The Raven Ring (10 page)

“My thanks,” Eleret said, wondering briefly how a nonexistent moon could light anything at all. She nodded and went out. She found Prill waiting to escort her back to the main door, and persuaded her to take her to a different exit, in case Gorchastrin was still watching the front entrance. In a few moments she was on the street once more. She kept a sharp watch all the way back to the inn, but this time no one followed her or attempted to stop her, and she reached her room without incident.

FIVE

N
O ONE OCCUPIED THE
front room at the Broken Harp when Eleret came through it on her way to her quarters. Inside, she inspected the chamber quickly but thoroughly, then barred the door. As she dropped the kit bag on the bed, she breathed a sigh of relief. After all that had happened, she had been half afraid she would find someone waiting in her room.

Eleret shook her head. She had thought that once she collected her mother’s things everything would be simple; instead, matters seemed to grow more complicated by the minute. Who was Gorchastrin? Was he working with the unpleasant and overeager Maggen, or did they each have a different reason for wanting Tamm’s kit? Was either of them behind the attempts to break into Commander Weziral’s office, or was that the work of yet another person? And what, exactly, were all of them after?

Frowning, she opened the kit and dumped its contents on the straw-stuffed pallet. Perhaps if she took a closer look, she would find some clue. She had not had time at Weziral’s office to examine everything as carefully as she would have liked.

She began with the kit itself. It was the same one Tamm always carried whenever she left the mountains. The leather was a little more faded and one of the thongs had been replaced, but that was all. It even had the same smell, a blend of trail dust and old leather and the slightly rancid oil Tamm had insisted on using to keep it supple.

The outline of the bag blurred, and Eleret had to pause and blink the tears from her eyes.
Stop that,
she told herself fiercely.
You have a task to finish.
She raised her eyes to the corner of the ceiling and kept them there, forcing herself to think about Maggen and Gorchastrin, until the burning ache of unshed tears subsided. Then she took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and returned doggedly to her work.

An oblong whetstone seemed a safe enough item to examine next; one couldn’t get too sentimental over a stone. It looked perfectly ordinary, and Eleret began to feel more composed. There was a depression down the center, where years of metal stroking along it had worn the stone away. Years… Eleret remembered her mother sitting before the fire, knives and arrowheads laid ready to hand, telling the story of the duel between Morravik and the Varnan wizard Ilarna del Bifromar, with the hiss of steel against stone as a steady accompaniment. She dropped the stone as if it had turned red-hot in her hand, and reached blindly for something else.

Her hand closed on a wad of wool stockings knotted around something hard. Slowly, she unwound them and found a wooden spoon, short and thick and square, made for eating from rather than for stirring the pot. Her father had carved it to replace the last one Tamm had broken, just before she left. Eleret remembered the two of them laughing about it, and her father’s warning to Tamm to take better care of this one. Apparently, Tamm had tried. Eleret stared at the spoon, and suddenly her tears welled up and spilled over.

This time, control was impossible. Wrenching sobs shook her until she could breathe only in harsh gasps. Tears burned her eyes and cheeks. Her mind seemed to split in two, half of it swept away by the unexpected wave of grief, the other half coldly calculating how loudly she could cry without being heard outside the room. She stuffed a fist into her mouth to muffle the sound and rocked back and forth where she sat, while the grieving half of her mind chanted,
Never again, you’ll never laugh with her again, she’ll never tell stories again, never give you advice you don’t want, never, never again…

A long time later, Eleret stopped crying. Her eyes were sore, and the room seemed too bright and sharp to look on comfortably. Her lips tasted of salt, her nose was too stuffed up to breathe through, and her face felt hot and prickly. She wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands, wondering with a kind of desperation how much time was left before the mid-afternoon meal. If she looked as ravaged as she felt, it might be hours before she could be sure that her face no longer revealed too much.

Eleret swallowed, blinked, and looked down. She caught a glimpse of the scattered belongings on the bed and in an instant was halfway to tears once more. Hastily, she averted her eyes, rising as she turned away. She had to find something else to do, something to occupy her mind for a few minutes while she regained her composure. She reached for the pitcher and washbasin on the table beside the window.

