The Wyvern's Spur - Kate Novak [65]
"That's only natural," Sudacar said, giving the younger man a comforting pat on the shoulder, "So, tell me," the local lord said more boisterously, "what brings you here, boy?"
"I'm sorry to bother you, Sudacar," Giogi said, "but, well, things have gotten rather confusing about the spur. I realize Aunt Dorath was a little huffy with Culspiir yesterday, not wanting to tell him about the theft, but the truth is, I could use your advice. I thought maybe there might be something you could tell me about the spur."
"Well, whatever advice I have is yours, Giogi, but I'm afraid I've never seen the spur. I've seen others, still on the wyvern, as it were, but not the one you're looking for."
"I thought you might know something about it. You knew it was stolen before I-uh, before it got around town."
Sudacar grinned. "Well, I don't like to brag, but not all women are as immune to my charms as your aunt," he said, giving Giogi the same wink that he had the evening before, when he'd admitted to having his own source of information. Giogi wondered idly if the woman in question was a parlor maid or a lady's maid.
"But, you know some tales about my father," the nobleman said. "Did you know he used the spur when he went adventuring? That the spur has some magical powers?"
"Does it, now? Well, well." Sudacar stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. "I didn't know that, but it might explain some things I've heard."
"Like what?"
Sudacar abruptly stood. "Tell you what. Why don't we take a little walk while we talk about it?" He led Giogi toward the door. On the way, the Lord of Immersea pulled a casting pole out of a rack on the wall.
"What's this for?" Giogi asked.
"We'll need it to defend ourselves, in case we run into any fish," Sudacar explained.
"Oh," Giogi replied as Sudacar held open the hall door for him.
Sudacar hoped to hurtle past Culspiir's station before his herald could find another excuse to keep him confined, but Giogi stopped at the door, his finger to his forehead,, trying to dredge something from the back of his mind.
At last it came to him. "Ah, yes," the nobleman said. "You know my purse that was stolen?"
"Oh, that," Sudacar said. "Any word on it, Culspiir?" he demanded of his subordinate.
"It still hasn't turned up, Master Giogioni," the herald said as he regarded Sudacar-and his casting rod-with suspicion.
"Well, it won't," Giogi said, "because it wasn't stolen. I'd dropped it right outside home. Found it later," he explained. "Hope I didn't cause a fuss."
Sudacar grunted. "Remind me to let you pick up the tab next time," he said with a grin. "Culspiir, I'll be out for the rest of the day in consultation with Master Giogioni."
"Of course," Culspiir said, his eyes not leaving the fishing tackle as the two men hurried through his office and out the door.
On the front steps of the manor, they bundled up their cloaks and pulled up their hoods against the rain, which was still icy but far less violent than it had been at noon. They left the castle walls.
As they trudged down toward the Immer Stream, Sudacar explained, "I never actually had the honor of adventuring with your father. To tell the truth, when I met him at court he was already a legend and I was just an apprentice sell-sword. By that time, Cole had single-handedly vanquished the hydra of Wheloon- walked into the beastie's lair unarmed and walked out alive an hour later. He was all cut up and bleeding, but, as the saying goes, you should have seen the other guy. His Majesty's troops went into the lair afterward and found the monster everywhere-diced into pieces."
Behind the privacy of his hood, Giogi tried without success to picture the quiet, gentle man he remembered from his childhood killing anything, even something as fierce as a hydra. His imagination remained as gray as the soft sleet falling around him.
Sudacar began regaling Giogi with a tale of how Cole had let himself be kidnapped by pirates. By the time the local lord had reached the part where Cole sailed the pirate ship into Suzail's harbor with all the sea thieves