Ambrose refused to give ground. “So you say, but I want to be certain.”
Louvaen’s gazed flitted between them before settling on Ambrose. The corner of her mouth lifted. “Old spitfrog, don’t bespell me off a cliff. You’ll kill Gavin’s favorite mount.”
Ambrose harrumphed, and a smile hovered on his lips. “That bit of horseflesh is the only thing saving you from a bad end, you foul harpy.”
Were he not wrenched sideways inside at her imminent departure, Ballard might have grinned at the awkward affection between his lover and his magician.
She stopped in front of Gavin who handed her the reins. “Sparrow’s smooth on the canter and will rattle your teeth in the trot,” he said. “He’s also sensitive on his left side, so nudge lightly.” He pulled her into a quick embrace and released her just as speedily. “Godspeed, sister.” He returned to a teary Cinnia, and Ambrose shepherded them a small distance away to give her and Ballard privacy.
Ballard tied the satchel securely to the back of the saddle and turned to face Louvaen. Pale and severe in the shadow of her hood, she refused to lift her gaze higher than the top lace of his bliaud. He raised her chin with his thumb and curved his hands along either side of her jaw. He spoke the words guaranteed to make her look at him. “Am I so ugly to you now, Louvaen?”
As he predicted, her eyes snapped up, and she stared at him with a small frown. “Don’t be a fool...” She paused and frowned even harder. “You know me too well, Ballard de Sauveterre.”
He couldn’t find within him the will to summon the smallest smile. He contented himself with gliding his thumbs across her smooth skin. It was an exercise in futility, but he touched on every detail of her face, committing each to memory.
It would have been better if she saw him as he once was, scarred by war but not enchantment—simply a man who once lived by the sword and would have died either in battle or his bed. But he’d take what he could get.
He looked hard into her eyes. “Remember me,” he said in a voice both commanding and supplicating. She had time only to utter a gasp before he lifted her and swung her into the saddle. He handed her the reins as she blinked at him and slapped Sparrow on the hindquarters. The horse leapt forward, and Louvaen held on, looking back only once as they cantered out of the bailey and over the drawbridge.
Ballard ignored Cinnia’s quiet sobs behind him and Gavin’s comforting murmurs. He watched long after horse and rider disappeared into the forest of leafless birch trees. The sun dipped below the horizon, and he remained sentry in the twilight until Ambrose touched his shoulder.
“She’ll be fine,dominus. You should come inside. The light’s almost gone.”
No,he thought.The light is gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Louvaen halted before Monteblanco’s Merchant House with its imposing façade of arched windows and grand doors recessed into a thick of wall of stone. The sign posted out front bore a simple bench carved into the panel, symbol of a lending establishment and to her jaundiced eye the street marker pointing the way to a place far more corrupt than any knocking shop. A stream of townspeople passed through the door, some looking as if they’d just left the wake of a loved one, others wearing expressions of relief equal to that of men given stays of execution. Her father had worn both faces at various times when he returned home from the Merchant House.
If anyone should sit in a prison cell, it was the hive of thieves operating the Merchant House. Monteblanco’s four richest families controlled it, and through the course of generations, clever practices and manipulations of investments, had become partial or full owners of nearly every home, farm and shop in and around the town.
Her breath swirled in front of her in a misty cloud, and she huddled deeper in her cloak. A few townsfolk cast her curious glances, but none recognized her or called her name. She rode an unfamiliar horse, and her nondescript cloak shrouded her well enough as long as she kept her head down and didn’t look anyone in the eye. A quick survey of the street revealed nothing obvious, but she was certain Jimenin had posted watchers along the main road to notify him the moment they caught sight of her—or even better, her and Cinnia together.
She stopped herself from kicking Sparrow into a gallop and racing for the debtors’ tower to check on her father. The reflection displayed in the mirror had shown a dejected Mercer Hallis sitting in the corner of a common cell crowded with other prisoners. He’d have to wait a little longer. Paying whatever debt Jimenin had trumped up this time was her first order of business and the one guaranteed to send him into an apoplexy when he realized she once again thwarted his plans. With any luck he’d drop dead in the street from sheer frustration.
Sparrow nickered softly to her when she dismounted and tied his reins to one of the hitch rings mounted outside the building. She stroked his nose. “Patience, friend. There’s a comfortable stall waiting for you. I’ll be done soon.” Her hand passed over the blanket where it edged the horse’s withers and closed around the bespelled purse tied there. She tugged it free and slipped it into a pocket sewn inside her cloak. The jingle of coin rattled her nerves but drew no attention from the milling crowd. The sound was a common one here. Louvaen pushed back her hood and crossed the threshold.
Tables crowded the front chamber’s floor space, each stacked with documents and occupied by harried scriveners seated behind them. Louvaen set her sights on the unfortunate clerk sitting at a table closest to the door. She remembered him in particular. He was the one tasked with blocking her from barging into Magister Hildebrandt’s chambers the last time she’d appeared to pay her father’s debts. That encounter hadn’t ended well.
He spotted her and promptly blanched. “Mistress Duenda,” he said in a voice so heavy with dread, Louvaen almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“We meet again, Goodman Calcun. Are you going to tell me where I may find Magister Hildebrandt and the latest bill of exchange?” She stalked him around the table, cutting off his only avenue of escape. “Or do we dispense with the niceties and duel each other with the candlesticks like last time?” She glanced meaningfully at the two pewter candlesticks flanking the clerk’s stacks of loan documents.
He snatched them behind his back, and his eyes had rounded to the size of saucers. “Magister Hildebrandt is...is...”
“Is right here,” said a voice cold enough to freeze a lit torch. Louvaen turned and found herself face to face with the Merchant House’s principle owner. Tall, gaunt and brittle as an icicle, Magister Hildebrandt stared down his nose at her. His thin-lipped mouth drooped in a perpetual frown enhanced by an even droopier white mustache. Dislike simmered in his sunken blue eyes. “Stop terrorizing my scrivener, Mistress Duenda.”
He gestured for her to enter his chambers with a twitch of his bony fingers. Louvaen strode into a familiar room filled with ledger books. More occupied most of the available floor space, teetering altars built to the gods of debt and usury. She squelched the impulse to kick a few over as she sat in one of the chairs facing the magister’s desk.
He followed behind her and took his place behind the desk, spidery hands tapping their way across stacks of documents until he found the one he wanted. After a cursory glance, he slid it to her. “You’re here to review the bill of exchange?”
“I’m assuming it’s why my father is knitting mittens in the debtor’s tower.” She ignored the magister’s scowl and perused the document. The more she read, the angrier she grew. “This is dated prior to the last bill, yet Jimenin made no mention of another debt when I was here to make payment several weeks ago.” She glared at Hildebrandt. “Why is this showing up now?” She knew exactly why this latest bill had suddenly appeared at the lending house, but she was curious as to what the magister would tell her.
He eyed her over the steeple of his clasped hands, intent as a vulture. “Don Jimenin felt it wasn’t charitable turning them over to us just after you paid the last debt. He wanted to give your family time to recover.”
It would be sheer, unadulterated luck if the top of her head didn’t blow off by the time she finished with this vile business. “Charitable?” The bill crumpled in her grip before she relaxed her fingers at Hildebrandt’s alarmed expression. “Jimenin wouldn’t recognize charity if it bit him in half.” Gods, how she wished her name was Charity.
Hildebrandt reached gingerly for the bill only to retreat when Louvaen bared her teeth at him. She separated the document and passed the last page to him. “This is a forged bill. I’m familiar with my father’s signature, and this isn’t his.”
