“Indeed.” Casuel twisted his fingers together uncertainly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to distress you. But all the weeping in the world won’t uncrack an egg, that’s what my mother always says.” He coloured slightly.
“Just how powerful is D’Olbriot?” Temar asked me suddenly, curt words echoing in the hush.
“Please lower your voice,” Casuel begged in muted entreaty.
I nodded at the list before Temar. “At the last taxation, Messire D’Olbriot was reckoned to control a twentieth part of Tormalin revenues and commerce.”
“Add in about seven or eight other families and those Names are responsible for just less than half the entire commonalty of the Empire?” Temar pursed his lips.
“Which is why you must learn due courtesy,” said Casuel severely.
“Life was very different before your Chaos, Mage D’Evoir, but we were taught a modicum of manners,” Temar said icily.
I wasn’t about to let Casuel get away with that patronising attitude either. “From everything those scholars working with the Archmage said, the last days of the Old Empire probably have more in common with this present age than with any era between.”
“Why are you so well read in such things, Casuel?” Temar asked unexpectedly. “The mages who come to Kel Ar’Ayen would be hard put to list the provinces of the Empire, let alone the Imperial Names. They spend all their energy on study of their element and think Hadrumal is the centre of the world.”
“My family has a particular interest in these matters,” Casuel stammered with uncharacteristic nervousness. He looked down for his satchel but I’d managed to hook it over to me.
I grinned at the wizard as I opened the flap and lifted out a folded bundle of parchment tied with faded ribbon. “What’s all this?”
“The House of D’Alsennin was not the only one to disappear in the Chaos.” Casuel snatched the documents from me. “You call me D’Evoir, Esquire, but that’s not really an honour I’m entitled to, not yet, anyway.” He gave me an indignant look before unknotting the ribbons and spreading the top parchment out for Temar to see. “The last D’Evoir attested in the historical record was a Governor of Lescar. He was murdered in the final year of Nemith the Last’s reign, but other than that I can’t find anything about him, not even if he had a family or sons. I’ve managed to trace my own family back nineteen generations but the evidence before that is scarce and contradictory. If I could find any other D’Evoir from the Old Empire, I might find some threads to tie my own family back to the Name.” The mage shut his mouth but not before we’d heard a definite note of pleading in his voice.
Temar lifted fine black brows. “If the Name is gone, the property of the House scattered to the four winds and tenantry claims lapsed, there can be no obligation to answer nor indeed coin to do so.”
“It’s not a question of wealth but of status,” said Casuel stiffly. “It would mean a great deal to my family, to my mother, to establish a tie. Then we can use the style D’Evoir, adopt the badge of the House.”
“I see.” Temar’s face was a well-schooled blank. I bit down my own opinion of such middle-ranking, jumped-up ambition. So the wizard fancied himself descended from noble blood, did he? I wondered if his merchant father would consider the cachet of rank sufficient recompense for Casuel’s snobbery raising his family to the Land Tax register.
Soft steps made us all look round and Casuel hastily tucked his parchments beneath a ledger marked with ancient fingers. “Not that it’s of any real importance. No need to mention it to Messire D’Olbriot or his nephew.”
I was already on my feet as Esquire Camarl D’Olbriot approached from the southern door. I bowed and Camarl’s answering bend from the waist was constrained both by his close-tailored coat and incipient portliness. His dark hair was brushed into a careful affectation of disorder but eyes and mouth showed resolution at odds with the season’s fashion.
“How go your lessons, D’Alsennin?” he asked humorously.
“He’s a most diligent pupil,” Casuel smiled ingratiatingly.
Temar shrugged wryly. “There is a great deal still to learn.”
“We can’t expect you to master the complexities of the modern Empire in a scant half season of study at inns along the high road.” Camarl grinned suddenly. “Don’t worry; you’ll be with me at most social occasions and Ryshad’s to be your escort elsewhere.”
“Planir has asked that I make myself available,” interrupted Casuel hopefully. “To offer assistance.”
