Luck in the Shadows - Chapter Thirty
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i_read_whatThis chapter is slightly late. I blame the Xmas season. Or my own laziness.
Anyway, last time, Seregil and Thero switched bodies, and Seregil learned that his surrogate brother is banging their surrogate father's girlfriend. Scandalous!
We rejoin our heroes as they're getting down to business. Forger Alben has been reinstated (temporarily) in his shop, under "strict but indiscernible supervision" and appropriate explanations have been carefully spread.
Seregil is still adjusting to the being in someone else's body thing. There are some pros: Thero is less sensitive to the cold. But on the other hand, his night vision is poor and his sense of taste is "hopeless".
Overall, Seregil reflected, the habitation of another person’s body was nothing to be taken lightly. in fact, there was something rather obscene about it; he couldn’t scratch without feeling like he was taking liberties, and trips to the privy were decidedly disquieting. It was, he concluded, rather like being forced into bed with a lover you didn’t fancy. And it was certainly closer contact with Thero than he ever hoped to experience again.
What Thero might be experiencing in his body he didn’t care to speculate.
That's fair. Seregil didn't exactly choose this solution, though one imagines it's probably worse for Thero, as he's the one in prison. One hopes that he's found a way to kill time.
Eventually, a "well dressed man of middle years" comes to visit. Seregil notes the bob of his head, which betrays the man as a servant out of livery. Alben gives his candle a sideways jerk, which is the signal. When the man leaves, they follow.
Since the dude caught a glimpse of Seregil (Thero) as he existed, Micum is the one who follows him into the tavern, and we get a POV shift so we can follow him. I'm tetchy about such things mid chapter, but here the shift of the baton feels organic enough.
Micum, we're told, has a particular aptitude for blending into taverns. So he gets a pint and watches as the dude is joined by a young servant woman, who greets him with a kiss. He doesn't see anything else, but thinks it's a good opportunity for something to change hands. When they leave, he follows, before catching up with the others.
They agree to split up when the couple does: Alec and Micum will stay on the guy, while Seregil will follow the woman.
We follow the narrative as the characters follow the targets. They encounter some brief difficulty at "Astellus Circle" because the Street of Lights is very crowded and busy with patrons coming and going. They manage to sort things out though. And we shift POV to Seregil, who follows the girl to an "eminent and all-too-familiar residence."
Then we shift to Micum and Alec, who have followed their guys to a house in "the Street of Three Fountains", which isn't far from Wheel Street. I like that Flewelling clearly has a very detailed idea of what Rhiminee looks like as a place. Alec goes in after the guy, while Micum stands watch.
Oh, I see. I'd wondered why Alec went with Micum rather than Seregil. He's the green newcomer, so it makes sense that he'd go with someone more experienced, but also his skills and Seregil's overlap. Whereas Micum's are different.
So we're with Alec now as he invades the House, and I like this a lot:
Scaling the wall, Alec dropped down into the garden. The layout of the place was similar to Seregil’s house, but on a larger scale. The garden surrounded the house on three sides, and there were an encouraging number of windows overlooking it. Keeping an eye out for dogs and watchmen, he crept forward.
As annoying as it was to have Seregil get Alec to break into his own house, it's clearly been a useful experience. Alec is able to navigate with ease. And ooo. He does overhear something interesting:
The balcony door had been left ajar; peering in, Alec discovered an elegantly appointed bedchamber lit by a single lamp. Another door stood open across the room, and through it came the sounds of a heated argument. There were two male voices involved, one strident with anger, the other shrill in its protestations of innocence.
“How can you accuse me of such a thing?” the higher voice demanded.
“How can you look me in the face and deny it?” boomed the other. “You greedy, bungling idiot. You’ve destroyed me! You have destroyed this family!”
“Uncle, please.”
“Never let me hear that word in your throat again, you viper!” shouted the other. “From this day forth you are no kin of mine.”
The man enters the room where Alec's hidden, so he gets a good look at the man. He feels like he's seen him before, but can't put his finger on where. The man is agitated, and things get tense for a moment:
The significance of the balcony table occurred to Alec almost too late. The man swerved suddenly, heading out to settle his nerves with wine and tobacco. Clambering back over the railing, Alec caught hold of two carved balusters and hung by his fingers. The evening drizzle had thickened to sleet and the polished marble felt slick as lard in his hands as he clung doggedly on, feet dangling twenty feet above the ground. Glancing sideways, he saw that he could probably reach the cornice of the downstairs window with his left foot but he didn’t dare chance the noise. To make matters worse, his side of the balcony overlooked the street; it would be the most natural thing in the world for the man to lean on the railing just there, glance down—
Looking up, Alec could see the side of the man’s silken slipper less than a foot from his rapidly whitening knuckles. Cold fire ached down through his wrists and arms, weakening his grip, numbing his fingers. Melting sleet trickled down over his face and ran down his sleeves into his armpits. Biting his lip, he gripped the posts harder, scarcely daring to breathe.
