brazen gambit, The - Lynn Abbey Page 0,93

them might have slain the other, or—worse to consider—the two of them might have discovered that, where zarneeka and Urik were concerned, they were of like minds.

And that would have been the end of the zarneeka trade: Yohan would have stood with them. And the remaining Quraiters, druid and farmer alike, were already more afraid of Urik and Urik’s inhuman king than was necessary; they would have supported the recalcitrant trio. Quraite wasn’t some idyllic community where everyone’s opinion counted with equal weight and the heaviest position prevailed; such communities rarely survived a year, much less the generations that Quraite itself had endured. Grandmother’s word naturally and rightfully outweighed everyone else’s, but Grandmother would never be foolish enough to drag the community in a direction it absolutely did not want to go.

As she was dragging Yohan to Urik.

The old dwarf trod silently between the traces of the handcart. He’d resisted her attempts at conversation since they left Quraite. Yohan had spoken vehemently against Grandmother’s decision to dispatch zarneeka to Urik while Pavek and Ruari were still hidden in Ruari’s grove. But in the end, Yohan had swallowed his objections. He’d helped to separate the zarneeka powder from the sand in the ruins of the stowaway. When Grandmother invoked a diminutive whirlwind to whip up the gritty mixture, he’d held a winnowing against it until his feet were buried in grit. She’d stood behind the sieve with a tightly woven basket, collecting enough yellow powder to fill three amphorae. And then he’d harnessed the kanks—all the while looking over his shoulder at the path Ruari and Pavek would have taken if they had returned together.

But the path remained empty, and they’d left the village before sunset without knowing what had happened between the templar and the half-elf—exactly as Grandmother had wanted it.

Because Grandmother was wiser than all the rest of them together. And Grandmother knew the right thing for Quraite to do where zarneeka or anything else was concerned.

“You’ll see,” Akashia assured her plodding, sullen companion. “Everything will fall into place. You’ll be headed home before sundown, I promise. There’s nothing to worry about. There won’t be any trouble at the customhouse—”

“Not there, not the customhouse,” he interrupted, the longest single string of words he’d put together since they left Quraite. “It’s too risky. If your heart’s still set on delivering zarneeka to Urik, I’d sooner take it to the elven market I’d sooner trust a cross-eyed elf than that hairy dwarf at the customhouse.”

“The elven market?” Her mind filled with the wonders she imagined among its tawdry tents and shanties. She’d heard about the market from the Moonracers since she was a little girl, but in all her fifteen trips to Urik—she’d kept careful count—she’d never done more than trek from the gate to the customhouse and back again. Except, of course, this past time when they’d encountered Pavek, and Yohan had led them to the dyers’ plaza where lengths of brightly colored cloth had threatened more than once to distract her from the interrogation.

Any excuse to visit the elven market was an almost irresistible temptation—especially if cautious Yohan was suggesting it.

Then the imagined wonders faded: “We gave our names to the Modekan registrar…”

“Three itinerant peddlers with trade for the customhouse,” Yohan recited in rhythm with his walking.

Yohan had been trekking the zarneeka to Urik since before she was born. He’d taught her what to do and say, and she never told the truth about their names or merchandise to the village registrar. “They won’t suspect? Won’t come looking for us?” He shrugged; the amphorae shifted in the cart. “Not in the elven market. Templars don’t go into the market, not alone. We’ll be on our way home, like you said, before they start looking for us. If they start looking for us.”

She pondered temptation for a little while. The dazzling yellow walls—cleaned and replastered after the Tyr-storm—lifted up in front of them, the freshly repainted portraits of the Lion-King were blurred, but colorful at this distance. The great, dark opening of the gate was visible as well, and the road was still empty ahead of them. There wouldn’t be a line. Elven market or customhouse, they’d be into the city and out again in record time.

But the inspectors would ask questions. She had to be ready to use a mind-bender’s subtle art, and that meant she had to have her words and images memorized before they reached the gate.

“Are you certain?” she asked.

“Nothing’s certain—except that Pavek knows the procurer