The price of victory- - Thieves World 13 (56 page)

She had to tell the adept what she'd done, how she'd failed, and find out what the omen meant. She had to.

When the class filed out, her throat constricted: what if Randal left before the last of the students were gone? She couldn't chase him down the halls, or sortie to his private chamber where real magic was always under way. She just couldn't.

But Randal was surrounded by other questioners, excited voices asking about what they'd seen on the first plane. Merricat waited until all but two of them were gone and then walked slowly up the row toward the front of the study hall.

As she did, she felt the mage's eyes on her. And met them to see concern there, and recognition.

For what she was sure was the first time, Randal had noticed her—not just because she was giving a dinner menu to the First Hazard and he
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happened to be in the room, either. But noticed her with his whole attention.

If she hadn't been so frightened, she'd have blushed red as a beet. As it was, her gait stiffened and her steps slowed.

Then Merricat stopped. She held back, watching, miserable. She didn't have the courage to walk brassily up to the mage, who was pestered with unending questions from other students. No matter the meaning of the omen, she'd go to Shawme by herself. They'd figure it out together. She couldn't, just couldn't, bother Randal with her insignificant problems, not when the whole Mageguild was reeling from the magical recession taking place in Sanctuary; not while teaching a new generation must seem so futile . . .

Randal winked at her. Her hand flew to her mouth. She must have imagined it. Two students were much closer than she, prattling away. She clutched her tablet, on which she'd taken not a single note tonight, to her bosom.

He winked again, and she heard him say to the two fawning appren tices, "You two compare experiences, it will do you both good. Right now, I have an appointment with this young lady, whom I can't keep

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waiting any longer. Go practice first plane access. Tomorrow we do the second plane. Go on, now."

Both students looked over their shoulders at her with resentful, jealous eyes that changed visibly when they saw what "young lady" Randal meant. She glimpsed surprise and a new respect and something nastier in their backward glances as they left, whispering together.

With their passing, she and Randal were alone. She drew back a step. He didn't follow but stood unmoving, hands hooked in his fighter's belt, a slow smile on his freckled face.

He was so bold, so handsome, so brave. He was the Stepsons' chosen mage, a fighting magician who'd battled in the Wizard Wars. He was the most romantic single figure in the beleaguered Sanctuary Mageguild and Merricat wished miserably that she could disappear, sink through the floorboards, and be gone.

What did he care of her troubles, her doubts, her questions? She wished Dika was here, a comforting weight on her shoulder. Sometimes Dika seemed to speak for her, lend her courage. Butnot tonight. Falcons weren't welcome in Mageguild study halls.

Neither was she. It was obvious that the keen eyes of Randal were reading her soul. She trembled, went up on tiptoes, and eyed the doors
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through which the others had gone. Still time to run.

"Well, Merricat, how was your trip to the first plane?" said Randal gently as at last he came toward her.

He knew her name! She could hardly believe it. She said hastily, "Well, it's fine, there was a blird who spook weirds to me, and round trees." Damned and tongue-tied, she wanted to die. She closed her eyes And heard a voice so close she nearly fainted, "I saw something or other of that, I must admit. Would you like to talk about it over a drink?" and felt the mage touch her arm lightly, oh so lightly.

Saw something? What a mage he was! Talk about it over a drink? She took deep breaths and opened her eyes and said fervently, "Oh yes you, bless!" And, mortified, put her hand to her mouth again. If she could just calm down, her words wouldn't get scrambled. Blird who spooked weirds. She cringed inwardly.

The mage's fingers covered hers and drew her hand away from her lips. Then he was examining her palm, where the wasp nest's mark still could be seen.

When he looked up, his brow was furrowed. "What's here means more to me than you'd understand. It would be a favor if you'd share your
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experience with me, and anything else that might be relevant that's hap pened to you lately. Wasps and I have a ... special understanding."

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The hand that wasn't holding Merricat's went to his waist, where a wavy sword, short and foreign-looking, hung in a tooled scabbard.

Miserably, afraid to trust her traitorous voice, Merricat nodded. How to tell him about it all? About the wasp on the first plane, and the weapon her friend Shawme had found, that silver tube that shot tiny wasplike pieces of metal when you blew through it—the weapon Merricat was certain that Dika had wanted Shawme to keep?

In fact, how to tell Randal anything at all, with her tongue tied in knots and her heart pounding? How indeed, while she was sure to the very depths of her soul that she'd done something wrong in helping Shawme, and in coming to the Mageguild, and in falling hopelessly in love with the famed and fearsome mage Randal in the first place?

Shawme was trembling uncontrollably and afraid someone would no tice her, making herself small in a comer among the other girls in Myr tis's saloon.

And someone had. One of the musicians, a percussionist who pounded drums and shook bells and crashed cymbals, kept watching her as he
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played.

The attention of the musician made things worse. As did every man who came ducking in through Myrtis's beaded curtains, who stalked around the room, drink and smoke in hand, and touched this girl or that before making up his mind and escorting his chosen up the back stairs to the girl's room.

Worse, because none of them so much as ogled Shawme. She might as well have stayed upstairs. Worse too, because if a man did approach her, she was sure she'd break and run-Unless, of course, that man was Zip.

