Part 5 (2/2)

As I lifted my arm to admire them, Durrel said, ”Meri gave you her bracelet?”

I looked at it, embarra.s.sed. ”I couldn't get her not to.”

He was nodding. ”No, it's good. I'm just surprised. Sometimes I forget she's not a little girl anymore.” He looked off into the distance for a long moment. ”There's something else.” This time there was a strange note in his voice. I'd heard that sort of tone before - just before someone asked me to do a job that might cost me my head.

”This is where I repay you for saving me?”

A laugh. ”Something like that. I'm glad you're going home with the Nemair. They'll be sympathetic to your situation. Believe me, my aunt and uncle are the last people who would send you back to that convent.”

I eyed him warily. I didn't say I was taking my gloves and running the instant we hit the road to Yeris Volbann.

”But more than that, I'm glad somebody will be there for Meri. She may be legally an adult, almost, but she'll always be like my little sister. She's lived with the Decath since she was eight years old. We're the only family she remembers. I'd be grateful if you'd keep an eye on her - be a friend to her.”

”Milord, I - that is not my skill.”

”Really?” he said. ”Now why do I doubt that? I have a feeling about you.” He held out his hand again, this time with a sheathed dagger balanced in the flat of it. The scabbard was ornamented in silver, the hilt a swirl of pearl inlay. I shook my head and took a step back.

”Take it,” he urged.

A dagger was valuable. And I needed one, after losing my own blade. I took the weapon from his hands and drew it. The steel glinted in the light of Zet's moon, and I saw the crest of a crowned dog bowing in red enamel on the hilt. This was a Decath weapon. This dagger was very valuable. ”They'll think I stole it,” I said.

”No, they won't.”

”Why would you give this to me?”

He gave a little grin. ”A stray cat needs her claws.” Durrel bent low over me, until his mouth was very near my ear. ”Stay with them, Celyn. Please.”

I clutched the dagger tight in my gloved fingers. I had a feeling Durrel did not often have to beg a girl for something, and I was starting to feel the weight of all these gifts. d.a.m.nation. Every instinct I had was telling me to run, but if there was one thing even a thief believed in, it was that you did not turn your back on someone who'd pulled you out of a sc.r.a.pe. That was a debt you honored. With your life, if need be.

Finally I nodded.

”Are you - a Sarist?” I scarcely whispered the words into the night.

He looked surprised. ”Not me. I wish I had their conviction. I'm just a p.a.w.n on the vast Decath game board. I'm not allowed to have thoughts of my own. But I have a feeling it took a great deal more courage than I lay claim to, to do whatever you did in the last few days.”

Courage. To leave Tegen behind in the hands of the Greenmen? ”I'm no hero.”

”Just staying alive's heroic these days.” He drew back and took my shoulders in his hands. They were warm and strong. ”Be well, Celyn Contrare.”

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Something was following me. I ducked behind a corner and listened for the footsteps. Light, scuffing - in the dark I couldn't be sure whose. I pulled myself tighter into the shadows and held my breath. The footsteps slowed, turned. Fifteen feet away, maybe closer. Searching.

I cast about for an escape. Any move would put me straight in my pursuer's vision, but was I fast enough to scale that wall? Would the trellis hold my weight? Could I make it across the road and into the sewers before he grabbed me?

Should I turn and fight?

Pale fingers traced along the shadowed walls, searching for gaps. I held my breath until my chest was bursting, counted footsteps, weighed my options. Stay hidden. Don't call attention to yourself. But the tension was unbear able. I ran.

I was almost at the sewer when fingers brushed my neck, caught my belt. I swallowed a yelp and spun around, jamming the heel of my hand upward. It hit something hard and sharp, sparking pain through my forearm. I struggled, turning left and right, trying to pull free. Finally I ripped my knife from its sheath and sawed at my belt.

