Luckstones Read online

  Velliaune flushed. “I am certain that Col waits only for a way to return the Archangel to me. Please, Nya, will you help?”

  Nyana considered. “What do you mean to pay me for this service?”

  The expression upon Velliaune’s face was comical. She was used to paying for bonnets and gloves, Nyana realized, but not for services done her. “What would it cost?”

  “That rather depends upon how difficult your errand is. At least—” Nyana paused to calculate a day’s wages. “At least 20 senesti, perhaps more.” Then, in answer to Velliaune’s moue of anxiety, “I shan’t charge you more than you can pay, I promise.”

  The tiny crease between Velliaune’s brows smoothed. “Will you do it at once? Mama thinks I’m abed with a headache and hasn’t troubled me, but I can’t play sick forever.”

  “You must write a note to Col ha Vanderon; if I appear upon his doorstep asking for sapphires, I doubt he’ll indulge me otherwise.”

  A short while later, Nyana me Barso left the Corse house, heading for the apartments occupied by Col ha Vanderon. The rooms were in a large granite block that loomed blankly over its smaller brick-and-plaster neighbors, a modern building in an area otherwise known for charm, elegance, and the money of the past. She gave her name to the porter and was shortly ushered up the stairs to the third floor.

  Nyana had never met Col ha Vanderon. She had imagined height and saturnine charm; what she met was a fair, stocky, open-faced fellow with a cheeky smile and a look of bewilderment. The bewilderment was replaced by understanding when he read Velliaune me Corse’s note.

  “I cannot recall that I have ever heard your name,” he said at last. “Yet Velliaune entrusts you with a delicate matter.”

  “We were at school together,” Nyana said shortly. “The sapphire, sir?”

  If her directness offended him, ha Vanderon gave no sign. “I wish that I had it.”

  Nyana examined him, trying to gauge truth. “Do you know where it might be?”

  Ha Vanderon’s brows drew together in a frown. “Do you think I slipped that great, heavy thing off the young lady’s neck while we were—” he broke off with a suggestion of delicacy.

  “I know nothing more than Velliaune told me, sir. Do you recall having seen the Archangel when Velliaune arrived for your supper?”

  Ha Vanderon appeared to think. “Yes, I noted it when she arrived, for the gem caught the light from the candles.”

  “And later, when her clothes were removed?”

  “Oh, they were not all removed,” he said genially. “She kept on her shift, at least half-way, and—” He broke off at Nyana’s frown. “Yes, I recall that she wore it still. I was afraid it might gouge me when—” Again he stopped. The man was far too pleased with himself, Nyana thought.

  “And after?” she prompted.

  “I don’t recall. She rose and dressed in a hurry, to get back to her parents’ house before dawn. I went back to sleep for a time, then rose and went on my way. I did not,” he added, “feel any lumps in the bed as I slept.”

  “How comfortable for you.” He had not escorted his lover home, either. “You understand the importance of that gem to her family, sir. If I cannot return it to Velliaune, thence to her parents, your tryst with her will likely become public knowledge.”

  Ha Vanderon shrugged. “It was a very enjoyable evening, a memory I shall cherish, but all I had for it was the pleasure of Velliaune me Corse’s body. I do not have the Archangel, and while I would be very sad to hear of Velliaune’s discomfiture over the gem, I cannot produce what I do not have.”

  Nyana rose. “That is your final word?”

  “I have no others to offer. You might check at the inn; no chambermaid in her right mind would keep such a bauble as the Archangel; if the stone was found there, it is likely still in the possession of the innkeeper.” Col ha Vanderon bowed over his visitor’s hand.

  As she left the building, Nyana considered. She had done what she promised: taken the note to Col ha Vanderon and attempted to gain the Archangel from him. She had been unsuccessful. She thought of Velliaune, sitting in her chamber awaiting the return of the sapphire. At last, and sighing, Nyana turned her steps in the direction of the Sign of the Bronze Manticore.

  Houses of accommodation—particularly those as handsomely fitted out and expensive as the Bronze Manticore—were entirely outside Nyana’s experience. She approached the place with her most respectable demeanor and asked to speak with the housekeeper.

