(An aside. Again, we cannot seem to do anything useful without eating through it! But this time, I disclaim all responsibility! I can only assume Limbane was hungry, and timed his visit accordingly).
‘Good morning, Limbane,’ said I with perfect dignity. I let none of my surprise or distaste show, because if he wanted to play at pretend this is a completely normal occurrence then by all means, I can do that too. I went to fill a plate with my own breakfast — I concentrated mostly upon such favourite delicacies as dried and stewed fruits, fried bread and syrup, whether or not they are unhealthy — and sat directly across from Limbane. I mean, I might have been privately hoping never to encounter his irritating face again, but if he insists upon invading my home in his urgency to see me, I want to be able to see him clearly. Who knows what nefarious mischief he’s planning.
I sat and sipped and supped and waited for the manipulation attempts to begin. He would suggest he has something that I need, perhaps, and try to persuade me that I cannot manage without him. He would dangle mysterious hints before me, suggesting that he knows all manner of things I am desperate to learn of and would share them… for a price. I mustered my resources, strengthened my will, dampened my desire to explode with temper in his aggravating face, and waited.
‘I need your help,’ he said.
I choked upon my tea.
‘Do you really?’ I said, trying to look elegant while I applied a napkin to the small river of tea flowing down my chin.
‘Yes.’
Typically, he did not elaborate.
‘All right,’ I said ungraciously. ‘Why do you need my help?’
‘Because Dwinal is set to become the kind of problem I need to not have, and I want someone to get in her way.’
‘You have a great many people at your disposal who are more powerful than I,’ I had to point out, much as I hate to admit to my own inferiority.
‘Dwinal knows all my people, and I need not explain to you the grave impracticality of anybody’s trying to masquerade themselves in that kind of company.’
‘So you want me to try?’
‘Of course not.’ Limbane looked suitably scornful of this idea, which I took as an uncomplimentary reflection upon my abilities. As such, my mood did not exactly improve. ‘I understand you have Dwinal’s grandson here.’
‘How do you know that?’ I asked without much hope of receiving an answer. He would say something fabulously and irritatingly vague like, ‘I have my ways,’ and I would punch him.
‘Word travels,’ he said, and I punched him.
Well, no, I didn’t. But I was tempted to.
‘Gio isn’t my puppet. If you want his help, go see him.’
‘He is in your employ. Besides, it is not just Gio’s assistance I am hoping for. Dwinal appears to have developed an overpowering interest in the partial Lokants of your world, and as such I imagine she would be more than happy to … talk with you.’
‘Dwinal?’ I repeated dumbly. ‘Isn’t it Ylona who’s kidnapping my partials?’
Limbane raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Is it?’
I took a deep breath, expertly mastering my desire to break something against his face, and took a calming sip of tea. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you know,’ I suggested in a deceptively mild tone, ‘and then tell me what you want. Then I can tell you my price, and we can proceed to a negotiation.’
‘Find out what Dwinal is doing,’ he replied, smoothly ignoring my first request. ‘I mean, find out what she is really doing, for while I have my suspicions, I find her to be annoyingly adept at hiding the truth.’
‘How frustrating for you,’ I murmured.
He did a little glaring, an expression I returned with a placid smile.
Tren came in. Do you notice the delay? Have I mentioned before that he sometimes takes longer to dress than I do? It’s true.
‘Limbane,’ he said, with a suspicious narrowing of his lovely eyes that I found heart-warming. ‘What a surprise.’
‘I have come here to grovel,’ said Limbane, which surprised me, because I hadn’t noticed a great deal of grovelling happening up to that point.
‘And Eva hasn’t thrown you out yet? She must be in a good mood.’ He bent to kiss me in passing, and retreated to the sideboard and its proffered dishes.
‘Or perhaps she wants something from me, too,’ suggested Limbane.
‘Of course not,’ I said. Immediate denial is always the best policy, even if — damn him — he was right.
‘Isn’t there something we want?’ Tren enquired. ‘There usually is.’
