Dragon Weather (35 page)

Instead she had fallen to her knees and was cowering on the stone floor of the entryway, clutching her cloak about her.

Black frowned.

Beggars were rare in Manfort—
very
rare. Just about anyone who slept unguarded in the streets or missed enough rent payments, no matter how decrepit, was likely to be taken by the slavers and sold. Still, this woman probably
was
a beggar, he decided, one the slavers hadn't caught yet, drawn to the Old Palace by the local gossip, looking for somewhere to get out of the rain and get a bite to eat. Anything else was just his morbid imagination, driven by the miserable weather and the uncertainties of his present situation. The announced date of Lord Obsidian's “arrival” and reception was approaching rapidly, and it was getting on his nerves.

The woman was almost certainly harmless. Her obvious terror was probably because she expected him to sell her into slavery, despite the rumors, not the result of nervousness about her involvement in some dire scheme.

“Get up,” he said.

She hesitated. He reached down and snatched away her cowl, revealing short-cut hair and a bony, half-starved face that might have been attractive if better fed. It was hard to judge, given her condition, but he guessed she was perhaps thirty, no more than forty.

She cringed.

“Get
up,
I said.” He grabbed her arm and hauled her upright.

She stood unsteadily, looking up at him.

“Now, what did you want?” he asked. “Food? A drink?”

She shook her head, and fumbled with the inside of her cloak. “I heard…” she began. “I heard that you … that Lord Ob … Obsidian would pay…”

And her hand emerged from a hidden pocket clutching something. She held it out, and opened her hand.

It was a brooch, an oval of carved and polished obsidian set in elaborately worked gold, all of archaic design. A black velvet backing that would keep it from chafing appeared to have been added later.

It was almost certainly stolen, Black thought—the woman's cloak was ancient, stained and ragged, and what he could see of the dress beneath was no better. This woman could hardly have come by so fine an item honestly. It was probably a family heirloom she had snatched from an unguarded room somewhere.

Still, it was obsidian, and perhaps she could be convinced to say where she had stolen it. He and Arlian had looked at two dozen pieces already, brought to the door by jewelers, merchants, and people of less obvious employment, and had noted down half a dozen names for further investigation; one more would do no harm, and chasing the poor creature back out into the rain seemed unnecessarily cruel.

“Come on,” he said. “Let me get you something to eat, and you can sit by the fire while I see if Lord Obsidian's jeweler is available.”

He settled her on a stool beside the kitchen hearth, with a heel of bread and a cup of tea to dunk it in—he hadn't gotten a look at her teeth, but they were probably in bad shape.

If she opened the door before he got back and let in a horde of thieves, it would serve him right for being too soft-hearted, Black thought as he hastened up the stairs to fetch Arlian. If the palace had had a full-time staff in place he would have put a guard on her, but so far only he, Arlian, and the six Aritheians who had made the long journey to Manfort slept there; for now the locally hired servants all worked days, and returned to their homes at night. That made it easier to maintain the fiction that Lord Obsidian had not yet arrived.

Black looked forward to the day after the grand gala—once that was over and done with he could hire a proper household staff.

A few minutes later, when Black and Arlian returned to the kitchen, the woman was still there, huddled on her stool, her cloak steaming in the warmth of the fire. Black hurried past her to check on the postern, and found the door still securely barred.

“Let me see the brooch,” Arlian said, holding out his hand. He wore coachman's livery in black piped with white—the colors he had chosen for himself, representing the black of obsidian and the white of justice. He doubted this woman would recognize his attire as inappropriate for a jeweler.

She set down her empty teacup and fished out the brooch. “I … It's all we have left,” the woman said as she held it out. “It was my betrothal gift.”

Black was just reentering the kitchen when Arlian accepted the brooch and got his first good look at it. Black saw the young lord's jaw drop, his eyes snap wide open; he saw Arlian's body tense, his back arching as if he had been struck.

“Sorcery!” Black said, his sword in his hand; suddenly he was at the woman's side, the blade at her throat.

