Hello! Feel like trying before buying? You’ve come to the right page! Here is the first chapter of the second book in The Alchemist’s Agent series: The Elixir of Inheritance.
Chapter One
Ibram fidgeted outside Lady Azadiya Hobon’s closed—closed—office door in complete darkness, utterly unimpressed with his life. The sound of Ladyship’s pacing suddenly ceased; he imagined he could hear the whoomph of her throwing herself down onto one of her cushioned chairs. He squinted at the diamond pattern carved into the wood before him, and raised one cautious fist.
“I can see that!” Lady Azadiya roared from within, and Ibram dropped his hand back to his side like it had been yanked. He stepped back.
“She can see that!” Attendant Zorion whispered excitedly to himself, somewhere to Ibram’s right. “Ask her if her sight has been lengthened or if she’s standing by the door!”
Several other folk Ibram couldn’t quite see shushed him immediately. The Fourth Mentor of Yseult had been sent the last parcel of Attendants from Afsoun for evaluation just that morning, and already they had caused trouble. Inside her office, Ladyship groaned. Ibram pictured her, possibly draped over one of the overstuffed chairs, clasping her dark head in her hands and rubbing her temples. He could empathize with that image.
Every spring, the first day of the Festival of Sangrin kicked off that heady combination of learning and merrymaking that drew so many folk to live near the Sect of Seven Fires. The festival celebrated the creation of the Preceptory of Bedris and its devotion to education, and heralded the beginning of a twelve-day’s worth of tests, exams, arguments-thinly-disguised-as-panels, and exhibitions of alchemical form. Each preceptory farmed its Learners and Attendants out between themselves to prove competent at their secondary specialization and then bade them return home covered in acclaim, glory, and not a little soot.
The celebrations, naturally, matched the alchemists’ enthusiasm with equal fervor, spilling from village to village with bonfires and parties. The smell of rich dark earth just yielding from winter mingled with the scent of candied fruits. Stickums for luck flew through the air like flocks of real birds, trailing multi-colored sparks. Children fired off Orilindan candles and spun luminous green and blue Blooming Wheels for luck. The rich threw balls, and the less fortunate ran amok in street fairs, while circlers of every musical variety played in any village within walking distance of the sect—which was most of them. The four Mentors of Bedris dined at a dizzying succession of noble homes, and the evening courtyards bloomed nightly with Attendants flush with triumph or pale with despair, and ready to spend their stipends liberally.
Agents, in Ibram’s opinion, reaped the best and the worst of the festival, trailing after Afsoun Attendants with buckets of fire sand, or netting Govan Learners before they tumbled down the living mountain. The work made for an entertaining story around the draughtshop—even a free pitcher of wine if the keeper laughed hard enough. As well, the trouble sect agents had to endure each year was in direct proportion to the superb ingenuity of the potions and gadgets that came out of the examinations. Ibram had looked forward to the little rewards for good behavior a sufficiently motivated agent might acquire, say, if someone tall and hardworking from Yseult managed to make a helpful bauble or three.
It wasn’t a comforting thought, to be sure, in the dark of the tower. The usual cavalcade of agents, alchemists, and servants who bustled within the tower’s confines had been exiled. Shutters had been drawn over every window. The servants had even silenced the gigantic central fountain, and the alchemically translucent roof had been extinguished with a resounding clang of metal shutters. Ibram took a cautious step to the right, where Hilbert Zorion was mumbling amongst his fellows, suddenly aware of the tread of his boot heels on the wooden floorboards.
He tried to pitch his voice loudly enough to be heard, but not too painfully.
“Is your head any better, Ladyship?” Ibram called out.
“Of course, it isn’t,” she snapped. “Not until this blasted infusion of Zorion’s wears off.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be more than a day or two,” Zorion said. “I mean to say, the herbs did steep a bit longer than usual, but—”
“And don’t think this gains you a passing score, Hilbert!” Lady Azadiya interrupted him. “Incapacitating the judge was not mentioned in your submission!”
Ibram winced. No doubt if Ahksell had been standing with Ibram, instead of showing off higher up the mountain range in the Preceptory of Afsoun, he would have said something soothing at this point. The Attendants from Afsoun merely shuffled their feet against the wooden floor. Someone coughed. Ibram dimly remembered Ahksell remarking about how useful his friend Zorion’s infusions were, but for himself, he wasn’t seeing the possibilities for greatness here.
