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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 Daste
“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 ru
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 Daste
“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’Aleo
“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.