Oof! Fortunately, Alec is saved by the bell. Or rather a knock at the door. He gets a sturdier foothold as the dude, the servant, reports in.
“Any difficulty with Alben?” This was the nobleman, calmer now and speaking with authority.
“Not exactly, my lord,” replied the newcomer. “Though he didn’t seem quite himself, somehow. But I did get the documents and these, as well, while I was out.”
“Well done, Marsin, well done!”
Alec heard the metallic clink of coins changing hands.
“Thank you, sir. Shall I deliver it now?”
“No, I’ll go. My horse is already saddled. See to it that the house is locked up for the night and inform Lady Althia that I’ll be returning tomorrow.”
Alec escapes down to Micum as the dude is leaving on a horse. They realize he's probably delivering the letters, but he's too fast to catch up with now. Micum has his own news though, the Viceregent himself had come riding out of the gate a short while before.
Alec realizes where he'd seen the other dude. It's Lord Teukros, the Viceregent's nephew. Micum can't really believe that Barien's mixed up with something disloyal, and Alec relates that Barien was in the process of cursing and disowning Teukros when he got there. They had back to fill in the others.
They head back to Nysander's door. Seregil's not back yet, but they make their report. Nysander is as dismayed as Micum that Barien might be mixed up in something like this. He also finds it difficult to imagine, but "Teukros i Kallas" is another matter. He's wealthy but not the brightest.
Alec is bitter about having lost Teukros, but Nysander shows us why, despite his failings as a mentor, he's in charge of this outfit:
“Patience, dear boy. It should not be difficult to obtain that information. You said Lord Teukros’ pretty wife is at home tonight?”
“Yes, but we can’t just knock on the door and ask her.”
“Of course we can! What do you say, Micum? An urgent message carried by a servant of the Orëska House, one which must be delivered into Lord Teukros’ hands at all costs this very night?”
Micum grinned wolfishly. “That should do the trick.”
Going to his desk, Nysander quickly penned a cordial dinner invitation for the following evening.
(Alec asks what if the guy does show up for dinner? Nysander just says that he'll enjoy the opportunity for a closer look at the dude.)
Seregil returns a bit later. More the worse for wear.
He was smeared with mud, and sported torn breeches and a ragged scrape across the back of one hand.
“Illior’s Eyes, Seregil, what have you been doing with poor Thero’s body?” asked Nysander, handing him a clean robe.
“You’d think he could at least climb a garden wall!” Seregil said in disgust, shucking the filthy breeches off to show them an angry bruise on one of Thero’s pale, hairy knees. “Never mind that, though. Micum, Alec, you’ll never guess where our little serving maid led me! Straight to the house of the Vicegerent.”
The others are, of course, not surprised. They fill him in on their side of things. Then Seregil lets them know what he saw: Barien coming home and then a messenger going out to the Queen's Park gate with a message for the Princess Royal. Not long after that, Phoria herself exits. She's cloaked, but Seregil recognized the way she walked.
The servant, Wethis, comes in with news. He'd delivered the message. Lord Teukros wasn't home, but for the wife, he's gone out to the estate of someone named Lady Kassarie.
Alec serves as our gateway character by asking who that is.
Seregil steepled his fingers before him in a manner that generally presaged one of his encyclopedic recitations. “Lady Kassarie ä Moirian is the head of another of Skala’s oldest families. Like Barien, she can trace her lineage back to the Hierophantic migration. And, I should add, without a drop of foreign blood sullying her august veins. Her ancestors made their fortunes in stonework at Ero, and prospered again providing Queen Tamír with stone and masons to build her new capital. Her estate lies up in the mountains about ten miles or so southeast of the city.”
Hm. Definitely sounds fishy. For both Kassarie and Barien. AND Phoria, though Phoria has the same issue that her mother does: tainted Aurenfaie blood.
So now, new game plan. Nysander will follow up with Barien and Phoria, while the others continue investigating Teukros and Kassarie. Since it's not midnight yet, he asks if they can begin tonight.
They will. But not in this chapter!
So this was a pretty fun chapter all things considered. There were a LOT of point of view shifts, but they felt like a natural progression as we followed the pace of the investigation/chase. We got to see Seregil's expertise (hampered by his unfamiliar body), Micum's, and Alec's. And we got to see Alec's inexperience in his near disaster, as well as his frustration over their loss. He's very talented, but not an expert yet, and has a novice's inability to recover from a setback as easily as the others. And we even got to see Nysander in a brief moment of authoritative competence. I still think he's doing a bullshit job managing his former and current apprentice, but he does seem to be a very good spymaster.
