Irons in the Fire (36 page)

"It wasn't so arduous." Karn took the goblet and sipped. The water was lightly flavoured with fresh mint. "The roads are dry and clear and summer days are long."

Lady Alaric leaned back and crossed her graceful ankles. "What does Hamare want to know?"

Where to begin? Karn sat cross-legged, a humble suppliant. The golden carpet of thick northern wool was comfortable enough. "Duchess Litasse wishes to know what Sharlac's vassal lords make of Duke Moncan's seclusion."

Lady Alaric shrugged. "They respect his mourning for his lost heir."

"Not all of them." Karn hesitated, as if he were picking an example at random. "Lord Rousharn, for instance. You must have heard that he didn't hesitate to offend Duke Moncan. I believe his wife's here in Vanam?"

"She's gone home. No one was interested in her whining." Lady Alaric looked severely at him. "Don't fence with me, Karn. Master Hamare cannot really be interested in petty noblewomen lamenting their husbands' wounded dignity."

"Indeed." He let his sheepish grin suggest he had been trifling with her. "He does want to know if Duke Garnot of Carluse's whore is in Vanam."

Lady Alaric stared down at him, perfect lips parted. "That's the rumour on the road now?"

"You know different?" Karn took another drink, effortlessly concealing his dislike of mint.

Lady Alaric was amused. "Why's Hamare interested in a runaway doxy?"

"The girl may be willing to trade whatever she knows of Duke Garnot's plans for the coin to put another three hundred leagues between the two of them." Karn shrugged. "Duchess Litasse is concerned that Duke Garnot is still intent on attacking Sharlac."

"Those reports of new silver lodes in Triolle's mines must be true if Hamare's ready to throw good coin after a bad girl." Lady Alaric considered the play of the candlelight on her faceted goblet. "I'm sorry to say you're in the wrong city. Duke Garnot's whore is in Relshaz." Her beautiful face hardened. "She narrowly escaped the choice between accepting Duke Ferdain of Marlier's protection or being confined to entertain his household guard until they tired of her."

Karn had heard as much in several taverns along his journey. "As to Marlier, there's rumour that Vanam merchants are recruiting in the mercenary camps along the banks of the Rel. Do you know anything about that?"

"Only that it's arrant nonsense." Lady Alaric laughed with genuine hilarity. "That tale's so old it has rust on it!"

"I have it from more than one source." Karn felt his pulse quicken. Was she trying to deceive him?

"Do your sources explain what these woolly-minded merchants are supposedly looking for among the wolf's-heads?" she asked promptly.

"They want leaders for a brigade of young exiles." Karn made a show of admitting more than he should. "A handful of men have told me that Markasir and the Gale Crag Men have taken this Vanam coin."

"I have my doubts about your sources." Lady Alaric wrinkled her nose attractively. "Markasir is in Tormalin, teaching elegant young nobles how to hold a sword without cutting themselves before they brave these new lands on the far side of the Ocean." She relaxed in her chair. "We're already twenty-some days into Aft-Summer and a witless cabal of exiles wants to send a rabble of youthful enthusiasts into battle? When the fighting season's all but over? Who are they supposed to be fighting and how are they to be armed or fed? Have you any reports of wheat or weapons being stockpiled anywhere?"

"Not as yet, but if the weather holds, battles have been fought as late as Aft-Autumn," Karn pointed out.

"True," Lady Alaric acknowledged. "Which is when Duke Garnot of Carluse intends to attack Marlier, according to my sources. Which is why Duke Ferdain of Marlier went to such lengths to get his hands on that whore. You'll find Duke Garnot is the one recruiting mercenaries. He's covering his tracks by shining up this old rumour about exiles coming back from Ensaimin to fight. You can tell Duchess Litasse she has nothing to fear on Sharlac's account."

"You've heard nothing among the Lescari here?" Karn felt the first suspicion of doubt. Could Hamare be seeing Eldritch Kin in a curtain's shadows?

