"The Warrior's Bond" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKenna Juliet E.)

In the Archive of the House of D’Olbriot, Summer Solstice Festival, First Day, Morning

I was none too keen on lessons as a boy and watching someone else learning their Emperors was truly boring. I stifled a yawn and leaned back in my chair to stare up at the long barrel of the wooden vault high above us. The lynx and chevron badge of D’Olbriot was repeated all along the top of the wall, interspersed with insignia of Names allied in marriage to the House over the years, and I squinted as I tried to identify them. At least when Casuel had been burying himself beneath parchments in libraries the length and breadth of Tormalin, I’d been able to idle the time away with other chosen men once I’d delivered any messages from the Sieur to whatever Esquire of the Name managed that particular estate. Officially I’d been advising my counterparts on their training regimens, but in practice we’d usually spent more time swapping fighters’ tales, all the while cosseted by housekeepers and stewards impressed with my new status. It had certainly made a pleasant change from my days as a sworn man, when, visitor or not, I’d been expected to take my turn at all the duties customary for my rank.

The yawn escaped me and a clerk laden with ledgers spared me an indifferent glance on his way past. We were sitting about a third of the way along a long line of identical tables running from one pair of vast double doors to another, hemmed in by serried ranks of bookshelves reaching out from the walls, dark leather bindings of close-packed tomes enlivened here and there as a flash of gilt caught sunlight filtering through narrow windows to remind us of the morning outside. In the few scant stretches of unshelved wall, niches held statues and a few ignored curios forlorn in polished glass cases.

“Do you have it straight?” Casuel demanded curtly.

“I think so.” Temar ran a cautious finger down a parchment.

“Then recite the rote, if you please,” ordered the mage.

I tried to look interested. Temar did need to know such things if he wasn’t to embarrass himself and his hosts, and the first of Festival’s social gatherings was after noon today. When Casuel had insisted on reviewing Temar’s lessons, we’d reluctantly had to agree it was a sound notion.

Temar dutifully shut his eyes, brow furrowed. “Modrical the Ruthless, Modrical the Hateful—’ He broke off. “How in Saedrin’s name could the Princes pick a title like that for their Emperor? Calling Nemith the Reckless was the worst slap in the face the Convocation could think of for him! What did this second Modrical do?”

I shut my mouth at a glare from Casuel. “No one is really sure,” said the wizard tightly. “The Chaos was still raging. Indeed, he was assassinated at the Summer Solstice Festival of his second year, when he was acclaimed as Hateful.”

“Presumably when he was already dead?” Temar opened his eyes, grinning at me.

“And who was elected to replace him?” asked Casuel.

“Kanselin.” Temar sighed. “Kanselin the Droll?”

“Kanselin the Pious, then Kanselin the Droll,” the mage corrected.

“Then Kanselin the Rash, Kanselin the Blunt, Kanselin the Confident, and lastly Kanselin the Headstrong, who presumably had not the talent of his father and uncles,” Temar suggested.

“When you have the leisure to study the period, you’ll find it rather more complicated than that.” Casuel visibly curbed his impulse to explain. “And the next House awarded the throne?”

“Decabral,” Temar ventured slowly.

Casuel took the parchment from the younger man’s hands. “And the first was acclaimed as what?”

“Decabral the Eager. Then the Patient, the Nervous,”

Temar smiled again. “The Virtuous, the Pitiless, whom the Houses deposed after a couple of years, and lastly the Merciful. But do not ask me who was whose brother, son or cousin, I beg you.”

“Getting the rote correct is sufficient.” Casuel tried to sound encouraging.

“Sauzet next, the Worthy and the Quiet.” Temar ticked the names off on his fingers. “They were shoved off the Imperial cushions by Perinal the Bold, who found himself edged out by Leoril the Wise.”

“I see no need for flippancy,” commented Casuel. “Next?”

“Leoril the Dullard.” Temar looked at me but the question died on his lips as he caught Casuel’s sour expression. “Leoril the Eloquent, Leoril the Affable. Then Aleonne the Valiant.” He fell silent.

“Acclaimed the Valiant when the Lescar Wars rose to such a pitch they spilled over our western borders,” I prompted. “So we needed Aleonne the—?”

“Sorry.” Temar drew a sudden breath. “Aleonne the Defiant, the Resolute and then Aleonne the Gallant.”

