“I’ll let you play cream,” said Madigain, giving him a knowing smile.
And then they sat down.
They played.
Madigain opened with something from a shanj book, a nearly perfect Hand of Power from Garnierre. Haid had been studying shanj strategy to play against Sefoni, and he countered easily.
This went on for several moves.
Madigain took three of Haid’s pieces.
Haid took four of his.
“Perhaps we should make this interesting,” said Madigain.
Haid raised his eyebrows. “I thought we’d already made it interesting.”
“More interesting,” said Madigain. “After all, I’ve offered something up, but you haven’t offered a thing. If I win, you’ll abandon whatever attempt you are making to rob me during this tournament.”
“I can’t do that, because I’m not robbing you,” said Haid.
“You’re a good liar, Darain,” said Madigain. “But I know better. I know you’re not here to allow your wife to beat me at shanj. Something is going on. I have it on good authority that you arrived with an entourage, one of whom is my Orc. I suppose you freed him specifically for this purpose, didn’t you?”
Haid chuckled, looking at the board. And then, he saw a way forward, a way to easily beat Madigain in three moves, and he didn’t think that Madigain could wriggle his way out of it. It was something Sefoni would have done. He’d been beaten by her enough times now that he had learned from her. A slow smile spread across his face, and he moved one of his charioteers. “All right, then, I’ll make that bet. If I lose, I’ll abandon any attempt to rob you.”
Madigain moved his advisor piece, capturing Haid’s charioteer.
Perfect. That was exactly what Haid wanted him to do, but Haid didn’t smile, and instead pretended to look devastated. He sat back in his chair, eyeing the board as if he didn’t have a clue what to do next. Then, sighing, he leaned forward and moved an infantryman.
The next four moves were conducted deliberately and silently, each man intent on looking at the board.
Haid couldn’t help but be gratified by the look on Madigain’s face when Haid’s infantryman came from the side and snapped up his regx. He was taken entirely by surprise.
Madigain shook his head. “Well.”
“Well,” said Haid, smiling at him in satisfaction.
“I suppose I owe you that ring,” said Madigain.
Haid shrugged. “Keep it. I don’t want anything that used to belong to that man.” He got up from the table.
Madigain narrowed his eyes. “So, why did you agree then?”
“Maybe I just wanted to beat you,” said Haid.
“Or maybe there’s something else afoot.” Madigain was already walking away. “Have you got your little thieves in my house even now, Darain?”
“No,” said Haid. “No one’s here but me right now.”
Madigain burst through the doors, stalking down the hallway, calling for a guard to report on what was happening just then.
Haid looked down at the shanj board.
Well, beating Madigain had felt good. Quite good. He hadn’t expected it to feel so good.
Sefoni would make short work of him when she played him. And she would play him. There was no way the two wouldn’t advance to the final round.
Still, Sefoni needed her rest, and she was probably awake in the inn, waiting for him. He needed to get back to her.
He left and walked back to the inn as quickly as he could, paying very little mind to the sights and sounds of Rzymn at night.
She met him at the door their room, already in her nightdress. “I couldn’t believe he was in there.”
“I know,” he said.
“But it all worked out,” she said, eyes shining. “You got to play him at shanj. I wish I could have stayed to watch.”
“No, it was best that you left.”
“I thought it was as well. Best not to tempt fate. But I wanted to stay. I was so curious. Did you beat him?”
He let out a laugh, and he was surprised and how light and happy it sounded. “I did.”
She laughed too, throwing her arms around him. “Of course you did.”
And then she was kissing him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MAIRLI GLARED ACROSS the common sitting room in the inn at Tristanne, who was staring at her.
“All right,” Haid was saying. He had a diagram spread out on the coffee table and everyone was gathered around on the white couches and chairs in the room. “So, every entrance is guarded by musqueteers. Madigain has paid them to work for him during the tournament, so they’re there, and they’re armed.”
“So, there’s no way in?” said Pairce.
“Now, would I have brought us all this way if there was no way in?” said Haid.
“Maybe,” said Tristanne. “After all, you and Sefoni can get in fine.”
“Well, I need all of you,” said Haid. “Look, there are no guards on this side of the building.” He pointed.
“That’s because that side’s on the water,” said Cadon. “And it doesn’t look as though there are any doors back there either.”
Mairli tuned out of the conversation. They weren’t talking about her part yet. Her most important job was already done, anyway. She’d worked tireless hours already for Haid, but all of that had been back in Briganne.
All that was left to her was driving a carriage through the streets of Rzymn to the docks. She’d been given maps, and she’d charted out a perfect route, and she and Haid were going to walk it later that day.
Now, Tristanne was engaged in the conversation, talking animatedly to Haid about what he’d planned for her to do, and she wasn’t looking at Mairli.
Mairli eyed the other woman, wondering how she felt about what Tristanne had said to her the night before. She had sworn off Tristanne Wintereth—or whatever last name she was going to go by now—and it had been the right choice. She was sure of that.
But she wondered if she should give Tristanne another chance.