“Indeed.” Camarl nodded graciously at the wizard. “But I beg your pardon, Temar, we’re disturbing you. It’s Ryshad I came to see.” Camarl led me adroitly into a book-lined alcove. “Can he hold his own in company without looking an utter fool?” the nobleman asked bluntly, turning his back on Casuel’s ill-disguised curiosity.
“I think so,” I said slowly. “And as you say, either you or I will be with him, to smooth over any difficulties.”
Camarl looked thoughtful. “We have more pressing concerns than stopping Temar frying himself in his own grease with a thoughtless remark. Kellarin has potentially enormous resources.” His amiable face hardened. “A great many people want Temar to grant Master So-and-So rights over such-and-such. Someone else will want exclusive licence to this, that or the other, while their rivals will be falling over themselves to offer a supposedly better deal. He’s a bright lad and has acquitted his responsibilities admirably this past year, but the Sieur and myself, we’re worried that he’ll find his rooster’s cooked and eaten before he knows it. Then all he’ll go home with is a feather duster.”
I spared a brief smile. “So you don’t want him overwhelmed with demands?”
“We’ve had invitations from half the Houses in the city; Festival’s only five days long and every hostess wants Temar to decorate her revelry,” Camarl nodded. “Don’t let him commit himself to any invitation without checking with me. Saedrin only knows what might be asked of him, and surely he deserves some leisure after his rigours in the wilderness.” Camarl looked a little anxious. “It’s safest for everyone if he stays within our House’s circles. The Sieur can manage all the to-and-fro of negotiating Kellarin’s trade, then Temar need only put his seal to finished agreements.”
I nodded slow agreement. “The Sieur will secure the best for D’Alsennin’s people.” Temar nailing his own foot to the floor through some entirely understandable ignorance would serve no one’s purpose. “Anyway, Temar’s main concern is recovering the artefacts needed to revive the rest of the colonists. I imagine he’ll be happy to leave trade to Messire.”
Camarl grimaced. “I suppose he can ask people about their heirlooms without causing too much offence, but don’t let him make a nuisance of himself. There’ll be plenty of time for such things after Festival.”
“Indeed,” I said neutrally.
“I knew you’d see sense. Oh, and I have these for you.” Camarl handed me three neatly folded and sealed letters.
“My thanks,” I said in some surprise. It’s not the place of the Sieur’s Designate to be running errands.
“I needed some excuse to bring me here,” Camarl smiled with a shrug. “No need to mention our other discussion.” He turned away, bowing to Temar and acknowledging Casuel with a brief wave. “If you’ll excuse me, Esquire, Mage.”
Temar grunted absently, lost in the taxation list. Casuel watched the Esquire D’Olbriot walk away before dragging his attention back to Temar’s notes. He clicked his tongue with annoyance. “The likelihood of you meeting any scion of Den Cascadet is so remote as to be laughable.”
“Why?” Temar demanded.
“They’re nobodies!” Casuel fumbled for a fuller answer as Temar stared at him unblinking. “They’ll spend Festival ringing the loudest bell in Moretayne, but hereabouts they’d make a very tinny rattle.”
“They’re a provincial Name running cattle in the down-lands near Lequesine,” I volunteered.
“Two artisans beholden to that Name li
e insensible in Kel Ar’Ayen.” Temar’s lips narrowed. “The artefacts to revive them may have been passed back to the family. I must contact the Sieur or his designate.” He ran a charcoal-dusted finger down the taxation record. “I will not let those who entrusted their lives to my hands spend a day longer in that stifling enchantment than is absolutely needful.”
“Saedrin make it so,” I said with feeling.
“Do please take care.” Casuel gently rubbed at a grubby mark with a kerchief from his pocket. “That’s all very well, Esquire, but you’ll hardly have the leisure to call on every fifth-rank Name in the city, and no one will have time to spare searching through their archive to accommodate you. Every clerk is busy preparing for the assizes.” He gestured at a sombrely dressed man climbing a ladder to a high shelf stacked with deed boxes.
