All That Glitters (6 page)

“There goes the cavalry!” Banber hooted, passing the viewing glass to Collierre. “A flanking maneuver, just as I said!”

After inspecting the battle, Collierre handed the viewing glass to Tyvian, who held it before his eyes and let the images coalesce in the crystal rather than trying to squint through it like some Kalsaari spyglass. He could see the advance blocks of Pherielle's peasant levies now charging full-­bore at the massed Galaspiner pikes. At that moment, Pherielle's reserve line of mail-­clad men-­at-­arms on horseback was thundering off to the left flank and beginning to wheel so that they would smash into the Galaspiner formations from the side as the mercenaries were fighting off the levies to the front. Tyvian tsked. “Pherielle's lost it—­sprung the trap too soon.”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but that's poppycock,” Banber countered, chuckling. “Even Collierre here agrees with me now—­look at how well Mardan's cavalry are wheeling! They'll hit those pike blocks all at once, and nary an arrow feathered in them!”

Collierre nodded. “It looks bad for Derby, I must say.”

“Have you watched many battles, Master Reldamar?” Dame Margess asked, accepting the viewing glass from him with a grateful nod.

“Not especially,” Tyvian said, shrugging.

“Yet you still think Pherielle will lose?” Collierre squinted at Tyvian, who wondered if Collierre's eyes actually didn't open all the way.

Tyvian grinned at him. “Care to make it interesting?”

“Do I detect a wager?” Banber tore into a roast chicken leg and popped a few grapes in after it.

Tyvian sipped his wine and narrowly avoided making a face; gods, the swill was as sweet as mead. Why was it so damned hard to find a decent wine? That bottle he'd shared with Cam at Draketower would likely be the last decent bottle he'd have until he reached Saldor. He missed the taste of decent wine every day. Every damned day.

“Well?” Banber asked, rubbing the chicken grease off his hands and onto the doublet of one of his valets.

Tyvian pushed the memory of good wine out of his mind. “I say Derby and his mercenaries hold the line and win the day, and you say Pherielle routs the sellswords and drives the earl from the field. Shall we say a hundred marks to whomever is correct?”

“Done.” Banber nodded.

Collierre paused, squinting at his mistress. Dame Margess smiled and nodded. “Oh, go on, Denoux. I agree with you—­I think poor old Derby is going to have the worst of it.”

Tyvian grinned. “Settled, then.”

They sat back to watch, with Artus getting back a few minutes later. The peasant levies pressing the Galaspin mercenary front not only failed to break through the line, but broke themselves on the merciless yard-­long tips of the sellsword pikes. This part of the battle was going in that direction even before the cavalry made their charge. There was a complex trumpet call from the mercenary lines, and the block reformed into a pike square that deployed its weapons to both flank and front at the same time. The result was the cavalry not so much riding the Galaspiners down as crashing into them and making an awful mess. In short order, the screams of horses and men could be faintly heard over Sir Banber's chewing.

“See—­I told you. They'll break,” Banber announced, looking pleased.

Dame Margess was pale. “Sweet Hann, why don't they ask for quarter?”

Artus pointed at the rear portions of the Derby line, where the archers were mostly standing around chatting with each other and Derby's smaller force of cavalry was deployed in a line and motionless as trees. “Isn't that where the earl is? What's he doing?”

“Getting his money's worth.” Tyvian felt the ring begin to squeeze him—­not the burning pain from some terrible act of his own, but rather the steady pressure of a wrong he was allowing to happen.

As he understood, Artus's face turned red, then green. “That's awful.”

Tyvian wiped sweat from his forehead. He had gotten pretty good at tolerating the ring's lesser jabs, but it was still damned uncomfortable. He kept his voice cool and even. “It's their job. Derby paid them to hold the line, so they're holding it. The company purser will charge Derby a silver crown per man wounded and two per man dead. I will bet you anything that there's an accountant at the earl's side calculating figures for him at this very moment. Better mercenaries bleed than his own retainers, but as soon as the price gets too high, the horses will be sent in.”

“Unless they break,” Banber added.

The Galaspiner mercenaries didn't break. After another minute of ugly combat that was difficult to follow even with the viewing glass, the Derby cavalry got the signal to charge. They swept down upon the disorganized horsemen of Pherielle and broke them in a single maneuver, then swept back to clear the field of those peasant levies who had rallied to their banners and were making another advance on the beleaguered pikemen. By the time the Pherielle standard was struck from the field, the whole battle had taken about a half hour.

Tyvian pulled Artus aside as the battle was ending, “Go tell Hool and Brana to meet us outside Derby in about an hour.” Artus nodded and went, though he muttered about it. With that done, there just remained the pleasant business of collecting his winnings.

