“None. On the festival of Finaggy-Bum tomorrow, pick yourselves a new Merchant’s man. There is an excellent candidate, one Queynt, among the visitors. As soon as that is done, send carpenters and metal workers to me where I reside at Brombarg’s house. They will be given instruction.” I turned, wishing for some glorious gown and high headdress to punctuate this speech and make a dramatic exit. Well, the smock from Zog would have to do. It was certainly unlike anything being worn in Bloome. I let myself out, not pausing to listen to the babble behind the door. Peter would be hearing it all from the ductwork, anyhow.
“Done?” I asked him when he returned below.
“Done! Half of them don’t believe you, but they’re all willing to give it a try. There are one or two say they’ll hunt Brom down and kill him if you’re lying, and another few who talk of putting you into the hopper if you’re leading them a fool’s track. All told, however, I think they’re peaceful enough. For now.”
I nodded, thinking very hard. This put a serious expression on my face, and Peter did what he always did when I got that expression. He reached for me.
That particular expression, he had told me, reminded him of Jinian when he had first met her, so serious, so determined, like a belligerent child, set upon knowing everything there was to be known. That particular expression turned his stomach to jelly, so he said, and he could no more stop himself reaching for me than he could have stopped eating ripe thrilps. He flexed an arm to draw me closer mere in the dusty, roaring room, me all unprepared for his lips on mine and the warmth of his body pressed tightly to my own.
I trembled, adrift, unable and unwilling to do anything at all except drift there in his arms while the hot throb of my blood built into its own kind of ending. I was saved by an urgent summons from Queynt, a clatter of feet coming down the stairs. Peter tried to hold my hand, but I drew it away, suddenly so distressed I couldn’t speak. It wasn’t fair of him to do that. Not fair. I had talked to him about it. He knew well enough what gaining the wize-art meant to me. I felt tears beginning to burn, half frustration, half anger. Oh, why couldn’t he ...
Fuming, I slipped down the stairs after the others, reaching the bottom only moments before the council members erupted into the street. Peter was looking for me, but I slipped away from him. He was doing this more and more frequently, as though to make my own body betray me. As though to test whether I would choose between him and my Wize-ardry. He simply wasn’t content any more to let patience solve the matter.
My knees were weak. I could hardly breathe. I was angry, and sorry to be angry, and wanted to run after him, and wanted to run away. Things couldn’t go on like this. Once we had taken care of the matter of Brom, something would have to be done about it.
CHAPTER FIVE
Early in the morning, Brom was valeted by the three men. They dressed him in pink vertical, lacing and buttoning, rigging the internal bones and stays that held the unlikely garment aloft, trying vainly to keep their faces straight. There was as much of it above his head as there was from head to foot. That part above his head was decked with such unlikely ornamentation as to cast doubt upon the humanity of the wearer, and the part below his head was of sufficient discomfort as to deny whatever humanity existed. It took some time.
I watched for a while, disbelieving any of it, then went to the tower room where I could be private and laid two spells upon him.
First I laid Bright the Sun Burning, a beguilement spell. No one looking at Brom that day would consider him any less than stylish. He would gleam like the sun itself, making a warm space in any perception, a suffused glow like a little furnace. And, lest that perception wane as the day passed, I laid Dream Chains to Tie It, a keeping spell—though I had a devil of a time finding a live frog and finally had to summon one from the garden window. There were other and more esoteric uses for Dream Chains, but Murzy had always taught that the tool might be turned to the task if the Wize-ard willed. When it was all done, I tested it by going down and asking Chance how he thought Brom looked.
“I thought it was enough to make a pombi laugh,” Chance said, walking around Brom and looking him over from top to bottom. “It looked like pure foolishness on the hook. Now—well, it has a kind of majesty to it, don’t it?”
I nodded, contented. It was probable the council members would keep their agreement with me, but why have the town buzzing about their reasons for letting Brom go? If the town talked, some rumor might reach Fangel. No. Let the matter be self-evident. Brom had become stylish enough to escape, and a naif was present to take over the job.
At the end, Queynt could not bring himself to wear Brom’s cast-off things. Instead he burrowed into the wagon and found those garments he had been wearing when he first met Peter and me, wildly eccentric clothing that was certainly not in fashion. Then Queynt and Brom swaggered into the street, a colorful exercise in contrasts. It would have been difficult to say which of them looked more ridiculous.
Chance disappeared into the town with a few innocuous words. Seeing his compact form disappearing down Sheel Street, I shook my head over the fate of the gamblers of Bloome. Peter dozed in the garden, the warmth of the
