“Your guard hit me on the back of the head hard enough to knock me out.” Ben hadn’t even known that was possible.
“He disoriented you just before daybreak, and as I said, it was not what I wished. Devan was perhaps a little too concerned when you said you were leaving for Rome, and he will make restitution for his actions.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.” Ben watched Radu pour a generous amount of wine in both glasses. “Why shouldn’t I take off right now?”
“It will be to your benefit to stay and hear my offer. If, after this drink, you don’t agree with me, I will bid you farewell as well as leaving you with a chest of valuable items” —Radu nodded at a small belted travel chest near the door of his vardo— “as a thank-you from me and my clan for your generosity of time and your forgiveness.”
Ben glanced at the chest, then at the blood-wine, then at the vampire across from him. “You’re going to pay me to listen to you over a glass of wine?”
“I value your time.” A smile touched Radu’s mouth. “If you had, perhaps, valued mine as highly, this abduction wouldn’t have been necessary.”
“I’m going to go ahead and argue this abduction definitely wasn’t necessary.”
A hint of Radu’s jovial smile touched his lips. “When I contacted you three years ago, I had time to spare. That time has run out.”
Okay, Ben did feel a little guilty about putting the man off for three years. Maybe it was worth giving Radu another ten minutes. He looked around the clearing. “No guard?”
“I know you are an honorable man.” Radu raised his glass. “Good fortune and safe roads, Ben.”
He took his glass and lifted it. “Good fortune and safe roads.” He waited for Radu to drink; then he drank after him. “None of this makes sense. You got your icon. I wasn’t asking for any more money. Why am I here?”
“In a way, your own cleverness compelled it.” Radu sipped his wine. “The icon was a puzzle, Benjamin Vecchio. One that others had not been able to master. The real reason I wanted to hire you is far more complicated.”
“You have another job for me?”
“Yes. One much more profitable than the first.”
Seeing as Radu hadn’t gone cheap on the icon job, Ben was intrigued. “Details?”
Radu examined him. “I must have your confidentiality.”
“I don’t know what the job is yet.”
“I’m not asking for a commitment, I’m asking for your assurance that—no matter what you decide—what is spoken between us will go no further.”
Ben could live with that. “Unless it endangers me or anyone under my aegis, you have my word.” Technically, he didn’t have anyone under vampire aegis—he was way too young—but he might have someone someday, and vampire commitments and promises didn’t have expiration dates.
“That is a fair promise,” Radu said. “I accept your assurance.” He finished his glass of wine and poured another. “How much do you know about my people, the Poshani?”
“My aunt filled me in on the basics of your history.”
“Half of what she told you is probably wrong.” He waved his hand. “We often seed stories among scholars to obscure the truth. We’re very private.”
“Are you the leader of the Poshani?”
“I am one of three.” Radu took a drink. “Remember that. We Poshani are highly suspicious of authority. No one person is given everything. The three terrin are chosen by the previous terrin, but if confidence is lost at any time, the mortal and immortal members of the Poshaniya will overthrow that member and choose another.”
“Okay.” Ben drank his wine. “So your leadership is in trouble somehow in a way that I can help. What valuable cultural treasure did you lose?”
Radu grinned. “See? I knew I chose the correct man.”
“I find things, Radu. The only reason you’d need my help is if you’d lost something that the terrin is supposed to guard and people would be majorly pissed about it. It’s not a hard guess.”
“You are correct of course, but I did not lose this particular artifact. It was stolen from me.”
“I’m going to guess that doesn’t help your position.” Ben set his glass down. “Lost it or let it get stolen. Either way, you didn’t guard it well enough.”
“You are correct. And this is where the kamvasa comes in.”
“The Dawn Caravan?” Ben had to admit he was intrigued.
“The Dawn Caravan was my idea. We were always so effective at staying hidden, I thought. If we could hide in plain sight, why not offer this service—a safe house—to others willing to pay?”
“Makes sense.”
“My sister and my brother—the other terrin—were not in favor of this. They eventually gave me their support because too many of our mortal families were struggling in the human world.”
“Among the Poshani, the mortal and immortal members are equally supported?”
“Of course.” Radu spread his hands. “We are helpless during the day without our darigan. And the mortals would be vulnerable to predators, both human and immortal, without the Hazar.”
“You only employ Poshani?”
“We are the only ones we truly trust,” Radu said. “Even about you, I have reservations.”
“I understand.”
“But your position makes you the most trustworthy outsider capable of this task. You represent two great houses, neither of which would own you if you were not a man of your word.”
“Thank you.” He examined Radu’s expression. “Why not find this yourself?”
“I have tried for many years. I have narrowed the search, but I am at an impasse and need an outside perspective.”
“I’m also guessing that you don’t want your brother and sister to know that you lost whatever it is that was stolen.”
Radu raised an eyebrow. “My sister knows something was stolen—she’s the one who helped me test you—but she does not know all the details. My brother knows nothing, and it must remain that way.”
Ben had a feeling there was no love lost between Radu and his brother. He poured another glass of wine from the bottle. “Okay,
