“You’ve accepted it, of course?” Margerit asked. From the corner of her eye she could see Barbara suppressing an amused grin where her aunt couldn’t see.
“I don’t know, dear. Why would he—would they be inviting me? I’m nobody.”
The obvious answer was too fragile to mention aloud. Margerit suggested slowly, “Well, they’re our neighbors…and I don’t know if there’s anyone in their household that I might meet socially. So if they wanted to become acquainted with their new neighbors, perhaps they thought it more proper to approach you?” It was an unlikely possibility. Nobody in Rotenek worried about becoming acquainted purely on the basis of living on the same street. Either your families had known each other already for generations or one of you was too new for notice.
Uncle Fulpi had the same thought when the matter came up over dinner, but he didn’t try to disguise it. “What nonsense! They want something and you’d best take care until you know what it is. It’s Margerit they want to get to, though heaven knows why as they haven’t any marriageable sons. If you feel you must go, I’ll accompany you of course, but it would be better to find some excuse for now.”
It was the wrong tactic to take for the desired end. Margerit could tell the precise moment when her aunt’s decision was made.
“Mauriz, you are neither my brother nor my father and I’ll thank you not to behave as if you were! I’m not being invited off to some den of iniquity, I’m being invited to dinner by Mesner and Mesnera Pertinek, who happen to be well-respected people in Rotenek and happen to be our neighbors. I will be taking Margerit as my vizeino and I believe that should suffice to protect my reputation!”
It would more than suffice for propriety, Margerit thought, since it meant that either Barbara or Marken would accompany them—something her aunt couldn’t justify on her own account.
Uncle Fulpi angrily waved away the footman who waited silently by the door to the passage. And then again more impatiently when the man hesitated and sought Margerit’s assent before slipping through the door. Where, no doubt, he would hear everything that passed as clearly as if he had remained, Margerit thought. But the illusion of privacy must be maintained.
“It seems,” her uncle said in an icy tone, “that my presence in this house is superfluous. I have left my affairs in Chalanz unattended for too long as it is. Since my niece seems to have no need of any assistance I can offer, and since some seem determined to plunge my name into scandalous and undignified goings-on, it would seem best for me to return home. Maisetra Sovitre,” this was addressed to Bertrut, of course, for he’d never yet promoted Margerit to that dignity, “I will hold you responsible for informing me of any discussions or decisions to be held concerning our ward and I will expect regular reports from that French clerk regarding expenses and funds. Margerit, I leave you to your aunt’s care and hope that she has a greater concern for your good name than she has for her own.”
And that, it seemed, was his unmovable decision. The next day he ordered his trunks to be packed and arranged for the hire of a coach—declining the loan of her own.
“I will have no one suggest that I am a parasite on my ward’s fortune,” he said with a meaningful glance at Bertrut.
Margerit saw her aunt redden slightly and held back a hasty defense. It had taken a good deal of persuasion to convince her aunt to let her pay for the gowns and other everyday personal expenses that made the difference between respectability and appearing a dowdy country matron. But now was not the time for more arguments.
“Uncle, I hope…I would like for the whole family to come visit at Christmas. I think the girls would enjoy it.” They had already planned the visit. It was the best olive branch she had to offer at the moment. He harrumphed and said he’d consider it and that was as good as a promise to her mind.
* * *
The search for a copy of Gaudericus did not begin well. As soon as she uttered the name of the book, Margerit could tell she’d stepped in deeper than she knew. The shop proprietor, who until that moment had been all obsequious solicitude, composed his face and said evenly, “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that work.”
She tried again, describing the contents that Antuniet had indicated it covered. No change. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that book.”
So Margerit shrugged and moved on to the next bookseller. His answer was somewhat different, but the tone was similarly quelling. “I have no copies of Gaudericus for sale.”
As they turned down a narrow alleyway to find the cramped open stall of her third choice, Margerit studiously avoided catching Barbara’s eye. The third merchant said plainly what Margerit suspected the others had been thinking. “What would a young lady such as yourself be wanting with Gaudericus?”
She squirmed inside. “A…a friend recommended it.”
“Well,” he said, leaning closer over the counter and continuing in an overly familiar tone, “you might want to rethink your friends. But if it’s Gaudericus you want, then I suggest you look down on Rens Street. The work’s a bit too rich for my taste. The printers still won’t touch it, so all there are is hand-copies. I don’t have the kind of capital to stock that sort of thing. Try Eskamer, but don’t say who sent you.”
When they were out of hearing around the next corner, Margerit turned to Barbara at last and ventured, “So…Rens Street?”
“No. Absolutely not.” It was clear she had crossed the line from attendant to armin.
Margerit’s thoughts pressed forward. It would be Marken with her for tomorrow’s lectures. Maybe he…
Her intentions must have shown on her face because Barbara’s voice turned pleading. “If you must have the book, I’ll find you a copy. But promise me—promise me—you won’t go off to the wharf district. Not with Marken, not with anyone. Even the baron took armed men with him when he visited his warehouses there. I’m not talking about genteel kidnappings, I’m talking about men who would slit your throat to steal your shoes.”
