Draykon (3 page)

Her carriage came
to a stop and Eva drew back the curtain that covered the freezing
glass window. Her coachman opened the door for her and she stepped
out with a smile, pulling her wrap as close around her shoulders as
possible. She stepped quickly into the tailor's shop, shuddering
with cold. Baynson was in the back, but he came running quickly
enough when she rang the bell.

'Good morning,
Mr. Baynson. I'm afraid there's been a small incident regarding the
gown I purchased last week, and I'll be needing another. Before the
ball.' She didn't smile. Baynson wasn't the type to appreciate it.
He regarded her with an air of grave disapproval as she delivered
this piece of bad news, his thin eyebrows careening up his face
towards his nearly bald head.

'You'll forgive
my saying so, your ladyship, but summoner or not, you ought to keep
them animals away from your wardrobe. Ten to one something'd happen
to your finery sooner or later.'

'Sage advice, Mr.
Baynson, but in this case the culprit was one of my maids. Not her
fault; these things do happen. Naturally I will pay you a
considerable bonus if you are able to make me a replacement in
time.'

Baynson tutted
and tossed his head, muttering unflattering observations under his
breath. Eva waited. The man was rude, uncouth and unpleasant but he
was the best tailor in Glour City.

'I'll get it
done,' he conceded at last. 'It'll take a lot extra, though. I'll
have to pull my girls off a couple of other orders.'

'Fine.' Eva
untied her purse from her waist and opened it. She had to count
quite a large number of coins into Bayson's hands before he was
satisfied, but this was to be expected with him.

'Same as before,
I take it?'

She thought for a
moment. 'Yes, but perhaps you could drop the neckline just a
little. On the last one it was practically demure.'

Baynson tutted
some more. 'Don't want to make a spectacle of yourself, your
ladyship. A low neckline's the province of a woman who's not fit
for polite company.'

Eva laughed. 'On
the contrary, making a spectacle of myself is precisely my
intention. I'm no debutante at her first season. On me, "demure"
would look unforgivably coy.'

Baynson grunted.
'Reckon you could get away with it, praps,' he conceded, eyeing her
figure in a manner devoid of all but dry professional
interest.

'I'm certain of
it. If there is an advantage to being barely shy of forty, it is
that I am a mature woman quite able to carry off a hint or two of
the provocative. And I'm quite determined to, while I still have
the figure for it.'

'Forty, ma'am?
You don't look a day over thirty-two.'

'That is my
official age, Mr. Baynson, naturally, but I trust you not to give
me away.'

Baynson flicked
his hands at her in a shooing gesture. 'Very well, get thee gone.
I've a deal of work to do. Come back in four days. It'll be
ready.'

Eva smiled
warmly. 'Thank you, Mr. Baynson. I can always rely on
you.'

***

Later, Eva sat
dejectedly in the large wing-back chair in her office, her feet
tucked under her skirts and her hands thrust into her shawl. Was it
completely
impossible to keep warm in this cursed chill?
Interviewing was one of her least favourite duties: she had gone
through six applicants in the last three hours and none of them had
been suitable. She now awaited the seventh, wondering whether she
could get away with pulling her chair a little closer to the
heating pipes.

A knock came at
the door before she could put this plan into action, and her
seventh interviewee appeared. This one was a woman she didn't
recognise, apparently a little older than Eva herself. She wore
plain, unaffected clothing and an air of cool capability that
seemed promising. The previous six had been mostly men, mostly
young, and mostly cocky. They had also mostly tried to flirt with
her. Eva looked on this with the stern eye of decided disapproval.
There was no place for flirtation when she was at work.

'Oona Temble,'
the woman introduced herself. 'I'm from the Summoner Guild in
Orstwych.' She didn't curtsey, or even bow: instead she approached
the desk and offered Eva her hand. Eva shook it. It may have been a
departure from protocol, but she rather liked Oona's
straightforward manner.

'Sit down, Ms.
Temble,' Eva said. 'Thank you for coming all this way to talk to
me. I'd like to be able to offer you some cayluch, but my last
interviewee seems to have been something of an addict.' She tapped
the cold cayluch pot sitting on her desk, which rang
emptily.

'That's quite all
right, Lady Glostrum. I'm not thirsty.' Oona sat down in the chair
Eva indicated. Her hair was short, rather against the prevailing
fashions, and threaded with grey. The unpretentious style suited
her strong face.

'You'll be aware
that the position is a new creation. When new summoners come out of
the Academy, they're still woefully ill-informed about the reality
of a summoner's work. We're in desperate need of someone to take
them in hand and give them a bit more practical education in animal
acquisition and training. I'm looking for somebody to head up this
proposed department.'

Oona nodded.
'Your notion was it, Lady Glostrum?'

'Yes, I believe
it was.'

Oona raised her
brows sceptically. 'I see.'

'Does that
surprise you, Ms. Temble?'

'Somewhat,' said
Oona blandly. 'You don't strike a person as made for practical
measures, if you'll forgive my mentioning it.'

'Excellent.
Plain-speaking is exactly what I need for this role.'

Oona lifted her
brows again.

'Ah, you expected
to find a pampered and temperamental noblewoman, good for nothing
but the ornamental and essentially incapable of useful activity.
Well, that's understandable if you read the papers. Let's just
agree that appearances can be deceiving and leave it at that, hm?'
She stood up, smiling down at Oona's eminently capable face
wreathed in an expression of mild surprise. 'I'd like you to begin
in two days, Ms. Temble. Your first task will be to choose your
department members. I've budgeted for up to five to begin with.
You'll inform me if that's insufficient.'

Oona pulled
herself together. 'Thank you, Lady Glostrum. I'd best make my
preparations.' She smiled then, unexpectedly. 'I've a feeling it
may be interesting working with you.'

