"Nice carriage," I say, eventually. #51 | | |
She looks irritated. "You have no manners, have you?" #52 | | |
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I raise an eyebrow. "Have we met?" #55 | | |
"You mean before you mistook me for a serving wench in Orosis?" #56 | | |
Baroness Demelzos looks more irritated. I'm starting to wonder if she just got me here so she could have someone to be irritated at. #57 | | |
"Why were you so appallingly rude? And drunk?" #58 | | |
"I'd just come off an eight-day stint in a boat with no sails. Before that I'd been chased out my city by Orcs. I felt I deserved a beer or two." #59 | | |
"You always did drink too much. Even as a young man you had a problem." Baroness Demelzos leans over slightly and fixes me with an unfriendly stare. "I never expected you to treasure my memory, Thraxas, but I didn't think you'd completely forget me." #60 | | |
I look at her blankly. "Who are you?" #61 | | |
"I'm Demmy, the barmaid you had an affair with after you won the tournament." She sits back heavily. "I expect you forgot about me within a week." #62 | | |
This is all quite a shock. I did have a brief liaison with a barmaid while I was in Samsarina. That was more than twenty years ago. "You're Demmy? Well dammit, how was I meant to recognise you?" #63 | | |
"I haven't changed that much," said Demelzos. She eyes my waistline. "Unlike you." #64 | | |
"But you were a barmaid. I wasn't expecting you to become a Baroness. How did that happen?" #65 | | |
"My father left his job in the mine and went up north to prospect for queenstone. He made the richest strike anyone ever saw. Two years after you left Samsarina I was the wealthiest young woman in the country. Soon after that I was a member of aristocracy. The Barons are an exclusive class, but a young woman with enough money is tempting for anyone." #66 | | |
The Baroness is wearing a queenstone necklace, and even inside the carriage, with the curtains drawn, the blue stones sparkle. It's a very precious material, only found in Samsarina as far as I know. #67 | | |
"So what's it like being married to Baron Mabados?" #68 | | |
"Better than being a barmaid. How did life treat you?" #69 | | |
"Twenty years soldiering, then I ended up living in a tavern in the bad part of town." #70 | | |
Demelzos was an attractive barmaid, as I recall, and she hasn't lost much in the way of looks. Her long brown hair hangs freely over her shoulders, in the style of the local noblewomen, with two slender braids looping round to meet at the nape of her neck where they're joined by a silver clasp. Though the weather is becoming milder, she hasn't abandoned her fur cape, which is luxurious, even by the normal standards of fur capes. Her shoes, while neither as extravagant nor as high-heeled as those worn by the fashionable women of Turai, are stitched with gold thread. I'd say she hasn't done too badly for herself. #71 | | |
"I'm guessing you'd didn't ask me here to discuss old times," I say. #72 | | |
"I didn't. Though if I did, I'd have something to say about the way you left without saying goodbye." #73 | | |
"I had to get back to my regiment. I was absent without leave." #74 | | |
"You could have said goodbye." #75 | | |
"Sorry. As a young man, I may have been lacking in manners." #76 | | |
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I'm feeling discomfited by the encounter. It's hard to know the right tone to take with a Baroness you knew as a barmaid. #79 | | |
"I'm told you call yourself an investigator," she says. "What do you do exactly?" #80 | | |
"I find out things for people." #81 | | |
"What sort of people?" #82 | | |
"All sorts. Poor people who can't afford a good lawyer. Rich people who don't want a good lawyer knowing the sort of trouble they're in. People who've got on the wrong side of someone powerful." I pause, waiting for her to speak. She remains silent. "Do you fall into one of these categories?" #83 | | |
"How do you find things out? Sorcery?" #84 | | |
"I don't know enough sorcery to tell what day it is." #85 | | |
"Didn't you go to the Sorcerer's college? I remember you used to talk about it." #86 | | |
"It never worked out." #87 | | |
"So how do you find things out?" #88 | | |
"Mostly by trudging around asking questions that other people can't be bothered to ask. It would save time if you told me what the problem is." #89 | | |
Demelzos muses for a while longer. It's a comfortable carriage. I don't mind waiting. It gives me some time to digest the fact that the young barmaid I had a brief affair with went on to become a Baroness. Maybe I should have stuck around till she became rich. #90 | | |
"My daughter thinks someone is trying to kill her," she says, eventually. #91 | | |
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"I don't think so. Why would anyone try to kill a Baron's daughter?" #93 | | |
"Baron have enemies, I suppose." #94 | | |
"Probably," agrees the Baroness. "But I can't see any reason they'd trouble my daughter Merlione. But ever since the accident she's been scared." #95 | | |
I lean forward. "Accident?" #96 | | |
"Her friend Alceten was killed by a runaway carriage. Merlione saw it happen. She'd gone to meet her at the Royal Record House. Alceten's father was the Record Keeper. She came out the building, waved to my daughter, and then she was struck down by a carriage. It was a terrible accident. Alceten's family is distraught. But that's all it was, an accident." #97 | | |
"Merlione doesn't think so?" #98 | | |
Baroness Demelzos shakes her head. "She's convinced it was deliberate. Worse, she thinks she's next." #99 | | |
"Were there any other witnesses?" #100 | | |
