“As long as ’Gren and that wizard haven’t landed themselves in too much trouble,” grinned Sorgrad. “No, this is a bit too rich for ’Gren’s blood. We’ll meet at the Swan in the Moon.”

I stifled a qualm as I followed him down the stairs. ’Gren could take care of himself and if Usara made a misstep Planir could bail him out.

I decided to start with the market square. There was no indication of last night’s bounty from the guilds now; all had been swept clean and men and women waited in long patient lines. The women were chatting, swapping opinions on erstwhile employers and comparing rates of pay; housemaids with their mops, weavers with the distaff no one uses these days if there’s the chance of a spinning wheel, dairymaids whose stools at least offered a seat to save their legs. Fresh-faced girls with hopeful smiles stood next to others with harder faces and wary eyes, those who’d made a bad bargain for their fastening penny the year before. The men weren’t talking so freely, eyeing up potential competition. Carters stood with a twist of whipcord pinned to their jerkins, grooms carried a hay wisp, shepherds had wool tucked in buttonholes and hatbands, a tuft of brindled hair for cowmen.

I made my way to the Swan in the Moon, wondering about enlisting Niello’s aid. Minstrels would be contacting him, looking for a hire to take them east across the Old Empire, traveling through the spring and summer seasons. Then it would be back to Col to squander their earnings at the autumn fair, one last celebration before heading back to the Forest with the songs and little luxuries they had gathered. I’d heard the same hopeful patter from three such on the road from Relshaz, all eager for a patron to pay their way but unable to shed light on my tantalizing song book.

I looked idly at the maidservants waiting for some offer of a fastening penny and, with luck, an advance on their wages for some festival fun. The older housemaids were about my own age, hopefully clutching their feather dusters. Who knows, if my mother had let me prove my independence by taking a stand at the summer fair of my fifteenth year, it is just about possible I might still be in Vanam. I could have been diligently saving my wages for linen and plate, sewing neat seams for a well-filled dowry chest, waiting for some tradesman at the servants’ door to woo me away to a respectable match that even my grandmother couldn’t scorn.

I laughed out loud. Only if I hadn’t taken to my heels with some glib charmer like Niello, after a few seasons polishing up fire irons and blackleading grates had driven me demented with boredom. I stuck my head through the gate of the courtyard and realized none of the masqueraders were around; doubtless all still abed and likely to be so for a good while. I’d come back later.

Music drew me into the tap room of the Fleet Hound but all I found was an impromptu gathering of local lads doing their best to impress their sweethearts. They were all fresh-faced girls; hair modestly braided and skirts decorously hiding the tops of their boots. One looked askance at my breeches and I grinned at her. The winter past had cured me of any lingering notion Drianon ever meant me for domesticity.

I had tried my best in Ryshad’s Zyoutessela home. I’d smiled politely at his mother, taken an interest in the doings of her sewing circle and changed the subject every time she mentioned the neighbors whose daughter would be laying a wedding plait on Drianon’s altar come Solstice. I had even spent more time in skirts than in breeches for the first time since I’d left home, until desperation had driven me out to hang around the D’Olbriot citadel in hopes of seeing Ryshad and curiosity had lead me to the vast, echoing library, the shelves of books reaching so high they had their own ladders attached.

At least my own mother had never smothered me with the suffocating, uncritical affection of Mistress Tathel. She’d taught me to read and reckon, encouraged me to think for myself, to acquire skills to offset the disadvantage of my birth, though she’d been thinking more of clerking rather than honing my talents with a bag full of runes. I’d grown fond enough of Ryshad’s mother but she reminded me of the white-banded eaves-birds I could see building nests under the gable of the inns that ringed the square. They always return to the spot they’d used the year before and the year before that. My sympathies lay with the ring-necked hawk I could see scanning the roadside, ready to stoop on any prey flushed out by a passing wagon, taking whatever Talagrin sent it.

A wain trundled past, rumbling over the cobbles, leather creaking as the harness horse strained against his collar. I hadn’t been the only squeaky wheel on the wagon that winter. Ryshad soon realized there would be no going back to his father’s trade. His brothers were doing well; an ordinance the previous year banning wooden porches as a fire hazard had given them all the work they could wish for, and they adorned all the fashionable houses with smart stone pilasters and canopies. But now that work had largely dried up, three stonemasons in the family business was as much as the trade would bear. His elder brothers made it quite clear.

I hadn’t taken to Hansey or Ridner and the feeling had been mutual. Both expected demure obedience and home-embroidered linen from decent girls. Each was courting a tedious lass with wooing so lackluster any woman with a pennyweight of spirit would have been looking for a better offer. I’d said as much one evening, patronized beyond endurance.

I sighed, missing Ryshad, his ready wits, his certainty, his strong arms around me and the warmth of his loving. What we needed was some way of keeping ourselves in coin that we could both accept. His sense of honor wouldn’t stand for living off the profits I could turn with a rune and I couldn’t settle with him taking up some tedious trade, living in a neat little row house three streets from his mother and dining with the family every market-day evening.

A troop of dancers came out of the Bag of Nails. I waved to one. “What musicians have you got playing for you? I’m looking for a Forest minstrel.”

The girl shrugged. “Keep looking then. All we have are a couple of halfwits from Peorle.” She went on her way, a dancer’s grace in her steps for all her sensible shoes and warm cape.

Winter Solstice had brought Martel, Ryshad’s next eldest brother, to Zyoutessela. Home from his law studies in Toremal, he’d had a curvaceous masquerade dancer on his arm wearing less in the depths of winter than Mistress Tathel did at the height of the southern summer. Poor Mistress Tathel had desperately sought to be welcoming, imperfectly concealing her hopes that this lass’s lustrous locks would stay uncropped. Hansey and Ridner were torn between disapproval and envy and under the cover of the ensuing uproar Ryshad and I had found time to examine our prospects for the new year upon us.

D’Olbriot had offered Ryshad the title of chosen man, an undeniable honor. A sworn man making the step to chosen man and then rendering sound service could justifiably hope for a later commission to watch over D’Olbriot lands and tenants in some city or province. A stewardship, its stipend, independence to live our lives as we chose; it sounded promising. Ryshad saw it as the soundest foundation for our life together but I wasn’t about to sit on my hands for the next fifteen years waiting for that apple to fall in my lap. We needed some way of putting Messire D’Olbriot so deep in our debt that his gratitude favored Ryshad at once.

What were the patron’s pressing concerns? Firstly, securing the Archmage’s assistance without being obligated to Hadrumal. Secondly, ensuring the House of D’Olbriot retained its position as the sole conduit of influence with the colony of Kel Ar’Ayen, or Kellarin as more modern inflexions had it. Which is why I was here in Selerima working on the former while Ryshad was busy in the temporary service of Messire’s nephew Camarl, securing the latter. I still missed him though. Had I talked myself into a pointless quest when I might just as well have stayed at his side? I heaved a sigh.