A Hazardous Engagement Read online

  “Why would I?” Arden summoned a server with a flick of his fingers. “And you’re staying in the Black Pig, I understand.”

  “Must you spy on me?”

  “That’s a harsh way to put it. I’m interested in what you’re up to, little sister.”

  “I am older than you, Arden.”

  “You don’t need to remind me, my dear.” He looked her up and down. “It shows.”

  She forbore to comment. They both had the dark-oak skin and thick, straight black hair of their departed mother, and their father’s sharp-cut features. Madis was perfectly at home with her appearance, but Arden never ceased trying to needle her about it.

  The conversation paused as the server took their order. Madis looked Arden over as he enquired about the freshness of the fish. He wore a sharply-cut coat in the latest style, and a rakish hat decorated with a puff of dark red silk to match the coat’s cuffs lay on the table.

  “And what is this proposal of yours?” She said, when the server was safely out of earshot.

  “Belani is retiring. She’s met some ghastly farmer, and wants to live in rural splendour and raise chickens. Or babies. Possibly both, I went deaf with boredom before she finished chattering about it. So, there’s going to be an opening in my happy little ensemble.”

  Madis almost choked on her beer. “You want me to...”

  “I’ve a job in mind. I wasn’t sure if you could handle it, but since you succeeded in Mithelden – really quite neatly – I thought I'd offer you a prize. I’m willing to consider you for Belani’s place, if you can pull it off.”

  “And why would I want to do that?”

  “Madis, my dear. You’ve been lucky so far.”

  “I’d have been luckier if you hadn’t tried to muscle in on the Intivadi job.”

  “Oh, are you still peeved about that? No one got hurt, did they?”

  “No one got any money, either. And we escaped arrest by a sliver.”

  Arden waved the past away. “You’d be far better off under my leadership.”

  She leaned back, stuffed her hands in her pockets, and looked at him. “I have a team.”

  “I might be willing to take on one or two of them. Perhaps.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “You can hardly expect me to adopt every waif and stray you choose to work with. Even if they were up to it, I don’t run a petticoat army.”

  “Apart from Belani.”

  “Belani had... other attributes. Ones I don’t look for in my sister.” He leaned back and regarded her with a smile that made her fists itch. “What do you say? Pull off this job, and we can work together. Like family should.”

  The fish arrived, beautifully cooked and smelling delicious.

  “So,” Madis said, after a few mouthfuls, “what’s the job?”

  “I’m sure the sausage at the Black Pig is perfectly adequate, but this deserves your full attention.” Arden waved his knife at her reprovingly. “Take some time to appreciate it.”

  They ate in silence, Madis devouring hers in minutes and pushing the stripped bones around her plate until Arden finally extracted the last fragment and leaned back from the table with a sigh of satisfaction.

  “There, wasn’t that worth it?” He smiled. “And now, a little of the Desert Flower, I think. “

  “Not for me.” Madis said.

  “If you’re sure... You, boy,” Arden said to the server, a man of at least fifty. “Desert Flower. And I want the twenty year old. Don’t try and palm me off with the ten.”

  Once the man had gone, Arden sighed. “The service has gone downhill. I do prefer something pretty to look at while I’m eating.”

  “Are you going to tell me what this job is?”

  “Not here.” He threw a handful of coins on the table, and picked up his glass.

  Madis added some more coins, gave the server an apologetic glance and followed Arden up to his room – the best in the house, of course. She stood by the window, peering into the street, while he sprawled in the large wingback chair.

  “So?” She said.

  “So. You’ve heard of Lord Baridine.”

  Madis frowned. “Something to do with the Glass Wars? Wait, wasn’t there some famous siege?”

  “Indeed. Baridine Castle guards Brute Rock, and Brute Rock guards Quat Bay. Baridine has never been defeated. The siege marked a turning point in the Glass Wars. The King was very grateful, but unfortunately all that gratitude only led to a little gold and some grants of land that proved sadly unproductive. Lord Baridine died, his son came briefly into the inheritance and managed to spend much of it, before dying – of either drink or pox, or both. His son, the current Lord Baridine, has spent most of what was left. “

  “If they’ve spent all their money, why are you interested in them?”

