Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (51 page)

She glared at him expectantly, fixing him with those
brown eyes.  Waiting for him to accede. 
Dietrik’s right.  Women are
dangerous.
  “Gods damn it all,” he muttered, reaching for the robe Dietrik
held as a servant helping his master into his coat.

“Don’t you dare wear that,” she snapped, stopping him
cold.  Ilona pointed at his sword.  Or his mail.  Or his tunic for all he
knew.  “It will be seen under the robe.  And hurry!”

Marik saw no screens to change behind.  He glanced at
Ilona, who smirked with evil knowledge.  “Here, I’ll turn my back while you
change.”  It sounded condescending.  She picked up a small clamshell case and
opened the top.

As he shrugged out of his mail, he watched her dip a
finger inside.  It came out, the tip smeared with dark makeup.  She lifted it
to her face and dabbed in careful gestures he could not see from behind.

He quickly realized that the robe would be tight once
donned.  Anything he wore underneath would be revealed.  Resignedly, he
stripped down his smallclothes, which made Dietrik begin his
snerking
again for some reason.  With a touch of indignation, he asked Ilona, “So what
are you disguising yourself as, since it’s so important?”

“A thief,” she replied simply.

“What?  A cutpurse?”

“Did I say that?  I said a thief.”  Whatever the
difference might be was lost on Marik.

Dietrik decided to put an oar in.  “How would a thief
fit into an alchemist’s domain?  Would that not be equally as conspicuous as a
swordsman?”

“Not at all.  You might be surprised at the uses a
thief can find for a variety of items.”  She clapped the makeup case shut.

“I would think it is dangerous to walk around looking
like a thief.  Isn’t the cityguard likely to stop you?”

Ilona shrugged on a brown shirt that matched the
breeches and her hair.  “The guard can’t arrest you simply because of the
clothes you’re wearing.  If I was loaded down with a thief’s tools, that would
be a different story.  But no thief walks around during the day carrying his
tools.”

“You seem to know much about thieves.”

She met his eye.  “Call it a city survival skill.  Put
this on too.”  Ilona grabbed a belt from the dresser to which several smaller
pouches had been tied.

Marik caught it in midair.  It fit around his waist
easily, though the belt made the material taunt between his midsection and his
neck.  At least the blasted thing had no hood.

“What to do about you?”  Ilona studied Dietrik.

“It might be best for me to wait nearby rather than
enter the shops.  I might draw that unwanted attention you mentioned.”

“Stand by as reinforcement, is it?  Works for me.”

“And me as well.”  Dietrik cast Marik a meaningful
look over her shoulder.

Marik scowled back, then stood still while Ilona
appraised him.  She pronounced him, “As good as he would get,” then added the
final touches to her own outfit.  Leather straps with buckles, matching the
ones around her ankles, were fastened around her wrists under the sleeves, then
further up her arms just below the elbows.  The shirt sleeves concealed the
higher straps but gave the impression of a hidden weapon.

She adjusted the ties closing the top half of the
shirt, leaving them open enough so her breasts and the wrap were plainly
visible.  In an effort to keep his mind under control, Marik ignore them by
studying her face.  Still as beautiful as he remembered, even with the artfully
applied makeup that made her appear to have bags under her eyes.  A thief who
worked at night would be tired during the day, after all.

Without ceremony, Ilona left her room, Dietrik
following close behind.  Marik glanced at his sword and mail, uneasy about
leaving them in a strange place.  Yet what could he do about it?  Nothing, he
decided.

Just before leaving, the mirror caught his attention. 
The mirror she had been facing while applying her makeup.  The mirror that gave
her a clear view of the room behind her.  Dietrik’s muffled laughter echoed in
his ears while he stalked down the hallway, gnashing his teeth.

