The Thief's Gamble

by Juliet E. McKenna

  'We will dine alone, as is customary when travelling with a well-born young lady.' Casuel spoke slowly to emphasise the purity of his own diction. The example of a native-born Tormalin should show these rustics what a bastard garble they were making of his noble tongue, he thought with satisfaction.

  'As your honour wishes.' The old man gestured the younger out of the bedroom, drawing the door closed but neglecting quite to shut it.

  Casuel moved to latch it with a hiss of irritation and scowled to hear the two daring to discuss him as they clattered down the stairs.

  'What do you think his business is then, Uncle? You reckon he's selling 'owt from those books and the like?'

  'He won't do much trade unless he mends his manners, for all his fancy clothes. He couldn't sell garbage to a goat with that attitude.'

  'So who's the lassie? Reckon he's dipping his quill there?'

  'She don't look the type to me, too young, too quiet. Wouldn't fight a mouse for its cheese, that one.'

  Casuel slammed the door to with a violence that made his candle flicker. He paused for a moment, deciding what he should have said to the insolent youth, then stripped off his shirt to wash away the grime of the day. Shuddering at the memory of the leagues spent crammed into a carriers' coach with Raeponin only knew what class of people, he scrutinised his white arms and rather narrow chest first, somewhat mollified at finding no flea-bites. Whisking soap to a foam with his silver-mounted brush, he lathered his face briskly.

  Casuel held his polished steel mirror up, angling it to get the best light. He studied himself, drawing comfort from the aristocratic lines of his brow and jaw. The blood of Devoir still marked its sons with the faces of ancient power, he thought with returning good humour. He drew the fine steel blade down carefully, to make sure none of that noble - if no longer ennobled - blood marked his towel.

  Turning to his bag for his toiletries, he looked at the modest selection of faded volumes stacked neatly on the scuffed table next to a smaller, uneven heap of parchments. His self-possession wilted a little; it would be better to have rather more to present to Usara on his return to Hadrumal, wouldn't it? He combed his wavy brown hair back thoughtfully.

  A timid hand tapped at the door. 'Come in.'

  Allin peered hesitantly round the door before entering.

  'The inn-lady said dinner was ready to serve.' She bobbed a half-curtsey, caught herself and blushed furiously.

  'I've told you, Allin, there's no need to do that.' Casuel tried to curb his impatience, not wanting to provoke another weeping fit in the girl, especially not when they were alone in his bedchamber, he with no shirt on.

  'Sorry, Messire Devoir.' Allin ducked her head and smoothed her skirts unnecessarily but her voice stayed just about level, if all but inaudible.

  'No need to apologise,' Casuel said in what he imagined to be a kindly tone. 'Remember, to be a mage is to command respect. You should accustom yourself to it.'

  He pulled a clean shirt from his bag, frowning at the creases. 'Is your bedchamber satisfactory?'

  'Oh, yes.' Allin twisted her plump hands around each other. 'Though I would be happy to sleep in the women's room, if that would suit better.'

  'Your days of sharing beds with your sisters are behind you, let alone with strangers in the common dormitory.' Casuel brushed some dust from the sleeve of his coat. 'Let us go down to dinner. I'll show you the book I bought today.'

  He picked up a couple of volumes and some notes.

  Allin closed her mouth on whatever she had been about to say and took his arm obediently, scurrying rather to keep up with Casuel. No more than average height, he still topped her by a head or more. He smiled down at her and wondered again how much irritation he had let himself in for. Surely the girl should have been delighted at the prospect of a room to herself; she couldn't ever have had such privacy before.

  He was pleasantly surprised with the parlour, which was neatly if plainly furnished. As they seated themselves at the old-fashioned table, the door opened and a fat woman swung it aside with her hips, hands occupied with a laden tray.

  'Beg pardon, your honour.' The woman bobbed a perfunctory curtsey and swept Casuel's books and papers aside to make room for her burden.

  'Let me do that!' Casuel snapped, snatching a precious volume away from the danger of slopping soup.

