Temar looked at the maids with a fair approximation of the blank aloofness he found so irritating in these latter-day nobles. All three servants kept their eyes lowered, but as the door shut behind them Temar clearly heard a giggle overlaying a murmur of hushed speculation. Both were hastily cut short by a curt enquiry in a familiar voice.
“Master Devoir,” Temar greeted Casuel courteously as the wizard stuck a suspicious face round the door. “We were just about to have some lunch.”
“Allin? What are you doing here?” Casuel came in carrying two tall stacks of books carefully secured with leather straps, cloth padding protecting the covers against any injury to the binding. “Esquire D’Alsennin isn’t supposed to have any visitors today.”
“Oh, you were hurt, weren’t you?” Allin’s eyes were wide with concern. “Are you all right? But I did send word from the gate, to ask the Sieur’s permission.”
“Thanks to the Demoiselle’s Artifice, I am fully healed.” Temar smiled at her. “So, Casuel, what have you there?”
“More clues for your search, if you can tease them out,” said the mage loftily.
“Velindre was saying you must have a source of information second to none,” said Allin unexpectedly.
Casuel smiled a little uncertainly as he began unstrapping the books. “There are few wizards in Tormalin in these rational days and fewer who are also antiquarians.”
“She was talking about your brother?” Allin looked innocently at him. “Velindre says he must hear all manner of news and opinion.”
Casuel’s smile turned sickly. “I hardly think he’ll have anything useful to contribute.”
Temar looked from Allin to Casuel, carefully hiding a smile. “Pardon me, but I did not know you had a brother, Casuel.”
“Amalin Devoir is a noted musician, a composer of considerable skill and innovation,” Allin explained with artless admiration. “His works are played right across Lescar and Caladhria.”
“Another talented member of your family.” Temar smiled as Casuel inclined his head with ill grace. “Surely it could not hurt to see if he could help us?”
“I could call on him, I suppose,” the wizard said reluctantly. “But I think we’ll get far more out of these books. So, if you’ll excuse us, Allin, we’ve important work to do.”
“Allin is staying for some lunch,” Temar said firmly. With his face turned he could wink at her without Casuel seeing, and she bit her lower lip to hide a smile, cheeks pink as she studied a parchment in front of her with hasty intensity.
Esquire Camarl’s Study, the D’Olbriot Residence,
Summer Solstice Festival, Second Day, Afternoon
I came straight here to warn you.” I concluded my explanation of Mistal’s news and waited for the Esquire’s reaction, hands behind my back and feet a quarter-span apart. The calm stance belied my inner agitation, my desire to be out running rumour and suspicion to ground.
Camarl was sitting by the window, a small table at his side piled high with correspondence. He turned a carved ivory paper knife slowly in his hands. “This is certainly ominous news, as is this business of someone posting a challenge in your name. You should have told me about that this morning, before going off to the sword school.” He looked up at me, raising the ivory knife even though I’d made no move to speak. “I’m not going to bandy words with you. Chosen or not, Ryshad, you have to keep me informed. Is there any other news, anything about the attack on D’Alsennin?”
I sighed. “Last night I went round every barracks where I’ve friends, every Cohort I’ve shared duty with, asked every watchman hired for Festival that I could find. If any of them knew anything or even suspected, they’d have told me by now. I’ll wager my oath fee there are no Elietimm in the city, but I can’t swear any more than that. I’ve still got a few people to check back with, but I don’t think they’ll have anything different to tell.”
“You can send one of the sworn from the barracks to fetch and carry messages. I want your help looking for answers in different places.” Camarl smiled to take any rebuke out of his words. “I’m going to a meeting of my art society this afternoon.” Camarl indicated the discreet elegance of his sober clothing with a hand bearing a solitary silver band enamelled with the D’Olbriot lynx. “I meet men of all ranks there and I’ll hear a certain amount of the gossip about D’Alsennin, Kellarin and the rest, but everyone knows my Name, so most will guard their tongues. I think you should come with me, Ryshad. No one knows you, so you might catch some indiscretion.”
