In the sudden quiet, the men caught their breath. Tamlin asked, 'Vox, why'd you pitch me out the window?'
'Oog!' Escevar sniffed. 'Deuce, you stink!'
'Thank you, dear friend, for so kindly enumerating my faults regarding personal hygiene. Vox?'
The mute veteran's hands sketched in the air. Tamlin interpreted, 'The dog-things, gnashers, were only after me and Zarrin? How do you know that? They broke off the attack once I was gone and Zarrin bolted out the door? Ah. That explains… nothing. I don't get it.'
'None of us get much,' sighed Escevar. He propped one leg on a riser because his punctured thigh throbbed. 'The whistling hillmen must have sent the gnashers into the building after you and Zarrin. Remember she was attacked earlier, just as we were? This was a golden opportunity with both you valuable nobles in one cozy room. Why they want to catch or kill either of you…'
Tamlin flexed his right hand. Mashed earlier by a table, it swelled so his glove constricted like a tourniquet. 'My, my, what a night. We should have gone boozing instead. Oh, well, let's get home and change clothes-again. At least Father will be pleased that I negotiated the gate tariffs before Zarrin disappeared.'
'… mutton-headed, crack-brained, slack-jawed, crosseyed, granite-skulled acts of depraved lunacy and sheer eye-popping idiocy it has ever been my misfortune to witness, let alone partake in!'
Thamalon Uskevren the First was only warming up. Agitated beyond belief, he paced before the fire in his counting room. Tamlin squirmed in a high-backed wooden chair while Vox and Escevar stood equally mute behind.
'Why give away only the gate tariffs?' the elder raged. 'Why not give away all our contracts? Why not rip the key to the family coffers from my aged, palsied hand, and throw open the gates of our miserable shack of a homestead, and use both hands to strew our gold and silver in the streets for every beggar to scoop up? What have I ever done in this lifetime that the gods punish me with a son who carries cobwebs in his empty skull? Why did not the fates send me a drooling, gibbering moron that I might have, in some tiny way by dint of long hours of excruciating labor, trained to do useful work such as fetching wood or slopping hogs? Instead, I suffer the sharpest torments by seeing this melon-headed twit tear down all my work and hurl my fortunes to the winds from the highest towers of Stormweather, our ancestral homestead for the moment, because I have no doubt that come tax time we will be impoverished and huddling in the gutters because of my son's blatant, ham-handed blundering-'
There was much more, but finally the elder ran out of breath. He collapsed in a chair and slugged Usk Fine Old gone cold. Thamalon Uskevren, 'The Old Owl,' looked like his son. He'd grown gray and seamed but never stooped, and his dark green eyes and still-black brows could summon a scowl to cower a prince, let alone someone who'd squandered his money. The room reflected the man: tidy, aesthetic, intellectual, buttoned-down. A table neatly was laid with a late-night snack, a chess game waited, a stack of books lay open. A hushed ease with luxury and old money and secrets emanated from the walls.
When the echoes of the tirade died, Tamlin cleared his throat softly. 'If I don't guess amiss, you seem upset, Father. Is it possible that, though we shouldn't dwell on an unpleasant subject, you could see fit to say why?'
'Why?' The patriarch glared until Tamlin felt like a chipmunk facing a timber wolf. Thamalon bit off every word. 'Because you failed to negotiate a contract to the family's advantage, son. That's why.'
'Ah.' Tamlin digested the news, but concentrating was an unaccustomed activity. 'Uh, might you explain how? I did secure the taxation rights to the, uh, West Gate where the farmers come in. That promises to bring a pretty penny.'
Thamalon made a strangling noise and chugged wine as if quaffing poison. Heaving a tremendous sigh, he conceded, 'Yes, the gate will bring a penny or two. That's what farmers deal in: pennies. They don't have many to spare, you see, after the Hulorn's tax collectors circulate among the farms and extract the taxes first. All our family can collect at the western gate is a poll tax on livestock: a penny a head. In a good day, we might collect a hundred pennies or more.'
