Cordimancy (27 page)

36

shimsal ~ Malena

When
Toril slowed, Malena saw that they had arrived at a modest-looking shop that advertised wholesale metals and jewelry in calligraphy on a sign outside its door.

Toril rapped.

In a moment, the door opened. A balding man with thigh-thick arms and an apron across his expansive belly looked them up and down.

"Ur Hasha!"

Grinning broadly, he stepped back, pulled the door wide, and gestured for them to enter. "You're looking a bit worse for the wear, but I'm most glad to see you."

"Corim. Well met."

Malena could see some of the tension leave her husband's face at the welcome, and she felt a certain easing in her own heart as well. The simple pleasure of a cheerful, friendly face lifted her spirits in a way she had not expected.

Corim ushered them over to where tools and a coil of silver wire spread across a scarred table. A magnifying glass was mounted in a brace at one corner. Worn benches ran along either side; Malena sank onto one end, grateful to take weight off her tired legs. She heard Toril sigh as he sat beside her.

"This must be Semanya Malena i Toril?" Corim said. Still standing, he thrust out a meaty palm and waited till Malena nodded and met his gesture. "That's the most beauty I've seen from the house of Hasha since your mother was young, Toril."

Toril's eyes crinkled. Malena noticed him glance at her.

A massive boarhound emerged from a curtain at the back of the shop and padded over to inspect the visitors.

Malena stiffened.

Corim laughed and slapped the dog on the shoulder. “Pay no attention to my bodyguard. He’s harmless to friends. And so is his twin, asleep in the back room.”

Toril nodded. “A lot of merchants have valuables to protect, but Corim more than most. Ingots from mines all over Kelun pass through Two Forks; Corim verifies the manifest of each barge and dispatches shipments to buyers from every corner of Zufa. The payments mean lots of hard currency.”

“I have safer places to keep the bulk of the money,” Corim said. “But there’s always a bit of coin here. Plus I do my metalwork on the side. The dogs are part of my insurance.”

Malena took a deep breath. The dog gazed at Corim’s face, concluded that the visit was a non-event, and turned away, uninterested.

"You've heard the gossip, I suppose?" Toril said.

"Yes. I'm so sorry to hear about your father." Corim walked to a counter and began banging doors open and shut in a bank of cupboards. "And about Noemi."

Toril said nothing. Malena saw his jaw rock back and forth.

"I'm happy to see that your wife survived. Rumors weren't clear on that point."

"Thank you," Malena finally whispered, to fill the gap left by Toril's flat silence.

Turning back to the table, Malena saw that Corim now held a platter with cheese and apples in one hand, a pitcher in the other, and large pewter mug under his arm.

"You both look pale," he said. "Toril's got crumbs on his whiskers, but I'm guessing you haven't eaten your fill in a while." He nodded at Malena's hand, and she realized that she still clutched the untouched loaf Toril had bought. Her wrist trembled.

"I'm not feeling that well, I guess," Malena said. Her stomach was roiling; it was hard to know whether the cause was simple hunger or something more.

"Start with water," Corim said, filling the mug and pushing it toward her.

She took a sip, enjoyed the sensation of liquid cooling her throat, and realized that she couldn't remember the last time she'd had anything to drink. She took a larger swallow.

"Have you heard from Sotalio?" Toril asked, breaking off a wedge of cheese.

Corim shrugged. "Rovin's busy putting an army together, same as here. That's about it. Why? Did you try to send me a message?"

Toril gave a terse summary of what they knew of the kidnapped children, Gorumim and his soldiers, and the priest who’d gone to Sotalio to shame Rovin into providing backup. "The priest must have failed, though," he concluded, "if you haven't heard of men riding this way."

Malena took another sip. She still felt oddly weak, but the nausea seemed less sharp now.

