No Quarter (13 page)

"Tadeus has a cousin who's a draper; we'll go there first. I got some
beautiful
wool cloth from him back in First Quarter that I had made into a
gorgeous
cloak.

Uri was
so
jealous; he said it was the exact color he'd been looking for and now he couldn't use it."

"Did you buy all of it?" Vree asked as she mapped all visible exits from the street.

"Well, no, but he could hardly have a cloak made that looked exactly like mine.

That would be
so
scrubby."

"Scrubby?"

"You know, less than fine." Magda laughed and tucked Vree's hand into the crook of her elbow. "I guess you don't know, do you? Do you mind if we walk like this?" As Vree twitched, she added, "That way Gyhard won't be excluded. I'd hold onto you, but you're wearing long sleeves."

*If it upsets you…*

A muscle jumped in Vree's jaw. "I don't mind."

"Good. So what's the problem?"

Vree made note of a cistern pipe that would probably hold her weight.

"Problem?"

"Between you and Gyhard." Maintaining contact, she laced her fingers together.

"Yesterday your kigh were like this. Today…" Her fingers folded into fists butting against each other.

*Lovers' quarrel,* Gyhard said shortly.

"If you're telling me it's none of my business," Magda began.

Vree cut her off. "Gyhard thinks I shouldn't trust him. That I should always be on guard in case he can't control the urge to take over my body."

*It's not that simple!*

*It was last night,* she snarled.

*I don't want to hurt you.*

*Then
you
take the responsibility for not hurting me! I'm tired of always holding the knife.* "What's so funny?" she demanded as Magda smiled.

"Just that Gyhard was right; it is a lovers' quarrel because love can't exist without trust. You two really are so…"

Vree cut her off a second time. "
Don't
say we're so romantic."

"But…"

"No."

The draper, the tailor, and the cobbler took most of the afternoon. A life spent in the army had equipped Vree with neither the skills nor attention span Magda considered necessary for picking out clothes, so for the most part she merely endured the younger woman's opinions. When Gyhard suggested high boots instead of low, she ignored him.

"You'll need oilskins if you want to go outside in Third Quarter," Magda reflected, piling packages into the arms of the cobbler's senior apprentice who seemed more than willing to quit the shop for the remainder of the afternoon. "But I think we've done enough for one day."

*More than,* Gyhard agreed.

"No. There's something else." Vree twisted her left wrist and her remaining throwing dagger dropped into her hand. "I lost the other one at sea. I want to replace it."

"I guess you'll need a blacksmith…"

Gyhard translated; Vree shook her head. "Blacksmiths shoe horses and beat swords into plows. I need a weapons crafter."

"Izak a'Edvard." Finding himself suddenly under close scrutiny, the bits of the boy's ears visible under an untidy shock of light brown hair turned bright red. "He's the best." His eyes widened while Vree balanced the dagger on the callused tip of one finger before she flipped it back up her sleeve.

"Who says he's the best?" she asked. "Besides you."

"Alise i'Dumin."

"Who is?"

"W-weapons master for the city guard. She's my Aunt Dasa's partner," he added when it seemed like more explanation might be demanded.

*Vree, that's an assassin's weapon…*

*If I'm not an assassin, then I'm not dangerous, and that trio of palace guards who've been trying to keep up with us all afternoon have been wasting their time.

If I'm not an assassin, what am I? Nothing.*

Frowning slightly, Magda reached out to touch Vree's hand.

She jerked it back. "I still have some of the coins the Emperor gave me." Pulling a purse out of her belt-pouch, she passed it over. "Is it enough?"

"I have no idea what a dagger like that would cost," Magda admitted, peering into the calfskin purse at the two silver Imperial starbursts barely visible among the less valuable copper. "But you'd have to change this into Shkoden money before you could spend it anyway. If the dagger's that important to you…"

"It is."

"… we'll just charge it to the Bardic Hall like the rest." Handing back the purse, she grinned. "Captain Liene told me to be sure you had
everything
you needed."

