By Moonlight Wrought (Bt Moonlight Wrought) (27 page)

         “I’ve got twenty-two thousand,” said Dirk
proudly.

         “I’ve got eight,” Jenderson said.

         “You’re about halfway,” said Mr. Bessemer
with a proud, but sly smile.  Jenderson and Dirk looked at each other in
astonishment; Dirk at the price of the store, Jenderson at Dirk’s finances.

         “That much?” Dirk asked.

         “I suspect you will each need a loan for
the rest.”  Mr. Bessemer said.  “Before you run off to the moneylender—or a
rich patron of the noble families—here are a few points to which I need you to
agree.”  Jenderson and Dirk nodded their consent.  “The name will be
Bessemer’s, now and always.  It is well respected and we may lose customers in
a name change.  I will also receive ten percent of the gross income each
month.  We will maintain a trade agreement between this and all future
Bessemer’s, and this agreement will mean that there will be no tariffs or
mark-ups on items we exchange between stores.  Everything will be on a gold-for-gold
basis.  This way, we can ship items from the north which bear little profit here
to the south, where their rarity will garner us greater rewards.  Without the
middleman, we should be able to net a good profit, and you will even compensate
for my ten percent fee.  In exchange, the store will be yours and you will
both, after your loan payments, still make ten times your old salaries. 
Agreed?”  They nodded again.  “Go see about a loan and talk it over between
you.  I’ll draw up the contracts and we’ll sign it in a few days; give us all
some time to think about it.”

         Dirk ran up to his room, threw open his
chest and dug into the bottom, pulling out the cloak which would free him forever
from his lower-class existence.  He folded it up into a small bundle and laid
it upon his bed while he donned his battle gear:  he would not cross town with
twenty thousand gold pieces in his hands without any defense.  He slid down the
ladder, the leather of his gauntlets buzzing against the wood.  The most famous
moneylender, Fauxton Mitts, was on Dirk’s way to Duvall’s—where he would sell
his cloak—so he stopped there first and found him to be a tough dealer.  Not
only did Dirk have to put his half of Bessemer’s as collateral, but his freedom
as well; if he failed on two consecutive payments, he would be jailed where he
would work at labor to both cover his debt and as punishment; both common law
practices.  Confident, but even more desperate, Dirk signed the agreement.

         Stepping outside, Dirk breathed a sigh of
relief.  The world looked different; brighter.  But this euphoria was
short-lived.  He clutched the cloak.  Everyone was watching him, or so he
thought.  They all wanted his garment!  He stuffed it into his shirt, leaving a
tremendous bulge, and ran into an alley, trying to be rational:  no one could
possibly know about it.  Even so, on his way to Duvall’s, Dirk drew his sword
on, and nearly struck, a man who had stopped him simply to ask directions.  The
man fled, screaming.  Paranoid and cautious, Dirk made it to Duvall’s and stole
inside, looking around; only Duvall was present, standing languidly behind his
counter.

         “You brought the cloak?” Duvall asked,
perking up eagerly when he recognized Dirk.  “The buyer is quite anxious to get
it.  He is a gladiator and feels the cloak will help him prevail.”

         “Yes,” Dirk said, withdrawing the cloak
and laying it upon the counter.  He felt as if he had laid down a great weight
and he could finally straighten and breathe easily.  Duvall looked at it,
turning it over this way and that, ever more anxiously.  Dirk watched and grew
worried.

         “This isn’t the cloak!  What are you
trying to do?” Duvall snapped, throwing it at Dirk.  “Now get out and don’t you
come back!”  Dirk’s mind raced.  “What is this?” he thought.  “What’s going
on.”  He almost fainted and found himself soon standing in the street, his mind
cloudy.  Then it hit him like a maul.  “Who knew about it?” he wondered. 
“Fiona!  And Melissa.”  Dirk ran all the way there, entered the home without
knocking and after looking in the sitting room, went flying up to their room. 
He burst in as they were sitting on their beds; Melissa sharpening her sword;
Fiona reading a book.