“You need to know more detail of events after that.” Casuel sorted through books stacked neatly before him, sparing a disapproving glance for the untidy array by Temar’s elbow. He handed one over with evident reluctance. “Annals of Tor Bezaemar. Read as much as you can, and do be careful, it’s my own copy and such things are expensive.”

Temar turned the pristine tome in his hands. “I thought Inshol the Curt succeeded the last Aleonne.”

“Correct.” I nodded my own approval at Temar. Once we’d left Bremilayne behind us and travelled without incident for a few days, Casuel’s fears of being called on actually to make magic had faded. Then he’d applied himself to teaching Temar everything he might conceivably need to know for a visit to Toremal and plenty he’d have no use for as well. I was impressed to see how much the lad had learned. After long days in the saddle on our interminable journey across the highlands, the last thing I’d have wanted was a tutor like Casuel, his charmlessness woefully exacerbated by leagues jolted along in a carriage shared with Avila Tor Arrial. Temar and I had stuck to our horses.

“And when he died, his relict married the Sieur Den Bezaemar, who became?” The wizard wasn’t about to give up.

“Bezaemar the Modest,” said Temar after a pause. “His son was Bezaemar the Canny, who must have seemed like a permanent fixture after reigning for nearly fifty years. His grandson was Bezaemar the Generous, then the Princes wanted someone less free-handed with their coin and chose Tadriol the Thrifty. Thrifty but none too healthy, so his brother soon stepped up as Tadriol the Staunch. He stepped down after a handful of years, but Convocation picked the wrong nephew because Tadriol the Tireless dropped dead in under a year. They had better luck with his brother the Prudent, who ruled for eleven years and was already well provided with children, including your current Emperor Tadriol, his third son, acclaimed the Provident last year!” He grinned at Casuel.

“The rote is correct but please keep facetious comments to yourself.” Casuel shot me an indignant glance. “I imagine that’s your interpretation?”

“We had to talk about something as we rode,” I shrugged. We’d used the time to review the previous day’s lessons and to talk about family, friends, life in Kellarin and in Tormalin. With Casuel sitting on his dignity in his coach, we’d reaffirmed our tentative friendship and incidentally smoothed the most jarring archaisms out of Temar’s speech.

“Well, I hope you took note of the insignia of the Imperial Houses as I told you to, Temar.” Casuel reached across the table for a roll of parchments laced together across their top with scarlet ribbon. “You need to study this as well. I’ve asked the Archivist for a copy but he says all the scribes are too busy with the courts sitting, so you’ll have to make your own.” He handed over paper and a charcoal stick in a silver holder.

Temar looked blankly at the tightly drawn columns of names and figures, little heraldic symbols heading each entry. “What is this?”

“Last year’s Land Tax register.” Casuel stared at Temar.

“There was no such thing in the Old Empire,” I reminded the wizard. “Each House and Name pays an annual charge to the Imperial coffer, based on its holdings and assets.” I explained to Temar. “The old system of levies for specific wants was abandoned generations ago.”

Temar shook his head. “I wonder my grandfather’s shade did not return from the Otherworld and kick me awake at such insult to Princes’ privileges.”

He stood up abruptly, pushing himself away from documents, ledgers, leather-bound volumes and screeds folded within sealed ribbons. I watched as Temar turned slowly on his heel, looking grimly at the racks of rolled parchments, shelves of bound tomes, flat cases holding maps, charts, records and plans. The only sound was the susurration of turning paper, broken by the muted rasp of the ladders attached to each set of shelves being pushed along its rails. Every day must bring some new shock to remind the lad just how much life had changed on this side of the ocean, I thought.

“Sit down,” Casuel hissed as curious heads peered down from shelf-lined bays in the galleries above. High windows transmuted golden sunbeams into reds and blues, greens and browns, the alchemy of stained glass spilling blurred jewels across the dun matting.

Temar shook his head as he slowly resumed his seat. “My grandfather kept all deeds of grant and records of tithe in one locked chest. Granted, it was as long as a man and an armspan deep but—”

“Remember just how much time has passed,” Casuel interrupted. “This archive holds the record of twenty-five generations, twenty-five years to each one.”

“I allow I am ignorant of much, Mage D’Evoir, but I know how many years to a generation,” said Temar acidly.