Temar looked at me. “How much time do these assizes take up?”
I grimaced. “Strictly speaking, cases raised at Solstice should be settled before the following Equinox or penalties are levied. Few Houses avoid such censure.”
“It’ll be the turn of For-Autumn before anyone can spare attention for your requests,” said Casuel with some satisfaction.
“That’s true enough, as far as the archives go, but I could make a start while you’re at this afternoon’s reception,” I said slowly. “If you tell me what you’re looking for and what Names might have the pieces, I could at least visit the Houses here in Toremal and see if anyone knows anything.” Even slight progress towards rescuing those unfortunates from the enchantment that had so nearly killed me would be a sight more productive use of my time than kicking my heels in some gatehouse with all the other sworn brought along to add to their liege’s consequence.
“I hardly think you’ll be invited in to poke round any House you please, Ryshad,” protested Casuel. “Can we please concentrate on the matter in hand?”
I ignored the mage as Temar wrote industriously on a fresh sheet of paper. “We are mostly looking for pieces of jewellery and small trinkets.”
“And well-bred Demoiselles will let you make free with their jewellery caskets?” Casuel scoffed.
“No,” I agreed, “but I can ask valets and ladies’ maids about heirloom pieces, can’t I?”
“You’ll be the one risking a whipping.” Casuel took the paper from Temar and slapped it down in front of me. “Can we please concentrate on the taxation lists. We’ve precious little time as it is.”
Temar and I exchanged a rueful glance and he bent over his notes once more. I tucked Temar’s list inside the breast of my jerkin and sorted through the letters the Esquire D’Olbriot had brought me. I recognised the writing on the first: my brother Mistal, one of those lawyers who earn their bread spinning out litigation between the Houses until the very eve of the following Festival. He wanted to meet for a drink, asking me to send the letter straight back telling him where and when tonight. I smiled briefly but wasn’t about to waste time on his raptures over some lady-love or whatever ripe scandal he’d unearthed. The next letter was creased and stained with sweat and dust, the direction simply to Ryshad Tathel, House of D’Olbriot, and written in an unpractised hand. I snapped the wax seal and slowly deciphered spidery writing that looked to have been written in treacle with a blunt piece of stick.
“Temar.”
“What is it?” He looked up.
“It’s from Glannar.” I’d made the man swear on his arm ring to write and tell me what he found out. “They’ve not turned up any of the stolen goods and there’s still no scent of any culprit.”
“Any trace of the Elietimm?” demanded Casuel.
I shook my head. “No sign of any strangers at all.”
“That’s no proof,” snapped Casuel. “They use Artifice to conceal themselves.”
“You can see all the Eldritch-men you want if you stare into a chimney corner long enough,” I retorted, “but they’ll still only be the shadows from the lamp stands.”
Temar looked at Casuel and then to me. “So what does that tell us?”
“That we know no more than we did when we left Bremilayne.” I didn’t bother concealing my own annoyance. I wasn’t about to blame the Elietimm or the Eldritch-men, not without proof, but it would have eased my mind to know the theft had just been wharf rats taking a tasty morsel.
Temar returned to his list and Casuel started leafing through his books, marking places with slips of paper and stacking the volumes in front of Temar. “These are significant events in the annals of the leading families that you must know about.”
I opened my third letter: good-weight paper precisely addressed in an elegant hand using sloping Lescari script in regular lines and faintly perfumed with something my memory told me was expensive. “Will you excuse me, Esquire D’Alsennin?” I asked formally. “It seems I have some business to attend to.”
“What?” demanded Casuel.
I hesitated; best not to raise Temar’s hopes until I knew if this speculation had paid off. “A lady I know is visiting the city.”
Casuel sniffed with censure but Temar laughed. “Can I come?”
“Not this time.” I winked at him.
“Well, you can hardly read these things for me, so by all means call on the lady.” Temar shrugged a little unconvincingly.
“Then I’ll see what I can do with your list.” Temar’s expression lightened at that thought so I left him to his studies, abandoning Casuel to his disapproval.
