House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  He was well spoken, polite, and attractive in the way that men who are utterly certain of their own power are. It was not a character trait that Jewel found compelling.

  But to be fair, she didn’t find the mage-born all that compelling anymore, either. Working with Meralonne—and the occasional member of Terafin called in to examine, of all things, the dirt in the various entrances to the undercity that had once—and no longer—existed—magic had lost its mystery. If Meralonne was anything to go by, mages used magic to light their bloody pipes.

  Devon didn’t smoke.

  He had fumed, however, when she told him where she intended to take him. They had discussed it the previous afternoon, on their return from his first outing, and he had—politely—declined. She had—much less politely—pointed out that there weren’t a lot of other places left, and most of those involved the ancient cathedrals that stood in the hundred holdings.

  She’d intended to let him choose. She honestly had.

  And she wasn’t certain why, in the end, she had insisted on the Merchant Authority—because she didn’t actually want to be here. It was far too crowded, for one, and it had too damn many guards. They couldn’t easily approach it in the dark, after hours, so the possibility of witnesses was high.

  But although she told him he could pick the site, in the end, she had withdrawn the offer; she would take him to the Merchant Authority, and its old basement entrance. Or she’d stay home.

  He’d raised one brow, where Meralonne would have raised both his voice and his pipe. But after five minutes of cold, measured silence, he had inclined his head.

  “Be ready early,” he told her. “We’ll have to prepare.”

  That should have been a clue.

  She grimaced and adjusted her dress. She didn’t even like dresses, and she found this one annoying; it was the Northern idea of what Southern commoners dressed like. It wasn’t actually real. Added to that indignity were the large earrings—which didn’t actually sit on her lobes because, unlike many of the women of Devon’s acquaintance, Jewel didn’t have holes in her ears—a scarf around her head, and gold-plated chain loops for a “belt” around her waist. It wasn’t much of a belt, in her opinion; it certainly wasn’t there to hold anything up.

  Although she had to grudgingly admit that the hooks that fell from the chain links were convenient; they carried a waterskin and a couple of empty pouches. Beneath these, she wore a dagger. It was not her usual dagger; she wore that on the other side, refusing to be parted from it.

  But Devon had given her a knife, and he had told her not to draw or use it unless they were cornered. By what, he had failed to specify. But his failure, the quality of his silence, had almost frightened her, and she had taken the dagger—which seemed awkward and unbalanced—without further comment.

  Her hair, which was flyaway on the best of days, was loose; had it been summer, it would have been a standing mass of dense curls. As it was, it was irritating. Almost everything was today.

  It was hard to be here.

  She knew the Common. The den knew it. Even this close to the Merchant Authority, she was aware of the way the streets turned and aware of the gates, the guards, and the placement of the various stalls and storefronts. She knew which part of the Common had High Market pretensions, but she avoided those; she knew which parts were reserved for people who sold their services as fortune-tellers, a practice that had galled and infuriated her Oma.

  But she also knew which parts housed the farmers, and in particular, could trace an exact path to Farmer Hanson. Devon had not been at all pleased when she had entered the Common and started to head that way, her feet carrying her on a familiar route while her thoughts were elsewhere.

  She was not here to speak with Farmer Hanson. It had been weeks since she’d seen him at all, and she knew he’d be worse than worried. But Devon had been quite clear: She could come to the Common on her own time.

  Of course, her own time started after the Common, and in particular Farmer Hanson, was closed for the day. Every day. Without fail.

  It was probably, she thought pensively, a good thing. He’d take one look at the outlandish way she was dressed, and he’d give Devon the suspicious once-over. She couldn’t explain anything, either.

  But . . . it wasn’t just to quell his worry that she wanted to go; she wanted to see him. She wanted to look over his food and listen to his sons grumble in their good-natured way; she wanted to see his daughter’s severe face. She wanted just a little bit of normal.

  What she had instead?

  The looming Merchant Authority. And a partner who was, like the Authority’s stone face, cool and austere. She wondered what the hell he was thinking.

  Devon glanced at Jewel ATerafin, and grimaced. The girl looked outlandish, which had been the intent; Devon had spared his dignity no injury in the process of transforming them both into something that suited the public’s image of Southern wanderers. Only a very few made their way across the borders and into the Empire, and of those, none returned to the Dominion of Annagar. They made their homes in the tightly packed buildings of the poorest holdings; he did not know if they counted those homes a blessing.

  Jewel had never traveled in the South; she could speak like a native, but only if one didn’t actually know any natives. Her Torra was shaded with Weston words and oddities, changing, as most street language did, into something not wholly one thing or the other.

  He had done what he could with her hair and with the lines of her face; he had done what he could to harshen them, to draw out the appearance of age. But none of it, in spite of his best efforts, was visible now; she looked young, to him. Young, apprehensive, and prickly in the way girls of her age could be. She was also, he thought, exhausted; even in the darker complexion of her skin, her eyes were shadowed by gray circles.

  He could not afford to treat her as a child. He wanted to, but he was not a man who indulged such a whim with any frequency.

