Sourcethief (Book 3) (5 page)

"Oh no. You haven't flown free quite yet. I may
forgive you, but not yet," Soria said.

"What if I cleared the path between you and
Brannis in Veydrus?" Rakashi asked as he pulled on his tunic.

"You bastard. You did this
for me
?"

"Iridan was violent. By your own word and by
all measure I have taken of him, Brannis has been unfailingly kind to you. Yes,
I did it for you."

Soria swallowed a rising lump in her throat, but she
could not refute his argument.
Did I secretly wish him dead?

"Get out of here. We can talk about this back
in Veydrus. I have a party to dress for."

* * * * * * *
*

Dinner that night was lavish, hosted by Lord Harwick
in his son's home. Brannis had gone home to change into more formal attire and
retrieve Soria. By the time they returned, a number of other guests had already
arrived. Minor noblemen and gentlemen from the Society of Learned Men filled
Tomas Harwick's sitting room as their wives congregated in the foyer; the
former smoked pipes and drank brandy, the latter sipped wine while partaking of
pastry cakes and gossip. Brannis deposited Soria among the ladies, for which he
received a withering glare. He shrugged it away with an amused smile and went
to join Lord Harwick's peers.

There was one young man in the sitting room who
looked out of place. He had met the lad before, but Brannis hardly recognized
Neelan Tillman with his hair combed, the light scruff shaved from his cheeks,
and a well-tailored suit wrapped around him. The suit fit him ill—in spirit, if
not in its shape—causing him to squirm and chafe against the stiff, starched collar
and fight with unruly ruffles. Brannis nodded acknowledgement to him as he
looked for his host.

Soria passed the time drinking more than her share
of the wine. Getting drunk enough to enjoy the company of the lighthearted,
lightheaded ladies was difficult, since the wine seemed to have been cut with
juice. She knew she would have only found herself a different sort of bored
were she to intrude upon the stodgy old men in the other room, so she hung
around the periphery of conversations, trying to look interested and keep from
being engaged directly.

"Good evening Lady Soria," a lyrical voice
called out behind her.

"Miss Abbiley, how are you this fine
evening?" Soria replied. She was enough of a natural actress to betray
none of the antipathy she felt for the girl—unfairly she realized, since
Abbiley seemed a sweet girl, but that was almost the point. Soria had visited
the girl's studio some two months prior in disguise—nothing elaborate, just
hair, eyes, mannerisms. As near as Soria could tell, Abbiley had never drawn
the connection between her and "Darlah Silverweave." For an artist,
it seemed an unforgivable lack of observational skill.

"Oh, wonderful. Isn't this a splendid party?
I'm sure it's all stale bread to you by now, but I can't get used to all this
finery," Abbiley turned about as she spoke, gawking at the surroundings.
It was the same manor that Abbiley visited regularly, just filled with wealthy
personages, extra servants, and more food and drink than usual.

"I don't suppose that I've ever gotten used to
these affairs," Soria admitted. "It's the clothes, the dressing up
special, pretending that's what is important, trying to impress everyone else
while they try to impress you in return. Too often I spoil the effect by
failing to act snooty enough to match my dress. Everyone else wishes they could
act like normal folk too, but they all cluck their tongues like it’s some
serious offense."

"Well, everyone has been very kind to me. If I
have been spoiling anything they have yet to mention it," Abbiley replied.

Of course not,
Soria mused.
You are lowborn,
so they expect it of you. They overlook it all for the novelty.

"I am sure you are just naturally suited to
these affairs," Soria replied. She gave a little nod to indicate she would
be continuing along to other parts of the gathering and managed to avoid
Abbiley for the remainder of the wait until the servants gathered them to the
table for dinner.

"How are you holding up?" Brannis
whispered in Soria's ear as he pulled out her chair and helped her to her seat.

