Trading Close To Light

by C. M. Simpson

  He glanced over at where Mordan was stretched out in front of the fire chewing on a haunch of mouton.

  “Be better for the kat.”

  Mordan raised her head, a strip of meat hanging from the side of her mouth. Marsh laughed, and the kat gave a disgruntled rumble and returned to her meal, but not before letting Marsh know she approved of their newest pride member.

  He hunts well.

  The thought brought a smile to Marsh’s lips, but only for the time it took her to raise the first spoonful of thick meat stew to her mouth. After that, all thoughts of conversation vanished. She might have been embarrassed all over again if everyone else at the table hadn’t been equally silent and focused on their food.

  Per oversaw their meal with the speed and efficiency of an experienced waiter, keeping their glasses full and bringing a course of hastily fried potatoes mixed with bacon and topped with something green that gave the dish a little bite. This was met with murmurs of appreciation, contented crunching, and very little else.

  It was the dessert that brought on groans of pure delight. Smooth, creamy, and with just a hint of citrus, it was the perfect end to the meal.

  “Thank you, Per,” Marsh said as Gustav pulled out his bag of gems.

  Before he could open the drawstring, however, Per folded his hand over the top of Gustav’s fingers.

  “Your trade’s no good here,” he said and looked sternly around the table. “And that goes for the rest of you. No one at this table has anything I want beyond what you have already given.”

  He indicated Marsh.

  “My daughter/niece’s safe return. Thank you.”

  Marsh felt her eyes fill with tears and ducked her head, but her uncle hadn’t finished with them.

  “Your rooms are upstairs. I will wake you when the tailor arrives in the morning. If you will follow Daniel, he will guide you.”

  Marsh waited as the others rose from their seats and followed Daniel from the room. She hadn’t known he’d been there, and now she wondered why he hadn’t come to greet her. She was about to ask when she realized she wasn’t alone. Roeglin and Gustav were waiting right beside her, and they seemed to have read her mind.

  “You never did say how you got out of Kearick’s office,” Gustav said as Roeglin’s eyes sheeted white.

  Per smiled, his gray eyes alight with laughter.

  “Your Henri came in through a passage beneath the desk. Seems he’d done enough guard work for Kearick that he was moved up as a reserve for the man’s protection detail.”

  Which begged the question of why Henri had been guarding a caravan that took him to Ruins Hall, but her uncle had the answer to that too.

  “His brother asked him to keep an eye on Lennie because they’d be on two different caravans and Lennie had a tendency of putting herself in danger. Jorj couldn’t get a swap between the caravans. No one wanted to take the later trip. Something about two caravans making good beds and baths scarce in Ruins Hall, and first in, best dressed. That kind of thing. The caravan captains wouldn’t let Lennie trade with anyone on Jorj’s caravan, either. Something about distractions. Kearick was furious but couldn’t give him enough of a reason to stay, so Henri went.”

  “Kearick knew,” Marsh said.

  Per nodded.

  “Yes. Anyway, lucky for me, because Henri got me out of the office before young Dunkel stuck his head through the door, and we had the trapdoor closed and blocked before a proper search was done. We were back and at the bar before the captain thought to send anyone to check.”

  “What about your other guests?” Marsh asked. “Won’t they know?”

  “They were in the baths by then, enjoying the complimentary glass of wine that went with them.” He looked over his shoulder at where his son was returning down the stairs. “Daniel’s idea.”

  Daniel flushed, nodded, and went into the kitchen. Marsh frowned.

  “Have I done something to offend him?”

  Per cocked his head.

  “You didn’t come straight home,” he said. “Dan’s a bit cross about that.”

  “I’ll go speak with him,” Marsh said, but Per laid a hand on her arm.

  “Best give the boy a bit of time to cool down,” he said. She looked at him.

  The boy didn’t seem all that upset. Pots rattled in the kitchen, followed by a muffled curse, and Marsh hurried toward the sound. She opened the kitchen door in time for a pot to come flying through it.

  “Deeps-cursed, ungrateful…” Daniel spat when he looked up and saw her standing in the doorway.