“Should I send for a tonic, Ladyship?” Ibram tried again.
Lady Azadiya was not tempted. “If I have to look at one more refraction of light, someone is going out the window.”
“But my notes!” Attendant Zorion exclaimed. He made a sad noise, and was quickly hushed again by his compatriots, all of whose exams now hung in the balance. The other three mentors of Yseult already had their full complement of evaluations. If this batch were halted, then that was it for the rest of the year. Ibram shook his head.
Soft footsteps echoed along the hallway and drew closer at Ibram’s left. He turned away from the door and peered through the gloom. He made out Amota Viran’s stern face as the man patted Ibram’s shoulder. Ibram stepped aside. As Lady Azadiya’s longest serving agent and Ibram’s titular ‘uncle,’ Amota Viran had precedence over everyone in the Fourth Mentor’s tower except an actual alchemist, and even then, the Attendants and Learners soon knew better than to challenge him. Amota Viran took Ibram’s place, and laid one hand against the door.
“May I come in, Damita?” Viran asked in his normal low speaking voice. Ibram tilted his head and glanced left and then right. There was truly so little light in the tower that Ibram strained to focus on the crowd around Ladyship’s office.
“Attendant Zorion, what was in that infusion?” Ibram asked quietly, and something heavy hit the floor with a bang in the office beyond.
“We shall postpone the rest of the trials,” Lady Azadiya announced, and then made a rough noise of discontent. “Until I am recovered enough to adequately examine the rest of this untidy lot.”
The aforementioned lot made a great deal of shuffling noises, and pushed Attendant Zorion to the front. Ibram knew that because Zorion smelled like stale shay and old citrus peels; his nose wrinkled. In the darkness, he barely made out Zorion bowing to the door.
“Mentor Hobon, once again, I am very—” he began.
“I want everyone but Viran out of this tower by the time I count to ten,” Ladyship said. “Go practice, or revise, or something of the kind. You’ve got all my agents out grazing the fields, let them manage you.”
He could just see her waving them all away from her chair. Ibram swallowed down a chuckle. He heard the others’ footsteps straggle quietly down the second floor to the broad staircase that led out of the tower and shifted his weight to follow. Amota Viran pinched the back of his arm, and stopped him.
“What?” Ibram whispered.
“Three,” Ladyship threatened.
“What happened to one and two?” Ibram asked, and tugged on Amota Viran’s grip.
“Ibram,” Amota Viran whispered. “Hold your tongue! I have a job for you.”
Ibram pointed behind himself. “I was going to make sure they none of them tripped and hurt themselves!”
“Six!”
Amota Viran pressed a curl of paper into his hand. “Take this and go to the Savoldyns’ manor,” he said. “I was supposed to go and oversee Lady Azadiya’s order, but as you can see—”
“No, I can’t.”
“Nine!”
Amota Viran loomed out of the darkness, unamused. Ibram attempted to look repentant. He skittered back towards the stairwell.
“Our schedule will need to be changed,” Viran called out as Ibram ran down the steps. “And take Attendant Zorion off the mountain, or Catha the Grey will have his bones by midday!”
***
Lityen bustled in the sharp morning air, making all the day hum with energy as shops and stalls opened for the day’s business. He’d managed to drop Attendant Zorion in front of a festive street caffa with promises to escort him back up the living mountain once Ibram had picked up Ladyship’s order. It wasn’t difficult. Even though Zorion should have been taking the time to refine his infusions, Ibram had yet to meet an Attendant who wouldn’t choose relaxing in the village over examining their mistakes back at the dormitory. And if he wandered anywhere, Ibram could easily find Zorion again. Every traveling merchant caught between caravans had a stall out on the main road and every shop from Book Row to Weaver’s Hive had hung painted banners that glimmered in the sun. Something had to catch Zorion’s bespectacled eye, though if Ibram was being strictly honest, all the fluttering cloth and shimmering paint was starting to give him a headache. Still, the crowds were navigable this early; he kept his complaints to himself.
