The Raven Ring (19 page)

“Why, hiring a Luck-seer, of course.” Baroja sat back, his expression smug, as if he had just made an unarguable point. “You see?”

“No.”

“Really, Daner!” Lady Kistran frowned at him. “Clearly, Baroja’s Luck-seer has both knowledge and skill, or she would not be earning coin by charting cards. How did you find her, Baroja?”

“Oh, one of Toricar’s Trader friends presented her to me this afternoon,” Baroja said. “And if anyone knows about charting cards, it’s a Trader.”

“Traders are also remarkably good at spotting an easy catch,” Lord tir Vallaniri remarked.

“I think it was very clever of Baroja to hire her,” Metriss said pugnaciously.

“And very kind of him to think of us,” Raqueva put in.

“It was nothing,” Baroja said modestly. “The moment I saw her, I knew you’d want her to do your cards. And knowing that, how could I
not
beg her to come?”

“Will your Luck-seer have time to chart all of us?” Lady tir Vallaniri asked. “We seem to be more numerous than usual tonight.”

“I don’t see why not,” Baroja replied. “She said she’d stay the whole evening.”

“This Luck-seer of yours must be a remarkably obliging woman,” Lord tir Vallaniri said. “I am becoming eager to meet her.”

“Does that mean that you’ll have your cards charted this time, Father?” asked Laurinel.

“No, it does not.”

“Daner will, though,” Metriss said. “Won’t you, Daner?”

“Only if you insist,” Daner told her. “I’m not interested in trickery.”

“Freelady Salven must certainly have her cards charted,” Raqueva put in, giving Eleret an indecipherable look. “Especially since she’s never done it before.”

“Yes, of course you must, Freelady,” Laurinel said. “I hope the Luck-seer will let us watch. Charting someone’s cards for the very first time is more involved than renewing a chart; it would be so interesting.”

“As you will have it,” Eleret said with a mental grimace, There’d be no getting out of it now, but then, there had never really been much chance of avoiding the card-charting. She could only hope it wouldn’t last too long, or be too dull. Daner’s attitude was not exactly encouraging.

“And Aunt Kistran must have a turn as well,” Raqueva said. “After all, we wouldn’t have a Luck-seer at all if Baroja hadn’t brought one.”

“By that logic, Baroja should go first.” Daner’s voice was full of mischief. “What do you say, Cousin? She’s your Luck-seer.”

“Oh, Daner!” Metriss turned the corners of her mouth down. “Baroja brought her here for
us
.”

“Very true,” Baroja said. “I’ll go last.”

“That hardly seems fair,” Laurinel objected, frowning slightly.

“Well, but if Aunt Kistran takes the first turn—” Raqueva began.

“I do not intend to have my cards charted at all,” Lady Kistran announced.

“Don’t you?” Lady tir Vallaniri said with mild surprise. “I shall certainly have mine done. I find it interesting to watch, especially when they get everything wrong.”

“It is an amusement for younger folk, Laurenzi,” Kistran replied. “I will be quite content to listen to their tales as they come back from their charting.”

Daner leaned toward Eleret and said softly, “Whit she means is that she doesn’t want
her
chart chewed over in public. She’ll lecture everyone else on what their charts really mean, then corner the Luck-seer privately later on, wait and see.”

Eleret nodded without comprehension, and let the conversation flow on without her. The meal ended at last, and the Vallaniris withdrew from the eating room, leaving the servers to clear things up. Eleret trailed after Daner’s sisters and his cousin and his aunt, wishing she could slip quietly away and escape to her room. But even if she had been lost to all sense of her obligations to her hosts, she could not have done it; Daner and his parents were right behind her.

Baroja led them back to the long cluttered hall where they had met before dinner. A servant stood at the far end, waiting patiently; when he saw Baroja, he came forward and whispered something to him.

“Bring her in at once!” Baroja said.

The servant bowed and crossed back to the stairwell door. Baroja smiled broadly at his relatives.

“The best card-charter in Ciaron has arrived!” he announced. He turned and waved with perfect timing as the far door opened. “Mother, Aunt, Cousins, allow me to present Luck-seer Jonystra Nirandol.”

THIRTEEN

E
LERET HAD TO FORCE
her face to remain blank as Daner’s mother and sisters moved happily forward to greet Jonystra.
How
had the woman managed this? And why had she bothered? Unless she was a fool, she must know that Eleret would be on her guard. And not just Eleret; Daner, too, watched Jonystra with a face like stone.

