The Raven Ring

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “I’ll bet,” Sunnar commented sourly.

  Charis refolded the note and tucked it under her belt. “It doesn’t matter. Unless you have something to add, my lord, we’d best be going. Idiots or not, the Imperial Guard doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “What?” Daner said, startled.

  “Got salt in your ears?” Sunnar said. “That note said to bring her along to the Guard as soon as we found her. That means now.”

  “But if the note was a warning, surely there’s no need for us to go all the way back to the Imperial Guard offices,” Daner said, plainly taken aback.

  “If all the Guard wanted was to warn her, and if the warning had to do with the three Syaski who attacked you, you might be right,” Charis said. “But we don’t know that.”

  “And it’s possible the Commander remembered something he didn’t tell me this morning,” Eleret put in. Or that he’s learned something more about Mother’s death, or discovered why so many people are interested in her kit, she added silently. “I’d like to find out.”

  Daner looked at her with an air of mild irritation. “I thought you were in hurry to leave.”

  “I am. But information is always good to have. The more you know of danger, the better you can prepare for it.”

  “I’d rather avoid it, myself,” Daner said, smiling as he stood up. “Very well, if you’re willing, we’ll go.”

  “Thank you, my lord, Freelady,” Charis said, and waved them out the door as if she were afraid they might change their minds if she gave them an opportunity.

  By the time they reached the headquarters of the Imperial Guard, it was late in the afternoon. Eleret led the little group straight to Commander Weziral’s office, which caused Sunnar to remark caustically on her obvious familiarity with the building. As she did not want to become involved in a comparison of Ciaronese streets and buildings to mountain byways, Eleret let the remark go by without comment. She was a little surprised that no one stopped them to ask their business, but after some consideration decided that the presence of the two City Guardsmen made their party suitably official looking.

  The tall officer with the face like chiseled rock was alone in the outer room when they arrived. He remembered Eleret, and went in at once to notify the Commander. A few minutes later, he returned and ushered them inside.

  “Good afternoon, Freelady Salven,” Weziral said as they entered. “What can I do for you? You haven’t run afoul of our city compatriots here, have you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what brings you back so soon?” The Commander leaned back in his chair, his expression one of polite inquiry.

  “I thought you wanted to see me,” Eleret said, puzzled by his reaction.

  Weziral frowned. “I’m certainly happy to meet you again, but I get the impression you have something more specific in mind. Why?”

  Suddenly at a loss for words, Eleret looked over at the two City Guards. Charis stepped forward and bowed. Pulling the note from her belt, she handed it to Weziral and said, “Because of this, Commander.”

  The lines at the corners of Weziral’s mouth deepened as he read the note. “Have a look at this, Hara,” he said, tossing it to the rock-faced officer.

  “If we’ve misunderstood—” Charis said in a formal, apologetic tone, but the Commander cut her off with a wave.

  “No, I don’t think you did,” he said. “Well, Hara? What do you make of it?”

  To Eleret’s surprise, the officer’s lips set in a hard, tight smile. “It’s got the right seal and the right wording, sir. Someone here sent it. And I know it wasn’t authorized, unless you ordered it yourself, sir—”

  “Which I didn’t.”

  “Then there’s only one person who could have sent it.” Hara’s expression grew even more grimly amused. “Birok Maggen, the City Liaison’s aide. He’s abused his position in small ways many times, but he’s been careful not to go too far. Until now.”

  “By the time I’m through with him, he’ll wish he had stayed careful.” Weziral drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “Why do you suppose he did this?”

  “I expect he wanted to cause a few difficulties for Freelady Salven,” Hara said. “He was with Sergeant Giancarma and me when she arrived this morning, and made himself rather disagreeable. I gave him penalty duty afterward, and he’s the sort that would blame her for it. Forcing her to make an unnecessary trip back here is just the kind of petty reprisal he would think of.”

  “It still doesn’t explain why he took such a chance.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t much of a risk. Look.” Hara held out the note, pointing to the last few lines. “From the way this is written, most guards would assume she was to be taken to the Liaison’s office in the east wing. As long as he was the one on desk duty there for the next few days, no one else would know a thing about it.”

