Ishist chuckled. “Typical faun! Always convinced his own ways are best.” Abruptly he slid down off his chair.
Rap rose from his, and clasped the tiny hand being offered, having to bend slightly to do so. “I promise,” he repeated. “And I.” For a moment a veil seemed to lift from the little gnome—a small, ugly, filthy old man, girt with enormous occult power, but just a man doing his best in a hard job, living in the style of his people, caring for his children, deeply in love with his wife. It was not his fault that his race ate carrion. Then the odd moment had passed, and he was a sorcerer again, even if his head was barely higher than Rap’s elbow.
He examined his own hand, which Rap had just released. “That’s two,” he remarked softly. “You and Athal’rian.”
“Two?”
“Touched me.” He looked up with a cryptic gleam in his black button eyes. “Few day men will shake hands with a gnome, Rap. Even fewer would think a promise made to a gnome had any value at all. But you . . . I think you’re a man of your word.”
The splendour falls:
The splendour falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story . . .
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
— Tennyson, The Princess
EIGHT
To the seas again
1
“There is something very aesthetic about bacon and eggs,” Kade said. “The meld of shapes and colors, perhaps? Or is it because I associate it with childhood? Or winter mornings in Kinvale?” She dabbed her lips with her napkin and sighed like one who could eat nothing more.
Kade was in ecstasy. She had slept in a bed with real linen sheets. She had been granted hot water for washing, and promised a hot tub later in the day. A maiden who was probably one of Elkarath’s innumerable granddaughters or greatgranddaughters had shampooed her hair and curled it for her afterward quite expertly. The matronly Nimosha, who was one of his daughters or granddaughters, had produced a gown of almost Kade’s size, in almost the current fashion, and had asked if it would suffice until Kade herself could have the merchants bring around better, and of course that could be arranged to happen right after breakfast. Then Kade had eaten bacon and eggs, and with silver cutlery instead of fingers.
The two ladies had consumed their leisurely breakfast in the sheik’s personal dining hall. The hour was late enough that everyone else was feverishly occupied elsewhere.
Like all the other chambers they had seen so far, the room was tiny, with only six chairs squeezed in around a table, and the rest of it taken up by a grotesquely awkward sideboard. The furniture was old and rather ugly; being the property of a merchant, even a wealthy merchant, it lacked the ducal opulence of Kinvale. But it was Imperial furniture. Bacon and eggs were an Imperial dish, and Kade’s rather overlong dress was an Imperial garment. The casement was closed, but the voices that drifted up from the street were Imperial voices. And she was going to summon Imperial dressmakers.
Kade was floating on pink clouds.
Inos was gritty-eyed and slack-shouldered from lack of sleep. Flocks of impractical ideas for escape thundered around inside her head like a riot of startled seagulls, but none of them would come to her hand. Realizing that she was being poor company, she now laid her plotting aside for a moment to find some tactful way of dealing with the bacon-and-eggs question—for the real reason Kade liked bacon and eggs had nothing to do with esthetics and was merely that she enjoyed anything soaked in fat and grease.
At that moment the door was, firstly, tapped briskly and, secondly, thrown open to reveal a young man already swooping a low bow. He straightened up, adjusted a snowy lace cuff very slightly, and flashed a dazzling smile. ”Mistresses, I am at your service! Guide and fearless protector! Poet, troubadour, humble slave!” Then he stepped into the room and bowed again.
Inos blinked hard and exchanged a bewildered glance with Kade. This was either Skarash or a twin brother.
Skarash was one of the sheik’s many grandsons and one of his favontes. But Skarash had been a solemn, surly youth in his late teens, and Inos had never thought of him as dashing before. In all the weeks since leaving Arakkaran, he had neither smiled nor spoken ten words to her, although that was admittedly correct Zarkian behavior toward a woman.
Now he was decked out like an imp, in silver-buckled half boots and hose of sea green, in puffy silken breeches and a white shirt with innumerable ruffles—a very tall, slim-waisted young man with a mop of copper curls flopping cutely over his forehead. Without his straggly ginger beard he seemed somehow older and certainly better-looking. His cheeky, toothy grin was pure imp.
So was the way he lifted Inos’s hand to kiss. Kade was rightit was nice to be back in the Impire.
“Good morning, Master Skarash.”
“A magnificent morning! Beautiful weather outdoors, beautiful ladies indoors. The Gods are generous.” He bowed again. Skarash could not match Kinvale standards in polish and finesse, but he was certainly coming much closer than any other djinn Inos had yet met. He babbled like an imp.
“What is your pleasure for this magnificent day? Grandsire thought you might care to visit the shopping district—there is no real bazaar here. Or just go sightseeing? Ullacarn is famous for its flowers.” His garnet-red eyes twinkled at Inos.
Kade and Inos exchanged more glances of surprise.
“I would enjoy seeing the stores,” Kade said wistfully. ”Mistress Nimosha mentioned a couturier’s establishment on this very street, I think?”
Skarash laughed loudly. “She also mentioned it to Grandsire, and he bit her ears off! He said that for apparel I must take you to Ambly Square, where the rich ladies go.” He produced a washleather bag and jingled it suggestively. “I have never known him eager to spend money before, but he threatens I shall eat every groat I bring back. So you will have to help me, and see it all gets spent.”
Inos felt cold fingers of suspicion stroke the nape of her neck. What was the mage up to now? “His hospitality brings honor on his house. Are there by chance some conditions attached to such bounty?”
The impudent smile on Skarash’s face did not fade or flicker by one eyelash. ”He did mention that he would enjoy a word with your gracious self before we set out. Possibly you might put that question to him in person?”
So there were to be strings. Unbreakable strings, most likely. Would Inos feel bound if she gave her parole? A promise made under duress might not be as binding as one freely made, but then she would likely be given the option of staying in a cell . . . and that thought reminded her of Azak.
“First Lionslayer is still in the dungeons?”
“One dungeon. Actually, it’s only a subcellar, but it’s too damp to store anything of value.”
“May I visit him?”
“Certainly! Mistress, I assure you again that your slightest whim is my life’s desire.” Skarash opened the door and held it. Inos rose. Kade cast an indecisive look at the puffy rolls and the peach preserve. “I don’t much care for dungeons. I think I’ll wait here for you, dear.”
“Shall I have more tea sent in?”
“No, that’s not necessary,” Kade said, “I’ve certainly finished eating.” She sat well back in her chair and tried to look innocent.
The corridor outside was narrow and twisting and uneven. The whole edifice was like that, a maze of low ceilings, peeling plaster walls, and uneven floors—a conglomeration of umpteen buildings, altered and connected and rearranged. “To the left, Inos,” Skarash said softly.
Inos stopped and met his eye. “You know who I am? Why I’m here?”
He smirked, stepping close to avoid a woman passing with a load of laundry. He stayed close, looking down at Inos with a twinkle and a scent of rosewater.
“Of course! I’ll call you Hathark if you wish, but it’s almost as bad as Phattas.” His voice had lost the djinn harshness, and his gestures were impish. Could this be sorcery?
“You are strangely changed from the surly young man I knew in the desert.”
“Here we are in the Impire. When in Hub . . .”
“ . . .do as the Hubbans tell you?”
“Correct.” He took her arm, holding it tight. “This way. And remember also, I am a merchant. I always try to please, especially beautiful ladies. I give whatever you want to receive.”
Was a flirtation what she wanted? Skarash seemed to be heading that way like a stampede of camels. But it would be fun to try a little banter again.