Dinner Party

Synopsis

Councilman Yullen Gemsmith gave a dinner, and did not say why until his guests were seated. There were eight at the table: the councilman, his son Cleven, the Draazstone smith Hinta, Leon Yaegar, the three of the Valiant Few, and, arriving last and unannounced, Jhessail Vintree, who keeps the Lower Pier and had not been seen at a social table in years. The whole evening had been built to put her in a room with them.

She was won over, and not by argument. Koa does not know which fork to use and did not pretend to, and swapped his soup bowl with Aldo’s besides. What she gave in return, once the other guests were leaving and Aldo drew her aside, was worth rather more than the trade agreement they had come for.

She apologized. Aldo’s arrest during the dock scandal had been wrongful and heavier than it needed to be, and she said so plainly, and thanked him for turning up what had been happening under her own nose. Then she told him how the council had answered it: her bill to put more guards on the docks was voted down, two votes for and the rest against, Nathan Fox among them. Her read on the Constable is that he is good-hearted and too trusting, and that the keif moving through Loshev moves through his own guardsmen. Her warning was blunter still: the councilors currently falling over themselves to praise the heroes of the hour will promise a vote and then not cast it. She may not be on the council much longer herself.

The rest went as such weeks go. Hinta had finished Koa’s greatsword, built in the Mól manner as near as she could manage it: a thin electrum rod-and-branch core poured into the steel, and an empty seat left in the blade for a stone Gemsmith will set. She was also, briefly and quietly, furious. Aldo had promised one of the party’s Mól swords to Kurvroc while she was still restoring it. Kurvroc agreed to fund the two-week Twisted Grove expedition and attached a condition: one of his own people goes, and the party answers for that person coming home. He also intends to argue Hinta down on the horse barding, which she has priced high precisely because he will.

The furniture looted out of Kurvroc’s had hidden compartments in it, so Mikhail thought to search the party’s own house, and two turned up: the first in the hearth, the second where a mended architect’s drawing said it would be. Twenty-nine gold and some silver, then fifteen gold in old Peredhel coin. In the guard-station cellar he examined the charred gnoll body recovered months back and found markings carved deliberately into its right palm, and a snout narrower than a gnoll’s has any business being.

Two things from that week are still open. The chef who served the soup was somebody Aldo recognized (clean-shaven now, and haggard), and Aldo said nothing about it, then or since. And a dozen travelers in identical earth-colored cloaks walked through Loshev without recognizing a soul in it, which by itself marks them as strangers of an unusual kind. One of them, bought a drink, explained what circle magic is: iconography set in a ring, or living people standing in as the icons, used to trap a thing or to bend a caster’s power back on itself. It is very probably how Orsugo’s fire works. The moment Mikhail admitted he had trained with the Arcane Congress, the man’s face closed. He said he had met others like him already, and walked out.

Gemsmith, when they finally caught him sober, reported the council’s answer: the Draazstone trade approved near-unanimously, and a capped offer for Forven’s prisoners. His own worry is larger than the vote. Haudh-Gwenn keeps growing while the old towns fade, and if the states will not ally, it can take them one at a time.