newly patient man, he let her come to ride a cart or sit before a tavern fire with him when she wanted to. She did, sometimes.
In Ferraut town that winter for the third time, after the leap in Tregea, they had all been wonderfully fed by Ingonida, still in raptures over the bed they'd brought her. Taccio's wife continued to display a particularly solicitous affection for the Duke in his dark disguise, a detail which Alessan took some pleasure in teasing Sandre about when they were alone. In the meantime, the rotund, red-faced Taccio copiously wined them all.
There had been another mail packet waiting from Rovigo in Astibar. Which, when opened, proved to contain two letters this time, one of which gave off, even after its time in transit, an extraordinary effusion of scent.
Alessan, his eyebrows elaborately arched, presented this pale-blue emanation to Devin with infinite suggestiveness. Ingonida crowed and clasped her hands together in a gesture doubtless meant to signify romantic rapture. Taccio, beaming, poured Devin another drink.
The perfume, unmistakably, was Selvena's. Devin's expression, as he took cautious possession of the envelope, must have been revealing because he heard Catriana giggle suddenly. He was careful not to look at her.
Selvena's missive was a single headlong sentence, much like the girl herself. She did, however, make one vivid suggestion that induced him to decline when the others asked innocently if they might peruse his communication.
In fact, though, Devin was forced to admit that his interest was rather more caught by the five neat lines Alais had attached to her father's letter. In a small, businesslike hand she simply reported that she'd found and copied another variant of the "Lament for Adaon" at one of the god's temples in Astibar and that she looked forward to sharing it with all of them when they next came east. She signed it with her initial only.
In the body of the letter Rovigo reported that Astibar was very quiet since the twelve poets had been executed among the families of the conspirators in the Grand Square. That the price of grain was still going up, that he could usefully receive as much green Senzian wine as they could obtain at current prices, that Alberico was widely expected to announce, very soon, a beneficiary among his commanders for the greater part of the confiscated Nievolene lands, and that his best information was that Senzian linens were still underpriced in Astibar but might be due to rise.
It was the news about the Nievolene lands that triggered the next stage of spark-to-spark discussion between Alessan and the Duke.
And those sparks had led to the blaze.
The five of them did a fast run along the well-maintained highway north to Senzio with more of the religious artifacts. They bought green wine with their profit on the statuettes, bargained successfully for a quantity of linens, Baerd, somewhat surprisingly had emerged as their best negotiator in such matters, and doubled quickly back to Taccio, paying the huge new duties at both the provincial border forts and the city-walls.の本の作の品の由のの網の友の整の理の上の傳の
There had been another letter waiting. Among the various masking pieces of business news, Rovigo reported that an announcement on the Nievolene lands was expected by the end of the week. His source was reliable, he added. The letter had been written five days before.
That night Alessan, Baerd, and Devin had borrowed a third horse from Taccio, who was deeply happy to be told nothing on their intentions, and had set out on the long ride to the Astibar border and then across to a gully by the road that led to the Nievolene gates.
They were back seven days later with a new cart and a load of unspun country wool for Taccio to sell. Word of the fire had preceded them. Word of the fire was everywhere, Sandre reported. There had already been a number of tavern brawls in Ferraut town between men of the First and Second Companies.
They left the new cart with Taccio and departed, heading s