A Hazardous Engagement by Gaie Sebold

Author:Gaie Sebold [Sebold, Gaie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912950232
Publisher: NewCon Press
Published: 2019-06-18T22:00:00+00:00

Arden left the inn, smiling to himself. He walked through the lamplit, cooling streets, occasionally pausing to comment on a shapely figure or swipe a piece of fruit from a market stall. Eventually he reached a small boarding house, so tucked away that it might have been chosen for its obscurity. It smelled of cheap stew and damp.

He was let in by a colourless fellow who, once he gathered that Arden had no intention of taking a room for the night, appeared to lose all interest in anything but returning to the meagre fire in the front room and the steaming brew beside it.

The woman who was waiting for Arden in the cold, under-furnished upstairs room was slight and pale, her gown of good cut but plain cloth. She had discreet glints of gold in her ears and on her fingers, and a hint of the North in an otherwise courtly accent.

He gave her one of his most charming smiles, which, yet again, she utterly failed to return.

“Well?”

Arden bowed. “All is going as planned. I have enlisted some assistance, but you can be assured that I will myself supervise everything.”

“You understand, the belt must be removed without any harm coming to the wearer. That would damage the magic and render it useless to me. And you will not be paid.”

“Indeed, you have been most clear on that point. Several times, in fact.”

“Good.”

“Now, I don’t wish to seem ungentlemanly,” Arden seated himself in one of the rickety chairs, stretching out his legs and admiring the gloss of his boots, “but I require some assurance of goodwill before we proceed further.”

“I assume you mean money.”

“If you must put it so crudely.”

“You are a thief,” she said. “How else should I put it?”

Arden’s head came up, and he shot a glare of dislike at the woman. Her pale eyes met his expressionlessly. Remembering that she was, if not herself gifted with powerful magic, certainly working for someone who was, he reined in his temper.

“You will be paid when I have the belt, and not before,” she said. “There are other thieves.”

“The best of them are already working for me,” he said. “And as there are other thieves, so there are undoubtedly other buyers.”

Those pale eyes met his again. “By all means,” she said, “you may attempt to find one, in the time that remains before the wedding, who understands the true value of the belt.”

Arden felt a squirm of unease. The woman was remarkably self-confident, which furthered his belief that she herself was the possessor of magical ability. And the belt she described to him – heavy, ugly, inscribed with crude symbols – would fetch nothing like the amount she was offering on the open market, but was unusual enough to be extremely easy to trace. A fast, guaranteed sale was by far the better risk.

Arden had no problem with risk – especially when it was taken by others – but he liked to have something to show for it, and to be in a state to enjoy that something.

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