'May I be of assistance, captain?'
'Ah -!' The officer was startled; his hand flew to something stick-shaped under his cloak, no doubt a tightly-rolled scroll. 'Ah ... Good-day to you! I have a problem concerning which I desire to consult your master.'
'He will be taking his noon meal,' Jarveena said in a suitably humble tone. 'Let me conduct you to him.'
Melilot never cared to have either his meals or the naps which followed them interrupted. But there was something about Aye-Gophlan's behaviour which made Jarveena certain that this was an exceptional occasion.
She opened the door of Melilot's sanctum, announced the caller rapidly enough to forestall her employer's rage at being distracted from the immense broiled lobster lying before him on a silver platter, and wished there were some means of eavesdropping on what transpired.
But he was infinitely too cautious to risk that.
At best Jarveena had hoped for a few coins by way of bonus if Aye-Gophlan's business proved profitable. She was much surprised, therefore, to be summoned to Melilot's room half an hour later.
Aye-Gophlan was still present. The lobster had grown cold, untouched, but much wine had been consumed.
On her entrance, the officer gave her a suspicious glare.
'This is the fledgling you imagine could unravel the mystery?' he demanded.
Jarveena's heart sank. What devious subterfuge was Melilot up to now? But she waited meekly for clear instructions. They came at once, in the fat man's high and slightly whining voice.
'The captain has a writing to decipher. Sensibly, he has brought it to us, who can translate more foreign tongues than any similar firm! It is possible that it may be in Yenized, with which you are familiar ... though, alas, I am not.'
Jarveena barely suppressed a giggle. If the document were in any known script or language, Melilot would certainly recognize it - whether or not he could furnish a translation. That implied - hmm! A cipher! How interesting! How did an officer of the guard come by a message in code he couldn't read? She looked expectant, though not eager, and with much reluctance Aye-Gophlan handed her the scroll.
Without appearing to look up, she registered a tiny nod from Melilot. She was to agree with him.
But -
What in the world? Only a tremendous self-control prevented her from letting fall the document. Merely glancing at it made her dizzy, as though her eyes were crossing against her will. For a second she had seemed to read it clearly, and a heartbeat later ...
She took a firm grip on herself. 'I believe this to be Yenized, as you suspected, sir,' she declared.
'Believe?' Aye-Gophlan rasped. 'But Melilot swore you could read it instantly!'
'Modern Yenized I can, captain,' Jarveena amplified. 'I recognize this as a high and courtly style, as difficult for a person like myself as Imperial Rankene would be for a herdsman accustomed to sleeping with the swine.' It was always politic to imply one's own inferiority when talking to someone like this. 'Luckily, thanks to my master's extensive library, I've gained a wider knowledge of the subject in recent weeks; and with the help of some of the books he keeps I would expect to get at least its gist.'
'How long would it take?' Aye-Gophlan demanded.
'Oh, one might safely say two or three days,' Melilot interpolated in a tone that brooked no contradiction. 'Given that it's so unusual an assignment, there would naturally be no charge except on production of a satisfactory rendering.'
Jarveena almost dropped the scroll a second time. Never in living memory had Melilot accepted a commission without taking at least half his fee in advance. There must be something quite exceptional about this sheet of paper -
And of course there was. It dawned on her that moment, and she had to struggle to prevent her teeth from chattering.
'Wait here,' the fat man said, struggling to his feet. 'I shall return when I've escorted the captain out.'
The moment the door closed she threw the scroll down on the table next to the lobster - wishing, irrelevantly, that it were not still intact, so she might snatch a morsel without being detected. The writing writhed into new patterns even as she tried not to notice.
Then Melilot was back, resuming his chair, sipping from his half-full wine cup.
'You're astute, you little weasel!' he said in a tone of grudging admiration. 'Are you quick-witted enough to know precisely why neither he nor I - nor you! can read that writing?'
Jarveena swallowed hard. 'There's a spell on it,' she offered after a pause.
'Yes! Yes, there is! Better than any code or cipher. Except for the eyes of the intended recipient, it will never read the same way twice.'
'How is it that the captain didn't realize?'-
Melilot chuckled. 'You don't have to read and write to become a captain of the guard,' he said. 'He can about manage to tell whether the clerk who witnesses his mark on the watch-report is holding the page right side up; but anything more complicated and his head starts to swim anyway.'
He seized the lobster, tore off a claw, and cracked it between his teeth; oil ran down his chin and dripped on his green robe. Picking out the meat, he went on. 'But what's interesting is how he came by it. Make a guess.'
Jarveena shook her head.
'One of the imperial bodyguards from Ranke, one of the detachment who escorted the Prince along the Generals' Road, called to inspect the local guardhouse this morning at dawn. Apparently he made himself most unpopular, to the point that, when he let fall that scroll without noticing, Aye-Gophlan thought more of secreting it than giving it back. Why he's ready to believe that an imperial officer would carry a document in Old High Yenized, I can't guess. Perhaps that's part of the magic.'
He thrust gobbets of succulent flesh into his mouth and chomped for a while. Jarveena tried not to drool.
To distract herself by the first means to mind, she said, 'Why did he tell you all this ... ? Ah, I'm an idiot. He didn't.'
'Correct.' Melilot looked smug. 'For that you deserve a taste of lobster. Here!' He tossed over a lump that by his standards was generous, and a chunk of bread also; she caught both in mid-air with stammered thanks and wolfed them down.
'You need to have your strength built up,' the portly scribe went on. 'I have a very responsible errand for you to undertake tonight.'
'Errand?'
'Yes. The imperial officer who lost the scroll is called Commander Nizharu. He and his men are billeted in pavilions in the courtyard of the governor's palace; seemingly he's afraid of contamination if they have to go into barracks with the local soldiery.
'After dark this evening you are to steal in and wait on him, and inquire whether he will pay more for the return of his scroll and the name of the man who filched it, or for a convincing but fraudulent translation which will provoke the unlawful possessor into some rash action. For all I can guess,' he concluded sanctimoniously, 'he may have let it fall deliberately. HmV
3
It was far from the first time since her arrival that Jarveena had been out after curfew. It was not even the first time she had had to scamper in shadow across the broad expanse of Governor's Walk in order to reach and scramble over the palace wall, nimble as a monkey despite the mass of scar-tissue where her right breast would never grow. Much practice enabled her to whip off her cloak, roll it into a cylinder not much thicker than a money-belt, fasten it around her, and rush up the convenient hand- and toeholds in the outer wall which were carefully not repaired, and for a fat consideration, when the chief mason undertook his annual re-pointing.