The messenger took a drink and made as if to drink it, but his attention roamed about. Hell’s blast. He was searching for a tail.
Sevryn ducked back into the crowd and went around the block, picking up the messenger ahead rather than from behind. Tailing from the front took a bit more finesse but there was no way a still-wet-behind-the-ears boy could best him at street running. It had kept him alive for decades as he matured and grew more slowly than any other street urchin, and he’d had to step lively to stay alive. He slowed when the messenger did, and kept pace with him by watching him in the reflections of the nicer shops using glass windows or mirrors at their fronts. Then he began to drop back as the crowd thinned and the shops did as well, readying to cut the sash.
Suddenly, the boy looked up with wild eyes like an unbroken pony, mane of disheveled hair over his forehead.
He looked straight at Sevryn. Then, with a squeal, he swerved right and darted away.
He’d been made. With a grunt, Sevryn sprinted after the urchin. They turned the corner back onto a more crowded street with far more fashionable shops, and the messenger lad kept to his heels, drawing away with the speed of the frightened and determined. Sevryn was losing him, and whatever Daravan had slipped to him, and the Kobrir had possibly given/sold/transferred to Daravan.
The lad barreled into a ladies’ shop, the doorway filled with two young women, Sevryn right after him, colliding helplessly into soft figures, abdundant gowns, and fleshy curves, all falling into a heap. He grabbed for the messenger boy, catching him by the shirt and sash, as the lad tried to wriggle free.
A wisp of veil broke loose and fluttered past him as he pinned the boy down, and he turned his head to look into a pair of most remarkable eyes, eyes of the ever-changing sea and river, Vaelinarran eyes that struck him to the core. He waited for the lightning of prophecy to strike him, but it didn’t; it had not since the last time he’d faced her, as if burned out, finally, having shown him the way to his destiny and flickering out. He let his breath out softly.
“Aderro.”
He’d found her again.
Chapter Thirty-Six
THE LAD BEGAN TO KICK and wail, his voice rising in an ever louder shriek, his frayed shirt tearing as he attempted to wriggle out of Sevryn’s hold. He doubted if she of the eyes could hear him, or anyone, over the caterwauling of the urchin, but from the pile of clothes and bodies in the dress shop doorway, a Dweller lass pulled free and caught the lad by the ear, pinching him till it turned beet red.
“Shut it,” she warned, “or you’ll lose the ear, and don’t think I won’t do it. Imagine how much easier it will be to beg with an ear gone.”
The lad shut up immediately, with a sniffle and another roll of his eyes. The Dweller lass drew her legs under her, sitting up more comfortably. “Now,” and she glanced to Sevryn. “What is going on?”
“I dun noffing,” the lad spat out before Sevryn could say anything.
He got to his feet, helping the young lady with the remarkable eyes to hers. When last he’d seen her, she’d stood over a Raver’s dead body and unless he was mistaken, the Dweller lass with a death grip on the urchin was the person she’d been defending. The hometown militia and crowds of farmers carrying crude weapons and rushing in had separated them, led her away, and he’d never caught up. He had spent days inquiring about her, but no one admitted to actually knowing her, and Sevryn had finally given up, recognizing a community stonewall when he saw one. Not a day went by that he did not think of her and her quiet, desperate beauty. She had grown a bit, though faint freckles still dusted her nose, and the remnants of a veil hid a cascade of lustrous, dark chestnut hair. She dusted herself off and started righting what had been a beautiful gown before the incident, checking seams and workmanship as she did.
She reached out and dusted him off gently as well, hesitantly, as though afraid to touch him, and he stood very quiet like a wild animal just gentled, just as afraid to move. Her palm brushed the scars across his torso and abdomen, the cloth between her touch and his skin all but nonexistent, for the feeling she brought to the surface. First, the fiery burn of the kedant, pulsing through him, a rage of heat that quickly turned to aching need, need that stopped the breath in his throat. Pain roared, searching for other pain, throbbing. He could not move as her touch quickened him, then sent a warmth coursing through his blood that had nothing to do with Tressandre’s venom. He wanted to bring her close and taste her lips and murmur to her, and held himself very, very still, frightened of the intensity of his ache. Awareness of the cloth between them came back, the faint rub of fabric across his abdomen and chest, as she dusted the last blotch of dirt away. Then, she stepped back, and he realized the fiery scars crisscrossing his skin felt cool and soothed, as if her touch alone had bathed away the poison even while causing other emotions to spring to life.
