With evening drawing on, cool, dark leaves swathed the little yard with moist, green fragrance. I sat and closed my eyes and forced myself to take slow, even breaths as the blood pulsed in my head. Noises from the stable yard over in the distance and from the crowd in the road just beyond the wall contrasted with the stillness within the empty bower.
It didn’t last. Casuel started talking again. “I want a runner sent to D’Olbriot, to the Sieur himself. Ryshad, I want paper and ink, do you hear? And sealing wax, at once. No, wait, Esquire Camarl must still be here? Yes, that’s it. I need to see him. No, you need to ask if he’ll see me. Ryshad? Are you listening? Esquire Camarl will vouch for me, won’t he? But what will the Sieur think? Why did that foolish boy go dragging the D’Olbriot Name into some needless turmoil?”
Just as I was thinking I’d better sit on my hands I heard boots falling in measured tread on the gravel.
“Good evening to you.” A scar-faced man with sharply receding hair stepped into the bower, face impassive as he bowed to the wizard and gave me a brief nod of acknowledgement. “I’m Oram Triss, proven man to Tor Kanselin and by the Emperor’s grace Captain of the House Cohort.”
I hoped Casuel knew enough to realise this was Tor Kanselin’s most senior soldier, the man who would answer to the Emperor if the Cohorts were ever summoned to fight a war for Tormalin. Judging by his strangled murmur, the wizard did.
“Raman Zelet, chosen man,” continued Triss, indicating his companion. The tall man had skin tanned a deep copper brown and I noted leather oil deeply ingrained around his fingernails as he set a lacquered tray on a broad stone trough planted with bright summer flowers. He poured wordlessly from a jug of water beaded with condensation and Triss handed Casuel a greenish glass. The wizard drank in hasty gulps, hand shaking to spill cold drops that spotted his shirt.
The proven man smiled reassurance at Casuel. “May I know your name?”
“Fair Festival to you.” Casuel cleared his throat with a creditable assumption of ease. “I am Casuel Devoir, mage of Hadrumal, at present envoy from Archmage Planir the Black to Messire Guliel D’Olbriot, Sieur of that House.” He brushed at the droplets bright on his shirt front but still spilled more water as he put his glass back on the tray.
Zelet raised an eyebrow as he passed me some welcome water. “You’re a wizard.”
Casuel lifted his chin defiantly at the faint distaste in the other man’s face. “And a rational man of good family and disciplined habits.”
Proven Triss laced long fingers with work-hardened joints together. “So what happened?”
“I really have no idea,” Casuel protested. “We got separated in the crowd. I’d been telling him to stay close—” he reached for his glass and took another sip of water. “Then I saw the commotion by the portico. When I got through the mob, I saw Temar had been stabbed.” He appealed to the expressionless Zelet. “You saw that for yourself.”.
“The doorkeeper reckoned someone smashed the lad’s head against the stonework deliberately,” Zelet said to Triss.
The proven man ran a pensive finger along a fine cicatrice beneath his cheekbone. “If this was some cutpurse losing his head and using a knife that’s straightforward enough. We’ve sent word to every barracks, and with Raeponin’s grace someone’ll string the cur up on the nearest gibbet before he uses his blade again.” He turned to me. “But who’d want to dash your boy’s brains out? If this is some private quarrel, some personal grudge, it’s D’Olbriot’s right and duty to deal with it. Tor Kanselin shouldn’t interfere.”
“Why would some cutpurse stab him?” Zelet’s dark eyes bored into Casuel. “In that crowd he could’ve taken the lad’s money and been gone before you drew breath. Why break the lad’s head? Do you know more than you’re saying, master wizard?”
“Your companion certainly seems apprehensive,” Triss remarked to me.
“The sight of blood distresses me,” Casuel’s eyes darted between the two men, making him look more weaselly than ever. “I’m a mage and a scholar, no swordsman.”
What to do for the best, I wondered. “It’s just possible that an enemy already known to the Sieur D’Olbriot might have attacked D’Alsennin,” I said slowly.
“Who?” demanded Zelet.
“Blond men, shorter than common height, enemies of the Empire from across the Ocean,” I began.
“Then it was them ransacked D’Alsennin’s goods in Bremilayne? Why didn’t you warn me? But they’re killers, merciless, evil—” blurted out Casuel before I silenced him with a glare.
“Yellow-haired men?” Zelet’s dark eyes were fixed on me. “Mountain Men?”
“Not as such, though perhaps they were once of the same blood,” I said slowly. “Elietimm they call themselves, Men of the Ice. They live on islands far out in the northern ocean and they’ve ambitions to better themselves by kicking the colonists out of Kellarin or maybe even grabbing land in Dalasor.”
“How would killing Esquire D’Alsennin help them?” Proven Triss wasn’t going to unleash his men until he was good and satisfied this was a true scent.
“He’s the closest thing Kellarin has to a leader.” I’d been thinking about that. “There were precious few nobles on the original sailing, just D’Alsennin, Den Fellaemion and Den Rannion.” I wasn’t about to complicate matters by mentioning Guinalle and Avila. Both were noble born but primarily valued for their skills in Artifice. “Den Fellaemion and Den Rannion were killed, so D’Alsennin’s the only one left with rank to deal with the Names on this side of the ocean.”
“What happens if someone gets a blade through his heart next time?” asked Zelet with frank curiosity.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, and I don’t suppose anyone else does. But the Elietimm will take full advantage of any confusion, Dastennin curse them to drowning.”
“But you don’t know this was these Elietimm,” Proven Triss reminded me.
“Who else could it be?” cried Casuel. “They use knives all the time, lurking in corners to leave innocent men bleeding in the dust.” As the mage clutched unconsciously at his stomach I remembered he carried a twisted line of vivid scarring on his soft pale skin, memento of an Elietimm attack that had left him for dead. Perhaps I should have more sympathy for his panic.
“Did anyone see anything out of the ordinary?” I asked.
Zelet shook his head, acknowledging my grimace of frustration. “The streets were packed like a market stockyard.”
“Of course no one saw anything! Elietimm use enchantments to baffle and deceive.” Casuel turned on me with a weak man’s fury born of fear. “You should’ve pursued them in Bremilayne when you had the chance! They got away! They followed us here! Saedrin’s stones, it could have been me with a knife in my back—”
He threw out a hand in emphasis, sending the tray crashing to the ground where jug and glasses broke into glittering shards, the water spreading dark on the pale gravel. Zelet grunted with faint disdain as he knelt to pick up the pieces.
“Permit me,” said Casuel tightly. The mage snapped his fingers and emerald light flared in every drop of water. The shattered glass glowed golden along each broken edge and the fragments slid noiselessly over each other, fitting themselves into their remembered places. Whole, the jug righted itself as a tracery of magelight glowed with a furnace intensity that seared the eye before suddenly blinking into nothingness. Trickles of spilled water were gathering themselves around the base and rolled into a glistening braid that twisted up and around the swollen belly of the jug. The water reached up and poured itself back over the lip, swirling into an aquamarine spiral, bubbles of green fire sparking from the surface. Casuel plucked a newly mended glass from the floor, refilled it with surprisingly steady hands, and toasted the two liveried men. “Perhaps the reality of my magic will make you take the possibility of Elietimm sorcery more seriously.”