"Why was Archlis interested in that?" said Sanval, reaching out and touching the small silver oak leaf worked into the cuff of Ivy's left glove. Her gloves were stuffed, as usual, through her belt.
"Harper token. I told you my mother was a bard," she said with an affectionate glance at her mother's last gift. She still remembered the sting of the wind against her cheeks as she stood on the dock, watching her mother's ship sail away. Over the wind and the sailors' shouts, she had heard her mother's cries of, "Farewell, farewell, I will return." She remembered how warm the token had felt in her hand and how tightly her father's hands had grasped her shoulders as they watched her mother wave good-bye.
She tapped the little silver leaf. "This gets me free beer in an amazing number of places."
Sanval looked a little disappointed at her answer.
"No, unfortunately, it is not much of spell. Just a tiny bit of extra luck, my mother said. It does keep me from losing whatever it is attached to, which is why I sewed it onto the glove. I hate losing my gloves. Of course, it only keeps one glove with me at all times. So I replace the other one quite frequently. I should have sewn it on my cap. I miss that cap." She ran her hand across the top of her head, causing more short bits of blonde hair to escape her braid and trail across her face. She pushed them back with impatient, dusty fingers, ignoring Gunderal gesturing behind Sanval's back with one of her own delicate shell combs. They were in the middle of an underground ruin, surrounded by bugbears, and essentially held prisoner by an unfriendly magelord. Ivy was not about to let Gunderal rebraid her hair now, even if it did give her fussy friend fits to see her braid come undone. Ivy let Gunderal braid her hair once a tenday, after she had washed her hair and bathed, and that was enough as far as Ivy was concerned. If she listened to the vain little wizard's lectures on personal hygiene, she would be bathing every day and twice on holidays.
With a sigh, Sanval pulled off his metal helmet and ran his own hand across his hair. Ivy checked with a sideways glance. All his curls looked very washed and polished. He probably did bathe once a day, and then let his servants clip and comb his hair into that regulation cut that all of Procampur's officers favored for this particular war. Yet that one curl stood defiantly out of line with its fellows. Ivy smiled at the curl's crooked gallantry, and Sanval gave her an inquiring look. She did not enlighten him.
"I thought the charm on your glove was something that we could use against Archlis. He seemed disturbed by it," Sanval said.
Ivy shook her head. "It's not much of charm. Won't do anything spectacular. Besides, Archlis has a dozen or more charms sewn on that coat of his that are certainly more powerful than this. And look at his hands-a magic ring on each hand. Those are probably protections and spells too."
"But you must have more magic than that," said Sanval, tapping the token again.
"Zuzzara's ring, but we used that already. Gunderal's potions, which we lost in the fall."
"Armor? Weapons?"
"Mumchance has full plate with some extra protection hammered in, but he doesn't wear it in the summer. It is too hot, he says, and that's why he just has the chain mail today. All of us have charms against injury from falls, but as you can tell from Gunderal's arm, they are not too powerful." She thought about mentioning Mumchance's fake eye, but the secrets that Sanval did not know, he could not let slip to others. Archlis did not seem to be paying any attention to them, but wizards could have ears and eyes in the backs of their head, sometimes quite literally. Better to appear more harmless than they were, especially when they did not have that much magic to spare.
"But weapons. Magic swords? Spears?"
"Do you see any of those things on us? Zuzzara's shovel is most firmly unenchanted. My sword is just that-a sword. Good balance, keen edge, no spells. Mumchance's sword is the same. Better balance than mine, being forged by dwarves and all, but no spells of smiting. In fact, he usually forgets he is carrying it and uses one of his hammers instead. Gunderal never carries weapons, because she usually can cast spells or use her potions, when she hasn't broken all the potion bottles. Kid, do you have anything magical?"
"No, my dear. Two sharp little knives, but that is all." Kid had pitched his voice loud enough to carry to where Archlis was sitting. Good, thought Ivy, he has figured it out-do not give Archlis any reason to be nervous. Kid had flipped open the collar of his leather tunic to display the two needle-thin blades neatly sheathed there. Sanval seemed disappointed. Of course, he did not know that the stilettos were deadly in Kid's hands. The little thief could throw with frightening speed and accuracy when he wanted to. Kid's knives also had the excellent advantage of being able to double as lock picks on the cruder sort of lock. And, of course, being Kid, he had not shown all his knives. He carried another tucked in the back of his breeches. Gods only knew how he kept from slicing his furry little tail off. Of course, he kept that tucked away out of sight most of the time too.
"I thought you would have more magic," said Sanval.
"Why did you think that?"
"Because in the red-roof district…" Sanval stopped at Ivy's whistle of surprise and went a little pink across his cheeks. One of the bugbears glanced over at them, shrugged, and went back to eating something that dripped unpleasantly.
"So you do talk to the red-roof tavern girls. I wondered how you knew the end of that song."
"Everyone goes to a red-roof tavern," Sanval admitted, "when they are young. To hear the stories. You know, about the dragons, and the adventurers, and the great deeds done in the rest of the world. But in all the stories, people like you… They always own many items of magic that they use to defeat their foes. Great and terrible weapons of power are carried by all the mercenaries. That is what they say in the camp."
"You should never believe camp gossip," said Kid, reaching past Sanval to snag another piece of bread and stuff it into his cheek like a berrygobbler.
"Sound advice. What they always leave out in the ballads and the camp gossip is that magic costs, and red-roof adventurers like me rarely can afford much." Ivy looked at Sanval, a man who could afford to bring three horses to a siege camp, along with the necessary servants. He wore full half-plate armor, forged just for him, properly fitted and certainly kitted underneath with leather, silk, cotton padding, and whatever else was deemed necessary for his comfort. He probably even owned more than one shirt although she asked him just to make sure.
"I brought twelve shirts with me," he replied.
"I have two, one clean and one not," she said, but he did not look enlightened. She gave him a basic lesson in economics, the mercenary version of economics. "Magic costs. Gold. Coin. Gems. It takes wealth to buy the best spells and best enchanted items. We do all right, but we never make that much. And what we earn goes back to the farm. We made a promise to each other-that was what we would do."
"But he has magic," said Sanval, nodding toward Archlis.
"Because he is a wicked wizard!"
"Magelord, my dear," said Kid. "He stole that title from my master Toram, when he took Toram's book and Ankh."
"Magelord, magician, whatever he prefers to call himself, I would wager he's not trying to pay for a working farm, with vinestock that needs replacing, and a mule that deliberately goes lame when it doesn't want to haul the wagon (and nobody will let me turn into shoe leather), and more dogs and cats than you can count-or feed-because somebody is always dragging home some poor stray. I will not even try to account for the many expenses of an ill wyvern that ended up destroying our barn roof." Ivy subsided. There was no use trying to explain her problems to a man who could afford to bring twelve shirts to a siege camp and had probably never in his life had to sit up all night on a roof beam with a wyvern vomiting some type of acidic sludge.