“Why is he talking to me?” Forgula asked Tenik.
Michel felt his heat rising, and before Tenik could answer, he said, “Why can’t you ask me? You were good enough to attack an unarmed man, but too good to talk to him?” His jaw snapped shut at the end of the sentence and he immediately regretted opening his mouth. But, as his mother liked to say, in for a penny, in for a krana.
Forgula’s nostrils flared. “Silence your new pet, Tenik.”
“Silence yourself,” Tenik said. Michel, it seemed, wasn’t the only one sick of Forgula’s shit. Tenik crossed his arms, staring her down. “He’s right. You’ve no place questioning what I do and how I do it. My Household is combing the city for the empire’s enemies while Sedial ignores our pleas for more soldiers. This foreigner has handed us more enemy agents in the last few days than anyone in your Household.”
“You have no idea the sacrifices my Household makes to hold this city,” Forgula hissed. She turned her nose up. “I won’t speak another word in the foreigner’s presence.”
Michel noted that the room had grown silent. Well over a hundred sets of eyes were watching the confrontation. Whispers had already begun, and he thought he saw money change hands somewhere in the crowd. The Dynize, it seemed, enjoyed a good show as much as any Kressian.
“You’re a damned coward,” Michel told her.
Forgula’s eyes widened slightly. In Fatrasta, “coward” was a trigger word to start a fight. She glared at him, but did not move. “Slime,” she retorted.
Michel sought his memory for the worst Palo insults his mother had taught him as a boy. “Horse eater,” he threw back at her.
There was a sharp intake of breath from the watching Dynize. Someone behind Michel swore, while a woman in the crowd laughed out loud. Forgula’s arm jerked stiffly, and the moment Michel had been waiting for arrived—her blackjack came to hand and she swung her arm.
Michel barely got his own arm up in time to keep the blow from hitting him below the eye. His forearm went numb, and he couldn’t help but gasp at the pain that shot down his arm. He stumbled into her, his numb hand grasping without feeling at her jacket. With the other hand, he dipped into his pocket and slipped his fingers into his knuckle-dusters. She shoved him backward, then raised her blackjack one more time.
Michel’s jab with his knuckle-dusters was hurried and sloppy, but he still managed to catch her a glancing blow on the chin that sent her wide-eyed and reeling into the arms of her companions.
Someone to Michel’s right kicked him hard in the side of the knee. He nearly toppled to the ground, not letting himself take his eyes off Forgula as Tenik suddenly dove into the middle of the chaos and shouted for silence. Michel felt Tenik grab him by the sleeves and jerk him along, half pulling, half dragging him through the crowd and out a side door into a narrow corridor. He was shoved into a chair and left while Tenik ran back inside.
Tenik returned a moment later. “What the pit did you think you were doing provoking her like that?” he hissed.
It was the first time Michel had seen Tenik genuinely angry. They were alone in this corridor, and Michel let himself lean back and test his numb arm, wincing in pain. “Ow,” he responded.
“You’re lucky she didn’t stave your head in,” Tenik said. “You’re lucky you—” Tenik stopped, looked closely at Michel, then gasped. “You did that on purpose.”
Michel forced himself to chuckle. He didn’t feel it, not with the pain shooting up his left arm.
“Why?” Tenik demanded.
“I wanted to see how easily she was provoked,” Michel answered.
“I could have told you that!”
“I also wanted to make it very clear to her that I hit back.” Michel worked the knuckle-dusters off his fingers and waved them at Tenik before putting them back in his pocket. He reached into the opposite pocket with the numb fingers of the other hand and showed Tenik a thick leather booklet. “And I wanted the chance to steal her pocketbook.”
“Like pit …” Tenik stared at him for several moments. “How did you know she carried one?”
“I saw her write in it earlier.”
“If she realizes that you—”
“She already wants to kill me,” Michel said. “I can see it in her eyes. She’s not going to admit to anyone that I stole from her, so what’s the harm?”
“Forgula can do a lot of harm,” Tenik warned.
Michel leaned back on the bench, cradling his damaged arm, hoping the feeling would come back soon. “I haven’t picked a pocket for a couple years. Still have the talent for it, though, even with numb fingers.”
“You disgust me.” There was a note of respect in Tenik’s voice. Michel decided he only half meant it.
Before Michel could retort, the door to the foreign-dignitary room opened and Michel swallowed whatever he had to say. Saen-Ichtracia, the granddaughter of Yaret’s political enemy and a damned Privileged sorcerer, stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her. She tilted her head to one side, pulling a wry face, and stared at Michel.
Michel glanced at Tenik, hoping he’d step in with some excuse, and when no such help was forthcoming, attempted a furtive glance toward the closest exit.
“Michel Bravis, was it?” Ichtracia asked. She spoke in perfect Adran, catching Michel off guard.
Michel’s mouth was dry. “That’s me.”
Ichtracia let out a giggle—a damned giggle—and Michel realized she’d been the one to laugh when he called Forgula a horse eater. “I haven’t seen someone hit Forgula since I was a little girl.” She clapped her hands slowly, the grin on her face speaking volumes of both respect and pity. “I think the woman who struck her ended up strangled in the bath.”
Tenik cleared his throat. “Saen, we’re sorry for causing such a commotion. We—”
Ichtracia held up a finger toward Tenik without even looking at him. He snapped his mouth shut. “Michel,” Ichtracia said, “I won’t keep you any longer. I just wanted you to know that you made me laugh. Good afternoon.” She turned and swept down the hall without another word, leaving Michel with a hammering heart—and a good view of her hips as she walked away.
She was well gone when Tenik said in a low voice, “I warned you about catching her attention.”
“Believe me when I say I had no intention of doing so. Shit, shit, shit.” Michel got to his feet, trying to shake the numbness out of his arm and only receiving another jolt of pain for his efforts. Between Hendres and Forgula, his damned arm had taken a beating the last two weeks. He forced himself to put Ichtracia out of his mind and held up Forgula’s wallet. “Let’s go somewhere private and see what we can find out about our friend.”
CHAPTER 26
Vlora spent the next several days scouting up and down the numerous valleys that led into the mountains from Yellow Creek. They varied in size, from immense canyons big enough to march a field army through, to little crags and gullies that were hard to spot unless you were right on top of them. The biggest were filled to the brim with prospectors—larger mines up the side of the canyon belonging to either Jezzy or Burt—and the streams filled with independent panners hoping to make it rich on gold dust.