by Juliet Kemp
The concrete floor was rough underfoot, but the walls had been whitewashed recently, and the baths looked clean, if basic, which Cato was pleased about. He felt the odd need to show Marek at its best to Tait. They walked between the large warm pool on one side, with a couple of massage tables at the side of it, and the smaller hot and cold pools on the other side.
Cato looked sideways at Tait, and saw a small smile tugging at the edge of their mouth. “Do you like for people to owe you favours, then?”
Cato twitched, then found himself barking a startled laugh. “You see it that way too, then? Well. Yes, I suppose I do.”
“Favours can come in useful,” Tait said, and flashed him a look that Cato had a hard time not interpreting as flirtatious.
Huh. Well now.
Cato stopped to scrub down under the cold showers – he hated this bit, but it was required, and removing the surface dirt before you started did make sense – and Tait followed suit without apparent concern. Not body-conscious, then; and nor, thought Cato, glancing surreptitiously sideways while Tait wasn’t looking, did they need to be, in Cato’s considered opinion. Cato ducked out from the shower, opened the door to the steam room, gesturing Tait inside, then sat down next to them on one of the upper benches. Someone lower down leant over to ladle water onto the coals. The steam hissed through the room, and a moment later, the wave of heat hit. Tait sat back and rested their head against the wall, shutting their eyes.
“You have these in Teren, then?”
“Yes, of course,” Tait said. “I haven’t… it’s been a while.”
The room wasn’t empty, although it wasn’t heaving-full either, so Cato didn’t enquire further. Cato definitely wanted to hear what Tait had been up to lately; he had a number of questions based on what they’d let slip so far. But people did get excited if they heard you talking about demons, and Tait’s story clearly contained at least one of those and possibly more. Another time.
As a rule, Cato liked to talk. But with Tait, he found himself settling into a companionable silence, as they steamed, plunged themselves into the cold pool, and then settled for a soak in the warm pool, getting busier now as mid-morning arrived. It was… nice.
It was possible that Cato needed to watch out for this one. In a good way. Probably.
k k
Reb had used one of her own sleep charms after Marcia left the night before. It worked well enough, but a sleep charm always left her feeling sluggish the next day. Less, perhaps, than if she’d lain awake all night going over the argument in her head; but enough that she slept late, and then didn’t feel much like dealing with orders when she awoke.
It was the aftermath of the sleep charm, definitely, and nothing to do with what she and Marcia had said to one another. Marcia had been in the wrong. That was all there was to it.
Instead of starting work, she took herself over to the infusion-salon a couple of streets east. First, reluctantly, she wrote a note to Cato about the Teren sorcerer, and found a messenger to deliver it. She could hardly criticise him for keeping information from her about Jonas and then do the same to him; and if the Teren had found her, they might very well keep looking and find Cato.
She’d been a Teren sorcerer, once. She’d come here, and Zareth had taken her on, and once he’d made her promise to stop using blood magic, he’d never asked again about her history. Zareth hadn’t turned her away.
She hadn’t raised a demon and then run away from it. It wasn’t the same at all.
Thinking about Teren reminded her that she and Cato had been supposed to revisit their decision about helping the Lord Lieutenant. She should have arranged to meet to discuss that, in the note. Or go over there, or…
Ugh. She felt exhausted, her feet almost dragging as she walked, just thinking about another argument with Cato. And she’d let the sorcerer go, hadn’t she? What did she think they should do? Maybe she should just… let it lie. Cato was hardly going to come chasing her over it, was he? One runaway Teren sorcerer. It wasn’t worth hassling anyone about. She just wanted a rest.
The bell over the salon door tinkled as she went in, and the owner, Irin, looked up and smiled. She had a jaunty red ribbon bound through her dark plaits today, matching the red flowers of her skirts and her red under-trousers.
“Well now Ser Reb, it’s a while since I’ve seen you. How are you today?”
