then another one back down. He was bound for a detached courtyard on the same level as the main upper yard, but which was accessible only from above.
As Cyril stepped back outside he was chilled by a northern breeze he had not felt in the enclosed courtyard within the citadel. This yard was far smaller, just a wide L-shaped walkway jutting from the northeast corner above a sheer cliff, which made defensive works redundant. Instead there was only a low stone wall enclosing an area of paving stones interrupted by regular squares of bare dirt, a few sprouting saplings but most of which were beds that would wait until spring before flowering.
The view was among the best in the castle above the city, for none of Chengdea itself could actually be seen. From here the citadel seemed to float in the sky high above checkerboard farm fields stretching east and the Black River flowing in from the north, with the tangled murk of the Vod Wilds to the west safely across the wide water. The spot was particularly beautiful at sunset but Cyril scarcely noticed the gorgeous sky, for his daughter was sitting on a stone bench and to him she was the most beautiful thing in the world. He had a case to make.
Claudja Perforce, Duchess of Chengdea, had inherited her mother’s looks along with her title. Her features were fine, actually exquisite, with a delicate nose and mouth that only seemed a trifle small for the largeness of her steel gray eyes. She had Jasmine’s pale skin, wholly without blemish, but from Cyril and the Balabushevych’s once of Orstaf she had dark, slashing eyebrows and a mass of brown hair tumbling about narrow shoulders for her frame was slight. She was dressed as she had been for three months all in the black of mourning, plain dress, coat, and a scarf. She sat on the edge of the bench with her spine as straight as a ramrod, and before her was a square gap in the pavement from which no flowers would ever grow again, for it was the grassy mound of a grave. The name on the stone marker said only Sir Lucas but it was inscribed beneath the carved coat of arms of the Towsan family. The Knight-Baron’s holdings were on Chengdea’s eastern edge, and it was there that the Towsans had rested for five hundred years. It was there that someday Sir Gideon’s bones would lie, and later those of his elder two sons. But the old knight had acceded to the Duchess Claudja’s gentle wish that the youngest of the family would lie here, on the spot where Lucas had proposed marriage, and Claudja had accepted.
Seeing her, Claudja’s father felt like an intruder. Her small size did not add to Cyril’s grudging awareness that his only child was a young woman now of twenty-four years, and that the things weighing on her were grown-up matters. Not the kinds of things that a father’s hug could ever banish. He could still tell her now that everything would be fine but since Jasmine’s death neither of them could believe that as they might have, once. Now with Lucas gone, the fine young man who Claudja had looked at from the beginning in the same way Jasmine had come to look at Cyril in time, the father feared that their daughter might never come to feel that way again.
Claudja had heard the door and she turned to look up at her father. The light of dusk was gentle on her face. She smiled faintly with her mouth but not her eyes, and there was no joy in it. Cyril walked toward her slowly, setting his heavy feet softly for every scuff seemed an interruption of his daughter’s private grief. Claudja rose and with a last look back turned away from the cold headstone. She met Cyril halfway and her dry eyes narrowed as she looked at his face.
“Some news?” she asked.
“Pagette,” Cyril said, and found he had to clear his throat.
Claudja lifted her chin, for her father was much taller.
“Has he found someone?” she snapped, suddenly all business.
“Perhaps,” Cyril said without enthusiasm. “There is a Miilarkian taking passage shortly. A young woman Guilder.”
“ Wahine Guild awarhe?” Claudja said, for she spoke the Trade Tongue with full fluency as befitted the female head of a noble Daulic household. Cyril’s command of that language was spotty, though he had gotten her drift.
“That is what Pagette thinks.”
Claudja looked somewhere into the breeze and she blinked once or twice though her gaze remained steely. Her mother had looked just the same when she was thinking, and it had never taken either of them very long to get where their mind was going.
“That’s perfect,” Claudja said. “When may I meet her?”
“We may head down into the city at any time.”
Claudja nodded crisply and turned for the stairs back up to the apartments. Cyril looked and then called after her, and she turned.
“Claudja, I…I still do not like this plan. There are other ways to reach the Codians. There are others who could be sent.”
Cyril’s daughter looked over her shoulder at him, then turned and marched back. In the dying light there was a sudden coldness in her eyes that Cyril had never seen in her mother’s, though he recognized it all the same. He had seen it often enough in the hard gaze of his own father, the first Duke of Chengdea, Perforce.
“There is no time to establish relations and exchange ambassadors,” Claudja said. “The Codians must know that we are serious, and they must know it immediately.” She lifted her chin again. “So long as I am Duchess of Chengdea no more of our men shall die for the incompetence of that man.”
The vehemence with which Claudja spoke the last two words as always gave Cyril a start, for since Lucas Towsan had died following the orders of Hughes III, King of Daul, Claudja had referred to their rightful liege in no other way.
Cyril nodded. Claudja turned away only a moment before her look would have amounted to staring her father down, then strode deliberately back inside. It was another moment before Cyril followed.
Chapter Nineteen
After speaking through a human translator to a fat bullywug on the docks Tilda bought a pass to board whatever craft into the Wilds was next available, paying an extra ten silvers for the privilege. In return she was given a short, flute-like stick with irregularly cut air holes and told to come back at first light though there well might be nothing available for a day or two. Or three. Half a tenday, tops. The additional delay was well down Tilda’s list of concerns. She secured the flute in the belt with her money and took the horses back into the city to the first heavily trafficked corner. In half an hour Tilda had sold both at a profit that covered the pass though she had to take payment in Daulic coins that were much more cumbersome than Miilarkian notes.
The only inn Tilda had seen in the city not full to overflowing was the Stars and Stones adjacent to the Shugak dock, and when she entered the common room she divined why. There were not many people at the tables or the bar but those present consisted of a bewildering array of adventuring types, all armed to the teeth and many still wearing dented breast plates and chain sleeves even as they ate dinner. There was a tall woman so pale she was almost albino, all in dark blue leather and with a mace set atop her table next to a gloved hand lazily swishing a glass of wine. In one corner was a pair of dark Oswambans, a twin brother and sister, wearing warm woolen clothes but with lion skins over their shoulders and matching spears with long steel tips bound around with bright feathers leaning against the wall. The furnishings and appointments of the inn were all of the highest quality and the place was obviously catering only to those who could afford to pay more than any commoner or refugee.
Dugan was at the bar talking to the only two women in the place who did not look like they were bound for Vod’Adia. Not unless prostitutes were assailing the Sable City this year.
Tilda went to the far end of the bar and dealt with the grinning barkeep. A single room and an evening meal were one and one-half silver pieces, several times what would have been fair. Tilda got a small measure of vengeance by paying in thirty coppers, ridding her of most of her least valuable Daulic coins.
Tilda stowed her gear and locked her room upstairs, and after some consideration she returned to the common room in her Guild cloak over her vest and daggers and with her buksu club still slung across her back. Her meal was waiting on the end of the bar, catfish and mead. Dugan was alone now for his companions had moved to a trio of well-heeled young noblemen who had come in, slumming. He shrugged at Tilda and she ignored him, taking her board and glass to a corner table beside the fireplace. The fish was good, basted with a creamy sauce