"Nothing." Lady Alaric set her glass of water down and looked sharply at Karn. "So, I'll have something from you, if you please. Why haven't we seen warfare in eastern Lescar this summer?"

Karn was content to tell the truth. "Emperor Tadriol has made it very clear to both Duke Secaris of Draximal and Duke Orlin of Parnilesse that he will take it sorely amiss if fighting spills over the River Asilor to threaten Tormalin homes and harvests."

"Tadriol isn't just called 'the Prudent' by the princes of Tormalin's noble convocation. He's more popular with the merchantry than anyone on that throne for three generations." Lady Alaric considered this, her violet eyes shrewd. "Imperial troops will soon be dispatched if mercenaries start plundering the wagons bringing furs and metals and strings of horses south from Inglis and Dalasor."

"I'm surprised you haven't heard this yourself," Karn remarked. "Haven't the rabble-rousers behind all those broadsheets and night letters castigating Duke Orlin of Parnilesse found refuge in Vanam?"

"No one's interested in such things here." Lady Alaric brushed that aside. "But Draximal and Parnilesse could still fight within their own borders."

"Not without mercenaries, and it appears that fighting men see no profit in the notion," Karn said frankly. "Neither duke has enough good coin to pay a warband more than a tenth of the usual hire at the outset. The mercenaries know that the battles will trample the harvests of both dukedoms into the mud. There won't be anything left to sell for the coin to pay them or for them to plunder on their own account."

"Nor anything left for the peasants, whenever they come out from the hedgerows where they're hiding. I don't imagine their cold, hungry winter weighs much in the balance."

Karn looked up at Lady Alaric, surprised by her bitterness. She smiled thinly at him.

"You're Marlier-born, like me. I can still hear it in your voice. We've both lain awake in a ruined hovel knowing that breakfast will be a cup of rain and a taste of fresh air."

He scowled despite himself. "We've both left that life behind us."

"We have." She pointed her toes. "Rub my feet for me?"

"Of course." He set down his goblet and shifted so he could rest her ankle on his thigh.

She stiffened as he pressed strong fingers into her sole. "Tell me your tale."

Karn hadn't expected reminiscence to be part of his payment. He reviewed what passed for his history, as far as anyone still living knew. He wasn't about to share the true tale of his childhood with Lady Alaric or anyone else.

"We were burned out. I lost my family in the confusion. I've made my own way ever since."

"Selling what other folk had abandoned. What you could steal when needs must," she mused. "Selling yourself?"

He looked up to challenge her. "Didn't you?"

"My family and I stayed together." Her glorious eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I had elder sisters willing to sell themselves into marriage for all our sakes."

"Your beauty must have brought you offers." Karn took her other foot in his hands.

"It was the bread that convinced me not to wed," she said reflectively.

"I'm sorry?" Bemused, his fingers slowed.

"Stale bread." She wriggled her toes to prompt him to continue. "When my sisters were about to wed, they each made up their first household book. My mother let them copy recipes from her own. So many puddings and pottages rely on stale bread." Her generous lip curled. "The leavings from some noble's table, so generously thrown to the poor, as long as it's not needed for fattening the pigs. I decided marriage wasn't for me. I was going to eat fresh white bread every day."

"I can sympathise with that ambition." Karn caressed the swell of her calf. "But life can be lonely without family."

He made sure his words were hollow with loss. She was beautiful, and he'd wager all Hamare's gold that she was no shrinking virgin. Taking her to bed would be no hardship, and what might she tell him in the unguarded intimacy following lovemaking? Because he was certain she wasn't telling him as much as she could.

What more might he learn if he wept on her breast, cradled in her arms somewhere between child and lover? Just as long as he could hold himself back until ecstasy washed over her to drown her alertness? As long as he didn't fall asleep straight away. It had been a very long day.

She surprised him by tucking her feet beneath the chair, straightening her skirts as she leaned forward. "I don't think we had better mix business with pleasure." Lifting his chin with one manicured finger, she kissed him gently on the forehead.