I hid a smile behind my hand as Casuel paled. Temar’s unconscious aristocratic inflexion belatedly reminded the mage of their relative rank.

“I only meant—’ said Casuel hastily, “oh, never mind. Documents became far more important after the Chaos. In the Old Empire everyone knew which House held what lands, whose service was owed to whom. Things had stayed constant for so long, after all. When the rule of law was re-established, rival claimants arose to land and property and written proof of title was invaluable.” Casuel tapped the taxation roll sharply. “Please apply yourself, at least to the first two or three leaves. Names are listed in order of taxes paid, so it’s a good indicator of the wealthiest. The first fifty or so are Houses you’re likely to visit or meet but it wouldn’t hurt to have at least read through the first few hundred.”

Temar ran a thumb over the unbound edge of the stack of parchments. “In my grandfather’s day all the Sieurs of all the Houses sitting together wouldn’t have filled these tables.”

“I’d advise you to get your bearings in Toremal as it is rather than repine for what is past.” Casuel lifted his chin defiantly as I gave him an icy look.

Temar bent over the close-written list. “I do not see why we cannot have ink in here,” he muttered as he smudged his notes.

“Because the Archivists forbid it and quite right too. Who knows what accident or mischief might be done.” I noticed Casuel glance at the floor by his feet as he spoke. He’d done that several times today. “The right document can make or break a family.”

“Half the Names I knew are gone and many of these mean nothing,” said Temar at length, rubbing a hand round the back of his neck. “Where are Tor Correl, Den Parisot? What about Den Muret? Who in Saedrin’s name are D’Estabel, Den Haurient or Den Viorel?”

“Many Houses fell into ruin during the Chaos.” Casuel couldn’t resist another glance at the floor by his chair and I shifted myself to see what he’d got there. “It’s nigh on unheard of for a modern Name to fall extinct in the male line, but when warfare racked the Empire there were many casualties. New grants of nobility were made later, or indeed simply assumed.”

“Nemith has much to answer for,” spat Temar. “Poldrion grant demons drown him yet in rivers of sorrow.”

“Of course—you knew him.” Casuel blinked. “Forgive me, this is merely history to us.” As he leaned forward, a leather satchel resting against his chair slid flat to the floor unnoticed by the fawning mage.

“I knew him, so far as a cadet of a minor House had anything to do with an Emperor,” said Temar grimly. “Enough to learn he was a whorestruck drunkard wasting the gold the Houses sent for troops to defend the Empire on debauchery and enriching his favourites.”

“In all justice, Nemith’s folly wasn’t the only evil blighting the Empire,” countered the wizard.

“True, Raeponin forgive me.” Temar sighed and reached across the table for another of Casuel’s books. “Your man Minrinel, in this so-called Intelligencer, he doesn’t even mention the Crusted Pox.” Temar’s mouth yielded to a brief grimace of grief. “Three other sons of the House of Nemith might have been elected Emperor had they not been ashes in their urns even before their grandfather the Seafarer breathed his last.”

I looked up from trying to reach the strap of Casuel’s satchel with my toe as the wizard scribbled notes eagerly in the margin of his own papers. “Do you know what went on at the Convocation of Princes when the Imperial throne fell vacant? Why did they make such a disastrous choice?”

“I have no notion.” Temar’s eyes were distant with a memory of mourning. “I was not of age and my grandfather didn’t attend, too busy with the affairs of House and tenantry. The Crusted Pox killed all the men of my father’s generation and my own brothers and sisters besides.” Temar bent suddenly over the taxation list, scribbling furiously. I shut my own eyes on an echo of my own remembered grief, the death of my only sister.

“Indeed.” Casuel twisted his fingers together uncertainly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to distress you. But all the weeping in the world won’t uncrack an egg, that’s what my mother always says.” He coloured slightly.

“Just how powerful is D’Olbriot?” Temar asked me suddenly, curt words echoing in the hush.

“Please lower your voice,” Casuel begged in muted entreaty.

I nodded at the list before Temar. “At the last taxation, Messire D’Olbriot was reckoned to control a twentieth part of Tormalin revenues and commerce.”

“Add in about seven or eight other families and those Names are responsible for just less than half the entire commonalty of the Empire?” Temar pursed his lips.

“Which is why you must learn due courtesy,” said Casuel severely.

“Life was very different before your Chaos, Mage D’Evoir, but we were taught a modicum of manners,” Temar said icily.

