The Magicians And Mrs. Quent Part 3

"Precisely!" Mr. Wyble tilted his head. "That is to say, I had not thought of it in that manner. But I concede there is perhaps some similarity, though I think this sentence would be more happily received. Indeed, I am sure of it. But I must say, what I've heard about you is correct, Mr. Rafferdy. It was my hope to make your acquaintance tonight. I was told I should meet n.o.body more clever than you."

Mrs. Baydon gave Rafferdy an arch look. "Indeed, our Mr. Rafferdy is sometimes too clever for his own good."

"Nonsense," Rafferdy said. "No one can be too clever for his own good, only for other people's." He rose from his chair.

"But you aren't going already, are you?" Mr. Wyble said.

"I have business I must attend to."

Mrs. Baydon frowned up at him. "Business? At this hour?"

Mr. Wyble stood as well. "I had hoped we would have time to sit and converse, Mr. Rafferdy. It is so rare I encounter another mind sharp enough to engage my own. I would have come to speak with you earlier, but I was having the most delightful time playing cards with Mrs. Chisingdon. Have you met her? I'd be happy to introduce you."

Rafferdy demurred on the plea his business could not wait. Mr. Wyble asked for a promise that they would continue their conversation another day, and Rafferdy granted it willingly, for nothing was easier to give away than a thing that had no worth. He made his farewell, and Mrs. Baydon rose from her seat, claiming it was her duty to see him out.

"Do return to us soon as you promised," she said as they reached the door. "And be safe on your journey. I have heard such frightful things about the roads of late!"

"I'll be going with the mail, which is always accompanied by a pair of the king's redcrests. Besides, I'm far less concerned about encountering a highwayman than I am Mr. Wyble!"

He gave Mrs. Baydon's hand a warm clasp, then called for his hat and cloak and was out the door into the soft night. The streetlamps blazed along the Promenade, and the lights of the Old City glittered beneath the Citadel, a mirror to the stars.

Several carriages were waiting in the street. One of Lady Marsdel's men let out a whistle, summoning the nearest one, and Rafferdy climbed in. As he settled himself on the bench, he saw a tall figure in a black coat walking down the steps of the house.

"Excuse me," he said to the servant, "but do you know that gentleman coming out just now?"

The servant scratched his chin. "Him? Why, that would be Mr. Bennick. He used to come around often enough, but that was years ago. I haven't seen him since Lord Marsdel pa.s.sed on, not until this very night. I suppose he's been in the west county all this time."

"In Torland, you mean?"

"Aye, that's where his grandfather was from. A man by the name of Vordigan. It's said Mr. Bennick owns the estate now."

"Vordigan, you say? Then Mr. Bennick inherited through his mother somehow?" That would certainly be unusual.

"Nay, he didn't inherit through father nor mother." The servant grinned in answer to Rafferdy's look of puzzlement. "Mr. Bennick may have gotten his father's looks, but he didn't get his name, if you know what I mean. The word is his half brother got deep in debt to Mr. Bennick and was forced to sell the estate to him to settle the debt, then he died not long after that. So Mr. Bennick got his father's land in the end."

Yet still not the Vordigan name. All the same, this explained Mr. Bennick's interest in the famed magician. The tall figure in black reached the street, but rather than taking a carriage he turned and was swallowed by the gloom of a side lane. Someone interesting indeed.

The servant shut the carriage door. "Tell me," Rafferdy said through the window, "how long is the night to be?"

"It's to be a middle umbral, sir," the servant replied. "Eleven hours from dusk 'til dawn. Where shall I tell the driver to take you, sir?"

"To the Sword and Leaf, in the Old City."

The servant raised his eyebrows, but he relayed the direction to the driver, and the carriage started down the broad curve of the Promenade. Rafferdy leaned back against the seat. So the night was to be eleven hours long? Good. Very good.

That left more than enough time for him to get properly drunk before beginning the journey home to Asterlane.

CHAPTER THREE.

E LDYN HID IN the shadows.

He held his breath, standing in the corner where the fuller's ab.u.t.ted the brewery. The drab air that threaded its way through the cramped lane spun around him, forming a gray veil. Just as his lungs started to burn, the one who hunted him rounded a bend, head sidling back and forth, jaw jutted forward. He pressed himself deeper into the corner.

