Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

The lad grinned at her and took to his heels. I sipped at wine watered almost to tastelessness and grimaced.

“Bridele can make you a tisane,” offered Temar.

“From the last dust of her spice jars?” I asked “Or some unknown herb? My thanks but I don’t need poisoning.” At least one recent death had been some obsessive steeping himself a quick route to Poldrion’s ferry in a vain attempt to eke out his tisanes.

I saw Temar was looking pinched around the mouth. Maewelin had exacted precious little due from Kellarin over the winter but Temar took each and every loss hard. “Is there news from Edisgesset? Are the miners ready to start smelting?”

He was successfully diverted. “As soon as possible.”

“What are you going to do with the copper?” I asked.

“Trade it with Toremal.” Temar looked puzzled then smiled. “For tisane herbs and decent wine, perhaps.”

“We need iron.” Ryshad was serious. “We’ve found no trace of ironstone and our smiths are reusing every rusty scrap of chain as it is.”

“Coin would simplify trading with Toremal.” Ryshad raised an eyebrow at me but I looked at him with bland innocence. “Ready copper around here wouldn’t come amiss either. It would save you and Guinalle adjudicating barters and such.”

“Coining is a skilled trade.” Temar frowned.

“I know a man who could do it,” I offered. “Make it worth his while and he’ll cross the ocean.”

“That Gidestan with the cropped ears?” Halice recalled his name. “Kewin?”

Temar chose his words carefully. “I hardly think the Emperor would take kindly to us making free with his currency.”

I looked at him, exasperated. “I’m not suggesting forgery. What about your own head on a few pennies?”

“It would make a fine statement of independence.” Seriousness underlay Ryshad’s amusement. “Kellarin needs to stand on its own two feet.”

Temar looked doubtful. One of his more appealing qualities was a lack of the usual arrogance that goes with noble blood. Halice and I were agreed he wouldn’t get the chance to develop it.

Ryshad on the other hand wanted to see Temar stamp his authority on Kellarin a good deal more firmly. “It’s certainly worth considering.”

I saw Temar sneaking a glance at his maps. “If you want to trace those caves why don’t you see if Hadrumal could help? Shiv could follow the rivers and Usara should find any hollow from a rabbit scrape down.” I’d travelled the wild fastnesses of forest and mountain with Usara and watched experience broaden the mage’s horizons far beyond the narrow vistas of Hadrumal.

“That’s a good notion.” Ryshad reached for the parchment he’d been covertly studying. “Two mules make a better plough team than one.”

“Perhaps.” Temar’s aristocratic politeness didn’t fool any of us. He wasn’t past the youthful folly of jealousy because Usara showed an interest in Guinalle.

“If we want more mages, they’re the obvious ones to invite.” I knew Halice was thinking the same as me. In her self-possessed fashion, Guinalle had shown signs of welcoming Usara’s attentions. A friendly wizard knowing all too well the demands and frustrations of magical arts might prompt the stubborn girl into admitting her own limitations.

“Where’s Jemet?” snapped Temar, sipping his pathetically weak wine.

I caught Ryshad looking compassionately at the younger man. I wasn’t so indulgent. Granted Temar had a hard row to hoe to make a success out of Kellarin but I wondered if my beloved was a little too inclined to give the young nobleman the benefit of the doubt.

The swish of the door broke the awkward silence and Allin hurried in behind Jemet the page. Of all the wizards I’d met since a chance venture introduced me to Shiv and repaid me with more trouble than I could have imagined, Allin was the least like an Ensaimin balladeer’s fantasy. She was no willowy mage-woman sweeping all before her captivating beauty, earth-shaking, lightning-swift powers snaring all men with lust in the same breath as scaring the manhood out of them. Allin was short, round, plain enough to make Halice look passable and frequently unflatteringly red in the face. At the moment, out of breath, she was quite scarlet.

“Sit down.” I offered her my stool and the watery wine. I liked Allin and her ready habit of sharing any skill, magical or practical, had won her many friends in Kellarin. Not that she realised this. The last child of a long family, her humility bordered on the ridiculous and Temar wasn’t the only one determined this mage-girl learn to value herself as highly as other people did.

“How can I help?” Her hectic colour faded as she drank the wine.

“Could you please bespeak Casuel?” Temar asked politely. “See if he knows when we might expect the first ships?”

Allin turned to the expectant Jemet. “A candle, if you please, and a mirror.”

The lad scurried to fetch the paraphernalia for Allin’s spell and then stood at Temar’s shoulder, blue eyes avid.

Allin snapped her fingers at the candle to kindle enchanted flame and carefully captured the unnaturally ruddy light in the mirror. She went about her wizardry with far less ceremony than most of the mages I’d had the dubious fortune to encounter but even this understated display had Jemet in silent thrall, Bridele sneaking a look from the kitchen door. The lately come craftsmen still retreated awkwardly when magic was worked but the original colonists had lived in an age when Artifice was a readily acknowledged skill. They made no distinction between Guinalle’s aetheric enchantments worked for their benefit and the different abilities of the mageborn. As far as they were concerned, magic of any stripe meant Kellarin would never again suffer Elietimm attack undefended and unable to call for aid.

The reddish glow on the metal shrank to an eye-watering pinpoint of brightness and then spread once more in sweeps across the mirror like wine in a jolted glass catching the light. Concentration lent dignity to Allin’s plump face as the radiance faded to a burning circle around the rim and the mirror reflected a miniature scene. We saw an elegantly appointed bedchamber where a familiar figure was stepping hastily into his breeches.

“Casuel, good morning,” Allin said politely.

“What’s so urgent it couldn’t wait until after breakfast?” Casuel fumbled with his buttons before running a hand over tousled brown hair, not yet pomaded into fashionable waves.

“Esquire D’Evoir.” Temar came to stand beside Allin and inclined his head in a well-bred bow. “I beg your pardon. It’s rather later in our day.” He spoke with the aristocratic precision that Casuel always took as due respect but I generally felt it was D’Alsennin’s way of hiding his irritation with the wizard’s pretensions.

“Sieur D’Alsennin.” Casuel’s tone turned abruptly from brusque to ingratiating. Temar’s House might have vanished in the Chaos but if the Emperor decreed it be raised again, that was good enough to win a grovel from Cas.

“Everyone else in Toremal will have eaten their breakfast long since by now.” Ryshad’s murmur was for my ear alone as he moved behind me, folding strong arms around me.

I craned my head back to whisper. “Since when’s our Cas been Esquire D’Evoir?” In those same ballads where Allin’s appearance would have been as appealing as her personality, Casuel’s all-encompassing knowledge of the fragmentary history of the Old Empire would have been arcane learning essential for saving a princess or restoring a king to his throne. As it was, his self-serving scholarship had been entirely focused on proving his merchant family’s claim to ancient rank. Then Planir had seconded his scholarship for his own mysterious purposes and Cas had inadvertently helped save Kellarin’s people.