Tyvian was gracious in victory—­it
always
paid to be gracious when winning a bet. Sir Banber, cheeks red from too much sun, ran a hand through his thinning hair and said he'd be damned. “You're not a soldier. How did you know they wouldn't break?”

“While I might not be a soldier, milord, I am a keen judge of human nature. Consider this: you're a mercenary who works in Eretheria and you've been told a group of noble spectators will be watching the battle. Assuming you wish to keep making a living at this and further assuming that you would like to be well paid, what do you do?”

Light dawned on Sir Banber's sunburned face. “I'd stay! I'd hold! Damn, a performance like that means I can charge any price I please to the next fellow who needs some pikes. Astute, Master Reldamar, I must admit. I'll send the money along tonight. Where can you be reached?”

Tyvian eyed Dame Margess, who was deep in intense concentration with a man in her livery who looked very much like a financial advisor of some sort. A little ways off to the side, Collierre was busy squinting at his feet as he kicked a few clumps of sod around aimlessly. It was the very picture of a woman worried about her finances and a champion worried about his job. “We'll be staying in Derby—­I'll give your man Ronger the name of an inn before I leave. I'm afraid I can't just say where at the moment, given my—­”

Banber waved off the explanation. “Of course, of course! Naturally, a man of your station has unusual living arrangements. Quite to be expected—­very dashing, in its way. The women must love it, eh?”

Tyvian tried to smile, but all he could think about was the girl, Saley, smiling at him mere minutes before he got her killed. He felt briefly ill.

“Are you perfectly all right?” Banber blinked at him.

Tyvian forced a laugh. “Yes, yes. Too much sun, is all.”

“That reminds me,” Banber went on, grinning broadly, “I have just the thing that might cheer you up.”

“Oh?” Tyvian tried to conjure hopefulness in his eyes, but didn't quite pull it off. The things that cheered Sir Banber up and the things that were likely to cheer Tyvian up at just that moment weren't likely to intersect.

“Caravan came up through my territory last week, by way of Saldor. Brought the most interesting gossip.”

Tyvian sighed: gossip, of course. To the Eretherian, juicy gossip was the cure for almost every malady. Were Tyvian pierced through the heart with a Forest Child arrow, Sir Banber would probably come in to tell him what kind of underwear the Count of Ayventry wore to bed. The arrow would consequently be expected to remove itself from his chest out of outrage and embarrassment.

“I recall hearing you were once pursued by a Mage Defender by the name of Alafarr, is that not correct?”

The mention of Myreon almost made him jump. He nodded, trying to look neutral. “She was something of a nemesis of mine, yes.”

Banber continued, his enthusiasm building. “It seems that your old nemesis has been convicted of a crime. Very serious, from what I was told.”

Tyvian stiffened. “What? That doesn't sound like Myr—­like
Alafarr
to me. What crime could it possibly be?”

“Well
that's
the interesting part, it seems.” Banber chuckled, his eyes twinkling, “
Smuggling!
Would you believe it? How's that for irony—­you must have rubbed off on her, old boy. Ha!”

Tyvian blinked. “That doesn't make any sense at all. What possible reason would she have to smuggle something?”

Banber shrugged, still chuckling. “Oh, just a bit of rumor—­seems to have struck you the wrong way, eh?”

“I beg your pardon, sir.” Tyvian wiped the sweat from his brow. “Too much sun, as I said. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

Banber favored Tyvian with the slightest of bows. “And you, sir. Give my regards to your noble mother.”

“I will,” Tyvian lied, and was pleased that the ring had the wisdom not to pinch him for it. If Sir Banber knew what his mother would say to Banber's greetings, the rest of the man's hair would fall out.

After Banber headed off, Artus came jogging back from his errand. “Is that it, then? Can we get out of here? These ­people give me the creeps, no matter how much money they've got.” Artus got a good look at Tyvian's face and froze. “You okay?”

Tyvian shook himself. “Yes, yes. Fine. Hold on.” He pushed Banber's gossip from his mind and tried to refocus his attention on the Dame Margess. The focus wouldn't come.

Myreon? Smuggling?
It just wasn't possible. He couldn't believe it.

“Master Reldamar?” Dame Margess called to him just after she had dismissed her accountant. Tyvian stepped forward and bowed to her as gracefully as he could manage, which was to say he imagined he bowed more gracefully than any man the dame had met outside of an Eretherian noble court.

The gesture was not lost on her. She blushed ever so slightly. “Master Reldamar, you flatter me. I have come to settle the issue of my champion's wager.”

Myreon had to have been framed—­that was the only possible explanation.
But why? By whom?