Well, fair. ‘I expect to be able to come up with something,’ I conceded.
‘You did mention a price,’ said Limbane.
If Tren tried to hide his grin, he didn’t try very hard. ‘Naturally.’
All right, I’m bored with Limbane. The rest of the conversation proceeded roughly as follows:
Me: I want unimpeded access to literally every piece of knowledge ever uncovered by the whole of Lokantkind, forever.
Limbane: No.
Me: Some of it, forever.
Limbane: No.
Me: Some of it, for a while?
Limbane: All right.
Me: I also want proper training in my Lokant abilities, and the use of a range of teachers for my school.
Limbane: … fine.
Me: Really?!
Limbane: Well… yes.
Me: You really are desperate.
Limbane: You have no idea.
27 IV
So, we have a new assignment. It is essentially the same as our old assignment, only it makes our old assignment that much more confusing by way of a bonus, which is always nice.
Limbane had nothing much of use to tell us, or nothing that he would share. He wouldn’t explain what he means by his “suspicions” about Dwinal, because he might be wrong and he wouldn’t want to prejudice our thinking. Annoyingly, I couldn’t even argue against that because it is logical.
Gio was not happy. He returned looking whiter than usual and evaded our questions regarding his grandmother. From which I concluded that he hadn’t approached her and really didn’t want to.
Well, considering what I know of his background from Llandry’s account, I can hardly blame him.
So, alternative plan. Guess who gets to play double agent instead?
That’s right: me. If we already have Gio positioned with Ylona, we need somebody else to butter up Dwinal. I can easily pass myself off as a ruthless, ambitious socialite who will stop at nothing in pursuit of power. It’s what half the world seems to think of me anyway. I don’t know how they think my forthcoming marriage to Tren fits into this programme, but then one doesn’t expect people to be either consistent or rational.
The question is: how to get Dwinal’s attention? Trying to get ourselves kidnapped no longer seems a viable idea, because…
…Well, no, perhaps it would still work. Limbane hinted strongly that Ylona isn’t necessarily our kidnapper. Meanwhile, Ori’s information is useful after all. Susa and Faronni are both sorcerers! We rejected the significance of that link because Heliandor isn’t one, but now that Heliandor proves to be no partial Lokant after all, I’m minded to reconsider.
We have three partials associated with the Bureau. The two who also possess sorcerer abilities have been taken. The one who doesn’t, has not.
So. I wonder if summoners would count, too? And I wonder, once again, whether somebody might find me a tempting target, if I arranged a suitable opportunity? Ylona might have rejected the idea, but if Dwinal is our abductress, that hardly matters. And Dwinal, by Llandry’s account, is sometimes more ruthless than sensible.
Tren, of course, is a sorcerer. If we create a fake partial-Lokant persona for him and put the both of us somewhere conveniently out-of-the-way and easy-to-access, I wonder if we might manage to get ourselves made off with after all?
‘Darling,’ said I to the love of my life soon after this period of reflection. ‘What do you thi
nk of the name Archivere?’
‘Most elegant,’ he said promptly. ‘Are we choosing baby names already? Do you have something to tell me?’
‘No!’ I uttered the syllable instantly and forcefully, which provoked a laugh from Tren. More like a cackle. Alas, he is so lamentably adept at winding me up.
‘It is your new name,’ I informed him. ‘Archivere Dalsy, of Orstwych. A man of mixed sorcerer heritage and some Lokant blood. Together, you and I shall present an irresistible picture to Dwinal. Or Ylona. Or whoever it is that’s making our lives difficult lately.’
Tren thought that over. ‘We can’t just make up a partial-Lokant persona. They have those timelines, remember? Family trees going back centuries? If they’ve tracked draykoni families that closely, I can hardly imagine they’ve neglected to keep track of their own.’