  “Because Lord Baridine has had the extreme good fortune to find himself a very wealthy bride. One Lady Casillienne of Darnor.”

  “Darnor? That’s somewhere in the north, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed. And the poor lady won’t have any of her family at the wedding as snow has cut off the passes. Although that might be a relief, at least for the rest of the guests. Not only are they northerners, their money comes from trade.”

  “I really don’t understand the objection,” Madis said. “It’s money. Unless the trade’s slaving.”

  “Not that I know of,” Arden said. “Metals. Wool. All terribly tedious but quite profitable. In any case, there will be an excellent dowry, once the passes open. In the meantime Baridine is inviting the cream of the local nobility to witness his nuptials.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re after the wedding gifts. That’s a little low, even for you.”

  “No. I have a buyer for one specific object.”

  “What?”

  “A belt. An engagement gift to the young bride from her betrothed. It’s a magical focus; capable of intensifying the magic of a talented wearer a hundredfold, and currently attached to her presumably virginal waist with one very powerful spell and a good old-fashioned lock.”

  “A belt, locked to the waist of the woman at the centre of the attention of several hundred people, in an un-invadable castle, on a rock, in the sea.”

  “Too risky for you?” Arden said, brushing a crumb from his breeches.

  “Why not wait until she leaves? Goes swanning around the countryside showing her newlywed self off to the peasantry?”

  “The belt has to be removed before the wedding.”

  “Why?”

  Arden shrugged. “The buyer demands it. I assume there’s a reason. I don’t pretend to be an expert in magical items.”

  “Did the buyer give you the counterspell, or does that have to be dug up too?”

  “I have the counterspell. I’ll even give it to you, free of charge. What do you say? If you succeed, an even split. Half for me, half for you and your team.”

  “That’s an interesting definition of ‘even’.” Madis gave her brother a level look. “Me and my team take all the risks, and you take half the prize?”

  “But without me you would not know the prize was there to be got. And you get to join my team.”

  “How much is your buyer offering, anyway?”

  “Twenty thousand nobles.”

  “A tidy sum. So, brother mine, why aren’t you doing it yourself?”

  “You don’t want the job?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just wondered.”

  “Because if I’m offering you a place on my team, I want you to prove yourself.”

  Madis chewed her lip. “When’s the wedding?”

  “The festival of the Evening Star.”

  “That’s less than a moon!”

  “I know.” Arden rolled his eyes. “Inappropriately hasty, in my opinion – I assume it was the bride’s doing. Typical bourgeoisie. No doubt she’s afraid he’ll tire of her savage northern ways and change his mind.”

  “How am I supposed to get everything set up in that amount of time?”

  “Well
, that will be a test of your abilities, won’t it, little sister?”

  Madis leaned back. “And if I try, and fail? Your buyer won’t be happy.”

  “I don’t get paid until she has the item in hand.”

  Madis sighed. “I’ll talk to the others.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid I can’t wait around – or risk word of this getting out. There is, as you pointed out, less than a moon before the wedding. Yes, or no?”

  “All right! All right! Yes! I’ll do it.”

  Arden smiled, patted her hand, and tugged on the bell-rope by the bed. “I think we should celebrate, don’t you? And this time I insist you join me in a glass. We are family, after all.”

  Once she had finally got away from Arden, Madis went back to her room at the Black Pig, and sat on the narrow bed with her feet tucked under her, thinking hard.

  She had not been there long when there was a knock on the door. “Lady for you, miss.”

  She got up and followed the tap-boy to the crowded bar. The smells of beer, cheap perfume, sweat and sausages thickened the air.

  The woman who was waiting had a round, pretty face and tight dark curls. She flung out her hands at the sight of Madis. “Oh, thank you! Thank you so much! I don’t know what... You must let me pay you, something, at least!”