*        *        *        *        *

Ilona knew where to find the shops on Dietrik’s list
and led them to the nearest.  It did business outside the Inner Circle.  When
Marik thought about it, he would have been surprised if any of the disreputable
establishments were within those hallowed grounds.  Dietrik chose to loiter
near a small kitchen two buildings away, a windowed wall open to the street
where nine or ten men could sit on stools along the counter.  The mercenary
stood rather than sat, working on a bread bun stuffed with shredded chicken.

“If you need a hand,” Dietrik whispered to him, “then
shout out, mate.  I will come running in.”

How Dietrik expected to hear him over the street
noise, Marik could not fathom.  People filled the street who had resisted the
tournament’s siren call, electing instead to remain about their normal
business.  The district looked shabby, yet well lit.  A place in which one
might need to check for his coin purse with greater frequency than normal but
also a place a person could walk without fear of a sudden knife at his throat.

The alchemy shop was small, wedged between a boot
maker and a building of no discernable purpose.  Ilona ordered him to remain
silent unless she prompted him.  He almost demanded to know how she had wound
up in charge before holding his tongue.  Watching her interested him more than
arousing her ire.  Marik walked behind her, keeping a vigilant watch for the
brief instances when the back of her shirt would rise over the top of her
breeches, exposing the short spinal curve along her lower back.

They entered the shop.  Aware that his preconceptions
of late had proven skewed if not altogether false, he was unsure what to expect
from a Thoenar alchemy shop.  Marik found it as mundane as any other shop he’d
ever been in, no different from the shop he and Maddock had briefly explored
years before in Spirratta.  It bore a resemblance to the small apothecary in
Tattersfield that he had frequently visited as his mother’s illness worsened.

Shelves lined every available inch along the walls. 
Posts were set in the center of the tight room, long planks nailed between them
to serve as further shelf space.  Filling all were boxes for the most part,
though jars, sacks and small pouches in piles were also present.  Words had
been written on the shelves’ two-inch thickness beneath the contents.  In cases
where no words were readily visible, parchment bits folded so the words upon
them were visible rested close by.

From the low ceiling hung a bell on a string where the
door could strike it.  At its jangle, a youth younger than Marik rushed out
through a curtained doorway behind a desk.  The desk sat near the shop’s rear,
on one corner of the O formed by the shelves constructed in the middle of the
cramped shop.

Ilona cast him a hard, sidelong look before walking
forward to speak with the eager shop tender.  Marik was left at odd ends.  She
did not want him interfering with whatever ploy she had in mind, but he felt
uneasy leaving their interests in another’s hands.  Relying on his comrades in
the midst of battle was entirely different from letting an outsider ask his
questions for him.  He would allow Ilona her head for a short while before
wandering over to join in.

Marik shrugged his shoulders to loosen the tight fit
of the strange robe while he meandered around the shop.  He felt naked entering
a possibly hostile environment sans sword.  His nerves were heightened, ready
to interpret the slightest breeze across his skin as the breath of a hidden
enemy.  To take his mind off it he inspected the stock lining the shelves.

One box bore a square board with a wooden knob as its
lid.  On the shelf below, the words
sulfur 4c/oz.
had been inked.  Marik
lifted the top to find the box contained a yellowish powder.  A smell of old eggs
wafted out.  He dropped the lid back and looked at a jar beside the sulfur
box.  Four or five dozen thin black sticks protruded from the squat pot.  Marik
read,
charcoal 3c/stick.

He wandered while Ilona spoke softly to the young man,
who seemed enthusiastic to help her in any way he possibly could.  Marik found
dozens of different components.  Most of what he found he could not imagine a
possible use for.  At the row’s end in the corner furthest from the desk, he
discovered a rack with dozens of empty glass vials.  Beside them were small
ladles and several large, round bottles with mouths as wide as their base. 
Each bore labels and held vast amounts of different oils.  Noted on the each
label was a statement saying that vials were four additional coppers each.  The
top shelf contained six different oils derived from various flower seeds. 
Below were oils harvested from corn, olives, avocados, peanuts, pecans and even
hayseeds.  This last was not in a large jar, but in tiny three-ounce bottles. 
3s/bottle
,
according to the shelf.