“If I ask the right questions,” I agreed slowly. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d kept eyes and ears open for the House’s benefit. There was far more to being a sworn man in this day and age than simply swinging a sword. “But are you sure I won’t be recognised?” I spent a good few years serving in Toremal before the Sieur sent me out on his various commissions to ride the vast D’Olbriot estates.
“No one looks at a sworn man’s face,” Camarl said carelessly. “You’ll just have been another nameless body in livery.”
“Am I dressed for the part?” I was in plain breeches and a nondescript jerkin, good-quality cloth and well cut but nothing special.
“Quite appropriate, for a mason from Zyoutessela, wouldn’t you say?” said Camarl with an approving smile. “There’ll be other artisans there, as well as traders and nobles. It’s one of the reasons I joined, to widen my acquaintance beyond my own rank.”
“What does the Sieur think of that?” I asked.
Camarl wrinkled his nose. “He agrees it’s a regrettable necessity of this era.”
I laughed, hearing the Sieur’s dry wit in the words.
“I have letters that need an answer.” Camarl nodded to his personal scrivener, who was sitting patiently in a corner of the room. “I’ll see you at the gatehouse shortly, Ryshad. Get something to eat if you need it.”
The lower hall was full of kitchen maids and scullions now, drab in washed-out gowns and shirts shapeless with repeated boiling. They gossiped idly, enjoying some respite before embarking on the myriad preparations for a series of private dinners in the smaller salons and the more ceremonial banquet that the Sieur would host that evening. Lady Channis always made sure no formal lunches were planned for days when the House entertained in the evening. The pot-washers and vegetable-peelers cast envious glances at the cooks, everyone plainly ranked by their chapped hands. The lowest slaveys from the scullery were scarlet to the wrist; the premier pastrycooks and the Master of the Kitchens could afford discreet lace at their cuffs and scrupulously manicured nails.
I took bread and cheese from platters on a table and went out to the gatehouse, where I knew I could cadge a glass of wine from Stoll. We had scant moments to wait before Camarl’s personal gig arrived, and the Esquire wasn’t long in coming.
The groom jumped down and swung himself up on the back step as the Esquire took the reins. As Camarl drove us down to the lower city with habitual competence, I turned to the groom on the perch behind us. He was staring ahead, face as impassive as the carved cats’ masks on the side panels, and he wouldn’t meet my eye. I really was going to have to get used to being one of those served rather than serving.
The bright sunlight was touched with the faintest hint of salt on a breeze from the distant harbour as Camarl turned off the encircling road down the main highway that runs clear across the lower city to the bay. The ancient walls of Toremal soon appeared between the rooftops, once mighty bastions in their day but now hemmed in all around with buildings nearly as high. Camarl got his horse in hand as we went beneath the sturdy arch of the Spring Gate and we emerged into the sunshine gilding the Graceway. Great mansions had been packed close within the old city walls in the uncertain days of earlier generations and the Names had guarded their privileges jealously. Nowadays the iron gates, with their badges of gilded bronze high above the heads of the crowd, stand open but rank still counts for something. It’s only those with a genuine amulet bearing recognised insignia that
may use the wide, well-made street marching straight to the sea. I saw a woman trying to saunter past the duty guard with a beribboned basket held high in her arms and smiled as she was turned back to take the longer route through the tangle of lesser roads spreading ever wider beyond the walls. We were passed with a curt nod from the Den Janaquel man standing sentry, pike butt resting by one hobnailed boot.
“Do you know anyone sworn to Den Janaquel?” Camarl asked as we whipped the horse to a trot in the comparatively empty road. “They’re providing the Duty Cohort for the Festival, so they’ll hear more news than anyone else.”
“I’ve never had dealings with the House but I’ll see if I can get an introduction through the sword school.” Stoll probably knew someone, or if he didn’t Fyle would. Fyle knew everyone.