  And he understood, although the understanding was oblique, that she was special; she was not here entirely because of any knowledge she claimed to have. Had it just been knowledge or familiarity with the so-called undercity that was required, any of the other den members would do, and at least one of them seemed, to Devon, to be more certain. Admittedly he’d had little chance to observe them in the last few days.

  The incident in Avantari had devoured most of his time, his attention, and, yes—his fear. The Huntbrother, Stephen, had indeed found demons within Avantari. Or, to be more precise, the demons had found him. Had found the Hunter Lord, his cursed inconvenient dogs, and the almost bestial wild girl. Fire had started in Avantari, behind the backs of the Kings’ Swords; there was anger and resentment and humiliation in the ranks, much of it exacerbated by Duvari’s contempt at their failure to apprehend a danger.

  Duvari, Lord of the Astari. Devon grimaced.

  He, too, was tired.

  He was caught between the demands of the Astari, whom he served and to whom he had sworn his life in defense of the Twin Kings, and The Terafin, whose name he bore and whose House he also served, when service to the House and service to the Kings did not come into conflict.

  In her name, he woke early, after the scant hours of sleep that had followed Duvari’s cold debriefing; in her name, he had taken a girl barely out of childhood into the streets of the hundred holdings, to dark basements and damp tunnels, in search of something that could not, it appeared, be found.

  You will take the lead, of course, The Terafin had told him. But Jewel is unusual, Devon, as you will no doubt become aware. I ask—but I do not command—that you trust her instincts when you are together. If she speaks with certainty—not with petulance and not with anger, but with true certainty—I would advise you to heed her words.

  She had said no more.

  But Devon, accustomed to the nuances of the powerful, understood two things. She was offering him this opportunity to observe the girl and to find what the girl herself had not yet found. />
  The demons existed, and that knowledge was burning its way through the Kings’ Palace; no mouth in Avantari would be still, given the dramatic attempt on a guest’s life within the palace itself. The Terafin sought some way of making their possible danger clearer without committing herself to the Kings before the Council of The Ten.

  He understood why.

  And he understood as well that she had given him the opportunity to discover information that might—discreetly—be used in the defense of the Kings should the need arise. But the assassins had gone nowhere near the Kings, the Queens, or the patriciate of Essalieyan; instead, they had found the foreign lords.

  He was grateful for at least one thing: It was not he who would convey the news to Lady Faergif.

  The girl was not afraid of crowds. She was, after the initial argument about her clothing and what it was meant to achieve, not afraid of being noticed; for all her blunt words and her inability to dissemble, she knew how to move through a crowd. She collided with no one; had she wanted to, however, she was more than capable of arranging it.

  She did not have the casual disregard for property that marked the few known thieves of Devon’s acquaintance; nor did she have their easy, fluid grace or their dramatic sense of a challenge. But he thought, observing her, that she had some of their skill. Even now, she was casually scanning the crowded steps that led into the Merchant Authority for any sign of difficulty.

  The guards were, to a man, somewhat bored. It wasn’t clear by their posture or their expressions; the Merchant Authority could afford to hire men with self-discipline. Devon, however, had done his share of interminable observation, and he knew the signs well. There had been no trouble here, and they expected none.

  She stopped at the base of those stairs, and waited. He nodded and made his way up them. When she did not follow immediately, he turned to see that she was still standing by the stairs, her hands on the polished brass rails. Her color, which had by no means been good at the start of the day, was now almost gray. Her eyes were wide; he wondered what she had seen that had panicked her. The guards did indeed look at her, but not with any suspicion.

  Whatever it was, she overcame it with effort and began to follow through the stream of people moving in either direction. She walked, he thought, as if she owned the stairs. Or as if her temper did. All objections to the clothing itself aside, she was capable of wearing it as if it were her natural garb. An odd child.

  He made his way onto the crowded, and very loud, floor, passing the familiar livery of House Guards and the less familiar chain shirts of private guards. Magisterial guards quartered the floor; they were not in the uniform of the Merchant Authority, and they were clearly bored. Above them, a second tier of open offices overlooked the floor, and above those, another. Guards could be seen from any vantage and could also see from any vantage.

  He noted that at least three Houses were present, which always caused some congestion in foot traffic in the Common; in the Authority, it caused more. But no one who came here expected to spend less than an hour waiting.

  He turned; Jewel was no longer behind him.

  This, he thought, was why he disliked amateurs. Had he a clearer idea of where they were going, he would have left her in the relative safety of the enclosed, multistory trading center.

  He found her, approaching her as she stood, back to one side of the central support pillar in the north half of the open hall. It stretched to the ceiling, dwarfing her, but because it was in the way, she had few people to contend with.

  Frowning, he walked slowly toward her; the girl who had so artfully, and perhaps gracelessly, navigated her way through the crowds was eclipsed now by fear. He approached her silently and frowned as her hand fell to her dagger and gripped its hilt tightly. He had seen her angry—with some frequency—and frustrated; had seen her intimidated, and also hungry, cold, and miserable.