She pulled a gull out of her own purse, realized the apprentice had his hands full, and stuffed the coin into his pocket. His blush deepened. "They might make you leave our stuff at the gate but that's all right because someone will come out to carry it in from there." Leaning forward so his master, cutting leather on the other side of the open shop couldn't hear, she added in a conspiratorial whisper, "We'll cover for you later if you want to tell him you were delayed at the Hall."

Muttering an inarticulate protest, the boy jerked into motion.

"Hold it," Vree snapped.

He stopped so quickly he almost lost his grip on a fleece hat.

"Where is the weapons crafter's shop?"

"Uh, Ironmonger's Street. Far end. He uses a wooden sword crossed with two wooden daggers as a signboard." When it appeared that Magda was about to move closer and say something, he insisted he knew no more and headed up the hill at a stiff-legged trot.

"What was
that
all about?" Magda muttered as they picked their way across the debris on the street and into Tether Alley.

"I think it had to do with warm breath against his ear."

"Mine?"

"Not mine," Vree told her, even as she checked the half-timbered buildings that flanked the narrow lane for routes to the roof.

"Really?" The apprentice healer paused and peered back around the corner. "I don't think so," she said after a moment. Tucking Vree's hand back into the crook of her elbow, she started them walking again. "He's too young."

"He can't be that much younger than you are, if he's younger at all," Vree pointed out.

"Yes, but women mature
earlier
than men. Healers have known that for years. I mean, when you were growing up, didn't you feel so much more adult than all the boys you knew?"

"Assassins are treated as assassins from the moment they start training."

"Well, yes, but if you were seven, you were still a child. They couldn't change that."

Vree didn't understand why Magda's innocence hurt so much. "I was an assassin," she said, and that ended the conversation.

"Lookie what we have here." One of the three young men lounging about the sunny front of Izak a'Edvard's shop pushed himself up onto his feet as Vree and Magda approached. "You two an item?" He flicked the beaded ends of his mustache with a forefinger and arched his back enough to stretch his sleeveless tunic tight against the undulating ridges of his chest. "Or does a charming, sophisticated, handsome fellow like myself stand a chance?"

"No," Vree replied before Magda could answer. Her posture clearly indicated she expected him to get out of her way.

"Vree…"

Magda sounded so worried, Gyhard tried to keep the amusement out of his mental voice—and failed. *People usually accept it when an assassin says no.*

"He doesn't know."

*And you're not to tell him.*

"We got us a grumpy one, boys." His friends grinned encouragement and shifted position on the bench to get a better view of the fun. "You the little healer's personal bodyguard, Southie?"

Vree started around him, but he grabbed her shoulder with a scarred hand and pushed her back.

*Oh, oh.*

"I asked you a question, Southie."

*Doesn't smell like he's drunk; he must be stupid.*

"Vree…"

"Is that your name, Southie?" He laughed. "It sounds like the noise a pig makes when you slit its throat. Vreeee!" Bowing slightly toward Magda, he purred,

"Excuse me,
healer
," his emphasis indicated he was fully aware of the apprentice circle on her badge, "but I'm going to have to teach your little friend here a lesson in manners."

Clutching Vree's hand tightly, Magda glared at him. "Look, you're making a mistake."

He held his hand out from his chest, just even with the top of Vree's head.

"Somehow, I doubt it."

"She looks dangerous, Jak." While the warning held a certain amount of derision, it was a warning for all of that.

Jak spread his arms. Muscles rippled from shoulder to wrist, the pattern of scars a moving history of other fights. "She's half my size, Ziv. How
dangerous
can that be?"

One of Vree's instructors had told her that women made marginally better assassins than men because they didn't posture.

*No blades!*

Responding instinctively to the sound of a direct order, Vree changed the direction of her initial movement and launched herself into the air. Planting a hand on each of Jak's shoulders, she flipped over his head, smacking her knee into his chin as she passed. She slapped the cobblestones, rolled, and regained her feet an instant later.

Bellowing with pain and rage, Jak spat out a bloody tooth, whirled, and charged. A few moments later, loyalty dragged his friends into the fight. By the time the trio of palace guards arrived, short swords drawn and wondering what they were going to tell their captain if the Southern woman got killed, it was all over.