I wasn’t about to let Casuel get away with that patronising attitude either. “From everything those scholars working with the Archmage said, the last days of the Old Empire probably have more in common with this present age than with any era between.”

“Why are you so well read in such things, Casuel?” Temar asked unexpectedly. “The mages who come to Kel Ar’Ayen would be hard put to list the provinces of the Empire, let alone the Imperial Names. They spend all their energy on study of their element and think Hadrumal is the centre of the world.”

“My family has a particular interest in these matters,” Casuel stammered with uncharacteristic nervousness. He looked down for his satchel but I’d managed to hook it over to me.

I grinned at the wizard as I opened the flap and lifted out a folded bundle of parchment tied with faded ribbon. “What’s all this?”

“The House of D’Alsennin was not the only one to disappear in the Chaos.” Casuel snatched the documents from me. “You call me D’Evoir, Esquire, but that’s not really an honour I’m entitled to, not yet, anyway.” He gave me an indignant look before unknotting the ribbons and spreading the top parchment out for Temar to see. “The last D’Evoir attested in the historical record was a Governor of Lescar. He was murdered in the final year of Nemith the Last’s reign, but other than that I can’t find anything about him, not even if he had a family or sons. I’ve managed to trace my own family back nineteen generations but the evidence before that is scarce and contradictory. If I could find any other D’Evoir from the Old Empire, I might find some threads to tie my own family back to the Name.” The mage shut his mouth but not before we’d heard a definite note of pleading in his voice.

Temar lifted fine black brows. “If the Name is gone, the property of the House scattered to the four winds and tenantry claims lapsed, there can be no obligation to answer nor indeed coin to do so.”

“It’s not a question of wealth but of status,” said Casuel stiffly. “It would mean a great deal to my family, to my mother, to establish a tie. Then we can use the style D’Evoir, adopt the badge of the House.”

“I see.” Temar’s face was a well-schooled blank. I bit down my own opinion of such middle-ranking, jumped-up ambition. So the wizard fancied himself descended from noble blood, did he? I wondered if his merchant father would consider the cachet of rank sufficient recompense for Casuel’s snobbery raising his family to the Land Tax register.

Soft steps made us all look round and Casuel hastily tucked his parchments beneath a ledger marked with ancient fingers. “Not that it’s of any real importance. No need to mention it to Messire D’Olbriot or his nephew.”

I was already on my feet as Esquire Camarl D’Olbriot approached from the southern door. I bowed and Camarl’s answering bend from the waist was constrained both by his close-tailored coat and incipient portliness. His dark hair was brushed into a careful affectation of disorder but eyes and mouth showed resolution at odds with the season’s fashion.

“How go your lessons, D’Alsennin?” he asked humorously.

“He’s a most diligent pupil,” Casuel smiled ingratiatingly.

Temar shrugged wryly. “There is a great deal still to learn.”

“We can’t expect you to master the complexities of the modern Empire in a scant half season of study at inns along the high road.” Camarl grinned suddenly. “Don’t worry; you’ll be with me at most social occasions and Ryshad’s to be your escort elsewhere.”

“Planir has asked that I make myself available,” interrupted Casuel hopefully. “To offer assistance.”

“Indeed.” Camarl nodded graciously at the wizard. “But I beg your pardon, Temar, we’re disturbing you. It’s Ryshad I came to see.” Camarl led me adroitly into a book-lined alcove. “Can he hold his own in company without looking an utter fool?” the nobleman asked bluntly, turning his back on Casuel’s ill-disguised curiosity.

“I think so,” I said slowly. “And as you say, either you or I will be with him, to smooth over any difficulties.”

Camarl looked thoughtful. “We have more pressing concerns than stopping Temar frying himself in his own grease with a thoughtless remark. Kellarin has potentially enormous resources.” His amiable face hardened. “A great many people want Temar to grant Master So-and-So rights over such-and-such. Someone else will want exclusive licence to this, that or the other, while their rivals will be falling over themselves to offer a supposedly better deal. He’s a bright lad and has acquitted his responsibilities admirably this past year, but the Sieur and myself, we’re worried that he’ll find his rooster’s cooked and eaten before he knows it. Then all he’ll go home with is a feather duster.”

I spared a brief smile. “So you don’t want him overwhelmed with demands?”

