"The Assassin's Edge" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKenna Juliet E.)

Vithrancel, Kellarin, 15th of Aft-Spring

Why are people always so eager to give you gifts?” I followed Halice out of the trading hall.

“It won’t be my beauty, so it must be my charm.” Halice offered me the little mint-lined basket of withy strips.

I took a sticky sweetmeat and nodded at Temar’s residence. “His lordship’s back.” The bold flag fluttered jauntily.

“Let’s see what he’s got to say for himself.” Halice curled her lip.

“Mind your manners,” I warned, mock serious.

“Me? Who served the Duchess of Marlier?” Halice pretended outrage.

“Who got dismissed for giving her mouthy daughter a slap,” I pointed out.

“She deserved it.” Halice laughed.

We turned down what looked to be a lane at first glance, running between the trading hall and Temar’s residence. Inside the latter, hammers still echoed and saws rasped over the much interrupted and delayed business of making it fit for a Sieur’s dignity. Two lads barely older that Tedin sat in a doorway dutifully straightening scavenged nails. One scooped a few from rain-dulled tiles at his feet. Their broken patterns beneath the gravel and the stumps of pillars buried in the new stone of the walls on either side were the last remnants of a great hall that had once stood here. But the roof was long since fallen and the mighty walls only offered a few broken courses so the colonists had merely taken them as a guide for new buildings raised around the shell of the old hall. We passed carved embellishments worn featureless by generations of rain.

The one elegant doorway that had survived above head height was now the entrance to Temar’s private quarters at the back of the tall building. Halice pushed open the door without ceremony. Once the carpenters had fitted out the reception rooms, archive and private salons necessary for the rank the Emperor had confirmed him in, Temar might be able to turn this into suitable accommodation for the Sieur D’Alsennin’s servants but for the present, the lower floor was undecorated with crude screens at one end inadequately masking a kitchen and a private chamber for Temar above reached by a plain wooden stair.

Temar and Ryshad stood behind a long table up at the far end, poring over a slew of charts with a couple of other people bending their heads close.

“Master Grethist got an ocean boat up to this cataract.” Temar tapped the map with a long finger. “With sail barges, we can explore further.”

So they were planning another expedition. If Ryshad was going, perhaps I should tag along. Summer in Vithrancel didn’t promise to be overly interesting without him.

“Portage over that ground will be a trial and a half.” A black-haired woman, sedate in a homespun tunic over undyed skirts traced a line with a chipped nail. “It’s far more broken than the slope on this side.” She looked up at our approach.

“Rosarn.” Halice greeted her with a familiar nod. The woman’s homely appearance was deceptive; Rosarn had been a mercenary longer than any bar Halice and as soon as Temar gave the word, she’d be in boots and leathers, daggers sheathed at hip and wrist, ready to cut her way through thickets a squirrel would rather go round. Half the corps commanders in Lescar went looking for her if they needed an enemy position scouted out or a potential advance reconnoitred. She specialised in tasks demanding light feet and the wit to think fast on them.

“How far did you get, Vas?” Ryshad, the love if not of my life then certainly of these past three years, brushed at his black curls in absent thought.

“Here at autumn Equinox.” Vaspret set a stubby finger on the parchment. Stocky, weather-beaten and with manners as ill made as his much-broken nose, he had come to Kel Ar’Ayen as one the original venturers and sailed on the first explorations of the continent’s coasts with the long-dead Master Grethist.

“To retrace Vahil Den Rannion’s route, we should really be using the caves.” Whatever they were planning, Rosarn was clearly looking forward to it. I’d heard her say more than once a whole continent to explore without risk of a Lescari arrow in the guts was a gift from Talagrin.

Temar was fair-skinned by nature and the spring sun had yet to tint his winter pallor but I saw him blench from where I stood. Ryshad looked sharply at Rosarn and a shadow darkened his amber-flecked brown eyes. Then he saw me and smiled, affection softening the stern lines of his long jaw and broad brow. I smiled back and the minor discontents of the day vanished like morning mist on the river.

“We want an overland route to join the two rivers,” D’Alsennin said with a touch too much firmness. He searched for some other map. “We can hardly take wagons or mules through caves, even if the route Vahil used is still passable, by some miracle of Misaen’s grace.”

And you’d rather face invading Elietimm single-handed than spend any time out of reach of daylight, my lad. I’d no idea if it was Temar who’d originally been afraid of the dark or Ryshad in some childhood fastness of his mind. Perhaps it was some echo of the imprisonment in Edisgesset’s sunless caverns that they’d both tasted, caught in the toils of Artifice. Whatever the case, both men now shared an abiding fear of enclosed spaces and I kept waking to an open bedroom door because Ryshad couldn’t sleep with it shut.