After all, things had changed for Mairli. As recently as a few months ago, she was still utterly concerned with her reputation, and now she realized how silly she’d been, and she didn’t care. Maybe Tristanne’s own worries could be as easily jettisoned. Maybe Tristanne could also change.
“…Mairli will be here,” came Haid’s voice, pointing at the map. “Right at this door, with the carriage.” He nodded at Mairli.
“Yes,” said Mairli. “Right there.”
“What carriage?” said Pairce.
“Well, she and I have to go and hire one,” said Haid. “We’ll go this afternoon, after Sefoni plays her tournament. I imagine you’ll want to get acquainted with the horses?”
“Definitely,” said Mairli.
“Then we’ll go to the docks and I’ll hire a boat to get across the channel,” said Haid.
“Just across the channel? Not back to Briganne? We’re not going by ship back home?” said Sefoni.
“No, we’ll go by land,” said Haid. “On the way back, what we’ll do is exchange loot for coin a bit at a time in different cities. We can even swing around into Fonte, so that if Madigain wants to get it all back, he’ll have to go on a runaround and buy it back from pawnbrokers.”
Pairce snickered. “Well, I like the idea of that.”
“It seems simple enough,” said Cadon. “But when you first conceived of this idea, it must not have been this way.”
“Hmm?” said Haid.
“You wanted Pairce to come to me in the dungeons,” said Cadon. “And you had no notion that I could be the least bit tame. How did you plan to use me?”
“Well, I…” Haid shrugged. “It was all very ephemeral at that point. I hoped that Pairce’s, er, charms would calm you.”
“So, I was to be rutting with him in the midst of the job?” said Pairce.
“No,” said Haid. “Maybe just… I don’t know… my plans aren’t like that. I get piece
s and I put them together, and it doesn’t all fit perfectly until the very end. That’s part of the reason I don’t share them with anyone. I have to wait until they’re done.”
“You were just going to set me free in that hallway to wreak havoc and leave me there,” said Cadon.
“It seems to me,” said Haid to Cadon, “that you are simply looking for ideas to dislike me. I really do wish we could be friends, you know, Whiss? I seem to have no male friends. Not a single one, you know that?”
“I wonder why that is,” said Cadon in a voice that indicated he didn’t wonder at all.
Haid sighed.
“I need to get to the ballroom,” said Sefoni.
“Yes,” said Haid. “We are running out of time. If there’s nothing else?”
“Can’t we come watch?” said Tristanne.
“No,” said Haid. “Madigain will recognize all of you. He’s seen you before, and we can’t trust him not to do something to any of you. Why don’t you stay here and practice?”
“I say we go for more jilato,” said Pairce.
“Excellent plan,” said Tristanne.
“I’ll stay here,” said Mairli.
“Oh, come now, Mairli,” said Tristanne, shooting her a pleading look.
“I’m not in the mood for jilato,” said Marli. “Besides, I need to be ready when Haid comes back.”
“Actually, you could come with us,” said Haid. “I don’t think Madigain’s ever seen you before, and you don’t stand out, like Tristanne or Cadon.”
Mairli supposed it was true that Tristanne’s manner of dress was singular, and Cadon was so huge that he drew attention.
“What if I come with you and wear a dress?” said Tristanne.
“You? In a dress?” said Mairli acidly.
“I could wear a dress,” said Tristanne.
“Go get jilato, Tristanne,” said Mairli in a voice that brooked no argument.
So, Mairli came along with Haid and Sefoni and sat on the risers in the ballroom to watch the shanj games.
She didn’t find shanj a particularly interesting thing to watch, truth be told. It seemed to her that it was mostly a lot of waiting about while people stared at the pieces and made pained faces as if they were thinking too hard.
There was a large felt facsimile of a shanj board that was unfurled in the midst of the room and two men picked up felt pieces to move them on the board to mirror what the players were doing.
This did not make things more interesting to Mairli, who could barely follow shanj. It was such a needlessly complicated game, she thought. All the pieces moved in distinct ways. Some could only go sideways and some could only go forward and some only diagonally, and she could not keep straight which was which.
She wished she’d brought a book.
Madigain and a fellow named Suelt played the first game, and Madigain won, although it took an interminable amount of time.
Luckily, when Sefoni sat down to play with her partner, she made short work of him. The game was over in less than a quarter hour, which Mairli deeply appreciated.
There was an announcement that Madigain and Sefoni would play tomorrow immediately following lunch hour, and then everyone got to their feet and began milling about the room.
A lot of people wanted to talk to Sefoni. It seemed everyone was shaking her hand and complimenting her and asking her to go for drinks.
Mairli hung back and watched Sefoni and Haid, not wanting to alert Madigain to the fact that she was here with them.
Eventually, Haid wound through the crowd, leaving Sefoni behind, and gestured with his head for Mairli to follow him.
When they had exited Madigain’s house and were on the street, they were able to talk.
“She’s going to go be adored and worshiped,” said Haid with a twinkle in his eye. “You and I will go meet some horses.”
“You don’t mind leaving her?” said Mairli.