His hunter stopped not five paces from him and let out a huff. "Well, blight me, I swear I saw him come down this way just a moment ago. Now, where has that Mr. Garritt gotten to?"

The woman turned, and for a moment her eyes were directed at his hiding place. She was of an age with him, twenty-four perhaps, and would have been pa.s.sably pretty if her face were better scrubbed and her dress not so plain. However, neither soap nor ribbons could have improved her unrefined manner.

At last she turned away and rambled down the lane, the hem of her gown mopping up the gutters. He breathed in, and so starved were his lungs that even the river air-dank with the exhalations of tanneries and fish markets-seemed wholesome.

As he stepped into the lane, Eldyn offered up a silent prayer to St. Andelthy, patron to artists and the wrongfully condemned. He was grateful to have escaped another encounter with Miss Delina Walpert-though it had been a close thing. Fortunately, some instinct or premonition of doom had caused him to glance over his shoulder just in time to see her turn a corner. There had been only a moment to nip into the shadows. But, as so many times in the past, within their folds he had found blessed sanctuary.

Eldyn couldn't remember when he had learned to hide in shadows. Even as a child he had found it a natural thing, simple as a thought. He would use the trick when his father came home drunk, which he did often enough, his hand heavy and aching to hit something-usually his son, since his wives seldom endured for long. Eldyn would creep into the shadows under a staircase or behind a cupboard and wrap the darkness around him like a blanket while his father raged and bellowed, bruising wood and shattering crockery as subst.i.tutes for flesh and bone.

"Where do you get yourself to, boy?" his father would say when he woke from his stupor. He would be quiet then, sitting at the table with a bowl of gruel, but the fury would still shine in his eyes, along with a crafty light. "I wasn't so blind as that from drink. Where did you hide yourself last night when I wanted you? She taught you some trick, didn't she? That witch, your mother. She was a sibyl, I know she was. That was why no other man would have her."

Those words never made sense to Eldyn. If she had known the trick, wouldn't she have hidden herself away as well? Instead, he had stood beside her bed, a child of seven years, holding her cold hand, watching her white face: the only thing in the world that had ever smiled at him up to that point. But she would never smile again.

Leaving shadow and memory behind, Eldyn walked up the lane and quickly turned onto a busy thoroughfare, lest Miss Walpert see him on her way back to the inn. He did not know what he had done to win her affection; surely it was through no interested looks or flattering comments on his part. One day he intended to find a wife and start a family, but those things would have to wait until he had succeeded in restoring the Garritt family name and fortune-both of which his father had squandered.

Besides, Eldyn's wife, when he did take one, would not be a Miss Walpert. Once the Garritts had been gentlemen of worth and respect; Eldyn's grandfather had once sat in the Hall of Magnates. While his father had cast the family reputation into the gutter, Eldyn was determined to raise it up again. When he did, he would find himself a proper wife, perhaps a daughter of well-to-do gentry. He must not reach too high too quickly, he knew that, but his children could expect to fare better and would see the restoration of the Garritt name completed. And once he was married, he would find a respectable husband for Sashie; a baronet would be a good match. No lord or magnate would have her, of course. But she was exceedingly pretty. A gentleman would be glad to take her, provided Eldyn could offer an acceptable dowry, and would keep her in comfort, if perhaps not always in style.

As for Miss Walpert, Eldyn would make every effort to avoid her, for while she was an annoyance, and dull, and had a snorting laugh, she was a good-hearted thing, and he did not want to upset her. Or her father, who kept the inn where Eldyn and Sashie had made their home these last three months.

It occurred to him that perhaps the best solution was to move their lodgings to another inn. However, the Golden Loom was the best he could afford; while it stood in an unsavory part of the city, it was decent and well-kept, and he didn't want to make Sashie move again so soon. These had been hard times for her; she had been his father's favorite, the child of his last wife, and she wasn't as accustomed to want as Eldyn was. Besides, she liked living at the Golden Loom. She had told him so just yesterday, and he couldn't remember the last time his sister had said she was pleased about something.

Eldyn walked up a steep way and pa.s.sed through the Lowgate, avoiding the eyes of the king's men who stood on either side of the arch in their blue coats and red-crested caps. He made his way through the contorted streets of the Old City, past the bell towers of St. Galmuth's, beneath the shadow of the Citadel, and toward the sober gray edifices of the university.