'Ah.' Tamlin pretended to ponder. 'A hundred pennies. That'll buy… uh…'
'See my son, the Minister of Finance, who doesn't know what anything costs, calculate,' snapped the father. 'A hundred pennies might buy you a new pair of gloves, Tamlin. Not a lot, considering you've lost twelve pairs so far this winter. Your clothing budget, by the way, is treble what the younger children spend, but we'll scream about that later. For now, let me explain why I wish Zarrin Foxmantle were my son and you, Tamlin Uskevren the Second, were a fish cutter lost in a storm in a leaky boat on the Lake of Dragons!'
The lord rose, as did his voice. 'Of course Zarrin would want the North Gate's tariffs! And not because their family manor stands in the neighborhood: What kind of jabber-jawed excuse is that? All the traffic from Ordulin and Surd and Tulbegh comes through the North Gate, and unlike the Mulhessens, who use the West Gate and send their tariffs ahead, the northern traffic is completely untaxed, which means the duties are collected at the gates! Further, the northern gate overlooks the Elzimmer Bridge, which charges for foot traffic and collects duties on all incoming ships' cargoes! So, while you're standing at the West Gate collecting cow chips and getting dust in your eyes, my lamentably eldest and empty-headed son, the Foxmantles will sprain their backs lugging away all that tax money! I can't believe how badly you botched this mission! How did poor Zarrin Foxmantle keep from bursting a blood vessel holding in her laughter? When word of this gets out, I'll be the laughingstock of Selgaunt!'
In a brittle silence, Tamlin said, 'Perhaps, dear father, if you'd explained all this beforehand, I might've-'
Tamlin froze as the Old Owl thrust his face inches from his nose. With eyes smoldering below black brows, the patriarch hissed in an icy frightening whisper. 'I-did- explain. You-didn't-listen.'
'Oh,' Tamlin squeaked. 'Quite right. But it was so-complicated. All those variations. 'If this, then that, unless this, in which case that' stuff. I apologize. If there's anyway to make it up-'
'There is.' Looming upright, looking very tall despite his middling height, the lord pointed a bony finger at the door. 'Take your dishonor guards and go. Find Zarrin and undo this miserable deal.'
'Uh, now?' Tamlin faked a yawn. 'We've been dragged through the mill, Father, what with being attacked twice now by devil dogs and slung across ice and pitched out windows-'
'Go!'
The three listeners rose as if levitated and scurried out the door. Trotting down the wide circular stairs, they heard the liege lord scuffing hard behind in soft slippers. By the time they reached the door, courteously held open by a sleepy footman, Thamalon had final orders.
'Go,' he told his son. 'Get out there, find Zarrin, and fix what you've botched. Or I'll cut off your allowance, burn your clothes, sell your goods, cashier your servants, strike your name out of the city registry, and boil you in red pepper oil!'
The three delinquents stepped into the cold night, but Tamlin peeked through the crack of the door. 'Uh, father, I know I haven't performed to your satisfaction but, just curious, you see, you don't really mean that last bit, do you? About the red pepper oil and such?'
Slowly the door creaked shut. Tamlin watched his father's narrow face grow narrower. Through a slash of a mouth, he growled, 'Son, I'm afraid I do.'
The door slammed.
Locked outside on high stone steps on a windy wintry black night, Tamlin looked at the door awhile, then at his friends. Grinning, he assured them, 'He doesn't really mean it.'
Biting their tongues, Vox and Escevar trudged down the stairs.
'Funny, I thought Father would be pleased.' The three companions trudged down the middle of Sarn Street, temporarily homeless if one didn't count Tamlin's two tall-houses and three guest apartments scattered throughout the city. The heir rambled, 'He should be glad I settled the contract so quickly. When I'm forced to attend his business meetings, they drag for hours. All that talk about money-ick!'
'If it weren't for those business meetings,' grumped Escevar, huddled against the cold and hating it, 'you'd never get any sleep.'
