The Way of Shadows
Page 19

“My lord,” Wendel North said, approaching the fighting men.
Logan stepped away from a match he was losing and Solon followed him. The steward gave Solon a flat stare, but didn’t protest his presence. “Milord, your mother has just returned.”
“Oh? Where was she, Wendel, uh, I mean, Master North?” Logan asked. With the men, he did better, but acting the lord to a man who had probably been in charge of spanking him a few weeks ago was beyond Logan right now. Solon didn’t allow himself to grin, though. Let Lady Gyre undermine Logan’s authority. He would have no part of that.
“She spoke with the queen.”
“Why?”
“She put forth a petition for guardianship.”
“What?” Solon asked.
“She is asking the crown to appoint her to be duchess until the duke returns, or until my lord reaches the age of majority—which in this country, Master Tofusin, is twenty-one.”
“But we have my father’s letters appointing me,” Logan said. “The king can’t interfere with a house’s appointments unless they’re guilty of treason.”
Wendel North pushed his glasses up his nose nervously. “That’s not altogether true, milord.”
Solon looked back at the guards, who were beginning to quit sparring and drift closer. “Back to it, dogs!” They jumped to obey.
“The king may appoint a guardian to an underage lord if the previous lord of that house hasn’t left the necessary provisions,” Wendel said. “It comes down to this: your father left two copies of the letter appointing you lord in his absence. He gave one to your mother, and the other to me. As soon as I heard where Lady Catrinna went, I checked my copy, which I kept under lock and key. It’s gone. Forgive me, Lord Gyre,” The steward flushed. “I swear I had no part in this. I thought I had the only key.”
“What did the queen say?” Solon asked.
Wendel blinked. As Solon had guessed, Wendel knew, but he hadn’t wanted to let Solon know how extensive his network of eyes-and-ears was. After a moment, the steward said, “The matter might have been handled fairly easily, but the king doesn’t let the queen make any decisions without him. He interrupted them while they were speaking. He said that he would take the matter under advisement. I’m sorry. I don’t know what that means.”
“I’m afraid I do,” Solon said.
“What?” Logan asked.
“Who’s your family’s solicitor?”
“I asked you first,” Logan said.
“Boy!”
“Count Rimbold Drake,” Logan said, sulking a little.
“It means we need to speak with Count Drake. Now.”
“Do I have to wear the shoes?” Azoth asked. He didn’t like shoes. You couldn’t feel the ground to know how slick it was, and they pinched.
“Nah, we’ll go see Count Drake with you wearing a nobleman’s tunic and barefoot,” Durzo said.
“Really?”
“No.”
For all the times Azoth had envied the merchants’ and lords’ sons at the markets, he’d never thought of how uncomfortable their clothes were. But Durzo was his master now, and he was already impatient with how long it was taking Azoth to get ready, so Azoth kept his mouth shut. He hadn’t been Durzo’s apprentice for long, and he still worried the wetboy would throw him out.
They walked across Vanden Bridge to the east side. To Azoth, it was a revelation. He’d never even tried to cross Vanden Bridge and hadn’t believed the guild rats who claimed to have made it past the guards. On the east side of the river, there were no ruins, no empty buildings at all. There were no beggars on the streets. It smelled different, foreign, alien. Azoth couldn’t smell the manure of the cattle yards at all. Even the gutters were different. There was only one every third street, and none in the major streets. People didn’t just throw their slops and sewage out the windows and let them accumulate until they gradually flowed away. Here, they carried them to the third street and dumped them there to flow down stone channels in the cobblestone streets so that even those streets were safe to walk in. Most alarming, though, was that the people smelled wrong. Men didn’t smell of sweat and their labors. When a woman passed, she smelled only lightly of perfume rather than overpoweringly of it with the stale odors of sweat and sex laced underneath. When Azoth asked Blint about it, the wetboy just said, “You’re going to be a lot of work, aren’t you?”
They passed a wide building that was billowing steam. Glistening, perfectly coifed men and women were emerging. Azoth didn’t even ask. “It’s a bath house,” Blint said. “Another Ceuran import. The only difference is that here the men and women bathe separately, except in Momma K’s, of course.”
The owner of the Tipsy Tart greeted Blint as Master Tulii. He answered her with an accent and an effete attitude and ordered his carriage brought around.
Once they were under way, Azoth asked, “Where are we going? Who’s Count Drake?”
“He’s an old friend, a noble who has to work for a living. He’s a solicitor.” When Azoth looked puzzled, Master Blint said, “A solicitor is a man who does worse things within the law than most crooks do outside it. But he’s a good man. He’s going to help me make you useful.”
“Master?” Azoth asked. “How’s Doll Girl?”
“She’s not your problem anymore. You’re not to ask about her again.” A minute passed as the streets rolled by. Durzo finally said, “She’s in bad shape, but she’ll live.”
He said nothing more until they were shown into the count’s tiny estate.
Count Drake was a kindly-looking man of perhaps forty. He had a pince nez tucked in a pocket of his vest and he limped as he closed the door behind them and took a seat behind a desk piled high with stacks of papers.
“I never thought you’d take an apprentice, Durzo. In fact, I seem to remember you swearing it—and swearing at great length,” the count said.
“And I still believe every word I said,” Durzo said gruffly.
“Ah, you’re either being terrifically subtle or making no sense at all, my friend.” Count Drake smiled, though, and Azoth could tell it was a real smile, without malice or calculation.
Despite himself, Durzo smiled, too. “They’ve been missing you, Rimbold.”
“Really? I wasn’t aware of anyone shooting at me for some time.” Durzo laughed, and Azoth almost fell out of his chair. He hadn’t thought the wetboy was capable of laughter.
“I need your help,” Durzo said.
“All I have is yours, Durzo.”
“I want to make this boy new.”
“What are you thinking?” Count Drake asked, looking at Azoth quizzically.
“A noble of some sort, relatively poor. The kind who gets invited to social events but doesn’t attract attention.”
“Hmm,” Count Drake said. “The third son of a baron, then. He’ll be upper nobility, but nobody important. Or wait. An eastern baron. My second cousins live two days’ ride beyond Havermere, and most of their lands have been seized by the Lae’knaught, so if you want an ironclad identity, we could make him a Stern.”