The Magicians and Mrs. Quent

by Galen Beckett

  “Damnable Siltheri,” he muttered as Eldyn passed through.

  These words sent a shiver up Eldyn’s back. He thought of the band of illusionists he had seen the last time he was here, recalling their shimmering attire, their pale necks. Surely he could not be mistaken for one of them. Nor were they inside the tavern this night. However, Rafferdy was, waving at him from his place in the corner, and Eldyn went to join him.

  Rafferdy seemed in a fine mood. He laughed and announced he was delighted to see Eldyn, and now they could order punch. He signaled a man, who delivered them a crock, two cups, lumps of sugar, spoons, and a lemon. The fellow held out a hand.

  “Garritt, you wouldn’t mind paying our bill this time, would you?” Rafferdy nodded toward the man.

  Eldyn winced. What sort of cruel fate was it that Rafferdy’s pockets should be empty and his own full? God mocked him. But then he smiled despite himself, as if comprehending the divine joke. The money he had gotten today could not buy him a future; it might as well buy them a drink. He pulled a coin out.

  “A regal!” Rafferdy said, eyes alight. “Our amusement is assured tonight.”

  “I thought your amusement was always assured,” Eldyn said. The punch was sweet and strong.

  “Only because I go to great lengths to assure it. Amusement is a challenging business, Garritt. If one does not concentrate, if one lets up even for a moment, the risk of suffering something boring or tedious is immediate and dire. As you are no doubt well aware, given your glum looks. What’s the matter? How is that business of yours going?”

  There was no use speaking of it. “I am still working to arrange things,” he said, and downed the contents of his cup. “But what of you, Rafferdy? You seem in fine spirits. What has propelled you to such great heights?”

  “Propelled? No, it is rather that nothing has weighed me down. The natural progression of my spirit is ever upward, even as yours is always directed down. But let us see who will tug the harder tonight, Garritt. By God, I would drag you up if I could.” And he refilled Eldyn’s cup.

  “So you’ve seen her again,” Eldyn said with a laugh, feeling a heady warmth from the spirits. “Miss Lockwell.”

  “It was a chance encounter, over on Warden Street.”

  Eldyn raised an eyebrow. “A chance encounter? After your driving halfway across the city and lying in wait, you mean?”

  “As I’ve learned at dice, sometimes it helps to give chance a nudge when no one is looking.”

  “And as I’ve learned, you’re a pauper tonight,” Eldyn said, refilling Rafferdy’s cup. “No doubt from losing at gambling. I’d think you’d be more careful.”

  “What was there to be careful of? I simply spied Miss Lockwell and her sisters as they left a shop, greeted them, much to their obvious delight, and walked with them awhile. You should have joined me, Garritt. They are all three pleasing to look at.”

  Eldyn shrugged. “Perhaps, though I cannot say I find them so fetching as you do. The youngest is lively, it is true. And I warrant you, there is something about the eldest. I can’t quite describe it. She is pretty, I suppose. And she carries herself well, though she is too short to be a beauty. And did you notice her freckles? Does she never wear a bonnet?”

  Rafferdy said he had indeed noticed Miss Lockwell’s freckles. He did not seem to find them properly abhorrent.

  Eldyn would be the first to admit that their visit at the house on Whitward Street had gone better than he had feared. It had been long since Eldyn had known any society besides that of his sister and Rafferdy, and he had found the Lockwells engaging. The middle sister was too mild, of course, and their mother too loud. But he enjoyed discussing plays with the youngest sister, and there could be no faulting either the wit or the manners of the eldest.

  “Well, it hardly matters how fetching they are,” Eldyn said. “They are beneath you, Rafferdy.”

  “Indeed!” Rafferdy said with a laugh. “Their connections are hopelessly inferior, at least to one in my situation. And what society they keep—their cousin is a lawyer with all the manners of a leech. They are completely beneath me. And I can assure you, Miss Lockwell is very aware of this fact.”

  “Is she?” Eldyn said over his cup. “Has she said this to you?”