  “You wantin’ a job?” the tapster looked her up and down. “We got none at the moment.”

  “No, I have other business. A matter of something left behind which I wish to retrieve.”

  “Huh.” The tapster scratched the wen on the side of his nose with a thumbnail. “Then it’s Jass you’re wanting. Hey, boy, go fetch Jassie down. Tell her there’s a woman here for something she left behind.”

  Nyana’s reflex was to say that it was not she who had been here, but she stilled it. If Col ha Vanderon had followed what she believed to be the usual protocol, he would have hired the room and the supper, then brought in Velliaune, as cloaked and hidden as a springtide priest. If playing a role would help get the Corse sapphire back, she could do so for a short time.

  “Yah?” Jass was the tallest woman Nyana had ever seen, red-haired, red-faced and bony, wrapped in a vast canvas apron.

  “I—I was here last evening, and I believe a . . . possession . . . of mine was left behind.”

  The tapster, having passed Nyana safely to her proper resource, turned away. Jass motioned Nyana to follow her to a small empty coffee room. “You hardly look the type. Wha’s this youn lost?”

  Did one just out and say I’ve lost a spectacularly large sapphire, have you seen it? Nyana did not think so. “I’ve lost a necklace of my mother’s,” she said at last. “I’d borrowed it, and it came off when I, when I went, when—”

  “When yer man tuck the clos off you,” Jass offered helpfully. “Well, I stript the beds this morn and found no necklaces. Wha rhum was you in? You mi go look.”

  Of course neither Velliaune nor Col ha Vanderon had told Nyana which chamber they had occupied. “Might I?” she said, thinking quickly. “The problem is that I was, um, cloaked, and I don’t recall—”

  Jass shrugged. “Look n’em all, if you like. What’s it look like, this necklace?”

  “It has a big blue stone in a gold setting. There would be a reward,” Nyana suggested, hoping Velliaune would agree.

  “F’I see it I’ll tell you.”

  Nyana spent an unprofitable hour looking through every empty chamber. She found three earbobs, an empty wallet, a small box of the sort made to hold sheepskins, and two opera playbills stuffed under mattresses. Of the Archangel, no sign.

  As she was leaving the inn, she passed Jass dusting a bronze figure in the hallway: a manticore, of course. “Fin’ your bit o’ sparkle?” the maid asked.

  “No, alas. I do not think anyone would have stolen it. It’s quite remarkable, and anyone who tried to sell it would instantly be turned over to the magistracy.” Nyana hoped the maid would remember this if the Archangel suddenly appeared. What else could she do now but leave?

  House Corse was in the midst of preparation for dinner; Velliaune was being dressed, and Nyana—whose supper usually comprised a bowl of soup in her landlady’s kitchen—was forced to sit through the dressing and combing of her friend’s hair before they were suffered any privacy.

  “At last! If Mama asks for the necklace—” Velliaune held out her hand to receive the Archangel. Nyana shook her head and braced herself: Velliaune, balked of a desire, had been known at school for her voluble tantrums. Instead, the girl turned milk-pale.

  “You must have it,” she wailed.

  For the first time, Nyana felt truly regretful. “I wish I did.”

  Velliaune started to pace back and forth. After a dizzying minute of watching her, Nyana took one of the girl’s hands in her own in an attempt to stop the pacing
and make Velliaune focus. “Col ha Vanderon says he does not have it. He may be lying, but I could not prove it. The inn says it was not discovered there; they may be lying, but I could not prove it. Think, Vellie. Could the necklace have fallen off at any time after you left the Bronze Manticore?”

  “The clasp was quite sturdy enough for walking through the streets. If it had fallen off, it surely would have gone into my bodice or petticoat, or clattered on the ground so that I heard it.” She faltered. “At the inn, the activity of—with Col—we were very busy, you see. Could not the activity have knocked the clasp open?” Her blush was so profound, it seemed to make her glow under the light, and her hand in Nyana’s was hot.

  “You would know that better than I.”

  “Nya!” Velliaune’s tone was imploring. “If the Archangel is truly lost, I’ll be cast out of the house in my shift! I’ll starve! I’m not like you, I don’t know how to do anything but marry well.”

