The Dragon Heir

Page 11

“Ah, yes. Didn't I hear you'd fallen in with some traders? I don't imagine Jessamine approved.”
Leesha examined her nails. “You can't believe everything you hear.”
“But you're working with someone.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Who?”
“My partner wants to remain anonymous until we're sure we can do business.”
D'Orsay sat back in his chair and smiled like a cat with a bird between his paws. “We can be very persuasive.”
Leesha's heart flopped wildly but she managed to keep her voice steady. “My partner wouldn't like it if anything bad happened to me.”
“Did you bring the document with you?”
“Do I look stupid or what?”
D'Orsay shrugged. “One can never tell by appearances. Where is it now?”
“You should be thinking about what kind of deal you're willing to make.”
“I could offer to trade you for the Covenant.”
Leesha sighed. She groped in her bag for her compact and reapplied her lipstick, trying to keep her hand from shaking. Playing for time. “I'm just the hired help, you know? I can be replaced. But my associate might be annoyed enough to decide to sell the piece to someone else.”
“No one else would want it.”
“Please. I'm a trader. I know who wants what. The Roses want to destroy it because it takes power out of their hands and puts it in yours. The underguilds want to destroy it because it keeps them subservient to wizards. You want to consecrate it and enforce it. I bet we could get a three-way auction going.”
D'Orsay raised his hand. “I hardly think that's necessary.” He smiled, as if acknowledging defeat. The man was a charmer, no doubt about it. And good looking, for someone so totally old.
D'Orsay rose, laid another log on the fire, and returned to his seat, taking his time. “Has your associate given you leave to negotiate the sale?”
“He has.”
“Then I assume he's shared with you what offer he might be willing to accept?”
“He has.”
“And…?”
“He wants to be written in.”
D'Orsay shoved back his sleeves. “Excuse me?”
“The new Covenant states that all of the magical guilds including the Wizard Houses will be ruled by you and Gregory Leicester and your heirs. Leicester is dead, and he has no blood heirs. My partner wishes to be named legal heir to Gregory Leicester and so, co-ruler of the guilds.”
“Your partner is out of his mind,” D'Orsay said pleasantly.
Leesha took a deep breath, cursing the day she'd become entangled in this. “That's his price. Take it or leave it.”
“Who does he think he is? Does he really think I would bring him in as a full partner? Leicester and I worked on this project for years.”
“Look at it this way. What can you offer that the Roses can't? I'm sure they can come up with more money than you, if everyone puts in. Plus, if they destroy the Covenant, then my associate doesn't have to worry about living under your rule, which, having read the document, seems risky. The only way to ease his mind is to allow him to come in as an equal.”
D'Orsay pressed his fingertips together. “If I knew who I was dealing with, if I knew we would be compatible …”
If you knew if he'd be easy to kill, Leesha thought. No doubt both partners would be hiring assassins before the ink on the agreement was dry. With any luck, they'd kill each other.
“This is my inheritance, too,” Devereaux said, leaning forward. “Let's take her to the cellar. We can make her tell us whatever we want.”
Getawayfrommeyoumiserablelittlecreep, Leesha thought, perspiration trickling between her shoulder blades. She made a show of looking at her watch.
“Let me handle this, Dev,” D'Orsay said. The wizard massaged his forehead, as if it hurt, then turned back to Leesha. “Perhaps we could negotiate a private sale, you and I.”
Leesha considered this. In fact, she'd considered this long before she ever entered the Ghyll. “I don't actually hold the original.”
“Perhaps you could obtain it.”
“That would be … difficult.” Impossible, actually, with things as they were, but she wouldn't tell him that. “Your partner could meet with an accident.”
Leesha liked that idea a lot. “He could, but I couldn't be connected with it in any way. Plus it would have to be a completely…um…permanent accident. If you know what I mean.”
“Ah.” D'Orsay smiled. “You might be able to provide an opportunity, yes?”
“Maybe.”
“And what would you want in return?”
That would be enough. Getting free of Warren Barber. Getting free of this whole business. But it wouldn't be wizardly to say so. “Oh, I don't know. Money is nice. Or maybe I'd like to be written in myself,” she added. They'd expect that, of course.