  “No, of course not. It would be uncouth to be so direct. But she is clever. She has so much as said it in a dozen subtle ways. I have no fear of untoward attachments on her part. No one is more sensitive of the gulf between us than she.”

  “If that is so, then do you not think that your encounters with her might cause her distress?”

  This idea was unfathomable to Rafferdy. “I enjoy her wit, as she does mine. There is a freshness about her speech—a way of being sharp without being cutting—that I never will encounter at a party in the New Quarter. She is utterly without affectation. Given that affectation is all I have, I naturally find her fascinating. Besides, they may be beneath me, but for you, Garritt…”

  “As for me, I fear I am beneath them,” Eldyn said, and quaffed his punch.

  “Nonsense! Not beneath you. You are the grandson of a magnate, after all. And you’re not so broke as you’d like me to think. I saw your pocketful of money. Either of the younger two would do well to catch you.”

  Eldyn did not bother to argue. That a marriage between him and any one of the Lockwell sisters could result in anything but misery was impossible. When both sides wanted for money, a match was doomed.

  Besides, there was already one he might marry to assure himself a living. He felt the lump of bread in his pocket. His stomach had gone sour; he should eat more. Instead, he filled their punch cups again, and after that they put all their attention into getting drunk.

  THE BRIEF UMBRAL was nearly done when he returned to the Golden Loom. As he stumbled through the streets of the Old City, he had forgotten to gather the shadows around him, and he had nearly been parted from what remained of his money by a group of men in ragged clothes who appeared from behind one of the buttresses of St. Galmuth’s. However, fear had cleared his mind, and with an instinct as natural to him as drawing a breath, he had spun the darkness into a concealing garment and had darted down a dark lane, losing the robbers.

  By the time he reached the inn, the clarity imparted by a brush with peril had faded, leaving his head dull and throbbing from too much rum. He nodded to the doorkeeper, then headed for the stairs, wanting only to go to his room, to throw himself in a chair and not move, not even think—that is, to enjoy the blissful, insensible hours of a drunken stupor. However, before he could start up the stairwell, a tall form stepped from a doorway.

  “You have something of mine,” the other said in a deep voice. “You have had it for days, and yet you have not returned it to me. Did you think to keep it for yourself?”

  Eldyn gripped the newel post. A man stepped into the circle of tarnished light cast by a lamp that hung from the ceiling. He was tall and broad, clad in a coat of russet velvet. His lion’s mane of hair was loose about his shoulders.

  “You have something of mine,” Westen said again, prowling closer.

  At first, in a mad thought, Eldyn thought he was speaking of Sashie. Then his foggy mind recalled the handkerchief tucked into his coat pocket. He fumbled for it, pulled it out, and the half-eaten hunk of bread came with it, tumbling to the floor.

  “My apologies,” Eldyn said, fighting to keep his voice steady. “I would have returned this to you sooner. However, I have not seen you about of late. Yet now that you are here, you must take it back.” He held out the silk cloth and cursed himself for the way it betrayed the trembling of his hand.

  Westen did not reach for the handkerchief. Instead, he took another step nearer. “I do not give a token of myself lightly. I give it only to one who will keep it in good faith. It is a spell of sorts, a charm, one that protects me in my work. Always the spell has kept me safe on the road. Yet I have been much harried by the king’s redcrests of late. At first I did not suspect the reason—until she told m
e that you had taken it from her.”

  A spark of anger ignited in Eldyn’s chest. “I fear that you made a mistake. It was—it is—impossible for my sister to keep it in any sort of faith. If you had hoped to elicit any protections in granting it to her, you did so in vain.”

  Again Eldyn held out the cloth, but the highwayman did not take it. His tawny eyes were still on Eldyn, and Eldyn could feel a power radiating from him: the aura of a man who was strong, and handsome, and rich, and who knew it. All at once a grin spread across Westen’s clean-shaven face. It was a perilous expression. The spark in Eldyn’s chest collapsed to a cinder.

  “Perhaps you are right,” the highwayman said. “Perhaps I did give it to the wrong keeper after all.” And with that he took the handkerchief.