But Ryshad was older than Temar by a double handful of years and more. He set his jaw, visibly ignoring his own qualms. “Is there any chance the missing artefacts could have been lost in the caves, before Vahil got to the ships?”

Vahil Den Rannion, Temar’s boyhood friend and now twenty-some generations ashes in his urn, had borne the task of taking the sleeping minds of Kellarin’s people beyond the greedy Elietimm grasp. He’d found a way through the caves that riddled the high ground between Vithrancel’s river and another that ran down to a second settlement in the south barely founded before the Elietimm scourge arrived. I wouldn’t have wagered a lead penny on his chances but, against all the odds, Vahil had won back across the ocean, only to find the Empire collapsing around Nemith the Worthless’s ears. Every noble House had been too busy saving its own skin to spare any thought for a colony all but written off a year or more since.

So the treasures had been scattered, their true value unrecognised down the long years. Then mages consulting with alchemists at Vanam’s university had piqued Planir’s curiosity with tales of bizarre dreams tantalising scholars of the days before the Chaos. Since waking to find himself required to lead the colony, Temar had striven to recover all that he could, even challenging the Emperor of Tormalin to help him but there were still a few poignant sleepers insensate in the vast emptiness of the cavern that had protected the colonists for so long. Guinalle visited them every Equinox and Solstice, searching her learning for any clue as to how she might rouse them without the artefacts that bound them to the enchantment.

“I suppose that’s possible,” Temar acknowledged reluctantly, ice-pale eyes hooded like a hawk’s under narrow brows. His hair was as black as Ryshad’s but fine and straight, cropped like a trooper’s.

“We should send someone to search,” Ryshad said firmly. His commitment to finding the lost artefacts was equal to Temar’s. That had been one factor in the Sieur D’Olbriot’s decision to release him from sworn service, the prince seeing how Ryshad’s sense of obligation had him increasingly torn between D’Alsennin’s interests and D’Olbriot’s.

Temar’s angular face lifted with relieved inspiration. “Guinalle could devise an incantation to find anything holding enchantment in the caves.”

“Why not improve your own skills with Artifice rather than always relying on her?” asked Halice sharply.

Temar looked at her with surprise. “I’ve scarcely time to study Artifice.”

“A Sieur decides where to spend his time.” Halice flicked the corner of a map hanging over the edge of the table. “What is it now? Charting coasts? Prospecting for metals?”

“Scouting a route to Hafreinsaur,” said Temar defensively. Fired with enthusiasm when the Emperor had decreed independence for Kellarin, as present day speech rendered the ancient name, one of Temar’s first and thus far few acts as Sieur had been naming the settlements to honour the original founders: Vithrancel for Ancel Den Rannion, Hafreinsaur for Hafrein Den Fellaemion. He’d wanted some such name for the mining settlement but that had failed in the face of mercenary tongues mangling colonists’ colloquial references to their cave sanctuary in Old High Tormalin. The compromise that was Edisgesset was now firmly established.

Halice gave him a look that would have shrivelled any mercenary. “I can name ten men who’ll do as good a job as you.”

Temar rubbed a cautious hand over his mouth. “You think I should be doing something else?”

“Spend more time in and around Vithrancel,” Halice told him frankly. “Do some of the pettifogging work that weighs down Guinalle from sunrise to dusk. Someone’s asking her advice every second moment because you’re never around. She’d have more than enough to do if she were only working Artifice, what with fools falling sick or injuring themselves and her insisting on warding all the crops and animals every chance she gets. She’s exhausting herself and it’s the willing horse that gets worked to death, my lad.”

“We’ll discuss this later.” Rosarn rolled up her maps with a rattling sound. “I’ll see what progress the boat-builders have made.”

“I think—”

Rosarn deflected Temar’s indignation with an apologetic smile, gathering up Vaspret as she headed for the door. Never mind Tadriol the Prudent, 5th of that House to rule as Emperor of Toremal decreeing Temar was now Sieur D’Alsennin, prince of that House and overlord of Kellarin. Rosarn answered first and foremost to her corps commander.

Temar took a seat at the head of the table, squaring his shoulders. For lack of any ready response, he raised a lordly hand. Bridele, a young woman widowed before the first fall of Kellarin, scurried up with a tray of glass goblets and a jug. Temar had servants if no one else did.

