"I'm not here on my master's behalf." Tathrin's mouth was dry. "I was interested in what you had to say last night, about how all Lescari should take some responsibility for what happens at home."
Gruit considered him. "Where are you from, lad? Carluse, by your accent?"
Tathrin nodded. "I know someone who'd very much like to meet you. Someone who wants to improve the lot of all Lescari."
"I don't travel, not back to Lescar." Gruit shook his head regretfully.
"No, he's here, in the city--' Tathrin broke off, unable to think how to explain further.
Gruit laid his reed pen across a brass inkwell and looked at Tathrin. "I thought I knew all the exiles here who haven't turned their backs on their homeland."
"He keeps himself to himself--' Again, Tathrin couldn't go on.
Gruit rubbed a wrinkled hand across his grey jowls. "You think I should meet him?"
"Yes." Of that, Tathrin was certain.
Gruit smiled wryly. "Will your reclusive friend have heard about last night's events?"
Tathrin nodded. "But he'll want to have the truth of it from your own lips."
"What will he say?" challenged Gruit.
Tathrin wasn't about to hazard a guess. "You should find that out for yourself."
"Intriguing." Gruit shook fine sand across his page. "Of course, you could just be planning on luring me down some blind alley where your accomplices will knock me out and steal my rings and purse."
"Master, I swear, on whatever gods you cherish, I'm coming to you in all good faith." Tathrin was taken aback. He'd imagined Gruit would need some convincing to leave his business in mid-morning. He hadn't expected to be accused of plotting to rob him.
Gruit dismissed his words with a wave of his hand. "I hope you don't play the runes, my lad. You'll lose your shirt with a face that easy to read." Now that the ink was dry, he tipped the sand carefully into a little dish to be used again. "Besides, I don't suppose Master Wyess would have hired you without making very sure you could be trusted, and had assurances from your family sealed by a notary into the bargain." He locked the ledger in a drawer. "Saiger!"
A man ran up the stairs from the warehouse floor. "Master?"
"I'm going out for a while. If I'm not back for my appointment with Widow Quaine, rouse the Watch and send them to make enquiries about Master Wyess's new apprentice here."
So Master Gruit was both bold enough to go with him, and canny enough to make sure of such safeguards. Tathrin's spirits rose. Gruit really could be the man they'd been looking for.
Moving swiftly for a man of his years and bulk, the wine merchant crossed the room. He stowed his key chain safely inside the breast of his old-fashioned tunic, then took a brown mantle from a peg. As they walked out past the casks and baskets to the road, he bowed to his customers.
"My compliments. Fair festival."
Tathrin followed, trying to look unobtrusive.
Gruit turned downhill. "Where does this friend of yours hide himself away?"
"No, Master, it's this way." Tathrin pointed back towards the upper town and the austere battlements of the university's nearest gate.
Chapter Five
Aremil
Beacon Lane, in Vanam's Upper Town,
Spring Equinox Festival, Fourth Day, Noon
Soup slopped as the knock on the door startled Lyrlen. Most of the spoonful landed back in the bowl, but a few drops splashed onto the napkin tucked into Aremil's collar.
"Are you expecting anyone?" Exasperated, the old woman rose from her stool ready to ward off unwanted visitors.
"No." Aremil swallowed, acutely conscious of the soup on his chin.
"Master Aremil, it's me, Tathrin."
Lyrlen clicked her tongue but set the bowl back on the tray. "You must eat later, my lord."
He didn't reply as she cleaned his face with the napkin, her hands as deft as they had always been. Though her step was becoming slower and her hair was now as white as her linen cap.
Tathrin knocked again. "Mistress Lyrlen?"
"A moment, if you please." She straightened Aremil's collar. "Are you warm enough? Do you want a blanket?"
"No, thank you." He managed a smile to convince her.
Truth be told, he was a little cold despite the fire in the hearth. But he was no more going to sit swaddled like an infant than wear some aged invalid's chamber robe. If doublet and breeches exposed his twisted frame, well, visitors' reactions gave him a useful measure of their character.