‘I think they have done exactly that. Why else do they need our Bureau, and our information? If they knew who all of their distant Seven-Realms descendants are, they could have claimed them long ago. I think that tracking Lokant families is harder, because the heritage doesn’t manifest in everyone who happens to have a Lokant ancestor somewhere back in the mists of time. With some families, generations can pass without a white-hair emerging. I think their descendants are randomly scattered all over the Seven, and they have almost as much of an idea of where to look for them as we do.’
‘They can’t be that ignorant. Limbane seems to know exactly who your ancestress is.’
That brought me up short for a moment, because I had forgotten that. I was briefly intrigued. Who was the Lokant woman who had spawned my branch of the family? What was her story? Would she be someone I would like?
And how did Limbane know about that, anyway?
Never mind — distraction.
‘Probably they are not all that ignorant,’ I conceded. ‘But I doubt there is any centralised records system in this respect, or, probably, in any other. Lokant Libraries do not seem to play nicely together.’
‘Fair point,’ Tren conceded.
‘So I think we may fabricate an Archivere Dalsy, and everyone will simply assume he is somebody else’s family. Probably they do not much care. If we are right, they want sorcerer-Lokants and possibly summoner-Lokants; in other words, people with mixed Lokant and draykoni heritage. Where exactly those people came from is, I would wager, less important.’
‘I can see you are committed to the idea, so I will argue no further,’ said Tren graciously, and was so polite — and so mocking — as to bow to me.
‘It is the name I like,’ I admitted. ‘It has such possibilities. I am reluctant to abandon it.’
‘I can only agree with you. Nobody called Archivere could be anything less than a man of vast character.’
I beamed at him. ‘I knew you would understand.’
Truthfully, I was a little discomfited by Tren’s obvious doubts. I have not exactly covered myself in glory thus far, having produced one or two conclusions already that were flat wrong, and made more than one mistake. Perhaps Tren was right, and no one would be fooled by our ruse. They would know right away that no such person as Archivere Dalsy had ever existed, and would realise that they had encountered a con.
No matter. I did ask him, later, if he had any better ideas, and he had to admit that he did not.
So, we turned Tren into Archivere Dalsy — giving him a whole new wardrobe in the process, an activity from which I freely admit to deriving immense enjoyment — and installed him in a little house in Orstwych. We inserted all the right records for him at all the right places. We sent him a letter from me, with enough fanfare to ensure that (if anybody was, indeed, watching our post) somebody would take notice. The letter arranged a time when I, Lady Glostrum, would arrive to visit Archivere Dalsy, and discuss the possibilities of a bursary with him.
We dispatched Gio plus Ori back to Sulayn Phay — well, they hate to be separated, which is hardly surprising, and anyway I prefer for Gio to have somebody reliable by his side — and away went Tren to Orstwych. I remained behind alone, with no one but Adonia for company.
‘Wonderful hat,’ I informed her by way of conversation, soon after Tren’s departure. Well, it was lonely, and I had to talk to somebody.
She adjusted the splendid thing, clearly pleased by the compliment. It was a wide-brimmed affair, the kind that curves and dips and positively explodes with effusive adornment. There were at least eight colours involved, which I am sure you will agree is far more than should ever be boasted by a single hat. I strongly suspected that she had decorated the thing herself.
‘I made it myself,’ she declared, with a bright smile.
I tried to look suitably impressed.
Since she was wearing it with a blouse of cerise silk, a voluminous violet skirt and spiky shoes, I could not look at her for too long.
‘Adonia,’ I said. I briefly considered bestowing a lecture on such elusive concepts as complementary colours and less is more but the dewy, delighted expression upon her face following my insincere compliment defeated my resolve.
Instead I said: ‘You may find that the Bureau is a little empty for a day or two, as we have business elsewhere.’ (I had not, of course, informed her as to the nature of the business. Nor had anybody else. Our plan was concocted exclusively among the four of us — Tren and I, Gio and Ori — and nobody else was taken into our confidence).
‘I need you to keep track of any further applications we receive, send them a letter of acknowledgement, and hand me the correspondence the moment I return. Any urgent problems may be taken to Lord Angstrun. Any questions?’
