It was the perfect night to drive us all inside; the heavy sky had finally resigned itself to rain — an ugly, sleety mess that made the roaring fire very welcome. I fingered the beaded trim of my bodice. Tart me up like a lady-in-waiting, but I was still just a street thief from Gerse at heart, counting the rings on my neighbors’ fingers, the exits in the room. Who had the most valuable jewelry, whose purse seemed the plumpest? What was the quickest way to the courtyard, the roof, the wall? The old lady I was seated with had an elaborate coronet of jet and ruby. I wanted it, and I spent half the soup course working out just how I might twist it from her snow-white hair without her noticing.
“Sparkling Grisel? It’s a very fine vintage, coaxed from Count Grisel’s own private collection at great personal cost. I’d be wounded if you didn’t try it.”
On my other side was the merchant, Eptin Cwalo. Having no particular desire to wound the man, I lifted my glass, and spent the rest of the meal learning all about his sons: five worthy lads, plus Garod, son number two, over whose dubious future Mistress Cwalo apparently despaired. I quite liked the sound of Garod, actually, and amused myself by imagining Lady Lyllace’s reaction to my announcement of such a match. Cwalo appeared to take a liking to me. It must have been a combination of our common merchant heritage (his was presumably authentic), and our common size: He seemed pleased that I was actually shorter than he was. I let him fill my glass a little more often than was wise.
After the meal, Lord Antoch rose and clapped for attention. “My good gentles, friends and countrymen all, be you welcome to Bryn Shaer, the Bear’s Keep! Our home is new, built on this ancient ground, and we are honored to receive your company at this blessed time for our family, when our beloved daughter is preparing to make her kernja-velde, and enter society as a young woman.”
Light applause and cries of “huzzah!” greeted this toast. Antoch continued: “We are doubly blessed at Bryn Shaer this day, for tonight we welcome back to our family one who has been absent far too long: the brother of my heart, Remy Daul. Lord Remy is known to you all, I believe, so we shall not belabor the introductions, but to say that he has brought a host gift to share with us all: an offer to display his skills at lunarism for our amusement and edification here tonight. Brother?”
Lord Daul rose, looking slender as a blade beside Antoch’s bulk, and bowed low to the crowd. “Milord, you do me too great an honor. I am the one blessed, to be reunited with such august company after all my trials. I feel quite the lost sheep returned to the fold, after time amongst the wolves.”
“What’s he mean?” I whispered to Cwalo, but my companion didn’t seem to hear. Lord Daul kissed the hands of Meri and Lady Lyll and climbed down from the high table. During the speeches, servants had brought out a small table covered in a gray velvet cloth and set with the charts and paraphernalia of the moon-casting. Daul took his seat and bowed his head briefly in meditation.
I had seen this done before, of course, though not at such high scales. The back table at every tavern in the Seventh Circle had a resident lunarist — some of them mere scam artists, some with a genuine . . . well, I’d seen a few things I couldn’t explain. But the one thing all of them were after — fair or foul — was coin. It was officially frowned upon, since foreknowledge of the future was a trait ascribed to Sar alone, but popular lunarists generally escaped persecution. Even Bardolph was said to have one resident at court.
Suddenly a massive crack of thunder shook the Round Court, making everyone jump. When it had faded, Lord Daul let out a quick laugh. “They do quite set the mood for us, don’t they?” The chandeliers swung a little, making wolfish shadows on his lean face. “Friends,” he said in a low voice that slipped through the hall like a serpent, “who will be first to learn what the moons have in store for us? Lady Cardom?”
“Indeed, no,” the woman beside me said, but there was a touch of gay color in her cheeks. “I’m too old for such fancies. I know what my future will bring, young man.”
The room erupted in laughter, and Daul inclined his head. “Perhaps her flourishing son?”
“Not me.” The fat nob who had arrived with Marlytt gave a good-hearted laugh. “I like surprises.”
“Come, come — someone must be brave enough to glimpse what the gods are planning?” Lord Daul swung his gaze slowly through the crowd until he came to rest on Meri. “My lord brother, will you permit me the honor to read the charts for your lady daughter? Since I missed the opportunity to do so at her birth?”
