Bardian's Redemption_Book Four of the Guardian's Vambrace

by H. Jane Harrington

  “It's just... this is a position that should have been Mirhana's.”

  Kir sorely knew that, and Melia was right. It was the topmost reason she had procrastinated taking on more Second Ladies to begin with. Mirhana had been Kir's dearest friend and soulmate since childhood. They had been inseparable. Mirhana's death had very nearly destroyed Kir, but it had also set her down the convoluted path that had eventually led her to Vann. “Mir would have wanted someone she could trust at my side. She would have chosen you, Melia. I do not ask this for myself, but in Mirhana's name, and in her honor.”

  “Then, in Mirhana's honor, I accept.”

  Kir breathed a sigh of relief. “Whew! I was worried I had trampled all over some obscure cultural taboo I wasn't aware of.”

  Melia laughed with a residual quiver. “I don't think there's anything you've missed, Highness. You were always closer with our family than with your own blood—” She hiccuped a gasp, covering her mouth in realization that the truth might not be readily vocalized in propriety. “I'm sorry...”

  Kir waved off the apology. “You're stating fact. My own mother poisoned me. Nothing cuts family ties cleaner than three hundred nepenthe blooms and a healthy dose of rimsnout viper venom.”

  Melia still looked apologetic, but she smiled at Kir's urging. They touched foreheads together and stood there for a moment, sharing the affection that was more horse-like than human-like.

  “You can start the job whenever you're ready. Lili plans to bunk down in the tent with Malacar, Lyndal and me. Since you're shacking with Cope and Corban, don't feel obligated to take early mornings. Lili's got the routine down. Whenever you're done with Sorrha's morning prep, you can report to Lili and she'll assign you as she needs.”

  “Thank you, Highness.”

  “One last thing. No more title. We're all family, right? I'm Kir to you when out of the public eye. Or Kiriana, if that floats your boat.” She toggled a finger between Copellian and Corban. “That goes for both of you, too.”

  “Sure thing,” Copellian said with a wicked smirk and devilish gleam in his eye. It was borderline mean. “Highness.”

  “I mean it, Cope,” Kir said, inserting all the warning she could muster into her voice.

  “I heard you. Highness.” He was paying her back for all the times she had used his forbidden nickname against his wishes.

  Kir sighed dramatically and shook her head. “What in the five Hells did you ever see in this arrogant wencher, Melia? I'm certain I will never know.”

  -11-

  Tricks and Trades in the Honor and

  Dishonor Among Thieves

  “The long, lonely road of the traveling bard is worth the inherent

  hardships, for the colorful characters that line the path.”

  - Toma Scilio, Master Bard

  Dailan didn't have much magic to speak of, save some pathetic Naturals. He had never really boo-hoo'd about it because there weren't much could be done. He'd picked up a thing or two about tracking spells from the roughabouts on the streets.

  If it wasn't for his Naturals, Dailan might have lost the flame-haired wenchlet before he rounded the first corner. She had made straight for the laundry and disappeared into the wind-flapping linens that hung from the maze of lines. Dailan had planned to use the same place as an escape route if he'd ever needed it. Seemed like he wasn't the only one with a contingency.

  It would take too long to search through all the possibles, and there was an angry sort of search party on his heels, so Dailan cast out a simple tracking spell. It marked a jumble of outlined footprints to his mind's eye, but there were too many to sort. The clearest image seemed to be feet of the right size. Dailan chanced following them. He ducked his head low to minimize his profile as he slipped through the waving sheets.

  Voices carried, barking commands and directions. They probably had trackers with Naturals, too. If Dailan wasn't careful, he was bound to get caught. It wasn't the prospect that worried him so much, cause he was good at slipping sticky situations. It was more the fact that Deynartrial, Saiya Kunnai's shortsword, would be gone forever. Once nabbed goods were put to the darkets, which was a street name for underground trade dealings, you'd likely never see them again.