  Marsh stepped through and closed the kitchen door behind her, smiling sweetly.

  “You were saying, Daniel dear?”

  He’d already blushed a brilliant red, and now he went a shade darker, picking up another saucepan.

  “You didn’t come home!” he snarled, brandishing it in her direction.

  Marsh made a show of looking around and then moved toward him, trailing her hand along the kitchen counter as she went.

  “Oh, I don’t know, kiddo. This looks pretty much like home to me, and I am here, aren’t I?”

  “Smart ass!” he shouted and threw the pot.

  Marsh ducked and charged at him, wrapping her arms around his waist and knocking him off his feet.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” she said when she’d managed to pin him on his back and had trapped his fists against his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m ungrateful and forgetful and Deeps-cursed, and whatever else you want to call me, but I’m sorry I was away for so long, and I’m sorry you thought I was dead, and I’m sorry I didn’t come straight home when I arrived, and I’m sorry you’re hurting and upset. I’m sorry, okay?”

  She wound her arms around his shoulders, pulling him close but keeping his hands pinned tightly between them.

  “I’m really, really sorry, and I’ll try not to do it again. Okay, Dan? Okay?”

  He made a sound that might have meant “yes” and Marsh sat up, moving her hands so his remained trapped and looking down into his face.

  “I didn’t mean for you to be angry.”

  He scowled at her, his gray-blue eyes dark with anger and distress, his copper curls tousled. Marsh kept her eyes on his and waited. She’d been dealing with Daniel all her life. He loved her but had a lot of trouble showing it. Come to think of it, he had a lot of trouble showing anyone how he felt, even when he liked them a lot.

  And he had no way of telling someone when he was angry. He usually just hid it away while he found a quiet space to throw things in until he felt better. She wondered if Per knew and then realized that neither Gustav nor Roeglin had come barreling through the kitchen door to save her. Per knew, then—and he was trusting her to fix it, now that she’d refused to leave well enough alone.

  Idiot.

  Not what she needed to hear from Roeglin, but Daniel finally spoke and Marsh ignored the shadow mage in her head.

  “Did you like dinner?” her cousin asked and Marsh smiled, remembering the glorious meal she’d just had.

  “It was perfect,” she told him. She waited for him to tell her he’d done something horrible to hers, but he didn’t.

  He just smiled, his face lighting up with joy.

  “I made it for you.”

  A lump formed in Marsh’s throat, and her nose prickled. She stood up, letting go of Daniel’s hands so she could dab at her eyes.

  “Thanks, Dan.”

  He scrambled to his feet, dusting his hands on his trousers.

  “Is the kat yours?” he asked, his voice as eager as a child’s.

  Marsh shook her head, and he looked disappointed.

  “She’s her own beast. I made her a promise, so she’s sticking around until I keep it. You want to come meet her?”

  His smile formed a full-blown grin, and he nodded so hard Marsh thought his head would fall off.

  “Come on, then,” she said, nudging Mordan through the link that had formed between them. “I’ll take you to meet her.�
��

  The kat grumbled sleepily in her head, and Marsh told her she had another member of her pride to meet. Marsh opened the kitchen door just in time to hear Mordan’s long-suffering sigh from across the room.

  “She’s sleepy,” Marsh explained when Daniel gave her a look that asked what the sigh was all about, and he stopped.

  “I can meet her in the morning,” he said, but Mordan raised her head, yawned to show all her teeth, and looked at him.

  “She’s waiting. See?” Marsh said and took Daniel’s hand.

  “This is Gustav,” she said as she passed the emissary and ex-bodyguard, “and that’s Roeglin. They’re supposed to keep me safe when we travel.”

  “Hey!”

  “What the…”

  Marsh snickered and led Daniel over to meet Mordan. When he was kneeling beside the kat and happily running his hands through her thick fur, she returned to Per. Before she could say anything, however, she yawned so hard it felt like her face was going to crack in half. Daniel was at her side in an instant.

  “I’ll show you to your room,” he said and looked sternly at Roeglin and Gustav. “You, too.”

