The Empire Stone

by Chris Bunch

  The trap was being laid.

  • • •

  Peirol went up steps, down corridors, following the servant with his saddlebags, who looked as much a bandit as valet. Suddenly a voice came from an alcove: “Peirol! It is you!”

  Zaimis caught him around the shoulders, holding him close, saying his name over and over as if he were a lost lover instead of a momentary companion in misfortune. He’d just begun to consider how her breasts felt even better next to his cheek than he dreamed when she pulled away.

  Zaimis was more beautiful than he remembered, her blond hair now cut short, her perfect face not needing makeup, but her lips lightly rouged. She wore a floor-length linen gown that buttoned chastely at her throat.

  “You’re safe! You’re here! I thought you were dead.”

  “I was,” Peirol said. “But the memory of your beauty brought me back to life.” She giggled, looked at the scowling servant. “You. I assume milord is putting him in the second tower?”

  “Yes, milady.”

  “Good. Go, await us there, for I’ve some memories to share with Peirol, and you would be bored.”

  The man hesitated, then bowed and walked away.

  “It would have been simpler to just dismiss him,” Zaimis said. “But not with a bedchamber in the offing. My Lord Aulard trusts me no more than the rest of his wives, which is to say not at all,” she said, a little bitterly.

  Peirol remembered the dark mate Edirne, and a night full of moans. “That’s too bad,” he said piously. “For a man who doesn’t trust a woman as clearly honorable as you is to be pitied.”

  Zaimis looked up and down the corridor, then tucked her hand under his arm. “I thought I saw you killed, after you gave that wretch Libat his due.”

  Peirol told her what had happened from the bloody decks of the Petrel on, omitting details he thought might be embarrassing, such as Niazbeck’s wife and daughter.

  “You have the luck of the gods.”

  “So I would hope,” Peirol said truthfully. “But there were times I despaired of their existence.”

  “Don’t ever do that! I myself have prayed and prayed, and now you’ve arrived and I know, somehow, you’ll help me.”

  “I would be only too delighted,” Peirol said, “if I knew what troubled you.”

  “It’s Lord Aulard,” she hissed, looking from side to side like a trapped wildcat. “He didn’t tell me, or rather my father, the truth when he wooed me.”

  “How terrible,” Peirol said neutrally. “In what way?”

  “He never said that he has eleven other wives, to begin with,” Zaimis said. “Nor did he say that he’s not much better than that pirate who ransomed me. Worse, for Lord Kanen was certainly fairer to the eye than Aulard, and his home wasn’t in the middle of a barren, like this horrible pile of stones. I should have … never mind.”

  Peirol wondered what she should have, and said banally, “Yes, well, sometimes things aren’t quite the way we expect them. But at least Aulard gives you a safe home, which is a great deal these days.”

  “Piffle,” Zaimis said. “I have enough faith in myself to know I could make my own way, if I had to. At least I’d have my freedom.

  “If only — ”

  Zaimis broke off and said, calmly, “Aulard is quite more than I’d expected, dear Peirol. Not just in” — and she simpered disgustingly — “in the ways you men talk about all the time, but as a companion and protector as well.”

  Peirol, wondering if she was mad, felt pressure on his shoulder from her hand and saw her finger pointing to the side. He looked, saw nothing but a tapestry of a lion hunt. Then he noted the dead lion, and how the yellow thread appeared thinner than in other places. He saw movement behind the tapestry — an eye? part of a face? — then nothing. They moved on.

  “You see?” Zaimis said fiercely. “The walls have ears and eyes, and anything that’s said in range of them is reported to my sneak of a lord, and he then applies ‘appropriate disciplines.’ Sometimes with his bare hand, sometimes with a whip. I … I confess at first I thought it exciting, a different kind of loveplay. But then … there were, until two Times ago, thirteen of us. That one — we’re forbidden to even think her name — was given to the bears.” Zaimis shivered. “I’m so afraid, Peirol. So afraid, and I don’t know what to do. But you’ll devise a plan, won’t you?”

  “What sort of plan?” Peirol temporized.

