Patricia Briggs - Masques

Finally, the ae’Magi felt he could control himself enough to speak. “You saw Cain take one of the female prisoners? Several nights ago.”

“Yes, Lord.” The guardsman relaxed as soon as the ae’Magi spoke. “I remembered him from when he lived here, but I didn’t realize who it was until he’d already gone. Last time I saw him, he were all scarred up, but I ’membered meself when he were a tyke he looked a lot like you, sire.”

“And why did it take you so long to report this?”

“You weren’t here, sire.”

“I see.” The ae’Magi felt uncouth rage coil in his belly. Cain had been here, here . “Which prisoner did he take?”

As if he had to ask. Dead, she’d told him. Cain was dead. And he’d believed her—so much so that when he found someone sneaking around in his territories, he’d never even considered it might be Cain.

“That woman Lord Kisrah brought in, sir.”

There was a darned patch on the guardsman’s shoulder. It had been so well done that the ae’Magi hadn’t noticed it until he got closer. He would see to it that the guardsmen’s uniforms were inspected and replaced when necessary. No one in his employ should wear a darned uniform.

This guardsman, the ae’Magi thought, enjoying himself despite his anger, wouldn’t be needing a new uniform ever again. He took his time.

“Clean up the dust and leave me.”

Shuddering, the sixteen-year-old silk merchant’s daughter swept the ashes of the guard into the little shovel that was kept near the fireplace. She did a thorough job of it but wasted no time.

After she had gone, he sat and ran his finger around one of the burls on his desk.

“I had him,” he said out loud. “I had the bait, and he came—but I lost my chance. I should have felt it, should have known she was something more.” He thought about the woman. What had been so special about her that would attract his son?

Moodily, he took the stopper off the crystal decanter that sat on a corner of his desk and poured amber wine in a glass. He held it up to the light and swirled the liquid, admiring the fine gold color—the same shade as Cain’s eyes. He tipped the glass and drank it dry, wiping his mouth with his wrist.

“There are, however, some compensations, my son. I know that you are actively working against me. You cannot remain invisible if you want to move to attack, and I will find you. The woman is the key.”

He whispered a minor summoning spell and waited only a short time before he was answered by a knock on the door. At his call, the Uriah who had once been a Sianim mercenary entered the study. The mercenaries had made fine Uriah. They were lasting longer than the ones he made from peasants. This one might last years rather than months. The old wizards had done better—theirs were still functioning though they had been created in the Wizard Wars.

He wished the second half of that book hadn’t been destroyed. He’d been looking for another copy of it for years, but he feared that there were no more.

“You’re that one who told me that you were familiar with the woman you took from Myr’s campsite?” the ae’Magi asked.

The Uriah bowed his head in assent.

“Tell me about her. What is her name? Where do you know her from?”

Another problem with the Uriah, besides longevity, the ae’Magi had found, was that communication was not all that it could be. Information could only be gotten with detailed questions, and even then a vital fact could be left out. They were good soldiers but not good scouts or spies.

“Aralorn. I knew her in Sianim,” it replied.

Sianim. Had his problem spread beyond Reth?

“What did she do in Sianim?”

The Uriah shrugged carelessly. “She taught quarterstaff and halfstaff. She did some work for Ren, the Spymaster, I don’t know how much.”

“She worked as a spy?” The ae’Magi pounced on it.

“Ren the Mouse doesn’t formalize much. He assigns whoever he thinks will be useful. From the number of her unexplained comings and goings, she worked for him more often than most.”

“Tell me more about her.”

“She is good with disguises and with languages. She can blend in anywhere, but I think she used to be Rethian.” The Uriah smiled. “Not much use with a sword.”

He’d liked her, the ae’Magi thought. The man had liked her. The Uriah was nothing more than a hungry beast, but he remembered what the man had known.

And then the Uriah said, “Ran around with a damned big wolf. Found him in the Northlands and took him home.”

“A wolf?” The ae’Magi frowned.

“Those yellow eyes made everyone jumpy,” the Uriah said.

The ae’Magi remembered abruptly that he’d recently had another escape from his castle. The girl had been aided by a wolf—or wolf pack—that had killed a handful of the ae’Magi’s Uriah, who had inexplicably gone after it rather than after the girl they’d been ordered to chase.

He tried to remember what this Aralorn had looked like—surely he’d have noticed if she were as exotic as his Northland beauty.

“Describe her to me.”

“She is short and pale-skinned even with a tan. Brown hair, blue-green eyes. Sturdily built. She moves fast.”

Not her, then, but still . . . green eyes. He’d bought that slave because she had gray-green eyes, shapeshifter eyes. Blue-green, gray-green—two names for the same color.

“You say she was good with disguises?”

Aralorn was too tired to wake up when the covering was pulled back, letting the cool air sweep over her warm body. She moaned when gentle hands probed her ribs, but felt no urgent need to open her eyes. She heard a soft sound of dismay as her hands were unwrapped. A touch on her forehead sent her back into sleep.

It was the sound of voices that woke her the second time, a few minutes later, much more alert. The nausea that was the usual companion to beggersblessing use had dissipated.

She noticed that she was in the library, covered with a brightly colored quilt. A familiar cloak, Wolf’s, lay carelessly tossed over the back of the sofa. Men’s voices were approaching.

She wondered how she’d slept through the trip to camp—because he’d said that he couldn’t have brought the merchant all the way here.

She started to sit up, only to realize that the clothing scattered on the floor was what she had been wearing. Hastily, she pulled the blankets up to her neck to protect her dignity just as Myr came around a bookcase.

“So,” said Myr with a wide smile, “I see that you’re more or less intact after your experience with the ae’Magi’s hospitality. I must say, though, that it will be a long time before I loan you any of my clothes again. I didn’t bring many with me.” The pleasure and relief in his voice was real, and she was surprised and not a little flattered that he cared so much about someone he’d known such a short time.

Aralorn smiled back at him and started to say something, but noticed that Wolf, who had followed Myr, was focusing intently on her hands. She followed his gaze to where her hands gripped the top of the blanket. Ten healthy nails dug into the cloth. The beggersblessing had left her wits begging, too; she hadn’t even noticed that she didn’t hurt at all.

Aralorn answered Myr absently. “Yes. Though he wasn’t the best of hosts. I only saw him once or twice the whole time I was there.”

Myr perched on the end of the sofa near Aralorn’s feet and looked, for once, as young as he was. “And he prides himself on his treatment of guests,” he said with a mournful shake of his head. “It doesn’t even look like he left you any mementoes.”

“Well,” said Aralorn, looking at her hands again, very conscious of Wolf’s doing the same thing. “You know he did, but I seem to have lost them. The last time I looked, my hands were missing the fingernails.”