  The footprints led into the back entry of the laundry establishment. Dailan slipped inside quietly, hiding behind a barrel before he could be noticed. Eight collared servies were busy to work, mashing their feet in steaming tubs of watery linens. The sopping floor almost wiped away the trail, but there was a hint of shadow, just fresh enough to be visible, leading out the far doorway. There was no way through without attracting attention, so Dailan figured to make a break for it and hope none of the busy servies would pay him mind. He bolted from his hidey and started for the far door, just as the searching voices started rolling in from behind. The servies all looked up at the same time when they heard the urgent orders being shouted around their clean linen maze outside. Dailan, being right there in the path, froze like his feet had got stuck in ice. He glanced back at the door, then to the hidey hole behind the barrel, then to the servies. He shook his head a little, hoping to ask without asking. His feet scampered backward to the barrel again and he squeezed himself behind it, pressed so close to the wall that the humid drops wet his arm.

  “Did two children come through this way?” a sharp voice commanded. “A red-headed girl and a collared bogtrot boy?”

  “Yes, Lawmaster,” said someone from the tubs. “They ran through the laundry and out the front.”

  “This way, men!” Clomping feet shook the floor as the campus law-arms pounded through. Dailan waited a good long minute after the floor stopped thumping before he finally poked his head over the barrel.

  He didn't say thanks in words. Instead, he gave a salute to let the laundry servies know he was grateful. They said their you're-welcomes with nodding heads and smiles, then they turned heads back to their sloshing tubs. Dailan poked his own head through the back door and found nobody there, so he slipped out silently the way he'd come.

  Now the question was how to pick up the wenchlet's trail again. She was fast and agile like Dailan, and since she was probably a local, there was no telling how many hideys she knew. Dailan would have to tread careful to make damn good and sure not to run into any of the law-arms. Rather than go through the laundry again, it would be better to skirt the building. Maybe he could pick up her trail from the front, once the law-arms were gone.

  Dailan eased along the side of the building toward the corner. His hand reached out to move a flapping sheet aside. Before he knew what happened, the sheet grew arms and jumped forward to assault him, like some kind of ghostybones. It was a body on the other side that slammed full force into his gut, knocking him backward. They went to the ground in a tumbling mess, getting all tangled up in the sheet between them. Their weight brought the entire laundry line down in a snap. They snarled and swung at each other through the sheet that wasn't so clean no more. If he had time, Dailan might have felt sorry for making more work for the laundry servies that had helped him.

  “Lemme go!” a girl's voice cried in a spicy, sing-songy tone. She kicked her feet against Dailan's leg.

  “I ain't got hold'a you,” Dailan growled. “Your foot's caught up in the line.”

  The girl stopped struggling at that. She tugged the sheet away from Dailan's face. He had known it was the red-headed wenchlet before he even laid eyes on her, cause her voice seemed to match her face somehow.

  “It's you,” she breathed, like she was relieved and flustered all at the same time. Something changed in her eyes. In the blur of an instant, the girl covered Dailan's face with the sheet and shoved him away, just as she kicked her foot loose from the line. She bolted for the side of the building. Her hands were free and there was no shortsword anywhere on her person, which meant she had done the smart thing and stashed it somewhere nearby.

  Dailan was only a second behind her. He made chase through the alley, dodging rubbish
barrels and stacks of crates, hot on her trail. The girl leapt from the curb and skid to a stop on the cobbles of the open street. She was staring at an open door directly across the avenue, where two campus law-arms were talking to the owner. On account of her fixation on the men, the girl didn't see the speeding airskiff about to pummel her. Dailan did, and he wasn't about to let his only clue to finding Deynartrial get mashed into the cobbles. Maybe it was just self preservation, in light of what Dailan's imagination said Saiya Kunnai would do to him if he lost her precious shortsword. Or maybe he just didn't fancy seeing a wenchlet get walloped by a rich dandy's speeding skiff. Whatever it was, some uncharacteristically heroic thing inside Dailan sparked and kicked his legs to moving. He launched off the curb and pulled the girl back, out of harm's way. Their feet caught on the curb and the motion landed them backward again, tangling arms and legs. Dailan was holding parts of her that he didn't register at the time, but her slapping hand registered smartly across his cheek in payment for his accidental handholds.

