Part 7 (1/2)

”It is not a debt I have with them, Sas.h.i.+e. You need not fear that. Rather, I wish to make an investment in their trading company, an investment that would serve to better our circ.u.mstances.”

She laughed at this; it was a music he adored above all others. ”But, sweet brother, you have improved our circ.u.mstances. How can we fare better than to dwell here at the Golden Loom?”

Eldyn could not help smiling at her enthusiasm, even as it perplexed him. The inn was well kept, but like Eldyn's coat it was growing shabby. And while the clientele were generally respectable folk, that was not entirely the case, as must be for an inn down in Waterside.

”I would do much to improve our lot, Sas.h.i.+e. I would get us a house to live in, with servants to keep it, and our own carriage to drive about the city. I would be a gentleman and go back to university. And I would buy you dresses and jewels, so you might attend a party in the grandest house in the New Quarter and command the attention of all eyes there.” He leaned across the table and took her hands in his. ”I would see us happy.”

”But, dear brother, I am happy. Indeed, it is impossible that any of those things you speak of could make me any happier than I already am.”

She cast a look over her shoulder, across the public room toward the bar. A man stood there, speaking while others gathered around, listening and laughing. The spectators were some of the inn's less savory denizens: their clothes thickly patched, their grins gap-toothed and yellow. A woman leaned over the bar toward the man, her face over-painted and her bosom nearly spilling out of her frock as she howled with laughter.

The speaker might have been taken for a young gentleman of worth hanging about a seamier section of the city for a thrill. He was tall, with a lion's mane of gold hair, and was by any measure very handsome. His coat of russet velvet was superior to anything Eldyn had ever owned. Rings glittered on both of his hands.

The man went by the name of Westen, though whether that was his given name, his family name, or simply an affectation, Eldyn did not know. What Eldyn did know was that, despite his fine looks and fine clothes, he was no gentleman, and none of the rich things he wore had been gotten by forthright or respectable means, for the fellow was known to be a notorious highwayman. This was not a matter of rumor or idle speculation, as Westen had brazenly admitted to it on more than one occasion, and some of his exploits had been so audacious as to be the subject of articles in The Fox.

Even now he was regaling his listeners with some tale of his shadowy deeds. Eldyn could not catch the details from across the room, but the gist was clear when Westen made a little play, his hands flying up and his mouth forming a circle of surprise as he mimicked some hapless traveler whom he had accosted on the road and whom, at the point of a pistol, he had bereaved of all valuables.

The onlookers laughed, the coa.r.s.e music of their mirth ringing out over the inn. Eldyn might have been tempted to call for a king's man, but he knew there was no point. Though Westen enjoyed telling tales of his criminal doings, he was ever scrupulous to avoid mention of any details that might link him to a particular incident, and it was said he did his work in disguise, his face covered by a mask, so that none of his victims might recognize him.

During their first weeks at the Golden Loom, Westen had come in only rarely. However, before long the highwayman had started to show up at the inn with increasing frequency, and now Eldyn thought he began to have an inkling why. As Sas.h.i.+e gazed at Westen across the room, her pretty face alight, the highwayman paused in his storytelling to smile and nod in her direction. At this, Sas.h.i.+e s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands back from Eldyn and drew a silk handkerchief from the sleeve of her dress; she let out a sigh as she clutched it in both hands.

”I do not recognize that handkerchief, Sas.h.i.+e. It looks very rich.” She resisted turning her head toward the bar, but her smile was enough to tell him his suspicion was correct. ”Did Westen give it to you?”

At once a stricken look came over her face. ”Please, sweet brother, don't take it!” She pressed the handkerchief to her breast. ”You mustn't take it away from me. He said it is a token and that I must hold on to it. He said that only if his...only if one who thinks well of him holds on to it and keeps it close will he be warded from harm when he is on the road. If I give it up, he will be placed in grave peril.”

It is you who are placed in peril by holding it, Eldyn wished to tell her, but such was the anguish in her expression that he could not bring himself to utter such hard words. Instead, he said, ”If he is in danger on the road, it is because he brings it on himself, Sas.h.i.+e. You must know that.”