Ibram stared down at Amota Viran’s list of sundries as he walked the last few feet down the alley off the main road to the door of the Savoldyns’ manor. He’d never seen one of Lady Azadiya’s goods orders before, they were usually handled by other agents. The number of bolts of cloth and spools of thread numbered far above what his own mother and father ever needed. Though, to be sure, as a Mentor, Lady Azadiya was required to provide for a portion of the Sect of Seven Fires’ outlay as a whole. Strictly speaking, Ladyship wasn’t allowed to maintain a personal household; her servants and agents were supplied by the sect, who ultimately employed them.
These orders for linen, silk and damasks, and cotton could be for her own use, of course, but then Amota Viran had marked ‘senra’ next to three items. Ibram frowned. Senra meant… He paused before knocking. What did that mean in Merrilian again? Special, perhaps. Reserved? No, that wasn’t it. He scratched the back of his head. Ama had made sure he and Katka learned the Western tongue, but sometimes the details escaped him.
Nothing for it, though. Ibram grabbed the rope pull next to the tall wooden double doors and heard a bell toll from inside the manor. He let go and stepped back. The doors were clean of mud or traffic dust, with fresh dark paint over the swooping water birds carved into the panels. The Savoldyns had done well for themselves, rich enough to have a home within the village’s limits, but still mostly disconnected even from its neighbors by narrow alleyways.
The doors opened silently, and in the gap stood a small, compact woman in a plain blue gown slashed at the sleeves to show white wool, and her blonde hair taped around her head with thick white ribbon. She had a thin, narrow face, but her skin had a healthy red flush to it, as if she’d been running. Ibram bowed politely.
“Good morning,” he said. “I’ve come on behalf of Lady Azadiya Hobon, Fourth Mentor of the Preceptory of Yseult. I was told to look over Ladyship’s order?”
The woman frowned slightly, showing a few wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. “We were expecting Master Kalmar.”
Ibram nodded and held out his list. “My uncle Viran was regrettably detained, Mistress, or he’d be here. It’s the festival, you know. Heavy work makes schedules run over their banks just as rains to rivers, to be sure.”
Mistress Gatekeeper didn’t seem as impressed with Ibram’s turn of phrase as he felt, but then it did sound better in the original Merrilian. He smiled at her and popped his weight from his toes to his heels. Her rather wide eyes narrowed at Ibram’s chest, where his freshly polished torch-shaped brooch marked him as an agent of the sect.
“And you are Master Kalmar’s nephew?” she asked.
He was and he was not, but Ibram definitely didn’t feel inclined to explain the finer workings of Westerner society today. The lady didn’t seem inclined to listen to a detailed explanation, either. He gestured again with his list, and tilted his head.
“We have the same chin, don’t you think?” he lied.
Her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. Ibram pressed onwards, regardless. He brandished his list yet again.
“Now,” Ibram declared. “Not that I am not inclined to stay at the gate and listen to your honeyed tones for a twelve-day, but Lady Azadiya’s shopping awaits me. Do you think I might pass through, Mistress?”
“Dolman?” a woman’s voice called out behind the door. “What are you doing? Who’s at the door?”
The door wavered in Mistress Dolman’s hand, and Ibram set his foot over the threshold, just in case. Mistress Dolman’s entire face pinched, as if she’d tasted something sour; she half-turned from the door to face the newcomer.
“There was no need to run, Mistress,” Dolman said through thinned lips. “I’ve things well in hand.”
“And yet I sent for shay an hour ago, I’m certain. You know how it soothes him.”
A woman of middle age stepped into view, broad all over, and stood there, breathing quickly. Her pleasant round face was dewed at the temples with sweat and her snub nose was a trifle red. She was finely dressed in a yellow wool gown and a blue kirtle pinned to her waist with golden clasps, emerald stones made the leaves. Her blonde hair, which she was in the process of patting with both hands, was caught back in a fine net held by a green velvet band, very much in the style of the river folk further south. She had rings on her fingers and a delicate silver chain around her neck, looped three times and then caught in the center by an enameled pendant in the shape of a spoked wheel. It wasn’t as accomplished as Ibram’s father’s work, but it certainly appeared expensive.
