Sworn To Transfer (11 page)

The room was empty except for a few early drinkers. The bartenders knew most of the goings-on of the patrons and performers at any inn. Picking the one currently shining mugs and glasses, Ciardis walked over and ordered a cup of hot cider.

“Will the minstrel be playing tonight?” she asked as she handed over two shillings and took her mug.

“Aye, every night. He’s up first on stage,” said the man with the final wipe of a glass. “You should stick around for the jugglers, though,” he continued, tossing the towel onto his shoulder. “Their fire act can’t be beat. Not another one in town.”

“I’ll be sure to,” said Ciardis while walking away.

She took a seat off to the side. Close enough to the stage to take in the details of the minstrel, but far enough into a dark corner to not catch his eye. She wanted to see him first, to know more about him before they met. And they would meet tonight; she had no doubt about that as she fingered the locket in her pouch.

Before an hour had passed, the inn and tables had filled with patrons. Ciardis hoped Terris wasn’t too worried about her. She’d have to fill her in later on why she’d left the gathering earlier than planned.

And then he came on stage. With curly black hair and a small goatee, he looked like many of the minstrels who’d come to Vaneis in traveling caravans. They’d played in the village inns, accepting coins and a free meal for their performances. As many of them did, he carried a lute, a small string instrument with a melodious overtone. But as he began to sing, Ciardis saw why he performed every night, regardless of the fire-tossing jugglers. His voice enraptured the crowd and his ballads brought back memories of times of old.

As he bowed and came offstage, Ciardis maneuvered herself so that she could intercept him on his way to the bar. Coming up to him, she said, “Good sir, may we speak just for a minute?”

“Now for pretty young woman such as yourself, I have quite a few minutes,” he said with a lecherous wink.

Ciardis decided to ignore the lecherous look and speak plainly.

“You knew my mother,” she said simply.

“Your mother, aye?” he said, continuing on to the bar, “I’ve known a lot of women.” Taking a glass of water from the bartender, he said, “And a lot of women have known me. What’s it to you? You my daughter?”

Ciardis grimaced. “I hope not. But I was hoping you could help with some information on her.”

He snorted. “Well, who was this mysterious woman?”

“Lily,” Ciardis said quietly. “Lily Weathervane.”

He turned as pale as a sheet. “You...you cannot be here.” With urgency in his tone, he turned his full attention to her. “Be gone.”

“I can’t,” Ciardis said. “I need to know what you know.”

Ignoring her protests, he opened his instrument case and reached in for a cloak. “Take this and go. I’ll be in my room, number five, in a half hour. Meet me there.”

“I’m not meeting you there,” she protested. “Tell me now.”

“If you truly want to know about your mother,” he said grimly, “you’ll do it.”

Then he walked back onstage without another word.

C
iardis had no choice. She was
not
going to miss a chance to get answers from him. But she wasn’t foolish enough to meet him alone. She stepped outside The Blue Duck Inn and took out the mechanical lighter Stephanie had given her. Holding it down by her waist and shielding it from view, she flicked it open and closed it, hoping the girl would come.

Ten minutes passed, then twenty, and suddenly a cloaked figure emerged out of the evening fog. Walking toward Ciardis with a confident stride, the figure pulled the hood back and Ciardis could see her clearly. It was Stephanie in tight pants, a white shirt, and, oddly enough, with a sword at her waist.

“Thank you for coming,” said Ciardis.

“Let’s go inside,” said Stephanie, looking around the street quickly.

Going in, the two grabbed the nearest table. A waitress came up immediately and asked for their order. As she was preparing to go back to the kitchens, the waitress snapped her fingers at Stephanie to get her attention, “No hidden magical weapons. Tavern rule.”

Stephanie didn’t comment. She simply took out the dagger out of her sleeve and placed it on the table. The waitress didn’t seem interested in making any further fuss and left to get their order ready.

Stephanie traced the edge of the blade with her fingertip. “Why’d you call me here?”

“There’s a minstrel here. He knows my—”

“A minstrel? Is he trying to kill you?”

Ciardis lifted a brow. “Well, no, not precisely.”

Stephanie sheathed her dagger and got up to leave.

