Desi yawned widely. It did make the shop stand above most of the competition, and helped pay for all those dinners on the town which Uncle Askread said were so important for business. "Contacts," he would say wisely, waggling his eyebrows. "Can't expect a mere girl to understand, but it's contacts that makes a business."
Desi woke suddenly with a snort, her neck stiff and uncomfortable from falling asleep in the chair. She strained, listening for the sound that had woken her, and then realized, as it slithered the rest of the way, that it had been the book falling from her lap. She laughed nervously to herself and stretched the kinks free from her neck and back. The fire had died down, and the sky outside the heavily leaded window was pitch black. She peered out, trying to see any stars or either of the two moons, but it must have clouded up while she slept. Uncle was late—very late. That usually meant he had stopped for the night at some bawdy house and wouldn't be home until nearly time for the shop to open.
Carefully she banked the remains of the fire, let herself back out of the upper story, and crept down the stairs, lighting her way with a glowing piece of tinder she had lit from the fire. She eased the heavy iron key to the shop into the side door, careful not to let it clank against the iron of the lock and wake Nossie, who was surely as nosy as her name. Cautiously she opened the door to the shop and slipped inside, locking the door behind her. Swiftly she crossed the outer room of the shop and entered the back portion, lighting the fat candle on the work table at the far end with the piece of tinder. Then she tossed the tinder into the small pot-bellied stove that served as both heat for the shop and for warming the more malleable metals. She moved back towards the outer room and pulled the oilcloth tightly closed, clamping it against the frame so that no chink of light crept out. She jerked closed the small heavy curtains on the high windows at the back of the work area, as well. Uncle Askread had always impressed upon her that it was dangerous for a jeweler to show light at night for fear of tempting a thief to break in, knowing you were alone in a shop full of treasure. Desi had the added reason of not wanting Uncle Askread to know she was in here, should he come home unexpectedly. Not that he would mind her putting in extra work... but she didn't want him coming in on her and maybe guessing that she was doing more than simple mending on the sword hilt.
Desi soon became lost in her art. The difficult part wasn't the metalworking, it was matching the inner pattern, drawing its energy into a continuous flow, soothing the jangle of its cry of hurt. She became lost in time, lost in the beauty of those runes and light.
It was the cold that jarred her loose from her trance. The small pot-bellied stove had gone out, and outside the high window birds were starting their morning calls in anticipation of the sun. Desi yawned and stretched the kinks out of her body. It had felt good to work with so difficult a project. It wasn't that she was bored with metalworking; she loved making new things. But it wasn't the challenge it used to be, even when surreptitiously adding a delicate charm to make the piece gleam more, or give the wearer added grace. Working on the hilt brought sweat to her brow and made her feel as exhilarated as if she had walked briskly up a steep hill. A few more sessions like this one and she would have it finished. If Uncle Askread cooperated and stayed away another night, he would never know how much more time she had invested in the piece than a simple repair would take.
Desi carefully put away her work and lit a small candle from the fat worktable candle before snuffing the latter out. Then she unhooked the heavy oilcloth and walked toward the side door of the shop, shielding the candle with her hand. Suddenly she was stumbling forward, trying to catch herself with her hand as the candle flew free in a dangerous arc onto the floor. She landed with an "Ooof!" her fall broken by something large and soft, the something she had tripped over. She crawled awkwardly over it and snatched her sputtering candle up before it either went out or set the shop alight. She held it over the bundle on the floor and gasped in horror.
Uncle Askread lay dead on the floor, blood staining his tunic in a large splotch around the hilt of a knife, his eyes staring, horribly open, glistening a sickly white in the gleam of the candle. Desi gulped and hesitantly leaned forward to touch him, shaking him slightly, just in case.
"U... uncle?" she stuttered. But his arm was cold and strangely stiff. She shook so hard the wax from her candle dripped and splattered on his chest. She sobbed aloud and ran for the side door. She ran out, wild-eyed and ran for the street.