Too slow. A long arm curved around my face, and I had to bite - hard. My knee jammed upward, and my attacker doubled over in the street. I resisted the urge to kick him while he was sprawled in the gutter, but cut the turquoise scarf from his face with my blade. I shoved my trophy into my sleeve and scrambled up the side of the tavern.

Wintry sunlight spilled through the leaded gla.s.s and throbbed against my aching eyes, and for a moment I couldn't remember where I was; my dream and its memories seemed more real than the last several days had been. I had known I was in trouble as soon as I breezed into the Mask & Barrel that night, brandis.h.i.+ng the kerchief.

”d.a.m.n it, Digger, you weren't supposed to hurt anybody!” Tegen had said. He held a rag to his chin; his lip was swollen. I might have felt penitent, but not with that crowd a.s.sembled.

”You grabbed me! What did you expect?”

”I caught you! You were supposed to surrender! Pox, I think you broke my d.a.m.n jaw.”

I pulled off my cap and shook down my hair, sliding up toward the bar. His strong arm blocked my progress. ”If you're caught by the City Guard, do you plan to beat the h.e.l.l out of them until they let you go?”

I scowled. ”I don't understand. Of course. You don't expect me to let them catch me, do you? Isn't that the first rule? Don't get caught? Stay alive, no matter what?”

I pressed my fingers against my eyes, trying to blot out the memory. I was alone in the bed; Meri was in her dressing gown, staring out the tiny window and its view of nothing. The country outside Favom had given way to a dark, forbidding forest, and this roadside inn was apparently the last habitation that dared to push back against Celys's demesne.

Meri turned from the window. ”Bad dreams?” she asked.

Her eyes went past me, to the bed. ”Oh.” The bedclothes were a tangled mess, stripped from the mattress. My pillow looked as though I'd fought a battle with it. I s.h.i.+mmied to the side of the bed and swung my feet to the ground.

”I have bad dreams too, sometimes,” she said softly.

I withheld my snort. What kind of nightmares could haunt pretty Meri's sleep? Someone taking away her pony privileges?

I had been included in the party to Bryn Shaer after all. Merista's parents didn't just resemble their daughter physically, they also shared her easy sympathy, and when Meri recounted my harrowing escape from the Celystra, they insisted I stay with them. The only snag had come when Lady Nemair insisted on sending a letter to my ”brother.”

”The convent will surely have reported you missing by now, dear. We must let him know what's become of you.”

I couldn't help protesting. ”I'm an adult.”

”Well, of course you are, but I'm sure he's still worried about you.”

”My brother stopped worrying about me a long time ago. Milady.”

She just clucked and petted and wrote the d.a.m.n letter. I scrambled for an address to send it to, then realized it didn't matter. Deliver a letter to any house on - what was it, Ruby Lane? - and the recipient would merely be perplexed and bemused by the news of Celyn Contrare. n.o.body would have any reason to put her together with the thief on the run from Greenmen. And I could manage a man's handwriting well enough, should a return letter ever be required. I finally agreed, inventing a direction. I even consented to put down a few lines of my own, apologizing for my impulsiveness and begging my dear indulgent brother's forgiveness. Marau's b.a.l.l.s.

Lady Lyllace briefly glanced over the letter. ”Merista tells me you were a ma.n.u.script copyist at the Celystra,” she'd said. ”You have a very pretty hand.”

I did, but it wasn't my own. I wasn't sure I'd know what my own handwriting looked like, I'd spent so much time perfecting the script of others.

Now, in the face of our expedition's waning comforts, my promise to Durrel Decath was starting to lose some of its weight. Last night we had managed to find lodging, but the first night we had camped. Along the Oss, in a big jolly caravan like a band of Tigas Wanderers. Phandre had seethed until the very roots of her tawny hair turned pink, but Meri had reveled in it, in the breezy night and the lumpy earth and the giant starlit sky with Celys's moon staring down on us enormously. I had s.h.i.+vered, my back to the dying campfire, and prayed to G.o.ds I wasn't sure had ever been listening.

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