Meri, her color high, turned to Antoch. Her father gave his smiling approval, and she bounded down from the high table. She curtsied very prettily to her foster uncle, then tucked herself at the small table, bending studiously over the charts.
“What do I do?” she said, sounding a little breathless.
“When is your birthday, my dear?”
“The twelfth of next month,” Meri said.
“Ah,” Daul said. “Very auspicious. The Dead of Winter falls on your birthday this year.” The Dead of Winter was a solemn holy day, the full moon of Marau that fell closest to midwinter. Meri’s eyes widened as Daul continued, “And, of course, this is a very significant year for you.” He cast the stones onto the chart on the table. “Be aware, I tell only what I see, and I cannot be responsible for any shadows the gods have cast upon you.”
My thoughts drifted; I was interested less in the future Lord Antoch’s bosom friend was predicting for his daughter, and more in the gold strap he wore around his leg. He sat at an angle to me that gave me a clear view of it. It had a clasp that could easily be undone with one finger, but it was a snug fit, to keep from slipping off. There was a design stamped into the metal, and I wanted a better look at it.
I’d give it back, of course. I just wanted to see it. And somehow I didn’t think asking for a close examination of Lord Daul’s thigh would go over well in this company. Maybe Phandre could get it for me; she knew her way around a few lords’ thighs, or so I’d heard. I felt a giggle bubble up inside me, and I took another sip of Cwalo’s very fine sparkling Grisel.
A peal of applause rippled through the room, and I heard Meri’s chair scrape back. “I thank you, milord,” she said in her soft voice. “Who shall I send next?”
I glanced up just in time to see Lord Daul beckoning me closer with a narrow finger. “Lady Celyn, do us the honor?”
Ask me twice. I bounced up from my seat beside Lady Cardom, reminding myself to be dignified as I crossed the floor. At the tiny table, I gave a gracious curtsy and settled onto the little stool.
Lord Daul poured the colored stones into my cupped hands. There were seven of them, all different sizes, and the chart on the table was a map of the heavens, with all the moons plotted in their courses through the sky. The stones weren’t valuable — just bits of polished agate and marble — and besides, he’d probably notice right quickly if they disappeared from his set.
“Lay the stone of Celys on the date of your birth,” he instructed me.
Whereupon we had a problem, since I could no more account for my birth date than I could for my nonexistent mother and father. I hesitated too long.
“Milady does not know when she was born?” he asked. His voice was playful, and everyone laughed. I stole a desperate glance at Marlytt, but she was deep in conversation with Lord Cardom. I was about to put the stone somewhere entirely at random when Daul said, “Methinks you were born under the watch of Tiboran.”
My hand stilled in the air and I met his eyes, but there was nothing there but amusement. All right, I could play that game too.
“No, milord is mistaken,” I said gaily, or tried, anyway. “I was born in the summer.” And plopped the green marble right down in the middle of the month of Celys. It was close enough.
“Milady perhaps exaggerates her age? I would not have guessed you to be quite . . . forty-three, Lady Celyn.”
Pox. “Lady Lyllace makes a most excellent salve for wrinkles,” I said, to another round of laughter. Tiboran was in
high humor tonight; I wasn’t usually so good with a crowd. I found the date for sixteen years ago and shoved the stone into place, leaning low across the table, exposing every thing I had to Daul’s view — and giving me easy reach of him: his belt, his purse, the gold band he wore on his leg.
Daul spread his hands across the parchment, and the stones seemed to bobble and float away from his touch. A sharp’s trick — I saw no magic spark for him, and he wore no silver — just simple sleight of hand that any well-trained Gerse thief could mimic.
“Ah,” Daul intoned significantly. I leaned in closer still, as if fascinated by the mysteries he was about to reveal. My gaze stayed on his face, though the hand that was supposed to be folded demurely in my lap edged closer to Daul’s leg band. Gray fringe from the tablecloth brushed my sleeve. “The shape of your past is cloudy,” he said. “There are shadows crossing lines, and I cannot see past them.”