"I played nice with your peasant girl,"
Soria whispered in reply, using Kadrin in case anyone overheard. It was a
fringe benefit of being a bit exotic; her Kheshi accent made it perfectly
plausible for her to be speaking in a foreign language in hushed conversations
at the table. It might have been considered a bit rude, but far less so than
what she had actually said.

The conversation improved over dinner with the
mixing of the sexes. Lord Harwick in particular knew everyone, and his voice
carried the length of the table, allowing Brannis and Soria to hear him from
the far end where they were seated. Still, it was a dinner party; there was a
limit to how interesting conversation was allowed to get.

After a fine dinner of Feru boar—imported live and
butchered just that morning—the servants came and refilled everyone's
wineglasses. Lord Harwick rose to speak, and his guests fell quiet.

"Lords and Ladies, if I might have your
attention for just a moment." Lord Harwick paused for form's sake, since all
eyes were already turned his way. "This gathering tonight was at the
behest of my son Tomas. Lest I use up all the wind in the room first, I will
allow him the chance to speak."

"Thank you, father," Tomas said as he rose
and Lord Harwick sat. The boyish nobleman's face was plastered with a goofy
smile as he stood for a moment, looking out over the guests. Soria looked
sidelong at Brannis. She knew he could not see what was coming. She took his
hand under the table. "Thank you, everyone, for joining us tonight. I look
out and see friends old and new, and no finer friends could a man wish for.
Thus it is before all of you as witnesses that I ask," he turned to
Abbiley, "Abbiley Tillman, would you marry me?"

Abbiley froze, her expression blank. When the realization
dawned, she said nothing, but leapt from her seat to wrap her arms about
Tomas's neck. Tomas laughed as he recovered from his surprise and wrapped his
own arms about her waist to keep them from overbalancing and toppling to the
floor.

Soria felt Brannis's hand tighten around hers; she
squeezed back. She knew it was Kyrus's memories making it hard on him, but also
that he had been growing to see himself and Kyrus, more and more, as the two
sides of a coin, just the way she saw Juliana. Both sides of her had been in
love with Brannis as far back as she cared to remember, but it was still new to
him, and he struggled with conflicting feelings about Abbiley. Soria hated it.

"I shall take that as a 'yes' then?" Tomas
said, still laughing.

"Oh yes, yes!" Abbiley gushed. There was
cheering and applause. Soria released Brannis's hand and kicked him beneath the
table—it took two kicks before he realized he ought to clap as well. One of
Tomas's friends gave a toast to the betrothed couple, and the atmosphere of the
party brightened with talk of a wedding.

It was some time before it was polite for Brannis
and Soria to leave, but Soria took Brannis away from the manor as soon as that
time arrived.

"I don't know why he felt we needed to be there
for that," Soria said as they walked home. They carried their cloaks
despite the cold night air. Both had gotten drunk during the celebration, and
the warmth of the alcohol kept them from noticing the weather much.

"He had a point to make," Brannis said
deliberately, fighting his way around a slur. "You and me here. No Abbiley
for Kyrus. No Abbiley for Brannis to keep until Kyrus gets home. Kyrus takes
Celia, at least for now," Brannis amended quickly, fearing to anger Soria
when he was too drunk to defend himself properly. "We can figure out Kyrus
and Juliana someday, I think."

"You and me, huh?" Soria said.

"Yup."

"I'm holding you to that," Soria said. She
slid her arm through Brannis's and squeezed tight.

* * * * * * *
*

The bazaars of Marker's Point swarmed with bodies.
Cloth of red, yellow, brown, and a hundred other colors swirled in a chaotic
dance without rhythm or harmony. A dozen languages were shouted, one louder
than the next, as hawkers sought to drown out their competitors and merchants
and buyers haggled over the din. A horse and wagon cleared a small space as
folk kept a wary distance from hoof and wheel; a man with a wicker basket of
bread rolls would routinely use it as a ram to batter his way through the
throngs. The only way to reliably navigate the city without harassment was to
appear dangerous. Hulking bodies and openly carried weapons hinted at the
possibility of violence.