  'There's broth, roast fowl, a mutton pudding, some cheese and an apple flummery,' the woman said with satisfaction. 'Eat hearty, my duck, you could do with some flesh on them shanks.'

  Casuel opened his mouth but was unable to think of a dignified retort before the dame swept out again in a bustle of homespun skirts. The savoury smells from the table set his stomach clamouring with reminders about how long it had been since breakfast.

  'This looks very good,' he said with some surprise.

  Allin leaped to her feet and went to serve him some chicken.

  'Do sit down!' Casuel snapped, immediately regretting it as her eyes filled. She ducked her face, leaving him with a view of braids neatly coiled and pinned around the top of her head.

  Casuel heaved a sigh of exasperation. 'You must understand, Allin. You are mage-born, you have a rare and special talent. I understand this is all new and somewhat alarming, but I will take you back to Hadrumal with me and you can apprentice to one of the Halls. Your life has changed and for the better, believe me. I know it will take time to accustom yourself to the idea but you are no longer the disregarded youngest daughter whom everyone orders about. Now eat some supper.'

  He pushed the tureen towards her and, after a long moment, Allin dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her shawl and hesitantly ladled herself some soup. They ate in awkward silence.

  Allin broke it with a hesitant murmur which Casuel didn't quite catch, her Lescari accent still oafish to his ear.

  'Sorry?'

  'I wondered when we would be going to Hadrumal.' Allin peeped up from under her fringe.

  A gust of wind rattled the shutters, and the gold embossed on the tattered spine of one of his recent acquisitions gleamed in a flicker of candlelight. Casuel's mouthful of mutton pudding suddenly tasted leaden and fatty. It was an undeniably old copy of Minrinel's Intelligencer. The notes in the margins looked interesting, but it was hardly a rare book. He pushed the mutton aside.

  'I don't think it will be until after Equinox.' He spooned up flummery absently. 'I need to have something worthwhile for Usara.'

  'Is he a very great mage?' Allin asked with some awe.

  Casuel could not help a laugh. 'Not exactly. He's not that much older than me, and hardly what you'd call a commanding personality, he's a senior wizard in the Terrene Hall, where I study, but with a seat on the Council and rumour suggests he has the Archmage's ear from time to time.'

  'And you work for him?'

  'It's not as simple as that.' Casuel sipped some ale with a shudder of longing for a decent wine. 'He's probably testing me to see if I'm worth a pupillage, the opportunity of working with him on a special project.'

  He nodded confidently to himself. 'I'm Tormalin-born, the earth is my element, as is his. Who better to help him research the end of the Empire? I'll wager I'll know more about the last days of the Empire than any five Council members he could name.'

  'The books you bought from my father are for him?'

  'That's right.' Casuel stifled the unworthy thought that the price for those undeniably desirable volumes was proving higher than he had anticipated. He had thought he was getting a bargain; after all, the man had been desperate to turn what valuables he had salvaged into solid coin before winter set in. Driven out of their Lescar home by the uncertain currents of the summer's fighting, Allin's parents were struggling to provide for their numerous brood when they had heard about the travelling scholar interested in purchasing books.

  Still, once Casuel had realised that the child who was always called to light the stove was mage-born, he could hardly have left her there. Besides, having one mouth fewer to feed was as good as
coin in the hand for her harried father. Especially this particular mouth, he noted, watching Allin finish the flummery with inelegant haste.

  He took another drink and leaned forward, succumbing to the temptation to confide in someone.

  'The problem is, I rather think I'm not the only one being sent to the mainland in connection with Usara's projects. Once he'd approached me, I made it my business to keep a weather eye on him as well as his acknowledged pupils. Various people had conversations which could have meant something or nothing, it's hard to tell.'

  He poked at the cheese with his knife and sniffed it doubtfully; it looked too much like the stuff his mother used to bait traps for his peace of mind.

  'I can't decide what to do for the best. It might be to my advantage to be the first back, with a modest start and some good leads, because then Usara might retain me on a more formal basis, sign me to an acknowledged pupillage. On the other hand, with the Equinox coming up, there'll be all the various fairs, people buying and selling all manner of things, scribes with stocks of random volumes and so forth. It might well be worth waiting. I could find something really impressive.'