“Master Reldamar?” Dame Margess cocked her head. “Are you all right?”

Tyvian nodded, trying to shake off the idea of Myreon Alafarr in a penitentiary garden. “My apologies, milady—­too much sun for me, it seems.” He cleared his throat. “It occurs to me that I have put you and your champion in an awkward position. As Master Collierre seems a gentleman of utmost quality, it would pain me to put a strain upon your trust in him, no matter how slight. It is for this reason I beg you to void the terms of our wager.”

Dame Margess blinked and put a hand to her chest. “Such a thing is absolutely unnecessary, sir! You have won the wager, and so I shall see it paid, be it one hundred marks or one thousand!”

The response was practically scripted; it was like the peerage were made to rehearse the same speech by the same army of stern Akrallian tutors. “I must insist—­I will accept no gold from you, milady. I regret making the wager in the first place; it was the work of my pride and vanity, nothing more, and such base emotions have no place in genteel society.”

Behind him, Tyvian heard Artus mutter,
“Gimme a break . . .”

The dame was not so cynical, however. “Well, there must be
something
I can do to settle this debt. Even if it is not gold I owe you, I feel I owe you my goodwill and thanks for your most honorable behavior, especially for a foreigner. In this regard
I
must insist—­what may I do for you?”

The original plan had been to request access to the dame's private library—­she had the look of a reader, if not a scholar—­but Tyvian found that idea flying out of his head in favor of a different one. A new and probably crazy idea. A plan was forming around it, even as he stood there, constructing itself in its full complexity so quickly it was as though it had always been there, waiting to be uncovered.

Tyvian bowed to Dame Margess and took a deep breath, “Well, now that you mention it, do you have any good courtly enchanters you could recommend?”

 

A
rtus peered through the curtains of the Gentleman Bastard's second-­floor window. It was a good inn and a good room—­the windows were lead-­paned glass and relatively new, the curtains thick and clean, and the three beds had freshly stuffed straw mattresses with thick linen sheets. A small iron stove squatted in the corner of the room, more than sufficient for cold nights.

Even after living in the West for several years now, Artus still found himself bug-­eyed at its wealth. A room like this was fit for your average Benethoran knight, and all Tyvian did was slap a pair of silver crowns on the owner's desk downstairs and it had been theirs, no questions asked. Artus was fairly certain they didn't even
have
inns like this back home.

The streets of Derby were quiet, finally. The celebration of the earl's victory had breathed its last, with the remaining drunken stragglers of the day's merrymaking slowly weaving their way home in pairs of twos and threes. Artus found himself scowling at them all. What in Hann's name did they think they were
celebrating,
anyway?

“Come away from the window,” Hool barked. Artus glanced behind him to see the big gnoll's eyes gleaming in the candlelight. “You will be seen!”

Artus shrugged. “Who cares if I'm seen? Nobody knows who I am anyway.”

Hool's coppery gaze remained fixed on him. “I know who you are. You are Artus and you are mad at Tyvian for a stupid reason and so you're doing a stupid thing.”

“I'm not mad at anybody.”

Hool snorted. “If someone sees you from the street and tries to kill you, I will not help. I do not help stupid ­people.”

Artus let the curtain fall closed and laid back on his bed. Hool and Brana never used beds, so he had one all to himself. This beat some of the roadside inns in Galaspin where he and Tyvian had one bed to share between them, which naturally meant he had to sleep on the floor. “Nobody's after us, Hool. We ain't seen an assassin, a bounty hunter, or a Defender in the better part of a year. Reldamar's just paranoid, is all.”

“Just because you don't see something, that doesn't mean something isn't after you.” Hool settled herself into a ball on the floor right next to Brana, who was currently snoring away. It sounded as if somebody were sawing boards. “When I hunt, do you think my prey sees me before I kill it?”

Artus scowled—­he hated it when Hool used hunting analogies, and she used them all the time. “That's different.”

“It is not.”

Artus threw up his hands. “Look, even if you're right and everybody in the world is after Tyvian, that don't mean they're after
me
! Nobody even notices I'm here when Tyvian's in the room. You didn't see it, but them fancy folk we watched the battle with didn't even know I was alive, but they looked at him like he was . . . I dunno . . . something pretty fancy anyway. It's like that everywhere! Saints, I'll bet that Kalsaari princess or whatever—­the one whose hair I pulled?—­I bet she don't even remember what color my hair is. I'm a nobody, so what's it matter if I look out the stupid window?”

“Not being noticed is good,” Hool said, yawning. “If nobody sees you, you can do whatever you want.”