“No!” Arlian said, holding up a hand. “No—no, I'm fine.” His voice was rough; he blinked away tears.

“Then what…”

“The brooch,” Arlian said, holding it up. The gold sparkled redly in the firelight.

Black did not lower his sword, but kept it at the woman's throat, his left hand on the back of her neck. He could feel that she was rigid with terror. “What about it?” he demanded.

“It's my mother's,” Arlian said.

The woman gasped, then let out a low, sobbing moan.

Black was not yet entirely convinced there was no sorcery involved; his hands did not move. “You're certain of that?” he asked.

“See for yourself,” Arlian said, turning the bauble over and peeling away the velvet backing.

“Don't…!” the woman said, starting to snatch at the brooch—but Black's sword held her in place.

Arlian held up the golden surface thus revealed and pointed at an inscription. “It's hard to read, with the glue on it,” he said, “so look for yourself, and tell me whether it says, ‘To Sharbeth, with all my love.'” He looked at the woman. “Sharbeth was my mother.”

“He st … but…”

Black released his hold on the woman's neck and accepted the brooch. He had to squint to make out any of the inscription, as it was clogged not just with glue but with dirt and ash and bits of black velvet, but the lengths of the words were right, and the longest word did look like “Sharbeth.”

“So it's your mother's brooch,” Black said. “It would seem I may have been overly pessimistic regarding your plans—but now what?”

“Where did you get it?” Arlian demanded, staring the woman in the eye.

She turned an imploring gaze on Black. “The … the sword,” she said.

“Sheathe it,” Arlian said.

Black frowned, but obeyed. It would seem no sorcery was involved after all, and in that case two strong men should be able to handle one beggar woman. He slid the blade into its sheath, but kept his hand on the hilt.

“Now,” Arlian said, stepping forward and stooping to look the woman in the eye, “where did you get that brooch?”

“My husband,” she said. “It was my betrothal gift. We … we didn't know it was stolen, I swear! The velvet was … it was there…”

“Who is your husband?” Arlian demanded. “
Where
is he? Still alive?”

“He … he's sick. Very sick. That's why I needed money. He didn't want … all these years…” She stared at the brooch in Arlian's hand.

“What's your husband's name?” Arlian demanded. “Where is he?”

“His name is Yorvalin, but everyone calls him Cover,” she said. “He's in our room on Broom Street.”

“Cover?” Arlian straightened, and he and Black stared at each other over the woman's head.

“It can't be that easy,” Black said.

“I wouldn't have thought so,” Arlian agreed, “but sometimes Fate is kind, as I know better than almost anyone.”

“What are you talking about?” the woman asked, looking from one man to the other. “What is easy?”

“What's
your
name?” Arlian asked.

“I'm … I'm called Stammer,” she said, flushing.

“Of course,” Arlian said, with audible distaste. Sometimes he didn't think much of the cognomens people bestowed upon one another. “Well, Stammer,” he said, looking down at her, “I want to talk to your husband.”

She hesitated, clearly wishing she hadn't said as much as she already had. “You won't hurt him?”

Arlian sighed. “I can't promise that,” he said.

“I won't … then I won't take you.”

Black raised his sword hilt an inch or two from the scabbard, but Arlian gestured for him to put it back.

“Stammer,” he said, kneeling and looking up into her eyes, “do you know just how bad your position is? You've come here uninvited and tried to sell me stolen merchandise. From the look of you it's obvious you have no money, no family, no patron—and here you are in Lord Obsidian's home, arguing with his staff. Black could kill you, and claim he caught you stealing from us, and no one would ever doubt it. We could call a slaver in and sell you—and you're still young and pretty enough that there's no telling where you'd wind up as a slave. Now, we don't want to do anything like that—we don't want to harm you at all—but we
do
want to find your husband. You've already said he's in your room on Broom Street—we'll find him eventually, no matter what you do. You can save us the trouble of searching. And it's your home—if we released you we would follow you, and sooner or later, wouldn't you go back to your husband?” He fished in his pocket and pulled out a gold ducat. “I'll pay you for your trouble, if you like—or not, if you think that would be too much like selling him.”

