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He noted the dark violet carpet and its wheat-colored fringe looked freshly brushed. The gilded chairs were angled to show off the tawny leather seats and backs as they posed beside elegant tables set with lush sprays of fresh flowers. The plush throws and pillows on the couches were set just so, the deliberate precision meant to convey a casual intimacy with luxury.
Dalton expected his wife to oversee the staff and insure that the quarters were kept presentable for business as well as entertaining, which were, although approached differently, one and the same. Teresa would know that with a feast that night, it was even more likely he would ask someone back to their apartments—someone important. That could be anyone from a dignitary to an inconspicuous pair of eyes and ears.
They were all important, in their own way, all meshing into the cobweb he worked, listening, watching, for any tiny little tug. Crowded feasts were concentrated confusion, alive with drinking, conversation, commotion, and emotion. They often provided opportunities to forge alliances, reinforce loyalties, or enforce fealties—to tend his cobweb.
Teresa stuck her head past the doorframe, grinning her joy upon seeing him. “There’s my sweetheart.”
Despite the weary mood enveloping him as he had closed the door behind, shutting out the day’s troubles if only for the moment, he smiled helplessly at her dark, sparkling eyes.
“Tess, my darling. Your hair looks grand.”
A gold comb decorated the front lift of the full top. The wealth of dangling dark tresses were tied with an abundance of sequined gold ribbons that added to her hair’s length, almost forming a collar. Parting as she leaned forward, the sparkling strips teasingly revealed her graceful neck.
In her mid-twenties, she was younger than he by nearly ten years. Dalton thought her a ravishing creature beyond compare—a bonus to her allure of trenchant commitment to objectives. He could scarcely believe that a short six months ago she had finally and at long last become his wife. Others had been in contention, some of greater standing, but none with more ambition.
Dalton Campbell was not a man to be denied. Anyone who took him lightly came to a day of reckoning, when they learned better than to underestimate him, or came to regret the mistake.
Nearly a year ago, when he had asked her to be his wife, she had quizzed him, asking, in that velvet bantering manner of hers that often cloaked the steel of her aims, if he was really a man who intending on going places, as she certainly meant to rise up in the world. At the time, he had been an assistant to the magistrate in Fairfield, not an unimportant job, but only a convenient port as far as he was concerned, a place to gather his resources and cultivate connections.
He had not played into her chaffing questions, but instead assured her in all sobriety that he was a man on the way up, and no other man she was seeing, despite his present station, had any chance of approaching Dalton Campbell’s future stature. She had been taken aback by his solemn declaration. It wiped the smile off her face. On the spot, in the spell of his conviction, the truth of his purpose, she consented to marry him.
She had been pleased to learn the reliability of his predictions. As plans proceeded for their wedding, he was awarded a better appointment. In their first few months of marriage, they had moved three times, always to improved quarters, and as a result of advanced positions.
The public who had cause to know of him, either because of his reputation or because of their dealings with Anderith government, valued his keen understanding of Anderith law. Dalton Campbell was widely recognized for his brilliant insight into the complexities of the law, the fortress bedrock it was built upon, the intricate structure of its wisdom and precedent, and the scope of its protective walls.
The men for whom Dalton worked appreciated his vast understanding of the law, but valued most his knowledge of the law’s arcane passages, burrows, and obscure openings out of dark traps and corners. They also valued his ability to swiftly abandon the law when the situation required a different solution, one the law couldn’t provide. In such cases, he was just as inventive, and just as effective.
In no more time than a snap of the fingers, it seemed, Teresa easily adjusted to the meliorated circumstances in which she regularly found herself, taking up the novel task of directing household staff with the aplomb of one who had been doing it for the whole of her life.
Only weeks before, he had won the top post at the Minister’s estate. Teresa had been jubilant to learn they would be taking on luxurious quarters in such a prestigious place. She now found herself a woman of standing among women of rank and privilege.
She might have been overjoyed, nearly tearing off his clothes to have him on the spot when he told her the news, but the truth be known, she had expected no less.