While Baroja beamed at his cousins, Eleret slipped across to Daner’s side. “Daner,” she said in a low voice, “get hold of yourself, or everyone will know something’s wrong.”

“How did that
creyuda
get a line on Baroja?” Daner said in a savage undertone. “I don’t know whether to wring his neck or hers!”

“Try it with either, and I’m gone. If you make a scene—”

“Your aunt and your sisters will demand to know the reason,” Lord tir Vallaniri said from behind Eleret.

Without thinking, Eleret spun, one hand on her dagger’s hilt. She took control of her reflexes in time to keep from drawing it and cursed herself mentally for an incompetent fool. Bad enough to lose track of someone, even if he was not an enemy, but to let herself be startled into such a strong response was inexcusable. “Exactly my point,” she said as calmly as she could.

Lord tir Vallaniri raised an eyebrow at her. “I’ve been tempted to wring Baroja’s neck myself, now and again, but what is it about his companion that provokes such a response in you?”

“That woman—the so-called Luck-seer Nirandol—followed us here,” Daner said. “How and why, I don’t know, and it would be for Eleret to say even if I did, but I don’t like it. Demons take Baroja for bringing her in!”

Eleret was positive that Jonystra hadn’t actually followed them but then, she wouldn’t have needed to. Jonystra had heard Daner’s name at the inn; tracing a well-known nobleman could not have been hard. And she’d had most of the afternoon to arrange a way of getting inside the Vallaniri household. However she had done it, the result was what mattered.

“Baroja has demonstrated a certain aptitude for innocently doing whatever will cause the greatest inconvenience to whomever he is with,” Lord tir Vallaniri said in a slow, thoughtful tone. “It’s practically the boy’s only talent; I’m pleased to see it hasn’t deserted him.”

“Pleased?” Daner gave his father a skeptical look.

“Everyone should be good at something.”

“Teach him to sleep well.” Daner glanced toward Jonystra, then closed his eyes as if the sight hurt him. “Loren’s Curse, how are we going to get her to leave?”

“Unless she does something extremely foolish, such as trying to stick a knife into Freelady Salven or kidnapping one of your sisters, you can’t,” Lord tir Vallaniri said. “Not without mortally offending Baroja and your aunt.”

“I don’t think Jonystra’s a danger to you and yours,” Eleret told Daner. “I’m the one she’s after.” Though she still could not see what Jonystra hoped to accomplish. She might secure a few minutes alone with Eleret, but there wasn’t much she could do with them. Unless… “Daner, how likely is it that Jonystra knows some magic?”

Daner looked startled. “What makes you think she might?”

“You said at dinner that charting cards works best when a magician reinforces the spell. If she’s as good at it as Baroja claims—”

“She probably isn’t any better than Metriss and her silly friends,” Daner said, frowning. “Baroja believes every seller’s speech he hears in the midtown market.”

“But you can’t be sure.”

“No.”

Eleret shrugged. She had suspected as much, but it had been worth asking. She started to frame another question, then stopped. A wiry man of medium height had followed Jonystra quietly into the room, carrying a large black-and-red lacquered box with an ornate brass lock. Though he wore no visible weapon, he moved with the wary confidence of an experienced warrior. His thin sandy hair had been oiled flat; combined with a sharp jaw and a face that seemed all flat surfaces and sharp angles, it made his head look like a skull.

“Now what?” Daner said under his breath.

As if she had heard him from across the room, Jonystra glanced back and saw the new arrival. “Ah, Mobrellan!” she said, smiling graciously at the wiry, skull-faced man. “You have all that we shall need?”

The man nodded.

Jonystra turned to Baroja. “Then, my lord, will you say where we are to chart the cards?”

“Where do you want them, Aunt?” Baroja asked Lady tir Vallaniri.

“That depends. What will you require for your work, Luck-seer?” Lady tir Vallaniri said.

“A small room, where we can be private, with a table, so”—Jonystra demonstrated the proper size with her hands—“and two chairs.”

“Only two?” Lady Metriss said in tones of deep disappointment. “Can’t we watch each other’s cards?”

“The influences are clearer if only one questioner is present at a time,” Jonystra replied. “If you wish for a true foreseeing, I must chart each of you separately. Afterward, you may discuss the results as much as you choose.”

“Why don’t you let her use that little room two doors down?” Baroja said to Daner’s mother. “The one with all the books.”