“I beg pardon,” the housekeeper said, “but shay was served to the master just as Mistress Ignalle requested. It’s been no more than an hour, since.”
“Then I’m sure the pot has gone quite cold, Dolman, and it would go much better for us all if someone brought in a new tray to refresh them. And who is this?” she asked, turning a polite face towards Ibram. The lady of the house—or one of them, perhaps—clasped her hands together in front of her chest and then twisted a ring on her first finger. “What brings a handsome stranger to our door?”
He hated to get in between two evenly matched combatants, but if he came back up the living mountain with only Attendant Zorion, he had the feeling his life would not be worth living. Ibram bowed more fully, putting his hands on his stomach, and then straightened. He held up his list again and opened his mouth.
“He says he’s from Mentor Hobon up the living mountain,” Mistress Dolman interrupted him, with a suspicious look. “But Master Kalmar handles all her goods.”
“And I remember informing you that I’d been sent in his place,” Ibram said.
The new woman chuckled. “Ah, he’s been caught out because of the festival, hasn’t he?” she asked and then flapped her hands in Ibram’s direction. “Come in, come in! We’ve been expecting someone today, you know.”
“But Mistress Savoldyn,” Mistress Dolman protested. “Mistress Ignalle left strict instructions—”
“Nonsense.” Mistress Savoldyn waved her off. “Business is business. Now, young master, you have your list? Good, good, come along!”
Ibram grinned and walked over the threshold, ignoring Mistress Dolman’s sour look. He tucked his free hand behind his back; the door shut decisively behind him. The reception hall was long, but narrow, with oil lamps clamped to the whitewashed timbers. Air and a little light came in from an open window above. The blonde woman resettled her skirts and the dangling chain of keys at her belt.
“Ibram Ucalegon, at your service, Mistress,” he said.
“And I am Yanna Savoldyn,” she said and inclined her head with a smile. She had good green eyes set only a little too widely in her head. “Master Savoldyn’s wife. Follow me then!”
Ibram felt his eyebrows raise entirely of their own volition. Married persons kept their family name unless required to give it up in the marriage contract, usually in exchange for a large settlement of coin or an equally large exchange of prestige. Mistress Savoldyn waved him to her side. It was always nice to feel welcome, to be sure, but he had a feeling she was hurrying him along for an entirely different reason than Lady Azadiya’s account. She turned in a swirl of heavy skirts, and walked down the hall to a smaller entrance cut next to the larger double doors; he followed.
Ibram blinked as he crossed the threshold and hung back behind her half a step. The hallway had been richly appointed, but this was downright ostentatious. He turned at a cough from behind him; Mistress Dolman glared as she swept past.
“Don’t be tardy,” she scolded as she entered the public courtyard. Ibram huffed and then followed the pair of them inside. Dolman veered left down the terrace, but Mistress Savoldyn was already leading the way on Ibram’s right. He hurried after her, and sneezed. Earthy, sticky pitchwood smoldered in fluted braziers; he could see the smoke drifting from almost every corner of the courtyard.
Ibram touched the back of his sleeve to his nose; Mistress Savoldyn seemed used to it. The public courtyard was full of artfully arranged profusions of fabric, and child-sized clothes suggested what buyers could fashion from Savoldyn’s wares. No doubt, there were the latest southern styles, flowing, shimmering gowns that hung from shoulder clasps to float loosely at the waist, and belted kirtles with embroidered ribs at the bodice. There was even some from the deep garden provinces, where they wore exaggerated blowsy trousers in red and yellow and heavy smocked shirts. It was clear the Savoldyns knew their clientele well, supplying both means and vision in one fell swoop.
The public courtyard was dotted with heavy glass ornaments and soaring trees, the kind which only the best alchemist-affiliated glassmakers could create. Their tell-tale iridescence cast endless wavering patterns against the clothing samples as if they were caught in a crystalline spider’s web. All this elegance and induced mystery was wasted, of course; the place lay entirely deserted—not that he could blame anyone running for an open window, but this was a showroom on an entirely different sphere from Father’s pavilion. It was meant to be marveled at just as much as the cloths themselves. He felt the back of his head tighten. Where were the workers? The Savoldyns’ servants? And where was that noise coming from? It sounded like two foghorns locked in combat.
