According to Perrez, Sanctuary relics were all the rage in the Ilsigi Kingdom and the right trade could yield a tidy profit—could being the operative word.
Bez set the statue on the counter. “You’d do better at a goldsmith’s. I recommend Thibalt in Copper Corner.”
Geddie worked her mouth into a sarcastic smile. “Sure. I’m going to walk into a froggin’ goldsmith’s. Me an’ all my ladies.”
“We don’t trade in relics. I can only offer intrinsic worm—”
The girl scowled at the unfamiliar word. “Shite for sure, so long as it’s four froggin’ shaboozh”
“three” Bezul replied without batting an eye, which told Chersey the statue must be worth ten.
“Three’n twelve.”
“Three and eight.”
Geddie thrust out her chin. “Done,” she declared and held out her hand.
Bezul counted the coins and the girl turned to leave the shop. Dace turned with her, then hesitated. The young man’s conflicting thoughts were so obvious that Chersey could read them on his face: The household’s supper was hanging in a sack from his shoulder, but he’d rather moon after the girl.
Chersey’s mother-wit counseled responsibility. The girl was trouble. On the other hand, Dace was nearly grown and she wasn’t his mother. She reached for the sack.
The boy brightened. “I’ll be back in good time to start the supper!”
Bezul caught Chersey’s eye as the pair left. Chersey shrugged. She liked having someone to do the kitchen chores, but she didn’t expect the respite to last forever.
“You should have gone to a goldsmith,” Dace said as he kept pace, barely, with the woman of his current fantasies.
Geddie gave a snort worthy of an overheated horse. “And get cheated even worse? When I can dress myself like a lady, then I’ll go where ladies go.”
“Where’s One-Eye Reesch?”
“In the bazaar. With what I got for that statue, I can buy myself some good-fortune oil. I’m telling you, I’m due for good fortune. I’m not spending my life on Wriggle Way.”
Dace had never heard of good-fortune oils. At the very least, he’d meet someone new and fill in another gap or two in his knowledge of life beyond the Swamp of Night Secrets. He would have been happier if Geddie looked at him when she spoke, but she wasn’t telling him to get lost.
Though Geddie insisted that the bazaar was quiet, almost deserted, Dace was left agog by the sights, sounds, and smells. He didn’t dare ask questions, though, lest Geddie get the wrong impression or abandon him among the stalls.
Geddie navigated and brought them to the large wooden stall where One-Eye Reesch both lived and worked. Mostly, the gray-haired, patch-eyed trader sold metal lamps and colorful glass goblets, but when Geddie mentioned fortune oils, he winked his good eye and led her to a wicker chest, maybe two feet on each side, stuffed with straw and waxstoppered vials.
“Can you read?” Geddie hissed.
Dace winced. Chersey was teaching him Ilsigi letters, same as she taught five-year-old Ayse. He could recognize a few words and enough letters to know that the writing on the bottles wasn’t Ilsigi.
Reesch had overheard. “No problem. The blue ones are for money, the red for true love, the green ones will get rid of sickness, and the blacks will break a hex.”
Geddie wanted vials in red and blue, but her money wouldn’t stretch that far. The smallest red vial was three shaboozh. The blue vials were cheaper. For two and ten Geddie could buy a fist-sized vial of fortune. Geddie bar- gained Reesch down to two and seven. She slipped the precious vial inside her bodice.
“Fortune comes first,” she told Dace as they headed out of the bazaar. “This oil’s going to pull me a froggin’ rich man. Once I have money, love will follow.”
“What if your true love happened to be poor?” Dace didn’t add crippled; there was no sense in tempting fate.
“He won’t be. I’ve had my palm read: My love line joins my money line. You want to share?”
“Share what?”
“My fortune oil! Soon as I get home, I’m going to burn some. You want to sit beside me? You need all the help you can »
Dace agreed. His hopes soared, until Geddie asked—
“Is Perrez rich?”
In self-defense, Dace answered, “No.”
“But he looks so fine in his white shirts, and he knows everyone. I’ve watched him in the Frog.”
“Most of the time Perrez works for Bezul. He’ll be working for Bezul when he brokers your statue. That means what he gets goes to Bezul—most of it, anyway. He only keeps it all when he brokers something he found—” Dace caught himself on the verge of a secret and clammed up.
Geddie wasn’t fooled. “What has he found?”
“Well, he didn’t find it, exactly. He made a trade—with a fisherman. You’ve heard the rumors—there’s some mystery wreck out on the reef. No one knows anything about it, but the fishermen are picking it clean. Guess the fisherman thought the thing was cursed and wanted to be rid of it. Perrez says it’s going to make him rich.”
“What kind of thing is it?”
Dace shook his head.
“C’mon—you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”
“It’s a black rod, half as long as my arm from elbow to wrist. There’s a gold dragon wrapped around the tip and honey amber wired to the base.”
Geddie’s eyes and mouth widened into circles. “Froggin’ sure that’s sorcery.”
“That’s what Perrez thinks. He hasn’t told anyone but me. Not even Bezul. He’s keeping it—” Dace caught himself again. “Keeping it safe until he can sell it. Not here. He’s going to consign it up to Ilsig. Lord Noordiseh’s his vouchsafe—’cause he knows Kingdom lords who’re richer than all Sanctuary put together. I took the message straight to Lord Noordiseh—”
“You’ve met Lord Noordiseh?” There was new respect in Geddie’s voice.
“I saw him this morning.”
Geddie stopped short and gave Dace a once-over. He bore her appraisal without flinching. He had delivered Perrez’s message to Lord Noordiseh’s mansion—and waited at the back door all afternoon for an answer that never came. And he had seen the nabob on his way back from the market. His heart leaped when Geddie slipped her hand beneath his left arm. Walking close to anyone was a challenge with the crutch but he managed all the way to the Frog and Bucket.
Geddie’s room was beneath the tavern’s roof and accessible only by a rickety outside stairway. Dace didn’t like using stairways, especially when he could see between the risers. He planted his crutch, held his breath, hopped, and hoped. His teeth hurt from clenching by the time he got to the landing and he stayed close to the wall until Geddie undid her latch knot. She ushered him into a stiflingly hot room scarcely large enough for a narrow cot, a couple of baskets, and a tied-together table. For sitting, there was a three-legged stool.
Dace disliked stools almost as much as he disliked stairs, but he wasn’t forward enough to sit on the cot, so he stood while Geddie lit the lamp with a sparker, set it on the stool, set the stool by the cot, sat down, and patted the mattress beside her.
Dace didn’t need a second invitation. The warmth of Geddie’s thigh was palpable against his and she hadn’t bothered to tidy her bodice after retrieving the vial. He sucked in a lungful of smoke after Geddie shook a few drops of fortune oil into the lamp, but he already had his good fortune. Her small, pale breast was visible within the cloth. Dace tried not to stare. It was a lost cause, but Geddie didn’t seem to mind.