Kerim held Sky in his lap, petting her hair gently as her shoulders trembled with grief. Sham bit her tip and turned away. There, in the dark passage listening to the sounds of another woman’s sorrow, she admitted what she would not admit in the light of day: Sham the Thief loved the Reeve of Southwood.
Tiredly, she walked back to her room. She threw her clothes back in the trunk, and found her nightgown. Then she climbed into her bed, pulled the covers over her head, and waited for sleep to come.
The door to Sham’s room hit the wall with a loud bang. She awoke abruptly to find herself in an unladylike crouch on the edge of her bed, her dagger clutched in one hand. Frowning blearily, she peered at the intruders.
Talbot’s raised eyebrows caused her to remember just what the Reeve’s mistress wore for nightgowns, and she dove back under the covers. Elsic, of course, was immune to the sight.
“Sorry to trouble ye, Lady,” said Talbot, smothering a laugh, “but the Reeve is in a meeting, and I have work to do sorting through records that the temple sent down. I waited as long as I could, as Kerim said ye were out until the wee hours. It’s now past luncheon and someone needs to see the lad here—” Talbot clapped the boy’s shoulder with a heavy hand, “—doesn’t get himself mob-eaten.”
Sham scowled at Talbot. “It is customary to knock, before throwing open a door.”
He grinned at her. “Worry about knocking do ye, thief? First I ever heard of it.”
Laughing, Shamera raised her hands in defeat. “Welcome, Elsic. Shove off, Talbot. We’ll keep each other out of trouble. I’ll fight off mobs and Elsic can handle the nobles.”
Elsic grinned. “For you, Lady, anything.”
Sham shook her head at Talbot. “From stableboy to courtier in one night. Shame on you for corrupting youth.”
“Me?” answered Talbot indignantly, “‘It was the womenfolk. Cursed I am with a pack of daughters who look upon any unrelated male as fair game, especially a lad as fair and mysterious as this one.”
“Ah,” said Sham knowingly, “—the real reason to move Elsic into the Castle for the day.”
Talbot grinned at her and left. Sham started to get out of bed, then hesitated, glancing at Elsic.
“I really can’t see you,” he assured her with a wicked smile. Obviously an evening spent with Talbot’s family had been good for him—he looked a good deal less lost than he had in the stables yesterday.
“I think you can wait in Kerim’s room until I’m dressed, my lad. If you walk straight about four paces—” she waited as he complied, “—left a step, then six paces to the wall. Turn right and walk until you find the tapestry. Under the tapestry is a doorway to Kerim’s bedroom.”
When he was safely out of her room, she threw back the covers and pulled out a dress at random. It was a flowered silk in flaming orange golds and deep indigo, with slits on either side of the skirt to the top of her hips. She had to rummage further to find the slip—little more than colored silk strips hung on a string. It was based on some of the dresses the Trading Clan women wore, but far more provocative—it also had relatively few buttons, and the ones Sham couldn’t work didn’t make the dress any more revealing than it already was.
As she started toward Kerim’s room, her gaze fell on the pair of books that waited patiently on the nightstand that had mysteriously appeared to replace the one she’d destroyed. She was going to have to find some way to occupy Elsic while she worked through the black grimoire, as well as a better place to keep it when she wasn’t in the room. Her trunk would work to keep the book out of innocent hands, but that wouldn’t disguise what it held from any magic user.
Sham heard the soft sounds of someone tuning a harp. She ducked under the tapestry to find that Elsic had located a small bard’s harp amidst the weaponry that littered the room and was sitting at the foot of the Reeve’s bed tuning it. There was a smudge on the bedclothes that looked suspiciously as if he’d used it to dust off the harp.
Elsic looked up when she came into the room and left off touching the strings. “Kerim lets me play this when I am here. It’s a fine instrument.”
Sham looked at the harp doubtfully. It wouldn’t bring more than three coppers at the market, and that only if someone cleaned and polished it; the wood was old, and the finish marred as if it had indeed been carried by a bard through several lifetimes of wandering.
“Did he teach you to play?” she asked, unwilling to comment on the harp’s quality.
Elsic shook his head and began running his hands over the strings again. “No. I already knew how to play, though I didn’t remember it until I held the harp. Lord Kerim says his fingers are too cumbersome for the strings, but he’ll sing with me sometimes.”
The tune that he played was unfamiliar, but its haunting tone caused a shiver to run up her unsentimental spine. She had always accounted the Old Man a master of music, but he’d never approached the skill that Elsic displayed as he called the music from the old, worn harp. The strings wept with the sorrow of his song.
Unable to find any words that didn’t sound trite, Sham found a seat and closed her eyes, letting the music wash over her. After few refrains, Elsic traded the melancholy air for the more familiar melody of a feast-day song. He played the lilting verse through once before adding his voice to the harp’s.
Sham smiled in contentment, pulling her bare feet to the velvet seat of her chair. The skirt she was wearing made the position less than modest, but Elsic and she were the only ones in the room. At the end of the last chorus, he set the harp aside, flexing his fingers and laughing self-consciously when Sham applauded him.
“It’s the harp—” he explained, “—anyone could make such an instrument sound good.”
“Not I,” replied Sham, “nor my master who was a talented musician by all accounts. I have some reading to do. If you would like to continue playing, I’ll bring my book in here where the chairs are more comfortable.”
Rather than answering her with words, Elsic took up the harp again. Sham ducked back into her room, and got the book Lord Halvok had given her. Returning to Kerim’s room, she settled comfortably in a chair and started to unwork the binding spells on the book.
Elsic stopped playing and cocked his head to one side. “What are you doing?”
She released the first of the spells and stopped to answer him. “Magic.”
He frowned. “It feels ... odd somehow ... not like the magic I know.”
Sham thought about that for a moment, trying to decide just how the magic the Spirit Tide generated was different from the magic she used.
“It is different than what you do,” she said finally, “I don’t understand your kind of magic very well; I don’t know if any human does. I can sense it sometimes if it’s strong enough, the way you can sense what I do. The magic that you use is already shaped by the forces of nature—like the ocean tides. The magic I use is unformed. I impose it on the book, or whatever I want to affect.”
“There’s something else,” said Elsic after a pause, his voice tentative, “Something I don’t like.”
“Ah, that,” she said. “The book I’m reading has a rather large section of demonology. There is magic that feeds—”
“—upon death,” he interrupted, having come to alert like a fine hunting hound.
“Even so. I’m not working the spells, but even writing about such things taints the pages.”
“Ah,” said Elsic in a fine imitation of her tones earlier. He nodded once, and resumed playing. He didn’t appear unhappy, just thoughtful, so she left him to his music.
It was interesting to read the detailed explanation of the proper ceremony for summoning the dead accompanied by “How the Cow Ate the Roof” and “The Maiden’s Caress.” There were worse choices, she supposed, but somehow the simple country songs made the sacrifice of three piglets in a particularly cruel manner even more distressing in comparison. It was a relief when someone knocked on her door, and gave her an excuse to quit reading.