“Well enough,” Reb said, returning the smile as best she could. It wasn’t Irin’s fault she was in a bad mood.
“Something cheering for you this morning?” Irin suggested. Perhaps the smile hadn’t been all that convincing. “Take a seat, take a seat.” Irin turned to look over the wall of jars behind the counter.
Only two of the wooden tables were occupied, one by a couple who were talking in low voices, holding hands across the table, the other by a woman reading a news-sheet and eating a pastry. The sea-mural that Irin’s daughter had spent weeks painting on the back wall was finally finished now, with cheerful fish swimming around fat underwater corals. Reb sat down in the corner farthest from anyone else, next to a pink octopus.
As she sat down, the large type at the top of the woman’s news-sheet caught her eye. GUILD ULTIMATUM, it screamed in two-inch letters. Reb frowned. Guilds… Hadn’t Marcia been dealing with the Guilds?
“Here you are,” Irin said, placing a large cup on the table in front of her. “Rose and ginseng. Calming and revitalising.” She nodded firmly.
“Thank you,” Reb said, and hesitated. “Uh. Have you any of the news-sheets in, or just the one she’s reading there?”
“I’m done with this one,” the woman across the room said, draining her infusion and standing up. “Here, if you like.” She tossed it onto the table in front of Reb.
“And I’ve the Clarion, too, if you prefer something calmer,” Irin said, handing her another one, with much more restrained type, from behind the counter.
“Thanks,” Reb said, feeling more self-conscious than the interaction warranted. She rarely bothered with news-sheets. She heard news from messengers, and in the Old Market when she shopped there. News-sheets were unreliable, and Reb was certain they intended more to entertain than to inform, but…
But she wanted to know what this business with the Guilds was about, and she didn’t want to discuss it with Irin or anyone else until she knew more, because something in her stomach was warning her about it.
She scanned through the news-sheets, both the overexcitable Lantern and the more sedate Clarion. They tackled the story from different angles and with varying approaches to exclamation marks and capitalisation, but the kernel of both was the same: the Guilds were withdrawing all co-operation with the Houses until they had equal Council voting power.
Reb bit her lip. Storm and fire. Surely this was bad news for Marcia. She’d been after improving the Guilds’ position, hadn’t she? But she’d been talking about it taking a while, about talking people around; and it hadn’t been going quite as planned, maybe? For the first time, Reb regretted not paying closer attention to Marcia’s political concerns.
The thing was; Reb couldn’t see how the Guilds threatening the Houses would help matters any. The Houses were intransigent at the best of times; they’d just dig in their heels. And maybe blame Marcia for stirring things up.
They might even be right to blame her. And it could have disastrous effects for the rest of Marek if neither Guilds nor Houses backed down. Even Reb, who didn’t spend much time thinking about politics or trade, could see that. How was Marcia doing – what was she doing – this morning?
Reb scowled down at the table. It wasn’t her business, either way. Marcia had been the one who stormed out, last night. It wasn’t Reb’s problem, and she wasn’t going to think about it. She could hardly help a Marekhill problem with sorcery, anyway; and this was, when it came down to it, a Marekhill problem, even if its effects might spread to the rest of the city, not that Guilds nor Houses would likely even notice that. This wasn’t Reb’s problem to fix.
/> Her eyes kept going back to the news-sheets. Irritably, she gathered them up and dumped them onto the counter, then went back to sit down and drink her refreshing, cheering, rose and ginseng infusion. It wasn’t working.
If she wasn’t going to think about Marcia and her problems, and she wasn’t going to think about that damn Teren sorcerer, what was she going to do today? She had orders, but none of them urgent. She ought to go back to that map and look again for an apprentice. It was the right thing to do, as well as what Beckett wanted. She’d been putting it off for too long.
She was hardly in the mood to encourage someone to apprentice. More likely that she’d scare them off. Better to leave it ’til another day. Tomorrow. Tomorrow would be fine. She found herself nibbling at her thumbnail, and swore under her breath. She’d broken herself of that habit years ago.