  “Really.” The Commander’s voice was dry. “We’ll have to do something about that, Hara. I can’t have minor officials abusing the authority of the Imperial Guard. Especially not civilians.” He turned to Eleret. “I’m sorry about the inconvenience, Freelady. It won’t happen again.”

  Eleret hesitated. “I can’t be positive, Commander Weziral, but I think it was meant to be more than an inconvenience.”

  “How could it have been?” Daner said. “There’s nothing to show that this person—”

  “Birok Maggen,” Hara put in.

  “—had anything to do with the Syaski who attacked us.”

  “What attack?” Weziral demanded.

  “Three Syaski jumped us in an alley,” Eleret said, wishing Daner had not brought it up. “It doesn’t matter, and it’s not what I meant anyway. I think Maggen was after Mother’s kit.”

  The Commander bit back a comment and sat very still for a moment, watching them with an expression that prevented anyone from adding anything more. At last he shook his head. “Sit down, all of you. That includes you, Hara; I may want a second opinion on this later. Once you’re settled, I want an intelligible story out of each of you, with as few interruptions as possible, and none of you are leaving until I get one.”

  NINE

  IN THE MOMENT’S SILENCE that followed Weziral’s pronouncement, Sunnar and Charis exchanged a sour look. Then Daner bowed, smiled, and sat down in the chair in front of the Commander’s desk. Eleret sighed and gave in. She presented Daner and the two guards to Weziral while Hara went out for more chairs, and in a few minutes everyone was settled.

  Weziral smiled at the motley group and leaned back in his chair. “Thank you, Freelady Salven. Now, I would like to hear what has happened to bring you back here so soon and in such interesting company. I would also like to know why you have such decided opinions about Birok Maggen, a man you have met only once.”

  “Twice,” Eleret said. “He was waiting in the hall as I left, and he offered me five stars for Mother’s kit and everything in it. That’s why—”

  An exclamation from Sunnar interrupted her. “Five stars? For a kit bag? What have you got in it, rubies?”

  Daner shook his head. “Eleret, five stars is a price for a war horse or a wizard’s sword, not a travel pack.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Are you sure about this, Freelady?” the Commander asked, leaning forward once more. “Can you remember what he said?”

  “I haven’t had time to forget. It only happened this morning.” Eleret thought for a minute, deciding where to pick up the conversation. “He stopped me in the hall as I left and said, ‘You came a long way to get that. It’ll be awkward and heavy to carry all the way back, maybe dangerous, even. So I’ll buy it from you. The whole thing. I’ve got a cousin who needs outfitting; this way I can get him fixed up and do you a favor at the same time. Money’s easy to carry.’ I told him I wasn’t interested, and he said, ‘I’ll pay three stars. That’s more than it’s worth.’ When I said it had belonged to my mother, he said, ‘All right, four stars. You can buy a lot of sentiment for
four stars.’ I said I was still not interested, and he said, ‘Five, then!’ I told him again that I wouldn’t sell and started walking away, and he said, ‘You’ll be sorry you didn’t sell it to me. Wait and see.’ That’s all.”

  “By the Harp-sung Fires!” Hara said, staring at her. “You can give his very words!”

  “That’s what the Commander asked for, wasn’t it?” Eleret responded with mild puzzlement. She was beginning to get used to the Ciaronese regarding perfectly ordinary things as remarkable, but she still didn’t understand why they made such a fuss about it.

  “It was, and I thank you for it, Freelady Salven,” Weziral said. “The rest of your story need not be so detailed. If I want more than you tell me, I’ll ask.”

  Eleret nodded and gave him a quick summary of the day’s events. She left nothing out, from her encounter with Grand Master Gorchastrin to the arrival of the supposedly official note at Sunnar and Charis’s duty hut. At Weziral’s request, she explained how she had known that her bags had been searched and the reasoning behind her decision to leave the city as quickly and quietly as possible. She mentioned her suspicions of Jonystra Nirandol, and her worry that someone might have followed her and Daner along the crowded avenue. And she described as clearly as she could their meeting with Karvonen Aurelico and the fight that followed.