  The sweat cooled on Eldyn’s brow. He turned to ascend the stairs.

  “I understand you need regals, Garritt.”

  Eldyn’s fingers tightened on the railing.

  “The sum of a hundred regals, to be exact.”

  Eldyn turned from the stairs. “How can you know that?” However, even as he said this, he understood. Westen must have eavesdropped on one of his conversations with Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing. “You have been spying on me.”

  The highwayman shrugged. “I can give you the gold you need.”

  Despite his tiredness and dread, Eldyn laughed. “Give? You would give it to me? I should think not. You are not much one for giving but rather taking, are you not? Would that I had a mask and pistol, Mr. Westen, if that is indeed your name. For then I could elicit your charity just as you do of those you waylay on the roads.”

  “Do not think you know me,” Westen answered, his voice low. “Though I will grant you, there is some truth to your words. And you are right. I offer no gift. For I want something in return.”

  Fear was gone, as was weariness. For all his present uncertainty, there were some things that caused Eldyn no doubt. “If you think I would sell my sister to the likes of you, think again.”

  The highwayman laughed. “So you would sell her, you mean, but only to the right man. How like a true gentleman, who thinks nothing of love but only of money, and who, from his female kin, would gladly steal any hope of the former in order to gain the latter. For what is marriage but whoremongering for the wealthy? And they say I’m a thief.”

  Eldyn’s cheeks burned, and his hands became fists. “I would do anything to assure her happiness.”

  “Would you, Garritt? I am curious: what exactly would you do in order to assure your sister’s future?” Westen reached inside his jacket and took out a leather purse. It was heavy, by the way he held it. “I have it here, Garritt—a hundred regals. Is that not what you need to make what you dream come to pass?”

  Eldyn licked his lips. A few hours ago, in this very spot, he had taken bread from Miss Walpert. Now he felt a different sort of hunger. He meant to tell Westen to sod off, to turn away and march up the stairs.

  Instead, he said, “What do you want?” The highwayman smiled, led him to the corner, and spoke in the lowest of voices.

  The thing was not difficult, and that was what first let Eldyn know it was wrong. There was a village at Hayrick Cross, three miles north of the city. There was a blacksmith’s shop in the village. There was a man in the shop with red hair. Eldyn was to ask the man for nine nails and to pay him with three pennies. After buying the nails, he should go to the public house in the village. He should order an ale. He should take a quarter hour to drink it, no more, no less. Once finished, he should go to the old well east of the village. He should look for a loose stone in the rim and pry it up. Under the stone would be a slip of paper. On the paper would be a word. He was to memorize the word, then tear up the paper and throw it in the well.

  Upon returning to Invarel, he was to read The Fox every day it was published, particularly the advertisements on the last page. When he saw an advertisement listing pewter candlesticks, silver snuffboxes, and gold thimbles for sale, he was to go to the street printed in the advertisement but not to the house number. Instead, the address he must go to could be derived from the number of candlesticks, snuffboxes, and thimbles listed in the advertisement. Once there, he should knock. A man would ask him his name. He should give it as Mr. ____, with the surname being the word he had read on the paper at the well.

  The man would give him a leather tube. The tube would contain a letter at one end and a reservoir of ink at the other. Eldyn was not to look at the letter. He was to put the tube in a cloth sack with the nine nails he had bought and travel to Hayrick Cross that night, arriving precisely halfway through the umbral, no matter how long or short the night was. He was to wait by the well until the red-haired man from the blacksmith’s shop arrived. He was to tell the man he did not need the nails and to give him the sack. If anyone else arrived at the well, or if anyone else was with the red-haired man, or if anyone accosted him on the road there—especially an agent of the king or a servant of the Gray Conclave—he was to turn one end of the tube, which would release the ink, letting it spill into the other chamber and blotting out the message written on the paper.

  Once this business was done, he was to go back to Invarel. He was to look for more advertisements in The Fox. If he saw one, he was to go to the address (remembering how to decipher it) and get another leather tube. If a week passed and he saw no advertisement, his work was done and his hundred regals earned. That was it. That was all he had to do. There was nothing else.