  “What'dya go and do that for? I saved you, didn't I?” Dailan grumbled, rubbing at the sting. The law-arms didn't seem to have noticed the minor commotion, and they were thanking the man they'd been talking to. They turned to hit up the next establishment in search. Dailan didn't want to risk being noticed if the men were to look back. He hauled the girl up and tugged her toward the laundry-side alley.

  She took a step and gasped as she fell to her knee. Her hand clutched the ankle of her boot protectively.

  “Hurry up,” Dailan urged. “They're gonna see us!”

  “Take in your sails,” the girl sneered. She hopped a few times on her good leg, trying to get her bearings. She made it to the shadow of the alley before she tried to put weight on the ankle again. She allowed a muffled little cry when she fell that time. It almost killed Dailan to hear it. He'd sprained an ankle before and remembered clearly what that felt like.

  He could skin out now, but it wouldn't do. The girl knew where Deynartrial was. Dailan didn't really want to see the wenchlet get nabbed, anyway. There wasn't much honor among thieves, especially ones that nab from other thieves, but there was honor in Dailan at least. He offered his back with a quick, “Get on.”

  “I'll not take help from the likes of you.” It was more grumbly than it was bitter.

  “Then I guess you'll take it from the likes of them?” Dailan said, pointing across the street where the law-arms were questioning folks. “I'm sure they'll be real helpful. They'll even give you a place to sleep for the night in their cozy clinker with a nice warm bowl of gruel for breakfast.”

  The girl hesitated, figuring through all the options and finding them thin. “Fine. But I don't owe you anything.”

  “Never did a good deed that I expected return on.” And that was the honest truth.

  When the girl wrapped her arms around his shoulders and neck, Dailan lifted her off the ground. She didn't look all that big, but she was heavier than a sack of pig iron bars. He hoped his own ankles didn't give out in the process of hauling hers.

  “Where's my sword?” Dailan commanded.

  “Hidden well. Don't worry. It's not going anywhere.”

  “I want it back.”

  “I want a vacation house on Driscott Island and a private bath house,” the girl retorted solidly. “I guess we're both out of luck.”

  “You're confounding,” Dailan huffed. “Crack loose with it. Or I'll spill you right here, just before I wave them law-arms your way.”

  “You do that and you'll never get it back.”

  “I do that and you'll spend the rest of your days with a pretty collar just like mine. I seen plenty enough servieholds to know that it ain't just Dimishuans wearing shiny lumanere around their necks. Convicts wear them, too, and I bet some big time nobleman would pay top loran to get a collar under hair pretty as yours. Stew on that a short while.”

  The girl's chest heaved against Dailan's back. She sniffled and sighed. She changed her tune real quick and took on a humble act to strum on his heartstrings. “As good a nabber as you are, I'll bet you don't know what it is to be hungry. What it is to feed empty bellies depending on you. Since I'm gonna be laid up with this ankle for a time, I gotta know for sure we can eat tonight. Me and all the little brothers and sisters I have to feed. If I don't bring home something valuable, we'll all of us starve. Little Gindsey, with her pu-moanya. How'm I gonna afford the potions to save her? And Jorrlah, with his broken leg—never did mend right without a healer. That pouch was supposed to be our future. Now, you've gone and snatched it away and made for certain to seal our fates. How's that play on your conscience? Can you sleep tonight knowing you just killed a destitute family of younglings?”

  The girl sniffed like she was about to start bawling. Her face buried into Dailan's shoulder. It felt wet. Whether it was tears or snot, he didn't want any girl juice leaking on him.

  Dailan did feel sort of sorry for her, even though she talked a string of chatter that could wear a river stone to a pebble. His belly had gone empty a lot of nights of his life, and most of his earliest memories were of hunger pangs. He couldn't imagine how someone as heavy as her had been missing any meals, but he kept that thought to himself, so as to avoid getting slapped again. The girl's story wasn't much different than most of the other folk Dailan had ever known at the bottom of the barrel, but it was easier to hurt for someone you had just rescued. He was invested now, even if it was just to get Saiya Kunnai's sword back.

  Dailan fingered the pouch at his hip. It was heavy and bulging, probably loaded with enough boodle to feed their mouths for a month or more. Shunatar needed that funding, but it sounded like the girl was desperate enough to need it more. There would be other pouches and other days. The refuse barrels could keep them for a while longer.