Rising quickly, Ciardis latched a desperate hand on her sleeve. “Wait!”

Stephanie looked pointedly at her grip and Ciardis released her quickly—she might lose her hand otherwise.

“I said to only contact me in an emergency,” she hissed, “What about ‘emergency’ don’t you understand?”

“He knew the last Weathervane. Apparently pretty well,” Ciardis said.

“You mean your mother?”

Ciardis nodded, “And the duchess of Carne said I should see him.”

At the mention of Leah of Carne’s name, Stephanie paused. The duchess was one of the most influential women of court and one of the most diabolical. She had her fingers in every pie and was crafty like a spider sitting in a web. Stephanie had yet to figure out if she had been behind Princess Heir Marissa’s scheming, but she suspected so, and so did the Shadow Council. The Princess Heir and Leah were close friends as the Princess Heir grew up and had bonded while the duchess was in the empress’s service. Would that woman be after Ciardis Weathervane? Not unless she had something she wanted.

“All right,” Stephanie said reluctantly. “What’s his name?”

“I don’t know,” said Ciardis, blushing red in embarrassment.

Stephanie didn’t bother commenting.

“But he’s agreed to meet us in his room in five minutes,” Ciardis rushed to add.

“Then let’s go.”

When they reached the ministrel’s room he was already there, waiting with the door cracked. As Stephanie pushed open the door with a cautious hand he looked up from where he was re-stringing his lute on his bed. He stood up slowly and set the lute in his case.

“So you are the one they call the new Weathervane?” he said, “Or at least that is what you’d have me suspect. And who is your partner?”

He looked toward Stephanie, whose hand loitered dangerously close to the sword pommel at her waist.

“Doesn’t matter. Just think of me as an interested party.”

He raised his eyebrows and looked back at Ciardis.

“I could ask you the same question,” she said.

“It’s you who has sought me out.”

“There is only one way to prove I am a Weathervane.”

“A way that would not work on me. You can’t enhance something that I don’t have. I believe your mage kind call us ‘mundane,’” he said, wiggling his fingers.

“My eyes aren’t enough?”

He gave a sharp smile, “Can be faked.”

“Would this convince you, then?” Ciardis said, opening her hand to display the locket.

He turned as pale as a ghost and shook his head. “That...that is a locket I haven’t seen in over thirty years. Where did you get it?”

“From another interested party,” she said.

He swallowed and sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“Why was she planning to run?”

“Why
wasn’t
she, you mean? Your mother had enemies,” he said. “Just like you.”

Ciardis frowned. “The duchess said that she was loved by everyone.”

“The duchess?
Which
duchess?” he said in a voice as cold as frost.

Ciardis exchanged a glance with Stephanie before saying at last, “The duchess of Carne.”

“And she sent you here?”

Ciardis nodded.

He began muttering to himself.

“She knew where you were,” Ciardis said. “She was only trying to help.”

“If you think that woman was helping, you need your ears checked.”

Stephanie interrupted, “What do you know about her?”

“I know the Duchess has been scheming for the throne since the last emperor’s reign.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Ha! You want proof?” he said. “There’s your proof!” He was pointing at the locket in Ciardis’s hand.

“What?” said both Stephanie and Ciardis in confusion.

“It holds records of conversations between the duchess and the first-born son of Emperor Cymus. The one who also disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Leah told me he had been scheming to take the throne from his father. He disappeared one night but there was no proof that the duchess had been involved. After he was gone she turned her attention and friendship to the Princess Heir.”

“And my mother?” asked Ciardis softly. “How would the duchess have gotten this locket from her?”

He sighed heavily. “The night before your mother disappeared, she was supposed to bring the locket to a mage of wind magic and me. The key to opening it takes a mundane and a mage working together in concert. But she never showed.”

“If this is what you say it is, the duchess wouldn’t have just given the locket to Ciardis,” Stephanie pointed out.

“She would if she thought she couldn’t open it by any other means,” he said. “After your mother was accused of crimes against the throne that same night, she disappeared...”

He never got to finish his sentence. A resounding
boom
echoed in the room. The walls of the room shattered and they were all thrown off of their feet.

