Vincalis the Agitator (31 page)

He wanted to hate her. Instead, as he waited in line with the other witnesses to offer his congratulations, he only hated
himself.

Jess sat across the room at the nutevaz and watched Wraith dying inside. She’d debated telling him that Velyn was going to
take Luercas to vow, and had convinced herself that he deserved to know. She’d been so sure that if Wraith could see Velyn
moving on with her life, he would be able to move on with his. But as she watched him suffer, she had to question her own
methods. She could have told him after the deed was done—she could have passed the news on to him in a casual little aside:
Oh, Wraith, I’m sure you’ve already heard, but Velyn took vows with that ass Luercas last month, and by the way, I just heard
that both Jain and Torva are expecting their first registered children.

He would have been shocked. He would have been hurt. But he wouldn’t have been sitting there staring at Velyn like a man who
was having his heart ripped out of his chest one still-beating piece at a time. Everyone kept things from Wraith, because
everyone thought he was too sensitive to know the hard truth about people, about situations, about anything. So he didn’t
know that the woman he was so visibly mourning had never been faithful to him, or that she had never even considered faithfulness
an issue.

She’d wanted to tell Wraith about Velyn’s other men as soon as she found out about them. She hated the fact that everyone
laughed at Wraith for thinking Velyn loved him.

“He loves her,” Solander had said. “He won’t thank you for telling him that the woman he loves is not who he thinks she is.
He’ll just hate you for destroying his illusions.”

But if he could discover the truth about Velyn—if he could just find out that she wasn’t worth all this anguish and grief—perhaps
he could at last be free of her. Maybe he could find some peace.

Or maybe Solander was right.

If Solander was right, though, then this meant all of them had done the best for Wraith that they could—and that the fact
that he was in pain and mourning someone who didn’t deserve to be mourned was the best he deserved. Jess did not believe that.

She could show him who Velyn really was, she realized. He wouldn’t be happy to find it out—but maybe a brief unhappiness was
kinder than this lingering anguish. She glanced around the room. The people there were all stolti, of course—not the chadri
or mufere who made up most of Velyn’s conquests. But among the hundreds of witnesses, Jess saw two young men with whom Velyn
had entertained herself while sharing quarters with Wraith. When the last of the banquet had been cleared away and everyone
headed outside to dance among the stars, Jess caught one of them and said, “Kemmart, Velyn was hoping to see you privately
before this party is over.”

Kemmart jumped a little, and a guilty smile flashed across his face. “I didn’t think she’d forget me too easily.”

“Of course not. I heard that it was you she had in mind when she was negotiating her contract. Just a rumor, but …” Jess shrugged.

“When did she want to meet me? And where?”

“Zero by Dim—out behind the fountain.”

He glanced up at the clock on the wall, marked the time, and nodded. “When you see her, tell her I’ll be there.”

Jess smiled.

She worked her way through the crowd, caught Velyn’s attention, and gestured toward a quiet alcove. Velyn nodded almost imperceptibly
and when she got a chance, broke free of the throng of well-wishers and joined Jess.

“I can’t believe he came,” were the first words out of her mouth. “Your fault, wasn’t it?”

Jess held up a hand. “Truce, Velyn. I’m on your side. Wraith cut Solander and me out of his life, too—remember? Or didn’t
you know about that?”

Velyn looked shaken. “I’d heard that you left Solander right after … well, after. And I assumed the two of you would get together.
I mean, you’ve had your eye on him all these years.”

“Solander and I separated when we realized that we didn’t have anything in common anymore. The timing looked bad, but …” She
managed a tiny, amused smile that she didn’t feel at all. “But Wraith and me? No. I never intended to be upstaged by a theater.
Any more than you did. I could understand completely your decision not to take vows with him.” Jess shrugged. “As for why
Wraith came tonight—he thought it would be polite, I suppose. But I didn’t call you over to talk to you about Wraith.”

Velyn watched her with a wariness that Jess had to respect. Velyn might have had the morals of an alleycat, but she knew how
to watch her back. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

“Your friend Kemmart said he wanted to meet with you in private for a few minutes. Zero by Dim behind the fountain. He said
it was important.”

Velyn looked surprised, and then—as Jess had hoped she would— pleased. “Kemmart,” she murmured.

“He didn’t seem too terribly pleased that he’d lost you to Luercas,” Jess added.

Velyn’s little smile became broader. “When, again?”

“Zero by Dim.”

Velyn nodded. “Thank you. Oh—and if you see Wraith, you might want to suggest to him that tonight wouldn’t be a terribly good
night for him to try to make amends. Luercas truly despises him, and would be more than happy to start looking for ways to
destroy him, should he think that Wraith doesn’t respect the contract.”

Jess nodded. “I don’t know that I will see him—or even that I want to talk to him if I do. But …” She smiled again, falsely
bright. “But I suppose if I run into him and can’t just walk on by, I could pass that on.”

Velyn glanced at Luercas, standing with a group of his colleagues discussing something that seemed to be amusing all of them,
and a look of dismay flashed across her face and vanished. “Don’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable. If I happen to
run into him, I’ll be
more
than happy to pass that on myself.”

