They reached the gates of Sheld in the middle of the morning. With the dawn fog came a drizzle of water, the first precipitation in months. The dirt was so dry, it refused the moisture. Puddles wider than their horses formed, even though it was hardly rain. Lerran and Ash rode into the streets of the city first. The commoners seemed relieved by the water, though their clothes hung damp and muddy as they went about their business.
The guards on his estate opened the way for him with a salute. Captain Marras was inspecting a rack of armour in the yard when he spotted Lerran and Isar returning. He bowed his head and called, “Are we rich?”
“We’re going to be,” Lerran said, grinning. “Where’s Tass?”
“In the orchard,” Marras replied. He raised his hand as Lerran dismounted and his leader turned back to him. “There’s a man from the west, a persistent prick who drops by each day to see if you’ve returned.”
“From the west?” Lerran asked.
Marras nodded. “He didn’t say from where.”
“Well, come and find me if he returns again,” Lerran said. He handed Ash’s reins to the stable boy, Lin, and briskly strode past the corner of the manor, around the fighting ring and into the orchard. He spotted Tassina right away, sitting on her knees with a one-handed hoe digging holes for flowers. She looked up at him as he came marching across the lawn, and smiled.
With her in his arms, all felt right. Her warm breath brushed the hairs on his neck. Her smell, part dirt, part sweat, part cinnamon, filled his nose and his mind with her aura. Lerran tightened his arms around the back of her shoulders and smiled. “How are you?” he asked, as she pulled back half a pace.
“I’m great,” she said, smiling. “Did you make the deal?”
Lerran nodded. “Ten and a half thousand Grey Sea coins, to be delivered in two installments,” he said. He smiled, as he said the number again. More money than any of them had ever seen.
“Really?” Tass asked. “Really? We did it! We actually did it!” She sighed in exhilaration—of course his wife would ask about the ambitious goal first. After a moment, she looked at him again with her wide grey eyes. “Did you tell anyone… about me?”
“I—” Lerran sheepishly bowed his head and scratched his thigh with his hanging hand. “I drank too much on the road home, celebrating, you know. I told Eseveer.”
Tass laughed. “Of course you would,” she said with a smile.
“Have you told anyone yet?” Lerran asked.
His wife shook her head. “Should we let Eseveer spread the rumour? Or tell them at dinner tonight?”
Lerran chuckled. “We’ll tell them tonight, if it’s good by you.”
“It is,” Tass said. “I want all the world to know you’ve an heir in my belly.”
“I want them to know I have an heir, yes.” Lerran felt her hand on his—she remembered his worries for her safety. She smiled at him and pulled him into her embrace once more. Lerran held his breath—he would protect her with everything he had.
Later, Lerran attended his office business for an hour or more. Eseveer had gone to her work immediately upon their return, reviewing the course of their trades with Gadra and Aunt Mara. She had already prepared a few decisions for Lerran to make. Should he sell a shipment of soma in Kedar, or risk higher earnings with the same goods in Bellasa or some tribute village along the coast of the Great Isle that would feed it into Bellasa? Should he accept a paid contract to have the lord of a town called Ralier killed? He had records on Ralier, and its lord. The death of that man would not change any of Lerran’s other investments and the money was good. He signed the order and stamped his green eye beside it.
The stairs creaked—they were bringing someone up to see him, from the sounds of it, although it could be Tass. When Isar stuck his head in through the office door, Lerran knew it was the guest that Marras had spoken of.
The visitor from the west was a very tall, lanky man. He stooped his neck to fit through the wide wooden doorframe. Lerran looked him over as he poured them both drinks from the small alcohol stand near his desk. The man had black skin and a red line surrounded his eyes in a box, while his dark hair was knotted behind his head and stuck with a feather. His attire was no less strange; he wore a very thin white tunic, silk in material, and a strange brace of beads was wrapped around his throat, taut, not loose like a necklace.
“My name is Spagar,” the man said. His words were quiet, his accent emphasized each syllable quickly, like a babbling. “I apologize for coming to you so abruptly.”
Lerran held out a cup and Spagar accepted it gently. Lerran stepped back a pace and leaned against the corner of his desk. “I apologize for my absence,” he said with a smile. “What business do you seek? From where have you travelled?”
“My lord. These are things best spoken of in private,” Spagar said. Lerran looked at him sharply, and the black man spread his wiry fingers. “I bear no arms in your midst, my lord. It is not my way.” When neither Isar nor Lerran moved, Spagar turned and looked Isar in the eye.
“Wait outside the door,” Lerran said after a moment. Isar nodded to him, and returned to the corridor. As he closed the door, the Prince of Sheld said, “I meet with spies and smugglers in private, men I have met before in public first. I have not met you before.”
Spagar bowed. “Be that as it may, I offer you a trade of information. Information for masters—yours and mine, not for guards. My master is Ovoe the Keeper of Information for his Ascendance, the Eternal Emperor Tag’na of Numa’nakres.”
“The Empire in the West. In my land, empires fall,” Lerran said. He knew of Ovoe the Keeper, but only by repute, and he knew of the lying land, where they believed one man had ruled for three hundred years.
“In mine, they endure, my lord.”
Lerran sighed and took a drink. “Words are your weapon, unarmed man? What information do you seek?”
“A woman of great skill once served you. In a bar in Starath, I heard tell of her tearing an arm bone in half during the Massacre of Sheld. Carried it all the way back to this very house, according to the tale. In Saanazar the religious men called her your pet devil and say she could not be harmed by spear or sword because her skin was too thick.” Spagar held up one hand. “But here in Sheld, they speak of an attack on your property. A man heard the noise of conflict, another saw a dead guard before the gate was shut. And now, no woman of great skill.”
Lerran took a long drink of the wine he had poured. Wine for his guest, not rum for himself. He lowered the cup and set it down.
“I will trade for all you can tell me of this woman—and anyone who could defeat her.”
Lerran looked down from the spy and considered his words. “Five hundred grey sea coins,” he said.
Spagar bowed his head. “Here is a hundred,” he said, and leaned forward. His skinny arm deposited a soft green pouch on the table. “I will bring the rest on the morrow.”
“Her name was Paksis,” Lerran said. “And she was taken by another of her strength. She spoke sometimes of others—Nerediil, Virn.”
“Nerediil, Virn,” Spagar repeated. He eagerly asked, “Did she tell you of these two? Describe them?”
Lerran shook his head. “She said they were made into what they were and expected to conduct tasks for their… creators. Tasks she regretted, though she never spoke of them at length or detail. She drank a lot. I would say she was of low morale. She once said something about Virn being right and that if she had listened she wouldn’t have the same regrets.”
“Thank you for this,” Spagar said. “I will deliver the money tomorrow. And I will compile a few questions for you about this information, if that’s acceptable to you.”
“Very well,” Lerran said. “Why are you investigating this?”
“My lord, I deal in information. If you’d like to know something, you need to bargain for it.”
Lerran pursed his lips and looked at his wine. He considered standing up and brandishing the knife in his desk drawer, throwing Spagar in the cell below until he knew what this man knew abut Paksis. In his mind, he saw her lifted onto that other woman’s shoulder and hauled through his gate, her face broken. He glanced back up at Spagar. “I’ve just returned home. I’m going to have dinner with my family now, and share some exciting news with my siblings. Have a good evening, and, when you leave my home, a good journey.”
Spagar smiled and bowed. His lips slackened and he crossed to the door. “Good evening, my lord.”