M
inutes later Ciardis was struggling to remember where she was. Her ears were ringing, her head pounding, and her whole body felt like it had been run over by a horse at full gallop. Pushing herself up on her hands and knees, she felt wooden shards and glass under her hands. The minstrel, who’d been closest to the outer wall, was unconscious on the floor. She was shocked to see a piece of glass the size of her arm sticking out of his shoulder with blood quickly pooling beneath.

Before she could go to him, a voice stopped her. “If you want him to live, you’ll leave him there.” The duchess of Carne stood in the wreckage of the outer wall which had been blown apart. Her silver hair glinting in the moonlight as she smiled and said gently, “And you’ll come with me, Ciardis Weathervane.”

Her head still fuzzy, Ciardis tried to reason out in her head where the woman had come from. The wall was gone, shattered, and in its place stood the duchess. Frowning, Ciardis took in the two guards behind her. One with his hand on the duchess of Carne’s shoulders; an impropriety that usually would not be tolerated. Usually. Ciardis wondered if he had his hand on the duchess to pull her back to safety if necessary. But that couldn’t be the case. There was nothing but open air behind them, where the hole in the wall was.

Blinking Ciardis opened her mage sight and saw that man was glowing. He had some kind of power. It wasn’t the huge glow of a full mage, but it was sizeable enough to get what he needed done.

“I do not have all night,” the duchess snapped. “Take my hand and we’ll be transported back to the palace grounds by my guard. You have my word.”

Ciardis eyed the duchess but couldn’t see a hint of magic on her body. She wasn’t planning on anything nefarious with magic anyway.  At this point it didn’t look like Ciardis had much of a choice.

Ciardis didn’t see Stephanie. Where was she? Abruptly she noticed that half of the wall had come down where the girl had been standing. Was she alive or was she dead?

“Be a good girl and come along,” the duchess said with impatience. “I don’t know how long that minstrel will survive bleeding like that. The sooner we leave, the sooner the healers can arrive.”

Ciardis had the knife up her sleeve. She was contemplating using it, stabbing the duchess and making a run for it. And then the lighter in her pocket lit up with heat against her thigh. Not enough to burn her, but enough to give her caution and hope. Perhaps Stephanie was alive.

Relying on Stephanie wasn’t Ciardis’s preferred option, but then again the duchess might know more about her mother’s last night at court. Then again, she might just try to kill her.

Reluctantly, Ciardis took the duchess’s offered hand. “Good girl.”

And then they were gone.

*****

K
icking off the portion of fallen wall that covered her, Stephanie picked herself up off the floor. Quickly she went over to the minstrel and felt for a pulse. The duchess had been right: He was alive, but barely. The blood was beginning to pool beneath his body and the only thing stopping it from becoming a torrent was the very thing that caused the wound. The glass was preventing more than a trickle from escaping. Which meant Stephanie couldn’t remove it and tend to the wound herself. She had medical training, but not enough to stop the blood flow and heal the wound at the same time.

Her hearing tuned for any movement, she heard what she assumed were tavern patrons beginning to clear the fallen debris from behind the door. When she looked up she saw structural damage to the roof, which would have caused the beams and walls to fall all around them. It would take the rescuers some time to get inside the room, but hopefully they were fast enough to save this man’s life. There was nothing more she could do here. She had to go after that idiot girl.

Stopping quickly for a resupply of weapons in her apartment she left a note for Christian telling him were she’d gone and why. She hoped she’d be on time. Otherwise she feared Ciardis would disappear just like her mother did so many years ago, only this time she would be dead.

Ciardis, the duchess, and her guards reappeared in the court gardens not far from Swan Lake. She snatched the locket from Ciardis’s hands immediately.

“Now,” said the duchess leisurely while holding up the locket, “why don’t we see about destroying this locket, shall we?”

Ciardis stared at her mouth agape.

“Why keep it all these years? Why didn’t you destroy it before?”

The duchess almost snorted. Magic was a fickle thing and objects imbued with residual magic in particular were hard to handle. Walking around Ciardis in circle, she wondered not for the first time if the girl truly was as smart as her mother. And who was her father?