Dawet was wearing his usual black garb, but with a subtle difference: his clothes this time seemed more suited for courtly entertainment than going unnoticed in dark alleys and low places. His sleeves were slashed with brilliant red, the lining of his cloak the same bloody color, and his hose had also been picked out with vertical stripes of red and white.
“A new meeting place?” he asked her, looking around the Fountain Court.
“It is a little noisier here. Less likely anyone could overhear us.” Briony eyed his attire. “You look less furtive than usual, Master dan-Faar.”
He made a mock bow. “Milady is too kind. As it happens, I have a… meeting after ours.”
“With a woman?” Briony didn’t know why she should care, but it did rankle a bit.
Dawet’s smile was, for once, neither knowing nor mocking. “I am your friend, I hope, Princess. Nothing more, perhaps, but certainly nothing less. For instance, I am not your servant. My trysts are my own.”
Briony swallowed a retort, touching the Zorian vesicle hanging around her neck to remind herself of what was important. He spoke the truth: she had no right, and more than that, she had no sensible reason to take an interest in what Dawet did, and with whom, except where her own safety was concerned. “As long as we are friends,” she said. “As long as I can trust you, Dawet. I mean this truly—I need someone I can trust.”
He gave her an odd look. “You seem frightened, Princess.”
“Not frightened. But I am engaged in… difficult matters. I am embarking on a journey. Once it begins I cannot turn and swim back to shore.” She reached up again and cupped the vesicle in her hand, traced its oval shape and thought of the virgin goddess’ own journey. “Will you help me?”
“What do you need, Princess?”
She told him. “Can you do that?” she asked when she had finished. The look he gave her now contained both surprise and a hint of admiration. “Nothing easier. But…” He shrugged. “It will take payment. Such men as you want do not work for charity.”
She laughed. It even sounded harsh in her own ears. This was difficult. It felt as though she truly was stepping out into the unknown. “I have money. Prince Eneas was kind enough to give me some—until my own affairs should be settled, he said.”
“A prince indeed.”
“Will this be enough?”
Dawet looked at the gold, hesitated a moment. The splashing of the fountain rose up to fill the silence. “More than enough,” he said at last. “I will bring you back what remains.” He stood. “I should go. There is time for me to put this matter in motion before… before my other business.”
“Thank you, Dawet.” She held out her hand. After a moment he took it and lifted it to his lips, but his eyes never left hers. “Why do you look at me so?” she asked.
“I had not thought to see this side of you, Princess Briony—not yet, at any rate.”
She felt herself flush a little, but it would be hidden by the darkening evening. “So the Zorian dove now shows herself to be soiled, eh? Is that a disappointment?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Not soiled, no. Willing to protect herself, yes. Even the most pacific of Nature’s children will do that.” His face grew serious. “I had wrongly thought that old Shaso and his teachings had driven all the good sense from you.”
“Yes, well, Shaso dan-Heza is dead.”
The public attack on Jenkin Crowel, the envoy from Southmarch, a cruel beating at the hands of three unknown bravos, was the talk of all the court at Tessis the next day. Crowel had been surprised coming out of a favorite tavern by what had seemed at first merely a trio of unpleasant drunkards, but before more than a few words had been exchanged his two guards had been disarmed and beaten, then the assault had begun.
The attack itself was strange enough, although not incomprehensible, since Crowel was already known in Tessis for his love of gambling and his unpleasant temper. But what made it a subject of rapt speculation—for a short time, anyway, since the Tessian nobility never lacked for things to talk about—was what one of the battered guards witnessed as he lay on the ground.
Just before the attackers fled, one of the criminals had crouched beside the bloody, whimpering Jenkin Crowel, but the only words the wounded guard had been able to make out were, “… learn to keep your lies to yourself.”
By the end of the week, though, when Crowel had proved remarkably close-mouthed on the subject, hiding his bruises and scars in his chambers and shunning all company, the denizens of Broadhall Palace moved on to newer and more interesting outrages.
16. In the Fungus Garden
“According to the Vuttish bards, the Qar themselves distrusted the creatures of Ruottashemm, even though they had kinship to them, and were in constant struggle with the Cold Fairies’ queen, Jittsammes.”
“Are you sure you’ll be well?” Opal was twisting the hem of her cloak in her hands. She hated to be parted from them, of course, but she and Chert both knew it was the right thing for her to do. “You’ll keep a close eye on the boy?”
“Do not fret so, my only love. It’s but a few days.” He put his arms around her and held her close. For a moment she fought against it. Opal did not like being confined, even by her husband—perhaps especially by her husband. Her father, Sand Leekstone, had once confessed that he found the women in his family a complete bafflement. “Your Opal and her mother have been telling me what to do for so many years, I don’t know what I’d do if I ever got my own way in anything—likely fall down dead.” Chert, never having expected anything when he married Opal except what he’d gotten, namely a wife who both loved him and argued with him equally fiercely, had only nodded and smiled.
“Few days?” she said now. “If you listen to the folk around here, the world might come to an end in a day or two—do you think that makes me any less worried?” But she was only protesting by rote—they had argued it all through and agreed; in fact, this trip had been mostly Opal’s idea. Now that it was clear the threat of war was real, men were being mustered in Funderling Town and Opal had decided the women should also do their part: she was going back to enlist Vermilion Cinnabar and some of the other important women of the town to make sure the men called to fight would have what they needed, and to fill in for those called away from important jobs in the town. Chert was proud of her and knew she would do well. When Opal set her mind to something, it always got done.
“The world will not end while you are gone, my old darling,” he told her now. “It wouldn’t dare. Just promise me you’ll stay with Agate as you promised—don’t go back into our house. If you need something send someone else, in case it’s being watched.”
“How could it be watched without all of Funderling Town knowing?”
Chert shook his head. “You are thinking of soldiers—Big Folk. But I do not trust all our neighbors so far that I cannot imagine one of them taking some money to pass information to the Lord Constable if they see you back in our house. That is why we told no one outside the family where we were going.”
“Now who thinks the world will end if he stops making it spin?” she asked, but he could tell from her voice that she wasn’t angry. She squeezed him again, then let go. “Do keep a close eye on the boy.”