Was he imagining the regret in her voice? He looked up at her, guileless. "I won't tell if you won't."

She stroked his cheek, softly chiding. "Don't tempt me."

He twisted his head to kiss her hand. "Another time? When we don't have any business to conclude?"

"We haven't concluded our business here." She sat back. "There's something that you may tell Master Hamare, with my good wishes."

Her sudden seriousness caught Karn's interest. "What might that be?"

"It concerns the propriety of mixing business and pleasure." She looked at him, unblinking. "Master Hamare has been instructing Duchess Litasse in her wifely duty to gather news and rumour from duchesses, vassals' wives, maids and seamstresses. That's only to be expected. However, it would do Master Hamare no good at all if word reached Duke Iruvain that his spymaster has been teaching his bride a whole gamut of wifely skills, in bed and out of it." She shook her head, chestnut ringlets catching the candlelight. "Don't worry. There's been the barest whisper and I've made it my business to crush it. I value Master Hamare too highly to see him brought low by scandal. But he needs to be more careful. They both do."

How did Lady Alaric know? Karn set that question aside with some difficulty. "He'll be in your debt."

"Think nothing of it." She waved a dismissive hand. "Does he love her?"

That was an unexpected question. How could Karn say if Hamare loved Litasse when he had no idea what love might be? All he ever had was duty, and the most that warmed him was satisfaction for a job well done. "I don't know."

"No, I don't suppose you do." Lady Alaric laughed and rose from her chair with a silken rustle. "Now, you must forgive me, but it's late."

He got quickly to his own feet. "May I call on you tomorrow?"

"Naturally." She smiled. "Bring Master Hamare's gold and we'll settle the reckoning for what I've told you tonight."

"Of course." He bowed low. "Less the value of what I've told you."

"Naturally. So, till tomorrow, Master Karn, goodnight." She dipped the briefest of curtseys before heading for the door, only pausing to pull on the bell rope. "My maid will show you out."

As Karn followed, the maidservant was already waiting in the panelled hall. Unsmiling, though not unfriendly, she ushered him through the front door.

She did look familiar. He stood outside, exasperated. If he couldn't recall where he'd seen her, he'd have a hard time sleeping tonight, no matter how weary he was.

He began walking, keeping half an eye open for Watchmen as he tried to think where he could possibly have seen Lady Alaric's maid.

It came to him just as he reached the forbidding gatehouse jealously guarding access to Vanam's upper town. He'd seen her by the gatehouse of that captured bridge in Draximal. Emirle Bridge.

Had it been Lady Alaric in that luxurious coach? Who else could it have been? What dealings did she have with mercenaries that enabled her to pass, only paying a toll of kisses from her maid? A maid who had been affronted but by no means outraged. She hadn't feared rape, not from what Karn had seen.

If Lady Alaric had been travelling in Draximal and Parnilesse that spring, why was she pretending to know so little about the state of affairs in eastern Lescar?

"Where are you headed?" The Watchman guarding the small door cut in the great gate stepped forward to shine his lantern on Karn.

"Just to the western slope of the Teravin," Karn assured him.

The Watchman grunted. "You watch your step and hurry along, lad."

"Thank you." Karn ducked his head through the low lintel, careful not to trip over the high threshold.

Youthful, slightly built and not wearing a sword, he knew he looked like prey for the ruffians who hid in the wooded gullies along with the feral pigs. The Watchman wasn't to know he could pluck a hidden knife from his boot, quick as lightning, to gut an attacker. Karn wouldn't lose any sleep over another death swiftly and silently delivered.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Aremil

Beacon Lane, in Vanam's Upper Town,

21
^st
of Aft-Summer

"Where have you been?" Flustered, Lyrlen jerked the door open.

"I'm sorry?" Aremil was taken aback.

"You have guests." Lyrlen smoothed her apron with agitated hands.