  It was more a command than an offer, and Marsh stifled a smile.

  Daniel had always had trouble with his people skills. She turned to her uncle.

  “Good night, Papa.”

  “Welcome home, girl.”

  10

  Waiting

  The next morning Marsh woke with a start, flinging the cover aside and calling a sword from the shadows before she was out of bed. She was on her feet and facing the door before she registered she was alone, that her bedroom door was still closed, and that the sound that had woken her came from downstairs in the dining room.

  Laughter, the clash of dishes, and the rattle of pots and pans.

  Releasing the sword back to the shadows, Marsh set about getting dressed. It was her room, after all, and she’d left at least one change of clothes hanging in her closet. They weren’t anything fancy, but they’d do for breakfast.

  It was a good thing her uncle had called for the tailor since she’d never owned anything suitable for a council meeting. The shadow mages probably did, but there’d been no time to return to the monastery and retrieve it. They were on their own, and had been ever since they set out to restore the trails between the monastery and Ruins Hall.

  Marchant sighed and took a closer look at the clothes, wondering if any would fit Izmay. Grabbing a spare set, she stepped out into the hallway to find out. Mordan watched her from a blanket folded in one corner of the room, and then got to her feet and followed.

  Izmay was still in her room when Marsh knocked, the big kat on her heels.

  “They’re better than anything I’ve got now,” Izmay told her, taking the clothes and pulling Marsh into the room and closing the door behind them.

  Marsh waited while the shadow guard changed and watched as Izmay tucked the trousers into her boots to hide their lack of length. The shirt, which was loose on Marsh, fitted Izmay with a snugness Marsh found enviable.

  “Not bad,” the shadow guard said, turning this way and that in front of the mirror to inspect herself. “Thanks, Marsh.”

  “Anytime.” Marsh looked toward the door and sighed. “We’d better get moving or they’ll send someone to wake us.”

  Izmay looked at Mordan and the kat gave an obliging yawn, showing all her fangs.

  “Yeah,” the shadow mage said. “I doubt that.”

  “It’s never stopped them before,” Marsh told her, refraining from adding that Izmay should know since she was usually the instigator.

  As if to prove her point, a series of very loud knocks came from down the hall. Izmay flashed Marsh a grin.

  “Go stand over there,” she whispered, shooing Marsh into a corner where she couldn’t be seen from the doorway.

  Catching an idea of what the guard wanted to do, Marsh obliged, pulling Mordan into the corner with her.

  Shortly afterward a knock came at the door.

  “What?” Izmay snapped, sounding irritated.

  “You’re needed downstairs. Marsh too, if she’s there.”

  “Why would Marsh be here?” Izmay demanded, managing to sound outraged.

  “Uh, you mean she isn’t?”

  “You mean you’ve lost her again? Wasn’t it your turn to keep an eye out for her, Zeb? Master Ro is going to be very upset.”

  “No. Master Ro is going to be very upset if you two ladies don’t get your tails downstairs and stop holding up the tailor,” snapped Roeglin from outside the door. “I do have a link with her, you know.”

  Miscreant echoed through Marsh’s head and she rolled her eyes.

  Izmay caught her look and mirrored it, then pulled the door open and walked out into the hall. Marsh followed on her heels, flashing Zeb a quick grin and Roeglin a glare.

  Yeah, save it for someone who cares. He led the way down the hall. “The tailor is waiting.”

  All Marsh could think was that the tailor must be awfully keen, given the hour.

  Per gave him the impression he had a lot to do. Thanks for finding Izmay something to wear in the meantime.

  Marsh was about to tell him it was okay when she realized he wasn’t wearing his usual robes.

  “Are those Daniel’s?” she asked since his shirt looked familiar.

  “Gabe’s,” he replied. “Daniel’s didn’t fit.”

  Well, that made sense. Daniel was broader than Gabe. She just hadn’t known Gabe had left any of his wardrobe behind when he’d left.

  He left enough.

  They hit the bottom of the stairs to see the tailor step back from Gustav and make some notes in a leather-bound ledger.

