Soul of the Fire (Sword of Truth 5)

Dalton lifted his pewter cup to his lips and took a sip of the finest Nareef Valley wine as he watched. At night, with all the candles and lamps lit, the place had a glow about it. It had taken discipline, when he first arrived, not to gape as did these people come out from the city.

He watched Claudine Winthrop move among the well-dressed guests, clasping a hand here, touching an elbow there, greeting people, smiling woodenly, answering questions with words Dalton couldn’t hear. As distressed as he knew she had to be, she had the resourcefulness to conduct herself with propriety. The wife of a wealthy businessman who had been elected burgess by merchants and grain dealers to represent them, she was not an unimportant member of the household in her own right. When at first people saw that her husband was old enough to be her grandfather, they usually expected she was no more than his entertainment; they were wrong.

Her husband, Edwin Winthrop, had started out as a farmer, raising sorgo—sweet sorghum grown widely in southern Anderith. Every penny he earned through the sale of the sorghum molasses he pressed was spent frugally and wisely. He went without, putting in abeyance everything from proper shelter an

d clothes, to the simple comforts of life, to a wife and family.

What money he saved eventually purchased livestock he foraged on sorghum left from pressing his molasses. Sale of fattened livestock bought more feeder stock, and equipment for stills so he could produce rum himself, rather than sell his molasses to distilleries. Profits from the rum he distilled from his molasses earned him enough to rent more farmland and purchase cattle, equipment and buildings for producing more rum, and eventually warehouses and wagons for transporting the goods he produced. Rum distilled by the Winthrop farms was sold from Renwold to Nicobarese, from just down the road in Fairfield all the way to Aydindril. By doing everything himself—or, more accurately, having his own hired workers do everything—from growing sorgo to pressing it to distilling it to delivering the rum, to raising cattle on the fodder of his leftover stocks of pressed sorghum to slaughtering the cattle and delivering the carcasses to butchers, Edwin Winthrop kept his costs low and made for himself a fortune.

Edwin Winthrop was a frugal man, honest, and well liked. Only after he was successful had he taken a wife. Claudine, the well-educated daughter of a grain dealer, had been in her mid-teens when she wed Edwin, well over a decade before.

Talented at overseeing her husband’s accounts and records, Claudine watched every penny as carefully as would her husband. She was his valuable right hand—much as Dalton served the Minister. With her help, his personal empire had doubled. Even in marriage, Edwin had chosen carefully and wisely. A man who never seemed to seek personal pleasure perhaps had at last allowed himself this much; Claudine was as attractive as she was diligent.

After Edwin’s fellow merchants had elected him burgess, Claudine became useful to him in legal matters, helping, behind the scenes, to write the trade laws he proposed. Dalton suspected she had a great deal to do with proposing them to her husband in the first place. When he was not available, Claudine discreetly argued those proposed laws on on his behalf. No one in the household thought of her as “entertainment.”

Except, perhaps, Bertrand Chanboor. But then, he viewed all women in that light. The attractive ones, anyway.

Dalton had in the past seen Claudine blushing, batting her eyelashes, and flashing Bertrand Chanboor her shy smile. The Minister believed demure women coquettish. Perhaps she innocently flirted with an important man, or perhaps she had wanted attention her husband couldn’t provide; she hadn’t, after all, any children. Perhaps she had cunningly thought to gain some favor from the Minister, and afterward discovered it wasn’t to be forthcoming.

Claudine Winthrop was nobody’s fool; she was intelligent and resourceful. How it had started—Dalton was not sure, Bertrand Chanboor denied touching her as he denied everything out of hand—had become irrelevant. With her seeking secret meetings with Director Linscott, matters had moved past polite negotiation of favors. Brute force was the only safe way to control her now.

Dalton gestured with his cup of wine toward Claudine. “Looks like you were wrong, Tess. Not everyone is going along with the fashion of wearing suggestive dresses. Or maybe Claudine is modest.”

“No, it must be something else.” Teresa looked truly puzzled. “Sweetheart, I don’t think she was wearing that dress earlier. But why would she now be wearing something different? And an old dress it is.”

Dalton shrugged. “Let’s go find out, shall we? You do the asking. I don’t think it would be right coming from me.”

Teresa looked askance at him. She knew him well enough to know by his subtle reply that a scheme was afoot. She also knew enough to take his lead and play the part he had just assigned her. She smiled and hooked a hand over his offered arm. Claudine was not the only intelligent and resourceful woman in the household.

Claudine flinched when Teresa touched the back of her shoulder. She twitched a smile as she glanced up briefly.

“Good evening, Teresa.” She dropped a half-curtsy to Dalton. “Mr. Campbell.”

Teresa, concern creasing her brow, leaned toward the woman. “Claudine, what’s wrong? You don’t look well. And your dress, why, I don’t recall you coming in wearing this.”

Claudine pulled at a lock of hair over her ear. “I’m fine. I… was just nervous about all the guests. Sometimes crowds get my stomach worked up. I went for a walk to get some air. In the dark, I guess I put my foot in a hole, or something. I fell.”

