Have you known Sar Anton long?” Jerzy asked, as, baths done and better clothing donned, they left the Vineart’s wing and made their way to the main hall.
“Since I first came to Aleppan,” Giordan said. “He was not sar then, no, but a favorite of the lord-maiar and his lady, and held their daughter in his arms when she was a child. You are wondering why he came to gather you at the docks and takes such an interest in you now, yes?”
“Yes.” It had seemed odd at the time, but so much had been happening, it had been crowded from his mind.
“Sar Anton plays many games, juggling the favors of one, then another, to keep himself forever foremost. It is not a vicious game he plays; I do not doubt his loyalty to my lord-maiar, and he has never given me cause to doubt his intentions toward me. But he sniffs the winds constantly, and anything new must be determined: is it threat? Is it useful? He does not yet know what you are. Once he does, all will be well.”
Jerzy wasn’t quite as reassured as Giordan intended. If Sar Anton caught Jerzy out, or found something objectionable in his questions to the Washer. . .could he cause trouble for Master Malech? Unlikely, but he would continue to be careful.
There was the sound of feet moving at a fast pace on the floor, and a voice hailed them. “Ah, Jerzy!”
“Ao.”
The trader was dressed well, but his short black hair was ruffled as though he’d been running a hand through it, and his round face was flushed. “Ah, is it true? Did you call up this storm?”
Jerzy groaned. Ao’s excitement just made him feel more like an idiot, especially if the story was spreading over the entire city so quickly.
“I had him call up rain, and things got a little overdone,” Giordan said, trying to downplay it. “And who might you be, young master?”
Jerzy shoved his shame down long enough to make the introductions. “Vineart Giordan, this is trader Ao of the Eastern Wind trade delegation. Ao, this is—”
“Vineart Giordan! And now I have met two Vinearts! Most wonderful.” Ao looked wide-eyed and enthusiastically innocent—exactly the expression he had chided Jerzy for, at their first meeting. “Vineart, if I may borrow Jerzy? We have not had a chance to speak recently, and. . .”
“Of course.” Giordan was nodding as though this were the best suggestion he had heard in a tenday. “Go on. No, Jerzy, everything else can wait. I have been driving you hard, and it is good for a boy to have friends of his own age, yes. I will make your apologies to Sar Anton and his companion. They will understand, I know.”
Jerzy thought that Giordan looked just a trifle relieved to be rid of him, but couldn’t blame the older man at all. Despite his plan to use the Washer, he hadn’t been looking forward to rejoining the other men, either.
As though worried Giordan might change his mind, Ao took Jerzy’s arm and led him down the hallway, walking quickly.
“Are they really saying I caused the storm?”
Ao dropped the wide-eyed look once it got him what he wanted, and instead looked wickedly excited. At Jerzy’s question, he shrugged. “Some are. Mostly they’re impressed, Jerzy; why do you look so worried?”
“A storm like this . . . rain is good, but too much rain can rot the grapes, or flood the soil, or—”
“Oh.” Ao’s expression flickered to concern for a moment. “I hadn’t thought of that. Still, the rain’s almost stopped, so it wasn’t that bad, was it?” He dismissed Jerzy’s worries, and the spark of excitement came back. “And it did some good, because the presentation-of-goods ceremony I was supposed to be at was postponed, everything’s been running late, so I was able to find you, the way I promised. Now come on, over here.”
“Here” was a narrow wooden door set into a passageway. It had a lock on it, but swung open easily when Ao pushed at it. Behind the door was an equally narrow stairwell that led up to a gallery. It was dark and dusty, the only light coming in through a lattice against the far wall. A single bench set by the lattice suggested that at one time someone had waited there.
“A good snoop should always have at least one place where he can listen without being disturbed. I found this one my second day here—it’s over the maiar’s public rooms,” Ao whispered, his voice barely carrying to Jerzy’s ear, a handspan away. “You can sit here and not be seen, but hear everything.”
Jerzy looked around dubiously, then back down the stairs. “Ao, if we’re found—”
“Shhhh. If we’re found, they’ll skin us alive. Or just box our ears. What are you afraid of, Jerzy? It’s not like we are listening on his bed-chamber! If you don’t risk, you don’t earn!”
Jerzy wasn’t quite sure that was true, but the lure of listening in on something he had been shut out of overcame any other hesitations, and he moved forward to join Ao at the screen.
“And so, my lord,” a man standing several feet below them was saying, in the tone of someone who is summing up a foregone conclusion, “it behooves us to read closely into what the esteemed Negotiator is asking, and determine what it is that they truly desire.”
“My lord-maiar! To imply that we desire anything other than—”
“Negotiator, we all want more than we ask for. The implication is a fair one, if not kindly phrased.” The voice, deeper and older sounding than the others, had to belong to the maiar himself.
The Negotiator protested. “We ask only for what is fair and just, no more. What we may desire is of no consequence—all men have desires they do not bother to name, my lord.”
“You have already been given what is fair. You ask now for more than is fair, and that is no treaty but a demand that cannot be met,” the first man retorted, snorting with his disdain for the other man’s words.