She stared down at the coin. “I … I'll sell you the brooch,” she said.

“The brooch is mine by right,” Arlian said coldly. “It's not yours to sell. Your services as a guide, though, are your own.”

She looked from Arlian to Black, but found no support there—Black's expression showed only detached interest, Arlian's intense determination.

“Give me the money,” she said, snatching the gleaming coin.

Arlian let her take it.

“Now take us to Cover,” he said.

Stammer nodded. She got to her feet, and Arlian straightened up to follow.

Black raised a hand to halt him. “It's raining,” he said. “Perhaps you should change your clothes, or at least put on a hat.”

Arlian looked down at himself, and agreed.

An hour later Arlian saw the first of the intended targets of his revenge, stretched out before him in the wretched dwelling he now inhabited, close up under the roof of a crumbling, narrow tenement.

There was no bed; Cover lay on a pile of rags on the bare planks that served as a floor. The entire room had clearly been improvised—the planks lay loose across the tie beams, creating a little wooden island seven feet above the attic's true floor, accessible only by a rickety ladder. There were no windows or other means of ventilation, and the air was chokingly thick, stifling hot, and horribly still, full of the scents of wood and mildew and sweat. Light came from a single candle on a table below, and from the lantern Black held.

Most of the family that lived in the attic proper watched silently as Arlian, now clad in nondescript traveling garb rather than his coachman's livery, climbed up to Cover's niche, his hat in one hand; Black, in his customary leather and carrying a drawn sword in his right hand with the lantern in his left, stood guard at the foot of the ladder. Stammer watched nervously from one side.

The mother of the attic family sat in one corner with her youngest at her breast, ignoring the entire affair, and two of the other children were too busy squabbling to pay attention, but Arlian still had half a dozen pairs of eyes focused on him. In consequence he moved more slowly, and with greater caution, than he might otherwise have. He was eager, very eager, to see whether this was in fact the Cover he had met all those years ago in the ruins, the man who had lifted him up out of the cellar where Arlian's grandfather had lain dead.

The man on the rag pile did not look at Arlian as he rose into view—or at anything else. He lay on his back, his eyes closed, his breath rasping feebly. His skin was mottled with patches of unhealthy red, plainly visible even in the dim, uneven light.

Arlian swung himself off the ladder, stooping under the rafters, and stepped across the platform so that he leaned over the sick man.

“Cover,” Arlian said.

The man licked his lips, but otherwise did not move.

“Look at me, Cover,” Arlian demanded.

The sunken eyes opened, and the head turned, and Arlian knew that this was, indeed, the same man. He had lost weight, a great deal of weight—his flesh was stretched tight over his bones, and Arlian could count his ribs through the filthy, frayed shirt that covered his chest—but it was Cover.

Despite the heat of the stuffy attic, Arlian shivered. For years he had intended to punish this man for his crimes, for robbing the innocent dead of the village on the Smoking Mountain and for allowing Lord Dragon to sell Arlian into slavery—but what could he do to punish this pitiful creature who lay before him?

“How did you come to this?” Arlian asked. “When last I saw you you were well and strong, working for Lord Dragon.”

Cover stared at him for a long moment, then spoke. “It's you?” he asked, his voice faint and breathy. “The boy from the cellar?”

“You recognize me?” Arlian asked, startled.

“Dreamed of you,” Cover said. “I'm so sorry.”

Arlian stared at him silently. He had not expected contrition. And the dreams … were they simply reflections of Cover's own concerns, or did the man have the gift of prophecy? After his experiences in Arithei Arlian no longer doubted that some dreams were more than just the sleeping mind at play.

Had someone
sent
the dreams?

Had Cover really dreamed of him at all? Perhaps the man was delirious.

“How did you find me?” Cover asked after a moment, when Arlian still had not spoken.