         “Where is it?” he screamed, nearly
hysterical, panting and out of breath.  Melissa had sprung to the floor, sword
brought to bear on him, while Fiona had barely reached her mace.  She almost
laughed seeing Dirk, normally calm and unemotional, so disheveled.  He saw her
smirk and swept Melissa aside like cobwebs and leapt onto the bed.  Fiona
laughed and rolled off and under her bed.  “Where is it?” he repeated.  “Give
it to me.”  She slipped just out of his grasp.  Rising, Dirk went to her
wardrobe and found his cape on a shelf under some of Fiona’s lacy lingerie.  He
shook it at her as she peeked out from her sanctuary, but he could get no true
words to pass his trembling lips.

         “It was a joke, Dirk.  We were going to
give it back,” Fiona said, crawling out from her hold.  Finally Dirk stopped
his incoherent mumbling and relaxed enough to form words.

         “You...” he stuttered, “...you could’ve
ruined my entire life.”

         “Gosh,” Fiona said astonished.  “I’m
sorry.  I thought you’d know it was me.  Besides, we stole it days ago...you
never missed it.”  Fiona tried to caress and console him, but Dirk didn’t believe
her.  He knew she liked the pain she was causing him and she would probably
like to ease it by sleeping with him.  Melissa still stood, sword now lowered,
watching them, her brows bent with confusion.  Dirk turned and left without
another word, though the look he cast Fiona was so sour it was likely to have
curdled milk.  Melissa belted on her sword and ran after him.

         Neither spoke, but she walked with him to
Duvall’s, who, satisfied with the explanation and Dirk’s truly flustered
manner, agreed to have twenty thousand gold transferred to a Bessemer’s bank
account in Dirk’s name.  Later, Dirk used fifteen of it toward the purchase,
taking a loan for the other fifteen.  But, right then, he and Melissa walked
out into the burning sunlight.  Dirk was finally at ease; it was done and he
had risen more in the past few months than the first twenty odd years of his
life, more than he ever imagined.  Then he thought how it might not have been,
how it might not have been in two distinct ways.

         “Did you have anything to do with it?” he
asked. 

         Melissa shrugged her shoulders.  “She
said it would be funny and we’d give it back.  I wouldn’t have let her keep it,
if that makes any difference.”

         “Yes, it does,” he sighed and they began
to walk.  After several city blocks Dirk calmed and said, “But really, you had
more to do with things than you know, I guess.”

         “How do you mean?  It really wasn’t my
plan.  I just knew about it and that’s...”

         “No,” he said with a smile.  “I mean you
had something to do with my success.  If I hadn’t met you and Cinder and
Selric...even Fiona, I never would be buying an entire store.  I wouldn’t have
twenty thousand pieces of gold.  I’m practically rich.”

         “Well, most of its gone now,” Melissa
said, wiping the hair out of her eyes with her thumb, sweeping it back behind
her ear, looking at the ground intently as they walked.

         “Yes, it’s gone, but I got something for
it.  And if you ever need anything there...or anywhere, it’s yours.”

         “Thanks.”

         Dirk had begun to notice how Melissa was
becoming more and more like Fiona.  She was slowly losing her quiet country
charm; but as he thought about it there, moving beside her, he knew it was just
as likely that he had caused the change as much as Fiona had.  Melissa was
still sweet and overall he liked her more than anyone else in his life.  She
still put him at ease when she was with him, and that had always been the most
important trait he found in Melissa.  Perhaps the fact that they still were
close friends, and could make love on occasion while still having Selric and
Fiona and Cinder in their lives, put them on a level of closeness that neither
could explain, nor would trade for anything.  Dirk offered his arm to her.  She
reluctantly did such a dependent, feminine act and allowed him to take her for
the most expensive dinner she had ever had to celebrate.  After the meal, they
said good-night and Dirk went straight to Cinder’s, stopping and buying her
flowers and a beautiful blue silk dress.   

         The dressmaker locked the door as Dirk
stepped out into the dusky evening of what was to be the best and worst day of
his life up to that point.  By the time he reached Cinder’s, it was fully dark
and a golden light slipped between the cracks of her shutters.  He knocked and
she opened her door.

         He knew immediately that she was busy,
again:  she was dressed in a stunning shoulder-less black dress, her lips
painted the deepest red, and heavy amounts of dark blue make-up over her eyes,
which were shining in delight as she kissed him.  Though downhearted once more,
Dirk smiled and handed her the flowers and the box tied with a big red ribbon. 
“Oh!  How sweet.  Thank you, darling,” she said, taking them.  Just as she set
the box down and prepared to open it, a knock came on the door.  Remembering
the night before, Dirk opened it in the same way, expecting a coachman.  He was
greeted by an entirely different sight.

