The Wyvern's Spur - Kate Novak [106]
"No," Olive replied at once.
"No?" Giogi asked.
"No," Olive repeated.
"But, I mean, maybe he would want to know. I would want to know."
"No, you wouldn't," Olive said, thinking of Cat and Flattery.
"Yes, I would."
"No, you wouldn't. Believe me. As for telling Samtavan Sudacar that you think your Cousin Julia is a schemer, I think you should butt out."
Giogi stared at Olive as if she'd just sprouted wings. "How did you know? What are you? Some kind of mind reader?"
Olive laughed. "No, just a student of human nature. Men never want to hear anything bad about women they think they're in love with. Period. Besides, Sudacar seems to be a good influence on her."
"You don't know, though-Steele wants to find the spur first so that he can keep it for himself, and Julia's already done something that wasn't very nice to help him."
"Does Steele have anything to hold over her?" Olive asked, already knowing the answer.
"Just his bullying," Giogi said.
"What about money?" Olive suggested. "Halfling sons and daughters inherit equally in their parents property, but you Cormyrian nobles have this barbarous practice of cheating your daughters out of their inheritance by marrying them off with a pittance of a dowry."
"Julia's father left her a very large dowry," Giogi objected.
"And she can just hand this dowry over to any husband she chooses?" Olive asked.
"Well, no. As her older brother, Steele would have to approve-" Giogi broke off, finally getting the gist of Olive's argument. "And Steele doesn't care for Sudacar," he recalled aloud. "But Sudacar wouldn't care if Julia had a dowry or not," Giogi insisted. "He's not that kind of man."
"So certain of that, are you?" Olive said, finding it hard to believe that any man would be just as happy with a poor wife as a rich one. Humans had such romantic notions. "That's not the point, though, Master Giogioni," Olive explained. "It would matter to Julia. She'd be too proud to go into a marriage penniless. Most women would be."
"That shouldn't matter if she's really in love," Giogi said.
"Ever been penniless, Master Giogioni? " Olive asked.
"Um, well, no," Giogi admitted.
"Now, some women, myself for instance, know that their worth has nothing to do with money. I don't suspect anyone has ever told that to your Cousin Julia, though. Certainly not her brother."
Giogi considered Olive's words silently for a few minutes. Finally, he said, "You must be awfully wise, Mistress Ruskettle."
"Just experienced," Olive replied.
If only I'd been turned into an ass earlier and had witnessed the theft of the spur, the halfling thought, he'd be proclaiming me Cormyr's greatest sage.
Giogi passed his townhouse and continued west out of town.
"Isn't the town graveyard out this way?" Olive asked.
"Yes, but we turn off before then. The temple road is that one on our left, just up ahead."
Olive's eyes followed the temple road's progress south through fields of winter wheat, to the base of a high tree-ringed hill, where it began its ascent, winding to the west. Olive squinted in the sunshine at the cleared hilltop. She could just make out a blob of white that might be the temple. One lone cloud, an ominous shade of gray, hung in the sky to the east of the hill's peak-a blot on an otherwise perfect picture.
Giogi turned the carriage off the cobbled main road and onto the muddy temple road. The wheels sank a few inches into the mire, but not so deep that the horses were unable to cope. Once they entered the woods and reached the hill's slope, the going got even slower. The forest around them grew dark. Olive craned her neck to look up at the sky. The lone cloud she'd noticed before was now overhead, visible through the barely budding branches.
A large black bird swooped down from the cloud and disappeared behind the tree line, on their uphill side. Toward the temple.
"What was that?" Olive asked.
"What was what?" Giogi asked.
"There," Olive said, pointing up to the cloud as a second dark shape