Ryshad and I cleared space among the parchments and she poured suspiciously pale wine for us all. Halice didn’t wait for an invitation to sit but Ryshad waited for D’Alsennin’s nod.

“Of course I’ll help Guinalle,” Temar said stiffly. “She only has to ask.”

“Can you see her doing that?” Halice’s disarming grin lightened her coarse features. “Forfeiting her noble obligations, never mind her pride? Tackle the easier problem. With you away so much, folk all got into the habit of running to Guinalle. You need to let people know to come to you.”

“Guinalle doesn’t have any truly competent adept to share her burdens, does she?” Ryshad commented with careful neutrality.

“I do not have the time to study Artifice,” Temar repeated, colouring slightly.

Ryshad and I exchanged a glance. It wasn’t only pride that had Guinalle keeping her own counsel so much and Temar taking every opportunity offered to go off and explore Kellarin, leaving her to rule Vithrancel. They had shared a brief passion before the ruin of the colony’s hopes and as inexperienced lovers so often will, they’d wounded each other deeply in tearing themselves apart.

“I don’t think many folk hereabouts do,” I remarked in the same light vein as Ryshad. “Not with the dedication Guinalle demands of them.” I didn’t imagine I was the only one whose general curiosity about Artifice had retreated from the rigorous study the demoiselle demanded of would-be adepts.

“Perhaps we should see if Demoiselle Tor Arrial is ready to return from Toremal,” Ryshad suggested.

“You’re welcome to ask but don’t expect me to,” said Temar bluntly. “It will take more than Tadriol designating me her Sieur before I try claiming lordship over Avila.” The Demoiselle Tor Arrial was a formidable older noblewoman who’d known Temar since his extremely callow youth and seldom let him forget it.

I looked at Ryshad. “Avila’s doing valuable service where she is, sending us news of Tormalin and making sure we get decent goods, not the dross of dockside warehouses.” And making a new life in Tormalin meant she could put the bereavements of Kellarin’s destruction behind her somewhat.

“Without her there to use her Artifice, we have no means of sending word to the Emperor.” Temar set his jaw. “I will not recall her.”

No one was going to argue with that. If the Elietimm ever reappeared, we all wanted some way of calling up reinforcements and quickly.

Halice nodded. “But where can we find more people with aetheric skills?”

I had an idea. “What about those scholars from Vanam who visited Guinalle last summer, all curious about lost aetheric teachings? They’ve had all winter to study the lore we found in the Mountains and the Forest last year. Surely they’ll have some competent practitioners by now?” Even before these recent additions to their knowledge, Mentor Tonin and his scholars had had enough Artifice to break the enchantments in Edisgesset’s cavern. That was how we’d roused Temar and Guinalle in the first place.

“What about recruiting a few more wizards?” Ryshad mused. “Whoever Hadrumal sends with the first ships might agree to stay for a season or so.”

“When are we expecting those?” I looked for an answer.

“I did ask Guinalle to find out from Avila.” Temar couldn’t quite keep his composure as he caught Halice’s exasperated glare.

“You’re as bad as the rest of them.”

“Allin could bespeak any number of mages in Toremal to find out,” Ryshad pointed out.

“So where is she?” demanded Halice.

“She’s helping Werdel with modifications to his kiln,” Ryshad admitted a little sheepishly.

Halice snapped her fingers at Bridele’s sandy-haired son who served as Temar’s ever-eager page. “Go and find Lady Allin.”

The lad grinned at her and took to his heels. I sipped at wine watered almost to tastelessness and grimaced.

“Bridele can make you a tisane,” offered Temar.

“From the last dust of her spice jars?” I asked “Or some unknown herb? My thanks but I don’t need poisoning.” At least one recent death had been some obsessive steeping himself a quick route to Poldrion’s ferry in a vain attempt to eke out his tisanes.

I saw Temar was looking pinched around the mouth. Maewelin had exacted precious little due from Kellarin over the winter but Temar took each and every loss hard. “Is there news from Edisgesset? Are the miners ready to start smelting?”

He was successfully diverted. “As soon as possible.”

“What are you going to do with the copper?” I asked.

“Trade it with Toremal.” Temar looked puzzled then smiled. “For tisane herbs and decent wine, perhaps.”

“We need iron.” Ryshad was serious. “We’ve found no trace of ironstone and our smiths are reusing every rusty scrap of chain as it is.”