They stared wide-eyed from the groaning men to Vree, who was wiping a trickle of blood from her nose on her sleeve.

*I'm surprised they touched you.*

*It wasn't intentional. These idiots don't know how to fall.*

*Accidents happen?*

*Only once.*

*Feel better now?*

She grinned at his tone. *Much. Thanks for reminding me not to kill them.* To Gyhard's surprise, the thanks were sincere. *I thought you never served?*

*I didn't. But I spent sixty years as Governor Aralt and over the years he, I, gave a great many orders.*

"You're hurt!" Magda rushed forward and patted the air in front of Vree's nose.

"Let me Heal that!"

"It'll heal itself in a minute." All at once, she became aware of the dozen or so people who'd been drawn out of the surrounding buildings at the sound of battle.

Most wore singed leather aprons, the rest wore the weapons they'd come to this street to buy. None of them looked happy.

"No one can move like that," muttered a smith, her hands wrapped around the shaft of a heavy hammer.

"She doesn't look Shkoden."

"She doesn't move like she's human."

"Demon. I'm tellin' ya, she must be a demon."

Magda whirled on them, hands on her hips. "Don't be ridiculous. She's from the Havakeen Empire. And if these three braggarts couldn't finish what they started, it's
hardly
her fault."

It might've worked had the three members of the palace guard not suddenly decided to make up for arriving late. As they moved into a defensive position around the two women, the rumbles from the crowd grew ugly.

Her breathing back to normal, Vree studied patterns and planned her attack, just in case. *This is stupid.*

*Granted. But it doesn't make it any less dangerous.*

*Granted.*

*Don't tell them what you are. Were. You'd stand a better chance with them believing you a demon.*

"No one her size could take down three people their size," the smith declared.

"It's impossible!"

Magda sighed. "You've always been the strongest, haven't you? You hate the thought of anyone so much smaller than you being able to defeat you."

"What're you talkin' about?" the smith snarled. She shifted her grip on the hammer. "This ain't about me. It's about her." Raising a beefy arm, she stepped forward. "Now git out of my…"

Whether she intended a blow or merely a shove became irrelevant as a pair of strong hands grabbed her from behind and threw her to the ground. The hammer bounced out of her reach, striking sparks off the cobblestones. When she tried to rise, the point of a sword at her throat changed her mind.

The tall young man holding the sword, tossed a straying strand of ebony hair back over his shoulder and slowly swept an arrogant violet gaze over the area. His looks and his bearing as much as the sword, silenced the crowd. "Maggi," he sighed at last, "what is going on here?"

Everyone started talking at once.

"I was speaking to my sister." The gentle admonishment had steel behind it. A bard couldn't have done it better.

"It wasn't my
fault
, Gerek," Magda told him. "Vree and I just wanted to go into this shop and these three buffoons wouldn't let us."

"And?"

"And so Vree fought them."

"And?"

"And she won."

"And?"

"And now these people think she's a demon!"

"Maggi, demons don't really exist. They're stories told to frighten children."

Magda glared at her older brother. She didn't know what he was doing in Elbasan and while she appreciated him dropping out of the Circle to save her, if indeed he had saved her, she didn't appreciate his tone. "Don't tell me," she snapped. "Tell
them
."

"These are adults," Gerek pointed out facetiously. "They know that."

So fascinated was everyone by this exchange that they forgot about the men who'd started it and had Jak not bellowed as he surged to his feet, he might've had a slim chance of success. As it was, Vree's dagger caught the loose fabric where the wide legs of his trousers joined and buried itself guard deep in the wall behind him.

Jak stared down at the pommel, just visible at his crotch, and fainted.

"Hope he tucks left," someone murmured.

One of the palace guards snickered. The tension dissolved in shouts of raucous laughter.

About to demand an explanation, Magda caught the expression on Gerek's face and stopped cold. She'd seen that expression before. Frequently. It was the last thing she wanted to see in this time and this place.

Gerek was in love.

"All right. Let me see if I understand this." Gerek paced across one of the small rooms in the suite set aside for the Due of Ohrid at the palace and stared over at the lights of the Bardic Hall. "Not only does Vree have two kigh, but they're in love with each other."