The smile was worth the effort. Lyrlen went out into the hall to open the door. "Tathrin, you're very welcome."
Aremil heard him introduce someone. "This is Master Gruit, a wine merchant."
"Come in and welcome," Aremil said as the two men appeared in the doorway. "Lyrlen, that will be all, thank you."
"As you wish." She took up the tray and curtseyed before withdrawing to her kitchen.
"Master Gruit, you are indeed welcome." Aremil hoped the man would step closer. At the moment he was a mere impression of a long brown mantle topped with white hair.
"You heard about last night?" the wine merchant asked wryly.
"Naturally. Tathrin, please serve some wine." Aremil tried to look as welcoming as he could without risking a smile that would distort his face. "Master Gruit, I hope the vintage meets with your approval. Please, sit."
Gruit took the nearer end of the settle where Aremil could see him clearly. A heavily built man, he was solid rather than fat, not overly tall. Past his prime, his jowls sagged and wrinkles were carved deep into his face. But he was clearly still vigorous, his expression both alert and astute.
"Am I supposed to have lost my wits or merely my temper?" Gruit asked.
"Opinion's divided."
Aremil watched him taking in every detail of this comfortable sitting room. What was Gruit making of the thick maroon carpet, the brocaded upholstery, the shelves of tightly packed books? Assuming this was a wealthy scholar's lodging? But he'd have noticed that no university hall's crest of books or quills or lanterns was carved into the door of the house. Private property was hardly unknown in the upper town; nevertheless, it was uncommon.
Tathrin handed Gruit a crystal goblet. The merchant raised it to his lips before hesitating, seeing Aremil had received no drink.
"Please, quench your thirst. I'm subject to weakness in my hands so I prefer not to drink in company." Aremil glanced at Tathrin. "Has our friend explained my infirmities?"
"He's said little about you, other than that you keep largely within your own doors." Gruit covered his embarrassment by taking a sip.
"As you see, my weakness extends to my legs." Aremil managed a casual tone. There was no point in pretending otherwise; even at rest, his scrawny legs were awkwardly flexed.
"Yet you have heard all about last night. You're plainly a man of resource as well as resources. My compliments--this is a fine vintage. Ferl River, some two or three years old?" Gruit drank his wine and nodded at the painting hung above the fireplace. "That's Ilasette Den Pallarie's work, isn't it?"
"It is," Aremil confirmed. "That's to say, you're quite correct about the wine, and yes, Madam Den Pallarie rendered the landscape for me."
"Pardon my frankness." Gruit set his goblet down carefully on the polished rosewood table where onyx and agate game pieces clustered beside the white raven board. "There's a curious quality to your voice that I assume stems from your infirmities. I would say you're Lescari, but I cannot quite identify which dukedom you're from."
"Draximal," Aremil said calmly. "Though I have lived in Vanam for many years now."
"While your friend here is only recently come from Carluse." Gruit glanced at Tathrin.
Aremil risked an attempt at a half-smile. "We've long since decided that our common heritage unites us more than our fathers'--" he caught himself and hoped Gruit would think the stumble of no consequence "--and forefathers' quarrels divide us."
"So your call for unity among those of us in exile struc
k me," Tathrin added quickly.
"Is that so?" Gruit glanced from Aremil to Tathrin. "How did the two of you become acquainted if Master Aremil spends his days by his own fireside?"
"My family aren't wealthy," Tathrin explained self-consciously. "While I studied I worked as a scholars' servant."
Aremil wondered what the merchant made of his ungainly awkwardness and hesitant speech when Tathrin was so tall, fresh-faced and straight-limbed. While he sat concealing the pains it cost him to stay motionless, lest any but the most trusted see the tremors that often shook him. Did Gruit realise Aremil was Tathrin's elder by barely five years? Between the trials of his condition and his inadequate eyesight, Aremil knew his own face was thin and lined. It would not have surprised him if the merchant took him for ten years older than Tathrin.
"Are you congratulating me for making our countrymen feel miserable and guilty?" Gruit castigated himself rather than challenging Aremil.