“Coin would simplify trading with Toremal.” Ryshad raised an eyebrow at me but I looked at him with bland innocence. “Ready copper around here wouldn’t come amiss either. It would save you and Guinalle adjudicating barters and such.”

“Coining is a skilled trade.” Temar frowned.

“I know a man who could do it,” I offered. “Make it worth his while and he’ll cross the ocean.”

“That Gidestan with the cropped ears?” Halice recalled his name. “Kewin?”

Temar chose his words carefully. “I hardly think the Emperor would take kindly to us making free with his currency.”

I looked at him, exasperated. “I’m not suggesting forgery. What about your own head on a few pennies?”

“It would make a fine statement of independence.” Seriousness underlay Ryshad’s amusement. “Kellarin needs to stand on its own two feet.”

Temar looked doubtful. One of his more appealing qualities was a lack of the usual arrogance that goes with noble blood. Halice and I were agreed he wouldn’t get the chance to develop it.

Ryshad on the other hand wanted to see Temar stamp his authority on Kellarin a good deal more firmly. “It’s certainly worth considering.”

I saw Temar sneaking a glance at his maps. “If you want to trace those caves why don’t you see if Hadrumal could help? Shiv could follow the rivers and Usara should find any hollow from a rabbit scrape down.” I’d travelled the wild fastnesses of forest and mountain with Usara and watched experience broaden the mage’s horizons far beyond the narrow vistas of Hadrumal.

“That’s a good notion.” Ryshad reached for the parchment he’d been covertly studying. “Two mules make a better plough team than one.”

“Perhaps.” Temar’s aristocratic politeness didn’t fool any of us. He wasn’t past the youthful folly of jealousy because Usara showed an interest in Guinalle.

“If we want more mages, they’re the obvious ones to invite.” I knew Halice was thinking the same as me. In her self-possessed fashion, Guinalle had shown signs of welcoming Usara’s attentions. A friendly wizard knowing all too well the demands and frustrations of magical arts might prompt the stubborn girl into admitting her own limitations.

“Where’s Jemet?” snapped Temar, sipping his pathetically weak wine.

I caught Ryshad looking compassionately at the younger man. I wasn’t so indulgent. Granted Temar had a hard row to hoe to make a success out of Kellarin but I wondered if my beloved was a little too inclined to give the young nobleman the benefit of the doubt.

The swish of the door broke the awkward silence and Allin hurried in behind Jemet the page. Of all the wizards I’d met since a chance venture introduced me to Shiv and repaid me with more trouble than I could have imagined, Allin was the least like an Ensaimin balladeer’s fantasy. She was no willowy mage-woman sweeping all before her captivating beauty, earth-shaking, lightning-swift powers snaring all men with lust in the same breath as scaring the manhood out of them. Allin was short, round, plain enough to make Halice look passable and frequently unflatteringly red in the face. At the moment, out of breath, she was quite scarlet.

“Sit down.” I offered her my stool and the watery wine. I liked Allin and her ready habit of sharing any skill, magical or practical, had won her many friends in Kellarin. Not that she realised this. The last child of a long family, her humility bordered on the ridiculous and Temar wasn’t the only one determined this mage-girl learn to value herself as highly as other people did.

“How can I help?” Her hectic colour faded as she drank the wine.

“Could you please bespeak Casuel?” Temar asked politely. “See if he knows when we might expect the first ships?”

Allin turned to the expectant Jemet. “A candle, if you please, and a mirror.”

The lad scurried to fetch the paraphernalia for Allin’s spell and then stood at Temar’s shoulder, blue eyes avid.

Allin snapped her fingers at the candle to kindle enchanted flame and carefully captured the unnaturally ruddy light in the mirror. She went about her wizardry with far less ceremony than most of the mages I’d had the dubious fortune to encounter but even this understated display had Jemet in silent thrall, Bridele sneaking a look from the kitchen door. The lately come craftsmen still retreated awkwardly when magic was worked but the original colonists had lived in an age when Artifice was a readily acknowledged skill. They made no distinction between Guinalle’s aetheric enchantments worked for their benefit and the different abilities of the mageborn. As far as they were concerned, magic of any stripe meant Kellarin would never again suffer Elietimm attack undefended and unable to call for aid.

The reddish glow on the metal shrank to an eye-watering pinpoint of brightness and then spread once more in sweeps across the mirror like wine in a jolted glass catching the light. Concentration lent dignity to Allin’s plump face as the radiance faded to a burning circle around the rim and the mirror reflected a miniature scene. We saw an elegantly appointed bedchamber where a familiar figure was stepping hastily into his breeches.