“No,” said Lord tir Vallaniri, raising his voice slightly to carry across to Baroja. “You may have talent, Nephew, but I am not compelled to allow you to exercise it.”

Baroja looked over with a puzzled expression. “Thank you, Uncle. What talent did you mean?”

“Never mind. Your Luck-seer can work in the wall chamber.”

“But the other room—”

“Is my study. No.”

“Oh, very well. This way, Luck-seer Nirandol. How long will it take you and your porter to set up your things?” The closing door cut off Baroja’s voice, and Daner’s aunt and sisters sorted themselves into chairs to wait for his return. Lord tir Vallaniri escorted Eleret over to join them, then drew Daner aside for a brief conference.

Eleret had no objection to being abandoned. She listened to the girls’ chatter with less than half her attention, while the rest of her mind reviewed her previous encounters with Jonystra, trying to see patterns in her actions and words. Clearly, the woman was intelligent, and she seemed to favor indirect methods. She was persistent, too; every time Eleret avoided her, she found a new way to approach her again. Her movements and her dress were not those of a fighter, but that might not mean much. Jonystra Nirandol had as many faces as a shapeshifter: traveling collector of ancient objects; hopeful, friendly dinner companion; well-born flirt; experienced card-charter and Luck-seer. Possibly she was a sneak thief or a wizard as well, though Eleret had no proof that it was Jonystra who had searched her room at the Broken Harp or that she could work magic.

Better to be prepared for the rock that doesn’t fall than to be hit on the head by the one you didn’t expect.
Her mother’s voice echoed through Eleret’s memory, its tone warm and chiding at the same time, patiently repeating the lesson that had since become an ingrained habit. Eleret choked.
Go away, Ma, and let me concentrate,
she thought, although she knew it was her memories that were the problem, not her mother. Tamm Salven’s body had been burned six weeks before; the greatest wizard born could not have raised her blank-eyed corpse from ashes, nor summoned her spirit after so long a lapse of time.

The recollection steadied Eleret, and she forced her mind back to Jonystra. No matter how good a thief Jonystra was—if she were a thief—Eleret doubted that she could steal the raven ring from her finger or her money and other valuables from the inner pockets of her vest. Not without knocking Eleret unconscious first, at any rate, and to do that she would need both surprise and fighting skill. Or magic. Eleret frowned involuntarily, then shrugged. She couldn’t do anything about magic except be ready to dodge, assuming dodging would help.
What you can’t counter, block; what you can’t block, avoid; what you can’t avoid, don’t fret yourself skinny over.

Eleret shivered, wondering if the wine at dinner had been as weak as she’d assumed. Her mind did not normally play such unpleasant tricks. What had she been thinking of? Magic. Jonystra. What
could
she do if Jonystra really was a magician?

An arrow kills a wizard as dead as anyone else. Least it does if you’re a halfway good shot.
This time the remembered voice was a deep male growl, and Eleret almost smiled. She didn’t have her bow, but she had plenty of raven’s-feet and two well-balanced and finely honed knives. If it came to a fight, she could manage.

“Thanks, Pa,” she whispered, then shook her head at her foolishness. Fortunately, Daner’s sisters were deeply involved in their discussion, and had not noticed.

“But who’s going to be the first one charted?” Metriss asked as Eleret brought her attention back to the conversation.

“I think we should let Freelady Salven go first,” Laurinel said. “She’s never had her cards charted before, and she’s a guest.”

Lady tir Vallaniri nodded. “An excellent idea, my dear. Freelady—”

“No, thank you,” Eleret said quickly. “I’d rather wait. Let someone else take the first turn.” She was tempted to refuse altogether, as Lady Kistran had earlier, but that would be cowardly. Besides, how else would she find out what Jonystra was planning?

“Do the cards make you nervous?” Raqueva said, watching El?ret from under half-lowered eyelids as if she knew exactly what Eleret had been thinking. “Or do you lack belief in them?”

“No,” Eleret said. “I’d just prefer to wait.” She shifted uneasily, hoping the spindly chair would not give way beneath her. It
felt
secure enough, and it didn’t creak or wobble, but the legs still didn’t look strong enough to stake spring peas.

“Well, if you’re quite sure, Freelady, I think Laurinel had better be the first,” Lady tir Vallaniri said. “She is the eldest, after all. We can discuss the rest of the order while she is having her cards done.”