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else besides me who can. As far as I know, I m the only one who has deciphered
it.
He could no more read Tongata Four than he could flap his arms and fly. And
wouldn t know Brasmian script if someone tattooed it on his nose. Which made
her as valuable to him as the city itself and guaranteed her safety at least
to the city. Which she obviously knew. Beyond that . . . well, he thought he
believed her when she said he would make a mistake trying to strand her.
Why he believed, he couldn t say. Perhaps it was the danger in her smile.
Abruptly what she d told him fitted together, pieces of the puzzle falling
neatly into place; in that moment he knew not only how she d come upon the
manuscript, but who she was. She hadn t bought the thing, of course; however,
she hadn t stumbled across it accidentally and stolen it on a whim, either.
She was one of her Family s lesser daughters, relegated to the dry and dusty
translation of Ancient archives, pushed aside because her branch of the Family
lacked sufficient pull to get her a good marriage or a good post. She would
have been just a link between the will of her Family and the craftsmen and
artists who used her translations to re-create Ancient technologies. She d
been given a manuscript to translate;
had come, at some point in it, to a mention of the location of a city that she
felt would be both reachable and worth finding; and because she had ambition
and a hunger for a life better than the one she d landed in, she d leaped at
the opportunity, snatched the manuscript, and fled into his life.
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Diplomacy of Wolves
Which, of course, she would never admit.
He liked her. By all the gods, he liked her. She reminded him of himself. Even
that dangerous little burr in her voice when she told him that trying to get
rid of her would be a bad idea appealed to him. He decided that if no . . .
when;
after all, why not have faith in his windfall? he decided that when
they found the city, he wouldn t waste his time trying to dump her or kill
her. Why kill a woman worth marrying? Marrying power, after all, was more
efficient than earning it.
And she was a good
-looking woman. From her height and coloring and build, of either the Galweigh
or
Kairn Families, and since she was on Goft, he d bet Galweigh. Galweigh would
be very good, if she could win her bid for power. Even a moderate position in
that Family was worth a paraglesiat in the
Dokteeraks or the Kairns or the Masschankas. The only other Family equal to
the Galweighs was the
Sabirs. Sabir would have been bad he had solid reasons for avoiding them.
He regarded her with proprietary pleasure. His future wife. His future ticket
into wealth, power, luxury.
No sense letting her know he d undertake the trip for free to have the
opportunity to win her and through her claim her city. He needed to let that
part unfold slowly. So he gave her his best hard-nosed trader impression and
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said, What s in it for me?
The transit fee there you give me a reasonable price and I ll pay it. A
fair percentage of the cargo we find I ll make it worth your while. My
patronage on any return trips. A place in . . . She reconsidered what she d
been about to say, and smiled and shrugged. Well, let s say for now that
anything else I can offer would be even more speculative than the city and the
cargo. But as I said, I ll make it worth your while.
He nodded. For the transit fee . . . He didn t want to ask so much that she
couldn t pay it, and how much could she possibly have, anyway? But he didn t
want to ask so little that he raised her suspicions.
Ten solid large. Up front. It was a lot, but it was also within reason for
the distance and the danger of the journey.
She winced.
He waited. If it was too much, he d see it and lower his price a little at a
time.
She sighed, stared at her feet, finally nodded. You have a preference for any
one mint?
The Dokteeraks cut their gold coins with silver sometimes don t pay me in
stamped daks. Farnes and preids spend best, but gold is gold.
She nodded. Done.
Well enough. She didn t argue, so he might have gotten more. Still, if he got
the city, what more did he
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Diplomacy of Wolves need? So what must I know to get us out of the harbor
alive? he asked.
She didn t waste his time pretending she didn t understand what he meant. We
need to move fast and we need to leave a false trail. We can t supply here if
you aren t already stocked. Mentioning what we re looking for or where we re
looking would probably be fatal.
He shrugged. I figured that. Anyone in particular you need to avoid?
Her laugh was so harsh it startled him. If you maintain close associations
with the Five Families, don t mention me, eh?
Now he truly was startled. All five
? Not even he had managed to get himself that deeply into trouble.
To Galweigh, Sabir, and Dokteerak, my life is . . . forfeit. To Masschanka
through their association with the Sabirs and the Dokteeraks, probably the
same. And Kairn, through their alliance with the
Galweighs, might also take me in for any offered reward. Avoiding all five
would be best.
He felt a measure of admiration at that. He didn t know anyone who could
honestly claim to have made enemies of all the Five Families. I ll do my
best.
How early can you be ready to leave?
Meet me on the beach by the wharf as the bells ring Huld.
The woman looked at the sky, and he saw her picking out the White Lady from
the other stars, and measuring her distance from the horizon. The Red Hunter,
which would signal the passing of the station of Telt and the arrival of Huld,
would not join her for some time.
Well enough, the woman said. That will give me time to do the few things I
must do.
She was already gone when he realized he didn t even know her name.
* * *
He believed it. Kait hurried down to the beach. She had nothing she needed
to do so much as she needed to keep out of sight, and by the wharf near where
she had dragged herself ashore she d seen plenty of cover.
Of course he believed it. Tell anyone an implausible lie and build a plausible
diversion behind it; he ll almost always dig through the implausible lie to
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your diversion, think he s found the truth, and fail to look further.
Amalee chuckled and changed the subject.
The captain certainly was taken with you.
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Diplomacy of Wolves
Kait reached the beach and moved to a line of low shrubs and grasses that lay
north of the wharf. It s because I m Karnee. His interest didn t have
anything to do with me.
Amalee stayed silent while Kait found a comfortable, hidden vantage point from
which to watch the wharf and settled into it. Once she d stilled, though, her
ancestor said, What do you mean, because you re Karnee? You re lovely. He
couldn t have failed to notice that.
Trust me, it wouldn t matter. One of the effects of the curse is that the
Karnee attract members of the opposite sex and of their own sex by some sort
of . . . I m not sure . . . scent, maybe. Like flowers attract bees, I
suppose. The bee doesn t desire the flower, and humans don t desire the Karnee
they both just want the thing that makes the scent. The effect was well
documented four hundred years ago. Kait sighed. My parents managed to
secretly gather copies of everything that was known about my kind.
They had me read them so that I would understand what I was.
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