“Casuel, good morning,” Allin said politely.

“What’s so urgent it couldn’t wait until after breakfast?” Casuel fumbled with his buttons before running a hand over tousled brown hair, not yet pomaded into fashionable waves.

“Esquire D’Evoir.” Temar came to stand beside Allin and inclined his head in a well-bred bow. “I beg your pardon. It’s rather later in our day.” He spoke with the aristocratic precision that Casuel always took as due respect but I generally felt it was D’Alsennin’s way of hiding his irritation with the wizard’s pretensions.

“Sieur D’Alsennin.” Casuel’s tone turned abruptly from brusque to ingratiating. Temar’s House might have vanished in the Chaos but if the Emperor decreed it be raised again, that was good enough to win a grovel from Cas.

“Everyone else in Toremal will have eaten their breakfast long since by now.” Ryshad’s murmur was for my ear alone as he moved behind me, folding strong arms around me.

I craned my head back to whisper. “Since when’s our Cas been Esquire D’Evoir?” In those same ballads where Allin’s appearance would have been as appealing as her personality, Casuel’s all-encompassing knowledge of the fragmentary history of the Old Empire would have been arcane learning essential for saving a princess or restoring a king to his throne. As it was, his self-serving scholarship had been entirely focused on proving his merchant family’s claim to ancient rank. Then Planir had seconded his scholarship for his own mysterious purposes and Cas had inadvertently helped save Kellarin’s people.

“Temar helped fill in the missing twigs on his family tree.” Ryshad nodded at the distant image. “Imperial grant of insignia at Solstice, he’s now Planir’s liaison with Tadriol and official conduit for any prince wishing to communicate with Kellarin.”

So Cas had been rewarded with all the access to the great and the good of Toremal that his snobbish heart could wish for.

“We need to know when we might expect the first ships from Bremilayne or Zyoutessela,” Temar was explaining as Allin somehow brought Casuel’s face closer to the mirror.

“But the first one will have arrived by now.” Casuel fiddled with a tasteless gilt fish brooch pinning the frilled collar of his silk shirt.

“I would hardly be asking if it had,” Temar said with more courtesy than I’d have managed.

“It set sail on the twelfth of For-Spring,” insisted Casuel.

There was a pause as we all mentally tallied up the days and the phases of the greater and lesser moons.

“That’s very early to be setting out.” Ryshad knotted doubtful brows. Raised in the southern port of Zyoutessela, he knew more about the seasons’ vagaries than the rest of us.

“Especially when you have neither mage nor aetheric adept aboard to cope with ocean winds and currents.” Unpleasant satisfaction turned Casuel’s well-made face ugly.

“I don’t understand,” Temar said sharply.

“The ship was backed by Den Harkeil gold,” began Casuel pedantically.

“Avila told me that was arranged,” Temar interrupted.

“The Sieur Den Harkeil has set his clerks loose in every archive he can secure access to.” Casuel looked momentarily envious. “They’ve dug up every scrap of parchment detailing Den Fellaemion’s voyages and the Sieur’s convinced it should be possible to cross the ocean without magical aid. There’s no mention of it in any of the tales of Nemith the Sea-farer.”

“Because no one with a grain of sense would think of venturing into the open ocean without an adept aboard in those days,” said Temar tightly.

“Why does Messire Den Harkeil feel entitled to ignore both Planir and the Demoiselle Tor Priminale saying a ship needs a mage or an adept or ideally both?” Halice was scornful.

“He believes the islands in the mid-ocean are the hidden secret that enabled Den Fellaemion to reach Kellarin,” Casuel said reluctantly.

Temar bit his lip. “Suthyfer?” It was a measure of his concern that he used the mercenaries’ everyday name for the islands, not the fanciful Garascisel he’d decreed.

“Is that possible?” Ryshad looked from Temar to Allin who was looking distressed.

“Has the vessel come to grief?”

“I don’t know.” Temar chewed a thoughtful knuckle.

“Just because something hasn’t been done, doesn’t mean it can’t be.” Halice had other concerns.

“Ships nowadays are sturdier than the ones Den Fellaemion used.” Ryshad looked apprehensive. “Mariners are more used to sailing the ocean, with the growth of trade up to Inglis.”

“Half the noble Houses in Tormalin want a taste of the Kellarin trade,” I pointed out. “They’ll be sticking down their own colonists without so much as kissing your hand if they can get away with it.”