Ibram looked up, taking note of the gigantic glowbulbs—worth thousands of gold picks—hanging by delicate chains from the ceiling. Instead of a public courtyard open to the air, the Savoldyns had enclosed the space in glass and covered the center with wood floors. The overcast sky darkened the place, but the lights made the expensive wares below glimmer in the center of the room, even on the large cobwebs strung between the chains. Ibram sniffed; he looked down at the list in his hand and then back up. Waist-high counters piled with fabrics of all colors and design were arranged in concentric rows where typically folk erected garden pavilions.
He sniffed again and then sneezed into his shoulder. Pitchwood was second only to dragon’s blood sap when it came to noxious yet useful substances to burn. Pitchwood was supposed to open the airways and calm the anima. Possibly, it reduced stress in any area because so few folk stayed around to smell it. If they could afford an entire glass ceiling, they might have considered opening a panel or two to let the fresh air in.
“Oh, apologies, Master Ibram,” Mistress Savoldyn said. She waved her hand at a brazier as they walked past. “It protects the wares, and you know, you do become used to the smell.”
Ibram nodded. “To be sure, Mistress. The best defense is a strong attack.”
Her face briefly twitched, wrinkles appeared at the corners of her eyes before they smoothed away. Mistress Savoldyn led him past three closed doors—presumably store rooms—along the right-hand path. The noise of the foghorns grew louder and finally separated into two distinct voices, raised in anger. Ibram glanced around himself; that certainly answered any question about where the rest of the household was. He was surprised the door wasn’t hanging off its hinges with the force of whoever was making that racket.
“Would you for once in your stubborn life listen to reason!” a woman loudly demanded from behind the door.
“Reason?” a man sneered. “Greed, more like. You and that husband of yours—you’d drain my coffers dry if you could!”
Ibram scratched the back of his head and then tucked his brown hair behind his left ear. It was getting a little long again, not so much curling around his earlobe, but dropping below almost to his shoulders. The order list crumpled in his other hand. He cleared his throat.
“As though we need your money!” the woman shrieked.
“Why else even come here today? I didn’t invite you!” The man chortled loudly, and even Ibram winced.
“Stubborn tarmap!” the woman yelled. “How long can you keep up this pretense? Let me see—”
“You’ll not touch those shelves!”
Something heavy screeched and then thudded against the floor.
“Mistress Savoldyn, perhaps we should go over this list together,” Ibram said.
“Oh no, no, this is just what we need,” Mistress Savoldyn assured him with an overly firm pat on his back.
“How dare you speak to me this way?” the man Ibram was very much afraid was Master Savoldyn bellowed from behind the door. “You wanted nothing from me! You’ll get nothing!”
“This isn’t about me!” a woman yelled back. “I told you when she was born that I—”
Mistress Savoldyn knocked loudly on the door, and the argument’s volume lowered to unintelligible noise. She smiled at Ibram, and placed her hand on the door handle.
“Einar?” She called out as she opened the door. Ibram leaned forward to see over her shoulder.
“We are busy,” the elegantly dressed woman inside the room snapped. Her loose purple and orange robes, caught low at the waist by a chain belt as they did in the south, flowed about her as she whirled towards the door. Her gleaming brown hair was curled into cascades of ringlets held up and around in braided gold rope. Ibram wavered under her hawklike stare; it was rather early in the morning to weather that amount of derision.
Mistress Savoldyn ignored her completely and addressed herself to the florid, thickset man sitting behind a frankly ostentatiously large desk. “Lady Azadiya’s agent has arrived, my sweet,” she cooed, with the kind of melting look Ibram had last seen featured on a player’s stage. “He’s here to assess the goods she ordered last season, I believe.”
“Is he,” the man barked, making it less a question than a statement. He sighed, and raised himself up with both hands on his wide desk. Ibram noted the carpet beneath was crumpled; it must have been the desk he’d heard moving.
Einar Savoldyn squinted. “You’re not Master Kalmar?”
“Master Ucalegon, actually,” Ibram said, and bowed. “I have Ladyship’s list right here.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find then, young master.” Savoldyn didn’t seem too unhappy to be interrupted, but he didn’t seem glad of it either. The color was high in his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. He grunted deep in his throat, and slurped from a small cup of shay at his elbow. He grimaced and set the cup down with a clatter, and then fell back into his chair. “Send for Hilo, Yanna.”
