Royal Airs (5 page)

“He’s the man who helped me,” Cora interjected. “When this—this—
criminal
came over and tried to frighten me.”

Josie was still watching Rafe. “Yes, that happens sometimes in the slums,” she said. “That’s why you shouldn’t be here. What’s your name?”

“Rafe Adova. I play cards.”

“And you rescued my sister.”

“Hardly that dramatic,” he said.

“Oh, it probably was,” she said, showing the faintest hint of a smile. “Things tend to get—exciting—when Corene is present.”

“Josie,” hissed Cora.
Corene.
Now that
was
a name he ought to recognize. Damn his slow thought processes after such a long night.

“It’s the sweela gift,” he said.

“At any rate, you know half the story, so you may as well know the rest of it. So what happened?”

Rafe slowly dropped to his bench again. Corene licked her lips and thought a moment, clearly editing out details. “There was a party at Rhan’s last night. At the last minute, my mother decided not to go, so
he
and I were alone in the elaymotive together. There wasn’t even a driver.”

Josie nodded. Clearly she knew who
he
was.

“At first I wasn’t paying much attention, but then I realized we’d been on the Cinque too long, we were way past Rhan’s house,” Cora went on. “When I demanded to know where we were going,
he
said there was a different party, he thought I’d like it, we were almost there. But I just thought—he seemed so odd—I decided I should get out of the car if I got a chance.”

“A moving elaymotive?” Josie said faintly.

“Well, we’d come to a stop in bad traffic,” Cora explained. “So I jumped out and ran as fast as I could. I
thought
I was going toward the river,” she added. “Because I figured, if I could get to the Marisi, Zoe would be able to find me. But it was dark, and I got lost, and then somehow I ended up here on the southside. So then I figured I’d go looking for you instead. But I fell down, and I twisted my ankle, and I just came inside the first place I could find that looked halfway respectable.”

Josie glanced around the bar again, showing no distaste for the sordid surroundings. “You made a good choice,” she said. “There aren’t a lot of places in this part of town where you would have been half so safe.”

Corene looked over at Rafe. “Well, this one wasn’t safe the whole time. These men came over and acted like they wanted to kidnap me or something, but that’s when Rafe told them to get out.”

Josie transferred her attention to him as well. “You did my sister a great kindness.”

He shrugged. “It was easy enough to do.”

“Since then, we’ve just been sitting here waiting for you,” Corene finished up. “And now—now I just want to go home.”

“Foley’s already on his way to your father,” Josie said. “He came here with me, but I sent him on with a message. Foley is my personal guard,” she explained to Rafe.

“If you live southside and you only have one guard, I’m surprised you’ve survived longer than a nineday,” he said.

That faint smile was back. “I don’t live here all the time. And Foley is fairly formidable.”

“But Zoe and my father aren’t in the Chialto house right now,” Corene objected. “They’re staying with—someone else—on the other side of the canal.”

“I know,” Josie said. “It will take him at least a day to make it back. And if you sprained your ankle— Can you walk?”

“I don’t think so. Not very far.”

“Not sure you want to sit here in the bar for a whole day,” Rafe said. “I offered your sister the use of my room upstairs. She seemed to suspect my motives at the time, but it was an entirely honest offer and it’s still open.”

“Thank you. This time we’ll accept,” Josie said. “We’ll pay you, of course.”

He smiled at her. He was tempted, so tempted, to say,
Play you for the privilege
. Whoever won five hands at penta would determine the cost of the accommodations for the night. But an elay opponent was always tricky, and this one would be harder to read than most. He could lose everything to her on a single turn of the cards.

“Of course,” he answered. “Let me show you upstairs.”

He paused to order bread and cheese from a serving boy, since Josie hadn’t eaten and there was no food in his room, and then he shepherded the two women up the dark and narrow staircase. Corene refused to let him carry her, which would have speeded up the process enormously, and the server arrived with a tray of goods just as they made it to Rafe’s door.

