LITMIR.BIZ

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well, she said, you should be a scholar. She got me my place here at the collegium.’

      ‘Ai!’ Dovina’s eyes widened. ‘I’ve heard much about her.’

      ‘She’s in charge of all the healers there, now, from what I’ve heard.’

      ‘She’s a grand patroness to have, truly! This could work out splendidly if we could get you to Haen Marn. We could hire the silver dagger to accompany – er, wait, not such a good idea. Everyone would think you were eloping with him, and you’d be dishonored.’

      ‘Better than seeing my family driven into poverty. Or watching him hang.’

      ‘Well, I shall do my best to keep that from happening.’ Yet Dovina sounded doubtful, a rare thing for her.

      ‘You’ve already got one huge concession out of your father. You shan’t be able to get another.’

      ‘Most likely that’s true, alas. He’ll bend a bit when I force things, but he doesn’t give in twice over the same matter. Having you go to Haen Marn on your own would be far too dangerous, a woman alone on the roads. And we’ve got to get the silver dagger out of town – what is his name?’

      ‘Cavan of Lughcarn, my lady.’

      ‘Ah, my thanks.’ Dovina considered this for a few moments. ‘Hmm. That’s oddly familiar. It makes me wonder, but anyway, we’ve got to get Cavan away quickly. And I certainly don’t want my wretched father’s wrath descending upon your family, either. Would you be safe on the road with your silver dagger, do you think?’

      ‘I do, especially if we told him he’d not get paid for the job if he gave me any trouble.’

      ‘Good thought! What I can do is give you a note, a draft, they call them, to my father’s banker up in Haen Marn. Father’s got a fair bit of coin in the treasury there. A lot of lords keep treasure there for safety’s sake. Only you can draw out the money, not Cavan, not anyone else. So if you don’t want him to have one copper penny of it, he’ll not get it.’

      ‘But what will your father say when he finds out the coin’s been taken?’

      ‘I shall tell him I need new dresses to impress this wretched suitor he’s dug up.’ Dovina shrugged the problem away. ‘My name wouldn’t be on the draft if he didn’t expect me to draw coin out now and then.’

      ‘Very well, if you think taking the money’s safe.’

      ‘If I didn’t, I wouldn’t suggest it. That should work splendidly. No matter what they were before, silver daggers always think of the coin.’

      ‘I suppose they have to, out on the long road like that.’

      ‘Oh, no doubt. Where is he now, in some tavern in town?’

      ‘He’s not, but in Wmm’s Scribal. Rhys is hiding him there.’

      ‘Good for Rhys!’ Dovina rubbed her hands together. ‘Let’s go downstairs and find Mavva. You’d best stay inside out of sight, but no doubt she’ll not mind taking a message to her betrothed.’

      ‘One thing I don’t understand,’ Cavan said. ‘Why would the noble-born men in King’s join your cause?’

      ‘They’re all younger sons,’ Rhys said. ‘They’ve got good reason to want to stick it to their first-born brothers.’

      ‘Makes sense.’ Cavan could understand that motive all too well.

      ‘Besides, they’re at the collegium because they’re going to end up as councillors or even running the law courts in their fathers’ rhannau, and very few of them want to. What complaints come before most small lords out here in the west, anyway? Some farmer claiming a witch cursed his cow or stole his chickens, or neighbors hauling in a townsman who won’t clean up his dungheap in the summer. The truly big cases, a guild bringing action against a lord to make him pay his debts, for instance, always go before the gwerbret himself. And you can guess, I’m sure, how such a case is settled.’

      ‘Always in the lord’s favor.’ Cavan paused for a sip of ale. ‘The same thing happens to silver daggers, if some miser refuses to pay your hire.’

      Rhys nodded in sympathy. They were sitting at one of the polished oak tables in Wmm’s Scribal’s great hall. These priests-to-be did themselves well, Cavan thought. Bardekian carpets in bright patterns covered the floor, and silver sconces hung between the glazed windows. The long tables and benches shone from polishing. He and Rhys had just shared a trencher of roast meats and fresh bread, washed down with a decent dark ale.

      ‘Not a bad life you lead,’ Cavan said. ‘Good ale, anyway.’

      ‘We might as well drink now. Once we take the vows of Wmm’s priesthood, it’s no more ale for us.’

      ‘What? Bardek wine, then?’

      ‘None of that, either. Boiled water. On special feast days, spiced milk.’

      Cavan made a sour face, and Rhys laughed at him. ‘At least we can marry,’ Rhys said. ‘I’d hate to be part of Bel’s priesthood.’

      ‘So would I.’ A pleasantly dark voice spoke behind them.

      Cavan turned on the bench and saw a tall, slender young man, smiling at them. He wore his moonbeam-pale hair long to cover his ears, but his eyes gave him away: purple, and slit vertically like a cat’s. One of the fabled Westfolk, then, even though he wore a shirt and breeches like an ordinary man and the orange surcoat of the collegium.

      ‘Come join us, Trav,’ Rhys said. ‘Cavan, this is Travaberiel ap Maelaber, an adjunct scholar here.’

      With a brief smile Travaberiel sat down on the bench opposite them. He glanced Cavan’s way, still smiling, still pleasant, but for a moment Cavan felt as if he’d been skewered by that glance. He had the odd but definite sensation that Travaberiel was looking deep into his soul. The moment passed. Dwimmer, he thought. This man has it. To break the moment he picked up his silver dagger and began cleaning the meat juice off the blade with his napkin.

      ‘How very odd,’ Travaberiel said. ‘Those old tales, the ones about silver daggers glowing when they were close to a man like me – they must not be true.’

      ‘Old folk tales, I’m sure.’ Cavan held the dagger up. No mysterious light shone on it or from it. ‘I never believed them, but this is the first chance I’ve ever had to test them.’

      ‘And you’re the first silver dagger I’ve ever met. I’ve not been in Eldidd long.’

      ‘You’re a, what was that? An adjunct scholar?’

      ‘I’m here to study the Deverry laws and customs that pertain to heralds. That’s what I am back home, a herald.’ Trav signalled a passing servant, who handed him a tankard.

      ‘Some of us,’ Rhys put in, ‘go on to join the College of Heralds over in Deverry. That’s a bit too much adventure for my taste, going back and forth twixt warring lords.’

      ‘No doubt you won’t have to,’ Cavan said. ‘You’ll have an important position at one court or another once you’ve finished here.’

      ‘I can hope, truly. Scribes are always in demand. By the by—’ this to Travaberiel ‘—if any outsiders ask about Cavan, just tell them he’s my cousin, come to visit.’

      ‘Right. I saw that bit of trouble in the marketplace. I’m tempted to say good for you, dropping that foul-mouthed bastard, but it’s doubtless made things difficult.’

      ‘Difficult?’ Cavan said. ‘You’ve got a herald’s tact, sure enough.’

      The three of them laughed, but ruefully.

      ‘Speaking of difficult things,’ Cavan continued, ‘will the master of your collegium object to my staying here?’

      ‘I’m a senior student, and we’re

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