Out of long habit I noted changes to the buildings lining the Graceway. What had once been a Den Bradile mansion was being refaced with pale new marble; trim, rational lines replacing the curlicues of an earlier age. The handful of shops now sharing the façade were getting broad new windows with deep sills for the better display of elegant trinkets for ladies, costly feathers and expensive lace. Further along a seamstress who’d been a tenant of Den Thasnet since before I’d come to Toremal had given up her lease to be replaced by some hopeful new tailor owing duty to the Name. His frontage was brightly decked to attract both year-round residents and those eager to buy the latest fashions on their once-yearly trip to this hub of sophistication.
This wasn’t Bremilayne, where I had little local knowledge and few contacts. This wasn’t chasing backwoods rumour in a fruitless quest for Elietimm sneaking into Dalasor to rob and maim. Whoever had attacked Temar had stepped on my ground. They had to have left tracks. Someone would get a scent, sooner or later.
“And here we are.” Camarl’s words broke into my thoughts. We were outside a tisane house, once a wing of some long-vanished residence. Now it boasted a brightly painted sign telling all and sundry that Master Lediard could supply the finest aromatics and spices and the most luxurious premises in which to enjoy them.
Camarl handed the reins to his groom. “Call for me at eighth chime.” He pressed a negligent silver Mark into the man’s palm but all I could offer was a smile so I hurried after the Esquire. I prefer wine to tisanes as a rule but I could get used to drinking them in these surroundings. This was no futile attempt to drag a failing tavern up the social scale by offering hot water and stale herbs in place of ale.
Comfortable chairs ringed sturdy tables set just far enough apart to stop people hearing other conversations. Most tables were spread with parchments, ledgers and counting frames, since tisanes have always been popular with men of business, who might lose more than the cost of the flagon if they let wine blunt their acuity. Some men bent solitary over their documents, some sat in twos and threes deep in talk, others relaxed with one of the latest broadsheets, plentiful copies racked by the door. A baize-covered panel beside it was crisscrossed with leather straps holding letters tucked securely beneath. A lad was emptying folded and sealed sheets out of a box below it. The nobility have the Imperial Despatch to carry their letters but the middle ranks have to rely on these more informal arrangements between tisane houses and inns.
I overhead a snatch of intense discussion as Camarl let a lass in a dull blue gown slip past with a tray laden with little bowls of spice.
“I’ll take a fifth share in the cargo, against covering you if the ship’s lost.”
“Toremal value or Relshaz value?”
“Relshaz value at Equinox’s best prices.”
“But what if they’re delayed by bad weather? Prices could be falling by the time they arrive.”
“That’s your risk, friend. Mine’s the ship sinking.”
The man beside us selected some ivory tags from a shallow tray in the middle of his table. He handed them to a girl who took them to a sharp-eyed woman behind a long counter.
“We’re upstairs,” said Camarl back over his shoulder.
As I followed him, I noticed the woman spooning the required herbs from the vast array of canisters on the shelves at her back. As the maid delivered the tisane ingredients to her waiting customer, another arrived with cups, tisane balls and a jug of steaming water, carried carefully from the far end of the room where a red-faced man tended an array of kettles on a vast range that greedily consumed the coal shovelled into its open maw by an ash-stained lad.
I followed the Esquire up a panelled staircase to find the whole first floor of the building was opened into a single room. Tables and chairs ranged around the walls were largely ignored by the busy crowd all talking at once in the middle. Plain coats, everyday jerkins and practical boots were the order of dress, though the discerning eye would see Camarl’s clothes were a cut above the rest in both cloth and tailoring.
“D’Olbriot!” A burly man in an ochre coat strained at the buttons waved at Camarl.
“Fair Festival, Master Sistrin,” he replied cheerfully.
“Let’s hope so.” Sistrin planted hands on hips as he jutted his chin at a younger man wearing the brooch of a minor House on his jerkin. “What does D’Olbriot think of some of us traders setting up our own academy with our own funds?”
“Endowing schools has always been the honour and duty of the nobility,” the young man said politely. I managed to place the badge; a cadet line of Den Hefeken.