  “You’ll think of something. There’s your room, just ahead. I’ll see you at dinner, and hope you’ll be staying for a few days.” She started away, then turned back. “Do you remember, back on the ship, the night before those pirates came?”

  Peirol still cursed his caution.

  “I’ve sometimes wondered foolishly, thinking you were dead, but now the idea comes fresh, what could have happened if, well — I thought when Edirne knocked that it was you, and opened the door gladly. Perhaps things would have been better if they were different.” She smiled sultrily and was gone.

  Peirol, appalled, stared after her. Better? Edirne had been game until the sun rose. What miracles did she think dwarves were capable of? Now he was wondering if he shouldn’t have taken that carter’s advice and kept on moving, instead of following his ever-so-crafty plan. Why couldn’t Zaimis have been fat, pregnant, and happy?

  “Now this particular ruby,” Peirol told his rapt audience, “has a most evil tale behind it. Perhaps, Lord Aulard, I should not give details, for fear your wives will not sleep well this night.”

  “Go ahead,” Aulard rumbled. “I determine how my wives sleep — if at all.” He guffawed in an unseemly manner, and his swordsmen, now waiters, echoed the mirth.

  Peirol noted that only about half of the twelve women in the room seemed to find the remark funny. The dozen women ranged from Zaimis’s twenty years to thirty for the oldest. All, in various shades and colors, would be reckoned great beauties.

  The meal was straightforward, a warrior’s feast of spiced beef, roasted fowl, and sweet potatoes. Aulard ate heartily, if somewhat mechanically, most of the women less so, as if the menu were the same night after night.

  The wives clamored for tales of the outside world, of travel and glamour. Peirol obliged, lying when necessary. When the meal finished, he brought out a small bag and scattered a few stones on the tablecloth. He held up the ruby.

  “Now, as I’m sure Lord Aulard knows, it’s possible to change the color of a ruby by heating it. That deepens the red, makes it more alive,” Peirol said.

  “Risky business, that,” Aulard said. “Too hot, and the stone shatters.”

  “True,” Peirol agreed. “I think it’s best to have a magician in attendance, and let him ‘feel’ the stone as it heats. However, the history of this stone is very different. Note how the red has somewhat of a dark, brooding note to it. That’s because the jeweler who first cut it also practiced dark magic, and when the stone was finished, he used a young virgin’s blood in the spell.”

  There were ooohs, and even a couple of the swordsmen shifted uneasily.

  “That brought a dark curse,” Peirol went on. “The murderous jeweler died when the jewel passed from his hands, and the tale is that anyone who owns the stone will die when he sells or gives it away — unless a woman who’s close to him dies, no matter the cause, in which case he’s safe.”

  Of course the ruby in question had no such tale connected with it. It was just one of the stones Peirol had stolen from the great snake who’d guarded Slask’s underground temple in the ruins of Thyone.

  “But what about you?” a woman asked. “Aren’t you terrified that the curse may strike you?”

  “Little people,” Zaimis said, before Peirol could say anything, “have powers of their own, and I know Peirol to be very, very brave, able to stand against even magic.”

  Lord Aulard gave her a dark look. Peirol cut in before the situation could worsen. “I thank you, my lady. But technically I do not own this stone, but am acting as a middleman for its owner. He’s ve
ry noble, but I cannot mention his name. I’m taking this stone east to a big city, where I’ll sell it without mentioning its reputation.”

  “Won’t that doom someone in the new owner’s household?”

  “I don’t think so,” Peirol said. “For I’ve noticed the power of gods and demons ebbs more, the farther from their realm you travel. Halfway across the world, will that curse still have effect? I don’t think so, as I said. This is my specialty, taking jewels with dark reputations to places where their full value may be realized, without possibly false rumors lessening the stone’s worth.”

  “Dark reputations?” Aulard said. “Could that also include gems that have been, let us say, acquired in extralegal manners?”

  “Possibly,” Peirol said. “I judge my clients by what I think, not by what the world says.” Aulard stroked his beard.

