Robert Asprin - Thieves World

'Well, you have charm, Cappen Varra,' she murmured, 'and how you do know it.' Alert: 'But coin you lack. How do you propose to pay me?'

'I fear you must work on speculation, as I do myself,' he said. 'If our joint efforts lead to a rescue, why, then we'll share whatever material reward may come. Your part might buy you a home on the Path of Money.' She frowned. 'True,' he went on, 'I'll get more than my share of the immediate bounty that Molin bestows. I will have my beloved back. I'll also regain the priest's favour, which is moderately lucrative. Yet consider. You need but practise your art. Thereafter any effort and risk will be mine.'

'What makes you suppose a humble fortune-teller can learn more than the Prince Governor's investigator guardsmen?' she demanded.

'The matter does not seem to lie within their jurisdiction,' he replied.

She leaned forward, tense beneath the layers of clothing. Cappen bent towards her. It was as if the babble of the market-place receded, leaving these two alone with their wariness.

'I was not there,' he said low, 'but I arrived early this morning after the thing had happened. What's gone through the city has been rumour, leakage that cannot be caulked, household servants blabbing to friends outside and they blabbing onward. Molin's locked away most of the facts till he can discover what they mean, if ever he can. I, however, I came on the scene while chaos still prevailed. Nobody kept me from talking to folk, before the lord himself saw me and told me to begone. Thus I know about as much as anyone, little though that be.'

'And -?' she prompted.

'And it doesn't seem to have been a worldly sort of capture, for a worldly end like ransom. See you, the mansion's well guarded, and neither Molin nor his wife have ever gone from it without escort. His mission here is less than popular, you recall. Those troopers are from Ranke and not subornable. The house stands in a garden, inside a high wall whose top is patrolled. Three leopards run loose in the grounds after dark.

'Molin had business with his kinsman the Prince, and spent the night at the palace. His wife, the Lady Rosanda, stayed home, retired, later came out and complained she could not sleep. She therefore had Danlis wakened. Danlis is no chambermaid; there are plenty of those. She's amanuensis, adviser, confidante, collector of information, ofttimes guide or interpreter - oh, she earns her pay, does my Danlis. Despite she and I having a dawntide engagement, which is why I arrived then, she must now out of bed at Rosanda's whim, to hold milady's hand or take dictation of milady's letters or read to milady from a soothing book but I'm a spendthrift of words. Suffice to say that they two sought an upper chamber which is furnished as both solarium and office. A single staircase leads thither, and it is the single room at the top. There is a balcony, yes; and, the night being warm, the door to it stood open, as well as the windows. But I inspected the facade beneath. That's sheer marble, undecorated save for varying colours, devoid of ivy or of anything that any climber might cling to, save he were a fly.

'Nevertheless ... just before the east grew pale, shrieks were heard, the watch pelted to the stair and up it. They must break down the inner door, which was bolted. I suppose that was merely against chance interruptions, for nobody had felt threatened. The solarium was in disarray; vases and things were broken; shreds torn off a robe and slight traces of blood lay about. Aye, Danlis, at least, would have resisted. But she and her mistress were gone.

'A couple of sentries on the garden wall reported hearing a loud sound as of wings. The night was cloudy-dark and they saw nothing for certain. Perhaps they imagined the noise. Suggestive is that the leopards were found cowering in a corner and welcomed their keeper when he would take them back to their cages.

'And this is the whole of anyone's knowledge, Illyra,' Cappen ended. 'Help me. I pray you, help me get back my love!'

She was long quiet. Finally she said, in a near whisper, 'It could be a worse matter than I'd care to peer into, let alone enter.'

'Or it could not,' Cappen urged.

She gave him a quasi-defiant stare. 'My mother's people reckon it unlucky to do any service for a Shavakh - a person not of their tribe - without recompense. Pledges don't count.'

Cappen scowled. 'Well, I could go to a pawnshop and - But no, time may be worth more than rubies. From the depths of unhappiness, his grin broke forth. 'Poems also are valuable, right? You S'danzo have your ballads and love ditties. Let me indite a poem, Illyra, that shall be yours alone.' Her expression quickened. 'Truly?'

'Truly. Let me think ... Aye, we'll begin thus.' And, venturing to take her hands in his, Cappen murmured:

'My lady comes to me like break of day. I dream in darkness if it chance she tarries, Until the banner other brightness harries The hosts of Shadowland from off the way-'

She jerked free and cried, 'No! You scoundrel, that has to be something you did for Danlis - or for some earlier woman you wanted in your bed -'

'But it isn't finished,' he argued. 'I'll complete it for you, Illyra.'

Anger left her. She shook her head, clicked her tongue, and sighed. 'No matter. You're incurably yourself. And I ... am only halfS'danzo. I'll attempt your spell.'

'By every love goddess I ever heard of,' he promised unsteadily, 'you shall indeed have your own poem after this is over.'

'Be still,' she ordered. 'Fend off anybody who comes near.'

He faced about and drew his sword. The slim, straight blade was hardly needed, for no other enterprise had site within several yards of hei-s, and as wide a stretch of paving lay between him and the fringes of the crowd. Still, to grasp the hilt gave him a sense of finally making progress. He had felt helpless for the first' hours, hopeless, as if his dear had actually died instead of - of what? Behind him he heard cards riffled, dice cast, words softly wailed.

All at once Illyra strangled a shriek. He whirled about and saw how the blood had left her olive countenance, turning it grey. She hugged herself and shuddered.

'What's wrong?' he blurted in fresh terror.

She did not look at him. 'Go away,' she said in a thin voice. 'Forget you ever knew that woman.'

'But - but what -'

'Go away, I told you! Leave me alone!'

Then somehow she relented enough to let forth: 'I don't know. I dare not know. I'm just a little half-breed girl who has a few cantrips and a tricksy second sight, and - and I saw that this business goes outside of space and time, and a power beyond any magic is there - Enas Yorl could tell more, but he himself -' Her courage broke. 'Go away!' she screamed. 'Before I shout for Dubro and his hammer!'

'I beg your pardon,' Cappen Varra said, and made haste to obey.

He retreated into the twisting streets of the Maze. They were narrow; most of the mean buildings around him were high; gloom already filled the quarter. It was as if he had stumbled into the same night where Danlis had gone ... Danlis, creature of sun and horizons... If she lived, did she remember their last time together as he remembered it, a dream dreamed centuries ago?

Having the day free, she had wanted to explore the countryside north of town. Cappen had objected on three counts. The first he did not mention; that it would require a good deal of effort, and he would get dusty and sweaty and saddle sore. She despised men who were not at least as vigorous as she was, unless they compensated by being venerable and learned.

The second he hinted at. Sleazy though most of Sanctuary was, he knew places within it where a man and a woman could enjoy themselves, comfortably, privately - his apartment, for instance. She smiled her negation. Her family belonged to the old aristocracy ofRanke, not the newly rich, and she had been raised in its austere tradition. Albeit her father had fallen on evil times and she had been forced to take service, she kept her pride, and proudly would she yield her maidenhead to her bridegroom. Thus far she had answered Cappen's ardent declarations with the admission that she liked him and enjoyed his company and wished he would change the subject. (Buxom Lady Rosanda seemed as if she might be more approachable, but there he was careful to maintain a cheerful correctness.) He did believe she was getting beyond simple enjoyment, for her patrician reserve seemed less each time they saw each other. Yet she could not altogether have forgotten that he was merely the bastard of a minor nobleman in a remote country, himself disinherited and a footloose minstrel.