“They’ve been chewing over this treaty for a week or more, already,” Ao told Jerzy. “Back and forth until even I’m dizzy with the talk.”
“What is it a treaty for?”
Ao lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Something to do with water rights between two villages. A spring ran dry, and now they have to share a single well until a new one is built, and arguments broke out, and so the smaller village brought a Negotiator to speak for them. Their taxes will go up for his hire, that’s for certain. Someone must have near gotten killed, otherwise the council would have heard it, not the maiar. Aleppan will make money on this, no matter how it falls out.”
“How? How do you know all this?”
Ao gave an exasperated sigh, and his whisper was louder than before. “I’ve been trading since I was fourteen, Jerzy. I told you, if you listen and watch, you can learn almost anything. Aleppan, as the maiar’s seat, holds the leash on all negotiators in Corguruth. The maiar is not the sole authority—he has to deal with the city council on most things—but he has the final say, and the only say on matters of the villages surrounding the city, like these two.”
Below them, the first man was speaking again, painting a picture with his words of a village being asked to give up their own rights to the fresh water for the benefit of others and not being compensated fairly in return. Listening, Jerzy thought that the man made a good argument, but something about it felt unfair, nonetheless. It wasn’t the smaller village’s fault that the well had run dry, was it?
“They’re both going to be slapped down,” Ao said quietly, listening intently. “They’re both laying claim to the well, but neither of them actually built it. All the wells in Corguruth are from the days of the Empire. They’ve just been using them so long, they forget that.”
“There hasn’t been an empire in a thousand years,” Jerzy objected. “So who does control the wells?”
“Whoever can back up their claim the best, usually. Since they had to come before the maiar to settle their claim, I’m guessing it’s him. Aleppan’s the bull in this field, like I said. Shhh. . .”
“Enough, both of you!” The maiar’s roar cut across the other speakers’ protests, and silenced them both, and the two hidden observers as well. His voice was raw and angry, but still controlled. “Enough with your useless pratter. Endless, endless nattering. You waste my time, while there are more important issues to be dealt with. Must I mount a guard to ensure that all have access to water? If I do, it will come out of your hides, and not anyone else’s!”
The shouting below covered all other noises, so the heavy hand that clamped down on Jerzy’s collar took him completely by surprise.
“Two snoops, have we?” The guard lifted them away from the screen, one collar in each hand, and dropped them both onto the bench with a hard thump. Jerzy thought that he recognized the man as one of those who had resteered him toward the cellar, but did not think that now was the moment to try to remind the guard of that.
Ao, on the other hand, seemed to feel no such hesitation.
“Ah, guardsman Theoduros, such a pleasure. I was only just saying to my companion that I was sure one of your cohorts would be able to tell us—”
“Shut it, trader,” Theoduros said curtly. “Your clan will not be pleased to hear that you’ve overstepped your boundaries. . .again.”
“I can’t help it,” Ao said. “Born curious, I am. Never a hallway I met I didn’t find fascinating—”
“Trader—”
Jerzy flinched instinctively, anticipating the blow that was doubtless about to fall on his companion’s head.
“Guardsman. . .” Ao said back in the same tone, totally unafraid.
“Someday you’re going to run into someone who won’t take your sass, boy, and then where will you be?”
“A good trader can always talk his way out of anything,” Ao said. “And if he can’t, he needs to be prepared to buy his way out. Fortunately for me, a guardsman of Aleppan would never accept a bribe, and is fair and courteous to guests within his master’s house—”
Ao grabbed Jerzy’s sleeve even as he was talking, and started moving toward the door. The guardsman let them go, but a sudden yelp and jump from Ao told Jerzy that the trader hadn’t escaped without a well-placed boot to his backside.
They made it back down into the main hallway, where a passing courtier gave them an odd look but did not stop to question where they had been, or why. Hearing the guardsman’s steps on the stairs behind them, the two dusted themselves off and sauntered, as quickly as possible, off and away from the scene of their crime.
“That is what you call not getting caught?” Jerzy could feel his heart pounding, and his knees felt weak, but Ao looked as cool and composed as. . .as Malech himself.
“I never said I didn’t get caught,” Ao said, as though they’d been in no trouble at all. “Did I ever say I never got caught? You need to listen when a trader talks, Jerzy, or you’ll never go far in this world at all! Now come on, I don’t have all day, and I can tell already you’re a slow learner.”
Jerzy meekly allowed Ao to lead him, the older boy talking all the while.
“Come on, the main garden courtyard is a perfect place to browse. Found it my first day—first hour, in fact. Nooks and seats everywhere, and you can hear a whisper clear across the way. Bad security if you’re planning something, but smart if you’re being plotted against. I bet the first maiar who built this place was a suspicious goat. Everyone thinks courtyards are the perfect place to have a private conversation. They’re wrong.”
Jerzy felt awkward hearing such things, as though forced into a skin not his own, but made himself listen closely. This, not wine-making, was why he was here.