“There was no need for her to burst in at all,” said the other woman, whom Ibram presumed to be the aforementioned Mistress Ignalle. She crossed her arms over her chest and gripped her own arms tightly. The trio of bracelets on her right wrist clacked; they looked like a matched set of gold-flecked glass. Ibram blinked, that sort of thing had gone out of fashion years ago. Most folk who had them kept them as family heirlooms, and simply passed them to the next generation without actually wearing them.
Mistress Savoldyn seemed to have a gift for ignoring what she didn’t want to see, but it was clear she had no more wish to be in the room than Ibram had. She patted the wheel pendant on her neck, and backed away. “I’ll just see about the shay, Einar,” she said and exited the room.
“Now that’s a proper woman,” Savoldyn muttered as he drank from his cup again. Mistress Ignalle huffed and turned her face away from him. “Listens when you speak. Works for the good of the family.”
And whatever settlement had been worked out in their marriage, Ibram hoped it was extravagant. Ibram was beginning to wonder if Amota Viran had passed this task on to him for his own amusement. Surely, no fabric was worth this encounter. He crossed to the front of the office, and stood with his weight on his heels. No reason to make either party feel like his own good humor hinged on their approval.
“She’s after the samite, I suppose,” Savoldyn said with a grunt. “This Western lady of ours.”
“As its use is strictly at the Imperial family’s discretion, I’m sure she is not,” Mistress Ignalle retorted. She had retreated to her own smaller wooden chair, next to a low table. She had no shay of her own, Ibram noted. Only the master of the house seemed allowed to have a drink.
“Are you still here, Elene?” Master Savoldyn inquired with narrowed but blurry eyes. “I wonder at that.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Ibram said. Better than being alone with the old crank. “But I believe Lady Azadiya is mostly concerned with wool and silk this season.”
“We have it all, of course, even those pieces she ordered specially. Who else would make that treacherous journey?” Savoldyn asked. He spread his hands and almost met Ibram’s eyes. He appeared to be having trouble focusing, and the flush on his face was spreading from his nose across his forehead. He patted his chest irritably and readjusted his high, tight collar. “We stock—” He coughed. “The best fabrics—” He cleared his throat. “—from the Red Coast itself, not that anyone is grateful for our trouble.”
“Father, enough,” Mistress Ignalle hissed.
Ibram’s eyebrows twitched. “If it’s talk of coin, Master Savoldyn, I’m sure Lady Azadiya’s purse is more than deep enough for the commission.”
Savoldyn’s face reddened further, and sweat shone on his brow. “It’s respect!” he barked and slammed one bulky fist on his desk. “There is no respect left in this misbegotten village, none to be had!”
Ibram frowned and stood taller. He clasped his hands behind his back, crumpling the list. “Then I should be off as soon as possible, to be sure,” he said. “And trouble you no more.”
Savoldyn didn’t appear to hear him, but simply patted his own face again. The office had no windows, but the room was in fact rather cold. Light came from glowbulbs molded in the style of braziers but without any heat or smoke to mar the expensive tapestries on the walls. The pitchwood smell wasn’t so bad as outside; he could see a few pertinent charmed tiles set above the door lintel. There was even an Isconian carpet on the floor, depicting some kind of sea battle. The entire place reeked of coin, but the atmosphere made Ibram’s skin prickle with distaste.
Was this truly a more pressing issue than herding the Attendants? Surely someone in their first year of trials was up a tree or needed to be fished out of a pond by now. Ladyship had more than enough clothing, and so did everyone she was obligated to provide clothing for. Ibram’s mouth quirked up at the corners, and then fell again. He glanced down at the row of flat wooden buttons strung diagonally across his chest, opposite the leather strap, on his new twill gambeson. It was dyed green now, and woven with tilted, interlocking t-shapes in black along the front and along the lower hems where it split to allow him to move freely. He looked more like a horseman then a door guard, but he’d needed a replacement after the incident with the Learners on bonfire night. It might be he should grow his hair past his shoulders like a Valantin and complete the image.