Anyway, last time, Seregil and Thero switched bodies, and Seregil learned that his surrogate brother is banging their surrogate father's girlfriend. Scandalous!
We rejoin our heroes as they're getting down to business. Forger Alben has been reinstated (temporarily) in his shop, under "strict but indiscernible supervision" and appropriate explanations have been carefully spread.
Seregil is still adjusting to the being in someone else's body thing. There are some pros: Thero is less sensitive to the cold. But on the other hand, his night vision is poor and his sense of taste is "hopeless".
Overall, Seregil reflected, the habitation of another person’s body was nothing to be taken lightly. in fact, there was something rather obscene about it; he couldn’t scratch without feeling like he was taking liberties, and trips to the privy were decidedly disquieting. It was, he concluded, rather like being forced into bed with a lover you didn’t fancy. And it was certainly closer contact with Thero than he ever hoped to experience again.
What Thero might be experiencing in his body he didn’t care to speculate.
That's fair. Seregil didn't exactly choose this solution, though one imagines it's probably worse for Thero, as he's the one in prison. One hopes that he's found a way to kill time.
Eventually, a "well dressed man of middle years" comes to visit. Seregil notes the bob of his head, which betrays the man as a servant out of livery. Alben gives his candle a sideways jerk, which is the signal. When the man leaves, they follow.
Since the dude caught a glimpse of Seregil (Thero) as he existed, Micum is the one who follows him into the tavern, and we get a POV shift so we can follow him. I'm tetchy about such things mid chapter, but here the shift of the baton feels organic enough.
Micum, we're told, has a particular aptitude for blending into taverns. So he gets a pint and watches as the dude is joined by a young servant woman, who greets him with a kiss. He doesn't see anything else, but thinks it's a good opportunity for something to change hands. When they leave, he follows, before catching up with the others.
They agree to split up when the couple does: Alec and Micum will stay on the guy, while Seregil will follow the woman.
We follow the narrative as the characters follow the targets. They encounter some brief difficulty at "Astellus Circle" because the Street of Lights is very crowded and busy with patrons coming and going. They manage to sort things out though. And we shift POV to Seregil, who follows the girl to an "eminent and all-too-familiar residence."
Then we shift to Micum and Alec, who have followed their guys to a house in "the Street of Three Fountains", which isn't far from Wheel Street. I like that Flewelling clearly has a very detailed idea of what Rhiminee looks like as a place. Alec goes in after the guy, while Micum stands watch.
Oh, I see. I'd wondered why Alec went with Micum rather than Seregil. He's the green newcomer, so it makes sense that he'd go with someone more experienced, but also his skills and Seregil's overlap. Whereas Micum's are different.
So we're with Alec now as he invades the House, and I like this a lot:
Scaling the wall, Alec dropped down into the garden. The layout of the place was similar to Seregil’s house, but on a larger scale. The garden surrounded the house on three sides, and there were an encouraging number of windows overlooking it. Keeping an eye out for dogs and watchmen, he crept forward.
As annoying as it was to have Seregil get Alec to break into his own house, it's clearly been a useful experience. Alec is able to navigate with ease. And ooo. He does overhear something interesting:
The balcony door had been left ajar; peering in, Alec discovered an elegantly appointed bedchamber lit by a single lamp. Another door stood open across the room, and through it came the sounds of a heated argument. There were two male voices involved, one strident with anger, the other shrill in its protestations of innocence.
“How can you accuse me of such a thing?” the higher voice demanded.
“How can you look me in the face and deny it?” boomed the other. “You greedy, bungling idiot. You’ve destroyed me! You have destroyed this family!”
“Uncle, please.”
“Never let me hear that word in your throat again, you viper!” shouted the other. “From this day forth you are no kin of mine.”
The man enters the room where Alec's hidden, so he gets a good look at the man. He feels like he's seen him before, but can't put his finger on where. The man is agitated, and things get tense for a moment:
The significance of the balcony table occurred to Alec almost too late. The man swerved suddenly, heading out to settle his nerves with wine and tobacco. Clambering back over the railing, Alec caught hold of two carved balusters and hung by his fingers. The evening drizzle had thickened to sleet and the polished marble felt slick as lard in his hands as he clung doggedly on, feet dangling twenty feet above the ground. Glancing sideways, he saw that he could probably reach the cornice of the downstairs window with his left foot but he didn’t dare chance the noise. To make matters worse, his side of the balcony overlooked the street; it would be the most natural thing in the world for the man to lean on the railing just there, glance down—
Looking up, Alec could see the side of the man’s silken slipper less than a foot from his rapidly whitening knuckles. Cold fire ached down through his wrists and arms, weakening his grip, numbing his fingers. Melting sleet trickled down over his face and ran down his sleeves into his armpits. Biting his lip, he gripped the posts harder, scarcely daring to breathe.