She blinked at me, wide-eyed. ‘Do you think this hat would be improved by another feather? A larger one, the curling kind, right on the brim.’
‘No,’ I said, this time choosing the brutal truth.
‘Oh.’ Her face fell.
I could not suppress a sigh. ‘Oh, why not? Just one more feather, though. Too many more and you will not be able to hold up your head.’
The delighted smile returned, and I left before I could be betrayed into encouraging any more such excesses.
I did not tell Adonia, of course, that I had privately tasked Angstrun with keeping an eye on her. I didn’t want to suspect her of duplicity, and since Heliandor’s unmasking it seemed particularly unlikely that Adonia had anything to do with anything. But one has to at least consider these possibilities, much as I dislike the idea. He assured me that he would have Some of his People discreetly watch her doings and make sure that correspondence arrived at, and departed from, Adonia’s office as it should.
As such, I was able to depart upon my espionage mission with something approaching peace of mind. Irritating as Darae can be, he can also be useful, and surprisingly supportive on occasion.
If Tren had not been blessed (or cursed, however one wishes to look at it) with such powerful abilities as a sorcerer, he could have been an actor. I have had occasion to observe this talent in him before.
When I arrived at his borrowed house in Orstwych in all my aristocratic state and rang the doorbell, the person who answered the door was scarcely recognisable to me. If I were not in on the plan, and besides that so intimately familiar with Tren’s beloved features, I would never have guessed that it was he. The man who opened the door appeared to be rather younger than Tren, barely into his twenties, and he possessed a demeanour of abundant, youthful enthusiasm which Tren (for all his optimistic temper) has never displayed. His hair (now artificially whitened) was , apparently because Archivere Dalsy had a habit of fidgeting with it when he was excited about something. His clothes stopped just short of dandified (as committed to our mission as Tren is, he would never consent to be badly dressed, not for any reason whatsoever).
He had a pipe in one hand. A pipe. An accoutrement which, you must agree, might more naturally be expected of a much older character, for the youth are not known for their fondness for pipes. The things are not considered fashionable. Archivere was unabashed, however, and seemed
to regard his with a fondness bordering upon the manic, for he puffed upon it without cease and I never saw him without it in his hand.
‘Lady Glostrum!’ cried he, and swept me a bow. ‘How delightful! How marvellous! I have been so eager for your arrival I have hardly slept, hardly eaten, I cannot tell you how delighted I am at the prospect of joining your magnificent school. Do please come in. I have refreshments — doubtless not up to your usual standard and of course I apologise, but I have done my little best! Do watch the step! I should hate for you to trip on those glorious skirts and injure yourself in some way. There, I shall just close the door behind you. The wind is quite chill, is it not? The parlour is this way.’
On we went, and on he went, maintaining such a ceaseless flow of chatter I could hardly get a word in. I could hardly keep a straight face, either, which was inconvenient. He served me good things and chattered while I ate them, and perhaps we both privately wondered how long it would be necessary to maintain the charade before anything useful happened.
If anything useful happened. It was all a bit of a gamble, after all.
I found it within myself to tell Archivere Dalsy all about our Bureau and our school, and the bursary we were inclined to offer. I believe I managed to do it reasonably convincingly, though I cannot but admit that acting is not my strong point. Tren says it is because I am too decidedly, resolutely myself to have the capacity to become someone else. He is probably right, though that sounds like a passingly unflattering reflection to my ear. Too self-satisfied by half! Why would I ever want to be someone else when I can be Lady Glostrum?
Anyway. Time passed, tea was drunk, many words were exchanged, and nothing happened. Nobody came to the house, nobody appeared spontaneously in Archivere’s parlour, nobody broke in through the window. Nothing.
We began to exchange faintly concerned looks. How wretchedly disappointing, to go through such a charade for nothing! Not that Tren hadn’t enjoyed it. It was probably worth it for that alone. Still, it was not quite a productive use of our time, if the only advantage it afforded was giving Tren the chance to play dress-up for a couple of days.
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