Mistress Ignalle cleared her throat and then frowned at her well-shod feet. Ibram glanced between her and Master Savoldyn. There was a marked similarity in their features, especially about the eyes and brow and the resentful mannerisms. Neither appeared to truly take notice of him, but they both kept the other in the corner of their respective eyes. The door opened, and a slim man in a plain rust brown tunic and trousers came in, followed by Mistress Dolman carrying a small tray upon which rested a pot of shay.
“Your refreshment,” she announced and marched past Ibram to the other side of the desk.
“You sent for me, Master Savoldyn?” the man asked, and stood with his hands clasped before him. He had long brown hair and a high-peaked forehead, and was dressed incredibly plainly for a fabric merchant’s servant. Ibram leaned his weight on his heels. This would be the Savoldyn’s Marshal Steward, in charge of directing the household and lands. He certainly didn’t dress as well as other marshal stewards of Ibram’s acquaintance, but that didn’t always follow.
“Yes, yes,” was the reply, though Master Savoldyn seemed distracted by Mistress Dolman. “All these interruptions. No time for a man to conduct his business! This man”—He pointed in Ibram’s direction—”wants something for that—that—”
Hilo coughed loudly and obviously. “The Fourth Mentor of Yseult,” he interrupted with the ease of practice. He smiled politely at Ibram. “I expect Mistress Yanna is already wrangling with the porters, Master.”
Ibram lifted his chin. “I have the order right here,” he said. “I hope Ladyship hasn’t put you to too much trouble.”
Savoldyn waved his hand. “He—oh deal with him, Hilo! I’ve contracts to go through!”
Ibram ground his teeth. Mistress Dolman banged the new shaypot on the desk. She grabbed the older shaypot and set it down on her tray, and then stood, holding the tray in both hands.
“Did Marit make it hot enough?” Savoldyn asked. “Last cup was cold as water.”
“She drew the kettle directly from the coals,” Mistress Dolman said. “Will that be all?”
Master Savoldyn waved her away. Mistress Ignalle stepped forward. “Yes, thank you, Dolman,” she said. “I believe I’ll walk out with you.”
“As you say, Mistress Ignalle,” Dolman said after a sharp glance about the room. She bowed to Master Savoldyn.
Ibram watched Savoldyn ignore the room in favor of carefully pouring himself a cup of shay. He blinked heavily as he drew the cup to his lips, and tossed the liquid down his gullet. Savoldyn’s nose wrinkled as he drank and smacked his lips.
“Never hot enough,” Savoldyn mumbled.
Mistress Ignalle cleared her throat. “Good day, Father,” she said to the air above his head. “I hope to return to this house in a kinder hour.”
She swept past Ibram with a flutter of cloth and a lingering smell of lillia blossoms. Mistress Dolman traveled at her heels, tray carried in both hands. Hilo bowed slightly with his arm outstretched. “Shall we?” he asked.
“Hate to outstay a welcome,” Ibram said. “I’ll ensure Lady Azadiya is fully informed of the trouble her order’s put your house through.”
He bowed slightly to Master Savoldyn and then left the man to his contracts and fresh shay. Hilo closed the door firmly behind them both, and then turned to Ibram. Now that they stood closer, Ibram could see his clothes were of a finer weave, but some of the sewing seemed clumsy, as if they’d been remade to fit him without much attention paid to Hilo’s measurements. Hilo had an air of apology about him, but the set of his mouth and dip of his head was too practiced to be effective. Ibram settled his free hand around the hilt of his sica, and jerked his head backwards.
“I’ve got a pile of cloth to inspect,” he said, side-stepping whatever words had been about to tumble from Hilo’s mouth. “Where do you keep it?”
Hilo paused and licked his lips, before straightening up and gesturing out across the enclosed courtyard. “We keep the special orders across the way,” he said. “If you’ll follow me, Master…”
Ibram nodded stiffly. “Ucalegon.”
“This way, then,” and Hilo walked to the stairs leading down into the courtyard.
Ibram followed him through the laden tables and past the expensive mirror stand, glancing up at the pale sky through the glass paneled ceiling. The clouds were rolling in down from the mountain, promising rain they most likely would not disburse. Still, he hoped Attendant Zorion would remember to stay under canopy; he seemed a forgetful sort.