She paled a bit, rubbing her arms as if in pain, and tugged her sleeves into place, but not before he caught a glimpse of an unusual marking about her left forearm, a tattoo or . . . was it perhaps a brand? It seemed new and raw, pulsing with pain, and he reached to touch her, to soothe her as she’d soothed him, but she moved a step back and it might have been across a ravine for the distance it put between them. “Why are you chasing Walther?”
He blinked, bringing himself back to the problem at hand. With a steadying breath, he found words. “He has something I want,” Sevryn told the short one, his gaze still on his unexpected find, slender and nearly as tall as he, and steadfastly ignoring him.
“Do you, Walther?”
The lad stared at his too big and scuffed boots. “I,” he announced, “have a deliv’ry. For Missus Lily.”
“There. You chased him down for nothing. Perhaps someone else pinched your purse.”
“It’s not a few coins I’m interested in, even if he could manage such a thing off me.” Sevryn leaned over the boy, with reddened ear still caught firmly between sturdy Dweller fingers. “I want the man who gave you the delivery job. Think you could find him again tonight?”
“Iffen I wanted to, but I dun’t.”
“I think you do. If I want him, you do.”
A mature, firm voice interrupted. “If the delivery is for us, m’lord, then you’re meddling in business you’ve no need to be. You may be of Vaelinarran blood, but this is Calcort, a free city of the provinces, in case you need to be reminded.” The shopkeep emerged from a back room, a sharp pair of scissors glinting in her hand, not by accident or mistake, he thought. The corner of his mouth quirked at the thought she meant to intimidate him with it, but he bowed to the Dweller woman who had been incredibly beautiful once and had aged into a fine handsomeness, and now wore a shopkeep’s key on a chain around her neck, with a tailor’s apron about her waist.
“My pardon, mistress, if my business has spilled over into yours.” He crooked a finger at the lad who managed another self-pitying sniffle, the little weasel. “I have a need to meet with the fine gentleman who gave this lad a message.”
“S’not a message. ’Tis a deliv’ry like I told you.” Walther fumbled at his pouch and got it open, the satchel reaching from hip to mid-thigh on him, and he pulled out several lengths of cloth, neatly folded and tied.
“Ah, yes,” the seamstress breathed as she took them in, fingers stroking the goods with a kind of reverence. “I’ve been waiting for this. Perhaps you’ve been mistaken, m’lord.”
Fabric? He’d chased down a miserable street beggar for yardage? Mistaken or just plain taken by Daravan? Sevryn hesitated only a heartbeat. He flipped a coin through the air which Walther caught in mid-spin, ear pinioned or not. “Tell him the seamstress has a question about his goods, and bring him back. It’ll be worth coin to you.”
“No trouble,” the Dweller lass said sharply, looking at the seamstress and back to him. He saw the resemblance in the two, mother and daughter likely.
The woman at his elbow spoke softly, “Always trouble, with the Vaelinars. Is that not right?” She looked to him, eyes of river water, and lake water, and rain, with sun dappled off their depths.
“I’ve heard that bandied about. It’s trouble I’m trying to avoid now.” He stared down at the messenger. “Will you do it, lad?”
“Soon as she lufts go o’ me.”
The lass let him go, and he sprang up. Before the dust settled with another wisp of torn veil to the floor, the messenger boy was down the block and gone.
Sevryn entered the shop proper, choosing a stool away from the threshold and the view of the street to perch upon. “I beg pardon for the intrusion and damage. I’ll settle for that when I’m done.”
“You’ll settle now.” The shopkeep approached him warily, her hand open. “I’m closing now, but I hope to have enough of a business left to open on the morrow!”
“Quite.” He put two gold crown pieces in her palm. “For now and, hmmm, future.”
“There had better not be a future,” the other Dweller said, with a toss of her head, as she jumped to her feet. “I’ve a da and three strong brothers, and we won’t have trouble in here.”
The one who held his thoughts put her hand on the other’s shoulder. “Nutmeg. He looks honorable.”
“Aye, sure he does, for a grown man chasing down a street boy.” Nutmeg snorted and went to the door, righting the stool and cleaning up where everyone had sprawled on the threshold as she grabbed a broom and dustpan. With a saucy toss of her head, she kept a cinnamon-colored eye on him as she did so.
