He heard the scrape of a stool on the floor; the sounds of someone sitting down behind him. He didn’t actually hear anything then, but the serving wench materialized, as they all did, whenever Norris summoned them, however imperceptible the signal was to anyone else. The actor ordered dinner, and when it came, there was a pause as the wench flirted a little with Norris then was summarily shooed away.
“Is it all right?” said the stranger, in a very, very soft voice.
“Safe as houses,” Norris replied, casually. “Safer than my room. Can’t tell who might be on the other side of the wall, there.”
Well, thought Alberich, That’s what you get for insisting on the big corner room. Norris had recently demanded—and gotten—one of the better chambers at the inn. Even with Myste keeping a jaundiced eye on the take, the innkeeper was doing a phenomenal amount of business thanks to the ongoing presence of the actors here, and couldn’t afford to offend Norris at this point. The problem with the new room, however, was that while Norris had one of his fellow actors as a neighbor on one side, the other was a room that anyone could rent, and it was often taken by someone who wanted to be near the actor. That would practically guarantee a snoop with her ear to the wall.
“What about him?” persisted the stranger, and Alberich knew, by the prickling feeling on the back of his neck, that the man was pointing at him in some way. Probably with a little jerk of the chin; less obtrusive, unless you were watching for something of the sort.
“Hmm.” There was a scrape; Norris this time; Alberich could tell from the position of the chair.
He’s going to do something. Alberich thought he could guess what, and a moment later, it came. And now he had to do something that was against all of his instincts; he had to relax, not tighten his muscles in anticipation. The scholar would be deep in the book and would not even be aware of the rest of the world. You should be able to come up behind him and shout in his ear without his noticing.
There was the sound of a stumble, and Norris blundered into him, spilling his drink, knocking the book out of his hand, nearly knocking him over. Alberich did not try to save himself; he let the chair go over, and himself with it, as with a cry, he lurched for his book. Norris was there before him, picking it up, all apology, offering his hand, and when Alberich was on his feet, dusting him off.
“Horribly clumsy of me, I beg your pardon—” While Norris babbled on, he was managing to get a look at the book, in fact, at the place where Alberich had been reading. And thank the Sunlord for that, since it meant he was not looking closely at Alberich’s disguise instead! He handed it back to Alberich so quickly, though, that it was unlikely anyone like the scholar would have realized that the actor had examined the book before relinquishing it. But an actor had to be a quick study; the man probably had both pages memorized by now.
Alberich snatched it away, glared angrily at him, and fussed over the book, making certain that none of the pages were bent, nothing stained. “You clumsy oaf!” he shrilled, pitching his voice to a whiny falsetto. “Curse you, fellow! Where did you think you were going?”
“I’ll buy you a new drink,” Norris was saying, as the serving wench bustled up with a towel to clean up the mess.
“If you’ve so much as creased a page, you’ll buy me a new book, young man,” Alberich replied querulously. “Copies of Canton’s Lives of the Philosophers do not grow on trees!”
“No, they don’t, I’m sure,” Norris said agreeably, as the serving wench brought another drink and Norris paid her for it. “And I would be devastated to think I had ruined one. I particularly admire his scholarly treatise on Loval Hestalion, for instance.”
Alberich simply gave him a good long stare, as if suspiciously certain that Norris was only trying to jolly his way past Alberich’s anger. “It’s Lowal Hestalion, young man, as you would know if you had actually read the book, rather than making something up to try and worm your way into my favor. And what is more, the man may be sound enough on other biographies, but his treatise on Hestalion is little more than a repetition of scurrilous rumor!”
Norris threw up his hands and laughed. “Caught! Well, I most sincerely apologize again. I have restored your drink, and I hope I haven’t foxed your book, so are we quits?”
“The book appears to be intact,” Alberich said icily, “I believe I am also intact. And I beg the pleasure of your absence.”
“Yes, sir!” Norris laughed, and went back to his place while Alberich ostensibly and ostentatiously reburied himself in his book.
“So, there, you see,” Norris said under the sound of the conversations all around them. “Nothing but a bookworm. We could burn down the place around him, and he wouldn’t notice.”
“Good enough. The game’s in play tonight,” the stranger said. “We think it will play out well.”
“Good news,” Norris said with satisfaction. “And my reward?”
“You’ll get it when the bond is sealed,” the stranger replied. “Even if all goes well, there will be opposition. We may need you before then. And don’t forget, we’ll also need you after, for a time, anyway.”
“No, you won’t,” Norris growled, sounding irritated now. “The boy’s a natural seducer. And the girl’s untried. And I absolutely the finest instructor in the arts of seduction that was ever born. You say he’s showing his hand tonight. If he doesn’t have her well enchanted before the week is out, and wedded within the moon, I’ll eat my hat without salt.”
“All well and good, but he’ll still need pretty speeches, and he’s not bright enough to make them up on his own,” the stranger said, irritation in his own voice. “Until there’s an heir in the offing, we’re not safely home.”
“And I don’t get my theater.” Norris sighed, as if much put upon. “All right, then, I’ll stay available. But he’d better not drag this on too long. It doesn’t take that long to get a girl with child, and after that, keeping her bound will be up to him. I’ve never seen a woman born yet that didn’t make every excuse in the world for the father of her child.”
“After that, we’ll have what we need,” the voice purred. The tone made the hair on Alberich’s head stand up. There was something very sinister about it, that made Alberich wonder uneasily just what it was that the voice and his cohorts needed.
And he felt very sorry for the girl in question.
But it seemed that, whatever was going on here and now, it had little or nothing to do with the security of Valdemar. Evidently Norris had been coaching some unscrupulous young man in how to seduce a young woman into marriage. He could almost picture her in his mind as he carefully turned another page in his book, some young, lonely, plain thing, but wealthy—for surely only great wealth could be the cause for such a scheme.