         Two men stood outside, broad, grim, and
dressed in suits of full plate armor—armor only the wealthy could afford.   One
man was taller and more regal than the other standing behind him.  Dirk, seeing
that they were bereft of gauntlets and helms, knew them to be warrior nobles,
like the Stormweathers, not actually soldiers on a mission.  They wore their
ceremonial suits as a sign of status.  A cold glare was in the eyes of the
taller one as Cinder came up behind Dirk.

         “Let them in, Dirk,” she said, trying to
slide him out of the way.  “Come in Lord Tyrluk,” she said with a brief,
informal curtsy.  “Lord, this is my friend, Dirk.  Dirk, this is Lord Tyrluk
and his squire, visitors to our city.   I’ve been asked to show them around.”

         “It was nice meeting you, Dirk.  I guess
you have to be running along,” Tyrluk said smugly and not very nicely.  Dirk
stared at him in an impolite manner.  The squire stepped forward, but was
restrained by his liege.  Dirk clenched his fists in response, ready to send
them flying.

         “Okay,” Cinder said in her spritely way,
bouncing between the men.  “Well Dirk, we
do
have to go,” she urged,
turning to him so only he could see her expression.  Her look was pleading, but
for him, not her.

         “I thought we’d get acquainted here
first,” Tyrluk said, looking down at Cinder’s chest, enticingly pressed up and
out by her corset and concealed very little by her low-cut dress.

         “Oh did you?” she gasped angrily.  Dirk
had never seen Cinder turn down or be insulted by any sexual advancement.  “I’m
not a cheap trollop,” she snapped, hands on hips as she spun around, her hair
flying out behind her.  “And I said
we
had to be going.  When I said we,
I meant Dirk and I, my lord.  I’m afraid you weren’t to come until tomorrow
night.  And now, if I recall, I’m busy then too.  So if you’ll please leave we
will say our good-byes.  Good-bye,” she said smartly, trying weakly and with no
effect whatsoever to close the door on the two large men.  Twillyfoot trilled
and flapped nervously, sensing the growing hostility in the room.  Dirk stepped
forward.  Usually a match for any, Dirk was surprised at the next turn.

         “Get him outside,” the lord ordered, and
the squire grabbed Dirk by the arm.  Dirk hit him, splitting his lip and
spraying blood into the squire’s own face.  It briefly stunned him, but again,
undaunted, he grabbed Dirk.  As Dirk belted him once more, the lord brought a
mighty kick up under Dirk’s leather jerkin, into his unprotected groin.  Dirk
fell immediately to the floor, coughing.  Both men grabbed Dirk, Tyrluk
realizing it would take two men to subdue the deliveryman, and they dragged him
out into the street.   Dirk rose unsteadily but was hit by Tyrluk before he
could stand fully.  The squire shoved his steel-encased knee into Dirk’s chin
and he felt his teeth smashed together.  Dirk fell back, dazed, and Tyrluk
kicked the downed man in the face. 

         Dirk heard Cinder’s pleading voice and
the click of her shoes as she ran up, trying to reach him.  With his vision
clouded by tears, blood and dizziness, Dirk could barely make out the sight of
Tyrluk lifting Cinder by the waist and dragging her back inside.  The squire
kicked Dirk in the stomach several times and even through his leather armor,
the blows knocked the wind from him.  Then Dirk was repeatedly kicked in the
face and head.  He heard Cinder begging and screaming for him as she was pulled
back inside.  Dirk tried to rise one last time, but another kick to his head
brought darkness and release from his immense pain.

         Dirk woke choking on his own blood and to
the sound Cinder’s sweet but distressed voice begging and pleading for
something he did not know.  He could not tell which way was up, but before his
eyes, he saw the stars come slowly into focus, blinking at him.  Cinder’s voice
seemed to be coming closer, as in a dream.  He tried to sit up, but the world
spun so quickly around him that he lay back down.  Dirk realized he was lying
on something soft.  It was Cinder; his head was in her lap, and though his face
was too numb to feel, she was caressing and kissing him.  When she looked down,
Dirk noticed lip paint smeared on her chin, then realized it was no paint at
all, but blood.  “Mine?” he wondered, “from kissing me?”  But then he noticed
that the corner of her mouth was purple and swollen; she had been hit.