Corim sighed and scratched his paunch thoughtfully. "The Guard's levying six hundred men from Two Forks alone. It's put the whole town into chaos. Troops are expecting to be gone till spring. The women have to figure out how they'll defend themselves in the meantime. Both blacksmiths in town are busy shoeing horses and sharpening swords; the apothecary's already sold most of his healing herbs. Everybody's running around like ants from a kicked-over hill. Sotalio's worse, no doubt—they're closer to the border, and they have fields to finish harvesting. I'll bet it's hard to get anyone's attention."

"Maybe."

Malena could hear the resignation in her husband's voice. After a moment he cleared his throat and spoke again. "I need money."

Corim nodded. "Of course.” He stood and walked toward the curtain where the dog had emerged.

“More than a small purse. Break out the strongbox, too.”

Corim turned back toward them, his forehead wrinkled.

“I can’t cart a raja’s ransom around with me, of course. But I want you to try to hire a posse.”

Corim narrowed his eyes, then shrugged. He detoured to the front door, dropped a bar across it, then walked to the curtain and ducked out of sight. Malena heard clanking chain, the protest of a seldom-used lock, and the dragging of some furniture. In a few moments he returned, veins popping from his forehead, wheezing at the weight of the bronze-reinforced box he carried. He set it down with a thud and a muted tinkle.

"You’re serious about this posse idea?” Corim asked. He fumbled with a ring at his belt, found the key he wanted, and popped it into the lock on the chest as he continued talking. “I suppose it's conceivable, if we don't advertise who they'll be attacking. But the best fighters are all conscripted already. I'm old and fat, and I'm probably the pick of what's left. Anyway, I'm not sure a posse would do you much good. You don't take on the Royal Guard with a rag-tag band of amateurs."

The lock clicked; Corim lifted the lid.

Malena blinked.

She’d expected a modest mound of silver, maybe with a sprinkling of copper here and there, and a handful of gold crowns and half crowns. That was what her father’s treasure box had held, on the few occasions when he’d hauled it out of the vault and she’d caught a glimpse. Her father was the wealthiest man in Abizaro.

This box was full to the brim, and it appeared to contain mostly gold. And Corim called it a “bit of coin”? He kept the bulk of the money somewhere else?

No wonder he’d been straining as he carried it. The box probably weighed more than she did.

“Put us down for fifty crowns,” Toril said. He pushed aside a leather satchel that he’d been carrying on his hip, and instead unfastened the belt strapped around his waist. It was twice as wide as a man’s wrist, and thick besides; now he began working smaller half-crown coins into slits in the back. As his fingers moved, he counted under his breath.

Fifty crowns? A day’s wages for a professional soldier was one silver kina; eight kinas made a half crown. Toril was withdrawing a small fortune, not just fees for the shimsal. Wasn’t Corim the one who’d be hiring the posse, while she and Toril went to find out about parents and sister and whatever had happened to the priest in Sotalio?

“On second thought, better make it a hundred,” Toril said, pursing his lips. “But that’s too much for me to carry by myself, especially if I break some into silvers. Besides, we don’t want to put all our money in one place. Do you have something Malena could carry as well?”

She cleared her throat. “Couldn’t we just take enough for the shimsal, and come back for the rest later?”

Toril shook his head. “Corim’s headed out to hire a posse as soon as we leave, and then we need to ride out to meet Gorumim. This might be our last chance to bank for a while.”

“You’re worried about
banking
?” Malena sputtered, a note of hysteria coloring the disbelief in her voice. “What kind of a person thinks like that? Children are dying. My parents and sister are missing. The Royal Guard wants to kill us!”

“We have no money for food,” Toril said, his voice barely audible but trembling with emotion. “No home. Little gear. No place to go. No clothes except what’s on our backs. No transportation except our own feet. Perhaps you thought we’d piggy-back the orphans, camp under the stars, and feed them moonbeams once they’re rescued?”

Malena glared at her husband. Truthfully, she hadn’t been thinking about those problems—but why couldn’t he understand that they could be dealt with
later
, after they’d visited the Voice?

