“So what is it worth to you?” she repeated softly.
“What’s your price?” I countered.
She took her time replacing the armring in the battered box before leaning back against the cupboard, her face lively with mischief. “A card for the Emperor’s dance on the fifth day of Festival.”
I blinked. “You don’t want much! Half the Demoiselles in the city would sell their little sisters for that.”
“That’s my price.” Charoleia laid a hand on the little box and smiled sweetly. “I’m sure Esquire Camarl would oblige.”
“You want an introduction?” I’d been expecting to haggle over gold but this wrong-footed me. “What would your name be?”
“Lady Alaric will do,” she shrugged. “Dispossessed and orphaned in the battles between Triolle and Marlier, she’s here to try and build a new life for herself, you know how it goes.” Now her accent was flawlessly western Lescari.
“Why does she warrant invitation to Imperial entertainments?” I asked a little desperately.
“Isn’t her matchless beauty sufficient?” she enquired, wide-eyed. “Then again, perhaps she has some family secret, some key information to assist Imperial efforts to halt the warfare brewing between Carluse and Triolle?”
“Do you?” I demanded.
“What do you think?” She dimpled at me.
“I think you’ve a scheme in hand that’ll leave some poor goose well plucked,” I told her bluntly. “If half what Livak’s told me is true, you’ll be gone by the first day of Aft-Summer, leaving empty coffers and shattered dreams littering the city. That’s your affair and Dastennin help all fools, but I’ve no intention of being your whipping boy. I’ll be the first person the Duty Cohort would come asking after if I’m seen introducing you to D’Olbriot.”
Charoleia’s laugh was surprisingly hearty, a full-throated chuckle with a sensuous edge to it. “I see you have something in common with Livak. But you’re right to cover your own flanks.” She lowered luxuriant lashes for a moment. I let her take her time and drank my water.
“I’ve no game in hand, Halcarion be my witness. I’m here playing a speculation.” She resumed her seat on the daybed, tucking her skirts demurely around sculpted ankles white above silken slippers. “Your Esquire D’Alsennin, his ancient colony, this new land across the ocean, it’s the talk of Relshaz, Col and every other city between Toremal and Solura. All the runes are in the air at present and I want to see how they fall. Half the mercenary commanders in Lescar are working with understrength corps because every third mercenary is hanging round Carif hoping to take ship for the rumoured riches of Nemith the Last’s final folly.”
She wasn’t about to share any more than that, I realised as I watched her drink her own water. “So you’re waiting to see how the game plays out?” Livak had told me information was more precious than gold to this woman.
Charoleia nodded. “All the major pieces will be on the board at the Emperor’s dance. I want to see their moves for myself.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said slowly. “I make no promises, but Dastennin’s my witness, I’ll try.”
“Livak tells me your word is a solid pledge.” Charoleia smiled amiably.
“How was she when you saw her?” Charoleia’s charms notwithstanding, it was a future with Livak that my own game aimed to win, I reminded myself sternly.
“She was well,” nodded Charoleia. “Tired from the sea crossing, but then she’s never a good sailor. They rested for a few days and then took the Great West Road for Selerima.”
I didn’t envy Livak that journey, clear across the old provinces. I frowned. “Usara said they’d be heading for Col.”
Charoleia shrugged. “Livak said she was looking for Sorgrad and ’Gren. I knew they were going to be in Selerima for Equinox.”
I stifled a qualm. Livak had told me precious little about that particular pair of long-time friends and I suspected that was because she knew I’d take against them. Livak stealing to keep food in her belly as an alternative to earning her keep lifting her skirts—that was something I’d come to terms with. These brothers had no such justification, and when me and Livak had been fighting for the lives of Temar and the colonists they’d been robbing the Duke of Draximal’s war chest, that much I did know.
Charoleia was studying me with interest and I kept my face impassive. “Do you know if she found them?” If so, Livak might well be finding ancient lore to earn us the coin to choose our own path together. Then again, going back to a life of travelling and trickery with old accomplices might be tempting her astray.
“I haven’t heard.” Charoleia shrugged.
I’d have to go and soothe Casuel’s ruffled feathers, I realised with irritation. I needed a wizard to bespeak Usara and get me some news.
“Are you taking the armring with you?” Charoleia nodded at the battered box.
I hesitated, like a dog seeing a bone in the hearth but remembering a burned mouth.
“It should be safe enough locked in the box,” said Charoleia softly. “But I’ll send Eadit with you to carry it, if you prefer. Livak told me that you’d been used against your will by enchantments woven round such things.”
I set my jaw against her sympathy. Used against my will scarcely began to describe being held captive inside my own head, unable to resist as some other intelligence used my body for its own purposes. My stomach heaved at the memory.
“No, I’ll take it.” I took the accursed thing from her, my hands slippery with sweat against the scuffed wood. Nothing happened. No frustrated consciousness came scratching round my sanity, no desperate voice howled in the darkest recesses of my head, and I let slip an unguarded sigh of relief. “I’ll take my leave then, and I won’t forget about the dance card.”
Charoleia rang a little silver bell and I realised she was nearly as relieved as me. That was understandable; she’d hardly want a man-at-arms losing his wits in her elegant boudoir. “Call yourself. You’ll always be welcome.”
The maid opened the door and I wondered how much she’d heard from her post at the hinges. Her serene face gave no hint as she showed me down to the street door where the lad playing watchdog was desultorily polishing his sword.
I tucked the box under one arm as I stepped out into the heat of the day now building to its peak. The sun rode high in the cloudless bowl of the sky, glare striking back from whitewashed walls of new brick repairing ancient, broken stone. Sweat soon beaded my face, soaking my shirt as I took the circular road that skirts the shallow bowl of the lower city, keeping an eye out for broken slabs or curbstones that might trip me into the path of the heavy wagons and heedless drays lumbering along. I hurried past genteel merchant houses and between ambitious traders’ yards, ignoring the rise and fall of the land over the hills that ring the bay for the sake of the quickest route back to the D’Olbriot residence.
Paved roads branched off the stone flagged highway and led up to the higher ground where the Houses had built anew in search of clean water and cool breezes in the peace of the Leoril era. A conduit house stood in the corner where the route to the D’Olbriot residence joined the high road. The stream running beside the road sparkled in brief freedom between the spring behind the D’Olbriot residence and the conduit house diverting it into the myriad channels and sluices serving the lower city and giving D’Olbriot tenants one more good reason to pay their rents on time. But the Sieur still maintains the public fountains and wells for the indigent, and one stood here, an eight-sided pillar rising high above me, each spout guarded by god or goddess in their niche above a basin.
I dipped grateful hands into the clear water, splashing my head and face and feeling the heat leaching from my body. I drank deeply and then looked up at the blue marble likeness of Dastennin, impassive beneath his crown of seaweed as he poured water from a vast shell, gathering storm clouds looming behind him. You spared D’Alsennin’s life in Bremilayne, Lord of the Sea, I thought impulsively. Let him achieve something with it. Help us release those people still sleeping in that cave. Turning to the gods seemed in keeping with a tale of enchantments from a time of myth.