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.Two of the dwarves were already tapping the third keg.It seemed that Ebenezer was thinking along similar lines.“Don’t you doubt, I’m gonna pay you back every copper,” he vowed softly.“Tell me what I can do to help get them earning their keep.”Bronwyn glanced at Cara, who was petting Shopscat and chattering happily.Her heart melted at the sight of the little girl and the obviously charmed raven.“There are dwarves in the city, but the sort of labor your clan can do is always in demand.I know people who can line up what we need.”“You got a lot of friends, if they can set up this bunch,” Ebenezer commented.“In a manner of speaking.” This brought up a matter that Bronwyn had been puzzling over for several days.She had realized aboard ship that she would have to rely upon the resources of the Harpers to get the dwarves settled.Disclosing membership in this secret organization was forbidden, except in extreme situations or to trusted friends.Though she had known Ebenezer for a relatively short time, she counted him as among the best she’d found.She decided to confide in the dwarfTaking him by the arm, she led him to a relatively quiet corner.“What do you know of the Harpers?”Ebenezer scowled and spat—hitting the bronze spittoon by the door with dead-on accuracy and ringing force.“Nothing good.As I hear it, they’re not big on minding their own affairs.”“That’s true enough,” she said hesitantly.“But they are good at gathering information and passing it along.If I contact the right Harpers here in the city, by highsun tomorrow I should have every member of your clan set up in business.Sword smiths, gem workers, bakers.Whatever skills they have, I can match.”“How do you know who to—” The dwarf broke off, his eyes suspicious.“You’re one of them.”Bronwyn sighed.“Guilty.Is that such a bad thing?”“Maybe,” he grumbled.He slanted a look up at her.“What you did for my clan—was that Harper business?”“No,” she said stoutly, even though she suspected that claiming otherwise might sway the dwarf’s opinion on the matter.“That was personal.”“Good.” He nodded in satisfaction.“Well, then, you tell me where to go, and I’ll be getting the process started.”Bronwyn hurried up the stairs to her chamber—evicting the pair of dwarf children who were jumping on her bed—and sat down at her writing table.Under the false bottom of her drawer were sheets of parchment bearing the sigil of Khelben Arunsun.This rune, his personal symbol, gave force to whatever was written on the parchment.The Harpers under his direction were to use them only in dire circumstances.Bronwyn had but two.She dipped a quill in her inkwell and began to write a letter to Brian Swordmaster.Even as she wrote, Bronwyn’s mind skipped ahead to the consequences of this measure.Khelben would know when one of his special edicts was used, and by whom.Brian Swordmaster, though a common tradesman and a quiet, modest man, was a great friend of the archmage.The story would get to her Harper master all too soon.And then, she wondered, what would she be required to do?This thought didn’t set well with her.All her life, she had been told what to do.As a slave, she had been given little choice about anything.As an antiquities dealer, she had taken commissions and fulfilled them.Her methods were her own, and she prided herself in being resourceful, but the task itself was given her.The same could be said for her involvement with the Harpers.The first act that she could call truly her own was her decision to rescue the Stoneshaft clan from slavery She regarded that with pride and was not reconciled to tamely accepting that all her decisions would henceforth be made for her by others.And yet, had that ever been truly the case? Even as a slave, she had directed her path.She worked hard at the gem trade, and before she was a woman grown, she was crafting better counterfeit pieces than any of her master’s servants—or her master himself, for that matter.He’d taken an interest in her, and taught her about the rare pieces that they copied in the shop and sold as originals.Bronwyn had developed a genuine love of the old, beautiful things that came into her hands.Unlike her, they had a history, a past.These stories had more importance to her than the pieces themselves.And so she wheedled her master into letting her learn about the background of the pieces—so that they could make better, less detectable reproductions, she’d argued.This idea had pleased him, and Bronwyn had begun the path she now trod.When the master died, his son sold off the shop, including the slaves.She had bought her freedom by apprenticing herself out to a treasure hunter who’d done business with her master.Soon she went her own way.And, she realized with deep surprise, she had been doing so ever since.Bronwyn sat for a long moment as she absorbed this.Then she nodded slowly and rolled the parchment into a scroll.She went down the back stairs and through the alley.There was always a messenger or two available for hire at the cobbler’s shop two doors down.The messenger was a youth she knew well.She gave him the scroll with instructions and an extra silver coin, then returned to her shop with a light step.Whatever came of this venture, she would handle it as she always had: her own way.* * * * *It took Ebenezer the better part of two hours to round up his kin and get them headed out of the shop.“Like herding cats, it is,” he grumbled as he shoved the last of them out of the door.The look of pure, desperate gratitude that Alice sent him brought a wry grin to his face.The Stoneshafts were a handful, and no mistake.He only hoped that Bronwyn’s mysterious “friends” had pickaxes big enough to chop through this particular problem.Once the dwarves were out on the street, the problems compounded.Bronwyn’s shop was on the Street of Silks, a nose-in-the-air piece of town where folks thought their shoes too good to sully with walking.Fancy carriages rattled past, drawn by teams of horses.“Lookit the size of them mules,” marveled Benton, a cousin who’d never been out of the tunnels before his capture.“How’d they get four of ‘em to go in the same direction?” demanded Tarlamera, whose only experience with mules involved small, dusty pack animals nearly as stubborn as herself.The clan had kept a few for hauling back the gems and orc from the outermost mines.That image suggested a solution to Ebenezer.“Miners, ho!” he hollered.“Tunnel size, seven.Fall in by clan rank.”His clan scuttled into place with an alacrity born of long practice [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]