The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (11 page)

Constrained by the tangled lanes, the carriage had no choice but to escape the Old City by the Hillgate and make its way around through the streets of Gauldren’s Heights. This part of Invarel was populated by gentry and well-to-do professionals, and its streets were lined with sturdy houses of brick and stone. It was a decent and entirely respectable neighborhood—that is, of no interest to Rafferdy.

They were nearly to the edge of the Heights when they found the street ahead of them blocked by a hack cab with a broken wheel. While its driver tried to effect a repair, the hapless passenger—a man dressed in an ill-fitting black suit—stood to one side.

Rafferdy instructed his driver to go around, but as the cabriolet passed the broken-down hack, an astonishing thing happened: the passenger standing in the street waved and called out Rafferdy’s name in a cheerful, rather high-pitched voice.

“Shall I stop, sir?” the driver asked, turning around in his box.

Rafferdy’s first thought was to tell the driver to whip the horses into a gallop. However, it was too late; he had been recognized. If he tried to flee now, Lady Marsdel would surely hear of it, and he had no desire to earn another scolding. Instead, he directed the driver to pull up in front of the hack cab, and its passenger hurried over to the cabriolet.

“I say, good day, Mr. Rafferdy!”

Rafferdy managed a pained smile. “Good day, Mr. Wyble.”

“What marvelous fortune that you should happen upon me at this moment,” the laywer exclaimed. “What a remarkable and happy occurrence! But I say, I would never have thought to find
you
in this part of the city.”

“Yet here I am,” Rafferdy said. There was an awkward pause, and he could hardly bring himself to say the words that must follow next. However, at last he managed to utter them. “Are you in need of assistance, Mr. Wyble?”

“Oh, indeed! Indeed I am, Mr. Rafferdy, if you would be so kind. As you can see, I am utterly stranded.”

As was Rafferdy. But there was nothing for it, and he soon found himself sitting next to Mr. Wyble as the cabriolet continued through the streets of Gauldren’s Heights.

The lawyer clutched his hat to keep it from flying off his head and affected a broad smile. “Well, out of misfortune comes opportunity, as wise men say.”

“How so?” Rafferdy asked.

“I mean now is the perfect chance for us to engage in our postponed conversation, Mr. Rafferdy.”

“So it is,” Rafferdy said. “In fact, I imagine it can in no way be avoided.” And he settled back in the seat, bracing himself for the long ride to Mr. Wyble’s destination.

CHAPTER SIX

E
LDYN WATCHED THE two men in gray coats depart the inn, then sighed into his half-empty cup of ale. His conversation with Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing, though brief, had filled him at once with new hope and new dread. His opportunity was not yet lost, as he had feared, but it soon would be if he was not able to acquire a hundred regals. And Eldyn’s pockets were as empty as ever.

“What did those men want with you?” Sashie asked, alighting on a chair across from him.

Eldyn looked up in surprise. The inn’s public room was not a proper place for an unaccompanied young woman, and he had told her she was never to come down here without his permission—though that was a rule, he had to admit, he had not been able to strictly enforce.

“Is it money they want?”

Eldyn fidgeted with the cup. So far he had not told Sashie of his plan to earn back the Garritt family fortune; he did not want to worry her about their situation. However, the look in his sister’s blue eyes was earnest and trusting, and he could not lie to her, not like their father had. How often had he promised her fancy dresses and pretty baubles, only to leave her crying once he drank and gambled the money away?

“It is not a debt I have with them, Sashie. You need not fear that. Rather, I wish to make an investment in their trading company, an investment that would serve to better our circumstances.”

She laughed at this; it was a music he adored above all others. “But, sweet brother, you
have
improved our circumstances. How can we fare better than to dwell here at the Golden Loom?”

Eldyn could not help smiling at her enthusiasm, even as it perplexed him. The inn was well kept, but like Eldyn’s coat it was growing shabby. And while the clientele were generally respectable folk, that was not entirely the case, as must be for an inn down in Waterside.

“I would do much to improve our lot, Sashie. I would get us a house to live in, with servants to keep it, and our own carriage to drive about the city. I would be a gentleman and go back to university. And I would buy you dresses and jewels, so you might attend a party in the grandest house in the New Quarter and command the attention of all eyes there.” He leaned across the table and took her hands in his. “I would see us happy.”