“But we have more sons wanting places than the established colleges can supply,” commented a third man, accents of the merchant class ringing in his voice. “Learning letters and reckoning in a dame-school may have been enough for our fathers and forefathers, but times have changed.”
“If we endow a school, we have a say in what they teach.” Sistrin jabbed an emphatic finger at Den Hefeken. “Rhetoric and precedence in Convocation and what House holds which priesthood aren’t much use to my boy. He needs mathematics, geography, drawing up a contract and knowing which law codes back it up. Come to that, we’ve daughters who’d do well to learn more than sewing a seam or playing a pretty spinet.”
“With all D’Olbriot’s mining interests, you could do worse than teach your Esquires some natural science,” sniffed the third man.
“I quite agree, Palbere,” Camarl nodded. “Our tutors having been doing just that since the turn of the year, assisted by some newcomers from Hadrumal.”
“Wizards?” Sistrin laughed heartily. “That’d be unnatural science, then would it?”
Did I feel an unusual disapproval chill the air at the mention of wizards? Den Hefeken’s face was a well-bred blank but Palbere was scowling
Camarl continued, unconcerned. “I’d prefer my cousins learned their lessons alongside your nephews, Sistrin, rather than see schools divided by rank or trade. They’ll pick up some understanding of your glass trade, and shared knowledge is always a road to common prosperity.”
Palbere sipped at a steaming tisane. “Talking of roads, is it true D’Olbriot plans on digging a canal to cut the loop of the Nyme around Feverad? Will you be bringing wizards in to do the work of honest labourers there?”
“Feverad merchants first mooted the plan,” said Camarl cautiously. “They’ve suggested D’Olbriot might care to back the project and magical assistance makes such tasks considerably faster and safer.”
“So you’ll be taking the revenues off the rest of us when it’s built?” Den Hefeken asked with careful neutrality.
“If it’s built, and surely we’d be entitled to recoup our outlay?” Camarl looked at each man in turn. “Of course, those costs would be considerably reduced by employing wizards’ skills.”
Sistrin drew breath on some further argument but Camarl raised an apologetic hand. “Forgive me gentlemen, I have a guest with me today. May I make known Ryshad Tathel, stone mason of Zyoutessela.”
Several nearby heads turned away from their conversations to note my name and I smiled as benignly as I could.
“Are you sponsoring him to the society?” Sistrin asked bell
igerently.
“If he decides it’s for him,” smiled Camarl before drawing me politely away.
“That’s one man won’t leave you wondering about his opinions,” I commented in a low voice.
“Which makes him very useful, because what he says ten men more discreet are thinking,” agreed Camarl. “And he’s usually first with any hint of scandal, while Palbere has a nose for business second to none.”
“Do you do anything even vaguely connected to art here?” I grinned.
“Over here.” Camarl kept pausing to greet people but we finally edged our way through to the far end of the room, where tables in the better light under the windows were covered with books of engravings and single sheets of inked and coloured paper. “Boudoir art is over there,” indicated Camarl with a smile, “next to the satires and lampoons. We pride ourselves on being an open-minded society.”
Both artwork and model would doubtless be a considerable improvement on the grubby woodcuts that circulated round the barracks but neither interested me when all I had to do was shut my eyes and think of Livak. I picked up a small portfolio. “Plants of the Dalasor Grasslands?” I opened it on a beautifully detailed painting of a yellow heather.
“Several of our members are natural philosophers,” nodded Camarl. “And as a mason, you might be interested in the architectural drawings over there.”
“Esquire, might I have a word?” A long-faced elder with depressed dewlaps framing a downturned mouth appeared at Camarl’s shoulder. “Master Ganalt, of course.”
I noted the old man wore the silver-leaf collar of a shrine fraternity, something you don’t see so often these days.
“It’s the shrine to Talagrin on the Solland road,” Ganalt began after a hesitant glance at me. “It’s on Den Bradile land and the priesthood’s in their family, naturally, but the local people have always been faithful to the Hunter—” The old man fell silent.
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