  Casuel jabbed his knife into the cheese with savage irritation and pushed his chair back abruptly, rocking the table violently.

  'Though I'd probably return to find Shivvalan Ralsere had come up with the self-same thing the day before.'

  'You don't seem to like him very much,' Allin ventured timidly.

  'I have nothing against the man personally,' Casuel lied firmly. 'It's just that things seem to fall rather too readily into his hands. It's simply not just. Shivvalan hasn't done half the work I have but, inside three years of arriving in Hadrumal, he was rag-tagging after mages like Rafrid and even Shannet. The woman hadn't taken a pupil in ten years and all of a sudden, she lit on Shivvalan Ralsere, overlooking mages who've spent seasons putting together a proposal for study, waiting for the offer of pupillage.'

  The surface of the ale in the flagon stopped slopping and gleamed in the candlelight. A sudden thought diverted Casuel from that particular set of oft-rehearsed grievances.

  'You see, I rather suspect Shivvalan's being a little underhand, using his powers for his own advancement. Scrying, for example. That's what Shivvalan's supposed to be so good at.

  That's what Shannet had been working on, locked away in her tower, according to all the gossip at least.'

  'Will I be able to scry?' Allin's rather small eyes brightened.

  'Well, mages with an affinity for water are best at scrying. Your talent is for fire, but you should be able to master it. I have.'

  Allin looked up at Casuel with an awe that flattered his bruised conceit.

  An unaccustomed boldness gripped him. Trying to ignore the fluttering in his belly at his own daring, Casuel reached for a dish and poured water into it.

  'Let me show you.'

  He rummaged in his writing case for ink, and let fall a few careful drops. Amber light flickered stubbornly around his fingers before he could raise a muddy green to dimly illuminate the water. Biting his lip Casuel concentrated on picturing Shiv's seal-ring, something he could do easily. After all, he'd worn the reverse image printed on his jawbone for long enough after that disgraceful incident at Solstice.

  The recollection distracted him, and he had to start again. The fresh trails of ink eddied in the water and then Casuel had it, a blurred image of Shivvalan sitting in an inn, evidently a far better one than this pest-hole, he noted with irritation.

  'That's Ralsere.'

  'Who's that with him?' Allin peered into the bowl, mouth open.

  Casuel frowned at the lively-looking redhead sharing the ale flagon and playing runes.

  'Some Forest maid fresh from the woods and fancying her chances,' he muttered. 'She'll have a surprise if she's got plans for tonight.'

  'Pardon?'

  'Nothing,' Casuel said hastily. Actually, the trollop wasn't bad-looking. Why did he never meet women like that, he wondered, glancing sideways at Allin's immature, dumpy figure, her plain, round face and snub nose.

  The passing surge of lust faded when he recognised a man on the far side of the room.

  'Darni Fallion? What's he doing there?'

  Casuel watched open-mouthed as Shivvalan crossed the room to exchange a few brief words with the mercenary before returning to the girl.

  His agitation conveyed itself to the water and the vision dissolved in a confusion of mossy greens and browns. Casuel ignored it and the ink now staining the crackled glaze of the bowl.

  'Who is he, that other man?'

  'He's one of the Archmage's agents,' Casuel said grimly. 'This could be serious. I mean he's fairly insignificant as agents go, but if Shivvalan is travelling with Darni, that means Planir must be involved somehow.'

  There was no way Casuel could let an opportunity like this slip through his fingers; he had to know what was going on.

  'Wait here.'

  Casuel left Allin sitting wide-eyed at the table and left the room, returning rapidly with his mirror. Moving with unaccustomed purpose, he opened the shutter and set a candle on the sill, ignoring the chill blast of the weather. Allin shivered and wrapped herself tighter in her shawl, kept quiet by the ingrained habits of her scarcely passed childhood.

  Settling himself on his stool, Casuel snapped his fingers and orange fire at once lit the candle with a flame burning steadily in defiance of the wind. He angled the mirror to catch the image and it began to glow with an inner radiance of its own, reflecting a golden light back first into Casuel's intent face and then Allin's eyes as she came to peep over his shoulder at the revelations in the shiny surface.

