The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [18]
Kneeling in front of him, she looked along its keen length and whispered, "The same way I dare trust you."
"Claws of the Dark One!" Hawkril swore disbelievingly.
Craer snatched an excited, almost desperate look at his friend and then stared down into the dark eyes so close to his, his dagger trembling in his hand. He could feel the warmth of her breath, and the flesh of her throat against his blade. Her face was calm as she lifted that beautiful chin to let him better see the throat his point was pricking.
Glancing down at his war steel and then slowly up into dark eyes that held pleading and hope, but no fear, the procurer swallowed and said tightly, "Lady, it seems we have agreement."
The Lady of Jewels closed her eyes and let out a deep breath, freeing Craer from her gaze as if she'd snapped away shackles. Against the point of his blade, the procurer could feel her start to tremble, almost shivering. "Then," she said unsteadily, "take away your blade and let me rise."
Craer did so with speed and care. Hawkril dared to offer her his hand; with the first trace of a real smile she took it, saying crisply, "Leave my gowns lie. Yonder lies one of the laundry sacks; empty it and bring it into the next room. Procurer, have you any blades you can spare?"
"All of them, Lady, if the price is my life," Craer told her rather grimly. As they strode into the next room together, his hands were busy at wrist and thigh and collar. They held six fangs ready when she stopped, swept a hand across an opening to part another sighing spell, as if it were a cobweb, and said, "Hawkril-fill your sack from that little chest at the back. Touch nothing else, if you'd live longer."
She turned, pointed at a sideboard and at a wardrobe, and asked, "Craer, do you think the two of you can move those to stand under the two hanging lamps-and climb them, when I bid you?"
The procurer nodded. Shifting the wardrobe might take all their strength, but if they were otherwise to die…
"My hands must take no part in this, or all will fail," Embra Silvertree explained. "Fetch those two bowls. Put one on the floor, here…" She touched the smooth marble pave with one bare foot, and then pointed again. Her hand, Craer saw, trembled with excitement. "… and set the other down here."
The procurer put his daggers down on the floor in a glittering heap and hastened to obey. As he bent to position the second bowl, he heard her hiss, "Hawkril, not done yet? Just dump the chest into the sack-we've no time for marveling and peering!"
Craer looked up. Hawkril's face was pale with wonder. The sack in his hand bulged, and his other hand rather unsteadily held out a glistening mountain of gems-bezrim, amblaers, starglisters, and peldoons enough to buy many a barony, more than either of them had ever seen before. The procurer nodded hastily, and Hawkril shook himself, as if coming awake, and spilled the glassy rain of great fortune into the sack. "That was the last," the armaragor said, awe plain in his voice. "I'm done."
"Then drop the sack and help shift the wardrobe," the sorceress said impatiently. "We don't want to see the six guards who put it there in here now, do we?"
Hawkril hastened. The wardrobe was heavy-by the Three, it was heavy!-but by hurling their shoulders against it in unison and running as if charging a ram through a door, the procurer and the armaragor managed to scrape it across the floor to stand under one of the lamps. Craer frowned at it, swung its doors wide, pulled an interior drawer out enough to serve as a foothold, and nodded in satisfaction. "And now?"
"Get another sack," Embra told him, and followed her words with a sudden grin, like a child delighting in a prank going well. "And water-there's a spigot behind that third door down, and a bucket-enough to fill that bowl."
Craer and Hawkril hastened. In short order the sack held a dozen fat and impressive-looking books from a bed-foot chest, covered over with high boots, breeches, and a dark tunic the Lady Silvertree had pointed out, and the bowl was full.