Vahil’s brows rose as he hefted the weight awkwardly on to one shoulder and followed Temar down the quayside.
“Put it in the forehold.” Temar pulled out his lists and began giving concise instructions to the men who were drifting back from their break. Vahil looked at him for a long moment, shrugged, shed his precisely cut and satin-trimmed jerkin and joined the line of porters moving the stacks of cargo steadily on to the vessels.
“I’ll want you as a witness,” he warned Temar after a while, taking a pause to wipe sweat from his blunt-featured face. “You’re to swear to my parents that I put in a day’s honest work, vows to Misaen and everything, if necessary.”
“Half a day, if you see it through,” Temar corrected him with a wicked grin.
“I see I should have got involved in this sooner,” Vahil shouted back as he lifted one of the dwindling number of bundles on the cobbles, “then I could be the one sitting there chewing my pen-holder.”
“Get on with it, or I’ll dock your pay.” Temar waved his list in a fine gesture of dismissiveness.
This sort of by-play kept the other workers amused and Temar was pleased to see the day’s cargo loaded and securely stowed before the sun started sinking into the mountains that dipped down to the isthmus before rising again to form the savage cliffs and reefs around the Cape of Winds.
“You can’t say I haven’t earned a drink now?” Vahil looked ruefully at his reddened hands as Temar dismissed the dockers with thanks and instructions for the morning.
“I’ll buy,” nodded Temar.
Vahil slung his jerkin over one shoulder and they made their way to an ale-house. “I am interested in this colony idea, you know,” he said abruptly. “The Empire needs something like this, to give people hope, something positive to work for and to build upon, now that our respected Emperor, Nemith the Witless, has managed to lose us the provinces. My father says the land out there is good for crops and stock, there are metals and even gems to be had, everything we need. That’s where our future’s going to be, Temar, and it’s going to be more than we could ever imagine, I’d lay coin on it.”
“With your luck at wagers lately, that’s not much encouragement.” Temar pushed a mug across the sticky table-top.
“Do I hear the mule criticizing the ass for his ears?” Vahil raised his thick eyebrows. “Remind me, just how much was it you lost in that brothel game last time we went to Toremal together?”
Temar’s reply was lost as Vahil turned to a messenger who tapped him on the shoulder.
“You are expected to dine with your parents, Esquire and the D’Alsennin too.” The lackey nodded a quick reverence to Temar.
“Dast’s teeth, that’s what I came to tell you. I clean forgot, we were having such a lovely time hauling your sacks around for you.” Vahil hastily drained his tankard and stood, wrenching his jerkin on with a nasty sound of snapping stitches. “Come on, I think we’ve got a guest coming, niece of Den Fellaemion’s or something.”
“You really are hopeless, you know that!” Temar fumbled in his belt-pouch for his hair clasp as they hurried through the town after the servant. He tugged at his jerkin to try and lose some of the creases and folded back the cuffs of his shirt to hide the worst of the grime.
“Vahil!” Messire Den Rannion was waiting on the step of the modest house he was renting, displeasure plain on his usually genial face.
“I was helping Temar with loading his cargo.” Vahil was unabashed. “It’s a marvelous way to work up an appetite! Just let me have a quick wash and we’ll be right down.”
“Lend Temar a clean shirt!” his father shouted up the stairs.
“Take your time, dear.” Maitresse Den Rannion’s placid voice followed them. “It’s all right, Ancel,” she reassured her husband. “I allowed time for them to be late when I gave Cook the menu.”
It never ceased to amaze Temar that someone as persistently disorganized as Vahil could be born of two such efficient and capable parents. He grabbed the ewer and took possession of the washstand with scant apology.
“Find some clean linen, will you?” he demanded.
“Yes, Messire, at once, Messire, anything else Messire?” Vahil pulled open a drawer and tossed a couple of shirts onto the bed.
Temar shivered, bare-chested as he reached for one of them. He pulled it on and grimaced at his reflection in the inadequate glass; he’d have to wear his work-soiled jerkin to hide the fact the shirt was both too short in the body and too wide in the shoulder. At least it was clean and, with luck, the quality would be more noticeable than the fit.
“Come on.”
Vahil was sorting through a tray of oddments with unhurried good humor. “Just a moment, where did I put the cursed thing? Ah!” He pulled a scrap of leather thong out of his hair and snapped a rather florid gold clasp into his wiry, chestnut locks. “The perfect gentleman!”
Temar smiled, shaking his head. Vahil took great pleasure in assailing the heights of fashion, unbothered by his incongruous stoutness or the pockmarks pitting his cheerful face.
A bell rang and they hurried downstairs to find Messire Den Rannion enjoying a quiet glass of wine by the fireside with his guest.
“This is Guinalle, Demoiselle For Priminal.” He rose and bowed to her, Temar and Vahil doing the same with the instincts borne of childhood training. Guinalle answered with an elegant curtsey, spreading her flame-colored skirts in a rustle of silk.
“I gather you have already met, D’Alsennin?” Den Rannion passed Temar a fine glass goblet of richly fragrant red wine.
“We have.” Temar was heartened to see a friendly answering smile oh Guinalle’s face.
“I don’t see much point in Imperial ceremony when we’re eating in the parlor; do sit yourselves down.” Maitresse Den Rannion swept in ahead of several servants with laden trays; for all her claims to informality, she was splendid in a full-skirted sapphire gown, silver combs glinting in an immaculate coiffure.
“Demoiselle.”
Temar watched with some irritation as Vahil managed to offer his arm first and escort Guinalle to a seat at a comfortable distance from the hearth. Temar took the chair across from her, despite the warmth of the fire on his back.
“So, my dear, you are recently arrived from Sarrat, I hear?” The Maitresse’s eyes were wide in her plump, powdered face.
“Two days since.” Guinalle smiled politely as she reached for a dish of spiced beans and served herself a modest portion.
Temar passed her a plate of cheeses lightly fried in herbs and noted that the table bore an unusually wide choice of meatless delicacies. The Maitresse had always enjoyed a reputation among other women for being remarkably well informed, although at the cost of being dismissed as an inveterate gossip by men such as his grandfather.
“Your uncle and I are extremely grateful that you agreed to leave your studies and join us.” Messire Den Rannion regarded a glazed onion tartlet with some suspicion and took a slice of bloody beef instead. “We are sorely in need of expertise in the higher techniques of Artifice.”
Temar managed not to drop the plate of baked beets he was trying to offer Guinalle but it was a close run thing. He cleared his throat and tried not to stare at her as he took a drink of water.
“I thought you’d said you had plenty of message-takers and the like?” Vahil commented as he skewered a couple of slices of peppered lamb with his knife point.
“Indeed?” Guinalle’s attention sharpened slightly. “What manner of people are they, Messire?”
“Oh, mainly clerks, stewards and the like, people with sufficient instruction to send messages to another trained mind, but little beyond that.” Messire began pouring everyone more wine. “Many of them have been displaced as the Empire draws in and, frankly, there is less need for such accomplishments these days.”
“Just how far can one send a message using Artifice?” Vahil looked expectantly at Guinalle.