She finished off her infusion, and rose to go. She wasn’t doing any good sitting here, and she had those orders to get done. They might not be urgent, but they were work, and she should get on with them.
“Ah, Ser Reb,” Irin said, sounding nervous. “I wondered… my daughter, you see. She’s had the worst of luck lately. I wondered, could you… ?”
“A luck charm?” Reb said. “Of course. I’ll have it to you later today.”
The flood of relief was overwhelming. Luck charms were reassuringly complicated. She’d have to concentrate properly. No time to think about anything else.
It wasn’t an excuse, she told herself as she walked back to her house with a lock of hair from Irin’s daughter in her pocket, running mentally through the list of ingredients for the charm. It wasn’t an excuse at all.
SEVENTEEN
Daril hadn’t expected that being named Heir would reduce the amount of time he spent arguing with his father; which was fortunate, because it hadn’t done in the slightest.
“What do you expect me to do, Father?” he demanded.
“I expect you to turn up to things looking respectable, and to keep your mouth shut,” Gavin retorted.
“Well, I suppose your expectations are doomed to failure,” Daril said.
He stalked over to the window of his father’s study, clenching his teeth together in an attempt not to say things he would later regret. It had been an excellent deal, and having Gavin refuse it right in the middle of the final meeting with the apothecaries – except they weren’t Apothecaries, that was the whole point of this – was infuriating.
Outside, the river was glittering in the sun. Daril found this unduly annoying.
“I am Heir,” he said, without turning round. “I will give my opinion.”
“And when it is not requested?”
“I am Heir, Father,” Daril said. “It is my responsibility to do what I believe is best for the House. Which is not necessarily what you believe is best for the House.”
“And I can overrule you,” Gavin said.
Daril turned round. “That is true. Alternatively, we could discuss things like adults, rather than sniping at one another in front of trading partners.”
“I should never have confirmed you,” Gavin muttered. “That wretched Fereno girl.”
Daril bit back the impulse to agree with him. He’d wanted this. He had to keep reminding himself of that at intervals.
“The deal would have been good for both us and the Salinas,” he said, instead. “And it would avoid the problem with the Guilds.” Which, admittedly, had arisen only after Daril had made the deal, but it had been a definite bonus.
Gavin waved an irritable hand. “That won’t last. They’ll fold soon enough, when they realise that the Houses won’t budge.”
Daril was far from certain that Gavin was correct, but he didn’t want to be drawn into a side argument. “In any case, there was no need to repudiate it so bluntly if you did not care for it. Or to wait until they were here to do so.”
“We do not trade in medicines,” Gavin said.
“Well, we should. They’re profitable. And small.”
“We do not have a reputation for that sort of trading.”
“Then we can get one.”
Gavin didn’t mean ‘medicines’. He meant recreational substances. Not the banned ones; those were rarely worth it. But there was plenty that weren’t banned, or that were banned only in some places. Daril had spent quite some time running the figures and finding the correct captain with the correct route that would make this endeavour both safe and profitable. One had to run the ports in the correct order, to avoid ever having a banned substance in the hold at any given location. It had been an interesting puzzle and it would have been a very profitable one, until Gavin had refused it. In public. Daril’s shoulders tensed again in furious resentment.
“Father, you’ve been happy to trade in wine, in the past,” he said instead. Exploding at Gavin wouldn’t do any good. It was – just – still possible that he might talk Gavin around, and if he gave the not-apothecaries an extra couple of points on the cargo, to make up for the insult, it could still be worth it. “Consider this in the same light.”
Gavin scowled at him. “And if they are confiscated?”
Daril let a little of his irritation show. “As I said. I calculated the route very carefully. At no point would we be trading, at any given port, in something that might be confiscated there.”
“We might not. What if the captain decides to, on their own account? Once part of a cargo is confiscated, what of the rest of it? What of the ship?”