After a while she closed her eyes, secure in her comer with stout red frescoed walls against her back, certain she'd get through this whole night unnoticed. As much trouble as that might cause with Myrtis, she knew she could handle that. Other girls must have failed to make con quests on their first night here. Most of those who'd gone upstairs al ready, went with men they obviously knew quite well, men who took them boldly in strong arms and crushed silken bodies against armored chests with no preamble.

Shawme didn't know anyone like those soldiers, any more than she knew the sort of brocaded nobles who came in groups of twos and threes, smelling of perfume like the women, and gathered up giggling ladies by the armload.

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The only man who noticed her was the musician, a youngster with barely a beard and naked, sweaty arms. Her son. From undistinguished beginnings Eking out a living among his betters and here to please. The

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more he watched her, the more Shawme felt a kinship. She began won dering if, when his music was done, the youth would come toward her.

But it didn't work out that way.

She was studying the frescoes in the saloon through a growing fog of smoke, finally realizing how instructive they were to an ignorant girl. On them men were portrayed doing what she'd seen dogs do in the street. And women knelt before them, doing mysterious things that involved kissing. Shawme was trying to guess at what that would be like, feeling her mouth grow dry and her heart pound as each successive man took someone else and the crowd of women thinned while she tried not to notice and prayed that Myrtis wouldn't come down tonight to find Shawme the only unclaimed girl, the only one who hadn't made a cop per's worth of profit for the house . . .

So she didn't notice the newcomers until the beaded curtain rattled, and then she quickly lowered her eyes.

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Three men had come in together, laughing, arm in arm, with a fourth behind them, taciturn. The three were military men, highly ranked since they'd been allowed to wear their weapons in here. The fourth was armed as well, and unsmiling. His glance caught hers before she looked away.

In front of Shawme's corner was a couch on which three older girls reclined, each showing thigh or bare perfumed shoulder or a hint of rosy breast. The three jolly soldiers, unmistakably a little drunk, came their way. The tallest one was blond with braids in his hair and a goblet in his hand.

He stared directly at Shawme for three heartbeats, and on the fourth her heart threatened to stop entirely. That look was a look of recognition, but she couldn't remember ever meeting such a soldier. She was sure he was coming for her.

She shrank back in the corner, trying to push her way through the frescoed walls; trying to get breath into her lungs, enough breath for flight if he held out a hand to her as she'd seen men do here.

She would run right past him, duck under his arm and fly out through the curtained doorway, into the street, back to Ratfall. She'd run and run until her heart burst.

But the blond man looked away then, at the girls on the couch between
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Shawme and his soldier friends, and held out a hand to one of them, who squealed, "Oh, Walegrin, you're looking fit tonight," and giggled.

In relief, Shawme squeezed her eyes shut. In that solitary darkness, her relief was eaten up by chagrin. Then came embarrassment and mortifica tion, shame and despair. No man was going to choose her. She was going to fail. All the other girls would laugh at her.

She thought to herself, Perhaps it's the mandrake. Perhaps it's ugly.

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Perhaps it's working too well and keeping the men away So she reached up behind her neck, eyes still shut, and undid the thong that held it there

When the thong came undone, she opened her eyes and surreptitiously pulled the mandrake from between her breasts, hiding it behind her, under the cushions of the bench against the wall

When she straightened up, a shadow fell on her She looked up And up Standing directly in front of her was the fourth man, the one who'd come in alone.

She thought wildly. He's not here for me, he's going to ask one of the girls on the couch. But all of them were gone While she'd had her eyes shut, they'd left with the blond soldier and his friends
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There was no one else in this comer, darkened by the big man's shadow, but Shawme She craned her neck, unable to nse as a girl should, her knees like water

He seemed gigantic, all dark cloth and leather She looked up past his weapons belt at eye level, and could hardly see his face, just the dark shadow of new beard and a hand that came suddenly toward her.

"Young lady," his deep voice said, "what's your name9"

"Sh-Shawme," she quavered and hated herself His hand was waiting Somehow, she lifted hers. Then, with his help, she was standing

"Your room, if you please," said the voice and still she had no clear impression of his face Her gaze was level with his broad chest, and his eyes beat down on her with such fire in them—as only those of Dika the peregnne had ever done before

Too late to run, the deed all but done, she remembered her training

"A dnnk, kind sir, or something stronger9" Drugs were purveyed at Myrtis's—drugs to embolden, drugs to give stamina, drugs to make up for whatever needed making up for, so Myrtis had told her

"I'm known as Shepherd, little lamb," he said and she knew from that
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he wanted no dnnk or anything at all but her

At the last minute, while his hand inexorably drew her from the corner toward the stairs, she remembered the charm that Merncat had given her, her mandrake root, without which this man was soon going to know she was a virgin.

Anguished, she halted, their arms stretched out between them, without the strength to pull away His big head turned questioningly and she saw his profile for the first time a grown man's profile, hard and seasoned, a bold nose and lips trying hard not to laugh above a stubbled chin This was a stark man, a man from whom you ran on the streets because such men took what they wanted There was no fooling such a man as he

"I—I forgot something, left something on the bench "

"You don't need that, not with me," he said with such authority that

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Shawme could do nothing but obey the pressure of his tug, which pulled her in and under the circle of his arm

Up the stairs they went the big man's right arm crooked around her neck, her right hand pressed against her collarbone by his grip, his fingers against her throat She hadn't remembered the stairs being so many, or
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the trek to her backroom bed so long His breath in her hair was hot and the things he said were a matter of tone, not words