Water sloshed over the lip of the pitcher as Eleret began to pour; the innkeeper’s wife had filled it too full. Eleret ignored the puddle on the tabletop and the dampness dribbling down the front of her skirt. When the washbasin was half-full, she set the pitcher down, shut her eyes, and plunged her face into the tepid water. She held her position until her lungs ached for air, then straightened, gasping and spraying water in all directions. In her haste she inhaled a drop of water and began to cough.

When she could breathe freely again, Eleret looked at the soggy mess on and around the table and gave a wavery chuckle. She couldn’t have done any worse if she’d dropped the pitcher or tipped the basin over. She brushed dripping tendrils of hair away from her face with one hand and reached for the towel with the other.

Cleaning up the spill did not take long, but by the time she finished, Eleret’s skirt was nearly as wet as the towel. She took it off and spread it over the end of the bed, then frowned. The only other clothes she had were the ones she had brought from the mountains. Anyone familiar with Cilhar garb would recognize her full green leggings and soft knee-high boots, even if she pulled her shirt down into a sort of tunic that would cover the top. Eleret shrugged. She had no real choice. She would just have to stay inside, out of sight, until the skirt was dry.

Eleret pulled her own kit out from beneath the bed and started to untie it, then stopped short. The knot was the same one she had used, but it was tied backward. The left-hand thong should have been looped, with the right crossing over and around; instead, the right thong was looped, with the left crossing over and around. Someone had opened the kit while she was out.

Slowly, Eleret untied the thongs and unlaced the flap. The things inside lay just as she had left them, neatly folded and placed to fill the bag as efficiently as possible. One by one, she lifted them out, then shook the empty kit to make certain nothing had been hidden in the bottom. Nothing had. She packed everything up again, wondering whether she was imagining things, then reached for the thongs. No, she would never have tied them that way; it felt awkward and unnatural, and she had to think about every move. Someone else had tied that knot.

Eleret sat back on her heels, fingering the hilt of her knife. Who could it have been? She considered briefly and then dismissed the possibility that the innkeeper or his wife had been snooping; the careful repacking of her kit was unlikely to be the result of casual curiosity. Climeral and Prill were the only people in Ciaron who knew where she was…except for the woman who had followed her from the school. What had she called herself? Jonystra, that was the name. And she had asked about small, old things, like seals and rings…

With a muffled exclamation, Eleret opened her right hand and peered at the raven ring. She turned it on her finger so that the stone was outward, as it should be; then she sat staring. The silver gleamed, untarnished, but the black stone seemed to drink up whatever light fell on it, no matter how she turned it. She felt like a fool for taking so long to connect it with Jonystra’s cryptic remarks. She stroked the carved raven gently with her fingertip, as if by doing so she could learn what made the ring so important to Jonystra and perhaps others.

What had Tamm told her about the ring? The raven was for protection, she remembered that much, and the black stone was for night and shadow. The silver setting meant something, too, but try as she would she could not remember what. It had been handed down from mother to daughter or granddaughter ever since Geleraise Vinlarrian had come to the Mountains of Morravik seven hundred and some-odd years ago, to settle among the Cilhar. “Our good-luck charm,” Tamm had called it, though the luck it had brought her seemed to Eleret to have been of the other variety.

Once more, Eleret turned her hand to catch light on the raven ring; then she shrugged and twisted the ring so that the seal rested against her palm. She wasn’t learning anything by looking at it, and she doubted that Jonystra would be willing to explain her interest. Perhaps Climeral would know something about it—no, she was being foolish. She couldn’t expect Climeral to have
all
the answers she needed just because he was a Shee and a magician. Eleret sighed. Her curiosity would simply have to go unsatisfied.

Feeling as if she had settled something, however temporarily, Eleret put on her leggings and boots. She was surprised at how much better she felt in her normal dress. She thought for a moment, then went over to the bed and picked up Tamm’s embroidered knife-sheath. With a little work, she could adapt it to wear on her right leg, and she was beginning to think that the more weapons she had handy, the better.

