Кейт Новак - Masquerades

Alias rose and followed Victor to the door.

“Durgar,” the croamarkh said, “please assign some members of the watch to escort this not-so-common sell-sword back to her hotel with her retainer. We wouldn’t want her robbed.”

“Yes, Your Lordship,” Durgar replied. He opened the door and followed Victor and Alias from the room. Once he closed the door, Victor clapped Alias on the shoulders. “You were wonderful,” he said. “Wasn’t she wonderful, Durgar?”

Durgar raised an eyebrow, but did not reply.

“I’ve never seen anyone square off against Father as well as you. Fifteen minutes ago, he was threatening to fire you, now he demands you remain. You should be a merchant. Shouldn’t she, Durgar?”

“Considering that House Dhostar is paying her a hundred times the salary of a guard of the watch, she certainly has the financial outlook,” the priest replied dryly.

“House Dhostar isn’t paying me to be a watch guard, Your Reverence,” Alias retorted. “They’re paying me to bring down Night Masks. As to your father’s firing me, Victor, it wasn’t likely. He knows that if he did, and I continued to catch Night Masks, he couldn’t take the credit for it.”

“That may be so, but he was sorely tempted,” Durgar said as he motioned for Alias to climb the staircase to the next level. “The noble merchant houses are sacrosanct as far as Lord Luer is concerned, as well he should be.”

Alias turned and climbed the stairs backward as she looked back down on the priest and Victor behind him. “Are you saying you approve of freeing Haztor Urdo, Your Reverence?” she asked with some surprise. “I would have thought you of all people would expect the law to apply to all.”

“I am a pragmatist, young woman. I understand the importance of bending some laws so that society remains orderly. The croamarkh is elected the first among his equals, his equals being the other noble merchant lords. Some nations obey their monarch because they believe he has a divine right to rule. Tyrants hold sway with armies or fell magic. Here in Westgate, the croamarkh rules by the consent of the noble merchant houses. He needs their support to rule, and without him to rule, there would be anarchy in this city.”

“You mean the common people might be free to block traffic if they want to watch a puppet show?” Alias teased.

“And powerful merchant families with money to hire mercenaries would be free to run those common people down with impunity,” Durgar retorted. “The croamarkh’s laws protect the weak as well as the strong. Now you must excuse me, I have other duties. I will arrange for two guards to meet you at this door with a porter. Good day.” The priest continued down a corridor, leaving Victor and Alias standing at a guarded doorway.

Victor pulled out a key hanging around his neck and unbolted one lock of the doorway. The guard, with his own key, unbolted a second lock and pushed the door open. The room within held two accountants, four more guards, and enough coin to satisfy a young dragon. Victor wrote out an order for Alias’s payment, and the guards gathered up twenty small sacks filled with fifty gold each and piled them into a box.

Alias signed a receipt and hefted the box under her arm. As she and Victor left the room, Alias could hear the guards on the other side relocking the bolts. She and Victor sat on a bench beneath a window beside the counting room door.

“So what do you think of all this?” the swordswoman asked the young merchant.

“Well, no one loathes Haztor Urdo more than I,” Victor said with a laugh, “but my father and Durgar have a point. The croamarkh must stand united with those who’ve elected him. We’ve had a croamarkh ever since Verovan’s death. For a hundred and twenty years, that’s protected us from another tyrant. Any of the merchants would be better than someone like that, and Father is the best of all of them.”

“How about a croamarkh who isn’t a merchant, elected and supported by all the people?”

Victor looked at Alias with astonishment. “You can’t be serious. Where did you get such an idea?”

“It’s the way Dragonbait’s people elect their leaders,” Alias said.

“Alias, I don’t know much about the saurials, but they must be different from humans. Not all humans are able to make important decisions like voting.”

“Human adventuring groups elect their leaders that way, too,” Alias argued.

Victor shook his head. “It could never work, not for a city like Westgate,” he said. “I’m glad you’re with us, though. The other merchants will look after themselves, but with you we can look after the weak, like Durgar said.”

“How do we do that?” Alias asked.

“By fighting the Night Masks. It’s true, they prey on the merchants, but it’s the common people they hurt the most.” Victor’s voice grew more impassioned, though unlike his father he did not need to raise his voice to reveal the intensity of his feelings. “When the Night Masks rob or burn the warehouse of a bigger merchant, the merchant loses some goods, perhaps some guards, a little business. It’s a nuisance. But when the Night Masks go after the common folk, it devastates their lives. To the common people, a bolt of fabric or a crate of wine could be their whole inventory, a wounded guard is a breadwinner without work, a little business is the whole profit margin. If we can take care of the Night Masks, the people will be better off.”

The young merchant spoke with the same earnest and hopeful tone he had when he’d revealed his dreams to find Verovan’s treasure and use it to improve Westgate. Alias put her hand on his. “We will take care of the Night Masks,” she assured him.

“I know. Do you think, as a favor to me, you might try at least to keep from offending the merchant houses while you’re doing it. I’m not saying letting scum like Haztor Urdo go, but, um, maybe you could let me in on your plans, then if there’s anything politically treacherous involved, I could at least warn you.”

Alias withdrew her hand from Victor’s. Although she truly wanted to please the young lord, she was unable to resist the sarcastic comment that came to her lips. “Maybe I should just work the Shore,” she suggested, referring to the slums just outside the city’s western wall, “since there’s nothing there any merchant could want.”

“Yes. That would be good,” Victor agreed, oblivious to her sarcasm. “The Shore is full of transients who don’t like to get involved with the watch. The watch doesn’t even patrol there regularly, so the Night Masks strike at the inhabitants with the most impunity.”

Alias smiled at the innocent way Victor had taken her suggestion.

“That’s settled then,” the merchant lord said. “Now, about the party on the ship tonight. You will still come, won’t you?”

Alias grimaced. “Perhaps I’d better not. The other merchant houses might object to the presence of a common little sell-sword who’s arrested one of their own.”

“You know I don’t feel that way. You’ve performed your duties with honor, and I think you deserve respect. I want to set an example by hosting the hero of Westgate on our cruise.”

“Thank you, Lord Victor. I’d be honored to accept.”

“It will be my honor to show off the most intriguing, lovely woman in all of Westgate.”

Alias laughed at the flattery. “I’ve been looking forward to showing off my new earrings, so I may as well come.”

Victor leaned closer, examining the earrings. “Three stars. They’re very becoming on you,” he whispered with his mouth so near her ear that she could feel his breath move the tiny stars. “Might I hope you choose them in honor of the Dhostar trading badge?”