“We’ve had invitations from half the Houses in the city; Festival’s only five days long and every hostess wants Temar to decorate her revelry,” Camarl nodded. “Don’t let him commit himself to any invitation without checking with me. Saedrin only knows what might be asked of him, and surely he deserves some leisure after his rigours in the wilderness.” Camarl looked a little anxious. “It’s safest for everyone if he stays within our House’s circles. The Sieur can manage all the to-and-fro of negotiating Kellarin’s trade, then Temar need only put his seal to finished agreements.”

I nodded slow agreement. “The Sieur will secure the best for D’Alsennin’s people.” Temar nailing his own foot to the floor through some entirely understandable ignorance would serve no one’s purpose. “Anyway, Temar’s main concern is recovering the artefacts needed to revive the rest of the colonists. I imagine he’ll be happy to leave trade to Messire.”

Camarl grimaced. “I suppose he can ask people about their heirlooms without causing too much offence, but don’t let him make a nuisance of himself. There’ll be plenty of time for such things after Festival.”

“Indeed,” I said neutrally.

“I knew you’d see sense. Oh, and I have these for you.” Camarl handed me three neatly folded and sealed letters.

“My thanks,” I said in some surprise. It’s not the place of the Sieur’s Designate to be running errands.

“I needed some excuse to bring me here,” Camarl smiled with a shrug. “No need to mention our other discussion.” He turned away, bowing to Temar and acknowledging Casuel with a brief wave. “If you’ll excuse me, Esquire, Mage.”

Temar grunted absently, lost in the taxation list. Casuel watched the Esquire D’Olbriot walk away before dragging his attention back to Temar’s notes. He clicked his tongue with annoyance. “The likelihood of you meeting any scion of Den Cascadet is so remote as to be laughable.”

“Why?” Temar demanded.

“They’re nobodies!” Casuel fumbled for a fuller answer as Temar stared at him unblinking. “They’ll spend Festival ringing the loudest bell in Moretayne, but hereabouts they’d make a very tinny rattle.”

“They’re a provincial Name running cattle in the down-lands near Lequesine,” I volunteered.

“Two artisans beholden to that Name lie insensible in Kel Ar’Ayen.” Temar’s lips narrowed. “The artefacts to revive them may have been passed back to the family. I must contact the Sieur or his designate.” He ran a charcoal-dusted finger down the taxation record. “I will not let those who entrusted their lives to my hands spend a day longer in that stifling enchantment than is absolutely needful.”

“Saedrin make it so,” I said with feeling.

“Do please take care.” Casuel gently rubbed at a grubby mark with a kerchief from his pocket. “That’s all very well, Esquire, but you’ll hardly have the leisure to call on every fifth-rank Name in the city, and no one will have time to spare searching through their archive to accommodate you. Every clerk is busy preparing for the assizes.” He gestured at a sombrely dressed man climbing a ladder to a high shelf stacked with deed boxes.

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.

I pulled the perfumed letter from my jerkin and realised I had missed a turn. Retracing my steps, I found the narrow flight of stone stairs. Counting doors along the soiled walls, I saw I wanted the one marked by an earthenware pot bright with scarlet flagflowers. I knocked, wondering how long the brilliant splash of colour would last before some drunken reveller kicked the blooms down the steps, either from accident or exuberant desire to see how far they might fly.

The door opened a scant hand’s breadth and I saw a shadowy figure within. “Yes?”

“Ryshad Tathel.” I held up the note. “For my lady Alaric.”

The door closed as the wedge securing it was kicked aside. It opened to reveal a gawky youth whose nervous energy kept his hands in constant motion. He was no stripling though, much my height and with shoulders broad enough to promise strength when he filled out. He wiped sweat from his forehead before running a hand over the beard so many Lescari affect. His beak of a nose and wide set eyes reminded me of seasons spent about Messire’s business along the border with Parnilesse. I’d had a friend from there, Aiten, whose death was a score I vowed to settle with the Elietimm.

“This way,” the lad said curtly. Tormalin was much his mother tongue as my own so some earlier brush with Lescar’s recurrent catastrophes must have swept his wretched forebears here.

I followed him up uncarpeted stairs dimly lit by an inadequate skylight. The lady I had come to visit proved to rent the entire first floor. A demure maid in an expensive silk dress sat on the landing and rose to greet me.

