'What's wrong?'
'Come on!' she hissed at him. He went.
A lantern shed mellow light in their cozy cabin. Fost looked around, saw nothing unusual, said so. 'On the bed,' Moriana said tonelessly.
For the first time, he noticed the flower lying across the pillow they shared.
'A gift from the crew? Is that what's bothering you?' He laughed reassuringly and slipped his arm around her waist. 'It seems more thoughtful to me than anything else. Besides, I thought your emblem was a rose.' 'Look at the color.'
He frowned, took his arm away and went to the bed, bending down to more closely examine the flower.
'Don't touch it,' she said. He shrugged. To humor her, he didn't reach out for the flower.
He went cold all over. The flower was black. Not just the bloom itself, but the stem and long, long thorns, as well. He recoiled, fear clutching at his stomach. 'What…?'
'It means the Dark Ones wish us to know they've not forgotten us,' she said.
CHAPTER SIX
Wholly at ease and hoarding the sensation like a marooned man hoards crumbs of a rapidly dwindling food supply, Fost ate small, tart berries from an iced bowl and admired the scuff marks his boot heels made on the marble table in front of him. The bankers of Tolviroth Acerte had given the city its name. But the other residents of Tolviroth did not have to like the bankers, and his birthplace notwithstanding, Fost had come over the years to consider himself as much a Tolvirot as anything. So he ignored the scandalized looks from the reed-thin clerk behind the reception desk and propped his feet on the marble table while he relaxed in a soft chair and plied himself with iced fruit.
'Do you have to do that?' Moriana demanded, striding to and fro nervously. 'We've come here to ask for money.'
'We've come here to demand money, against the Emperor's note,' Fost corrected. He popped another grayish berry into his mouth, sucked cool juice down his throat, chewed the skin and swallowed. 'Besides, you're doing more damage to the place than I am. You're wearing a hole in the carpet.'
The clerk, sexless in a long brown toga, gave Fost another venomous look and went back to scratching entries in a leather-bound ledger spread across the desktop.
'You musn't worry, Moriana,' said Ziore. 'Certainly there will be no trouble with the bank honoring Teom's draft.' Fost looked thoughtful but said nothing.
'Remember the good fortune I had the last time I dealt with the bankers of Tolviroth?' Moriana said, her words edged in irony. 'But you didn't visit this particular institution on your last trip.'
'That's why I chose it this time. I'm leery of dealing with people who turned me down once before.'
A squarely built woman of medium height appeared in the painted stucco archway. Her eyes roved over the room, hardly stopping on any of the peopie there, as if she considered all beneath her notice. She turned, as if to leave, then hesitated. Her gaze stopped on Moriana. No hint of emotion tainted her calm face. 'Princess Moriana?' she inquired in a courteous but cool voice.
'Yes,' said Moriana. 'Freewoman Pergann?' Fost smiled in approval at her remembering Tolvirot protocol by choosing the proper form of address. The bankers were touchy about such matters. Protocol meant as much to them as did the proper pomp and ceremony to the chamberlains tending the patricians in High Medurim.
The woman showed even teeth and her manner chilled even more, if possible.
'A Freewoman Pergann. I'm one of the Daughters of Pergann.' She swept the small group again with a gaze that revealed nothing. Fost vowed never to get into a game of cards with her. He had the feeling Pergann knew everything about him after a single glance while he could never begin to fathom her depths. 'If you would be so kind as to step into my office.'
Fost lifted his feet from the table, trying not to call attention to himself. The woman wore a severely cut ice- blue tunic with balloon trousers tucked into the tops of low, soft boots. This wasn't the garb he'd come to expect from bankers, nor was her attitude. She lacked the usual supercilious manner of other Tolvirot bankers and even approached glacial coldness toward them. Since he had not been excluded from the invitation, he picked up Erimenes's jug and followed the woman and Moriana, who had scooped Ziore's jar into her arms.
Freewoman Pergann seemed no more nonplussed to have the odd assembly of mortals and ghosts facing her across her own desk than she had been to discover them in her anteroom. The desk itself was plain, dark anhak wood, of more modest dimensions than the androgyne secretary's in the waiting room. With his usual tact, Erimenes pointed this out before anyone else had a chance to speak.
'Ostentation,' answered Pergann, with a thin smile, 'is fine out front to impress the customers, or so Mother believes. The company is still hers. I work here and see no need for extravagant display.' She pinned Fost with her cool eyes. He felt like a bug being placed in an exhibit, but without the passion normally the domain of avid collectors. 'Usually folk are somewhat impressed by the lavishness of the waiting room's decor, if not its attention to dictates of taste. But then, most of our clientele falls between the extremes of those too wealthy and those too barbaric to possess taste.'
Fost flushed at the implied insult and studied the wooden carvings on the wall that were the cubicle's sole decoration. They were Jorean, portraying the equinoctial devotions to the goddess Jirre. They were old, stained by time and Tolviroth's humid climate. Fost glanced down at Erimenes's jug, hoping the genie hadn't noticed the subject matter of those carvings. For a staid banking office, they were quite risque. But the spirit gave no attention to mere bric-a-brac. 'About the Emperor's draft, Freewoman,' urged Moriana.
The woman's mouth set into a thin line. At first glimpse, Fost took it for intransigence, but soon realized that the woman was reluctant to say what was on her mind.
'I can see no profit in being circumspect in this matter, Your Highness,' she said finally, 'though it gives me no great pleasure to tell you this. The cheque is worthless. There's no money in the Imperial account to cover it.' 'None?' Moriana blinked rapidly. 'But that's impossible!'
'With all due respect, Your Highness, it does not speak well of your knowledge of Imperial fiscal policy that you find the penury of Emperor Teom's account so startling. A nation that will cast clay slugs, fire them in a kiln, cover them with pewter wash and call that coinage is capable of anything from a financial viewpoint, anything save responsibility.' She spoke of the Imperial Treasury's latest seigniorage scheme in the same tone one might use to speak of someone who enjoyed eating dog excrement for breakfast.
Realizing she might have been harsher on Moriana than intended, she softened her tone and said, 'Let me explain about money. Economics has few laws. One is that devalued money will soon replace more valuable coin. No one continues to use a one klenor piece of silver when the Imperial pewter klenor buys the same amount of goods.' Pergann leaned back and said, smiling, 'It does speak well of your own fiscal attitudes that you find the Empire's doings so hard to grasp.'
'I… I still find it hard to believe there's no money in the Imperial accounts. You're sure? There's nothing?' Pergann's eyes and face hardened slightly.
'I would not be a responsible banker if I made inaccurate reports to my clients,' she said primly. 'Your friend there with the big boots is smiling. You're from Medurim, sir? Or know about it?' 'I was born there,' admitted Fost.
'I might have guessed.'
He wasn't sure how to take that. He reached out and gripped Moriana's hand firmly in his.
'Don't be upset,' he told her. 'We're not penniless – at least you're not. You're Queen of the Sky City. That withered old goat Omsgib will have to open the Sky City accounts to you.' Realizing the unflattering description of one of Pergann's fellow bankers, he added, 'Uh, sorry, Freewoman.'
'No pardon needed,' she said gravely. 'I see that for all your roughness of manner and need to elevate your feet, you are an astute judge of character.'
Moriana rose, saying, 'We won't take up any more of your time, Freewoman. Thank you for seeing us.'
'You're quite welcome. I hope we can have dealings in the future, dealings of a more mutually productive nature.'