"Tathrin says a number appeared to agree with you." Tension worsened the pains in Aremil's back. "Only they could see no way forward. So I have a suggestion for you and your fellow merchants."
"Do you indeed?" Gruit raised bushy white brows, halfway between hope and scepticism.
"Our countrymen send money to their kith and kin, to enable them to pay the dues the dukes demand in lieu of taking their sons to serve in the militias." Aremil felt a bubble of saliva at the corner of his mouth and paused to swallow. "But these remittances merely throw fuel on the smouldering fires of Lescari strife. As soon as a duke can wring sufficient silver out of his subjects, he hires mercenaries to try to impose his rule over all the rest."
"If there was no money, there could be no warfare," Tathrin said bluntly.
Gruit shook his head. "The dukes would draft men from the villages into the militias at spear-point. At least foreign blood stains the battlefields if such dishonourable men choose to risk their lives for silver."
"The dukes couldn't leave the fields untended," Aremil countered, "if they had no coin to buy Caladhrian grain to keep bread on their tables."
"The dukes and their families will be the last to go hungry," retorted Gruit. "Their hired swords would just seize what they wanted from the peasantry."
"If they're not being paid, there will be no mercenaries to do such plundering," Aremil insisted.
"If they're not being paid, mercenaries will go looting on their own behalf," Gruit said promptly. "Good coin is all that can buy peasants relief from such predation."
"You were calling on the merchants to stop selling them the arms and goods they need." Tathrin was annoyed. "How is denying them coin so different?"
"I lost my temper last night, lad. Once I went home, my blood cooled." Gruit's face sagged, discouraged. "I realised that if every Vanam merchant born or wed to Lescari blood refused to trade with the dukes, all that would happen is the smiths and clothiers and provender merchants in Peorle and Col and Selerima would grow richer."
"You don't think Vanam's example would unite the Lescari-born in all the towns of Ensaimin?" Tathrin asked.
"You think everyone would agree? That no one would break ranks to enrich themselves when prices offered in Lescar would rise with every passing market day?" Gruit shook his head. "Besides, if every Lescari-born merchant from the Ocean to the Great Forest spurned the dukes' gold, Caladhrians wouldn't turn their noses up at it, nor would Tormalin traders."
"If the flow of coin to the dukes is cut off, they could not pay those Caladhrians or Tormalin," Aremil said as swiftly as his recalcitrant tongue allowed.
"Only till the dukes go to Col's moneylenders," Gruit retorted, exasperated.
"Col's bankers baulk at lending to any man, common or noble, who can't show sufficient income to promise repayment of principal and interest," Aremil pointed out. "If the exiles stop sending money, the dukes' revenues will dry up like a winter stream in summer."
"It would be an impossible undertaking." Gruit ran a gnarled hand over his white head. "There would be no point starving one, two or even three dukedoms of funds. They would just be overrun by whichever other duke could still find the coin to pay for arms and mercenaries."
"Which is why we must persuade everyone to put the good of Lescar above any loyalty to their birthplace," Tathrin chipped in. "As you said last night."
"How could you find every exile in this patchwork quilt of a land?" Gruit sighed. "You'd have to do that before you could even try to convince them not to send their coin home."
"We might do that with magic," Aremil said boldly.
"Oh no." Gruit raised an open hand. "The Archmage's edicts are clear. No wizard is to involve himself in Lescar's warfare. Even assuming you could find one who wouldn't prefer comparing the merits of burning wood and coal or assessing the particular properties of water from assorted springs," he added sourly.
"I've heard there are scholars around the university studying the ancient system of aetheric magic," Aremil said carefully. "The Archmage has no dominion over them."
"Aetheric magic?" Gruit was startled into a laugh. "You'll be telling me you believe children's tales of the Eldritch Kin next."
"Haven't you heard what's happened in the east?" Tathrin scowled. "Tormalin mariners have made landfall on the far side of the Ocean. They found men and women from ancient times sleeping there, locked in aetheric enchantment."