  'So where are we heading for next?' The voice of the little image sounded both tinny and muffled in the silent room.

  'Who's that?' Allin whispered hesitantly.

  'Geris, some irritating boy from the University at Vanam. Saedrin knows what he's doing there!'

  Casuel kept his eyes fixed on the mirror where he could now see Darni clearly

  'Drede, Eyhorne, then Hanchet.' Darni tapped the map by way of emphasis.

  'Horn far are we taking the girl? Geris lowered his tone, looking uncertainly across the room.

  Darni shrugged. 'As long as the Watch don't come looking for her, she can come as far as she's useful. A lot 'II depend on whether she can acquire that item for us or not. If she can and my contact in Hanchet comes through, we'll double back for Friern. She can earn her cut of the coin properly, greedy sow.''

  'Are you sure? It'll be very risky? Geris was clearly unhappy about something, his eyes flickering between Darni and the others on the far side of the room.

  Darni took a long swallow of ale before answering in a low, even tone. 'If that herbalist is right, those are books that we need and there's no way we'll get them out of Armile any other way. You heard the apothecary; he's sure the chamberlain's living in Hanchet now and will be only too pleased to give us the layout of the library in return for a little coin and the promise of revenge. You knew I've been wondering where we might find an upper-storey man without attracting too much attention.''

  'What if she's caught? Geris' voice rose and Darni scowled blackly at him.

  'As long as he's got someone to clap in the pillory and hang if it suits him, Lord Armile won't bother looking any further. Who's going to believe her if she starts talking about wizards hiring her light fingers?'

  'I still don't like it,' Geris said defiantly.

  'You don't have to like it; it's not your decision.' Darni's voice rang harshly against the metal of the mirror. 'Either she's good enough to keep out of trouble or she just has to take the runes the way they fall. Anyway, if she makes a complete pig's arse of the first job, there'll be no point taking her to Friern, will there? We'll pay her off and dump her.'

  Casuel gaped at the mirror, appalled at what he was hearing. 'I don't believe it! That girl isn't just some slut with a taste for the long grass, she's a common lockpick!' He shook his head.

&nbs
p; Once again, agitation unravelled Casuel's spell. He cursed and slammed the shutters closed against the cutting wind.

  'They're planning to rob someone?' Allin looked at him, aghast.

  'That's not the worst of it! Think about it, they could very well succeed! I've always suspected Shivvalan used intrigue to advance himself, and that Darni is no better than a common blade for hire. A season and a half of my painstaking work is going to be overlooked yet again because that pair have all the morals of wharf-rats!'

  Casuel looked down with surprise at his hands, shaking with impotent frustration. 'Raeponin pox the pair of them!'

  'What are you going to do about it?'

  Casuel opened his mouth to deny any such idea but stopped, open-mouthed, staring at nothing for a moment. He coughed and took a reflective sip of ale.

  'Well, if they're prepared to use such despicable tricks, I have a duty to do something about it, don't I? What if it all goes wrong? If a plot like that is traced back to a wizard and an Archmage's agent as well, the reputation of Hadrumal will be strung up on the gallows along with that red-headed bitch!'

  Allin's trusting, respectful gaze spurred him on. Casuel lifted a long, thick book from his bag.

  'What is that?'

  'It's a set of itineraries, maps of the coach roads,' he replied with satisfaction. 'Be quiet a moment.'

  It took him a few moments to locate the roads he needed, and cross-referencing wasn't easy, as he had to unfold several of the lengths of paper at the same time. Casuel cursed under his breath. Hanchet, there it was. It was a small place, wasn't it? Only really there to serve the bridges on either side as two rivers drew together, not a real town in the Tormalin sense of the word.

  'You know, we could be there by the day after tomorrow, look,' he breathed at last.

  He refolded the maps of the roads with trembling hands. 'No, we have to be realistic. We have no idea of whom we would need to contact, for a start. All we know is they're looking for someone who used to be chamberlain to Lord Armile.'