“I’ll let my lady know you’re here.” Her accent was unmistakably Relshazri, seldom heard in Toremal for all the trade plied across the benign waters of the Gulf that separates the two great cities.

She disappeared and the lad clattered noisily down the stairs to his kennel. I ran a contemplative finger over the inlaid swags of flowers decorating a table where the maid had put her sewing. This piece would grace the boudoir of any wife of D’Olbriot.

“My lady bids you welcome.” The maid ushered me into the front room. I swept a bow fit for the Imperial presence.

“Good day to you, Master Tathel.” The woman seated serenely on a richly brocaded daybed gestured me to equally costly cushions gracing an immaculately polished settle.

I stifled an impulse to check my boots for filth from the streets. “My lady Alaric.”

She smiled demurely as the maid reappeared with a tray carrying a crystal jug and fluted goblets with white spirals frozen in their glass stems. My hostess studied me openly as the girl served us both water, as is Lescari custom, so I returned the compliment.

There are many women who look perfection at twenty paces but fewer than half look so enthralling at ten, when the counterfeits of powder and paint, cut and drape are revealed. This was that rarest of beauties, a woman who would still be flawless when you were close enough to taste the scent adorning her graceful neck. Her complex coiffure, not a hair out of place, was the deep rich chestnut of a prize horse. Her lightly powdered skin glowed like the palest ceramic, broad high forehead and elegant nose above lips with the colour and velvet softness of rose petals. Her eyes were a blue-violet deep as an evening sea and dark and wise with experience, one of the few things giving a hint of her age. I guessed her older than me but couldn’t have said whether by two years or ten, and that suggestion of superiority made her allure both more tempting and more daunting. She smiled slowly at me as the maid left the room and the heat I felt round the back of my neck had nothing to do with the weather.

“You can call me Charoleia,” she said; lifting her glass in a brief salute.

“Thank you.” I raised mine but didn’t drink. A man might wish to drown in the depths of those peerless eyes but I wasn’t about to risk water from any north side well. “That’s how I think of you,” I admitted. “Livak told me your various travelling names but I don’t think I kept them straight.” I hadn’t imagined I’d ever have business with a woman Livak said had a different guise for every country and another for every complex scheme she devised to separate fools from their gold.

“No matter. And you can drink that.” Her smile widened to betray an entrancing dimple in one cheek. “I send the boy to buy water from the Den Bradile springs every morning. You won’t spend your Festival stuck in the privy because of me.”

I took a sip. The water was cool and untainted, black fig sliced in it for freshness. “I trust you had a good voyage?” I wasn’t quite sure how to get to the point of my visit. Charoleia was one of the many friends Livak had scattered across the Old Empire, all living on the outside of law and custom. I’d met a few of them and had found them mostly shabby, straightforward to the point of bluntness and be cursed to the consequences. But Charoleia was a lady fit to adorn an Imperial arm.

“The trip was uneventful.” She set aside her glass and smoothed the skirts of her pale lavender gown. Fine muslin was appropriate for the heat, but it’s cruelly unflattering to so many women. On Charoleia the delicate cloth simultaneously enhanced and discreetly blurred the sensuous curves beneath. “How is the young D’Alsennin? I hear you had some trouble in Bremilayne?” Her musical voice was as beautiful as her face but I couldn’t hear the ring of any particular city or country.

“Some goods were stolen but we don’t know who was behind it,” I said frankly. “Could you help find out?”

Charoleia arched a delicately enquiring eyebrow. “What makes you ask that?”

I leaned back against the cushions and matched her gaze for gaze. “Livak says you’ve a network of contacts in every city between the ocean and the Great Forest.” Livak also openly admired this woman’s intelligence and my beloved isn’t given to empty praise of anyone. “I imagine you’ll get news from places no Sieur’s man would get a welcome.”

That enchanting dimple fleeted in her cheek. “I’ll expect to be paid for my trouble.”

I nodded. “That would be only fair.”

Charoleia rose with consummate grace and crossed to a stout cupboard set in a far corner. She unlocked it with a key on a chain at her wrist. “And there’s my courier’s fee for this to settle.” She removed a small wooden box and opened it to show me a battered copper armring. So she had it.

