The Dream Spheres - Elaine Cunningham [6]
Isabeau's struggles dwindled, then stopped abruptly as her eyes focused on something beyond the alley. Suspecting the oldest trick known to street urchins, Lilly merely tightened her grip.
After a moment it occurred to her that the expression in the noblewoman's dark eyes was not cunning but naked avarice. Lilly hazarded a glance toward whatever had captured Isabeau's interest.
A lone man approached the lamp, glancing furtively up and down the street as he went. He was a big man, heavily bearded, well but not richly dressed.
"Not a nobleman," Isabeau assessed in a low voice. "A trusted servant, running an errand. At this hour, and in this place, surely the errand lies outside the law."
Before she could think better of it, Lilly added, "He has not yet completed this errand. He is looking for someone."
Isabeau slanted a look up at her captor. "Well said. That means he will still be carrying payment."
"Most likely."
They were silent for a moment. "We could split it," Isabeau suggested.
"Aye, that we could," Lilly scoffed softly. "An easy thing it will be for the two of us to separate that large and earnest fellow from his master's money! You'll forgive me for saying this, but you're not much of a hand at fighting."
Isabeau shrugged as well as she could under the circumstances. "No matter. I can always find someone to do my fighting for me."
"Oh, and that would be me, I suppose?"
"Am I a fool to waste such talent?" retorted Isabeau. "You have good hands and quiet feet. I'll distract this pigeon, and you pluck him."
Strange words from a woman clad in silk and jewels. Lilly sat back on her heels and let out a soft, incredulous chuckle. "Who are you?" she demanded.
"Isabeau Thione, bastard daughter of the Lady Lucia Thione of Tethyr," the woman said in a haughty, self-mocking tone, naming a branch of a royal family so infamous that even Lilly had heard of them. The noblewoman grinned wickedly and added, "Until recently, known only as Sofia, tavern wench and pickpocket. I'm new in Waterdeep and looking to do well, any way I can."
A tavern wench, and a thief of noble birth! These words, this dual identity, struck a deep, poignant chord in Lilly's heart.
Weren't they much akin, the two of them? Yet Isabeau, with her jewels and silks and the open court paid her by fancy gentlemen, had achieved what she, Lilly, had experienced only in dreams. Perhaps she could learn how the woman had wrought this marvel.
Another, even more enticing possibility danced into her whirling thoughts. Was it possible that the dream spheres that both enchanted and tormented her were not an impossible dream but an augury into a possible future? There was great magic in the dream spheres- Lilly had felt this power in ways she could not understand or explain. Perhaps it was no coincidence that two misbegotten thieves had crossed paths this night.
Lilly slowly eased her grip and backed away. The two women rose to their feet and began to smooth their wrinkled skirts and wild hair. "If we're to do this, we must move fast," Lilly said.
Her fellow thief smiled so that her eyes narrowed like a hunting cat's. "Partners, then. What do I call you?"
She gave the only name to which she was legally entitled. One word, nothing more. No family or rank, history or future. It had always pained her that her name was the sort that might be casually bestowed upon a white mare or a favorite lap cat.
The noblewoman seemed of like opinion. "Lilly?" she repeated, lifting one dark brow in a supercilious arch.
Lilly was of no mind to hear her shortcomings from the lips of this woman. The sneer on Isabeau's lovely face prompted Lilly to give voice, for the first time in her life, to her deepest, most treasured secret.
She lifted her chin in an approximation of a noblewoman's hauteur and added, "That would be Lilly Thann."
One
Summer was rapidly fading into memory. In the skies over Waterdeep, the stars winking