Allin shook her head emphatically. “Cloud Master Otrick himself always said it would be impossible to cross the ocean unaided.”

“Did he say the same after he learned about Suthyfer?”

Halice studied a map. “If a ship could reach the islands, take on fresh water, take bearings on the right stars and check the sun from solid land, that would set them fair for the second leg of the journey.” She looked at Allin. “Did Otrick factor that into his calculations?”

“I don’t know.” Allin faltered with sudden self-doubt. “The Emperor has decreed that any land grant must have my seal,” Temar insisted but he looked worried.

“We’re going to throw people back into the sea, when their prince has sent them here on the promise of a new life?” Ryshad said dourly.

“Tadriol’s going to sail up and down the coast to enforce his writ in person, is he?” I chipped in.

Halice jabbed an emphatic finger at Temar. “What about people who don’t recognise Tormalin writ? Land hunger’s been a goad in the Lescari wars for I don’t know how long.”

“Let’s not go begging for trouble.” Temar was scowling. “If the ship is lost—”

“—we’d best look for wreckage or survivors.” Ryshad completed the thought.

“Could you tell us where currents might have carried them?” Temar looked to Allin.

“The Tang will discover its fate.” Casuel spoke over her with irritating condescension. “Naldeth’s on board. I warned him Den Harkeil’s arrogance would doubtless lead to disaster.”

“The Tang? Den Castevin’s ship set sail?” Temar waved everyone else to silence. “When can we expect that?”

Casuel looked affronted. “They left on the 37th of For-Spring.”

“Just before the full of the greater moon.” Ryshad narrowed his eyes. “They should make landfall any time in the next ten days.”

“The lesser at dark won’t have been a problem, not with a mage aboard.” Halice was doing her own calculations.

Allin didn’t look so sure. “Naldeth’s affinity is with fire, not air or water.”

“Parrail’s on board as well.” Casuel’s dismissiveness made my palm itch to slap him. “One of Mentor Tonin’s pupils. He has sufficient Artifice to assist.”

“Thank you for this news, Esquire D’Evoir, and for your time. We need keep you no longer.” Temar nodded to Allin who snuffed the candle with a prosaic puff. Casuel’s obsequious farewells dissolved like the thread of blue smoke unravelling from the wick.

Temar rubbed a hand through his close-cropped hair, leaving it in unruly black spikes, his blue eyes haunted. “Dastennin forgive me but I could almost hope Den Harkeil’s ship has foundered.” He wasn’t invoking the god of the sea out of habit or hypocrisy.

“They knew the risk they were running.” Halice was no more inclined to sympathy than me. “Folly’s generally a capital crime sooner or later.”

Ryshad moved away from me towards a half-completed map of the coast between Vithrancel and Hafreinsaur. “Where do we suppose they might land, if they’re looking to set up their own standard?”

Halice twitched the map out of his reach. “We’re only guessing till one or other ship turns up. We’d be better off organising ourselves so we’re ready to meet any challenge. Temar, you’re calling yourself Sieur; it’s time you started enforcing your writ. If you’re going to do that, we need to know where it runs.” She grinned. “Which is what I came to discuss in the first place. Are you going to claim fealty from any of my lads who throw in their lot with colony families. Are they going to get the restraint they need if you do?”

“What’s brought this up?” Ryshad sat on the edge of the table, dark eyes alert. He knew the value of discipline among fighting men and had suggested more than once it was time Temar swore men to his own service in the manner of Messire D’Olbriot’s militia. Temar kept avoiding the issue, claiming he didn’t understand the customs that had been devised in the uncertain days of the Chaos.

I sat on Ryshad’s abandoned stool and took out my belt knife, idly cleaning my nails as Halice explained about Deg and Catrice. Temar rallied his wits and proposed reviving some of the ancient customs his grandsire had relied on. Ryshad advised a few modifications in the light of the greater independence Tormalin princes allowed their tenants these days. Halice grudgingly approved a few changes he suggested to the rough and ready sanctions she used to keep the mercenaries in line. Even Allin ventured a few hesitant observations on Hadrumal’s parallel systems of influence and power.

The only interest I’ve ever had in justice is keeping well clear of it. In some towns that means playing an honest game, watching my manners and trusting to Halcarion to keep my luck polished up. In other places it means taking every chance that offers and making my own besides. Sometimes, you just have to trust to a fast horse waiting to take you out of reach when some fool with an empty purse goes crying to whoever thinks they’re in charge.

I pared my nails and wondered if it mightn’t be more interesting to go home and wash the bed linen.