Though the brief morning was pa.s.sing quickly, he took a detour along a lane down which he had spied the sign of a moneylender. Most moneylenders kept offices on Marble Street, but there were a few of them in the Old City, and this was one he had not yet tried. He paused outside the door to straighten his gray coat. He kept it scrupulously clean, though it was starting to get threadbare at the elbows. Eldyn entered the office, waited several minutes to see a clerk, sat at the ink-stained table when beckoned, then presented his request for a loan of a hundred regals.

"What is the purpose of this loan?" the clerk asked, taking a sheet of paper from a drawer. His lace cuffs had evidently served to wipe his pen when no other blotter was at hand. A circle of gray fringed his bald pate.

"It is for an investment in a business venture," Eldyn said, uttering the words in as firm a voice as he could manage. His father had always complained that he spoke like a priest.

The clerk scribbled on the paper. "What sort of business venture?"

"I intend to buy shares in a trading company that is preparing a voyage to the New Lands."

The clerk could not possibly think poorly of this use for the money. Trading companies were being formed at a rapid pace, now that the routes east across the sea had been charted, and many men had made quick fortunes upon the return of ships they had invested in.

"And what have you to secure your loan?"

"I would secure it with my name."

The clerk set down his pen and looked up. "I cannot sell a name if you default upon the note."

Eldyn moistened his lips. "My name, then, and the shares of the trading company."

The pen returned to the clerk's hand. "And this name of such great worth is...?"

"Garritt."

The clerk pulled a ledger from a drawer and thumbed through it with smudged fingers. "Mr. Vandimeer Garritt?" he asked, his finger on the page before him.

"No, I am Eldyn Garritt. Vandimeer was my father."

The finger tapped against the page. "Your father has a debt with us."

Beneath the table, Eldyn clutched his knees. He was starting to believe his father had debts at every lending house in the city. "My father's accounts were settled when his estate was sold."

The clerk peered at the ledger. "So I see. The account was settled, as you say-but only in part."

"That was the agreement reached between my father's creditors and the magistrate at the debtor's court. It was decided his estate would be sold and the proceeds divided as the settlement for all outstanding sums."

"And so he ends up paying no more than fifty pennies for every regal he owes. It appears your father has gotten off quite easily."

"Gotten off easily?" Eldyn swallowed an incredulous laugh. "I should think not. He has been deprived of everything he had and ever will have. He is dead, sir-he has lost his life."

"And what trouble is it for him to lose a thing of so little worth, when my accounts are down forty regals?" The clerk slammed the book shut. "Good day to you, Mr. Garritt."

Eldyn showed himself out to the street, then stood on the edge of the gutter, his cheeks hot. He had presented his request for a loan to a dozen moneylenders, and all had refused him. Eldyn's father might be dead, but Vandimeer Garritt still haunted him, tormenting him from beyond the grave as relentlessly as he had when alive.

A four-in-hand-glossy black with gilded trim-clattered by, and Eldyn had to jump back to avoid the muck its wheels splashed up from the gutter. He watched the carriage race up the street. There was so much wealth in Invarel, and he asked for only the smallest part of it for himself: a pittance, a seed from which he might grow his hopes, that he might have a chance to earn back what his father had gambled and drunk and wh.o.r.ed away.

However, if he was not able to secure a loan soon, those hopes would be dashed. The trading company that had approached him as a possible investor was already preparing for its voyage. And more, he was running out of money for day-to-day expenses. When he was a boy, his mother had hidden away a number of trinkets and jewels so that his father could not sell them for his gambling debts. Vandimeer had all but torn apart the house looking for them, but only Eldyn had known where they were concealed, for he had watched from the shadows as she hid them in a hollow in the wall. He had recovered them the night before they departed the house at Bramberly, which his father was forced to give over to tenants for the income, and had kept them secret ever since.

Until recently. Over the last year he had sold the jewels one by one, making the proceeds from each sale last as long as possible. However, all he had left now was a single brooch of carnelian and a pair of pearl earrings. The lot might fetch fifteen regals, twenty at most. A few more months, and even lodgings at the Golden Loom would be beyond his means; he and Sashie would be on the street.

