Casket of Souls Page 8

  Ulia would have avoided her, too, except that the woman was holding something up between her gloved fingers that caught the light and sparkled like sunlight on ice. Curious, Ulia sidled over toward her, arm already aching from the weight of the bird. Keeping out of reach, she craned her neck, trying to see what it was that was sparkling so.

  The old woman wore a dress as crude and tattered as her own, and the scarf wound around her head under the brown shawl might have been red once. But Ulia was a child starved for color. Even the gull’s blood was pretty to her. What she could see of the old woman’s face under the kerchief was sun-browned and lined, and she had white whiskers on her chin. As Ulia came closer, she saw that the old grandmother had on the strangest belt; it was made of rope, and had things hanging from it on bits of string: bent spoons, broken hair combs, bones, a bracelet made of dried rosebuds, stones and shells with holes through them. But Ulia’s gaze lingered longest on what the woman still held between her fingers. It was a bit of yellow rock crystal, clear as rainwater, bright as a star in the daytime, prettier than the gull’s golden eye.

  “Hello, little one,” the old woman said, giving her a broken-toothed smile.

  Ulia warily kept her distance. “Hello, old mother.”

  “I see you’ve found your dinner.”

  Ulia instinctively tried to hold the gull behind her.

  The old woman laughed. “I’ve got my own supper waiting, love. I’m not going to take yours.” She thumped her twisted stick on the ground. “My chasing days are over, anyway, don’t you see?”

  Ulia stood on one leg and scratched the back of her calf with the other foot where the seagull’s wing feathers made it itch. “That’s a pretty rock.”

  The old woman cocked her head and regarded the crystal. “It is, indeed, but I have so many!” She leaned her stick against the stone and rummaged in the folds of her skirts. At last she found a pouch on a length of fisherman’s twine and dumped the contents into the palm of her glove. White and yellow stones caught the light like sharp crystal teeth. “Would you like to have one?”

  Ulia’s eyes widened at that and she let the gull fall and took a step closer, eyes fixed on the sparkling stones. “I can have one?”

  As she raised her hand to reach for one, however, the old woman drew her own hand back and closed her fingers around them. “A trade, to keep the bad luck off.”

  Ulia glanced back at the gull.

  “No, love. I told you, I don’t need your dinner,” the old woman said with a warm chuckle.

  What else did she have? The child raised her hand to the little bit of faded blue silk ribbon knotted into a hank of her lank brown hair. It was only a few inches long; her mother had found a long piece trodden into the dirty snow in the marketplace last winter, lost by some wealthy girl. She’d washed it and cut it into five little pieces, one for each daughter, and tied it into their hair in bows that looked like tiny butterflies. Ulia pulled the bedraggled bit of cloth loose, wincing as several strands of hair came with it, and held it out.

  The old woman smiled down at her, holding Ulia’s gaze as she took it. Her fingers brushed the girl’s and for an instant Ulia felt the slightest hint of a tingle in her chest, as though she had to cough.

  The old woman tucked the ribbon away inside her tattered glove and let the child choose the stone she wanted. The one the grandmother had been holding when Ulia had first seen her was the largest. Ulia’s fingers hovered over that one and the old woman smiled. “Whatever one you like, love.”

  Ulia hesitated, then chose a smaller one that was yellow as a daisy’s eye. “It’s so clear! Is it magic?”

  “No, sweetness, it’s just a pretty stone I found. Not worth a broken penny but to you and me. Now you better run along and get that fine bird to your mama.”

  Unused to such kindness, Ulia impulsively kissed the old woman, then grabbed up the gull and ran home, laughing.

  OVER the next week Alec and Seregil kept an eye on the duke and Kyrin from a safe distance, but the men did nothing particularly suspicious, other than frequent visits to each other’s houses. Thero was getting impatient, and so were they, especially at not being able to burgle Reltheus.

  It was something of a relief to move back to Wheel Street on the third day of Shemin, despite the usual fuss of having to make a show of returning to the city as if they’d actually been gone. Riding through the afternoon crowds, Alec and Seregil made a point of waving to friends and acquaintances they met along the way.

