Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [104]
Nesmut peered at it. "Gracious lady, I cannot read, but I know the Street of Crocodiles. If you tell me the number, I will take you there, yes."
After a brief negotiation, we were agreed.
The heat of the day struck us like a blast from a forge as we left Metriche's inn. It was hard to believe, I thought, that in Terre d'Ange, the fields lay in stubble and the chill autumn rains fell upon the land. In Menekhet, the sun blazed unceasing and the sky was a hard blue,copper-tinged with heat. Although the broad streets were swept clean, there was taste of dust in my mouth.
For all that, the city bustled. It would, Nesmut informed us, grow hotter yet; at midday, everyone retired to the shade until the worst of the heat had passed. It was well that we had risen early. He kept up a running commentary as he led us through the city, pausing to greet a half-dozen people on every block—servants, carriage-drivers, housewives, water-sellers. Everyone, it seemed, had a good-natured word for the lad.
And all, I noticed, in Menekhetan.
"There is the Street of Moneylenders," Nesmut announced, pointing, "if you like, I take you to a man to change your Serenissiman coin for Menekhetan, yes? Harder then for merchants to cheat you. I know a man who is fair."
I glanced at Joscelin, who raised his eyebrows. "You wouldn't cheat, us, would you, Nesmut?" he asked the boy in Hellene. "Because if you did ..." In a movement too quick for the eye to follow, his daggers leapt from their sheaths and into his hands, crossed tips hovering under the lad's chin. "I would be very angry."
Nesmut's dark eyes widened. "Gracious lord!" he breathed. "Never!"
"Good." Joscelin put up his daggers and gave a cross-vambraced bow. A faint smile hovered at one corner of his mouth where only I could see it. "Then we will heed your advice. Thank you, Nesmut."
"Gracious lord," he said warily, pointing again. "It is this way."
It was well done of Joscelin, for the rate of exchange proved more than fair, and I daresay a good deal of it was due to the impression Nesmut conveyed of our seriousness. In short order, the transaction was done, and we left having exchanged our Serenissiman solidi for a considerable amount of Menekhetan coin. Nesmut led us to the Street of Crocodiles with a renewed air of importance.
The address Melisande had given me was in the jewelers' quarter and proved, indeed, to be that of a jeweler's shop. Tiny bronze bells rang as we opened the door, passing from bright sun into the relative coolness of shadow within the thick sandstone walls. To my sun-dazzled eyes, it was murky as night within the shop. I made out the angular figure of a man hunched over a worktable positioned in a patch of morning sun that slanted through a window. The figure's head lifted, and I heard a gasp; his hands moved in a flurry, overturning a number of cabochon gems on the worktable and laying them facedown before he arose to greet us.
"My lady." He addressed me in Hellene, placing both hands together and bowing deeply. His face, when he straightened, was filled with awe. "I am Karem. How may I serve you?"
"Karem," I said, blinking. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness. He was young, his beard still patchy on his chin, and clearly Menekhetan. "I am Phèdre nó Delaunay, Comtesse de Montrève in Terre d'Ange. I am looking for a man named Radi Arumi. Do you know him?"
"The Jebean." Karem's face showed his disappointment. "Yes, I know him, my lady; he rents a room in my father's lodgings in the back when he is in Iskandria. Wait here, please, and I will tell him you have come."
With another bow, he vanished out a rear doorway. Nesmut wandered over to a sitting-area to the right of the shop, low-slung leathern chairs arranged about a low table. He clambered into one of the chairs and sat cross-legged, quite at his ease. Karem was gone a long time. I looked at his worktable. Semiprecious gems lay scattered; carnelian, amethyst, chalcedony. I wondered why he'd overturned them. His jeweler's tools were works of art in