"Watch! Watch!" she called. Within moments shutters were opening and curious faces were peering out of the upper stories. It seemed forever, but it was probably just minutes before the overweight watchman puffed up the street towards her. After that, everything seemed to blur.
Desi answered questions as more and more people crowded into the shop. Nothing really penetrated until a sergeant of the watch grasped her arm and said: "Come along now. Got to lock you up."
"Lock me up? I can lock up the shop if you're through. But shouldn't something be done about my uncle's body? We can't just leave him here like this!"
The sergeant looked at her, exasperated. "Should have thought about that before ya murdered 'im."
"Me!" Desi exclaimed in astonishment. "I didn't murder him!!"
"Right. Ya were just ten feet away working on some frill while someone else got into a locked shop and stabbed him wi'out you hearin' a thing. And the blood on yer clothes just leapt there. I weren't born yestiday, ya know. Come along, girlie."
He grabbed her by the arm and started moving toward the door. He turned back to say to one of his men: "Better get the sniffers here, just in case. Don' wan' anyone sayin' we didn't do our job."
Desi stumbled a bit in terror, and masked it by pretending she had tripped over the raised doorjamb. Sniffers. Would they sense the working she had been doing with the sword hilt and burn her for sorcery as well as murder? She couldn't imagine they would find any sorcery in her Uncle's death; he had clearly died of being stabbed by that knife. But she knew that sniffers were often brought in for any unusual death. And it was odd she hadn't heard anything from just feet away on the other side of the oilcloth. At least at night. In the day, she knew, twenty customers could come in and out of the shop without her hearing them when she was concentrating on a piece of jewelry... especially when she was using just a bit of her powers to tweak that extra bit of sparkle or strength into a piece, as she had done increasingly after working with the chalice and discovering how much more fulfilling it was to work with metal instead of daisy chains or the heaps of mending her mother used to assign to her.
She stumbled along beside the sergeant of the guard, and dawn found her locked in a cell. A clean, very nice cell, but a cell all the same. Exhausted, she sat down on the cot and, without intending to, fell asleep.
The sound of a clanking outside her cell woke her abruptly. Confused, she knocked her knee trying to get out of the side of the cot that was against the wall. She sat up in the cot and peered dazedly as the heavy door to the cell opened. Outside was the female guard that had dropped off her sword hilt to be mended. What was she doing here???
"Come along now, this woman's paid yer surety," the jail keeper said.
Desi found herself bundled up and outside the jail before she could stutter out a question. "I don't understand," she said, finally, as they were walking down the street. Where were they going, anyway?
"Well, I figured if I wanted my sword hilt properly repaired in this benighted place, I had better get you out of that jail," the woman said with a grim, but amused, smile.
"How did you even know I... ? And why... ?"
"The sniffers," the woman said succinctly.
Desi shuddered. Oh Goddess, they had been able to track her spells. Did they burn witches here in the city like they did in the hills? She'd heard some places merely drowned spell casters, but had never had the courage to ask what was done here in Cascara. It might have started questions about why she wanted to know.
"Will I... ?" Desi started to ask sh
akily, and then stopped at the quick frown and slight negative shake of the other's head.
"The sniffers tracked my sword hilt," she continued conversationally, "and a look at your Uncle's books quickly gave them my name. That's how I found out they had incarcerated you... idiots," she added beneath her breath. "I need that hilt repaired, so I've paid your surety and promised you would remain in our custody, while you repair my weapon for me. I'm Sanat, by the way."
"Good meet, Sanat," Desi said automatically, feeling silly. "My name... "
"Desi. I know."
Of course she would know, you idiot, Desi thought. She just paid surety for you!
"Hope you won't mind our quarters. They're a bit Spartan."
"Better than a cell," muttered Desi.
The woman gave a sudden crack of laughter. "They are, at that!"
"Won't you get in trouble for having a... for your sword hilt?" Desi finally asked the question that had been on the tip of her tongue since the woman had admitted the sniffers had identified her sword as enchanted.