  Wheel Street was a quiet boulevard on the edge of the Noble Quarter, and fashionable without being grand. The narrow houses with their fancy Skalan façades fronted onto the street, saving their walls for the back gardens. Here and there a shop took up the street-level floor: a tailor, a milliner, a gem dealer, a dealer in fine cards and gaming pieces.

  The street ended in a circle, and there was a public stable there to serve the minor nobles like Seregil who didn’t have room for their own. Leaving Windrunner and Cynril with Master Rorik, they walked across the street to their house, the one with the carving of grapevines above the polished oak door. The rich, toothsome, and very unexpected aroma of roast duck greeted them as they walked through the small antechamber and into the painted salon beyond. Poultry was another scarcity.

  This room was already decked out for the party. The murals of forest scenes were festooned with ropes of bright dried flowers and greenery, and the carpets had been taken away, leaving the colorful mosaic floor ready for dancing. Trestles were set around the room, already laden with Seregil’s best freshly polished silver chargers and cups. The musicians’ gallery overhead was freshly dusted and free of cobwebs. Runcer the Younger, who ran the household, appeared from behind the curtains of the service corridor with Seregil’s two huge white Zengati hounds, Zir and Mârag, at his heels. As soon as the dogs caught sight of their masters, they ambled over to greet them. Alec went down on one knee to hug them and give their heads a good scratching.

  Seregil looked around. “Where are our houseguests? I expected to be swarmed by Illia and the boys.”

  “Not knowing when you’d arrive, the Cavishes have gone to dine with their daughter Elsbet at the temple. Will you be wanting dinner now, my lords?”

  “Yes. Is that a brace of duck in pastry I smell?” asked Alec.

  “It is, my lord,” Runcer replied with the hint of a smile. He prided himself on anticipating his masters’ wishes.

  “Where in the world did you find ducks this summer?” asked Alec. “Or pastry flour, for that matter?”

  “I can’t say, my lord. Perhaps Cook knows.”

  “And she’ll tell us to ask you, I bet,” Seregil chuckled. “Whatever the case, well done.”

  “Will you eat now, my lords?”

  “As soon as we wash up.”

  “Very good, my lord. Oh, and the package you’ve been expecting arrived in your absence, Lord Seregil.”

  Seregil grinned at Alec. “Come upstairs, talí.”

  Alec returned the grin, murmuring “I always like hearing that.”

  But Seregil led him into the library rather than the bedroom. A long, thin bundle several feet long lay across the desk at the far side of the room, wrapped in oilcloth and string and wax seals.

  “What’s this?” Alec asked as Seregil placed it in his hands.

  “Your birthday gift, of course.” He looked remarkably pleased with himself.

  “The party isn’t until tomorrow.”

  “I wanted to be the first. Go on. Open it!”

  Intrigued, Alec sat down in an armchair, pulled the strings loose, and unrolled the bundle, feeling something curved and familiar underneath. When the last of the wrapping fell away, he let out a gasp. “A Black Radly! But—how?”

  Seregil was positively beaming now. “I sent for one as soon as we got back this spring. I had no idea if it would make it all the way from Wolde, but as you see, it did.”

  The wayfarer bow, made in two halves, lay in the wrappings in pieces, a
braided linen bow string curled around them. Alec fitted the steel-clad post of one limb into the ferrule hidden in the grip in the other and twisted it to lock the two together. In one piece, it was only a few hand spans shorter than a long bow. Made of black yew, which grew only around Blackwater Lake in the north, the oil-rubbed limbs shone like dark horn. Master Radly was the finest bowyer Alec had ever found, and he’d mourned the loss of the first Radly that Seregil had given him, which was probably in the hands of a slave ship captain now.

  Alec inspected the maker’s mark engraved on the ivory disk set into the back of the handgrip. Radly’s yew-tree mark stood out, and there was a tiny R in the crown of branches, proof that this was the product of the master’s own hands, rather than one of his workmen. Such bows were costly, but more than worth the price: strong, sturdy, and true.

  Still gripping it in one hand, he jumped up and grabbed Seregil in an enthusiastic hug. “Thank you, talí. I just … I don’t know what to say, except thank you!” Holding the bottom end of the bow against his foot, he bent it to set the bowstring in its notches, then eyed down the length of it. “It’s perfect.”