It was that frightened tone more than the words that convinced her. She nodded. Then when that didn’t seem enough, she said, “I promise,” and was grateful that the question of just who had recommended the book was left lying.
* * *
The dinner at the Pertineks was—after the initial row—remarkably ordinary and even bordering on tedious. Margerit knew that Barbara had paid a formal call on their staff, just as she did for all such events. But this wasn’t a formal ball with a gallery of lowering armins, just a small family dinner of ten in the cramped space of a riverfront mansion. After witnessing the reception in the front hall, Barbara had disappeared silently into the understairs realm and Margerit was left to the old familiar tedium of listening to the empty pleasantries of the older generation.
It could almost have been a quiet dinner among the pillars of Chalanz society. Lord and Lady Marzim, it seemed, were the support of a host of unpropertied cousins and bachelor aunts and uncles. As she watched her aunt bask in the gallant charms of her rescuer, it occurred to her that—noble family or no—he might well see it as a step up in the world to trade being the hanger-on of a titled cousin for being the hanger-on of a wife’s plebian niece. She suppressed an amused grin. How did one go about these things? Would he apply to her for permission to court her aunt? Well, no need to worry about it yet. Let Aunt Bertrut enjoy a season’s flirtation of her own. She was strong-minded enough not to take things badly if it came to naught.
Once again Margerit wondered what Bertrut’s own youth had been like. Had she had suitors? Why had she never married? She vaguely knew that the Sovitres had been comfortably enough off. The funds that had given Bertrut a measure of independence—if not comfort—over the years would surely have been sufficient dowry for a respectable marriage. And although being saddled with the guardianship of an orphan niece might have posed a bar, that hadn’t happened until well after Bertrut would have been dismissed as on the shelf.
With such speculations distracting her, the dinner passed more qu
ickly. As they strolled the few doors down to home afterward, Margerit tucked her aunt’s hand under her arm as an excuse for leaning closely and teased, “What do you think? Will he do?”
Her aunt shushed her in embarrassment, but there was a contented glow about her.
Chapter Thirty
Barbara
The expedition to Rens Street, Barbara determined, called for discretion beyond the ordinary. Disguise, to be precise. For all that the past few years had seen her wearing breeches far more often than skirts, it had never before occurred to her to try to pass entirely as a man. But in her own person, anything she did there would be tied to Margerit. And an ordinary woman would have too many distractions to deal with in that district. So she assembled her preparations down at the end of the gardens, making adjustments to an unfamiliar suit: plain cloth, but a more fashionable cut than what one wore in service, long pants and odd neckcloths and a hat that could be jammed down to overshadow the face. She set out from the small private quay where she’d tied a skiff of the sort used by ordinary working men to travel up and down river within the city. No witnesses would see her leaving by the main entry. When the errand was done, assuming no mishaps, she could return by the same route.
She had left the sword behind, of course, but a serviceable knife, short enough to conceal under the skirts of a coat, took its place. And the uncomfortably large fold of bank notes that Margerit had given her lay concealed in a hidden pocket of the waistcoat. There was no point in making the transaction in disguise only to have the bill sent to LeFevre for payment.
Rens Street was home to a number of small shops that catered to the pawning of a desperate man’s last luxuries or to a less public market in small, portable items of high value. Books were not an ordinary item of trade on the street. The first establishment Barbara tried proved as fruitless as the more respectable shops but not, in this case, from any lack of enthusiasm of the proprietor. He could get it—he was certain he could. If the gentleman would come back in two days? Maybe three?
Barbara shook her head. “My client isn’t that patient. If I can’t find the thing immediately the deal’s off.” In truth, she was hesitant to risk the same disguise twice.
She had begun with an establishment of at least tolerable repute. But Eskamer had been mentioned by name and perhaps it was best to venture into the lion’s den directly.
The place was entered through a door at the back of a wharfmen’s tavern. It ran back through the building in a maze of linked rooms and passages. Barbara walked slowly through the dim entrance toward a light at the end of the first passage, trying to project an air of confidence and curiosity. The curiosity was easy.
The pawnshop’s rooms were filled haphazardly with all the odd sorts of things one might expect, but one wall was covered with row on row of books. A surprisingly tidy little man with a sharp fox-like expression greeted her from behind a table cluttered at the edges with trinkets and ornaments of uncertain value. There seemed no particular order to the contents of the room, but Barbara suspected he was the sort who could lay hands on any item in his inventory without need to consult a ledger.
“I understand you might be able to supply me with a book,” she opened.
His expression might have been amusement or indigestion. “Would that be for pleasure reading or perhaps you have a table that needs propping up?”
“Gaudericus,” Barbara answered. “I believe the title is something to do with visions.”
He stared at her silently for a minute, stretching into two. Barbara felt she was being evaluated, but for what? The sincerity of her intent? As a possible trap? How deeply did his scrutiny go?