"I'd be in trouble if it weren't 'enchanted,' as you call it," she replied. "I'm a lieutenant in Princess Majari's guard."
As if that explained anything, Desi thought.
It did, though, she found, when they had reached the guard's quarters, above a wing of the stables on the palace grounds. She had been right in her surmise that a betrothal was being arranged for the Prince with a foreign Princess, namely Sanat's Princess Majari. She was from Tuorum, half way across the world, on the edge of the true sea. There, she was told by several others of the guard, "enchantments" and "witches' powers" were prized beyond measure. Only those who were rich or employed by the rich could afford them. Sanat, as a lieutenant in the force that protected one of their royal Princesses, was required to have spells woven into her sword and into the armor she wore when on the road. Protecting the lives of the guards who guarded her was considered part of protecting the life of the Princess.
"Evil!?" was the response her tentative questions gained. "How could the gifts of the Goddess be considered evil??"
"We lost Tsari, our unit's Protector, fighting off some bandits at Outreacher's Pass," Sanat said grimly. "That is why I had to come to you to repair my hilt. I was worried sick I wouldn't be able to find anyone to repair this here, knowing the local believers are still influenced by the old hill superstitions."
"Why did you?" Desi asked. "Come to me, I mean? How did you know... ?" By then she had confessed her powers to the others of the guard, not that they hadn't already known, apparently.
"The Goddess's temple quietly tracks those they suspect might have powers, and intervenes if possible, if it looks they might be in danger. The Goddess's servants know that any gifts She gives aren't evil, but they don't seem to be able to change your people's beliefs. I asked if they knew of anyone who might help me, and was told you were a Mender. That you had mended one of their chalices as well as one of their own Menders could have."
"A Mender?"
"Someone who can sense the patterns another has spelled, and repeat them. It's almost as difficult as casting the spell in the first place. In Tuorum you'd be paid in gold for such talents."
Desi shook her head, feeling as if its insides had been turned upside down. Female guards—and they told her there were female merchants and craftswomen who worked out in the open, as well—spell casters that were prized instead of killed? Was there truly a land in which such existed or were they telling her tall tales?
Over the next few days, while Desi worked on repairing the sword hilt to the best of her ability, she got to know most of the Princess's guards by their first names, and blossomed within their camaraderie. She had never had friends her own age, and even though these young women wore breeches and spoke with accents, she felt more at home with them than with the girls of Cascara that had come into the shop giggling and whispering of boys. Maybe it was because the guards had a job to do, and were proud of doing it well. All too soon, the sword hilt was mended, and it was just days before she was to appear before the magistrate.
"We're going to ask your neighbor a few questions," Sanat said firmly.
"Nossie?" Desi asked incredulously. "You think she had something to do with this?"
"No, but she might know something about it, just the same. She's been watching out some window or door of hers every time I've been to your shop."
"Oh. But it was in the middle of the night!"
"Old folks don't always sleep as soundly, or as long, as young folks."
They questioned Nossie, and the old woman had eyed Desi's escort carefully, before finally revealing she had seen a man enter the shop with Askread and leave hurriedly just a few moments later, blood splattered on his clothes.
"Why didn't you tell the watch!?" Desi asked.
"They never asked," Nossie said huffily.
"Too busy locking you up," Sanat said to Desi wryly. Sanat, with the influence of the Princess behind her, soon had the Cascara city watch scurrying in circles, doing the investigation they should have done in the first place. Nossie's description of the man's clothing made it sound like he might be from the court and not a merchant, and the magistrate, instead of ordering Desi's execution, ordered the Watch to ask questions in the bars and eateries Askread had frequented to see if they could identify who the real murderer could have been.
Now that she wasn't remanded to the custody of the Princess's guards, Desi went back to living in the quarters above her Uncle's shop. It felt strange to know her Uncle would never appear at the top of the stairs, blustering and demanding. It wasn't as much a relief as she had thought it would be, when she had daydreamed about the shop and apartment above it belonging to her, with no Uncle Askread to contend with. In fact she found herself starting at noises that never bothered her before, when she had often been alone in the evenings and even through most of the night.