“Nonsense!” I said. “I’m as cloudy as a summer day. Tell me what else you see.” My fingers came to rest, ever so lightly, against the spring of gold.
“I see your brother is a very powerful man.”
My hand jerked, and I felt Daul flinch. Damn.
“Not so powerful,” I said tartly — and loudly. “He couldn’t even get nuns to hold on to me!”
The audience laughed again, and I pulled my hand back, easy, easily. . . .
He slapped me. Under the table, fingertips to the back of my wrist. The look on his face shifted to sharp awareness as he met my eyes, and then back again as smoothly as a moon disappearing behind fog. “Well, I think it’s as well that someone should look after you, Lady Celyn,” he said. “There is a darkness looming in your future, I’m afraid. As well as a new association.”
“Not one of the Cwalo boys, I hope!” I tried to laugh with the others, but my wrist stung like I’d been burned, and my heart was a hot frantic flame in my chest. I couldn’t believe it. I never got caught.
“I think not.” He was looking straight at me, his voice low enough for only me to hear. “Take care, Lady Celyn. Beware!” That last was for the crowd, and he dismissed me, but it was all I could do to curtsy like I was supposed to and stumble back toward my seat.
The dinner was breaking up. Antoch had risen, and the others had followed, spilling down into the room and covering me with a merry, laughing crowd. I glanced across the hall, for Meri, for Marlytt — for the alcove behind the curtains where the servants slipped in and out —
“Very entertaining per for mance.”
I spun. Daul had me by the arm, and was steering me — with perfect decorum — to that selfsame alcove. My heart resumed its panicked flutter as I stared at him.
“Keep walking or I yell, ‘Stop, thief!’ Don’t make a scene.”
“What do you want?”
He spoke in my ear, in a low voice. “Satisfaction. You’ve piqued my curiosity, Lady Celyn. One does not expect a display of quite those skills among Lord Antoch’s retainers.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Marlytt could have pulled that off, but I sounded strained and false.
“I’m sure. Sit down.” He shoved me down onto a bench half hidden behind a tapestry and leaned over me. He reminded me even more of a wolfhound now, slavering jowls dripping. “Pull yourself together. People will be staring.”
I fought for breath. Above us, musicians in the minstrels’ gallery had struck up a merry tune, and a knot of people were sorting themselves into a dance. Daul thrust a goblet of wine into my hand as a servant drifted past with a tray. “That was a neat trick,” he said conversationally. “You almost got away with it. Another man wouldn’t have noticed — you’re very good, as I’m sure you know.”
I didn’t say anything, just stared at him.
He shrugged. “Fair enough. Just know, I’m a kindred soul.” He popped open the buttons holding his tight sleeve closed. Smoothly he rolled his shirt up to the elbow, revealing a long, iron-black tattoo crudely inked deep into the dark, scarred flesh. I forced myself not to shiver. The scars told me more than the tattoo — the shiny white blots were burns from the scald, the rough skin at the wrist the “manacle’s kiss.” Silver, superheated until it burned off the hair and flesh, cauterized the blood. The star was a brand. He’d spent time in prison as a Sarist.
The tattoo was a footnote compared to all that — a black blade halfway up the forearm, some dungeon brotherhood, the prisoners banded together for mutual protection against other inmates, against rats, against hunger, against loneliness. Oddly enough, I found it calming.
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“Oh, I think it will. I want information.”
“About me?”
“Don’t be stupid. Of course not. You’re going to do a little job for me.”
I stared at him. “Here?”
Before I could ask anything else, the end strains of the music slowed. Daul pulled his sleeve back down, smoothly doing up the buttons with one hand. “Come to my rooms tomorrow before the noon meal.”
“I’m not coming to your rooms!” In the space left by the music, I said that too loudly — surprised faces turned our way. “What do you take me for?”
“Stop, thief!” His voice was musical, light — not quite loud enough to be overheard. “And before you say they won’t believe me, I saw you slip Lady Cardom’s headpiece into your sleeve. So unless you mean to spend the rest of the winter in the Bryn Shaer dungeons, you will be in my chambers tomorrow, before the noon bell strikes. Do we understand each other?”
