“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 demure
ly 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 luc
k 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 façade 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.
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