"I'll believe that this new land has been discovered," Gruit said slowly. "The ripples of new trade across the Ocean are already reaching this far. But you ask me to believe there were Tormalin folk from the Old Empire living there, kept safe through the generations by some fanciful magic?" He shook his head. "Confusion, speculation and exaggeration have all been woven into a tissue of nonsense. The Tormalin Emperor has wrapped that around the truth to prevent anyone else laying claim to the place."
"You are ill informed, Master Gruit," Tathrin began hotly. "Master Aremil is acquainted with a mentor who has travelled there himself and spoken with these people."
Aremil silenced him with a gesture. "You must have heard, Master Gruit, that this ancient magic, this Artifice, is what held the Old Empire together, enabling those in Toremal to know exactly where their allies were and what they were doing."
"It didn't stop their Empire crashing down round their ears." Gruit was unimpressed. "Do you know how they did such things?"
Now Aremil's hesitation wasn't due to his infirmity. "Not as such. But I am confident I could persuade those who do to help us."
If Mentor Tonin, who'd travelled to these new lands overseas, could be persuaded to be a little less circumspect about his recent discoveries. But Aremil knew he would have to show the scholar a rising tide of determination to bring peace to Lescar to achieve that. So they had to persuade Master Gruit to continue his eloquent challenge to the exiles. He swallowed and pressed on as forcefully as he could.
"Even without the aid of enchantments, we could begin finding all those Lescari exiles living in Ensaimin. We could try to persuade them to withhold their coin. I have a breadth of contacts that would surprise you, for spreading such ideas as well as gathering news."
"You must have better contacts than half the Guilds in the city to have purchased all these books. I know scholars who'd sell their ancestors' ashes to the soap-makers for some of the titles here." Gruit surprised him with a grin. "And you not only have a painting by one of Toremal's most highly regarded artists, you talk of her painting it for you personally."
He stood and went to take a closer look at the dramatic clouds surging across a glittering wilderness of willow and water. "Was this a favourite view of yours? From your family's home? Just who are you, anyway? I've seldom come across a man of your age with your degree of self-assurance."
And in a cripple, it's truly astonishing. Aremil waited for Gruit to say something along those lines but the merchant merely scrutinised the painting.
"I was the Duke of Draximal's first-born son," he said stiffly.
"Were you indeed?" Gruit looked ar
ound the room.
Aremil sat patiently. The merchant could look all he liked for some sign of Draximal's fire-basket badge. He wouldn't find it.
Gruit's gaze came back to him, more intrigued than sceptical. "Why by all that's holy should I believe that?"
"My servant Lyrlen has been with me since birth." Aremil held his gaze without blinking. "I can call on her to vouch for me. She'll swear an oath to whichever god you cherish."
"So who are you now? Since Draximal's heir is undoubtedly the honourable Lord Cassat." Gruit found a kerchief in his mantle and wiped sweat from his brow. "I do recall something about an elder son besides the quiverful of daughters. But if anyone asked me, I'd guess he died an early death of some illness that was never quite agreed on."
"I don't believe my father has ever lied outright about my fate." Taut with emotion, Aremil couldn't help an awkward jerk of his shoulder. "He has allowed that tale to spread so that no one will be so crass as to enquire and cause my lady mother undue grief."
That was what Lyrlen said. Aremil kept his own counsel on the matter.
"You've been tucked out of sight here in Vanam since when?" asked Gruit.
"Since my eighth year. Since I was inconsiderate enough not to succumb to some childhood ailment." Aremil didn't like giving so much of himself away, but it was clear Gruit wasn't going to trust them without hearing all his history.
"As far as anyone knows, I am the crippled son of a minor nobleman." He grimaced with chilly amusement. "Since the people of Vanam are content to lump all Lescari together, no one is bothered who that noble might be. Not as long as my bills are settled."
"Your father makes you a generous allowance." Gruit's gesture took in the comfortable room. "How are your needs to be met if you bankrupt him?"
"I would live in a barrel on some street corner, begging for bread in rags, if that was the price of bringing peace to Lescar." Aremil shifted in his chair as cramp seized his wasted legs.
Irons in the Fire Page 6