“But, dear brother, I
am
happy. Indeed, it is impossible that any of those things you speak of could make me any happier than I already am.”

She cast a look over her shoulder, across the public room toward the bar. A man stood there, speaking while others gathered around, listening and laughing. The spectators were some of the inn’s less savory denizens: their clothes thickly patched, their grins gap-toothed and yellow. A woman leaned over the bar toward the man, her face over-painted and her bosom nearly spilling out of her frock as she howled with laughter.

The speaker might have been taken for a young gentleman of worth hanging about a seamier section of the city for a thrill. He was tall, with a lion’s mane of gold hair, and was by any measure very handsome. His coat of russet velvet was superior to anything Eldyn had ever owned. Rings glittered on both of his hands.

The man went by the name of Westen, though whether that was his given name, his family name, or simply an affectation, Eldyn did not know. What Eldyn did know was that, despite his fine looks and fine clothes, he was no gentleman, and none of the rich things he wore had been gotten by forthright or respectable means, for the fellow was known to be a notorious highwayman. This was not a matter of rumor or idle speculation, as Westen had brazenly admitted to it on more than one occasion, and some of his exploits had been so audacious as to be the subject of articles in
The Fox.

Even now he was regaling his listeners with some tale of his shadowy deeds. Eldyn could not catch the details from across the room, but the gist was clear when Westen made a little play, his hands flying up and his mouth forming a circle of surprise as he mimicked some hapless traveler whom he had accosted on the road and whom, at the point of a pistol, he had bereaved of all valuables.

The onlookers laughed, the coarse music of their mirth ringing out over the inn. Eldyn might have been tempted to call for a king’s man, but he knew there was no point. Though Westen enjoyed telling tales of his criminal doings, he was ever scrupulous to avoid mention of any details that might link him to a particular incident, and it was said he did his work in disguise, his face covered by a mask, so that none of his victims might recognize him.

During their first weeks at the Golden Loom, Westen had come in only rarely. However, before long the highwayman had started to show up at the inn with increasing frequency, and now Eldyn thought he began to have an inkling why. As Sashie gazed at Westen across the room, her pretty face alight, the highwayman paused in his storytelling to smile and nod in her direction. At this, Sashie snatched her hands back from Eldyn and drew a silk handkerchief from the sleeve of her dress; she let out a sigh as she clutched it in both hands.

“I do not recognize that handkerchief, Sashie. It looks very rich.” She resisted turning her head toward the bar, but her smile was enough to tell him his suspicion was correct. “Did Westen give it to you?”

At once a stricken look came over her face. “Please, sweet brother, don’t take it!” She pressed the handkerchief to her breast. “You mustn’t take it away from me. He said it is a token and that I must hold on to it. He said that only if his…only if one who thinks well of him holds on to it and keeps it close will he be warded from harm when he is on the road. If I give it up, he will be placed in grave peril.”

It is you who are placed in peril by holding it,
Eldyn wished to tell her, but such was the anguish in her expression that he could not bring himself to utter such hard words. Instead, he said, “If he is in danger on the road, it is because he brings it on himself, Sashie. You must know that.”

Only it was clear she did not. Sashie was but eighteen and a guileless thing; she could not understand how it was that Westen acquired all his clothes and rings. To her he was simply handsome and tall and marked by wealth—all things she naturally responded to.

No, Eldyn could not blame her. He was the one who had brought her to the Golden Loom, and it was his fault for not seeing what was happening sooner.

“You know you must give it to me,” Eldyn said as gently as he could. “A young lady cannot accept a gift from a man with whom she has no proper association.”

“But we
live
here,” Sashie said, tears forming in her eyes. “And this is where I met him. What association can be more proper than that?”

“You know it is not proper,” Eldyn scolded softly. “Else you should not have kept it a secret from me. A young lady deserves and requires the society of gentlemen, Sashie, not scoundrels.”

“He is no scoundrel!” she said, but her weeping had all but stolen away her voice, and hardly a sound came out, a fact for which Eldyn was grateful. Slowly, and taking the greatest care so as not to cause her hurt, he opened her fingers and took the handkerchief from her. He tucked it into his coat pocket.