  Peirol told half a dozen other stories, each bloody, each total fiction, before Aulard yawned, stretched, and drained his wine. “Time for sleep,” he announced, looked down the table. Some of the women smiled eagerly, others looked away. “You, Zaimis. I give you this night’s honor.”

  Aulard stared at Peirol, as if expecting a challenge. “Good night, noble lord,” Peirol said.

  Aulard grunted, took Zaimis by the hand, and walked out, flanked by two guards. Peirol wondered why he felt shamed, as if Aulard had seized a woman companioning him. Completely absurd, and so he pushed the thought away. But it still came back, as he tossed in his own chamber.

  • • •

  The vault, Peirol admitted, looked prepossessing, with four huge brass locks. However, he remembered what he’d learned from thieves: that a lock’s size means less to a skilled robber than its internal complexity. He was proven right when Lord Aulard took out four equally heavy, ornately cast keys that were simple skeletons in design.

  “I have been considering your profession,” Aulard said as he swung the iron door open with a clang. He set the large lamp he was carrying on the table in the room’s center. Drawers lined the walls, and Aulard took out several. Peirol noticed all came from the left wall.

  “Yes,” Peirol said. “I was … impressed with the jewel you sent Zaimis to pledge your troth.”

  The pause was deliberate. Aulard looked at him carefully. “Impressed? In what manner?”

  “In the manner of its careful construct.”

  “I find your choice of words interesting.”

  Peirol smiled.

  “Let me ask in another manner,” Aulard said. “If I’d brought you that jewel you told Zaimis was beyond value, if I quote you correctly, and also said that it had unusual qualities, just what would you allow me on it?”

  “Oh, perhaps a dozen pieces of silver,” Peirol said. “More if I knew of a collector of … curiosities who might be interested in such a finely wrought piece.”

  “Just a dozen pieces of silver?” Aulard pretended outrage. “For a blue diamond?”

  “For a blue stone, to be precise.”

  “There are few men in the jewel trade who could have recognized that object as mere crystal.”

  “I thank you, lord.”

  “I’m especially impressed you didn’t expose my small and meaningless romantic gesture to Zaimis. Men have died for less at my hand.”

  “So I understand.”

  “You’re not only clever, but careful.”

  “Someone of my physique learns that early,” Peirol said.

  “Yes, I suppose you would, wouldn’t you?” Aulard said. “The jewels, or mock-jewels, such as Zaimis was given, are kept in cabinets on the right. I find it very soothing to know, when I go out or to the city and my women accompany me, that the gems they gleefully wear are such that if they’re lost, stolen, or, as has happened, kept by a woman who’s decided to go her own way, I’ll lose little sleep. Not that that has slowed my revenge, my pursuit of someone who’s shamed me publicly, either male or female,” Aulard said, a bit of a growl in his voice. “Enough playing. Your profession appeals, because there are certain gems I possess that I’ll never be able to show, nor wear myself, nor allow any wife to display. Only a few have legends such as you told last night, but the reasons they must be kept in secret aren’t your concern.

  “My current situation is such that I desire greater gold, to take advantage of this war and purchase various properties around me whose owners — hardly friends — are in distressed circumstances. I would like to be able to convert these gems into cash, but I can hardly do something that crass myself, nor would I want my name associated with them.”

  “I see,” Peirol said, holding back a grin. The bait was taken. “Let me ask some questions and make, perhaps, some qualifications. Of course I’d be interested. That is in fact why I came to your castle.”

  “I surmised that,” Aulard said. “Therefore, neither of us should think the other a fool. What are your qualifications?”

  “First, another question. Is the reputation of these gems you wish me to handle of recent acquisition?”

  “None,” Aulard said shortly, “have been … acquired … over the last year, except for two, and those were gained under circumstances no one will ever suspicion.”

  “Good,” Peirol said. “A qualification is, no stone should have a dark reputation to the south or east, since that is the direction I travel. I hardly want to return them to, and I misuse the phrase, the scene of the crime.”