“Dear spirits. Would you like to sit?” Dalton asked as he took the woman’s elbow, as if to hold her up. “Here, let me help you to a chair.”

She dug in her heels. “No. I’m fine. But thank you. I soiled my dress, and had to go change, that’s all. That’s why it’s not the same one. But I’m fine.”

She glanced at his sword as he pulled back. He had seen her looking at a lot of swords since she returned to the gathering hall.…

“You look as if something is—”

“No,” she insisted. “I hit my head, that’s why I look so shaken. I’m fine. Really. It simply shook my confidence.”

“I understand,” Dalton said sympathetically. “Things like that make one realize how short life can be. Make you realize how”—he snapped his fingers—“you could go at any time.”

Her lip trembled. She had to swallow before she could speak. “Yes. I see what you mean. But I feel much better, now. My balance is back.”

“Is it now? I’m not so sure.”

Teresa pushed at him. “Dalton, can’t you see the poor woman is shaken?” She gave him another push. “Go on and talk your business while I see to poor Claudine.”

Dalton bowed and moved off to allow Teresa some privacy to find out what she would. He was pleased with the two Haken boys. It looked as if they had put the fear of the Keeper into her. By the unsteady way she walked, they had obviously delivered the message in the way he had wanted it delivered. Violence always helped people understand instructions.

He was gratified to know he had judged Fitch correctly. The way the boy stared at Dalton’s sword, he knew. Claudine’s eyes reflected fear when she looked at his sword; Fitch’s eyes held lust. The boy had ambition. Morley was useful, too, but mostly as muscle. His head, too, was not much more than muscle. Fitch understood instructions better and, as eager as he was, would be of more use. At that age they had no clue how much they didn’t know.

Dalton shook hands with a man who rushed up to pay him a compliment about his new position. He presented a civil face, but didn’t remember the man’s name, or really hear the effusive praise; Dalton’s attention was elsewhere.

Director Linscott was just finishing speaking with a stocky man about taxes on the wheat stored in the man’s warehouses. No trifling matter, considering the vast stores of grain Anderith held. Dalton politely, distantly, extracted himself from the nameless man and sidled closer to Linscott.

When the Director turned, Dalton smiled warmly at him and clasped his hand before he had a chance to withdraw it. He had a powerful grip. His hands still bore the calluses of his life’s work.

“I am so glad you could make it to the feast, Director Linscott. I pray you are enjoying the evening, so far. We yet have much the Minister would like to discuss.”

Director Linscott, a tall wiry fellow with a sun-rumpled face invariably looking as if he were plagued by an everlasting toothache, didn’t return the smile. The four oldest Directors were guild masters. One was from the important clothmaking guild, one from the associated papermaking guild, another a master armorer, and Linscott. Linscott was a master mason. Most of the remaining Directors were respected moneylenders or merchants, along with a solicitor and several barristers.

Director Linscott’s surcoat was an outdated cut, but finely kept nonetheless, and the warm brown went well with the the man’s thin gray hair. His sword, too, was old, but the leather scabbard’s exquisite brassware at the throat and tip was in gleaming condition. The silver emblem—the mason’s dividers—stood out in bright silhouette against the dark leather. The sword’s blade, undoubtedly, would be just as well maintained as e

verything else about the man.

Linscott didn’t deliberately try to intimidate people, it just seemed to come naturally to him, the way a surly disposition came naturally to a mother brown bear with cubs. Linscott considered the Anderith people, those working fields, or hauling nets, or at employment in a trade through a guildhall, his cubs.

“Yes,” Linscott said, “I hear rumors the Minister has grand plans. I hear he has thoughts of disregarding the strong advice of the Mother Confessor, and breaking with the Midlands.”

Dalton spread his hands. “I’m sure I don’t speak out of turn when I tell you from my knowledge of the situation that Minister Chanboor intends to seek the best terms for our people. Nothing more, nothing less.

“You, for instance. What if we were to surrender to the new Lord Rahl and join the D’Haran Empire? This Lord Rahl has decreed all lands must surrender their sovereignty—unlike our alliance with the Midlands. That would mean, I suppose, he would no longer have need for Directors of Cultural Amity.”

Linscott’s tanned face turned ruddy with heat. “This isn’t about me, Campbell. It’s about the freedom of the people of the Midlands. About their future. About not being swallowed up and having our land brutalized by a rampaging Imperial Order army bent on the conquest of the Midlands.

“The Anderith ambassador has relayed Lord Rahl’s word that while all lands must surrender to him and be brought under one rule and one command, each land will be allowed to retain its culture, so long as we do not break laws common to all. He has promised that if we accept his entreaty while the invitation is still open to all, we will be party to creating those common laws. The Mother Confessor has put her word to his.”

Dalton respectfully bowed his head to the man. “You misunderstand Minister Chanboor’s position, I’m afraid. He will propose to the Sovereign we go with the Mother Confessor’s advice, if he sincerely believes it to be in the best interest of our people. Our very culture is at stake, after all. He has no wish to choose sides prematurely. The Imperial Order may offer our best prospects for peace. The Minister wants only peace.”