At last he turned silently, signaling her to wait, and returned in several minutes with two slender leather-bound volumes and a third, much thicker, with broken binding and loose boards, held together by several wraps of cotton tape tied about it.
He laid the first two before her. “Fine, clean copies—said to be the work of Raifrit back in the sixties. The first has some unfortunate damage due to damp, but there are a few interesting annotations that appear to have been made by an owner with practical experience. The second is a lovely little piece—an ornament to any library.”
Barbara picked each up in its turn and leafed through it with the pretended air of one who is only a courier, verifying the identity of the cargo. “And the third?” she asked.
“Well,” the man said, “it depends on your…client. You strike me as an uncommon customer, so perhaps you would be interested in an uncommon item. Back during the wars there was a trunk left in the care of my predecessor with instructions that if it were not redeemed by the end of twenty-five years, its contents were mine to dispose of. As it happens, that term is recently up and you are the first client to inquire about this particular item since it became available. It’s highly unusual—perhaps unique.”
“Also nearly fallen to dust, I notice,” Barbara interjected, recognizing a spiel intended to inflate the price to improbable heights. “My client wants a readable text, not a relic for a curio cabinet.”
The man shrugged and made as if to return the tattered volume to its original resting place.
Barbara played along. “But since you’ve taken the trouble to bring it out, tell me what makes it so unusual.”
He turned back and laid the book on the table and began carefully untrussing the ties. “I have my suspicions regarding the owner of that trunk, but never mind that. The text of Gaudericus has been bound together with Petrus Pontis and Chizelek, quite some years ago from the look of it. There’s some additional material added to the unused pages at the end. Probably by the last owner, as the hand is quite similar to a number of the more recent glosses and notes elsewhere. The text of Gaudericus is the usual one. Petrus is lacking the end of the fourth chapter. It appears to have been missing when the parts were bound together, but the lack can be supplied easily enough. But Chizelek includes several extensive citations from Tanfrit that are not part of the standard text and, as you know, no originals of Tanfrit are known to survive.”
Barbara hesitated before examining the features he had described. She could keep up the mask of a disinterested agent and take one of the finer volumes, which would adequately fulfill her promised errand. Or she could confirm the man’s suspicions that he was dealing with a serious scholar—agent or no—and guarantee a higher price. She carefully turned the pages to confirm the presence of the promised citations. Petrus was the only author she recognized from the list. Fortunatus was as far as she’d gone in the mystics, and that for his logical arguments and because he was, after all, a classic. But Fortunatus dealt in theory; these texts addressed practice.
“I think my client might be interested, but I also think your price will exceed what I’m authorized to pay.”
“And what is your authorization?”
Barbara laughed out loud. It broke all the rules and customs of bargaining. On impulse, she named the precise sum she carried.
He gently closed the book and tied it securely again with the tapes. Barbara was just about to reopen negotiations for one of the slimmer, finer volumes when he pulled a sheet of heavy paper from a shelf under the table and began wrapping the book into a nondescript and sturdy package. After tying it up in an intricate net of string, he finally looked again at Barbara with an eyebrow quirked.
She nodded and turned away slightly to extract the sheaf of notes from its hiding place. The two exchanged hands simultaneously and the money disappeared with a practiced motion. “If your client has any other needs, it would be a pleasure to do business again,” the man concluded. But he didn’t offer a hand to shake.
Barbara simply nodded once more and left.
* * *
If she hadn’t been taking such pains to move unrecognized, she might not have noticed that she was being followed. He was a very ordinary-looking man—the sort you might see on any street corner. But not on every street corner. And now that she’d taken note of him, she thought per
haps this wasn’t the first time she’d seen him.
Trying not to give any hint of her notice, she changed her route with a thought to drawing him off to a more lonely place and ensuring that she had only one tail to deal with. There was an empty warehouse she knew of—not one of Margerit’s, that would risk tying the matter back to her. Once, the building had stood along the branch of the river that ran behind Escarfild Island. But when the river shifted and that branch silted up it had been allowed to decay and now the flooring was too uncertain to store anything substantial. In another decade, it would collapse in on itself and no doubt fresh buildings would take the debris as a foundation. But for now, it was a place where one could have hopes of having a private conversation…or leaving a body where it might take some time to be found.
As she slipped through the broken door—taking care to leave clear footprints in the muddy road running by—it occurred to her that simply disposing of him would not only be simpler but would be safer as well. If she could manage even minimal surprise, she had no doubts of her ability to kill a man efficiently. But disabling and immobilizing him enough for questioning—that was another matter. The most important rule that her first instructor had impressed on her was that if she let it come to grappling, she had already lost the fight. That rule held whether he had only a knife or carried a pistol.
If it were still the baron she answered to, she would have felt on surer ground. That was a conversation they had had when she first learned to fight. But Margerit…she tried to imagine asking, Maisetra, under what conditions may I kill on your behalf without asking permission first? And then, the baron had had enough influence not to worry about repercussions. Margerit didn’t have the same resources. So it was necessary to be more careful and thus to take more risks.
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