Similar to the one I wore in form only, this one had been made in the last days of the Old Empire, had crossed the ocean on the arm of one of Temar’s still sleeping companions and by whatever route had come back to end up in a Relshazri trader’s strong room. When Elietimm enchantment had overwhelmed my waking mind, Temar’s sleeping consciousness had woken and gone in search of this ancient piece, whoever was trapped within it calling out in a voice only he could hear.

“What is your usual fee?” I kept my feelings hidden behind an expressionless face. Truth be told, they were a fine mixture of satisfaction and apprehension.

Charoleia smiled with feline grace. “How much is this trinket worth to you?”

I pursed my lips. What would be a fair price, for me and for her? Living this elegant didn’t come cheap after all, and I had some personal resources to draw on before I’d need to make an appeal to Messire’s coffers, but there are rules to every game. “Its value’s not so much a matter of money.”

“No,” she agreed. “It’s far more important.” She spun the ring on one perfectly manicured forefinger. “This holds the essence of a man in thrall to enchantments generations old.”

“If it’s the right piece.” I’ve played out games of Raven from hopeless-looking positions and won them before now.

“It’s the right piece,” she assured me. “I got every detail from Livak when she passed through Relshaz at Equinox.”

“I do hope so.” I raised a hand in demur as she offered it to me. I wasn’t about to lay a finger on the thing.

“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.

“If you’re done, friend—” A groom in Den Haurient livery was waiting, the horse he was exercising gulping from the trough for thirsty beasts.

“Of course.” I walked more slowly up towards the D’Olbriot residence. The usual stifling stillness hung over the ever narrowing strip of parkland clinging to the bottom reaches of the hill and tiny black flies danced in swirling balls beneath fringed leaves. But the shade trees offered welcome respite from the heat, and as I reached the top of the rise a breeze freshened the air. A well-tended highway winds between the spacious preserves of the upper city. No cracked slabs are allowed to trip the privilege of the oldest noble Houses—Den Haurient, Tor Kanselin, Den Leshayre, Tor Bezaemar. I walked past tall walls protecting extensive gardens surrounding spacious dwellings served by more lowly lodgings clustered close by. At this time of day there was little traffic, the only cart already nearly out of sight as it headed for some distant House built in more recent generations to escape the ever increasing pressures of the lower city.

As I drew closer to home I saw sentries walking slowly along the parapets of the walls. The watchtowers added in the uncertain days under T’Aleonne were fully manned and the D’Olbriot standard flew from every cornice. All customary pomp was displayed for Festival, to remind any visitors just which House they were dealing with and to bolster far-flung family members with pride in their Name.

“Ryshad!” The man sitting in the gatehouse hailed me, a thick-set, shaven-headed warrior with a much broken nose. He’d trained me in wrestling when I’d first come to D’Olbriot service.

“Olas!” I waved an acknowledging hand but didn’t stop or turn up the stairs to my new room. Elevated rank warranted privacy and that meant I was sleeping in the gatehouse rather than the barracks that filled one corner of the enclosure. Though I’d found privilege could have a sour aftertaste. With so many of the D’Olbriot Name arriving for the Festival, the noise of the gate opening and closing late into the night had disturbed me far more than the familiar bustle of the watch changing at midnight in the barracks. Still, with any luck most of the family would have arrived by now.

Turning sharply on to the gravelled path I hurried towards the tall house at the heart of the precisely delineated patterns of hedges and flowers. Temar had this reception to attend and I wanted to show him some small progress towards our shared goal before he left. Then I reckoned I’d earned half a chime out of the merciless sun for a meal and more than one long, cold drink before I went to see what I could discover from the Names on his list.

Leaving the grand reception rooms behind me, where the ladies of the House were catching up on half a season’s gossip by the sound of it, I passed lackeys bringing laden trays of refreshments up from the lower levels. I hurried up the first flight of stairs leading to the private salons reserved for the Sieur and Esquires of the Name. They were as busy talking as the women, open doors revealing older men deep in serious conversation, sons and nephews in attentive attendance, news and promises for later discussions exchanged on every side.

I bowed my way down the hallways and gained the second storey, where the corridors became narrower, with softer carpets underfoot and the intricate painted patterns on the walls giving way to plain plaster sparely stencilled with leaves and garlands to complement the ornate tapestries. Visiting servants were busy with trunks and coffers, some calmly hanging dresses and setting out favourite possessions while others went flustered in search of some missing chest. Resident maids and lackeys went steadily about their business with arms of lavender-scented linen and vases of flowers to make ready rooms for unexpected arrivals who’d changed their minds and accepted the Sieur’s invitation at the last moment.