  “Next,” he said, looking around the room.

  His eyes came to rest on Roeglin, Zeb, Izmay, and Marsh, and he focused on Zeb.

  “Ah, good. Zebediah, is it?”

  Marsh watched Zeb’s ears redden.

  “Zebedee. Just call me Zeb.”

  “Very well, Zeb. You’re next, followed by you, sir. Uh…”

  “Roeglin.”

  “Excellent.” The tailor flipped a page and wrote at the top.

  Marsh figured he’d dedicated a page apiece to them and followed Izmay over to the kitchen door.

  “It’s coming,” Daniel shouted. “Now get out of my kitchen.”

  As a greeting, it wasn’t bad. Marsh went before he started slinging saucepans for emphasis. The Deeps knew the boy already had the art of making a threatening gesture with a ladle down pat.

  “That bad, huh?” Izmay asked as Marsh retreated.

  The kitchen door opened in her wake and a young woman walked through, a pot of kaffee in one hand and a pitcher of hot chocolate in the other.

  “Your table’s over there,” she told them, waving the kaffee pot at where she wanted them to sit. “Cups are coming.”

  Marsh didn’t have to be told twice. The scent of the chocolate caught her and she turned to follow it, studying the waitress as she did so. The woman was slightly taller than she was, but she had long red hair that would hang to her waist when it wasn’t caught back in a plait and her eyes were the color of the brews she carried.

  Once she was settled, hot chocolate in hand, Marsh studied the tailor. The man hadn’t come alone. As Roeglin had said, he was under the impression he had a lot to do—and judging by the rolls of cloth and leather taking up one table and the men and woman already cutting and sewing at two others, he wasn’t far off.

  She watched as the tailor expertly measured Zeb and then consulted with a man and woman who’d been standing by while he’d worked.

  “Same as for the older gentleman, I think,” he said, tearing the page with Zeb’s measurements from the book and handing it to the woman.

  “May I suggest the green instead of the blue?” she asked, then added. “The eyes, you know.”

  The tailor stilled and then nodded.

  “You are correct, Letitia. Make it so.” He turned back to whe
re Roeglin was waiting, smiling quietly as though he hadn’t seen the woman hold out her hand and make a distinctive “pay-up” gesture.

  Her male colleague shot the tailor a glance but he paid, and the pair of them pulled bolts of cloth from the pile, consulting Zeb’s measurements as they chose a table to work at. In the meantime, the tailor completed Roeglin’s measurements and looked around the room.

  “You,” he said, his eyes falling on Marsh.

  She took a hasty swallow of chocolate and set her cup down. As she crossed over to him, the tailor glanced at Gustav.

  “Gown or trousers?” he asked, and Marsh caught the look of sheer mischief in the emissary’s eyes.

  “Both,” he said, “but the women need to match the men regardless.”

  “Dancing?” the tailor wanted to know.

  “Not to start with,” Gustav told him, and Marsh breathed a sigh of relief. “And both have to be able to carry their weapons.”

  Marsh felt the tailor’s hands still, and then the man sighed as though Gustav had just told him to do something uncivilized.

  “Very well, sir.”

  The way he said it Gustav’s request was anything but well, and Marsh gave the man points for not arguing. At least he respected what his clients wanted. The measuring went swiftly and painlessly, but the man asked them not to go too far since the fitting was a much more important part of the process.

  Roeglin offered him and his people kaffee, and he directed refreshments be set aside on a table well away from where they worked.

  “Now, if you don’t mind…” he said. “We have much to do.”

  As though the measuring didn’t count.

  Marsh kept that thought firmly behind her teeth and focused on the hot shroom pastries Daniel had sent to their tables. Per came to join them as soon as the tailor had settled to work with his staff.

  “So,” he said, looking at Roeglin and Gustav, “what are your plans for the day?”

  “Plans?” Roeglin asked, and gestured toward the tailor. “We try and get suitably dressed for a council meeting.”

  He looked around the table.

  “We’re going to need an armorer too. I noticed we need some repairs.”