Once outside, I looked both ways along the road before leaving the broad portico sheltering the wide steps of the building. The D’Olbriot archive is housed in one of the Name’s many ancestral possessions scattered throughout the city. While the nobility have long since left the lower town to tradesmen and hereabouts to worse, the archive has stayed put. The contents are just too unwieldy to move to more salubrious surroundings and, valuable though the yellowing parchments are to advocates preparing their interminable deliberations, they’re reckoned safe enough here. Thieves prefer real gold more readily spent and the clerks are backed by watchmen big enough to deter casual destruction or fire setting. I tossed a copper to an old man sitting on the steps with two shock-headed puppets dancing lifelike at his deft command. He’d been there for years and always alerted the Archivist to anyone threatening his pitch.
The close-packed houses all around had been long since broken up into squalid lodgings, four or five families now cramped beneath roofs sheltering one household in better days. The crumble-edged yellow stone was marred by stains of water and filth poured from narrow mullions below old-fashioned steep gables. Here and there intricate oriel windows stood out below the vanity of the little turrets that had been so desirable in the days of Tor Inshol, their conical caps of ochre tiles broken and patched.
A gaunt girl staggered out of a nearby alley, green-tainted eyes vacant. I could smell the sickly sweet sweat of the tahn enslaving her clean across the street. I ignored her outstretched hand and hurried on, clapping a hand over my mouth and nose as I passed a dead dog motionless but for the seething of maggots. Even with the sun riding high, shadows were held captive by tall buildings three and four stories high, and I kept an eye out for anyone lurking in hopes of cutting a purse to pay for whatever vice had them in its claws.
I was heading for the tongue of higher land that forms the northern side of Toremal Bay. When I’d first come to the city, little older than Temar and proud of my newly sworn status, it wasn’t a district D’Olbriot’s men would go to in anything less that threes, daylight or no. Any Name with property thereabouts balanced the rents they might collect against the blood it would cost them, and most reckoned the game not worth the candle. Then a new storm had blown up in Lescar’s interminable wars and the ebb and flow of battle washed fresh flotsam up on to Tormalin shores. This was the only place the dispossessed wretches could get a foothold, and they’d dug in their heels, refusing to be knocked on their arses again. It’s easy to despise the Lescari, to mock their dogged persistence over claim and countercla
im, their obsession with land title and vengeance, but there’s no denying that single-mindedness serves them well at times.
I walked along streets where broken shutters had been replaced with new wood, bright with paint. The children might be grubby from playing in the dust but had started their day with clean if patched clothes and lovingly brushed hair. The clack and creak of working looms floated out of open windows high above, and women chatting as they kept an eye on their offspring sat on balconies with distaffs busy in their hands. The Lescari may have arrived without half a lead Mark in their pockets but they had skills in their hands and knowledge in their heads. These days more than half the noble dwellings in the upper city have North Bay tapestries gracing their walls.
I pulled the perfumed letter from my jerkin and realised I had missed a turn. Retracing my steps, I found the narrow flight of stone stairs. Counting doors along the soiled walls, I saw I wanted the one marked by an earthenware pot bright with scarlet flagflowers. I knocked, wondering how long the brilliant splash of colour would last before some drunken reveller kicked the blooms down the steps, either from accident or exuberant desire to see how far they might fly.
The door opened a scant hand’s breadth and I saw a shadowy figure within. “Yes?”
“Ryshad Tathel.” I held up the note. “For my lady Alaric.”
The door closed as the wedge securing it was kicked aside. It opened to reveal a gawky youth whose nervous energy kept his hands in constant motion. He was no stripling though, much my height and with shoulders broad enough to promise strength when he filled out. He wiped sweat from his forehead before running a hand over the beard so many Lescari affect. His beak of a nose and wide set eyes reminded me of seasons spent about Messire’s business along the border with Parnilesse. I’d had a friend from there, Aiten, whose death was a score I vowed to settle with the Elietimm.
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