“Pagette,” Cyril said a name as the two men marched down the long hall to the portal connecting the throne room to the upper courtyard of Chengdea’s castle, high on the northern-most hills of the city.
“He has found another…possibility?” Towsan asked carefully. The two nobles passed by uniformed spearman at the wide door who briskly saluted their Duke and commander. Cyril nodded to both the guards and the question. Towsan eyed the men to make sure their chain mail was immaculate, their gold and green tabards bright and without wrinkle.
Cyril and Towsan crossed the grass of the open courtyard passing under trees and around a great central dais mounting an enormous bell as old as the realm, the bronze so green it looked like jade. A mallet hung from the crossbar as a striker though the bell was so old the castle staff thought the thing might shatter if it was ever struck.
“Adventurers,” Cyril muttered. “Dunderheads bound for disaster in Vod’Adia. I cannot believe I have countenanced this plan.”
Safely beneath his own brush of moustache, Towsan smiled faintly. The present incarnation of this stage of the plan had not been conceived by Cyril, but rather by the one person the Duke had never been able to deny. Not since her mother had died.
The thought of death took all traces of a smile from Towsan’s face. His wound was too fresh.
The south side of the high courtyard gave down a ramp into another, and the citadel wall separating the two was thick enough that rooms were housed within it. A guard standing at attention next to a plain door saluted smartly. Cyril thanked and dismissed him, and opened the door himself.
The room was used for extra storage, with rolled carpets wedged next to a stack of ale kegs and a rack of spears. A lantern hung from the ceiling and Pagette was examining the ends of the carpet rolls in its light when the Duke and Towsan strode in.
Pagette turned and made a flouncey bow, ruffling the frilled cuffs of a silk shirt worn under an embroidered waistcoat. His hair was slicked down with some sort of pomade Cyril and Towsan could smell in the small room. He referred to the Duke and Knight-Baron properly in impeccable High Daulic as Your Grace and Your Lordship, Sir.
“What are they this time?” Cyril rumbled without preamble. “Green Hill musketmen? Tarthan priests of the Sword Maiden?”
Pagette beamed, his gold tooth catching the light along with the trove of rings glittering his fingers.
“A Miilarkian,” he said. “A young and rather pretty one at that.”
Cyril raised a brown eyebrow and Towsan frowned.
“An Islander?” said Cyril.
“A woman?” said Towsan.
“Yes, and yes. She has a Codian sell-sword with her, but otherwise travels alone.”
“Wait,” Cyril held up a hand. “She is a merchant of some kind? Traveling alone?”
“I do not believe so, your Grace, as she has no goods with her.”
“Pagette,” Towsan said. “She did not happen to be wearing a night-black cloak of a triangular cut, did she?”
“Ah, no your Lordship, sir. Though she did have something like that rolled up behind her saddle.”
“A Guilder?” Duke Cyril nearly sputtered, then raised his eyes toward the beams of the ceiling as though imploring help from the heavens beyond them.
“Good night, Pagette,” he said sourly, “Better luck the morrow. For the record, I am not particularly interested in thieves and assassins.”
Pagette looked modestly offended. “Pardon, your Grace, but strictly speaking the Guilders of Miilark are neither of those two things. Not precisely.”
“Bloody well close enough,” Towsan growled.
“My lords,” Pagette said, then snapped his mouth shut as the note of exasperation that had crept into his voice had been obvious even to him. “Forgive me, your Grace, and your Lordship, Sir. But might I perhaps speak plainly?”
“Please,” Cyril said, causing Towsan to glance at him. The Duke, perhaps because of his unorthodox upbringing, did have a tendency to treat in too familiar a fashion with commoners. The Duchess Jasmine had never been able to fully cure him of the habit.
Pagette held out his bejeweled hands. “Your Grace, owing to the siege of Larbonne there are not so many Vod’Adia-bound adventurers moving through your domains this season, and none of those who do come this way are paladins, or cavaliers, or people, in all honesty, of reputable circumstance. The better classes are going through Souterm and the Codian Empire. Those we get here are Kantans and Rivenmen moving overland, and a variety of ne’er-do-wells who either slipped around the siege or else were allowed through by the Ayzants as they look like trouble. The pickings, your Grace, are slim.”
Cyril was frowning, and Towsan knew why. Despite the rough nature of the heavily armed men and women who had come through Chengdea in the last few months, there were many among them who might have been convinced to hire on in the Duchy’s service, at least for a season, to bolster the defenses. If there had been any money left in the treasury, that is.
Pagette continued.
“My liege, time is not our friend. Vod’Adia will be Open in a few weeks, and Closed only a month after that. The adventurers, loaded with treasure or not, do not linger in the Wilds and the Shugak close the road behind them for the next ninety-nine years. In little more than two months there will be no route through the wilderness. Larbonne is already lost to us.” The man turned to look at Towsan. “If your Lordship, Sir, is still decided and resolute, you have to go now .”
“But with an Island Guilder?” Cyril said, though it was a question now and not a denial.
“Just so,” Pagette nodded. “As I say, she is a young woman and in truth not so formidable in appearance, but the reputation of her people proceeds her. If you two noble men are, forgive me, intimidated by the name of Miilark, may not the same be expected from the Shugak, and even from the rough crowd of Camp Town? There is no percentage in meddling with an Islander, for the Islanders never forget. Is there anyone in the world who has not heard this said?”
Cyril was quiet, thoughtful. Towsan spoke to Pagette.
“Does this young Guilderess mean to enter Blackstone? What is her goal?”
“I cannot say, sir, though I do not think Vod’Adia is her objective. Her sell-sword did purchase a one-man license on the docks with Island bank notes, and the pair of them booked passage on the next wug raft to put-out, probably in a few days.”
“Why else would she be going to Camp Town if she is not a merchant?”
Pagette shrugged, but the Duke had seen something. His dark eyes narrowed at the gaudy trader.
“You may not know, Pagette, but you have suspicions. You have that sort of a brain.”
The man lifted a hand as though to run it over his head, but remembering his slick pomade he only feathered his fingers above his hair.
“Well. I did hear a bit of talk between her and her man. There was something of an implication that she, well, does mean to…do a certain amount of harm to some fellow traveling ahead of her.”
Towsan snorted. “But Guilders are not assassins? Not precisely?”
Pagette sighed. “Yes. Well. Your Lordship, Sir, I must say again, what does it matter to us if she is? Have I misapprehended your purpose in seeking to travel in the manner intended? As I understood it your only wish is for security from here to Camp Town. Once there you can avail yourself of the hospitality of the Jobian priests, and your need for an escort is ended. If this Miilarkian wishes to go kill some fellow, or even to try the Sable City, what of it? Your need for her ends before either is an issue.”