady.” Temar shrugged a little unconvincingly.
“Then I’ll see what I can do with your list.” Temar’s expression lightened at that thought so I left him to his studies, abandoning Casuel to his disapproval.
Once outside, I looked both ways along the road before leaving the broad portico sheltering the wide steps of the building. The D’Olbriot archive is housed in one of the Name’s many ancestral possessions scattered throughout the city. While the nobility have long since left the lower town to tradesmen and hereabouts to worse, the archive has stayed put. The contents are just too unwieldy to move to more salubrious surroundings and, valuable though the yellowing parchments are to advocates preparing their interminable deliberations, they’re reckoned safe enough here. Thieves prefer real gold more readily spent and the clerks are backed by watchmen big enough to deter casual destruction or fire setting. I tossed a copper to an old man sitting on the steps with two shock-headed puppets dancing lifelike at his deft command. He’d been there for years and always alerted the Archivist to anyone threatening his pitch.
The close-packed houses all around had been long since broken up into squalid lodgings, four or five families now cramped beneath roofs sheltering one household in better days. The crumble-edged yellow stone was marred by stains of water and filth poured from narrow mullions below old-fashioned steep gables. Here and there intricate oriel windows stood out below the vanity of the little turrets that had been so desirable in the days of Tor Inshol, their conical caps of ochre tiles broken and patched.
A gaunt girl staggered out of a nearby alley, green-tainted eyes vacant. I could smell the sickly sweet sweat of the tahn enslaving her clean across the street. I ignored her outstretched hand and hurried on, clapping a hand over my mouth and nose as I passed a dead dog motionless but for the seething of maggots. Even with the sun riding high, shadows were held captive by tall buildings three and four stories high, and I kept an eye out for anyone lurking in hopes of cutting a purse to pay for whatever vice had them in its claws.
I was heading for the tongue of higher land that forms the northern side of Toremal Bay. When I’d first come to the city, little older than Temar and proud of my newly sworn status, it wasn’t a district D’Olbriot’s men would go to in anything less that threes, daylight or no. Any Name with property thereabouts balanced the rents they might collect against the blood it would cost them, and most reckoned the game not worth the candle. Then a new storm had blown up in Lescar’s interminable wars and the ebb and flow of battle washed fresh flotsam up on to Tormalin shores. This was the only place the dispossessed wretches could get a foothold, and they’d dug in their heels, refusing to be knocked on their arses again. It’s easy to despise the Lescari, to mock their dogged persistence over claim and counterclaim, their obsession with land title and vengeance, but there’s no denying that single-mindedness serves them well at times.
I walked along streets where broken shutters had been replaced with new wood, bright with paint. The children might be grubby from playing in the dust but had started their day with clean if patched clothes and lovingly brushed hair. The clack and creak of working looms floated out of open windows high above, and women chatting as they kept an eye on their offspring sat on balconies with distaffs busy in their hands. The Lescari may have arrived without half a lead Mark in their pockets but they had skills in their hands and knowledge in their heads. These days more than half the noble dwellings in the upper city have North Bay tapestries gracing their walls.