I understood, all right. Understood the way the boar understands the circle of hunters surrounding it with spears. When the music stopped for good and Daul let go my arm, I fled.
Minutes later, there was a pounding on the door to Meri’s room. I had stripped out of my frothy gown and was casting through the heap of clothing she had lent me for something I could run in. It was four days back down the mountain toward Gerse — I could never make that on my own. With no woodcraft and no supplies, I wouldn’t even make it to the first settlement. But I might have a chance heading east through the pass to Breijardarl, which was only a day’s walk. It was still raining, but the moons were out and the path was clear, my own shoes were sturdy, and — damn it! There was nothing here but velvet and brocade. Was I going to have to raid the stable boy’s wardrobe?
“Digger!”
I glanced behind me. That wasn’t Meri. The door — which I had locked, fat lot of good it did me — burst open, and Marlytt tumbled in, in all her iridescent silken glory.
“What are you doing?”
I ignored her. Meri had wool drawers — I could maybe wear those, for a while —
Marlytt grabbed me. “What are you doing? You ran out of there so fast. What happened?”
“I’m getting out of here, that’s what I’m doing. I was stupid to think this would work —” I pulled free of Marlytt’s grip but stood, panting, at a loss.
She sank onto the bed with some considerable composure. Her eyebrows lifted; she was ready to hear the gory details.
“Do you know that — that Remy Daul?”
A slight frown, no more than a shadow on her smooth forehead. “I’ve heard of him. He’s dangerous. I wouldn’t cross him —”
“Well, he’s crossed me. Says I have to work for him, or he’ll expose me to the Nemair. You’re the only person here who knows who I really am.” I realized it was true as the words left my mouth.
She looked shocked. “Digger, I wouldn’t! You know that. I am the very soul of discretion.”
She might be telling the truth. She wouldn’t stay in her line of work long by being indiscreet. I didn’t trust her — didn’t trust anyone — but I believed her. Maybe.
“You came here with him.”
She shook her head. “I arrived here with him. I came here with Cwalo, from Tratua. Ask him.”
“I will.” I wouldn’t — I was never going to see the man after tonight. I threw open another trunk and cast all its co
ntents onto the floor, digging through the mess of small clothes and stockings. “He —” I paused, remembering something. “He said something strange about my brother.”
“Celyn’s brother?”
I turned to her. “I thought so, but —” Marlytt was one of only a handful of people who knew that Digger of Gerse was not simply some nameless orphan with a blank past. She knew about the convent, and . . . other things. “I don’t know.”
“Well, what does it mean?”
I sighed. “That Celys really does see every thing we do?”
“What?” Marlytt said.
No. It wasn’t possible. It was just pure chance Daul had caught me; I’d been drinking and I was careless and I’d slipped up. “It doesn’t mean anything.” I found my blue wool kirtle and wrestled into it.
“What does he want with you?”
I balled up the rest of the clothes and shoved them back in their trunks. Meri must have a bag here somewhere. I ducked under the bed and found my hidey-hole. A nice little stash to get me started on my way to a whole new life. Again. I shoved the coins in my sleeve and the ring down my bodice. I opened the trunk that held the clothes and things the Nemair had given me, and found Durrel’s dagger. I weighed it in my hands, then hoisted my skirt and strapped it to my leg.
“Aren’t you even curious?” she pressed.
The only way I was going to find out what Daul knew and what he wanted was if I met with him. “Not a bit. I left my curiosity behind in Gerse. With Tegen. I’m getting out of here,” I repeated. “Tonight. I don’t care how —”
I broke off. A jangle of voices and footsteps carried down the corridor, stopping outside Meri’s room. The door banged open, and a breathless, flushing Meri burst inside.
“Celyn — Marlytt?” A cloud of confusion briefly darkened her features, but she ignored the mess in her chambers, waving us toward the corridor. “Come see, it’s too exciting!”
I stared at her and the assembled company in the hallway behind her, all dressed, improbably, in their cloaks and coats.