Eleret was tying her second spare thong around the lower part of the sheath when someone knocked at the door. Eleret hesitated, wondering whether to pretend she was not there. But anyone who tried the door would realize that it was barred from the inside, and the visitor was as likely to be someone from Climeral’s school as it was to be the innkeeper or his wife. “Who’s there?” Eleret called.

The knock was repeated and someone mumbled a sentence that did not carry through the door. Eleret frowned and slid the knife out of the sheath she was working on. Holding the weapon so that the opening door would hide it, she eased back the bar and swung the door a handsbreadth out.

From the hall outside, Jonystra Nirandol smiled through the crack. “I’m so glad you’re here. I was just passing by, and I thought I’d stop and see how your day went.”

“As well as I expected,” Eleret replied, staring in undisguised fascination. Jonystra’s dark hair was piled on top of her head in a series of elaborate and precarious-looking waves. Her eyes were heavily outlined in kohl, and two brass medallions dangled from her ears. She wore a loose, floor-length tunic made of a dark blue cotton embroidered in brightly colored silk, and her belt was a chain of medallions that matched her earrings. She looked like some sort of doll.

“Have you finished your business in Ciaron?” Jonystra asked, her smile widening.

“No,” Eleret lied. “I’ll have to go back tomorrow. Something about procedures, they said.”

“Ciaron is like that,” Jonystra said. “Perhaps I could be of some assistance? I’ve dealt with the authorities here before.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Eleret said firmly. “And it might confuse them if I brought an extra person along.”

“True.” Jonystra shrugged, then lowered her head. Light slithered across her waves of hair. “Would you join me for dinner instead? There’s a place near here that’s very entertaining; I was just on my way there. I’m sure I could loan you something to wear, and with your looks you’d create quite a sensation.”

Eleret had a momentary picture of herself dressed as Jonystra was, and nearly laughed aloud. “Thank you, but I’m afraid I can’t. I’ve already made arrangements for dinner.”

“The innkeeper will understand,” Jonystra persisted. “And if you’re only going to be in Ciaron for a week, you ought to see as much as you can.”

“I’m meeting someone,” Eleret said. One inadvertent meal with Jonystra had been enough, to her way of thinking; she was not sitting down to another if she had to invent legions of relatives, friends, and admirers unexpectedly encountered in the town.

Jonystra’s smile slipped. “I thought you didn’t know anyone in Ciaron.”

“I thought so, too,” Eleret said. “But as it turns out, I do. Another night, perhaps. Tomorrow, or the day after?” If Jonystra thought she had arranged to meet Eleret, she wouldn’t suspect that Eleret was planning to leave Ciaron before then. She might even stop pestering Eleret, though that was probably too much to hope for.

“Tomorrow, then.” Jonystra did not appear altogether happy, but as long as she left, Eleret didn’t care much about the woman’s mood. “In the meantime, perhaps—”

“Excuse me,” said a familiar voice from the door at the end of the hall. “But could you tell us—Oh, there you are, Eleret! I was going to ask the innkeeper where to find you, only he wasn’t around, and his wife said you were just down the hall.”

“Hello, Prill,” Eleret said, opening her door a little wider and blessing Prill’s timing. As long as Prill didn’t say the wrong thing, Jonystra would assume that she was Eleret’s intended dinner companion. “I was waiting for you. Come in while I finish getting ready.”

Prill glanced over her shoulder. A tall figure moved out of the shadows and resolved into Lord Daner Vallaniri. Prill shook her head at him and said uncertainly, “I don’t know if—”

“So long as the wait is not a long one, I will be content to stay here,” Daner said. “I am sure the results will be well worth it, and the company is charming.” He gave Jonystra an admiring glance and swept her a bow.

“All right, then,” Prill said. “But don’t go complaining about it later.”

Eleret stepped back and swung the door open. “Excuse us,” she said to Jonystra as Prill walked past her and slid into the room. As she closed the door, she heard Daner say coaxingly, “You will keep me company, won’t you?”

“Why did you bring
him
?” Eleret asked Prill, who was looking around the room with interest.