Sevryn rested his bootheel on one of the rails of the stool. “My pardon again. I am Sevryn Dardanon, in service of Queen Lariel. At your service, as well.”
The shopkeep put her delivery on her counter and inclined her head gracefully. “I am Lily Farbranch, and these are my daughters Nutmeg and Rivergrace.”
He caught his surprise before it showed, he thought, but Nutmeg put her chin up, dustpan in hand, and said, “She’s adopted—I found her, and that’s it.”
“Of course.” He found all three watching him, and leaned back a little on his stool as if uninterested. She would be half-blooded or less, then, to be let go so easily, and it was clear she’d family now that loved her. He understood now why he hadn’t been able to ferret her out. Abandoned, perhaps, and taken in by those who loved her, and the townspeople about them just as determined to leave things as they were. Just as he’d been lost and finally found . . . family, was it? who accepted him. He pondered at thinking of Lariel and Jeredon as family. Would they allow it, if they knew? He realized they waited on him. He gestured, feigning disinterest. “A good tale to hear sometime, but I’m afraid my attention is held by the messenger boy’s employer.”
Tension filtered out of the room. Rivergrace took up a hoop of embroidery and blew the dust off it gently, the veil fluttering as she did so before handing it to Nutmeg. “Shall I go back to standing in the doorway?”
“With Walther soon to come bolting back? I think not. We shall have to teach him a bit about doors and doorways before he knocks ours through,” Lily answered dryly.
“He is probably more used to windows,” commented Sevryn. Forcibly, he turned his attention on the bit of corner window he could see through, watching the night-clad streets.
“He has a good heart,” Rivergrace told him. “He only does what he has to.”
Sevryn did not respond. If he turned to talk with her, she would command all his attention and then some, and he dared not be distracted with Daravan on the way. He did nod, finally, feeling her watching him, like a burning spot on the side of his neck. He listened while they talked among themselves, quietly, righting the shop to close up after a long day, while he tried to catch any sounds of Daravan’s approach, as likely to be from the back as through the front. Sevryn knew if it were him, he would not come in through the front door.
The two sisters disappeared behind a curtained doorway where he heard much rustling of material and a smothered giggle or two, and while he imagined the changing of clothes over that lithe body, shadows shivered a bit somewhere near the back storeroom. He held both hands palm up and empty, and Daravan’s smooth voice commented, “I shall have to instruct my messenger in the difference between a troublemaker and an annoyance.”
“I should have thought I’d rate higher.” Sevryn stood and bowed slightly in deference as the shadows parted and Daravan stepped into the lamplight.
“If you did, you’d be disposed of. Do you wish to cause me trouble?”
“No, sir, not I.”
Daravan scratched the corner of his mouth as if to hide an expression. He leaned against the counter. “Then let me commend you for finding me in a city that is a stewpot of people.”
“Sheer luck. I was looking for someone else and came across you. You were looking for someone else at the time, and I thought it prudent not to interrupt you.”
Daravan said wryly, “You, eh? I thought I heard a rather large roof rat.”
“If you’d heard one, sir, you’d have not stayed in the alley.”
“Ah, but it was my duty to be there. Some weeks ago, I, hmmm, found a coin purse after a night of drinking and cards. I thought to return it.” Daravan’s hand moved, slowly, to push aside his cloak, and tap a black pouch. Gilt threads cleverly sewn upon the pouch glittered a nearly unseeable “K” as he did so. Sevryn recognized the symbol with a sudden, cold piercing of his senses. “M’lord denied having lost such a pouch, however, and I realized he was not the man I thought he was, although so close in likeness I wondered if he might not have a brother.” Daravan looked into Sevryn’s face intently. “I withdrew quickly before trying his patience.”
“A wise move, after an honorable one. Returning a found purse is very admirable.”
Daravan shrugged. “I have little need of money not my own.” He opened his gloved fist and rained a small stream of crown bits, silver and gold, onto the counter. “Your meeting place is fortuitous, as it reminds me. I do, however, have need of a suitable outfit, for being among the royalty this summer, although such events can be wearying, making an appearance seems extremely necessary. Mistress Farbranch is a seamstress and tailor of marvelous ability. I heartily recommend her if anyone you know needs a good suit or gown.”