  “I'll trade you, straight up. This pouch for the shortsword,” Dailan offered.

  “I don't know,” the girl hemmed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “That sword is worth an awful lot...”

  “You'd still have to find a buyer and you'd never get full value for it. This pouch is loaded with lorans you can spend today. Buy your little ones that food and healer they need so much.”

  The girl nodded sharply, sorrow forgotten. “Deal. Take me home and we'll trade up.”

  “I want the sword now.”

  “How do I know you won't dump me and call the law-arms the minute you get your hands on it? Nope. No deal. Take me home, then we trade. The pouch for the sword's location.”

  “I'll dump you right here...” Dailan warned.

  “Please,” the girl begged with a quiet-like desperation that panged Dailan's sensibilities. “Please help me.”

  Those big green eyes were parked over his shoulder with a look that nearly melted Dailan to a puddle. She batted her long silky eyelashes innocently, with a hurt look in them that was probably more than just the aching in her ankle. Dailan hated being off his game.

  “Fine. But if you don't follow through, I'll do worse than set the law-arms on you,” Dailan said.

  “Thank you!” the girl cried, hugging his neck from behind. “A friend worthy of mine is a friend worthy forever, I warranty. That means you get my name. It's Emmi.”

  “Dainn,” Dailan returned sourly. He rolled his eyes in defeat. “How'd I manage to sink so low I got whooped at my own game by a gimpy wenchlet?”

  “I used my feminine wiles on you,” Emmi giggled. “Works every time.”

  Dailan shifted Emmi's weight on his back for the tenth time and eased his head around the corner of a stone building on the far side of campus. It had been slow going, with Emmi directing him through back alleys and ways she said were short cuts. It didn't feel all that short to Dailan, what with a whole person lugged on his back. He was pretty good with direction and recognized hers was not necessarily aimed at shorter distances, but safer streets.

  “That's it,” Emmi said, pointing to a humongous garden-hugged, palace-like manor a
t the very end of the posh avenue. “You don't have to take me all the way. I can manage from here.”

  “Starving younglings?” Dailan asked skeptically. “Anyone living in an estate that grandificent is eating high on the hog.”

  “Oh, it's not mine. It's a pleasure house.”

  “You live in a doxy den?” Dailan wrinkled his nose.

  “A brothella,” Emmi corrected sharply.

  Brothellas were legal businesses, adhering to the merchant's code of goods and services. As long as they were on the up and up, gave their employees fair wage, paid their taxes and such, there was nothing wrong with them to the law's eye. There were a lot of different kinds, depending on the part of town and how much the patron could afford. Most of the pleasure houses Dailan had ever seen were filthy fleshpots in lower districts. This manor wasn't anything like those. It looked like it catered to some pretty fancy-pants popinjays.

  “What's wrong with that?” Emmi looked like she was about to slap him again.

  Dailan winced in anticipation. “Nuthin. Just... I didn't reckon you to... that is, you don't look like...”

  “I don't work there. Would I really be out pinching Maylen if I was making that kind of loran? Besides, I'm not cut out to be a courtesan. I am a pirate.”

  “Seems like you're an awful lotta things in your mind. Right now you just look like a gimpy wenchlet hitching back rides from the servie what saved your hide,” Dailan countered.

  The girl sulled up under a pout. “Put me down. We can trade up and you can be on your way.”

  “Nope. Not the deal. I said I'd get you home and I will.”

  Emmi didn't seem thrilled, but she didn't argue. They slipped around the back of the manor on a flowery stone path. When they reached a back entry door, Emmi slid from Dailan's back and fished a key from a cord around her neck. She jostled it in the glowing lumanere lock plate until it opened and she hopped inside, keeping one bracing hand on Dailan's arm.

  The room was well lit. It looked to be some kind of entryway storage with stacked boxes and barrels lining the walls. Emmi gestured to a wooden crate and Dailan helped her ease to it. He pulled up another one and sat, then propped her bad ankle between his knees. She winced and bit her lip as he unlaced her boot and worked it off as careful as he could manage. It looked like a melon was growing from her side foot.