She chided herself for her foolishness and kept busy with the work that was still pouring into the shop. She wouldn't know whom Askread had left the shop to until the Jewelers Guild officials processed the request to dig his will out of their files—for a fee, of course. In the meantime, it was her only source of livelihood.
A scant two days later, she was putting away an assortment of sleeve pins two customers had spent almost an hour examining, before deciding not to buy anything, when the chime by the front door of the shop sounded. She looked up, smiling politely at the man who entered. He was richly dressed, his chin sporting the narrow goatee that was considered fashionable at court and laughable everywhere else. A pale pink jewel the size of a robin's egg adorned the elaborate pendant that hung around his neck. Desi wished she could get a closer look at the silver curlicues that wove around the edges of the jewel and held it in place.
The man walked swiftly over to where she was standing and grabbed her, wrenching her arm up behind her back and clapping a hand over her mouth.
Desi fought to get loose as he dragged her behind the oilcloth curtain into the work area of the shop. "Mmmmpph!" She tried to scream. She tried to bite his hand or stomp on his foot, but for all his affectation of a goatee, he was strong and had taken her by surprise.
"Thought you'd blackmail me like your blessed Uncle did, huh?" he was muttering. "Well, I'll silence you like I did him!"
Desi was terrified now. This wasn't some robber... or even rapist, like she had imagined. This was her Uncle's murderer. He was going to try and kill her unless she did something!
"So you saw me that night, and now you're sending out a description of me to let me know you're going to take up right where your Uncle left off, huh? Well, I can kill two fools as easily as I did one!"
She heard the shop chime sound, and tried harder to get away.
The man panted, but held onto her. She heard the customer walking around the shop, calling: "Hello?"
Her foot connected with part of the worktable and she kicked out as hard as she could. One of her sharp tools fell to the ground, but the man ground i
t under his heel and dragged her further toward the back of the shop. Desi could feel his pendant digging into her back.
She could feel his pendant...
Desi let her senses run out through her shoulder blades instead of her fingers. The silver in the pendant came alive and writhed into tendrils that lashed up to the man's neck, choking him. Another set of tendrils leapt forth and bound themselves around the wrists that held her mouth and held her arm. With a choked cry of pain, the man let her go as he tumbled backward, and she fell, gasping, to the floor.
Quickly she scrambled up, and turned, but the man was helpless, his wrists bound to his chest with solid bands of silver. Silver ran around his chest and anchored him to the floor. His fingers scrabbled weakly, trying to reach for the tendrils of silver that wrapped his neck, slowly choking him. Desi reached out with her senses only, not risking letting her hands get anywhere near the man, and eased the silver bands around his neck enough that they wouldn't actually kill the man. He glared silently at her, his eyes gleaming wildly with hatred, and tried to kick her with his feet.
Desi backed away, then turned and ran out through the oilcloth.
"What's wrong?" asked Sanat.
Desi could only stare at her and gasp, then pointed to the back of the shop. The woman went swiftly back and gave an exclamation of astonishment. Desi found her voice. "He... he was going to murder me. He... he said that Uncle was blackmailing him. He thought it was me who saw him that night, and he was going to kill me... "
"Hmm... " Sanat's eyes gleamed as she took in the sight of the silver tendrils imprisoning the man's wrists and neck, arcing between them as if they were an elaborate new form of jewelry. "Well, you sure took care of that, didn't you!" she said appreciatively.
"What should I do?!" Desi wailed. Anyone seeing the man would know that she had enchanted the silver.
"Can you get that back off of him?" Sanat asked.
"Yes," Desi whispered. "But then... "
"Don't worry." She walked up behind him and grasped his head by the hair, ruining the carefully arranged hair. She took a knife from a sheath by her waist and held it ready. "Go ahead," she said to Desi.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXIII Page 9