  “You could indeed have chosen better words,” Aulard said. “But that limitation is not a factor, since I know well the history of these jewels, and hardly wish to blow your gaff.”

  Peirol noted the use of thieves’ cant, hardly appropriate for noblemen.

  “Now let me bring up two questions of my own. What will be your commission?”

  “Thirty percent of the sales price,” Peirol said. “Plus a suitable expense, which I guarantee will not exceed an additional ten percent.”

  “That’s ridiculous! I’m willing to pay ten, perhaps fifteen percent, but no further.”

  “Then we should return to the receiving room, share a final brandy, and I shall be on my way, thinking well of how gracious a host you are.”

  “I could just throw you to the bears, take your jewels, and add them to my collection.”

  “You could,” Peirol said, voice indifferent. “But do you really believe none of my gems are cursed? Do you really think I’m foolish enough to go into the den of a man who keeps bears for amusement without certain safeguards? Do you really think I’m such a fool as to travel these roads truly alone?” Peirol stared into Aulard’s eyes until the nobleman pulled them away.

  “No,” Aulard grudged. “Of course not. Twenty percent.”

  “I’m known as a man who’s bad at bargaining, so I set a price and stick to it. Thirty percent was what I said, and what I meant. However, considering your courtesy, and that I’m excited by the possibility of handling some of the jewels I see on that table, I’ll lower my expenses to five percent of the final price.”

  Aulard growled wordlessly, nodded. He reached into a tray, raked jewels with his fingers. “That’s one of my questions,” he said. “There is another. As I said, neither of us are fools, so the question came: What is to keep you from simply going on, once you’ve sold my gems, and never returning with my share of the gold?”

  “Why,” Peirol said, “my innate honesty.”

  Both men smiled humorlessly.

  “Exactly,” Aulard said. “Then, deep in the night, a solution came. You appear to like my wife, Zaimis, and she has an attraction to you, I’ve discovered. I consider that somewhat perverse, but I’ve learned women are always receptacles of such wickedness. But that gave me my safeguard. First, I’ll send a man with you: Honoro, who I trust absolutely, who owes me his life and has sworn blood loyalty. He can bring the gold back, if you don’t desire to return on your tracks.

  “Second, I’ll have Zaimis as a hostage against any … difficulties. I promise, if you don’t come back, or rather if my gold doesn’t, she shall die
an unimaginably slow death, until, at the last, she shall be screaming for my bears to deliver her from torment. I have certain definite ideas — dreams, rather — that I would dearly love to develop, and Zaimis, as young and perfect as she is, would be an ideal subject.” Aulard’s smile was inward, terrible.

  “I don’t think that you’re like me in any way,” he went on. “I could listen to such a threat with equanimity, since women have never been more than an amusement. But I don’t think you’re like that. I think, Peirol of the Moorlands, you’re one of those people men like me were meant to have power over.”

  “You’re a man of hasty judgments,” Peirol said, holding back his temper.

  “But I’m almost invariably right,” Aulard retorted. “I can accept your conditions. Can you accept mine?”

  After a moment, Peirol extended his right hand, and Aulard clasped it.

  “Very good,” Aulard said. “Partner.”

  • • •

  Aulard muttered as he sorted through his gems. Peirol found the muttering instructive: “That bastard’s son’s still alive … too well known … the dwarf said nothing to the south …”

  Aulard chose first smaller unset stones, which would be easy to move, then larger gems, which would be harder to sell but would produce greater profits. Peirol decided he’d wait on the bigger gems until he struck a city at least the size of Arzamas, where there’d be someone anonymously wealthy to afford those baubles.

  Aulard set aside four particular gems: two diamonds, a fiery black opal, and a third, most unusual pin. All were very large, at least thirty varjas each, and very striking. The settings of three also held other, varied jewels.

  “This first diamond,” he said, “supposedly brings doom, a slow, coughing death, to its owner, although it’s done no harm to me. This other one carries a curse of sterility. I’ll admit I have no sons yet, so perhaps it’s well I’m rid of it, although I have little interest in creating someone who’ll grow to be a danger to me as I was to my father.