Five minutes later the three of them were more or less comfortably situated around a small table set right before the fire, which Rafe had built up hastily after they stepped into the room. He’d also given the women the only two chairs, while he perched on a battered trunk that held most of his possessions. He was relieved to see that the room was in relatively good order, but then, he was a fairly fastidious man. Even the bed was neatly made, though he couldn’t remember exactly when he had last washed the linens.

“If you’re tired, as I imagine you are, you can sleep while you wait,” he said through a mouthful of cheese. “There’s a room down the hall for washing up.”

“I’m so tired,” Corene said, yawning to prove it. “And my foot hurts.”

“I’m fine,” Josie said. “But you must be tired, too, if you’ve been up all night earning a living.”

She didn’t even say it sarcastically. “I might throw a blanket on the floor and nap for a few hours,” he answered. “I usually don’t have trouble falling asleep no matter where I am.”

“We’re still imposing on you most dreadfully. You’ve been so kind to my sister. I think you must be a very good man.”

Something about that phrase must have triggered a memory in Corene’s mind, because she looked up from her plate. “He doesn’t have any blessings,” she said. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Now Josie’s expression was speculative again. “Yes, of course. A lot of people here in the slums don’t have any,” she said. “Sometimes they let me pull coins for them. Those are always interesting experiences.”

Ah—so that was it. This Josie was some kind of reformer, one of those maniacs and zealots who ministered to the poor. That explained her air of saintliness, though it didn’t explain how she’d managed to stay alive for whatever period of time she’d been carrying out her mission. Even do-gooders tended to fare badly in this part of town. Only the tough survived, only the people who were both smart and ruthless. Right now he wasn’t sure she could claim to have any of those traits.

“Can you take him to a temple?” Corene asked, yawning again.

“I think we have more pressing concerns at the moment,” Josie replied.

“But I want to
see
. He says he’s been to a temple, but he only pulls ghost coins.”

That caught Josie’s attention; she gave Rafe a quick, sharp inspection. But all she said was, “I suppose that means there’s something mysterious about him.”

He opened his eyes wide. “
Me?
I’m not concealing anything. Whereas your sister has been hiding a secret all night, beginning with her name, which clearly isn’t
Cora
.”

Josie looked amused again. “I’m surprised to learn she has such discretion.”

So she wasn’t disposed to share secrets, either. The less they wanted to tell him, the more he wanted to know. “I think I’ll piece the clues together eventually.”

“No doubt you will.”

“But his blessings,” Corene interjected, her voice stubborn. He thought she must be so tired and so overwhelmed that she had picked this one idea to anchor her thoughts to the present. “Can you take him to a temple later? Maybe while I’m sleeping? You pull the best blessings.”

Josie sighed silently, as if capitulating, and then asked Rafe, “Do you have a sheet of paper? And something to write with?”

“Um—sure. Let me poke around a little.”

He finally unearthed paper and ink, and cleared a space on the table for Josie to go to work. He wasn’t surprised to see that she approached this odd, unimportant task with great precision, first marking off twenty-four squares on two separate pieces of paper, and then sketching a blessing sigil in each one.

“Do you know them all by heart?” Corene asked, watching in fascination.

“Of course. Don’t you?”

Corene didn’t bother to answer. “But why do you need forty-eight?”

“Forty elemental blessings. Three extraordinary blessings. Three ghost blessings. And two left over in case I make a mistake.”

She didn’t, of course, as Rafe could have predicted. When she was done, he had to hunt for a pair of scissors so she could cut the squares apart, and then look for a container to hold them. The sisters were busy folding the scraps into smaller shapes while he searched for a bowl or basket. The best he could come up with was a mug that had held ale at a not too distant date, but any leftover liquid had dried into a stain at the bottom of the cup.

He was heading back to the table when a knock on the door sent him that way. “Rafe,” called one of the serving boys through the wood. “Samson sent up a loaf of bread if you want it.”

Whenever Samson had leftover food, he offered it to his boarders at a huge discount, an arrangement Rafe appreciated. “Sounds good,” he called back. Opening the door, he handed over a few quint-coppers in exchange for a slightly lumpy loaf. “Anybody want something else to eat?” he inquired as he turned back to his visitors, shutting the door quickly so the warmth from the fire couldn’t escape.