Eva chuckled.
'Let's hope so, indeed.'

***

Eva had a desk at
home as well. She had resisted getting one for a long time after
her appointment to the role of High Summoner, preferring to keep
her professional and private lives separate. But at last she had
capitulated. She was too often obliged to carry paperwork home with
her, and she needed somewhere to keep it. At least she could keep
her study as warm as she liked.

Her agenda was
becoming complicated. Her working hours for the next few days would
be occupied with introducing Oona to her new role and setting up
the department. She anticipated some extra hours at the Summoners'
Hall, a prospect which sank her spirits. No power in the Darklands
could keep that place even remotely warm.

On top of that,
there were still preparations outstanding for the ball. Fortunately
the Darklands Market was scheduled for the morrow. Eva knew she
could send servants to do her shopping for her, and certainly she
would take some of them along as her assistants. She liked to visit
herself, though. The Market always had an air of jovial confusion
which delighted her, and its sheer variety of wares was no less
enthralling. She planned to go in search of some rare curios and
delicacies for the ball. She wondered, briefly, whether to take her
fiance with her, but she decided against it. There was more than
enough speculation circulating already.

Eva worked until
her fingers grew cramped from holding her pen and her eyes refused
to focus. At last she retired to bed. As she sank gratefully under
her blankets, appreciating the warmth of the stone hot water
bottles that warmed the layers, it occurred to her that she would
not have this space to herself for much longer. In a little over a
moon, she would be bound to share her free time, her personal space
and her body with one man for the rest of her life. As if in
defiance of this thought, Eva positioned herself in the middle of
the bed and stretched her limbs out as far as they would go. She
smiled. At least she could enjoy the vestiges of her freedom in the
meantime.

Chapter Three

Llandry stood on
the edge of the Darklands Market, watching the surging crowds of
Daylanders and Darklanders who gathered to admire and purchase its
myriad wares. Held on the southern edge of Glour, its position
within the Seven Realms was nearly central, and it attracted
visitors from most of the realms. She saw many Glour citizens
browsing the stalls, dressed in full gowns or tailored coats, their
hair typically dark brown or black. Many small, slender Glinnish
folk were present, honey-skinned and winged like herself. She saw a
group of Orstwych Sorcerers, their draping robes painted in every
imaginable colour. Nimdrens filled the air with their musical
tongue, their chatter mingling oddly with the precise, clipped
speech of Irbellian shoppers. Llandry regarded them all uneasily,
hiding herself within the folds of her dark blue cloak.

Every single one
of these people represented a threat. She knew that if any of them
spoke to her, she would freeze and stammer, unable to string
sentences together under the pressure of their expectant gaze. And
yet, she was here as a vendor. It was her job to be
communicative.

How she wished
she had her mother's easy way with strangers. Nothing ever fazed
Mamma. She had all the confidence that Llandry had never known; she
conducted herself in company with a combination of easy
friendliness and quiet, firm dignity that enchanted people. Llandry
loved her with a fierce pride and loyalty, but she could not help
suffering envy. How she wished she could learn that skill. As it
was, she had reached the age of twenty without developing so much
as a shred of it.

She gathered her
courage and stepped into the throng. Threading her way carefully
through the crowds, she clutched her cloak close to herself as if
it could protect her from their glances, their curiosity, their
words. Her stall was near the outer edge of the market - she had
chosen a location near to the relatively open spaces of the Glour
woodlands, in case she should feel the need to escape. Her lips
quirked involuntarily at the thought. As if she should feel the
need? It would be a miracle if she survived more than an hour of
this nightmarish experience without disintegrating.

The market was
always held during the natural night hours, and the moon shone full
overhead. But the skies held a scattering of thick clouds, stunting
the progress of the moon's gentle light. To correct this, the
market organisers had set floating light-globes drifting low
overhead, illuminating the stalls with a cool white glow. The
effect was gentle to Llandry's eyes, just sufficient to see by; but
she noticed that many of the Darklanders wore spectacles with dark
lenses in them, as if the light conditions hurt their eyes. She'd
kept the lights on her own stall to a minimum in response. As a
result, she could barely see the expression of anxiety on her
mother's face as she stood guarding the stall.

'Mamma? Is
something wrong?'

'Goodness, no.
No, love, nothing's wrong. I was wondering if
you
are all
right.' She smiled, but Llandry could still see the shadow of
concern in her face. She sighed inwardly. If her social
inadequacies were a source of pain to her, they were a still
greater source of anxiety to her parents. The thought added guilt
to Llandry's troubled mixture of feelings about herself. She hid it
behind a smile and hugged Ynara.

'It's kind of
you, Mamma, but I'm really all right. I have to learn, don't
I?'

Ynara shrugged
slightly, bending to assist as Llandry began to unpack her boxes.
They worked quickly, and soon her table was covered with Llandry's
jewellery. Gems in rich colours sparkled and winked in the light,
polished metals gleaming with a cooler sheen. The best went in the
centre, her prize pieces: pendants, rings and circlets of pale
silver set with her precious istore stones. They seemed to swallow
the silvery light and throw it back out, gleaming pale and
twinkling under the moonlight. Truly they displayed to their best
under the night time conditions.

As a new vendor,
Llandry had expected - nay, hoped - to go largely unnoticed at her
first market. To her extreme surprise (and terror) she soon found
that her wares were attracting considerable attention. Most of
those who passed her stall stopped to admire her work, and many
bought. They exclaimed over the richness of the colours, the
intricacy of her metalwork, and most of all they pored over the
istore stones.

'I've never seen
anything like this before. Where did it come from?'

'By the Lowers,
there's a sight. Like night itself caught in the metal.
Remarkable.'