Marik could hardly believe that, despite repeated
readings of the words inked into the shelf.  What possible reason could anyone
have for paying an entire silver for one ounce of oil?

 Leaving the oils behind, he poked his nose into a
barrel filled with salt.  At
1c/oz.
, it was easily the cheapest item in
the shop.  Above were several lidded boxes.  Their labels also identified them
as salt, except at different prices.  Curious, he opened one.  The salt grains
inside were much larger than any he had ever seen, nearly the size of dried
peas.  Closer examination of the boxes revealed further words written on each. 
Southern sea salt 3c/oz.  Stygan salt 3c/oz.  Rubian cavern salt 11c/oz.
 
Why?  Salt was salt, right?  Why pay eleven coppers for salt simply because it
came all the way from Rubia?

The opposite shelf in the room’s center overflowed
with different herbs and plants.  This much seemed useful to him.  He might not
know how to use the nine types of lichen or the chokeweed or comberry or any of
the rest, but someone knowledgeable could surely produce useful medicines from
the stock.

Marik drifted closer to the desk.  He waited beside an
open barrel full of limestone chunks,
20c/lb.
, listening before entering
the conversational fray.  Ilona had one foot propped against the desk’s base
and was leaning forward on one elbow.  The young man, with a small stubble
patch under his left cheek missed during the last shave, babbled an answer to
whatever she had asked earlier.  His words stumbled twice, both events
accompanied by lightning movements of his eyes when they darted down to her
exposed cleavage.

“But surely you know
how
to make it.”  Her
sweet tone caressed in a way she had never graced Marik with.

“Oh, yeah.” 
Quick glance downward. 
“I mean,
the formula is simple enough, but I can’t…” 
Glance. 
“It’s that it’s
illegal under the king’s law, you understand.  Distribution without
authorization, you know.”

“Do I look like a person who would use it like
that?
” 
She brought her other arm closer to her chest, apparently to tap her chin in
thought.  It made her cleavage bulge further.

“No!  No, not at all, I never thought you might be!” 
A lopsided grin marred his expression in what he must have hoped was a winning
smile.  “It’s just that certain people
would
.” 
Glance.

“Still, the formula can hardly be a military secret. 
Anyone could make it if they had the correct ingredients, couldn’t they?”

“Oh, sure!  All the components are common enough.  The
coal tar alone might darken the steel, but it gums up the blade and upsets the
balance.  That’s why you alter its properties.” 
Glance.
  “The
properties coal tar.  In mixing.”

Marik thought the youth was too wrapped up in admiring
Ilona to realize his words had lost coherency.  It annoyed him the way the
punk’s eyes kept darting down and back up.

“So you could
tell
me which would be the right
ingredients I need to make the weaponblack.  Maybe you can’t sell
it
,
but you can tell me the ingredients I would need.”

“Of course!  That’s easy!”  He suddenly become aware
of Marik.  “Oh, hello!  I…um…oh!  Umm…good afternoon, master magician.”  The
youth took in his robe, losing the fool’s grin that had been twitching his
lips.  “Can I help you find any components you need?  We’re not usually…that is
to say our shop is mostly set up with alchemists in mind.  We don’t have much
by way of…um, I mean we don’t carry many spell type components.  Though I’ll be
happy to sell you anything you have an interest in!”

“Oh yeah?”  Marik’s tone drove the air temperature down. 
Heavy.  Iron on a winter morning.  A blizzard-frozen pump handle.

“M-Most assuredly!”

“That makes me happy.  I like being happy.  I’m
usually hard to deal with otherwise.”  He arched his eyes at Ilona, who angrily
fired back a message with her own.  “Isn’t that right?”

“I can vouch for that,” she acknowledged through a not
quite clenched jaw.

“So then….ah…what can I help you with, master
magician?”  He glanced at Ilona.  The look held a wary hesitancy absent until
that moment.  “If we do not have what you need in stock, we might be able to
acquire it.  I think.  We’d need to make sure with father first.”