“We write that into the contract, Father, if you’re concerned,” Daril said, trying to keep a rein on his patience. As if any Salinas captain worth their salt would do anything that risky, and it would cost another point to get them to sign a contract that suggested they would. And Gavin had been doing this for decades. He knew that as well as Daril did. “Truly. This is a splendid opportunity.”
One which he couldn’t access without Gavin’s signature. As Heir, he had automatic responsibilities, but no automatic rights. Gavin might choose to give him trading rights under his own seal, but so far Gavin had done no such thing. The limitations chafed.
“No,” Gavin said, with finality.
“What?”
“I said, no. I will not sign this deal.”
“Father, I’ve already made the arrangements!”
“Then unmake them. I do not approve, and I will not sign. As I said in the meeting. And another time, perhaps that will teach you not to go so far without consulting me.”
“Father…”
“You are dismissed, Leandra-Heir.”
The old man turned away, back to the pile of papers on his desk. Daril stood where he was for a moment longer, but Gavin gave no further indication that he was aware of Daril’s presence. Daril seriously considered making an almighty scene – that pretty inkwell there would smash most beautifully – but what would that achieve? His father would only believe him even less capable.
Fuming, he turned on his heel and stalked out.
Unwinding the half-finished trade would be embarrassing, and infuriating – the profit margin was significant. More infuriating – more embarrassing, if he admitted it – was that he’d thought his father would be impressed by this. He’d envisaged some kind of rapprochement with the wretched old man.
Well. So much for that. He’d have to take back his word, and if he didn’t want to risk being blacklisted altogether by this captain, he’d better find something else to fill the cargo space. Jewellery, probably; nearly anything else would be too bulky. And jewellery made a lousy profit in Exuria, the first and most lucrative stop in Daril’s plan, and doubtless even more so now bloody Marcia had been shipping the stuff over the mountains instead of round by sea.
And right now he couldn’t even arrange anything with the Jewellers’ Guild, because the Guilds weren’t speaking to the Houses. He’d been congratulating himself that this trade would be unaffected by the political ructions. All ruined. All of it.
“Demonfire,” he said aloud, with force, and startled a
squeak from the maid who appeared around the corner with her arms full of sheets.
He reached his own rooms, slammed the door behind him, and threw himself down on the window seat. Bloody Marcia had been doing her own damn deals – that mountain trip – and apparently doing quite well at them. Whereas he was blocked at every turn.
He frowned, tapping his thumb against his chin. Marcia. And the Jewellers’ Guild. There was that conversation they’d had the other day, her and Nisha and Adan, about allowing the Guilds more power in the Council. And then the Guilds had taken it into their heads to attempt to insist. Ha. Serve Marcia right for giving them ideas.
Although…
The trouble was, Marcia, and the Guilds, were right. Marek prospered when the Houses and the Guilds worked together. And that ghastly Teren Lieutenant, telling them to align themselves more with Teren. Daril had less than no desire to do anything of the sort. But without the Guilds, what might the Houses be pushed to? Gavin, over breakfast, had been reminiscing about a summer he’d spent in Ameten in his youth. If Daril didn’t watch out, he’d be off upriver to Ameten within the week himself, protestations ignored.
But if the Guilds and the Houses came back together – could be shoved back together, maybe – it would put a spoke in Selene’s wheel. And Marcia must already be up to her eyebrows in attempts to arrange that. Perhaps he could, after all, contact her again.
At the very least, it would really annoy his father. Right now, that was more than sufficient motivation.
k k
Daril had been in House Fereno often enough, over the years, for this and that formal function. Yet it still felt odd to walk up the steps; to ask the servant who answered the door whether Fereno-Heir was available for a brief discussion; to be shown into the reception room. Thankfully it was empty, giving him a moment to pull himself together.
He was Daril Leandra-Heir. He did not get emotional over a visit to a House.