Only it was clear she did not. Sas.h.i.+e was but eighteen and a guileless thing; she could not understand how it was that Westen acquired all his clothes and rings. To her he was simply handsome and tall and marked by wealth-all things she naturally responded to.

No, Eldyn could not blame her. He was the one who had brought her to the Golden Loom, and it was his fault for not seeing what was happening sooner.

”You know you must give it to me,” Eldyn said as gently as he could. ”A young lady cannot accept a gift from a man with whom she has no proper a.s.sociation.”

”But we live here,” Sas.h.i.+e said, tears forming in her eyes. ”And this is where I met him. What a.s.sociation can be more proper than that?”

”You know it is not proper,” Eldyn scolded softly. ”Else you should not have kept it a secret from me. A young lady deserves and requires the society of gentlemen, Sas.h.i.+e, not scoundrels.”

”He is no scoundrel!” she said, but her weeping had all but stolen away her voice, and hardly a sound came out, a fact for which Eldyn was grateful. Slowly, and taking the greatest care so as not to cause her hurt, he opened her fingers and took the handkerchief from her. He tucked it into his coat pocket.

”I shall see that it is returned to him,” he said, ”so that he might give it to another who is better able to bear it for him.”

Sas.h.i.+e said nothing. She only slumped in her chair and stared at her empty hands.

Eldyn hated this. But it had to be done now, before it went any further. A man like Westen, given his occupation, could have no compunction about ruining an innocent young woman. In one awful, selfish act, he could remove all hopes Eldyn had for finding Sas.h.i.+e a husband and giving her a happy life. He could steal away her future, just as he stole gold from his victims, and reduce her not only to poverty but to the life of a slattern. She might not understand now, but she would thank him for this later.

”You should return to our chambers,” Eldyn said. ”I will speak to Mr. Walpert and see that supper is sent up.”

She rose without a word, her face cast down, and ascended the stairs from the public room. Eldyn finished his cup of ale, then looked toward the bar. However, Westen was gone. Eldyn would have to return his handkerchief to him later.

Happily, there were better things to antic.i.p.ate. His conversation with Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing had left him with new hope, if new urgency as well. That he had met the two outside a moneylender's office on Marble Street that first time was surely a stroke of providence.

Eldyn had been at the moneylender's to settle a dispute regarding a debt of his father's, though it had taken several distressing hours. Anxious to be away from the place, he had rushed out of the lending house-and collided directly with Mr. Sarvinge, knocking a bundle of papers from his hands.

With a profusion of apologies, Eldyn helped Mr. Sarvinge and his a.s.sociate, Mr. Grealing, gather the papers that had scattered on the street. As this was done, Eldyn could not help noticing a number of handbills advertising for investors in a trading company to the New Lands. Once the papers were retrieved, he invited the two men to a nearby tavern, buying them a drink as amends for his rudeness, and he listened as they described their business venture-how the trading company was to be formed, what goods it expected to carry back from the New Lands, and how it expected to bring its charter members a tenfold increase on their investment.

One drink turned to three, and it was not long before Eldyn became certain he had found the means to earn back some of the fortune his father had squandered. To their credit, Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing never so much as suggested that Eldyn should invest in their company. However, by the time they departed the tavern, after a fourth and a fifth drink, Eldyn broached the matter himself and announced he was determined to be an investor in their company. Such was the solicitous manner of the two men that, despite the way he had accosted them earlier, they a.s.sured him they would hold a set of shares for him as long as possible, and they parted on the most agreeable of terms.

Gaining the required hundred regals had so far proven more difficult than Eldyn had expected. However, Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing had brought good news with them today, at least from Eldyn's perspective. The approval of the trading company's charter had been delayed by the Ministry of Imports; due to the great number of New Lands charters being requested these days, the ministry was reviewing each application more scrupulously to be a.s.sured it met the highest standards.

There was no cause for concern, as Mr. Sarvinge had been a.s.sured that the charter for his and Mr. Grealing's company would receive the ministry's stamp shortly. While this delay was frustrating for the other investors, it now appeared that the expected returns would in fact be fifteen times the initial investment, and no one could complain about that.