As Toril counted, Corim had retrieved a ledger from his counter, flipped it open to a bookmarked page, dipped a quill in ink, and bent to jot a note. Now Malena saw him glance back and forth between her own tense features and those of her husband. He’d made no move to fetch a money belt or purse for Malena.

“When this crisis is past,” Toril continued, his face flushed and his voice growing even softer, “did you think we’d trek to some snug, well provisioned retreat that I’m hiding in another corner of the mountains? Maybe winter there, then start rebuilding a proper home for a lady in the spring? I’m afraid there’s no such place, and no such plan. I have money in other places, but I may not be able to get to it if Rovin gets his way. These coins might be all we have to live from for months. Maybe longer. Are you so eager to be a pauper?”

A dozen retorts leapt into Malena’s mind, but she bit them back with a toss of her head.

“Fine!” she snapped. “But please, please, let’s hurry.”

Corim sighed in relief. “Let me see what I can find for you,” he said, snapping the ledger shut and laying his apron aside. He scratched his chin. “A cloak, maybe?”

“I don’t have time to sew coins into a hem.”

“Course not,” Corim said. “But it’s one of the few pieces of women’s clothing I have. I think it already has a hem; a quick slit with a knife and you’re in business.” He opened a cupboard, pulled out a tidy square of folded wool, and pushed it across the table to her. “My sister left it here last time she came to visit. I’ll get her a replacement.”

“Thank you,” Malena said. “Should we pay you for it?”

Corim waved a refusal. “Save your money to spend on troops. Getting any men at all to ride out to confront Gorumim is going to be expensive, even if I promise they’ll be back before conscripts march tomorrow.”

“You might not need men for a pitched battle,” Malena said. “And you might not need to pay anything.”

Toril swiveled on the bench and raised his eyebrows.

“This whole town is getting ready for an osipi attack,” Malena explained. “If you can convince a few men to go watch Gorumim’s party as it approaches, they’ll see that he’s traveling with the golden. That’ll raise their hackles.”

“He’ll just repeat the same fiction as before,” Toril said. “He’ll claim he’s captured prisoners and is marching them to be debriefed and punished by the raja.”

“Gorumim’s been stirring up hysteria; now I bet he finds that it’s harder to manage than he thinks. Besides, he won’t be able to explain the children,” Malena said.

“The golden will see anybody we send, long before witnesses get close enough to be useful,” Toril said. “They’ll hide the children. And Gorumim’s riding straight here. He must have a plan of some sort.”

“I don’t see how a big public panic will do anything but frustrate him,” Malena insisted.

“Let’s try an ‘all of the above’ strategy,” Corim said. “I’ll see if I can convince a few men to ride out and see who’s coming down the road. And I’ll try to hire a posse, too.”

“Fine. Meanwhile, we need to go talk to the Voice. Can we meet you back here in an hour?” asked Toril.

“Half an hour?” interrupted Malena. “Gorumim’s not that far behind...”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Corim said. “But not that fast.”

Malena scanned the man’s face for any sign that he’d misunderstood her urgency. When she saw none, she sighed. “Let’s go see the shimsal,” she said, tugging on Toril’s sleeve as she stood.

The
home of the Sisterhood in Two Forks was tree-high granite surrounded by a tall wall and a cobblestone courtyard. The guard at the gate passed them through with a dubious glance at their travel-worn appearance.

“We have business with the shimsal,” Toril announced, when a woman in the rust-colored robes of an initiate opened the door at their knock.

“Or any other Voice who’s available,” Malena added. “As long as she can communicate with Sotalio.”

“You have means to pay?” the woman asked. “We speak for alms only in the first hour of the morning, and today is not a day for Sotalio anyway.”

“We can pay,” Malena said firmly. “But we can’t wait. Is someone available?”

The initiate waved them through the door and ushered them into a public foyer of sorts while she went to fetch someone more senior.

“I need to send a message to my older sister,” Malena began, as soon as they were alone. “If there’s been any news about Tupa or my parents, she will know.”