  As he spoke, Westen had pressed Eldyn into the corner, blocking his escape with an arm braced against the wall.

  “It is mischief you wish me to work,” Eldyn said, keeping his voice low. “And treason as well, I warrant. What messages could be passed back and forth in such an ungodly manner save those that seek to harm the Crown?”

  “So you are a king’s man?”

  “I am not a criminal.”

  “And what deed, if it be just, can ever truly be called a crime? How can it be stealing to take something that was already stolen and give it back to its rightful owner?”

  “You call it justice, robbing people on the road? I don’t care who you give the money to. I don’t care if you give it all away—which I am certain you do not. I still call it thievery.” He broke free of the highwayman. Except he had the feeling it was Westen who let him go, that if the taller man had wanted it, Eldyn would still be pinned in place.

  “You will change your mind.”

  Eldyn halted on the stairs, but he did not turn around.

  “I know what your dear sister has spoken about you. And I’ve watched you. You are like me, Garritt, whether you know it or not. We both want to be something more than we are.”

  No, he was wrong. They were nothing alike. Eldyn hurried up the stairs, into his rooms, and locked the door behind him.

  THE BRIEF DAY was already half over when he awoke. Sunset was five hours away. He was glad. It would be a blessing to have this done with. Once his fate was decided, there would be nothing more to worry about.

  He washed his face, ran a razor over his cheeks, and combed and tied back his hair. He polished his boots and brushed his coat, gently, so as not to cause more distress to the poor garment. Soon he would have a new coat. Not fine like this one had been once, but not threadbare either. A simple coat, and warm.

  The door to Sashie’s little room was closed. He knocked. “Please come out, dearest,” he crooned, but he heard only a shuffling of steps. He sighed. She would forgive him soon.

  And when will that be? The moment you tell her that you have assured her future working as a servant in the very inn where her happiness was ruined? Is that when you can expect her to forgive you?

  There was nothing for it; he went downstairs.

  He saw the innkeeper just heading into the back salon. Good, that would give him a private place to make his proposal. He gathered his will, then headed for the dining room to ask Mr. Walpert for his daughter’s hand.

  His boot kicked something as he w
ent, and he looked down. On the floor lay a hunk of half-eaten bread. Flies danced upon it in a merry feast. A moment ago he had been ravenous, but now his stomach clenched.

  “Is there something you need, Mr. Garritt?”

  He looked up. The innkeeper stood before him, smiling, a kindness in his rheumy eyes.

  Eldyn took a breath. “I wanted to—”

  Then Eldyn saw him, past the innkeeper’s shoulder, through the door into the public room. He leaned against the bar, regaling a group of coarse men and painted women with some tale of his exploits.

  “Yes, Mr. Garritt?” The innkeeper cocked his head.

  Eldyn swallowed. “I just wanted a cup of tea, that’s all.”

  “But of course! Anything for our young Mr. Garritt. Sit yourself down, and I’ll bring it to you myself!”

  Sickness flooded Eldyn, but only for a moment. Then he felt a strange sensation come over him. It was like the lifting of a weight, like the release of a vise’s pressure. He went to sit in a corner of the public room and soon was sipping his tea. He did not look at the bar.

  Just as he finished his tea, he heard the sound of boots behind him. A leather purse landed with a thud on the table.

  “You begin tonight,” said a low voice in his ear.

  Eldyn reached out and took the purse. There was a soft laugh, then the sound of boots walking away. Eldyn weighed the purse in his hand. It was heavier than he’d imagined. He tucked it inside his coat, then rose and hurried to the door. He had just four hours to find Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing.

  And after that, time to work.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THAT A CHANGE had come over Dashton Rafferdy was soon apparent to his intimate acquaintances. It was a fact noted at Lord Baydon’s city house over breakfast and expounded upon in Lady Marsdel’s parlor during evening conversations. The languid air about him had all but dissipated; mirrors no longer seemed to occupy him so fully; and some mornings he had been seen out and about the city no more than an hour after dawn. All agreed that he looked unusually well.