Artus grunted and thought, You'd think that, wouldn't you? He didn't say it, though. Arguing with Hool was a waste of time. She had no conception of what it was like being human, let along being
him
. She just thought everything she said was right and that was it, no arguing allowed. Even Tyvian had to give in to her eventually.

Artus tried not to think of just how similar that made Hool to his own, real mother. The very idea was sobering. What would his real mother say? He thought about it for a number of minutes before giving up. Every time he tried to imagine it, he discovered that she was speaking with Hool's voice. He tried not to think about that too hard.

“What are we doing here anyway?” Artus asked. Hool didn't immediately answer, “Hool?”

“We are trying to sleep. You are making noise.” Hool made a hissing noise that was the gnoll version of
Shhhh.

Artus crossed his arms and stared up at the ceiling, which was barely illuminated by the flickering candles. Tyvian never told him what was going on, and it was starting to grate. In the beginning there was some novelty to it all—­him, a farmboy from the middle of nowhere, hobnobbing around with the suave, educated, capable Reldamar—­why wouldn't he be impressed? That had faded, though. Now he just felt like manual labor—­a manservant, a page, a boot-­black (though, in fairness, Tyvian never made him polish his boots. That he never made him because he claimed Artus would “ruin perfectly good leather with his farmer's hands” was beside the point). Just once he wanted to be let in on the plan. He wanted to offer up his own ideas and not look stupid. Just once. Instead it was always like this: left minding the gnolls (or the gnolls minding him) for hours and hours and hours while Tyvian did gods-­knew-­what.

There was a knock at the door—­three times, then four times. It was Tyvian. When the smuggler came in, he was whistling to himself. “Ah, Artus—­you're awake. Excellent.”

Artus stood up. “I've been up all night! Where did you get off to?”

Tyvian lit a few more candles and a lantern hanging from the crossbeam. “My, my, Artus, if I'd known you were so worried about me, I might have had my companions walk me upstairs and offer their apologies.”

“What companions?”

Tyvian rolled his eyes. “Gods, Artus—­you're like a jealous fishwife. Look, the business I had to attend to involved a lot of time and needed to be done after dark. Did you smuggle Hool and Brana in here all right?”

“Nobody saw us,” Hool announced, standing up to stretch. Her body and arms were so long they temporarily blotted out most of the candlelight. “Most of the humans in this place were sick with poison. Brana and I could have stolen their shoes and they would not notice.”

Brana, stretching to mirror his mother, yipped. “Shoes! Ha!”

Tyvian nodded. “Excellent—­good work everybody. Now, for the reason we're here.” The smuggler pulled a small box from under his cape and upended it on one of the beds. Out fell a pair of belts—­wide leather things with simple brass studs, but etched all over with an intricate array of minute, blocky runes. “Courtesy of Dame Margess's favorite enchanter.”

“Those things are magic,” Hool said, her ears going back.

“It won't hurt, Hool—­I promise.” Tyvian held one out to Hool. “Here, try this on.”

“No.” Hool folded her arms.

“Don't be a baby—­just try it on.”

“What if it sticks like your magic ring?” Hool was eyeing the belt in Tyvian's hand like it was a snake.

“Then we'll cut it off. Belts are easier to cut off than rings.”

Brana was already fishing his belt off the bed. “I try!”

Hool slapped the belt out of Brana's hand and pushed him on the floor. “No! Me first!”

Brana stayed on his back and whined twice, to which Hool responded with a single guttural
“Huruff.”
Artus was fairly certain it meant “for your safety,” but he had an imperfect ear for the gnoll language, as Hool was fond of telling him.

Tyvian sighed. “Go on, Hool. I just spent about five hundred marks and the better part of all day getting this damned thing for you, the least you can do is try it on.”

Artus's mouth popped open. “Five hundred? Where the hell did you get—­”

“Not now, Artus,” Tyvian snapped, his eyes fixed on Hool as he held the belt out to her.

Hool ran her nose along its length, sniffing rapidly. She concluded the investigation with a snort and then snatched the belt from Tyvian's hand. She wrapped it around her waist, clipped the buckle . . .

. . . and disappeared. Standing in her place was a tall, svelte woman wearing a finely made bodice of green silk with black embroidery and a voluminous dark green skirt that ballooned out to a full four feet across. Her sun-­streaked, auburn hair was piled atop her head with a series of golden pins and barrettes; her face powdered to be pale in contrast with her red, red lips. Only Hool's copper eyes were still there, except of a more human shape and size—­the effect made her a singular, heart-­stopping beauty. Artus was struck dumb. “What . . . what . . .”

The woman spoke, but it was Hool's voice. “What are you looking at? Why do the two of you look crazy?”