If there was one person who shared his ruthless ambition, it was Teresa.
“Oh, Dalton, will you tell me what dignitaries will be at the feast? I can’t stand the suspense a moment longer.”
He yawned again as he stretched. He knew she had her own cobwebs to tend.
“Boring dignitaries.”
“But the Minister will be there.”
“Yes.”
“Well, silly, he’s not boring. And I’ve gotten to know some of the women, the wives, of the estate. They’re all grand people. Good as I could have hoped. Their husbands are all important.”
She touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip in a sly, teasing gesture. “Just not as important as my husband.”
“Tess, my darling,” he said with a smile, “you could inspire a dead man to become important for you.”
She winked and then disappeared. “There were several messages slipped under the door for you,” she called back from the other room. “They’re in the desk.”
The elegant desk in the corner glowed like a dark gem. Made of polished elm burl, each panel of quartered, book-matched veneer was outlined with diamond-patterned banding of alternating plain and dyed maple. Each dark diamond was inset with a dot of gold. The legs were varnished to a deep luster, rather than gilded, as were the legs of most of the other furniture in the room.
In the secret compartment behind an upper drawer, there were several sealed messages. He broke the seals and scanned each message, assessing its importance. Some were of interest, but none were urgent. They mostly meant to pass along information—little vibrations from every corner of his cobweb.
One reported an odd and apparently accidental drowning in a public fountain. It had happened in early afternoon as crowds regularly passed the landmark in the Square of the Martyrs. Even though it had been daylight and in full view of everyone, no one noticed until it was too late. Having seen similar messages of unexplained deaths of late, Dalton knew the unspoken implication of the message was a admonition, that it might have been some sort of a vendetta involving magic, but made to look like an unfortunate accident.
One mentioned only a “perturbed lady,” reporting that she was restless and that she had written a missive to a Director, asking for a moment of his time in private at the feast, and asking him to keep her letter confidential. Dalton knew the woman to whom the message referred, and, because of that, he knew also it would be Director Linscott to whom she had written—the person writing the message for him knew better than to write down names.
He suspected the reason for the restless part. It was the desire for the private meeting that concerned him. The message said the woman’s letter was somehow lost, and never delivered.
Dalton slipped the messages back into the compartment for later review and replaced the drawer. He was going to have to do something about the woman. What, he didn’t yet know.
Overreacting could sometimes cause as much trouble as doing nothing. It might be he need only give the woman an ear, let her vent her pique, as perhaps she meant to do with Director Linscott. Dalton could just as easily hear her grievance. Someone, somewhere in his intricate cobweb of contacts, would give him the bit of information he needed to make the right decision, and if not, talking t
o the woman in a reassuring manner might smooth things enough to give him the direction he needed.
Dalton had only had his new post a short time, but he’d wasted none of it in establishing himself in nearly every aspect of life at the estate. He became a useful colleague to many, a confidant to others, and shield to a few. Each method, in its own way, earned him loyalty. Along with the gifted people he knew, his ever-growing cobweb of connections virtually hummed like a harp.
From the first day, though, Dalton’s primary objective had been to make himself indispensable to the Minister. During his second week on the job, a “researcher” had been sent out to the estate libraries by one of the Directors from the Office of Cultural Amity. Minister Chanboor had not been pleased. The truth be known, he had flown into a resentful rage, not an uncommon response from Bertrand Chanboor when presented with worrisome, even ominous, news.
Two days after the researcher arrived, Dalton was able to inform Minister Chanboor that the man had ended up getting himself arrested, drunk and in the bed of a harlot back in Fairfield. None of that was a crime of any consequence, of course, even though it would have looked bad enough to some of the Directors, but the man was found to have had an extremely rare and valuable book in the pocket of his coat.
An extremely rare and valuable book written by none other than Joseph Ander himself. The ancient text, valuable beyond price, had been reported missing from the Minister of Culture’s estate right after the researcher went off drinking.
