He roused Thrusher anyway and the two men crept silently toward the sound. Walegrin drew his sword, the first Enlibar sword to be forged in five hundred years.
"You've got the money and the message?" they heard Balustrus say.
"Yessir."
Balustrus' crutches scraped along the broken stone. Walegrin and Thrusher flattened against the walls and let him pass. They'd never get the truth from the metal-master, but the messenger was another matter. They crept around the wall.
The stranger was dressed in dark clothes of unfamiliar style. He was adjusting the stirrup when Walegrin fell upon him, wrestling him to the ground. Keeping a firm hand over the stranger's mouth and a tight hold on his arm, Walegrin dragged him a short distance from his horse.
"What've we got?" Thrusher asked after a cursory check of the horse.
"Too soon to tell," Walegrin replied. He twisted the arm again until he felt his prisoner gasp, then he rolled him over. "Not local, and not Nisibisi by the looks of him."
The young man's features were soft, almost feminine and his efforts to free himself were laughably futile. Walegrin cuffed him sharply then yanked him into a sitting position.
"Explain yourself."
Terrified eyes darted from one man to the other and came to rest on Walegrin, but the lad said nothing.
"You'll have to give him a search, eh?" Thrusher threatened.
"Aye-here's his purse."
Walegrin ripped the pouch from the youngster's belt, noticing as he did that the youth carried no evident weapon, not even a knife. He did, however, have some large heavy object under his jerkin. Walegrin tossed the purse to Thrusher and sought the hidden object. It proved to be a medallion, covered with a foreign seeming script. He had made nothing of the inscription before Thrusher yelped with surprise and a dazzle of light flashed between them.
As Walegrin looked up a second flash erupted. Their prisoner needed no more time to effect his escape. They heard the youth mount and gallop off, but by the time either man could see clearly again the trail was already becoming mud.
"Magic," Thrusher muttered as he got to his feet.
Walegrin said nothing as he got his legs under him. "Well, Thrush-what else was in that purse?" he asked after several moments.
Thrusher checked it cautiously again. "A small ransom in gold and this." He handed Walegrin a small silver object.
"One of the Ilsig links, by the look of it," Walegrin whispered. He looked back toward the villa. "He's up to something."
"The magician wasn't Rankene," Thrusher offered in consolation.
"That only means we have new enemies. C'mon. It's time to find my sister. She'll make at least as much sense as the metal-master."
The rain had kept the bazaar crowds to a minimum, but so close to the harbor there was fog, too, and Walegrin got them lost twice before he heard the sound of Dubro's hammer. Two mercenaries, a Whoreson pair by the look of them, waited beneath the awning. Dubro was mending their shield.
"You're putting in more dents than you're taking out, oaf," the younger, taller of the pair complained, but Dubro went on hammering.
Walegrin and Thrusher moved closer without being noticed. A rope was tied across the doorway, usually a sign that Illyra was scrying. Walegrin tried to find the scent of her incense in the air but found only the smell of Dubro's fire.
There was a scream and a crash from the inside. Dubro dropped his hammer and bumped into Walegrin at the doorway. A third Stepson yanked the rope loose and attempted, unsuccessfully, to bully his way past both Dubro and Walegrin. The smith's hands closed on the Stepson's shoulder. The other pair reached for their weapons, but Thrusher already had his drawn. Everyone froze in place.
Illyra appeared in the doorway. "Just let them go, Dubro," she asked wearily. "The truth hurts him more than you can." She noticed Walegrin, sighed and retreated back into the darkness.
"Lying S'danzo bitch!" the third Stepson shouted after her.
Dubro changed his grip and shook the small man. "Get out of here before I change my mind," he said in a low voice.
"You haven't finished with the shield yet," the young one complained, but his companions hushed him, grabbed the shield and hurried into the rain.
Dubro turned his attention to Walegrin. "One might expect you to be here when something like this happens."
"You shouldn't let her see men like that."
"He wouldn't," Illyra explained from the doorway. "But that's the only kind that comes anymore-for mongering and scrying. The Stepsons scare anything else away."
"What about the women you used to see? The lovers and the merchants?" Walegrin's tone was harsh. "Or did the S'danzo not give them back?"
"No, Migurneal was not untrue. It's the same everywhere. No woman would venture this close Downwind anymore-and not many merchants either. They don't need me to tell them their luck if they run afoul of the Sacred Band."
"And you need the money because of the babes?" Walegrin concluded, then realized
he didn't hear the normal infantile sounds.
Illyra looked away. "Well, yes-and no," she said angrily. "We needed a wet nurse-and we found one. But it's not safe for her or the babies here. They're bullies. Worse than the hawk-masks were-those at least stayed in the gutters where they belonged. Arton and Lillis are at the Aphrodesia House."
It was not uncommon to foster a child at a well-run brothel where young women sold their milk. Myrtis, proprietor of the Aphrodesia, had an unquestionable reputation. Even the palace women kept their children in the Aphrodesia nursery. But fostering wasn't the S'danzo way and Walegrin could see Illyra had agreed to it only because she was scared.
"Have you been threatened?" he asked, sounding like the garrison office he had been.
Illyra didn't answer, but Dubro did. "They make threats everytime she tells them the truth. She tells them they're cowards-and their threats prove it. 'Lyra's too honest; she shouldn't answer the questions men shouldn't ask."
"But I'll answer your questions now, Walegrin," she offered, not facing her husband.
The incense holders were still scattered across the carpets. Her cards had been thrown against the wall. Walegrin watched while she set her things in order and seated herself behind the table. She had recovered from the birth of the twins, Walegrin judged. There was a pleasant maturity in her face but otherwise she was the same-until she took up the cards again.
"What do you seek," she asked.
"I have been betrayed, but I am still in danger. I wish to know whom I should fear most and where I might be safe."
Illyra's face relaxed into unemotional blank-ness. Her expressionless eyes stared into him. "The steel brings enemies, doesn't it?"
Though he had seen her in scrying trances before, the change chilled Walegrin. Yet he believed totally in her gifts since she had read the pottery fragment which had led him to the ore. "Yes, the steel brings enemies. Will it be the death of me? Is it the final link in a S'danzo forged chain?"
"Give me your sword," she demanded.
He handed her the Enlibar blade. Illyra stared at it a while then ran her palms along the flat and touched the edge tenderly with her fingertips. She set the metal on her table and sat motionless for so long that Walegrin began to fear for her. He had started for the door when her eyes widened and she called his name.
"The future has been clouded since I gave birth, Walegrin, but your future is as the fog to the sun.