D'Orsay smiled back. “Very well, then. I think we can come to an arrangement.” Meaning they'd stab each other in the back as soon as they could. “But, tell me. How did your employer come by the document? As a sometime buyer of antiquities and art, I know that the provenance of a piece often speaks to its authenticity.”
Leesha rolled her eyes. “Now that would be too much like a clue.”
D'Orsay's smile disappeared. “There can no deal between us without a name.”
“And if he finds out I told you?”
“My dear young lady, he won't find out from me. That would not be in my self-interest. I cannot go after your partner if I don't know who it is. Hmm?”
Leesha took a deep breath and resisted the temptation to finger her neckline again. “It's Warren Barber.”
D'Orsay raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Who?”
“Warren Barber,” she repeated.
The eyebrows stayed up. “And who, may I ask, is that?”
Old Warren doesn't move in your circles, I guess, Leesha thought. Mine either. She shivered, then turned it into a shrug. “He was one of Leicester's students at the Havens. Sometimes called the Spider.”
“The…Spider.” D'Orsay tapped his elegant forefinger against his chin, looking amused. “You're saying this whole scheme's been organized by teenagers?”
“Well. No offense, but the old people don't seem to be doing so great.”
“Perhaps not.” D'Orsay inclined his head graciously. “But I've not heard of Barber.”
“He does Weirwalls. Supposedly he was the one that spun the wall around the inn at Second Sister to keep the guilds from escaping the conference before the Covenant was signed.” Leesha hadn't been there, thank god, but she'd heard all about it.
“I see.” D'Orsay's eyes glittered. “Then he must have been the one who failed, who let McCauley and Haley and the girl into the hall.”
Barber hadn't mentioned that. Ha. “Anyway, when he saw what was happening, when McCauley showed up and Leicester got killed, Barber went and stole the document.”
“How…resourceful.” D'Orsay sighed, as if mourning the duplicity of man. “Now, then. What manner of paperwork would satisfy young Mr. Barber?”
“I have something with me.” Leesha pulled a folder from her portfolio. “These attest that, for purposes of the Covenant, my associate to be named later is the heir of Gregory Leicester, and assumes all privileges and rights, blah, blah.” She handed it across to D'Orsay. “Once these are signed and properly processed, the … ah … revised Covenant will be made available for consecration in the ghyll before the Weirstone.” Naturally, details of that were rather sketchy.
A peculiar expression flitted across D'Orsay's face. Followed by a calculating one. “Ah. Well. The Weirstone.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Well, there may be. There was an intruder in the ghyll a few nights ago.” D'Orsay smiled thinly. “He attacked my son, and I believe he might have carried away something important.”
Leesha glanced over at Devereaux's battered face. “What makes you think that?”
“The Weirstone has dimmed. In fact, it appears to be … extinguished.”
Leesha shuddered, the reaction of any reasonable wizard to a threat to their heritage of magic. “What do you think that means?”
“Difficult to say what it means in terms of the consecration of the Covenant. The Roses and the rebels assume we hold it. Perhaps that was the intent of the raid, to make it impossible for us to enforce it.”
“But that would ruin everything!”
“Precisely. Therefore, now that our interests so closely coincide, perhaps we could ask Mr. Barber to contribute to the success of this enterprise in a material way.”
“Excuse me?” He'd lost her after precisely.
“As an act of good faith, I am asking that you and your partner bring the perpetrator back here, alive, along with whatever he took from here.”
Great. She knew who would get that assignment. “How…how is Barber supposed to find this person,” Leesha said, irritably, “when we don't even know for sure if he took anything?”
D'Orsay smiled. “We can help you there. We now know who it was, and we have some idea about what's missing.”
“Why should we go out hunting your burglar?”
D'Orsay waved the papers under Leesha's nose. “As soon as I sign this, Barber has as much interest in seeing the Covenant consecrated as I do. But I'm rather pinned down here. If I leave Raven's Ghyll, the Roses will be on me before I'm out of Cumbria. And in my absence, they might seize control of the ghyll. Which, again, would be inconvenient if we wish to access the Weirstone. Barber, on the other hand, can follow this Jason Haley to America, and…”