  “Hello, Jara.” Madis smiled and put a finger to her lips.

  “Oh!” Jara said. “Of course... I’m sorry... I’m just so thankful...”

  “Come to my room a moment,” Madis said. “We can talk there.”

  “Oh, well...” Jara glanced around, and nodded. “Yes. All right.”

  “So,” Madis said, when they were both sitting on her bed. “It went all right?”

  “Her ladyship never even noticed it was missing! I’d have lost my place, at the very least of it.”

  “I’ve met her ladyship. You’d have been in clink, love.”

  “Did you see Dobrin?”

  “I did. And I had a word with him.”

  Jara’s face fell. “You didn’t... hurt him, did you?”

  “I put the fear of the Sea Goddess in him, is what I did. He’s no good for you, Jara. He didn’t care what would happen to you when she found that necklace gone.”

  “No, I know.” Jara sighed.

  “You’re not going to take him back, I hope?”

  “No. This isn’t the first time he... No.”

  “Good. I don’t want to have to put any more trinkets back where they belong.” Or see you with a black eye because you told him no.

  The light of a lowering sun flooded the practice room, elongating the dancing shadows. Shouts echoed, the thwack of wooden swords hitting gambazons, hilts, and occasionally, shins.

  The smell of sweat and leather.

  Fourteen young men, sparring, chattering, lounging. A handful of manservants, waiting on benches at one side of the room.

  Two tutors, one stocky, the other lanky.

  A shriek. One of the young men dropped his guard and fell back, hopping and swearing.

  “Enough for today,” the stocky tutor said. His pushed-back helm showed a jowly, stubbled face. “Lord Colet, if that swells, I’d get a healer to it, but I think it’s just a bruise.”

  Lord Colet, still scowling, gestured to his manservant, hauled off his gambazon, and threw his kit in the general direction of a leather bag on the floor. “I was distracted,” he said, glaring at the lanky tutor, who stood impassive, helmet still on. “I shall ask my father to find me a class with proper tutors.”

  There was a moment’s silence, while the other young men looked at each other.

  “Bavez, are you coming?” Colet said.

  His friend ducked his head. “I’ll be along later.”

  “Fool.” Colet strode out. His manservant scurried to collect everything and went after him.

  One by one the others followed, apart from Bavez, who was one of those young men who seem loosely put together, as though made up of parts from other people that almost, but don’t quite match. He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Did you need something, my Lord?” The stocky tutor said.

  “No. Just... he’s wrong,” Bavez burst out, in the direction of the lanky figure. “You’re good.”

  She pulled off her helm, revealing close-cropped hair as furiously orange as the sunset light flooding through the big windows. “Thank you,” she said gravely.

  Bavez, blushing, muttered something and skittered out of the room, tripping on the step.

  “Someone has a crush,” the stocky tutor said.

  “He’ll get over it. This isn’t going to work.”

  “Give ’em time.”

  “Numbers keep dropping, Danad.”

  Danad shrugged. “So we’ve lost a handful that weren’t worth the teaching. Like Colet. He’ll go from tutor to tutor, looking for someone who can magically turn him into a decent swordsman without him putting in any effort. It’s a common enough with these sprigs of the nobility. They think they should be born with it like they were everything else, and get all pissbritches when they find it takes work.”

  “Even bad students pay.” Milandree put her waster in the rack. “Time to call it. Don’t want to repay you by ruining your business.”

  Danad opened his mouth, and closed it, and sighed.

  “Well, you’re a gloomy lot.”

  “Madis!” Milandree spun around, a rare smile lighting her face. “Danad, Madis. Madis, Danad. My employer. For now.”

  “A man of perception and sense,” Madis said, holding out her hand to Danad, who bowed over it with the limber grace of a man who might be well into his sixtieth year but ran around crossing practice swords with striplings all day.

  “Delighted to meet any friend of Milandree’s,” he said. “Now please take her off my hands and pour some drink down her until she cheers up. We’ve no pupils tomorrow.”

  “None?” Milandree frowned. “Danad...”