  “You’re sure this thief didn’t set you up for the bowmen?” Hara asked when she finished.

  “If he had been working with the Syaski, he wouldn’t have given us any sign that they were about to attack.”

  “A good point,” Weziral said. “And if he is an Aurelico, he can’t be the person who tried to break into my office twice last week.”

  “Why are you so sure of that?” Daner said, frowning. “He’s a thief; he said as much himself.”

  “Weren’t you listening back at the hut?” Sunnar demanded before Weziral or Hara could reply. “The Aurelicos are good. If one of them wanted to snoop the Commander’s office, it wouldn’t take him two tries to get in, and except you noticed something missing, you’d never know he’d been there.”

  “Unless he wanted it that way,” Charis added.

  The silence that followed was long and thoughtful.

  “Maggen’s still the more likely culprit,” Hara said finally, shaking his head in regret.

  “For a break-in?” Sunnar said. “I thought you said he worked here.”

  “In the building, yes, but not near this office,” Hara replied. “Normally, his duties don’t bring him around more than once a month, and that’s just to deliver a report to the Commander or me. Come to think of it, he’s been hanging about for the past two weeks like a seagull waiting for the cook to dump slops.”

  “I think we’d better have a talk with Birok Maggen,” the Commander said. He picked up the folded note and tapped it gently against the pile of paper that lay on the table in front of him. “Fetch him in, will you, Hara, and let’s see if we can find out what he’s after.”

  Hara bowed and left the room, and Weziral turned back to Eleret. “Now, you said something about a person watching your fight in the alley. Did you recognize him?”

  “No,” Eleret said. “I don’t even know for certain that it was a man. All I really saw was the cloak and hood, and a hand pointing, and only for an instant.”

  “I didn’t see anyone,” Daner put in.

  “I know,” Eleret said, nodding. “If he’d had a bow or a throwing knife, you’d be dead. Your right side was wide open from that angle.”

  Daner sat back, disconcerted. “I was busy. Those two swordsmen weren’t exactly amateurs.”

  “They still weren’t anywhere near as good as you are,” Eleret pointed out calmly. “They only lasted as long as they did because there were two of them. And because you were blocking my throwing lines.”

  “What? Look, no matter how much you think you—”

  “Ahem.” The Commander’s cough was not loud, but the sound penetrated the conversation easily. Daner glanced at Weziral and fell silent, though Eleret thought the Commander looked more amused than impatient. Still, it was not the right time for a stroke-by-stroke review of the fight, and she should not have begun one while other, more important questions were unresolved. She was a little surprised that she had let herself be drawn so far off the track.

  “Thank you, Lord Daner,” Weziral said. “Now, did either of you”—he indicated the two City Guards—“notice this person in the hooded cloak when you arrived?”

  Charis and Sunnar looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “Pity, but not really surprising. If he was working with the Syaski, he’d have been a fool to stay once it was clear they’d lost. Freelady Salven, you said he was pointing. At what?”

  “Let me think.” Eleret closed her eyes, reliving the brief moments of the fight in her mind. An instant later, her eyes flew open. “Daner. He was pointing at Daner.”

  “Directing the swordsmen?” Weziral asked.

  “In the middle of a fight?” Daner snorted. “Hardly. Things change too fast for outside advice to do any good.”

  “That wasn’t quite what I meant,” Weziral said mildly. “He could have been signaling them to pull back, for instance. What happened next, Freelady?”

  “Daner stumbled,” Eleret said. “I threw a raven’s-foot at each of the Syaski, but I’m afraid they didn’t do much damage.”

  “Mmmm.” Weziral looked at Daner. “You stumbled?” he said in a neutral tone.

  “It happens to the best of us, Commander,” Daner said. “And it wasn’t magic, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m no master magician, but I’ve had enough training to tell when someone throws a spell at me.”

  “I’m sure you do. Since we seem to have come around to you now, my lord, would you oblige me with your version of the fight?”

  Halfway through Daner’s description, Hara returned. He was alone. Daner stopped talking in mid-sentence, and Weziral raised an eyebrow.