I turned down a side passage to see a page was sitting on a cross-framed chair by the door at the end. He jumped up but I waved the child back to his hornbook. He’d spend enough of his day on his feet without me insisting on due deference and I could knock on a door myself. “I’m here to see Esquire D’Alsennin.”

“Enter.” Temar answered my knock at once and I opened the door. The Sieur had decreed Temar was to be treated with Imperial courtesy and thus warranted the finest, coolest quarters available. Windows broadened when this northern fa#231;ade had been rebuilt filled the room with light and Temar was standing by one, arms folded crossly over his creased shirt and looking distinctly mutinous.

“Good day to you, Chosen Tathel.” Demoiselle Tor Arrial sat on a gilt-wood stool upholstered with damask that matched the curtains of the old-fashioned bed dominating one half of the room.

“Demoiselle.” I made a low bow, mindful of her Imperial heritage.

Her bark of laughter made me look up. “I am in no mood to be flattered by a title more suited to those coveys of maidens cluttering up the place. Avila will suffice.”

“As you wish,” I said cautiously. Informality was allowable on the road, but I wasn’t going to call her by her given name in Messire’s hearing. “Are you fully recovered from the journey?” She’d looked fit for her pyre the previous day, every year of her age weighing heavy on her head.

“I am quite restored,” she assured me. “A good night’s sleep works its own Artifice.”

“Ryshad, I really should come with you this afternoon,” Temar appealed to me. “This is my responsibility and my Name will lend weight to our requests.”

“How so, when no one knows your face?” demanded Avila acidly. “You need to assert the dignity of your House with these lately come nobles before you can claim the right to speak for Kel Ar’Ayen. That means exchanging the usual courtesies, just as Festival always demanded.”

“I was never any good at such things,” the youth objected.

“Because you never applied yourself and there was your grandsire to do the duty for you. You cannot escape the obligations of your rank now,” challenged Avila.

“Making yourself known will certainly smooth our path, Temar,” I interjected. Messire D’Olbriot would hardly thank me if Temar absented himself this afternoon. “And I’ve made a start on tracing the artefacts already.” I placed the box on a marble-topped table and opened it with hesitant hands to reveal the armring within.

Temar reached out an eager hand but then withdrew it.

“What is it?” Avila asked with a curious look at us both.

As one man Temar and I glanced across the room to a scabbarded blade resting on a walnut cabinet by the dressing room door. Artifice had confined Temar’s essential self within that sword through nine Imperial eras. No, he was no more about to risk handling an artefact holding a similarly imprisoned mind than I was.

“Let me.” Avila came to pick up the armring and turned it to examine an engraved device, dark lines blurred with age in the tarnished metal. “Ancel fashioned this badge when he and Letica married.”

“Maitresse Den Rannion, as was,” Temar whispered hastily to me. “Her sister, you know.”

I nodded. I’d made it my business to know all the long-dead colonists regardless, but I also seemed to have Temar’s own memories lurking in the back of my head supplying such answers. I wasn’t sure I liked it, but it was undeniably useful.

“This belongs to Jaes, the gate ward. He helped Letica plant her herb garden.” Avila ran a creased finger over the incised sea eagle’s head and tears shone briefly in her faded eyes.

“One more will be rescued from the darkness,” said Temar hoarsely.

“We can spread our efforts this afternoon,” I suggested. “I’ll take your list and try to talk to servants, men-at-arms, people like that. You make yourself known to the nobility and charm a few likely Demoiselles.”

He rubbed a hand over his hair, leaving it in unruly black spikes. “I might manage that.”

“Who is to keep this safe?” Avila put the armring back in its box and looked at us both.

I held up my hands in demur. “I’ve nowhere to keep it.”

“It is not staying in here,” said Temar hastily.

Avila gave us both a scorching glare as she got stiffly to her feet. “You would-be warriors can be remarkably chicken-hearted. Very well, I will keep it in my room. Temar, dress for this afternoon’s folderols.”

I opened the door so as to avoid her gaze but nearly betrayed myself when I saw the face Temar was pulling at her departing back. I grinned at him. “We’ll see who’s made most progress after dinner tonight.”