Haid shrugged. “Why would I? I’d stay and watch her triumph of course, if I didn’t have things to do. She’s radiant after a win. I adore it.” He smiled, and it was the sort of smile that Haid didn’t often smile. It was so simple and genuine.
Mairli looked away, feeling almost as if she was intruding on him in some way. “I suppose you might feel… oh, I don’t know. Jealous?”
He laughed. “Of course not. I have no reason for that.”
She bit down on her bottom lip. “No, I suppose you don’t. She’s only ever been with you.”
“Well, that’s not why.” He shrugged. “I just don’t see the point in wasting energy on those sorts of emotions.”
She let out a little laugh. “I’m sure no one likes feeling jealous. It’s an emotion that just happens.”
They were walking at this point, heading down the cobblestone streets of Rzymn, between stately houses on either side of the street.
“Well, certainly, but you can reject it when it does,” he said. “And if you reject it often enough, it tends to stop rearing its ugly head. The thing about other people is that you have no control over them. If Sefoni decides she’d prefer someone else to me, that would be her decision, not mine, and one couldn’t say I have much to recommend me, could one? It would be utterly rational on her part.”
“So, that would just be that? You wouldn’t be hurt by it?”
“I’d be devastated,” said Haid. “Destroyed. Ruined.”
“And you’re not afraid of that?”
“Well, it hasn’t happened. There’s no point in dwelling on it. It’s not as if anticipating it will make it hurt less if it does come to pass. And I do think it unlikely. For whatever reason, she seems to love me, and…” He smiled that smile again.
“You two are very happy together.”
“It’s not perfect,” said Haid. “I rather imagine it’s my fault.”
“Well, nothing’s perfect,” said Mairli.
“No,” he said.
“How many women do you see Tristanne with?”
Haid chuckled. “I might have known this line of questioning wasn’t actually about me.”
“Never mind.”
“None,” said Haid. “Not really since Melehen. Except you, of course.”
“She…” Mairli didn’t want to explain it out loud to Haid.
“I know that Tristanne is, er, adventurous,” said Haid. “But I think… and mind, she’d call me adorable and womanish for saying this… but I think people tend to pursue so many partners because of some other reason, some sort of internal rift they’re trying to fill with all that sex. I couldn’t say what it was with Tristanne, but whatever it was, I’m not sure she feels it anymore.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She’s been different,” he said, shrugging. “Since Melehen, really, I think. You scare her. You might not realize this about her, but she’d a deeply frightened person. She worries a lot about being safe. That’s why she has to have all that money.”
“Yes, she spoke to me about something like that last night,” said Mairli. “She apologized. She says she wants to be with me.”
Haid raised his eyebrows. “Oh.”
“Well, I can’t trust her,” said Mairli.
“Because you think she’ll be with other women?”
“Because she has always kept me at arms’ length. Because she has never let me close to her. Because…”
“Look, if trust were easy, it wouldn’t be trust. It would just be obvious. You don’t talk about trusting the sun to come up every day, after all. It always does. Trust is about risk. You just have to decide whether she’s worth it.” He stopped. “Ah. There are the carriages. You go and look at the horses.” He pointed. “I’ll talk price with the man. Find us two that are agreeable and fast.”
“Yes,” said Mairli. “I’ll do my best.”
She was glad of the distraction, actually, because she didn’t know whether Tristanne was worth the risk. That was the entire problem with everything.
She lost herself in the horses, spea
king to each of them in a low and soothing voice, seeing which responded to her. In the end, it was easy to find two horses who would do the best for them, but she felt sad that there were so many of these horses who were so skittish and obviously mistreated. She wanted to take them all home and give them fields to run in and sugar lumps to eat and help them learn to trust again.
There was that word again.
She sighed.
Haid paid the man for the carriage and the horses, and then they climbed inside to ride it back to their inn.
“I thought we were going to the docks,” said Mairli. “You said you needed to hire a boat to meet us.”
“No,” said Haid. “No, I’m not going to do that right now, actually.”
SEFONI WENT TO sleep early so that she would be refreshed for the game against Madigain the next day, but Haid wasn’t tired.
He left the inn and went wandering about through the city of Rzymn. At first, he stuck to the well-lit and well-known parts of the city, but then his feet wandered down darker alleys and rougher streets. Soon enough, he was in the Barrens, the underbelly of Rzymn, where the streets were filled with taverns and whorehouses and gambling houses.
He stopped once, to ask a passerby a question, and the man directed him toward the Popina, just three streets down from his current location.
When Haid entered the Popina, he was greeted by the sound of raucous music coming from a small stage on the far side of the room. A chorus of dancing girls were kicking their legs out from beneath their skirts and winking heavily-lined eyes at the gathered audience.
The place wasn’t full of people, but there were men scattered about at tables, a few women as well. Some were drinking and some were playing cards. The Popina did not feel upscale, not as Haid strove to make the Sticx feel, but he found the atmosphere welcoming, just the same. There was something warm and pleasing about the place.
“Come to bring our take already?” said a voice from behind him.
Haid whirled and there was Chevolere Vox, looking much the same as he had before, leather mask and cape still in place. “Why do you wear that anyway?” He gestured to his own face.
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