  It’s likely your night with Col ha Vanderon has taught you some marketable skills. Nyana bit down hard on that thought; voicing it would not improve the situation, and she had promised to help.

  “It won’t come to that. We’ll find the wretched sapphire and your parents will be none the wiser. Let us think. Both you and Col say that you wore the Archangel when you arrived for dinner; Col says you had it on during . . . .”

  Velliaune choked. How readily she blushes, Nyana thought.

  “You say the clasp was too sturdy to come undone while you were walking home.”

  “It was, I swear it.”

  “Then all I can guess is that it fell off, as you thought, when you were in bed with Col ha Vanderon.”

  “Nya!”

  “If you can bed the man, you can hear the words spoken! If you lost the Archangel in bed, then either it was lost in the sheets, and the inn has it, and that maid lied—” Velliaune nodded vigorously, “or Col managed to unclasp it while he was clasping you, and he has it.” Velliaune shook her head. “In either case, someone has lied to me.”

  Nyana released Velliaune’s hand and rose. “I suppose I had best find out who.”

  Nyana left the Corse house in perplexion. I have no power, no authority, no money. A little wit, and some skill with a fencing sword, and that is the sum of it. Well, she would have to use whatever came to hand.

  Evening was drawing like an opera cloak over the city of Meviel. Torches glittered in doorways like inconstant gems. At the Bronze Manticore, the staff would doubtless be getting ready for that night’s assignations. Nyana returned to her room long enough to change from the gown suitable to visiting the Corse household back into her breeches, leathern tunic and steel-buckled shoes. With her blades hung on her hip, she felt ready to proceed.

  Nyana’s route brought her first to the back of the inn, where she observed a figure sneaking—there was no other word for the posture and manner—in through the stableyard doors. Extraordinarily tall, female, red-headed: it was Jass.

  Now that is interesting.

  Nyana followed after the maid as stealthily as she might; the last thing she needed was to bring the tapster, the ostlers, or the owner of the inn into this discussion. She caught up with Jass in one of the dim service hallways between the stable and the kitchen.

  “Wha? You agan?” The maid looked apprehensive. Why would that be, when she had been so casual in their last conversation? Nyana was inspired.

  “I’m afraid I must ask you to turn out your pockets.”

  “Won’t.” The syllable was sullen, but Jass’s eyes moved back and forth as if seeking a route of escape. “Can’t make me.”

  “I see the matter thusly.” Nyana smiled. “If you turn out your pockets, I shall not have to make a fuss. If you do not, the innkeeper will become involved, and when he learns that you were in league with Col ha Vanderon to steal a very expensive piece of jewelry—”

  “In league? I never!” Jass’s eyes opened so wide they appeared to be in danger of rolling out of their sockets.

  “Turn out your pockets,” Nyana said again.

  Jass dug a raw-boned hand into her apron pocket and produced, not the Archangel but a purse, which she held out. Nyana’s eyes opened nearly as wide as the maid’s when she saw how much money was inside.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Woun’t even gimme wha the sparkle was worth,” the maid said resentfully. “When I foun it this mornin’ I was gon to hide it from him, sell it or make him pay more. Then you said what about I coun’t sell it safe, an I figurt it for a bad business, and tol him where—”

  “Where?” Nyana said urgently. It was one thing to convince the maid to give up her secret; she was certain Col ha Vanderon would be far more difficult.

  “Upstairs. In the hall—”

  Nyana turned. “When did you leave him?”

  “Quarter hour, maybe. At the alehouse in Pastern Stre—” Nyana did not stay. If she were lucky, she might reclaim the Archangel and see that Velliaune me Corse was never troubled by rumors of her night with Col ha Vanderon. She left the inn at the back, circled around to the front hall, and there found a stool to station behind the drapery.

  She watched as several couples arrived, intent upon an evening’s pleasure, and a drunken blade was turned away when he asked the innkeeper to supply a woman (“The Bronze Manticore does not procure, sir!”). Just as Nyana had begun to lose her patience with waiting, the door arced open just wide enough to admit a man without setting the bells to clamor.