Oof! Fortunately, Alec is saved by the bell. Or rather a knock at the door. He gets a sturdier foothold as the dude, the servant, reports in.
“Any difficulty with Alben?” This was the nobleman, calmer now and speaking with authority.
“Not exactly, my lord,” replied the newcomer. “Though he didn’t seem quite himself, somehow. But I did get the documents and these, as well, while I was out.”
“Well done, Marsin, well done!”
Alec heard the metallic clink of coins changing hands.
“Thank you, sir. Shall I deliver it now?”
“No, I’ll go. My horse is already saddled. See to it that the house is locked up for the night and inform Lady Althia that I’ll be returning tomorrow.”
Alec escapes down to Micum as the dude is leaving on a horse. They realize he's probably delivering the letters, but he's too fast to catch up with now. Micum has his own news though, the Viceregent himself had come riding out of the gate a short while before.
Alec realizes where he'd seen the other dude. It's Lord Teukros, the Viceregent's nephew. Micum can't really believe that Barien's mixed up with something disloyal, and Alec relates that Barien was in the process of cursing and disowning Teukros when he got there. They had back to fill in the others.
They head back to Nysander's door. Seregil's not back yet, but they make their report. Nysander is as dismayed as Micum that Barien might be mixed up in something like this. He also finds it difficult to imagine, but "Teukros i Kallas" is another matter. He's wealthy but not the brightest.
Alec is bitter about having lost Teukros, but Nysander shows us why, despite his failings as a mentor, he's in charge of this outfit:
“Patience, dear boy. It should not be difficult to obtain that information. You said Lord Teukros’ pretty wife is at home tonight?”
“Yes, but we can’t just knock on the door and ask her.”
“Of course we can! What do you say, Micum? An urgent message carried by a servant of the Orëska House, one which must be delivered into Lord Teukros’ hands at all costs this very night?”
Micum grinned wolfishly. “That should do the trick.”
Going to his desk, Nysander quickly penned a cordial dinner invitation for the following evening.
(Alec asks what if the guy does show up for dinner? Nysander just says that he'll enjoy the opportunity for a closer look at the dude.)
Seregil returns a bit later. More the worse for wear.
He was smeared with mud, and sported torn breeches and a ragged scrape across the back of one hand.
“Illior’s Eyes, Seregil, what have you been doing with poor Thero’s body?” asked Nysander, handing him a clean robe.
“You’d think he could at least climb a garden wall!” Seregil said in disgust, shucking the filthy breeches off to show them an angry bruise on one of Thero’s pale, hairy knees. “Never mind that, though. Micum, Alec, you’ll never guess where our little serving maid led me! Straight to the house of the Vicegerent.”
The others are, of course, not surprised. They fill him in on their side of things. Then Seregil lets them know what he saw: Barien coming home and then a messenger going out to the Queen's Park gate with a message for the Princess Royal. Not long after that, Phoria herself exits. She's cloaked, but Seregil recognized the way she walked.
The servant, Wethis, comes in with news. He'd delivered the message. Lord Teukros wasn't home, but for the wife, he's gone out to the estate of someone named Lady Kassarie.
Alec serves as our gateway character by asking who that is.
Seregil steepled his fingers before him in a manner that generally presaged one of his encyclopedic recitations. “Lady Kassarie ä Moirian is the head of another of Skala’s oldest families. Like Barien, she can trace her lineage back to the Hierophantic migration. And, I should add, without a drop of foreign blood sullying her august veins. Her ancestors made their fortunes in stonework at Ero, and prospered again providing Queen Tamír with stone and masons to build her new capital. Her estate lies up in the mountains about ten miles or so southeast of the city.”
Hm. Definitely sounds fishy. For both Kassarie and Barien. AND Phoria, though Phoria has the same issue that her mother does: tainted Aurenfaie blood.
So now, new game plan. Nysander will follow up with Barien and Phoria, while the others continue investigating Teukros and Kassarie. Since it's not midnight yet, he asks if they can begin tonight.
They will. But not in this chapter!
So this was a pretty fun chapter all things considered. There were a LOT of point of view shifts, but they felt like a natural progression as we followed the pace of the investigation/chase. We got to see Seregil's expertise (hampered by his unfamiliar body), Micum's, and Alec's. And we got to see Alec's inexperience in his near disaster, as well as his frustration over their loss. He's very talented, but not an expert yet, and has a novice's inability to recover from a setback as easily as the others. And we even got to see Nysander in a brief moment of authoritative competence. I still think he's doing a bullshit job managing his former and current apprentice, but he does seem to be a very good spymaster.