  “That’s good. It would be a long ride to return it. That bow Riagil gave you is a good one, but I could tell you missed yours, so I couldn’t very well leave you without one, could I? I had Runcer set up a few targets in the garden. Care to try it out?”

  Alec was already out the door to fetch his quiver.

  The back garden wasn’t large enough to set up a very challenging target, but Alec split a few wands and murdered a bull’s-eye painted on a board propped against the garden wall. When he was done, Seregil and several of the servants who’d come to watch applauded.

  “I feel safer already,” said Seregil.

  They were at supper when Micum and his family arrived. Alec tossed his napkin aside and hurried into the hall to greet them.

  “Here we are at last!” Micum had little Gherin on his shoulder and his giggling blond foster son, Luthas, under one arm. Gherin had his father’s red hair and freckles but his mother’s dark eyes. Luthas looked more like his birth mother every time they saw the child. That couldn’t be easy for Seregil, Alec knew, given the lingering guilt he still felt over Cilla’s death.

  Kari came in just behind Micum, one arm around Elsbet, their middle daughter—still in her temple initiate’s robe—and holding young Illia by the hand, laughing with them over something. Unlike Beka and Gherin, both girls had taken after her, pretty and dark-haired.

  “Uncle!” Illia ran to Alec and threw her arms around him. When he’d first met her at Watermead, he’d been able to sweep her up in his arms with ease. Now her head came nearly to his shoulder, but she hadn’t lost any of her natural exuberance.

  “Why haven’t you come to Watermead this summer?” she demanded.

  Alec laughed. “That’s your greeting?”

  Ignoring that, she ran to hug Seregil as he came in. “Uncle Seregil!”

  Seregil swung her around and kissed her. “At least she isn’t demanding presents from you, Alec.”

  “Because she knows you always have them,” her mother said, shaking her head as she came to kiss them both. Illia was wearing the tiny pearl necklace and earrings they’d given her a few years ago, as well as a silver ring from Seregil.

  Elsbet had lost some of her shyness since she’d entered the Temple of Illior as an initiate and didn’t have to be coaxed into a hug.

  “Look,” she said, showing them a round, elaborate tattoo of Illior’s dragon on the palm of her hand. It was done in black, but now some small parts of the design had been filled in with green and blue.

  “Second level already?” said Seregil.

  “She is the family scholar, after all,” Micum said proudly. “The head priestess was very complimentary.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Alec.

  “Do I get to sleep in the library again?” asked Illia.

  “Of course,” Seregil replied.

  “But you’re not to stay up all night reading,” her mother warned.

  Illia gave Alec a conspiratorial look; why else would she want to sleep there?

  They’d hardly gotten settled in for the night when Runcer appeared at their chamber with a familiar pinched look of disapproval around his eyes and mouth.

  “That young boy is back, asking for you, my lords,” he told them, sounding pained at having to deliver such distasteful news. “I put him in the garden.”

  “Thank you. I’ll see to him,” said Seregil.

  They’d met Kepi, so to speak, in the spring when the boy had cut Thero’s purse in the Harvest Market. He’d led Seregil and Alec a merry chase to get it back, too. It wasn’t that there was anything irreplaceable in the purse, but the fact that the boy had been able to get that close to a wizard and two nightrunners and then nearly gotten away intrigued Seregil. Since then, they’d found occasion to use him as an extra set of eyes and ears, together with a handful of other youngsters Kepi brought them.

  The boy was perched on the rain butt, wolfing down a mince tart. Runcer might not approve of him, but the cook, Sara, had a soft spot for the child and never let him get away without something in his belly.

  Kepi was a true child of the streets, and knew neither his parents nor his own age. From the looks of him, he could have been anywhere from ten to a malnourished twelve or thirteen. He was skinny, with a pointed little face, wide blue eyes, and a tangle of blond hair so pale it was nearly white under the faded silk head scarf Seregil had given him. His long tunic—some nephew’s castoffs that Sara had cut down for him—hung loose on his narrow shoulders, and his legs and feet were bare and dusty beneath it. He could play the innocent when needed, but in truth he possessed all the craftiness and the streak of savagery needed to survive in his part of the city. But he was also bright and quick, and utterly devoted to his benefactors. As soon as he caught sight of Seregil and Alec, he hopped down from the barrel and made them an awkward little bow. “Evenin’, my lords,” he said, spewing crumbs. “Hope I didn’t disturb you or nuthin’.”