Only Eldyn would not allow that to happen. It didn't matter if a dozen lenders had refused him; all he had to do was convince one to write him the note. Not that it would be easy. While the affluent had all the money, Eldyn had learned that no one was less willing to part with his coin than a rich man. Well, except for Dashton Rafferdy.

Then again, Rafferdy's family would not have remained rich for long if Lord Rafferdy didn't strictly limit his son's allowance. Rafferdy would pay anyone's tavern bill; the idea of someone going without their drink was a notion he could not bear, most likely because he could not bear going without his own. As a consequence, the one wealthy friend Eldyn possessed in the world had empty pockets as often as full.

Despite his grim mood, Eldyn smiled at this irony, and he found himself wondering how Rafferdy was faring back at Asterlane. He had not been in good spirits when Eldyn saw him at the Sword and Leaf just before the half month. While he had not alluded to the reason he had been summoned home, clearly it was a meeting Rafferdy had not antic.i.p.ated with joy. He had gotten so deep into his cups that night that Eldyn had been forced to drag him out into the street in the wan light of dawn and heave him into the back of a carriage.

What sort of condition he had arrived in, Eldyn could only imagine. The moon was nearly to its darkest, and Rafferdy would likely be returning to the city soon. When he did, no doubt he would regale Eldyn with the story of the whole sordid affair.

Cheered by this thought, Eldyn stepped over the gutter and put the moneylender's office behind him.

T HE SUN WAS already above the towers of the Citadel by the time Eldyn arrived at Mrs. Haddon's coffeehouse in Covenant Cross.

Given its proximity to the university, Mrs. Haddon's was always populated with students. Young men crammed around the tables, talking noisily, filled with the hot energy of ideas and the brew they drank. However, their conversations tended not so much toward rhetoric and mathematics as toward philosophy and gambling and, especially, politics.

Eldyn's plan was only to see which of his former schoolmates were hanging about and to find out how they were faring now that the new term was under way. He did not intend to loiter, for he dared not buy more than a single coffee. Even so, at ten pennies a cup, it was more than he could afford. However, Mrs. Haddon was so elated to see him after a long absence from her establishment that she cackled like a hen and pinched his cheek and told him he should have as many cups as he liked that day and not pay a thing. For, as she said, "The sight of your cherub's face, Mr. Garritt, is payment enough for me."

This comment provoked laughter all around. Mrs. Haddon was old enough to be a mother to any of them; her white wig was frizzy as a dandelion gone to seed, and her cheeks were painted like a Murghese teapot, which was not inappropriate, as her shape recalled a teapot as well.

After disentangling himself from Mrs. Haddon, Eldyn noticed a group of Gauldren men sitting at the table nearest the window. He had been introduced to some of them before, as they were cla.s.smates of Rafferdy's. However, they ignored his glances and instead talked intently-and rather loudly-of astral conjunctions and runes of power. It was only at Gauldren's College that the subject of magick was currently taught, which was why it had become fashionable for the sons of lords to attend that particular college, which was consequently too expensive for anybody else.

Eldyn pa.s.sed their table and instead-having noticed several hands waving vigorously from across the coffeehouse-made his way to a table in a cozy corner near the fire. At the table sat several of his cla.s.smates from St. Berndyn's College. Or former cla.s.smates, as Eldyn had not been able to afford that term's tuition. They found a chair for him, and he sat, grateful for the heat; the day was chilly, as short days after long nights often were.

As he sipped his coffee, savoring the flavor of it, he asked his old companions about which cla.s.ses they were attending and what their professors had discussed. However, as usual, they were less inclined to talk about their studies than the news in the latest issue of The Fox.

"It's criminal, that's what it is," Curren Talinger said, thumping the table so that they all had to grasp their cups and saucers to keep them from flying off. "It's positively criminal what they're doing."

Eldyn shook his head; he hadn't read the broadsheets in several days. "What who is doing?"

"The criminals, I should imagine," Orris Jaimsley replied with a bent grin. "They're usually the ones who perpetrate the crimes."