A sheathed sword and a pistol tucked into the front
of a pair of trousers were a good way to keep from being bothered. Tanner
perused the stalls of the marketplace at leisure. The shielding spell he cast
each morning was still offering its protection. He browsed idly, not much
interested in purchasing anything. It was a break from his routine, from the
incessant wobbling of the decks beneath his feet. The bazaar was a potpourri of
smells that were never meant to be mixed: musky spices, cooked meats, sawdust,
leather, perfumes, and the perspiring bodies of men and women from a hundred
different cultures. It still was a better odor than the cloying stink of
four-score pirates sweating, drinking and pissing within the close confines of
the
Fair Trader's
hull.

"How much for the flagon?" Tanner inquired
on a whim. He had taken a sudden fancy to a pewter vessel hanging amid a host
of others similar to it. If he ever managed to rejoin his companions, it would
make a fine gift for Zellisan.

"Two hundred fonns," the peddler replied
with a thick Kheshi accent. Tanner frowned, checking the heft of his coin purse
and trying to remember its contents.

"I haven't got any fonns. Can you change a
trade bar?" He pulled one of the finger-sized square bars of gold from his
purse and held it up for the merchant's inspection.

"Bah, go find moneychanger. I not have that
much coin in whole cart. You buy everything, I take trade bar, else you come
back with fonn."

Tanner gave the peddler's cart a dismissive look and
shoved the trade bar back into his coin purse. He made use of one of the better
Kheshi curse words Soria had taught him as he turned to leave, and received a
long string of Kheshi in return, none of which he understood.

As he continued through the endless markets, he felt
a tingling in the back of his neck. He had developed an instinct from his years
working in the roughest parts of cities; he was being followed. The same men,
seen too many times—first at the bootblack stall, then at the peddler with the
spitted sausages, and again as he left the pewtersmith. He had not gotten a
good look yet to confirm it, but he trusted the instincts that had kept him alive
over the years—a coinblade's life was best suited to someone paranoid.

Ducking into a storefront, he purchased a
wide-brimmed hat. Though he had not stopped to check his reflection, he knew he
must look ridiculous in it. That was the point. He headed back down the street
he had been on, moving hastily through the crowd and looking all about him as
he went; when he saw what he was searching for, he would know it.  If he was
indeed being followed, then his pursuers could not possibly have lost track of
him. He kept up his pace. The streets of Marker's Point ran miles along the
crescent-moon shape of the city.

Up ahead, Tanner saw a girl—a young slip of a
thing—carrying a tall wicker basket balanced on her head. If you included the
basket, she was nearly his height. He quickened his pace to catch up with her
and gently slipped the hat from his head and onto the top of the basket she
carried. The hat and Tanner parted ways at the next cross-street.

“Well, Marker's Point, it has been fun yet again,”
Tanner whispered as a small knot of unsavory ruffians rushed by to pursue the
hat. Denrik's men had been looking for him. Tanner sighed. On the upside, even
had those pirates caught him, all they were likely to do was fetch him on the
captain's behalf. The downside was that it likely meant the end of shore leave.

Tanner saw no reason to find the crewmen and remedy
the misunderstanding. They would find their own way back to the
Fair Trader
.
He headed back to the ship himself, making no great haste about it, feeling the
ground pressing up against his feet as he walked and savoring the uniformity,
the predictability of it. He was a swordsman, trained to keep his movements
balanced, so finding his sea legs never caused much trouble, but he found that
he missed the land the more time he spent away from it.

Upon his arrival back at the
Fair Trader's
berth, he greeted Captain Zayne. "You were looking for me?" Tanner
had found it interesting that the captain almost never left the ship, no matter
the time they spent in port. He had seen the man with soil beneath his feet
perhaps twice.

"Indeed I was," Captain Zayne replied, his
gaze wandering past Tanner. It seemed that the captain had expected Tanner to
have been brought to him, not to have come of his own accord. "Come in and
shut the door behind you."