  But afraid? No. Casting a glance around the Authority floor, he could see no one—no guards, no merchants—near her; nothing that could account for her whitening knuckles, her pale face. He therefore took care to make noise as he approached the pillar from the side.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said lightly. “Come on.”

  Fear gave way to the customary annoyance; she did not like being treated like a child. But the expression was cosmetic; her hand still remained on her dagger. This time, however, she nodded toward the large, open doors that led to the stairs and the rest of the Common.

  “We don’t have time for this.” He kept his tone businesslike and cool, hoping to draw her from the floor and the crowd quickly.

  She didn’t move. “Something’s wrong.”

  He would have asked her what, but she lifted one hand and pressed it firmly against his lips; her fingers were shaking.

  But he kissed her fingers, pressing his lips against them, and her eyes rounded as she hastily withdrew her hand. It afforded him some amusement; nothing else about her did. The Terafin’s words came back to him, and he smiled a lazy smile through their warning.

  Taking her into his arms, he bent his head to her ear, ignoring the stiffening and the tension that took her whole body. “Should we leave?” he asked quietly, the tone entirely at odds with the gesture.

  He drew her back, toward an alcove in the wall; it wasn’t private, and the open familiarity of his embrace had drawn its share of attention, some of it harried, some amused, and some scornful. None of it was suspicious, however.

  He turned her as he moved, his arms around her, until she faced his chest—and the wall—and he, the doors.

  And then, as he watched them, he cursed, quietly and efficiently, in her ear.

  “Patris Cordufar.”

  Chapter Five

  DEVON BENT HIS HEAD AGAIN, brushing his cheek against Jewel’s as he pulled her farther along the wall—and farther away from the doors. Patris Cordufar traveled with a small guard of four men and at least one attendant; he surveyed the Authority floor with the bored air of a man who does not require its services.

  For the most part, this was not true. But the Cordufar family was wealthy. He did not expect Jewel to know the man on sight; he did expect her to recognize his name. She had been in Council with The Terafin when some part of the Cordufar affair had been discussed.

  Devon was ill at ease, however. While it was not unusual to find Lord Cordufar in the Authority itself, it was disturbing to find his presence and Jewel’s inexplicable fear linked in this fashion.

  But that fear seemed to travel in only one direction; Cordufar did not turn or look; he did not appear to be aware of her existence at all. Devon released the girl and stepped toward the safety of the wicket as the danger passed beyond view.

  He grimaced. This, this was to be a test of sorts.

  Jewel watched Devon approach the wicket, and drawing a breath, straightening her shoulders, she joined him there. The crowd was thick and suffocating, and although Devon had relaxed when Patris Cordufar had departed the building, she hadn’t. She couldn’t.

  “We need a distraction,” Devon had told her.

  She was used to this. What she wasn’t used to was Devon’s idea of distraction. He told her what they would do at the money changer’s wicket, and she had gaped at him. “Are you crazy?”

  He’d simply raised a brow.

  “Everyone in the building will be staring at us!”

  “Yes. But there will be some mild discomfort, and they will not question what they see.”

  And somehow, she’d agreed.

  She wished he could meet Haval. Haval might like him.

  Then again, Haval might dislike him intensely; with Haval, it was hard to tell. All she had to do was to walk out those doors and around the Common, and she’d know, one way or the other.

  But, like Farmer Hanson, Haval wasn’t in the cards today. So much of her life was gone.

  Devon and the money changer were bartering; the money changer—a man from the South, or at least born to Southern parents—looke
d bored.

  She waited until they had almost agreed upon a sum and then drew breath, remembering as she did, her Oma at the market.

  “That isn’t even an offer,” she broke in, and for just a moment, the memories clung. “That’s theft. Or isn’t our gold good enough for the likes of you?”

  They did, of course, carry Annagarian gold, some of which was now spread out on the counter before the money changer. To Jewel, it looked no different than Imperial gold, if you ignored the stamping. On the other hand, it was only very recently that she’d had any experience with the gold coins of either nation. She didn’t much like gold; there wasn’t any place you could spend it in safety if you didn’t want every den streetside in miles to relieve you of its burden. Word traveled.

  None of which was relevant right now. She felt her Oma’s fingers pinch her wrist. Some memories, she could live without.

  “You’re Annagarian,” she said, as if it were an accusation.

  The wicketeer nodded.

  “And you would do this to your own? Have you so forgotten yourself that you’ve sold all your honor to these foreign lapdogs?”

  His pallid face went red beneath his dark hair.

  “My love,” Devon said, attempting to draw her from the wicket. She saw one eyebrow rise; this was not exactly what he’d planned. Then again, most of his so-called plan had involved starting an argument. “I think you react a little strongly. It’s not as if—”

  She yanked her hand free; it was what she wanted to do anyway. Haval had taught her to use her natural reactions, rather than fighting them. She did so, now. “So you start this again?” Before he could answer, she slapped him, hard. “What kind of a man are you, that you choose him over me? You’ve done nothing but bow and scrape since we crossed the cursed border!”