Aha, that’s fetched her out. He must keep that trick in mind. He said only “Thank you,” and went back to the street, where he was then able to ask himself for directions. No wonder sorcerers have a reputation for being strange. That silent speech, if he ever gained the knack of it, would be a great convenience. Swinging his bundle of new old clothes, he started off.
A couple of housemaids giggled and blushed as he strode by, which Pen ignored. A glum and elderly washerwoman, shuffling along, looked up, and her wrinkled face broke into so unexpectedly sweet a smile that Pen had to smile back, and offer her a little bow. A shave and a hair wash worked on women of all sorts, it seemed. Which, since Desdemona might well be described as women of all sorts, was . . . opportune.
Turning down the steep street fronting the Order’s house, he saw Clee walking up it accompanied by a tall, black-bearded, soldierly fellow leading his horse. Pen finally saw what the term richly caparisoned meant, for it was a very well-dressed horse: saddle and bridle carved and stained and set with silver; its saddle blanket, admittedly atop a more practical sheepskin, of embroidered silk. He thought of Desdemona’s horse lecture, and was amused.
Two mounted guardsmen and a groom followed, reins slack. The bearded fellow bore a sword, in a town where very few men carried them, and a jeweled band on his hat.
Not much apart from the near-identical color and cut of their hair marked the two men as related. Clee was lanky, his hands thin and ink-stained, his clothing a knee-length townsman’s gown with trousers in a simple cut and fabric. His companion was thickset and muscular, his hands broad, suitable for maintaining a grip on a weapon in defiance of blows, his riding leathers heavy and less elaborate than what his horse was wearing. Pen suspected the straight black hair had actually borne a helmet at some point. Tough, solid, unsmiling.
Clee looked up and saw Penric, and his head went back in surprise; after a moment, he beckoned Pen nearer. The pair stopped to let him come up.
“Penric! I would like you to meet my brother, Lord Rusillin kin Martenden. Rusi, this is our visitor, Lord Penric kin Jurald, from the valley of Greenwell.”
Lord Rusillin spread his hand over his heart in the courteous gesture of a comrade of the Son, and offered Pen a reserved nod. Pen smiled and nodded back, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to touch his lips in the sign of the Bastard. “Five gods give you good day, my lord.”
The carved mouth made an effort at a smile. “Lord Penric. One god is giving you a difficult time, by what my brother tells me.”
Clee had gossiped about his condition? Pen supposed it was unusual, and therefore interesting. He couldn’t think Learned Tigney would like that. But then, very few people were as determinedly uninformative as Tigney. Pen managed, “So far, I have taken no harm from my accident. And it’s won me a trip to Martensbridge at the Temple’s expense, which I cannot fault.”
The smile grew more genuine. “You should join a mercenary company if you really want to see the world.”
Was Rusillin recruiting? That was one way for a lord to maintain his estate, certainly. “My brother Drovo did that,” said Pen.
“Good for him!”
Affability did not seem to come easily to the man, but Pen sensed he was trying. He therefore let this go by, struggling to remember what all he’d said to Clee about Drovo. By Clee’s lack of a wince, Pen hadn’t got round to mentioning his brother’s final fate, ah, that was right.
“Rusi collects and leads a company of men for the Earl Palatine of Westria,” said Clee, confirming Pen’s guess.
“A mercenary company that could find good uses for a sorcerer,” Lord Rusillin remarked, “though the Temple does not often release theirs to such services. The sorcerer might find such tasks profitable as well.”
Pen cleared his throat. “I’m neither a sorcerer nor Temple-sworn, at present. Or only an infant sorcerer. I acquired my demon less than a fortnight ago, and they are much weakened for a time by such transitions, I’ve learned. And I’ve had no training at all. So I’m afraid I’m not much use to anyone, just yet.”
“Hm. There’s a shame.” Rusillin gave him a kindly look, or perhaps it was pity.
“Well,” said Pen, extricating himself before Clee’s brother could start in on any more direct military propositioning, “I should report in to Learned Tigney. He’ll be wondering where I went. Honored to meet you, my Lord Rusillin.”
“And you, Lord Penric.”
He watched Pen keenly as he went inside, bending his head to make some remark to Clee that Pen did not hear, though Clee’s lips twitched. Pen was pleased that the two half-brothers seemed to have a reasonably fraternal relationship despite their differences in estate. There was certainly plenty to tempt Clee to envy, were he inclined to it.
He wondered if Desdemona had found Rusillin’s powerful figure impressive.
Pen went upstairs and settled with Tigney who, remarking sternly on his lateness, received as strict an accounting of Pen’s time as of his coins.
“Desdemona seemed to like the bathhouse,” Pen told him. “I hadn’t known creatures of spirit could partake of pleasures of the body quite so simply.”
Tigney’s lips thinned in his beard. “So dangerously, if the demon becomes ascendant. They devolve into fascination and excess, with no thought for preservation. As a man might ride a stolen horse to death.”
Controlling a wicked impulse to whinny, Pen excused himself to put his new treasures away and return to his station in the library.
The following afternoon, Pen had grown so absorbed in a Darthacan chronicle of Great Audar that he almost missed his chance.
The librarian had gone out, but a scribe and two acolytes were still working. They left one by one as Pen was perusing an account of the massacre at Holytree that seemed vastly different than one he had read from a Wealdean writer. He only looked up when Desdemona, with some effort, made his mouth say, “Hey!”
“What?”
“Now’s your moment. To the cabinet.”
Pen set his volume down and hurried over to it. “Wait. It’s still locked.” He wasn’t going to try to force it; the lock was sturdy, the woodwork was fine, and the destruction would be obvious.
“Put your hand on the lock.”
Baffled, Pen did so. A surge of heat seemed to flow from his palm. Within the metal mechanism, something clicked.
“Could you always do that?” he asked.
“Not for the first few days.” He had the sense of a convalescent tottering happily around a room after too long abed, delighted to be working weakened muscles again.
“But . . . Tigney must know. Hasn’t he told the librarian?”
“To be sure, which is why you have never been left alone here. This oversight will not last. So hasten.”
Willingly, Pen did so. The cabinet door creaked wide.
The contents were slightly disappointing; a mere two shelves of volumes, less than forty in all, the other two shelves bare. Nothing sparkled or growled or seemed to need to be chained like a vicious dog. His hands reached out eagerly. “Which one?”
“Not that, no, no . . . that one.”
“It’s not the thickest.”
“No, but it’s the best. Three-fourths of what’s here is rubbish. Now close up. She’s coming back.”
Pen swung the door shut; the latch clicked. He set his hand to it. “And lock up again?”
“We can’t do that.”
“Wait, why not?”
“Locking increases order. Too advanced for you right now.”
The disorder that would result if the librarian thought to check the lock was a bit frightening to contemplate, if one wasn’t a durable demon. Pen scurried back to his bench, shoved the filched volume into his tunic, and opened his Darthacan chronicle once more. The words seemed to dance before his eyes, and the volume tucked under his heart to burn. Footsteps sounded from the hall.