Destiny’s Conflict: Book Two of Sword of the Canon. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ to his neck and chafed shoulders aching, he gulped air reeking of fish offal and jetsam stranded by the ebb-tide. Shoreside, the overseers barked at their stevedores, while the sun-baked heat off the docks sweltered into the breezeless shimmer of midday.

      Dace pushed on. Braced for the steward’s revenge, and dazzled as he stepped from the shaded lane back into the street, he received no warning as an on-coming body crashed into him. Encumbered by the yoke, he swore murder, while the pails slopped and drenched his shoes.

      “Give over the buckets. Right now! To me!” snapped the reckless female who clutched at his jacket.

      Irritable, astonished, Dace recognized the plain-faced scullion who snitched. “The steward’s sent you to replace me?”

      “No!” The raw-boned girl mopped a forehead plastered with dingy bangs. “Cook’s whim chose to spare you. Hurry! The constable’s sent the armed guard. Under the steward’s sworn accusation, they bear a sealed writ for your arrest.”

      Dace floundered to grapple the malicious riposte. “On what charge?”

      “Sneak thief. He’s claimed you lifted property.” The scullion rolled her eyes, impatient. “Hand off those buckets! Don’t let the watch catch that evidence on you.”

      “They give a rat’s arse for a brace of old pails?” Dace shrugged off the yoke, scared to reeling.

      “Are you daft?” The scullion’s lip curled. “Mail shirts would issue a warrant to nab you for carrying fleas at a twopenny bribe.”

      Dace scarcely believed the girl routed a strategy aimed to ruin him. “You must hate the steward past measure,” he said.

      The drudge muscled his burden, her dish-water eyes bright with hatred. “That devious creep only makes my life miserable. But flouting cook’s orders gets me a beating.” She turned her cheek, already puffed by the weal that drove her compliance. “Go! Run. I’ll hurt worse if the guard sees you with me.”

      Spurred by the tramp of hobnailed boots rounding the bend by the harbour-master’s, Dace darted down the noisome alley behind the fishmonger’s. He shucked his jacket, turned the livery lining side out, and shoved back into the hurly-burly press of the main street.

      Reprieve would not last, with the house barred against him. East Bransing sold indigents to the galleys, and the thieves’ gangs extorted whoever sought refuge in the warrens beneath the board-walk.

      Dace had until dusk to clear his disgraced name, against stakes more sinister than any snob servant’s enmity. If he were to languish in lock-up, then be dispatched to sea on a false arraignment, Lord Lysaer would remain at the mercy of a possible temple conspiracy.

      The steward might be complicit, with the gentleman’s house near the water-front perhaps too conveniently rented. More than staff might possess the keys, which left Lysaer’s back lethally vulnerable.

      Dace rubbed the thread concealed in his left wrist. Features too old for his natural years, he rued the day he had given consent to the affairs of Fellowship Sorcerers. His true form as a woman might side-step the town watch, even assume a street child’s garb and join the loud-mouthed ragamuffins who played stickball on the doorsteps of the wealthy. At least as an urchin, he could watch the door. The forfeit advantage of Davien’s disguise scarcely mattered if his liege fell to a predatory conspiracy.

      Undecided which way to turn, Dace fretted, while the pooled midday shadows lengthened towards afternoon.

       Summer 5923

       Undercurrents

      The steward rushed into the lord’s private study seconds after the tinkle of glass disrupted the household quiet. He noted the smashed casement rondel first. Then, in sepia shadow, the master himself, seated across from the sparkle of fragmented glass. Lysaer s’Ilessid had turned his stuffed chair from the desk, the medallion carpet scuffed where the lions’ paw feet had furrowed the pile. On the papers behind, the inked quill just laid down suggested the day’s correspondence, rudely interrupted.

      “Light preserve!” gasped the steward, breathless from his sprint. “You’re unhurt?” His solicitous fuss met rebuff although the gentleman said nothing. A fair man informally clad, cuffs turned back and his collar unlaced in the heat, should not possess such a magisterial bearing.

      To mask his inquisitive interest, the steward temporized stiffly, “Does my lord have enemies?”

      Arctic blue, Lysaer’s eyes, in a face chiselled clean of expression. Unlike other pedigree lordlings, he never unbent under chatty sympathy. A faint sparkle of glass sequinned the wrist he raised from the chair arm. His clenched fingers, uncurled, served his stinging reply: nestled into his palm, the pried chunk of cobble-stone a vandal had tossed from the street.

      “Children!” The steward huffed in disgust. “Poor-quarter ruffians at their careless games. Rest assured, I’ll summon the watch. They’ll haul the insolent wretches into custody straightaway.”

      Lysaer’s mild response struck the note green ambassadors always mistook for agreement. “What befalls young offenders when they’re declared guilty?”

      “If they can’t pay the fine for disruptive behaviour and punitive repairs?” The steward took the liberty to inspect the damage, then clucked over the crack found in one of the casement mullions. “The urchins are sent to the docks, where forced labourers pick apart worn ropes for oakum. They serve a month for every silver sentenced in recompense.”

      The brisk move as Lysaer shoved upright stirred the air like the first hint of storm. “Get Dace up here to polish my boots. I’ll be off to the magistrate inside the hour.”

      The steward bowed. “Your Lordship, my word is sufficient to seal the conviction. No need to address this low grievance in person.”

      Lysaer’s fixed regard never wavered, clear as a mineral pool before the geyser’s eruption. “I have no complaint to press charges. None whatsoever. My purse will settle the landlord. And the fine, if your accusation is not proven spurious. Now send Dace!”

      “The boy Quince will tend your footwear,” said the steward, his arch condescension routine to coddle a flighty lord’s fancy.

      Lysaer’s firm response still raised no flag of warning. “Dace is off on an errand? I’ll await his return.”

      The steward rubbed his hook-nose, discommoded. “Then your boots will be polished by my own hand, while the matter of finding a glazier awaits on your vanity.”

      Where another aristocrat might have deferred, Lysaer’s silken inquiry pressed, “Where is Dace?”

      The steward prevaricated. “Milord, such unpleasantness is beneath your attention.” Given no leave to dismiss the question, he squared his tapered shoulders. “If you insist, regretfully, I’ve just dismissed Dace for thievery.”

      Lysaer said nothing with such elegance, the steward cleared his dry throat. “I don’t know what the wretch stole, milord.” Deceit flowed off his oily tongue. “That would be the cook’s grievance.”

      “My business alone!” Lysaer rebuked. “Dace is part of my retinue, fellow, and no lackey attached to this house. If the resident staff is displeased with his СКАЧАТЬ