Jess nodded, excused herself, and made her way back to the main party. She located Wraith and kept an eye on him. She wanted
to be able to head him out to the fountain at about the right time—and she thought she had just the right story to get him
out there. And when he got there, he would see who Velyn really was, and he might be able to stop hurting so much.

And then maybe … maybe … he might find his way back to her.

Grath Faregan, dressed in blue velvet from throat to toes, nodded to wedding guests, sipped a drink, and finally, with a smile,
turned to his companion. “There. Talking to the bride. You see her?”

“Slender, tiny, dark hair, blue silk traditional robes …”

“That’s the one. You’re to get close to her and stay close to her. Get to know everyone she knows, keep track of everything
she does … and when I give the order, bring her to me.”

“To the Inquest, you mean?”

“I said what I meant,” Faregan snapped. “To
me.
You understand that?”

“I do, Master.”

“Very well. Off with you, then. I’ll want reports weekly. Make them … personal.” Faregan smiled, imagining Jess in his home,
in his hands, in his power—imagining finally doing everything he had waited so long to do. “Not much longer,” he said softly.
“Not much longer at all, Jess.”

Wraith would have been long gone—he’d made a horrible mistake coming—but people kept cornering him and congratulating him
on
A Man of Dreams,
or asking if he might get them seats since they could not even find places in the high rows or the aisles for any of the
performances.

When Jess grabbed him by one arm and dragged him free of a woman who was complaining that he should have planned for a longer
run, he could only be grateful.

“You look absolutely gray, Wraith,” she whispered, dragging him out of the grand banquet hall, down a well-lit corridor, and
out into the star-filled yard, where couples danced on air to the strains of one of Jess’s live musical groups.

“I feel like baked death with plantains,” he muttered. “And over-cooked, at that.”

She said, “You need some quiet for a moment. No one will see us back behind the fountain.” She led him through the yard, using
her elbows like weapons, yet managing to make every well-placed strike look like an accident. He couldn’t help but be impressed.
As they worked their way through the crowd, she said, “You were insane to come here; you know that, don’t you? It’s like you
want to hurt yourself. Like you’re reveling in the pain.”

“I just kept hoping she would realize that she was making a mistake.”

Jess patted his arm and sighed. “You would think that, of course. But you’re a romantic.”

“I love her, Jess. I wanted to be with her forever. I kept hoping that she would finally discover that she loved me enough
to …” He shrugged. “I’m an idiot. I already knew that I was an idiot. But tonight really proved the point to me.”

“You aren’t an idiot for loving her,” Jess said grimly. “She’s an idiot for not loving you.”

And they broke free of the last of the dancers, and reached the tall shrubs that surrounded the grand fountain, and moved
behind them.

And there was Velyn. And one of the distant Artis cousins. They were jammed up against the fountain, in a state of partial
undress, focused only on each other—engaged in an activity that put Velyn in breach of her contract almost before the ink
had dried.

Wraith said nothing. Velyn didn’t see him—her eyes were tightly closed—but the cousin did. He grimaced—jerked his head at
Wraith, telling him to go away without saying any words—but he didn’t forget what he was about. Velyn moaned and shivered
and told him, “Oh, more. Oh, more. God knows when we’ll get this chance again.”

Wraith couldn’t see. His vision had blurred to virtual blindness, and only when he felt the tears burning down the back of
his throat did he realize he was crying.

He felt hands on his elbow, pulling him away, and heard a voice in his ear saying, “I’m putting you in a car and sending you
home. Should I go with you, or will you be all right to be alone?”

“I’d rather walk,” he muttered, but Jess was steering him through the crowds again, and he couldn’t see well enough to choose
his own direction, and he didn’t have the will to fight her.

The car took him home. The driver delivered him to the door. And the proctor saw him to bed, and gave him some hot wine to
burn away the pain.

In that manner he passed the last night he ever spent in his suite in the Materan Ground School.

Greyvmian the Ponderer—A Play in Three Acts

by Vincalis

CHARACTERS
(in order of appearance)
Truuthman the Ruthless—pirate
Greyvmian the Ponderer—mapmaker
Shetha the Avaricious—landlady
Crobitt the Confused—envoy to the Empire
Nalritha the Beautiful—the pirate’s lady but the
mapmaker’s true love
Winling the Wise—Greyvmian’s friend and advisor
Dal the Seventh—Master of the Empire of the Hars Ticlarim

Act One—Pirates and Heroes Seek Common Ground

Scene 1

Time: The Old Calendar Year of Queh, Raunde 15, in the month of Gehorlen.

Place: A cluttered office of ancient style, built not of fine whitestone but of wood, full of scrolls, quills, calligraphic
brushes, and reed-papers, the walls covered with maps drawn by hand with colored inks in the old fashion. The lamps burn real
flame, and water pours into a stone sink from a trough that pokes through the back wall. At left stage sits a heavy wooden
drawing table, its top angled toward the audience. It is covered with a map in progress—clearly the continent of Strithia,
though also clearly out of proportion and with vast gaps in the coastline and interior. In front of the drawing table sits
a tall drafting stool, while at center stage we see several chairs and a small desk on which sit the half-eaten remains of
a poor meal and a glass tankard still almost full of weak beer.