Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [38]
Cauvin grimaced. “You’re rooking me.”
He took the padpols Mimise offered and kept his hand out for more. She laid three more of the smaller bits in his hand. Cauvin dug his fingernail into each padpol. None crumbled—meaning they were at least metal, not charred bone or pottery. He slapped them onto the table.
“A full mug,” he reminded Mimise’s back.
Leorin herself brought Cauvin an overflowing pewter tankard. With the scent of another man hanging heavily around her, Leorin kissed Cauvin chastely on the forehead. Her golden hair fell loose about her face; her cheeks were flushed; and the bodice of her gown was twisted around her waist.
“I wasn’t expecting you until Anensday.” She spun onto the stool on the opposite side of the table.
Cauvin patted the rag-covered box. “I’ve had some luck.”
“What kind?” Leorin attacked the knotted cords without further invitation. “What’s inside?”
“Not here.” Cauvin pulled the still-tied cords out of her hands. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Leorin pouted—not the seductive pout she flashed at paying customers, but a sharp-eyed scowl. “Can’t. That bastard shorted me. He promised me three shaboozh, then tried to give me soldats instead—as if I wouldn’t know the difference!” She stared into the distance. Cauvin then pulled into a faint, but satisfied smile; Cauvin could feel the air grow cold behind him. “He won’t be climbing anyone’s stairs anytime soon.” He wouldn’t have asked what his beloved had done, even had she given him the chance. “That doesn’t help me with the Stick. I’ve got room rent to pay. Nothing’s free tonight, love, not even for you.” She stroked Cauvin’s hands, then caught sight of the padpols on the table. “You can’t call a box of them luck, Cauv.”
“That’s not my luck, love.” He peeled back the cloth just enough to give her a peek at the carved wood. A pawnbroker would offer a few decent shaboozh for the box once Cauvin got the coins out—assuming he didn’t have to break it open. “I met a man today. I think he’s going to change my life.”
“How much did he give you?”
“I’ll tell you that when we’re alone upstairs.”
Cauvin couldn’t answer that until he opened the box, and he wouldn’t do that with strangers around. He trusted Leorin utterly, but no one else in the taproom. Instead, he told her where he’d gotten the box.
“The Broken Mast!” she exclaimed. “That’s a bugger’s haven! You never—You didn’t, did you?”
“Not froggin’ close,” Cauvin assured her. Never mind what the infamous vulgar unicorn was doing to itself on the weatherworn signboard above the front door—Leorin would have nothing to do with men who shunned women. “I collected a debt for an old pud outside the walls, that’s all. There’s bound to be something left off after the quills and parchment. And this is just the beginning. The old pud’s got more stashed away; he’s said as much. He won’t begrudge me; wouldn’t dare. He’s old and he’s dying—got a froggin’ evil wound atop his leg. I’m all he’s got.”
Leorin sat back. Gods knew how she’d come by it, but Leorin had all the fragile Imperial beauty Mina lacked. Her eyes were the color of warm, golden honey. Her complexion glowed like the finest porcelain, even beneath the Unicorn’s froggin’ soot-covered wheel. Her hands were delicate, her waist, willowy, and her breasts were perfect. When Leorin swept across the taproom, a bouquet of beer mugs clutched in her hands, conversations had been known to stop between words. She could have commanded the best rooms, the highest prices on the Street of Red Lanterns—she might even have found a Land’s End sparker who’d marry her—but Leorin had lived inside the palace, the same as Cauvin. She chose the sort of freedom that couldn’t be found behind walls—the kind of freedom—and risks—that the Unicorn offered night after night.
She chose Cauvin, too, because he’d been there, and her memories couldn’t frighten him. The nights he stayed with his beloved in her cramped upstairs room weren’t filled with passion; they were filled with tears and shudders while his arms protected