  “No. Is there something you wanted?” asked Seregil. The boy had no outstanding assignments from them.

  “I was hoping you had some work, my lord. With you gone so long, it’s been a hungry time.”

  “What happened to the money we left you with?” asked Alec.

  Kepi’s brash grin faltered. “Gambled it, my lord.”

  Seregil chuckled. “A lesson from Illior. Hard-won money is easily lost.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “You’re in luck, though. I do have something for you to do. I want you to watch the house of Duke Reltheus in Silvermoon Street. It’s the fifth one on the palace side, east of the gate. If the duke goes out at night, especially alone late at night, I want to know when and where. And keep an eye on who goes in. Don’t worry about the daytime, just after dark. And find someone to keep an eye on Marquis Kyrin in Emerald Street, too.”

  “I will, my lords, just as you say.”

  Seregil counted out a handful of coins and let the boy out the back postern gate. Kepi disappeared into the night like a stray cat.

  ALEC wasn’t really displeased about the party, but when he was growing up in the wilds, his father had never made any particular fuss about his name day except to note it. Neither had Seregil until now, since it came so soon after the summer festival, but this year he claimed that Alec reaching his majority warranted a proper party among the nobles.

  “It’s an important event, talí. People would talk if we didn’t,” he told Alec firmly as they shared breakfast with the Cavishes that morning.

  Alec rolled his eyes. “They talk about us, anyway.”

  Micum chuckled. “Well, you were quite the scandal.”

  “What’s a scadnal, Papa?” asked Luthas.

  “It’s silly people being jealous because our uncles are so handsome together,” Illia explained, much to her father’s amusement. “Aren’t they, Uncle Seregil?”

  �
�Of course! They’re green with envy at my good luck.” Seregil raised Alec’s hand to his lips, making him blush.

  Illia noisily kissed the back of her own hand, mocking them, and the two little boys did the same, thinking it the greatest joke. Alec stuck his spoon to his nose and crossed his eyes at them, making the children scream with laughter.

  “That’s enough of that,” said Kari. “Illia, take these jackdaws out to play. There’s still work to be done for the party. Come along, Elsbet.”

  “Kari, you’re our guests,” Alec objected. “You don’t have to work.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Kari shooed the children out and headed for the kitchen to consult with Sara.

  Micum sat back in his chair and sighed. “I learned long ago to just get out of her way when she makes up her mind. And you know she enjoys it.”

  “And I hate to have you working at your own party, too, Alec,” said Seregil. “But if you can sound Selin out about his friend, it will be a good night’s work.”

  Micum raised a bushy red brow. “You two are up to something.”

  “Just a little job for Thero,” Alec explained.

  “Anything I can help with?”

  “Keep your ears open for talk of Elani and Phoria,” Seregil replied.

  Laughter drifted in from the garden through the open dining room door, then the sound of something breaking.

  “Micum!” Kari shouted from the kitchen.

  Micum rose, taking out his pipe and tobacco pouch. “I think I’ll go help Illia keep the damage to a minimum.”

  As much as Alec had complained, by the time the guests started arriving that evening he was the very model of a noble young host. He wore his embroidered violet coat impeccably, as he did the fancy amethyst earring dangling from his right earlobe. With his long blond hair loose over his shoulders, he looked a bit older than usual. Or perhaps it was his demeanor. Glancing sidelong at his talímenios, Seregil—in sea green and gold tonight—felt a familiar tug of pride. When Alec had first come to Rhíminee he’d been charmingly—and sometimes dangerously—naïve and unworldly. The naïveté was long gone, of course, but there was still a freshness about him that drew people, and made many underestimate him in the most convenient ways, just as they dismissed Seregil as a rich young wastrel—charming and entertaining, to be sure, and always a generous host, even in these hard times, but a wastrel nonetheless.