Masquerades - Kate Novak [80]
Inside Blais House, Alias hurried to wash up as Dragonbait escorted Olive to their room. When Alias joined them, fresh from her bath, she noticed Olive eyeing the sacks of gold containing her retainer from the Dhostars. "You should have gotten more," the halfling said.
"Olive, you know I don't need the money," the swordswoman argued as she pulled her new silk tunic over Jamal's white undergown. "Neither do you, for that matter. I might have ended up fighting the Night Masks even if the Dhostars hadn't offered to pay me."
"It's the principle of the thing," Olive insisted. "Never sell yourself cheap, and always charge rich humans through the nose. The Dhostars are richer than old Misty was. It's up to people like you to see to it that their floor doesn't give under the weight of all that coin."
"Is that what you're doing for Lady Thalavar?" Alias asked as she slipped her new earrings back in her ears. "Seeing to it that her floorboards don't give?"
"House Thalavar is nothing like House Dhostar," Olive insisted. "Lady Nettel has more noblesse oblige in her pinkie than all of the remaining merchants in this city combined. She makes a profit, yes, but she doesn't invest in things just to see an obscene return. She invests in little businesses so the owners can make a living and patronizes musicians and artists and donates wells and fountains and park land to the people of Westgate."
There was a knock on the door, and Olive opened it. Mercy stood on the threshold, eyeing the halfling with the same wide-eyed look she'd given Dragonbait and Alias on their first day as guests. The girl, Alias thought, must have too few opportunities to meet other people. The swordswoman introduced Olive as a long-standing friend. Mercy curtsied politely, then informed Alias that there was a carriage waiting downstairs.
"Please tell him I'll be down in a few minutes, Mercy. Then you can come back and take Olive and Dragonbait's orders for dinner."
The half-elf hurried off to do as she was bid.
Alias slid her scabbard onto the lower of the two belts Jamal had loaned her and secured her sword to the scabbard with a piece of silk ribbon tied in an elaborate knot that she could release instantly by pulling it in just the right place. She tugged on the white silk slippers and ran a comb quickly through her hair. Turning about, she asked the others. "How do I look?"
"Very nice," Dragonbait replied.
"Better than Lord Victor probably deserves," Olive answered.
Alias hurried downstairs and out to the street. The reins of Victor's carriage were in the hands of the same old man who'd held them at the Harbor Tower that first day she'd met Victor. The bent, gray-haired servant bowed with earnest deference, and Alias could see he looked at her with a certain approval as he handed her up into the carriage seat. Jamal's advice on dress pleased at least one elderly member of House Dhostar's staff. The
servant climbed into the seat beside Alias and urged the horses forward.
The carriage pulled up to a pavilion at the western end of the docks, where a footman in Dhostar livery handed Alias down to the ground. The swordswoman stared uncomfortably at the crowd of strangers all about. Most of them appeared to be errand boys, bodyguards, and ladies-in-waiting, left beneath the pavilion to await the returns of their masters and mistresses. Alias smiled politely at a bodyguard dressed in Malavhan livery, but was met with a grim stone face. Too late, she realized he took her for one of the nobles, and in Westgate the servants did not fraternize with the nobles.
Alias turned to thank Victor's driver, but he had already evaporated, coach and all, to whatever demi-plane hid such utilities until they were called for again. Another, larger carriage was pulling up to debark its passengers. The footman asked Alias politely to please move down the pier to join the other guests.
Down the pier there were small mobs of nobles, from dandies to grand dames, in tight little constellations. Wandering planets of individuals only casually acquainted with the brightest