I stared backwards until I was satisfied we’d left anyone after our blood behind. “What do you know of Fenn Queal, Charoleia?”
She kept her eyes on the road. “If he paid that thief, someone is paying him ten times as much.”
“Would he have lied to us?” Temar asked. “The thief, I mean.”
“Not and risk Queal finding out and skinning him for it.” Charoleia slowed the pace a little as we reached a street with ordinary people going about innocent Festival business. “We’ll discuss this indoors.”
“Where are we going?” I checked my bearings and it was clear we weren’t heading either back to D’Olbriot’s residence or north and west to Charoleia’s house.
“Somewhere safe.” Charoleia glanced back at the three of us with a frown that still couldn’t mar her beauty.
“D’Olbriot’s is safe,” I protested.
Charoleia ignored me. I reached to touch her shoulder but Eadit held my arm back. “You asked for her help, you take it.”
I gave him a hard look but he met my gaze squarely.
Charoleia turned down another back street and then another. She took a lane that ran right beneath the solid bulk of the old city walls and finally steered the weary horse into a tidily swept street where we drew up outside a respectable merchant’s house. Eadit got out to take the horse’s head while Arashil sorted the keys chained at her girdle. “I’ll need to wash that blood out at once,” she said, suddenly seeing the gore spattered all over me and Temar. “Or you’ll be going home in your drawers.”
“Sorry about that,” said Eadit perfunctorily, leading the horse away.
We went inside to find a small hall with a single lantern burning low on a table. Arashil lit a candle from it and opened a door on to a sparsely furnished parlour where she lit another lamp. “Don’t get blood on the furniture.”
Temar and I looked at each other and at Charoleia. “I’ll get some blankets,” she said with a faint smile as she turned to disappear up the stairs.
“I don’t want to be at the laundry all night,” snapped Arashil. “You’ve nothing I’ve not seen before.”
I stripped off my jerkin and shirt, folding them carefully to keep the bloodied sides innermost. Temar did the same with visible reluctance as I sat on a plain but well-polished chair to take my boots off. I didn’t know just what I had trodden in this evening, but I didn’t imagine Charoleia would take kindly to me tramping it through this house.
“And the breeches.” Arashil tapped an impatient foot. I considered refusing. I could feel the stickness against my skin, but once the blood had dried it would barely show on the dark cloth. Then I saw how the spray had caught Temar, leaving stains all across his pale breeches. He was blushing furiously and I couldn’t leave him to be the only one standing there in his linen, not if it embarrassed him so badly. I stripped and bundled up the clothes, giving Temar an encouraging wink.
Charoleia came into the room as Arashil left and tossed us each a warm blanket dyed an expensive blue. I tucked mine round my hips, not really wanting it in this heat. Temar wrapped himself tightly as he sat on a high-winged settle and some of the colour faded from his face.
“We all stay here tonight,” she said, businesslike with no hint of flirtation. “If Queal was behind this, he won’t take kindly to being robbed in turn. Will Jacot be able to tell him you were D’Olbriot’s men?”
I nodded. “We said his mate had given him up, so no one would go looking for who else might have passed on the word.”
“My thanks for that.” Charoleia dimpled. Perhaps I’d been wrong about the flirtation.
“You think Queal would try to get the artefacts back again?” I tried not to sound too sceptical.
“Do you want to risk it?” Charoleia turned melting blue eyes on me. “Wouldn’t you be staking out every road to D’Olbriot’s residence if you were Queal? You won’t get close enough to call out the guard before ten or twenty men rush you, believe me.”
“Can he rouse that many men so fast?” Temar frowned.
“He can,” Charoleia assured him. She looked back at me. “Queal wouldn’t only want a sackful of gold before he’d agree to organise robbing D’Olbriot. It would have to be someone important asking, important enough to make a marker with their name on it worth the risk.”
“Can you find out who that might be without putting yourself at risk?” I felt concern twisting my gut. “Could he possibly suspect you were the one who gave him up? Is that why we came here, not to the other house?”
“I’m simply being careful.” There was a suspicion of laughter in Charoleia’s voice. “Queal won’t trace anything back to me. I’ll go home later tonight and then you two can leave here in the morning. No one hereabouts even knows Queal’s name, let alone how to get word to him.”
I hoped Charoleia’s confidence was justified but a yawn interrupted me as I tried to find a way of asking if she was sure without insulting her.
“Would there be anything to eat?” Temar asked hesitantly. “And to drink?”
Charoleia smiled at him. “Naturally.”
As the door closed behind her, I yawned again. “I think we’ve managed a full day, haven’t we? And just what were you thinking of back there? How much Artifice can you work now?”
“You have seen the sum total of my learning.” Temar looked somewhat embarrassed. “Not much, I grant you but sufficient for bluff. I did no more than you last night.”
“You certainly picked that up quickly,” I complimented him. “But that shade or whatever it was, that was no mere trick.” I managed to keep my distaste out of my voice.
“You are the one we have to thank for that particular incantation.” Temar laughed. “Once Guinalle heard you had seen an Elietimm priest raise the image of its owner from an artefact for the Aldabreshin, she worried at the notion like a dog with a bone until she had perfected the incantations. She can still do it ten times better than any other adept, but Demoiselle Avila cannot do it at all. I have no idea why it came so easily to me.”
“Make sure you lock that bag somewhere secure and well away from the bedrooms for preference. We all need an undisturbed night’s sleep.” Something must have shown on my face.
“I am sorry if raising that image reminded you of your enslavement.” Temar shifted a cushion behind his back to avoid meeting my eyes. “Is that why you dislike Artifice so?”
“What made you suspect Jacot had been dreaming about the people still under the enchantment?” I countered.
“Thinking of the girl from the shrine,” Temar answered as if it should have been obvious. “And of when Guinalle was devising that incantation to raise the images. I remembered Halice saying it looked like something out of old tales of necromancy, raising shades of the dead.”
“Halice is more Livak’s friend than mine. How’s she faring in Kellarin?” I asked, offhand, studying the purple line of the new scar on my arm.
“You keep turning the subject,” Temar said with blunt exasperation. “Why does Artifice disturb you so?”
His irritation sparked my own anger. “The first time I had aetheric magic used on me, Artifice, call it what you like, I was a prisoner of the Elietimm.” He’d asked and perhaps I owed him a fuller answer. “That bastard who’s been sending them over here, to rob and kill, he went ripping into my mind, looking for any information he wanted. I betrayed my oath, my Sieur, myself, and there wasn’t a cursed thing I could do about it. That’s what aetheric magic means to me. It happened to Livak as well, and I wasn’t lying when I told that thief she’d rather have been raped.” I gave him a hard look. “Have you ever met a woman who’s been raped?”
Temar looked sick.
“Then I find I’ve been given your sword in hopes that whatever Artifice was within it might soak into my mind, my dreams, and give Planir the answers he was looking for. It worked, Dast save me, it worked, and Temar, I thought I was going mad! No, I don’t blame you, I don’t think anyone, not even the Archmage, knew quite what they were dealing with, but even then, I cannot forget that it was Artifice. Then there was the Elietimm enchanter trying to get his claws into the Archipelago, into Shek Kul’s domain. He was using Artifice to dupe that stupid bitch Kaeska, and it got her killed. When he fought me, Artifice nearly left me dead a third time.” I lifted my arm to show Temar the new healed cut. “This is precious little to weigh in the scales against all that!”