Arlen shrugged. ‘It’s your house, Leesha. You keep whatever company you like, but you want the whole story, it’s just us four.’
Leesha gestured at Renna with her chin. The young woman caught the look, her eyes fierce. ‘Didn’t you beg me not to paint blackstem wards on anyone?’
Arlen sighed. ‘Ent the first time I been wrong about somethin’, Leesha Paper. Don’t reckon it’s the last, either.’
‘How far to your palace?’ Amanvah asked, as their carriage trundled along the road into Deliverer’s Hollow.
‘Palace?’ Rojer asked.
Amanvah bowed. ‘Forgive me, husband, I forget you have no palaces in the North. Your … manse?’
‘Ah …’ Rojer said. ‘I don’t exactly have one of those, either. I live at Smitt’s.’
‘I do not know this word,’ Amanvah said. ‘What is smitz?’
‘Smitt,’ Rojer said. ‘Is a person. He owns the inn.’
‘And you live at this … roadhouse Waxing and Wane?’ Amanvah was incredulous.
‘What?’ Rojer asked. ‘They change the sheets for me once a week and I never have to cook a meal.’
‘Unacceptable,’ Amanvah said.
‘Well it’s going to have to be,’ Rojer snapped, ‘because it’s all I’ve got! I told your father I had no money, and I meant it. Bad enough you picked a fight with the count, but now you need to piss on how I live?’
Amanvah bowed. ‘Apologies, husband. It was not my intent to offend. I meant only that one so touched by Everam should live in a home worthy of his greatness.’
Rojer smiled. It was hard to argue with that.
Much of the town had gathered by the time they reached the inn, but Rojer paid them little mind. He wanted his wives settled as soon as possible so he could meet the Painted Man after dusk and find out just what in the Core was going on.
‘Going to need a few extra rooms,’ he told Smitt.
Sikvah took his hand, gently pulling him back. ‘Please, husband. Such transactions are beneath you. If you will allow me …’ She stepped ahead of him, beginning to negotiate in much the same manner Shamavah had on the road. Smitt looked shocked at first, then exasperated, then conciliatory. In the end, Sikvah counted out a number of gold coins into his hand, and Smitt turned, calling to one of his sons. Haggling seemed to be something Krasians had in their blood.
‘The merchant must eject some of his residents and prepare our rooms,’ Sikvah said on her return. ‘We are invited to wait here or in our husband’s old room.’
‘Old?’ Rojer asked. ‘I loved that room. Best acoustics in the whole ripping inn.’
‘It was not fitting, husband,’ Sikvah said, and Rojer sighed. This was not an argument he could hope to win.
The front door opened, and a group of Jongleurs entered, easily visible by their instrument cases and bright motley. A young woman was with them, and the sight of her filled him with a horrible guilt. Kendall, his apprentice who had nearly lost her life to his stupidity.
A memory flashed in his mind, Gared carrying Kendall, cut and bloody, from the battlefield. He shook his head to clear it.
‘Rojer!’ Kendall cried, rushing over to him and wrapping him in a hug. ‘They said you were back! We were so worrieAUGH!’
She was pulled away from him, and Rojer saw Sikvah twisting the young woman’s wrist with two fingers, immobilizing her as easily as she might an impudent toddler. ‘Who are you, to lay hands on my husband?’
Kendall looked at her, and even through her grimace of pain, a look of surprise took her. ‘Husband?’
‘Sikvah!’ Rojer snapped. ‘Release her! This is Kendall, one of my apprentices.’
Sikvah let go of Kendall’s wrist immediately and the young woman snatched it back, rubbing. Sikvah and Amanvah began circling her like wolves, appraising her from every angle.
‘You greenlanders allow your slaves great liberty,’ Amanvah noted, ‘but she seems fit enough. How many others do you own?’
‘Ent his slave,’ Kendall snapped. ‘Nobody owns me.’
‘She’s right,’ Rojer said. ‘She and the other apprentices are all free folk, and Kendall is the most talented of the lot.’
His wives continued to circle the girl as the other Jongleurs came over. Rojer knew them all by reputation if not personally. Their leader was Hary Roller. Once, early in his career, Hary had played while standing upon a great ball. He hadn’t done the trick since, but the name Roller had forever stuck.
Hary was old now, retired from performance and teaching, but he was respected both as a composer and a cellist. Guildmaster Cholls had promised masters, but it seemed the established ones had little interest in risking themselves in the Hollow. Sly Sixstring was even older, the guitar over his shoulder worn and weathered. Rojer had seen him perform once and was stunned at the nimbleness of Sly’s wrinkled fingers, but that was a decade ago at least.
The others were younger, performers Rojer had been competing with for street corners little more than a year ago. Wil Piper had still been an apprentice then. Rojer wondered if he’d been elevated just for agreeing to this assignment.
Hary shook Rojer’s hand. ‘We’re happy to see you returned, Master Halfgrip. In your absence, I have been following your agreement with the guildmaster and teaching sound signs to your apprentices. They were … undisciplined, but I have made some progress …’
Undisciplined. Rojer snorted. That was one way to put it. They were a bunch of bumpkins he had sat in a circle and taught to play by ear. There had been none of the formal training of the guild, something Roller was known to be a stickler for.
But those days were coming to a close.
‘Forget all that,’ Rojer said, reaching into his satchel for the pages of music he had prepared, outlining the Song of Waning. He slapped them against the man’s chest, and Roller reflexively took them. ‘New song I need everyone to learn. Ask your apprentices to make lots of copies.’
Roller looked at the pages, startled. ‘A theory …?’
‘Tested,’ Rojer said. ‘Worked for my trio. Let’s see if it works for others.’
Rojer’s room was just as he’d left it, but after so much time in the Palace of Mirrors and the best rooms of every inn from here to the Bounty, he saw it in a new light. It was small and cramped, just a bed to flop on and a sundry trunk.
Always keep your bags packed, Arrick used to say.
Rojer went to the trunk and began rummaging in it, but Sikvah put a hand on his arm. ‘Please, husband. Let the servants handle that. Your labour shames us.’
‘Don’t have servants,’ Rojer said.
‘Then I will have Smitt’s people move your things when the new rooms are prepared.’ Sikvah pulled at him until he relented and went to sit on the bed.
He looked at Amanvah. ‘What did you mean, “As it should be”?’
‘Eh?’ she asked.
‘Back in the count’s hall,’ Rojer said. ‘When I said I had no patron, and needed none.’
Amanvah bowed. ‘I have cast the bones since our … disagreement, husband. They tell me you must be free of fealty if your power is to remain pure. I apologize for doubting you. Sikvah and I are yours now. Whatever path you take in your battle with the alagai, we will follow. This is why my father wed us to you, and we will no longer forsake you. If you command we strip to our coloured silk and sing in the night, we will do this.’
‘And if I command you sing The Battle of Cutter’s Hollow?’ Rojer asked.
‘We will do as you command, and find ways to make you regret it.’ Amanvah winked. ‘We are your wives, not slaves.’
Rojer was stunned a moment, then laughed out loud.
‘Do you trust this Painted Man?’ Amanvah said. ‘Do you know what happened between him and my father?’
‘Yes, I trust him, but no,’ Rojer shook his head, ‘I don’t know what happened. I will speak with him tonight. Maybe I’ll learn something.’
‘Will you share what he tells you with us?’ Amanvah asked.
Rojer looked at her a long time. ‘If he asks me to keep his counsel private, I will.’ He frowned, then shrugged. ‘Unless I decide I shouldn’t.’ He smiled at her. ‘Gotta be free, don’t I?’