The moment the purses were out of sight, the two guards appeared to get religion, because they developed a singular focus on what was happening at the altar. Benny beckoned to me, and we slipped inside Thousand Walls.
The interior of the Silkstar Palace was furnished in the style I liked to call Mycedan-tat. The island of Myceda lay three hundred miles to the south of Agatos, just off the coast of Corithia, and specialised in delicate sculptures made from gold, silver, precious jewels, and rare tropical woods. They were considered the height of classy sophistication across most of the civilised world. That was why, when the fashion reached Agatos, the wealthy merchants and senators immediately set about duplicating it, except instead of sticking to the small and delicate — which people might not notice — had instead commissioned great, hulking copies that loomed tactlessly over everything. So, the now-famous Mycedan-tat style had been born. No one would be able to miss just how much wealth and how little taste the owners had. And as a typical piece weighed as much as a fully grown bull, they were nearly impossible to steal without a team of men, a hefty wagon, and several mules. It also meant that Benny was after something more unusual.
“Lady of the Grove,” Benny swore as we entered a lavish sitting room. “Look at this place!” His fingers rubbed unconsciously together.
“You’re only stealing what you’re being paid to steal these days,” I reminded Benny. “Going up in the world, remember?”
“You’re no fun, mate. This way.”
Foolishly, I assumed Benny knew what he was talking about.
If you were of a masochistic frame of mind, you could do some fairly complicated mathematics to show how many rooms Thousand Walls could have if it really did have a thousand walls, and the answer was, I didn’t know. I was a mage, not a mathematician. But within a few minutes of following Benny from over-decorated room to over-decorated room I had come to the conclusion that there were an awful lot of them and that Benny had no idea of his way through.
I grabbed his arm as he started across a small, darkened kitchen with strings of garlic hanging like skeletal, arthritic fingers from the ceiling.
“What exactly are we looking for?”
Benny glanced shiftily from side to side. On principle, Benny was the kind of man who wouldn’t admit to owning a candle even if you caught him halfway down the stairs on the way to the loo with the candle clutched in front of his face. I had seen him avoid several convictions for burglary by the simple expedient of lying so shamelessly that no one quite knew what to do with him. After a moment, though, he slumped slightly.
“It’s a ledger, all right?”
“A cursed ledger? Why would anyone put a curse on a ledger?”
“I don’t know, do I? It’s an old one, anyway. Maybe someone he cheated got pissed off.”
Except Carnelian Silkstar was a high mage and he could break a curse easier than clicking his fingers. More likely, the curse was there to discourage his minions from poking around. His mages should be able to break the curse, too, of course, but recreating it again in such a way that Silkstar wouldn’t be able to tell the difference was high mage-level magic.
The ledger must contain some of Silkstar’s business secrets, and it made sense that one of his rivals would try to steal it.
“Let’s bloody find it before they finish up out there and catch us in the act,” I said. Waves of exhaustion were washing over the back of my mind, and only a seawall of terror kept them at bay. I just wanted this over.
I strode across the kitchen and yanked open the nearest door.
I didn’t know who was more surprised, me or the Master Servant standing on the other side. She reacted quicker, though. There was a brief blink of startlement, then her head came up while I was still standing there, grasping the door handle.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?”
She had been well trained. Despite the fact that we were obviously not supposed to be creeping around the palace and despite the possibility that we might be dangerous, she didn’t flinch.
I couldn’t quite place her accent. It was Agatos, and she was clearly an Agatos native, but whether she was Grey City, Middle City, or Upper City I couldn’t tell. Her voice had been tutored to a neutral formality.
I cleared my throat. “We’re here to see Carnelian Silkstar.”
She didn’t move.
More than a grand house or palace, more than a seat in the Senate, more than magical powers, employing a Master Servant was the sign of status in Agatos society. There were never more than forty Master Servants in employment in the whole city at any one time, and they undertook years of rigorous training. They were notoriously trustworthy, efficient, and dedicated. I had absolutely nothing in common with any of them.
Only the tallest men and women were ever selected to train as Master Servants, and looking contemptuously down their nose at you was one of the first skills they learned. I was tall for a citizen of Agatos — like I said, I never knew my father, but I had always thought he must have come into the port on a boat from Secellia or Tor — but the woman in the doorway topped me by a full head, and she had that look-down-the-nose thing off pat. She was dressed in sweeping robes of gold and silver that bore Silkstar’s ship-star-and-giant-bees insignia.
“I can assure you that he has no appointments today.”
I cursed silently. Of course she would know. Her job would be to organise Silkstar’s life like cutlery in a drawer. Well, not like my cutlery.
Pull it together, Nik! The exhaustion was making me stupid.
You couldn’t intimidate a Master Servant. That was part of the deal. And they were almost impossible to fool. But I was willing to give it a go.
“We have a message from the Countess,” I said.
If you were going to lie, lie big. No one in their right mind would tell a lie like that. The Countess did not react well to having her name taken in vain.
Well, if you’re going to piss off one high mage, you might as well make it two. You could only die horribly once.
For the first time, a flicker of doubt crossed the Master Servant’s face, and I pressed my advantage. I raised an eyebrow. There were years of training, there were ridiculous levels of pay, and there was loyalty. But there was also stupidity, and it would take a suicidally brave Master Servant to interfere with the business of a high mage.
For a second, I thought she was going to say no, anyway. I thought she was going to deny the Countess’s supposed will simply so as not to inconvenience Silkstar. But then she must have realised that if it was important enough for the Countess to send a messenger today of all days, it was something Silkstar would want to be told.
You are in so much trouble, Mennik Thorn, I told myself.
“Follow me,” the Master Servant said, turning on her heel. I felt, rather than heard, Benny’s sigh of relief.
The Master Servant took us to a small sitting room with one wall swung back to let in the fresh air and light from a miniature courtyard. The smell of lavender and honeysuckle drifted in on the faint breeze, along with the murmur of the crowd in the main courtyard. Unsurprisingly, there was a beehive in the centre of the little courtyard, and I avoided looking at it out of an excess of caution. I was pretty certain a dead goddess wasn’t going to report me to Carnelian Silkstar, nor send her bees after me, but it never hurt to be careful.