Hilo cleared his throat. “I hope you will not take the master’s word against him too much,” he said, stepping aside to gesture Ibram up the short staircase again.
Ibram tucked his brown hair behind his ear. “You mean, you hope Lady Azadiya won’t take them to heart, I think.”
Hilo cleared his throat again and added a short swallow. “No, well, yes,” he said. “But truly, he doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s a blustery man, but there’s no real harm in him.”
Ibram paused on the pathway, waiting for Hilo to indicate which direction in which to turn. “To be sure,” he said.
“The Hobons have traded with this house for so many years—the account is our most lucrative, you see,” Hilo continued as he walked to the right. “The Savoldyn house has no reason to think they’ve been treated ill in their dealings, and I’m sure Master Einar would tell you the same, it’s—oh, here. It’s in here.”
He skirted around Ibram with an apologetic smile and a dip of his chin, and opened a plain wooden door marked with a finely painted number three. Ibram walked through to be greeted with crates of materials pushed to either side of the small room, dominated by an array of fabrics set out on a wide table. A glowbulb hung from the ceiling by thick chains. He looked at the now much crumpled piece of paper and held it in both hands. Ibram frowned. He should have brought something to mark items off the list.
“As you can see,” Hilo said. “We have everything well in hand.” He moved to the laden table and began fussing with what looked like a pile of handkerchiefs. “Usually Master Kalmar only takes the samples with him for Ladyship’s approval, and arranges for the rest to be brought up by cart. Will that arrangement still meet with Lady Hobon’s approval?”
Samples. Senra. That’s what that meant! Ibram eyed a bolt of glass cloth, linen so tightly yet finely woven it looked as gossamer as a spider’s web even wrapped up. One yard of the stuff cost the yearly rent of an entire town.
“Ah, yes! Yes, I’m sure that would be fine,” he said, and flicked the edge of a carefully folded red felt. Everything laid out before him was of the finest quality Merrilian weavers could construct, fit for the royal palaces of the south in true Vissilia. The cost to transport these goods alone was a princely sum. “Not that Ladyship will be able to check it over now.”
“She won’t?” Hilo asked, his voice sharpened. His high forehead creased. “Why not?”
Ibram felt the back of his head tighten. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Amota Viran would send to him to muck the stables if he let people know Lady Azadiya was indisposed by one of the sect’s own Attendants.
“It’s the festival,” he answered quickly. “She’s got a whole troop of them out of Afsoun, and one of them already set fire to a copse of withy trees.”
It was even true, which was how Ibram preferred his lies. Attendant Burlen’s first attempt at a portable sundial had been deeply counterproductive. At least it meant the gardeners had a new project.
Hilo’s face relaxed. “Ah well,” he said. “That’s alchemists for you, I suppose.”
Ibram nodded. “It’s never dull, to be sure.”
Hilo laughed and picked up the stack of fabric samples. “I shall have these wrapped up for you,” he said. “If you’d like to—”
Ibram might have liked several things, but a woman screamed, and Hilo’s offer was never repeated.
“Dolman! Dolman!”
Hilo was out the door first with Ibram hard at his heels, only he made for the pathway and Ibram jumped the railing. Across the courtyard, Mistress Savoldyn ran screaming from her husband’s office with her arms raised in front of her. She knocked into a bowl full of bluecaps, and sent it crashing to the floor in a flood of water, flowers, and glass. Ibram drew his sica with his left hand and switched it to his right as he ran; no point in being surprised by misfortune. By the time he had reached the second balustrade and climbed up over onto the terrace, Mistress Dolman had burst out of some narrow passageway and caught her employer by the elbows in mid-flight.
“Mistress!” Dolman shouted over her. “Mistress, calm yourself! You must breathe!”
Mistress Savoldyn dragged in a gigantic, shaking gust of air, and Ibram took the opportunity to slip back into the office and close the door. He turned on his heels and took quick stock of the room. Strictly speaking, this wasn’t his affair, but if—
Oh hang it, the man was dead.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter of The Elixir of Inheritance. If you’d like to read further, the links are below:
Read for free through your local library (might have to request the book first!).