But the sweep of the door sent an errant draft curling through the room, brushing most of the blessing squares off the table. More than half blew straight into the fire.

“Oh no!” Corene exclaimed, dropping to the floor and trying to rescue the ones that hadn’t swirled into the flames.

Josie was laughing. “Maybe we’re not meant to choose blessings for Rafe Adova after all.”

Rafe set the bread on the table, along with the mug that was no longer needed. “There’s still a few left,” he pointed out, because three folded squares remained on the table. “Maybe those are mine.”

“Maybe they are,” Josie agreed. “And they’ve been chosen for you by the element of air.”

“Maybe he’s elay,” Corene said, returning to her chair and reaching for one of the scraps of paper. She unfolded it eagerly, then stared at it wide-eyed. “Ghost,” she said, showing them the empty square.

Despite himself, Rafe felt a prickle of superstition spiderwalk down his spine. Josie opened the second square. Not a mark upon it. Silently, she handed the third one to Rafe, and he smoothed it open.

Another ghost. If the element of air had chosen his blessings, it had gifted him with absolutely nothing.

THREE

C
orene protested for about five minutes, but Rafe wasn’t surprised that Josie convinced her to lie on the bed, where she almost instantly fell asleep. Rafe should have been just as tired, since he’d been awake since noon of the day before, but he found himself oddly energized. As if he’d just had the first glass from an excellent bottle of wine, and it was glittering through his veins. He was pretty sure the intoxicant in this case was the young woman sitting so primly at his table, looking utterly incongruous yet perfectly at ease.

He had been gone for a few minutes, cleaning himself up in the room down the hall, and now he dropped into the other chair across the table from her. He noticed that the fire was burning merrily; she must have added more fuel while he was out of the room. For someone who looked as dainty as an heiress, she possessed an impressive streak of practicality and a hard core of strength. Or so it seemed.

“Anything else I can do to make you more comfortable?” he asked.

“No, actually, I’ve been trying to think what
we
can do to make up for intruding on you. I’m sure you’re exhausted, too, and would like to sleep in your own bed.”

“I’m good for another few hours,” he said. “But I suppose we’re all trapped here until her father arrives.”

“I know. I apologize again for the disruption to your life.”

Out of habit, he pulled the ever-present deck of cards from a hip pocket and began shuffling them. “I find I’m not minding it much,” he said. “It’s made for a more than ordinarily exciting evening.”

“You’ve been very kind.”

He risked the question. “Even though I didn’t sell your sister any red gemstones?”

She laughed. “So you caught that, did you? Some friends of ours taught us that phrase years ago. They were itinerant traders and sometimes dealt with unsavory characters. It’s a way of asking if your friend or partner is in danger without letting anyone else understand the question.”

He nodded. “I guessed.” In the small silence that followed, the ruffling of the cards sounded very loud. “So how would you like to pass the time while we wait?” Rafe finally asked. “Do you play penta?”

She looked intrigued. “I never have. My mother always thought card games were vulgar.”

He laughed softly. “Well, they’re often played by vulgar people.” Just to occupy his hands, he started laying the cards out in suits, face up on the table. Josie watched with seeming fascination.

“The artwork is very intricate,” she said. “Do all decks look like this?”

“Some are more ornate than others. I tend to buy the beautiful, expensive ones.” He shrugged. “I spend so much time handling them, I figure I might as well enjoy looking at them.”

“So are there—five different kinds? No. Six. Seven?”

He neatened the piles and turned them to face her. “Five suits. One to match each elemental trait. Fish for coru, skulls for hunti, roses for torz. Horseshoes for sweela, though that’s always seemed the weakest connection to me. I suppose because horseshoes are shaped in the fire.” With a little flourish, he pushed the last pile closer to her hand. “And for your own element, flutes.”

“What about all those other cards?”

“Three wildcards. Think of them as random blessings. Depending on the game, they can be more or less valuable to hold in your hand.”

“And those?”

“Trumps. Nine of them. I don’t know how they relate to the general blessings, but three times three is a lucky number.”