  “Shoo.” He flapped his hands at her. “Go with your friend. I’ll see you in two days. And you can drop in at that lazy bastard smith’s for me and tell him I want those hilts fixed before I fucking die of old age.” He glanced at Madis and flushed. “Sorry,” he said.

  Madis waved a hand. “I’ve heard worse. I’ve said worse, come to that. Come along, dear, I’m under orders to get you drunk. I don’t want to get you in trouble with your boss.”

  The inn was scruffier than the Black Pig, but the beer was good.

  “I was sorry to hear about your father,” Madis said. “And the schola. How did you end up with Danad? I thought the money from the last job would be enough to hold you.”

  Milandree shrugged. “Once Father got sick, custom dropped off. Not enough pupils who’d train with me. Couldn’t keep up the rent on the building. Danad fought alongside my father. When I had to close the schola, he offered me the job. ”

  “You like the work?”

  “Mostly, yes.”

  “You still want to run your own schola?”

  “No point. Even if I could afford to start one up and equip it, same problem. Not enough pupils.”

  “What’s wrong with them? You’re the best fighter I know!”

  “You know what’s wrong.” Milandree shrugged.

  “What about women?”

  One of Milandree’s coppery eyebrows rose a fraction.

  “I’m not asking about your personal life,” Madis grinned, “as if you’d spill anyway. What about that schola for women? Not like you haven’t talked about it.”

  “No one would come.”

  “I would. Half the women we know would.”

  “That’s not enough to fill a schola.”

  Madis chewed her lip. “Damn, you really are gloomy today. Look, are you serious about leaving Danad?”

  “He’s been good to me. I’m ruining his business. So, yes.”

  “Up for a job, then?”

  “Hah.” One side of Milandree’s mouth lifted slightly. “Thought so. What is it?”

  “I want to wait
until everyone’s together.”

  “Everyone? Same as last time?”

  “Same as last time. I think you’ll like it.”

  “All right.”

  “Excellent!” Madis waved to the server. “Now let’s get on with getting you drunk like I promised.”

  “Well, it’s a good looking beast.” A young man, dressed in the very razor edge of the latest court fashion, looked up at the gleaming black mass of equine muscle and irritation that stood in the yard; a beast with an arched neck and dappled flanks, and, currently, a striking white blaze down its handsome nose. A manservant in heavily embroidered livery stood to one side, his face carefully expressionless, holding the courtier’s horse – a handsome but nervy grey with welts along its flanks – and his own, an older beast that lipped wearily at a patch of grass growing by the wall.

  “You people certainly know your horseflesh – Dagri, isn’t it?” The courtier glanced at the young woman holding the horse. She had a broad face and long, dark eyes under strongly marked brows and was dressed in a quilted jacket embroidered in scarlet and emerald, and trousers of soft hide.

  “So it is said, Lord Galzas,” Dagri replied. “And Shaikan is very fine, but headstrong. The chestnut mare....”

  “What am I, a maiden bride? Chestnut mare, indeed. A soft pretty ride. No.” Lord Galzas leaned towards the horse. “Shaikan. Hmm.”

  With a snort of fury, Shaikan bucked and lashed out. The servant staggered backwards, his face wearing the sweating-cheese expression of someone who has just felt a living war-hammer whisk close enough to brush his hair. “My Lord...”

  “Quiet, man. There isn’t a horse I can’t break. How much?”

  “Two hundred and fifty nobles,” Dagri said.

  “Not before I try his paces,” the courtier said.

  “As you will.” Dagri murmured to Shaikan and patted his neck. He stood like a stock as the young man swung himself easily into the saddle, but shook his head and snorted at the first tug on the reins. Lord Galzas managed to urge him to a trot, but Shaikan refused to canter, balking and huffing. Eventually the rider gave up, yanked him to a halt and slid off. He sidestepped the horse’s attempt to bite him, and tossed the reins to Dagri. “He needs a firm hand. I’ll take him, but not for two hundred and fifty.”