“I shall see that it is returned to him,” he said, “so that he might give it to another who is better able to bear it for him.”

Sashie said nothing. She only slumped in her chair and stared at her empty hands.

Eldyn hated this. But it had to be done now, before it went any further. A man like Westen, given his occupation, could have no compunction about ruining an innocent young woman. In one awful, selfish act, he could remove all hopes Eldyn had for finding Sashie a husband and giving her a happy life. He could steal away her future, just as he stole gold from his victims, and reduce her not only to poverty but to the life of a slattern. She might not understand now, but she would thank him for this later.

“You should return to our chambers,” Eldyn said. “I will speak to Mr. Walpert and see that supper is sent up.”

She rose without a word, her face cast down, and ascended the stairs from the public room. Eldyn finished his cup of ale, then looked toward the bar. However, Westen was gone. Eldyn would have to return his handkerchief to him later.

Happily, there were better things to anticipate. His conversation with Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing had left him with new hope, if new urgency as well. That he had met the two outside a moneylender’s office on Marble Street that first time was surely a stroke of providence.

Eldyn had been at the moneylender’s to settle a dispute regarding a debt of his father’s, though it had taken several distressing hours. Anxious to be away from the place, he had rushed out of the lending house—and collided directly with Mr. Sarvinge, knocking a bundle of papers from his hands.

With a profusion of apologies, Eldyn helped Mr. Sarvinge and his associate, Mr. Grealing, gather the papers that had scattered on the street. As this was done, Eldyn could not help noticing a number of handbills advertising for investors in a trading company to the New Lands. Once the papers were retrieved, he invited the two men to a nearby tavern, buying them a drink as amends for his rudeness, and he listened as they described their business venture—how the trading company was to be formed, what goods it expected to carry back from the New Lands, and how it expected to bring its charter members a tenfold increase on their investment.

One drink turned to three, and it was not long before Eldyn became certain he had found the means to earn back some of the fortune his father had squandered. To their credit, Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing never so much as suggested that Eldyn should invest in their company. However, by the time they departed the tavern, after a fourth and a fifth drink, Eldyn broached the matter himself and announced he was determined to be an investor in their company. Such was the solicitous manner of the two men that, despite the way he had accosted them earlier, they assured him they would hold a set of shares for him as long as possible, and they parted on the most agreeable of terms.

Gaining the required hundred regals had so far proven more difficult than Eldyn had expected. However, Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing had brought good news with them today, at least from Eldyn’s perspective. The approval of the trading company’s charter had been delayed by the Ministry of Imports; due to the great number of New Lands charters being requested these days, the ministry was reviewing each application more scrupulously to be assured it met the highest standards.

There was no cause for concern, as Mr. Sarvinge had been assured that the charter for his and Mr. Grealing’s company would receive the ministry’s stamp shortly. While this delay was frustrating for the other investors, it now appeared that the expected returns would in fact be fifteen times the initial investment, and no one could complain about
that
.

Eldyn was fortunate that there yet remained a few shares in the trading company, due to the untimely death of one of the initial investors. While Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing promised to hold the available shares for Eldyn, he could not impose too long on their kindness; he had to purchase the shares, and soon. But where was he to gain the hundred regals?

As pressing as this question was, an even more immediate concern impinged upon him as he saw Miss Delina Walpert emerge from the inn’s back salon. Her frock was even drabber than usual, and the pale green ribbon she wore about her throat lent her face a sickly cast; he supposed she had donned it in an effort to make herself pretty, though simply combing her hair would have done far more toward that end.

Eldyn rose from the table, retreated into the shadows beneath the stairs, and gathered the darkness around himself. There was a tense moment as she passed near, her shoes clomping against the floorboards, but her gaze never turned his way, and after that she passed out the inn’s front door. Eldyn let out a relieved breath, then went to find Mr. Walpert and order his and Sashie’s supper.

T
WO HOURS LATER Eldyn brushed his only coat, put on his second-best shirt and trousers, and polished his boots with a rag he had obtained from one of the inn’s maids with a few kind words. He had no hat so instead tied his hair behind his neck with a black ribbon.