"Oh, they're criminals, all right," Talinger went on, clearly in a mood for oration. His red hair belied his Westland heritage. That and his temper: the table received another blow from a meaty fist that seemed better suited to a workman than a student of philosophy. "They'd make the king crawl on his belly and beg just to build a ship to defend Altania's sh.o.r.es. But the swine are running things now, and we have only ourselves to blame for it. We're the ones who put them on top."

"I don't remember voting for a Sir Hogg or a Mr. Porkly in the last election," Eldyn said, returning Jaimsley's grin.

"I think he's referring to members of a.s.sembly," Dalby Warrett said, as usual not getting the joke.

"Then he's insulted swine everywhere," Jaimsley proclaimed. He was a gangly young man who more than made up for his homely looks with an appealing wit. No one was more popular at St. Berndyn's.

"Really, Talinger, do you think this new act is so bad as all that?" Warrett said when their mirth had subsided. He had a face that, while well wrought, was too placid to be handsome; he was forever attempting to throw water on Talinger's fires. "The Hall of Magnates has committed worse crimes than this of late. Besides, a.s.sembly has always held the kingdom's purse strings."

"Held them?" Talinger shook his head. "More like clutched them tight and knotted them shut, while at the same time slitting a hole in the bottom of the purse. They build walls around their manors to protect them, but they won't let the king build a ship to protect our country."

"Protect our country from what?" Jaimsley said with a roll of his eyes. "There's been peace with the Murgh Empire for half a century. And even if they decided to invade tomorrow, do you really think you could trust our king to keep Altania safe?"

Talinger had to concede the point. "Maybe not King Rothard. He was already weak before he got ill. He never should have given up so much ground to a.s.sembly. But if we had a strong king, a rightful king..."

Jaimsley gave him a sharp look. "What are you saying?"

"All I'm saying is..." Even Talinger had the sense to lower his voice, noisy as the coffeehouse was. "All I'm saying is that if Somebody was ever to come back to Altania, he would put an end to these sorts of problems. You can bet Somebody would stop the magnates from raiding Altania's coffers and leaving nothing for the common folk, and you can bet he would put a.s.sembly in its place. And if the princess married Somebody, then no one could complain the crown wasn't rightfully his."

Warrett's cup clattered against his saucer, and Eldyn cast a glance over his shoulder. What Talinger had said was dangerously close to treason, and the Gray Conclave had spies everywhere.

"Oh, dry your breeches, Warrett," Talinger said. "I didn't speak a name. Even if the Black Dog's men are sniffing about, there's nothing they can do. All I said was Somebody."

Yes. And Eldyn, just like everyone else, knew that Somebody meant not just anybody but rather Huntley Morden-grandson of the Old Usurper, Bandley Morden-who rumor told dwelled in the court of a Murghese prince, waiting for the right wind to blow him and the fleet of ships he was building east across the sea to the sh.o.r.es of Altania so he might seize the throne his grandfather had failed to win. Given these times, Eldyn was not so certain as Talinger that one of Lord Valhaine's agents, if he had overheard, would have sat there and done nothing. Men had been jailed for as much and hung for little more.

However, nothing did happen, and after a moment Warrett retrieved his cup, giving Talinger a dark look. "Whatever you might think of the king, Talinger, you cannot truly believe Princess Layle would willingly marry her father's sworn enemy."

"What do you want with a king anyway, Talinger?" Jaimsley said more lightly. "Are you so keen to be told what to do? If so, you need only to look there."

Jaimsley gestured toward the wall behind them. Warrett and especially Talinger glared at the piece of paper tacked to the wall, and Eldyn could not blame them. The Rules of Citizenship had gone up in every public place in the city by order of the Black Dog himself, Lord Valhaine. They listed all the things a good citizen of Altania was to do and not do. Among its myriad lines, the rules stated when people could gather, and where, and in what numbers. Rule Six said that anyone hearing treasonous talk should report it to a magistrate at once. Rule Fourteen stated that one was not to insult the king, the princess, or a.s.sembly in public.

Eldyn was pretty certain they had all violated that particular rule.

Breaking any of the rules was a punishable crime. Tearing the rules down was one too. Whether that crime got you a fine, a night in jail, or an appointment with the noose at Barrowgate all depended on how foul a mood the judge was in, how large a bribe you could pay, and whether your grandfather had marched under the Arringhart stag or the Morden hawk.