bargain.'
Starling and I exchanged glances. 'We'll require a private moment,' she said smoothly. 'Begging your pardon.' She rose and taking my hand, led me to the corner of the room. Once there she whispered, 'Have you never bargained before in your life? You give too much, too fast. Now. How much coin do you truly have?'
For answer, I upended my purse in my hand. She picked through the contents as swiftly as a magpie stealing grain. She hefted the coins in her hand with a practiced air. 'We're short. I thought you'd have more than this. What's that?' Her finger jabbed at Burrich's earring. I closed my hand around it before she could pick it up.
'Something very important to me.'
'More important than your life?'
'Not quite,' I admitted. 'But close. My father wore it, for a time. A close friend of his gave it to me.'
'Well, if it must go, I'll see that it goes dearly.' She turned away from me without another word and walked back to Nik. She took her seat, tossed the rest of her brandy down and waited for me. When I was seated, she told Nik, 'We'll give you what coin we have now. It's not as much as you ask. But at the Mountain border, I'll give you all my jewelry as well. Rings, earrings, all of it. What say you?'
He shook his head slowly. 'It's not enough for me to risk hanging over.'
'What's the risk?' Starling demanded. 'If they discover you with the pilgrims, you'll hang. You've already been paid for that risk in what they gave you. We don't increase your risk, only your supply burden. Surely it's worth that.'
He shook his head, almost reluctantly. Starling turned and held out her hand to me. 'Show it to him,' she said quietly. I felt almost sick as I opened my pouch and fingered out the earring.
'What I have might not seem like much at first glance,' I told him. 'Unless a person were knowledgeable about such things. I am. I know what I have and I know what it's worth. It's worth whatever trouble you'd have to go through for us.'
I spread it out on my palm, the fine silver net trapping the sapphire within. Then I picked it up by the pin and held it before the dancing fire. 'It's not just the silver or the sapphire. It's the workmanship. Look how supple is the silver net, see how fine the links.'
Starling reached one fingertip to touch it. 'King-in-Waiting Chivalry once owned it,' she added respectfully.
'Coins are more easily spent,' Nik pointed out.
I shrugged. 'If coins to spend are all a man wants, that is true. Sometimes there is pleasure in the owning of something, pleasure greater than coins in the pocket. But when it is yours, you could change it for coins, if you wished. Were I to attempt it now, in haste, I'd get but a fraction of its worth. But a man with your connections, and the time to bargain well, could get well over four golds for it. But if you'd rather, I could go back to town with it and …'/P>
Greed had kindled in his eyes. 'I'll take it,' he conceded.
'On the other side of the river,' I told him. I lifted the jewelry and restored it to my ear. Let him look at it each time he looked at me. I made it formal. 'You undertake to get us both safely to the other side of the river. And when we get there, the earring is yours.'
'As your sole payment,' Starling added quietly. 'Though we will allow you to hold all our coins until then. As a surety.'
'Agreed, and here's my hand on it,' he acknowledged. We shook hands.
'When do we leave?' I asked him.
'When the weather's right,' he said.
'Tomorrow would be better,' I told him.
He rose slowly. 'Tomorrow, eh? Well, if the weather's right tomorrow, then is when we'll leave. Now I've a few things I need to attend to. I'll have to excuse myself, but Pelf can see to you, here.'
I had expected to walk back to town for the night, but Starling bargained with Pelf, her songs for a meal for us, and then to prepare us a room for the night. I was a bit ill at ease to sleep among strangers, but reflected it might actually be safer than going back to town. If the food Pelf cooked for us was not as fine as we had enjoyed at Starling's inn the night before, it was still far better than onion-and-potato soup. There was thick slices of fried ham and applesauce and a cake made with fruits and seeds and spices. Pelf brought us beer to go with it and joined us at table, speaking casually of general topics. After we'd eaten, Starling played a few songs for the girl, but I found I could scarcely keep my eyes open. I asked to be shown to a room, and Starling said she, too, was weary.
Pelf showed us to a chamber above Nik's elaborate room. It had been a very fine room once, but I doubted it had been regularly used for years. She had started a fire in the hearth there, but the long chill of disuse and the must of neglect still filled the room. There was an immense bed with a feather bed on it and graying hangings. Starling sniffed critically at it, and as soon as Pelf left, she busied herself in draping the blankets from the bed over a bench and setting it by the fire. 'They will both air and warm that way,' she told me knowledgeably.
I had been barring the door, and checking the latches on the windows and shutters. They all seemed sound. I was suddenly too weary to reply. I told myself it was the brandy followed by the beer. I dragged one chair to wedge it against the door while Starling watched me with amusement. Then I came back to the fire and sank down onto the blanket-draped bench and stretched my legs to the warmth. I toed my boots off. Well. Tomorrow I'd be on my way to the Mountains.
Starling came to sit beside me. For a time she didn't speak. Then she lifted a finger and batted at my earring with it. 'Was it truly Chivalry's?' she asked me.
'For a while.'
'And you'd give it up to get to the Mountains. What would he say?'
'Don't know. Never knew the man.' I suddenly sighed. 'By all accounts, he was fond of his little brother. I don't think he'd begrudge me spending it to get to Verity.'
'Then you do go to seek out your king.'
'Of course.' I tried in vain to stifle a yawn. Somehow it seemed foolish to deny it now. 'I'm not sure it was wise to mention Chivalry to Nik. He might make a connection.' I turned to look at her. Her face was too close. I couldn't bring her features into focus. 'But I'm too sleepy to care,' I added.
'You've no head for merrybud,' she laughed.
'There was no Smoke tonight.'
'In the cake. She told you it was spiced.'
'Is that what she meant?'
'Yes. That's what spiced means all over Farrow.'
'Oh. In Buck it means there's ginger. Or citron.'
'I know that.' She leaned against me and sighed. 'You don't trust these people, do you?'
'Of course not. They don't trust us. If we trusted them, they'd have no respect for us. They'd think us gullible fools, the sort who get smugglers into trouble by talking too much.'
'But you shook hands with Nik.'
'I did. And I believe he will keep his word. As far as it goes.'
We both fell silent, thinking about that. After a time, I started awake again. Starling sat up beside me. 'I'm going to bed,' she announced.
'Me, too,' I replied. I claimed a blanket and started to roll up in it by the fire.
'Don't be ridiculous,' she told me. 'That bed's big enough for four. Sleep in a bed while you can, for I bet we aren't going to see another one soon.'
I took very little persuading. The feather bed was deep, if a trifle smelly from damp. We each had a share of the blankets. I knew I should retain some caution but the brandy and the merrybud had unloosed the knot of my will. I fell into a very deep sleep.
Toward morning, I awoke once when Starling threw an arm over me. The fire had burned out and the room was cold. In her sleep she had migrated across the bed and was pressed up against my back. I started to ease away from her but it was too warm and companionable. Her breath was against the back of my neck. There was a woman smell to her that was not a perfume but a part of her. I closed my eyes and lay very still. Molly. The sudden desperate longing I felt for her was like a pain. I clenched my teeth to it. I willed myself into sleep again.