Tyvian laughed. “Hann's boots, I figured an Eretherian enchanter would be good at this, but I had no
idea
. Hool! You look positively stunning!”

“What does that mean? Why do you—­” Hool held up her hands and then froze, staring open-­mouthed at the delicate, manicured things in front of her. She then howled something in the gnollish language, which was a sight to behold issuing from the elegant throat of the tall, curvaceous woman. Artus was in the process of laughing himself silly when Hool stepped forward and grabbed Tyvian by the shirt. She hoisted him in the air like he was made of straw, but while Artus had seen Hool manhandle Tyvian hundreds of times, the image of a thin red-­haired woman in a fancy dress yanking Tyvian off his feet with one hand was nothing short of ridiculous. Artus went from simply laughing to openly guffawing.

Tyvian tried to pry Hool's hand from his shirt. “Hool! Hool, if you please! This is conduct unbecoming a lady!”

Hool threw Tyvian on the bed. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?”

Tyvian held up his hands. “It's an illusion, Hool! A trick! Just take off the belt and you'll see!”

Scowling, Hool reached down and fumbled with something Artus couldn't quite see. An instant later Hool was standing right where she had been, her usual golden-­furred self. She held the belt out like it was on fire and dropped it on the floor. “That was disgusting!”

“Me try! Me try, too!” Brana barked, bouncing over to the bed and picking his up.

Hool moved to intercept, but Tyvian interposed himself. “It's harmless, Hool—­don't worry.”

The mother gnoll hesitated, which was just enough time for Brana to hook his belt on and vanish. Standing in his place was . . . Artus himself. “What?” Artus blinked. Looking more closely, he could see certain differences—­a broader chin, flatter cheekbones, darker hair. Brana's illusory self was an inch or so taller than Artus and broader, too, with thickly muscled shoulders that Artus himself wasn't even close to acquiring. He wore a similarly fine set of clothing as Hool, except with more maroons than greens. “You look like my brother Balter, a little.”

Brana held out his human-­looking hands and then stuck out his tongue. “Ha! Brothers, yes!”

Tyvian pursed his lips, “Yes, perhaps it's best if you didn't talk much while wearing your shroud, Brana.”

Artus recognized the word. “Is this like that time you disguised me and all those Defenders to look like you?”

“It is indeed, though a bit more elaborate and less prone to failure. We'll need our gnoll friends to wear these shrouds pretty consistently from now until we get to Saldor. This will let us move more easily and blend into society.”

Artus blinked. “Wait a second—­did you say ‘Saldor'?”

Tyvian grimaced as though he knew this was coming. “Yes, we're going to Saldor. All of us.”

Artus couldn't believe what he was hearing. “That's crazy! We can't go there! That's . . . that's where all the damned mirror men
come from
! That's like, like their
home
!”

Tyvian nodded. “Indeed, which is why they would never expect to find us there.”

Hool was frowning. “This is a bad plan. Very stupid.”

“After Draketower, the majority of my Eretherian contacts are now spent. My only friends close enough to get to with our current funds are somewhere in the domain of Saldor.” Tyvian winced. “We don't really have a choice.”

Artus knew that wince. “You're
lying
! You're lying to us
right now
!”

Tyvian scowled, rubbing his ring hand. “This stupid trinket . . . okay, fine—­I'm lying. We're still going to Saldor.”

“I don't like it,” Hool said.

“I realize that, Hool, but there are no acceptable alternatives. I have a lot of old friends in Saldor. They can help us.”

Artus shook his head. “It's suicide! I won't go! Why do this?”

Tyvian had his eyes fixed on his ring hand, which lay in his lap. He looked as though he wanted to jump out the window rather than have this conversation, but he stayed where he was. “I already told you.”

“No!” Artus yelled. “Not good enough! Why would we walk into the place where you're the most noticeable, with the most Defenders of anywhere in the West? I'm tired of just following you around everywhere!”

Tyvian's upper lip curled back in a snarl. “Nobody's making you stay, boy! Feel free to leave if you hate my leadership that much!”

“That
isn't
what I said!” Artus punched his own palm. “I'm just saying that everywhere we go,
you
come up with the plan,
you
tell us all what to do, and we never have any idea what's coming next, and . . .”

“And what? You're saying you should get a vote or something?”

“I'm saying that you keep almost getting us
killed
!”

Silence.

Tyvian froze, staring at Artus with an expression that he was certain had
never
come up during their nonverbal communication lessons. The smuggler said nothing, so Artus found himself talking. He didn't yell. “First there was Freegate, then Galaspin last year, then Haldasburg after that, then the crypts, then Draketower . . .”