Eldyn was fortunate that there yet remained a few shares in the trading company, due to the untimely death of one of the initial investors. While Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing promised to hold the available shares for Eldyn, he could not impose too long on their kindness; he had to purchase the shares, and soon. But where was he to gain the hundred regals?

As pressing as this question was, an even more immediate concern impinged upon him as he saw Miss Delina Walpert emerge from the inn's back salon. Her frock was even drabber than usual, and the pale green ribbon she wore about her throat lent her face a sickly cast; he supposed she had donned it in an effort to make herself pretty, though simply combing her hair would have done far more toward that end.

Eldyn rose from the table, retreated into the shadows beneath the stairs, and gathered the darkness around himself. There was a tense moment as she pa.s.sed near, her shoes clomping against the floorboards, but her gaze never turned his way, and after that she pa.s.sed out the inn's front door. Eldyn let out a relieved breath, then went to find Mr. Walpert and order his and Sas.h.i.+e's supper.

T WO HOURS LATER Eldyn brushed his only coat, put on his second-best s.h.i.+rt and trousers, and polished his boots with a rag he had obtained from one of the inn's maids with a few kind words. He had no hat so instead tied his hair behind his neck with a black ribbon.

He told Sas.h.i.+e he was leaving, received only the tersest of replies through the door to her room, and, knowing he would get nothing more, departed their chambers. On the street, Eldyn looked for a hack cab to hire, then thought better of it; it was not so far to the Sword and Leaf that he could not walk, and it was better to save what little coin he had for a drink or two in case Rafferdy's pockets were empty that night.

It was not very far to the tavern, but neither was it safe to walk there alone after nightfall. If times were difficult in the country-where, according to the broadsheets, the number of men without a sc.r.a.p of land to farm grew every day-then times were harder still in the city, for it was to the city that all those who could not make a livelihood in the country came. And saints help them if they could not find work here, which few enough of them did, for no one else would help them. The poorhouses were overflowing and the churches exhausted of charity, with only the gibbet at Barrowgate doing anything to reduce the population of the indigent-and at this task it worked tirelessly. However, despite its industry, its labors were not enough to reap the prolific crop of dest.i.tute that grew by the day.

Keeping to lighted ways when he could, and folding the shadows around himself when he couldn't, Eldyn made it to the Sword and Leaf unmolested. The carved sign above the door depicted a silver sword piercing a curling green leaf. It was said that, long ago, the Sword and Leaf had been a favored haunt of magicians. However, the only magick he had ever witnessed there were the usual spells of bliss and forgetfulness conjured by drink.

Inside, Eldyn found his friend seated in a paneled booth that provided privacy on three sides yet afforded a view of the rest of the tavern on the fourth. Rafferdy was smoking something from a hookah pipe and had already had at least one drink, given the empty gla.s.s on the table.

”I started without you,” Rafferdy said, the words accompanied by a puff of spicy smoke.

”For which I can in no way blame you,” Eldyn said, not minding in the least. If Rafferdy was already at it, then it meant he had money tonight. ”But, I say, you have a more determined air about you than usual. Is it your purpose this evening to drive all senses from your skull with the greatest efficiency possible?”

”It was a long and trying day.”

”How so?”

”I have no intention of speaking about it,” Rafferdy said, by which Eldyn took him to mean he had no intention of speaking about it until he had imbibed a sufficient amount of drink and had inhaled a sufficient amount of smoke. Toward that end, Eldyn signaled the bartender.

”So why did your father recall you to Asterlane?” Eldyn said when a bottle of whiskey and two cups had been delivered. ”You never told me before you left.”

”That's because I didn't know before I left. The dear old man hadn't the courtesy to tell me in his letter.”

”Perhaps that's because he thought if you did know, you wouldn't come at all.”

”You're right in that,” Rafferdy said, and quaffed half his whiskey in a swallow. ”I am sure I would have refused him if I had been granted foresight of what was to be.”

”No, you wouldn't have,” Eldyn said.

Rafferdy sighed. He was in no way a homely man, but he was only really good-looking when he was smiling, which fortunately was much of the time. However, at the moment he wore a morose expression.

”No, I suppose I wouldn't have refused him. Though on occasion I like to think that I might.”