  Col ha Vanderon slipped inside and went at once, as Nyana had suspected he might, to the brazen manticore figurine on the trestle table opposite the door. She watched as he ran his hands up and down the figure, fingers seeking what the light was too dim to reveal otherwise: the hiding place of the Archangel. Nyana knew when he had found it, for his hands stilled and he made a noise in the back of his throat. He slid the sapphire out of its hiding place beneath the left-hand wing; the chain and stone caught the lamplight for a brief moment before Col pocketed them. Then, with the same care he had used minutes before, he slipped silently out of the door.

  Nyana, behind him, followed with equal stealth.

  The air had cooled and the last blue glimmer of daylight was gone. By the light of torches burning at each door, she saw the stocky figure of Col ha Vanderon pause at the corner as if seeking a carriage for hire. When none appeared, he proceeded on foot, not toward his rooms, but toward the Dedenor district, where the fencing studio, her own rooms, and a sizeable number of Meviel’s criminal populace were located.

  He’s mad, or as naive as Vellie me Corse! A gentleman, swordless, carrying a rock like that down Hangsaman Street after dark? Perhaps he doesn’t like the throat Nature gave him and hopes someone will vent it for him?

  Nyana put her hand on the hilt of her sword and followed.

  The attack came just as Col ha Vanderon turned the corner of Hangsaman Street onto the narrower Wattle Street. Three men, large, armed, and confident enough of a kill that they had not bothered to mask their faces, surrounded ha Vanderon in the time it took him to take a pace.

  “Stand!” the tallest man barked. Instantly, what foot traffic there had been disappeared. If Col ha Vanderon expected the folk of the Dedenor district to come to the rescue of an unknown gentleman, he was in for a sad correction. “You got somethin’ we’m wantin’.”

  Ha Vanderon stumbled slightly and eyed a blade that flashed up to stop any attempt at flight. They’re quick, Nyana thought.

  “Why, gentlemen,” ha Vanderon drawled. “What can I have that you would want?”

  “A bit o’ sparkle,” the man to the right said. He was the shortest of the three tall men, and his words came out with a shower of spittle that caught the torchlight.

  “Shut it, Cheevie,” the first man said. He reached forward to touch the tip of his blade to ha Vanderon’s top coat button. “Gimme the sparkle and you’ll see the morra.” A long few moments passed. Was ha Vanderon trying to decide what he might offer these men i
n place of the Archangel? More interesting, to Nyana at least, was the question of how the men had known he had the sapphire in the first place.

  The lead man pushed a little harder with the tip of his sword. Ha Vanderon stepped backward and was prodded gently with the third man’s swordpoint. His hand slid into his pocket.

  “Well, since you must,” he said.

  Reluctantly Nyana realized that, if she were to reclaim the Archangel for Velliaune me Corse, this would be the moment. She drew sword and dagger, stepped out of the shadow, and within a moment had the tip of her dagger pressed against the nape of the third man’s neck.

  Matters became complex. The third man froze for a moment, then turned to face Nyana. The leader and Cheevie, momentarily shocked by the arrival of an unanticipated assistant to their quarry, raised their blades to chase her away, permitting Col ha Vanderon to step to his left, out of range of the two swords. Col caught sight of her. “You!”

  “I,” Nyana agreed. She tossed her dagger, hilt first, to ha Vanderon. “A loan,” she said, and turned to deal with the third man. Despite the weighty blade in his hand, the thief was no swordsman. He waved the blade back and forth like a finger waggled at a naughty child; Nyana, in a move she had only practiced and never accomplished in good earnest, beat the blade away with a strong strike and hit true in the man’s center, feeling her point cut into his chest, bounce along the side of a rib, then slide further. It was not a pleasant sensation.

  The man cried in outrage, then was silent as blood bubbled up in the corner of his mouth and he crumpled. Nyana fought the urge to vomit and tugged her sword free—the muscle of the man’s chest clutched at her blade—because the leader was coming at her now. Looking over, she saw Col ha Vanderon engaged in blocking Cheevie’s cuts with her dagger; at least he was not dead already.

  “Messing in business that’s none of yourn, girl.” The leader did not seem concerned by the sight of his companion dying upon the street.