  “He’s gone,” Hara said disgustedly in answer to the question no one had asked aloud.

  “You mean this cod’s-head Maggen’s run?” Sunnar said.

  Hara shook his head. “He’s just left for the day. Stelinn’s office boy says he nearly always goes home early.”

  “How’d a dead fish like him get a job with the Imperials?” Sunnar asked the air in front of Weziral’s desk.

  “I was about to ask that myself,” Weziral said, looking at Hara. “Although I’d have phrased it a little differently.”

  “Connections,” Hara said in tones of deep disgust. “Maggen’s one of Lord Ovrunelli’s relations. His many relations.”

  Daner stiffened. Sunnar pursed his lips thoughtfully, and Charis’s eyes widened. Commander Weziral nodded in evident understanding.

  “Who?” said Eleret.

  “Lord Ovrunelli is one of His Imperial Majesty’s chief advisers,” Weziral explained. “One of the privileges of that position is the ability to provide one’s family and friends with suitably lucrative posts.”

  “I see.” Eleret tried to conceal her shock. If the Ciaronese wanted to let their city be run by people whose only qualifications were greed and a blood tie to a man in power, it was their battle, not hers. As long as they treated the Cilhar fairly and competently, of course.

  Her face must have shown some of what she was thinking, for the Commander smiled and said, “It isn’t as bad as it sounds. The important positions have to be earned, and even most of the lesser ones require that the holder have certain skills. Since Maggen is only—”

  “Aide to the City Liaison,” Hara supplied smoothly.

  “—I assume he is neither capable nor closely connected to Lord Ovrunelli.”

  “Third cousin, once removed,” Hara said. “And as incompetent as they come. He trims his sails to suit the wind, though, and I haven’t had an excuse good enough to get rid of him until now.”

  “You think that will be enough?” Daner asked, gesturing at the note that still lay
on Weziral’s desk. “What if he did it at Lord Ovrunelli’s request?”

  “Then Lord Ovrunelli will no doubt find him some other, equally profitable position when he is sacked out of this one,” Weziral replied. “Imperial adviser or not, Lord Ovrunelli cannot force us to keep a man who has abused his post so flagrantly.”

  Well enough for you, Eleret thought, but what about me? If Birok Maggen was in league with his powerful cousin, she was in even more trouble than she had thought. She should get out of Ciaron soon, before Maggen discovered that his trap had been sprung and decided to try something else.

  As if he had overheard her thoughts, the Commander said, “True, Hara, but there’s Freelady Salven to consider.” He hesitated. “I suppose this makes you eager to leave Ciaron, Freelady?”

  “It certainly sounds like a good idea. Why do you ask?”

  “I hoped to persuade you to stay, at least until we’ve managed to bring Maggen in for a talk. It might be useful to have you there to help sort out what he’s up to; in return, I can provide some protection for you while you’re in the city.”

  “Eleret will be under the protection of the Vallaniris,” Daner said with rigid politeness.

  “I see. Well, Freelady?”

  Eleret looked from the Commander’s carefully blank expression to Daner’s worried one. They were both thinking more about her safety than about the doubtful help she could give them with Maggen, but it didn’t really matter.

  Tamm’s things were at the bottom of this mess, and since some of it had spilled over onto the Commander, Eleret owed him her aid if he asked for it, no matter what his reasons. Besides, she couldn’t see heading for home with an unmeasured string of trouble trailing behind her. She needed information, and questioning Maggen would be a start at getting it. The time would be well spent, especially since leaving the city now would hardly be worth the effort. She couldn’t get far from Ciaron in what was left of the day’s light, and somehow she didn’t think Daner would like the idea of traveling after dark.

  “I’ll stay the night, at least,” Eleret said. Both Weziral and Daner looked relieved. Eleret thought of the Syaski, and Jonystra Nirandol, and Grand Master Gorchastrin, none of whom seemed likely allies for Maggen and his cousin, and all of whom were somewhere in the city, probably hunting for her. She looked down at the kit bags slung over her arm, and anger swept through her. Ma, how could you do this to me?