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“As to what you can do, you can go and fetch your wife home! As to why you should do it, for the sake of your family name. For your marriage. For the sake of getting an heir for your line. And to put an end to the gossip about all of it.”

“Gossip?” Hest lifted one sculpted eyebrow. “Is there gossip? I’ve heard nothing in my circles. My friends regard Alise’s abandonment of me as old news. Sad and dreary but totally unworthy of gossip. All the excitement was over months ago. By the time I returned from my trading trip to Jamaillia, well, the situation had settled. She was gone. I did my best with the woman, but she ran off. With my secretary. There was a bit of drama when it was presumed they’d been drowned in that flood, but now that we’ve heard that they are alive and fine, well, what more is there to say? She has left me, and quite frankly, her absence is a relief. I’m glad to let her go.”Advertisement

Hest corrected the fall of lace from one of his cuffs. The shirt was a new one, in the latest style from Jamaillia City. He enjoyed how the lace held its shape in a half cup around his elegant hands even as he was privately annoyed with its scratchiness. Sometimes there was a price to pay for appearances. Rather like the price he’d had to pay to hire the ruffian who assured him he could track down and do away with the Chalcedean. The fellow he’d hired had an impeccable reputation for foul play. It had been rather exciting to meet him clandestinely in a filthy waterfront tavern. Garrod was a man a few years old than Hest, with ears so studded with tiny glittering earrings that they reminded him of abalone shells. “One for each man finished,” he’d told Hest.

“And soon you’ll add another,” Hest had replied, sliding the packet of money across the table. Garrod had nodded, his teeth white, his eyes confident. The perfect man for the job. At another time, Hest might have found him attractive in quite a different way. He smiled at the memory as he lifted his eyes to his father’s furious gaze.

Trader Finbok leaned forward and set his glass down on the table at his elbow. “Are you truly that stupid?” he demanded in disgust. “Just ‘let her go’? Walk away from the biggest opportunity that fate has ever tumbled into your lap?” He rose with a grunt to pace the room.

It was a large room with good light in the winter. Hest looked forward to calling it his own one day. Of course, when he inherited it, he’d brighten it with color and style. The curtains were the same unimaginative brown ones that had hung at the windows for the last decade. Good quality to have lasted so long, of course, but there was a great deal to be said for keeping up with the times, if one were to appear truly prosperous. And among the Bingtown Traders, to appear prosperous, even in difficult times, was the key to being prosperous. No one wanted to trade with a man who was down on his luck. If you bought from him, you probably got the shoddy goods that were all he could afford. And Sa forbid that you try to sell to such a man; he would do nothing but whine about the cost rather than trying to negotiate honestly and sharply. Yes, new draperies were the first thing that he’d do when this room was his.

“Are you even listening?” his father barked and then went off in a coughing fit.

“I beg your pardon, Father. The garden view distracted me. But I’m attending now. You were saying?”

“I will not repeat myself,” his father replied haughtily and then immediately broke his word. “If you cannot see what you are throwing away, my words will not sway you. But perhaps my actions will. So let us be plain, son and heir. If you wish to retain both those titles, go to the Rain Wilds, find your wife, discover what made her unhappy with you, and change it. Do it with as little public noise as possible. If you act quickly, if you can bring her home a satisfied woman, perhaps it is not too late for the family to claim our rightful share of whatever it is they’ve found.”

“What?” Despite himself, Hest felt a sudden shock of both astonishment and interest.

His father gave an exasperated sigh. “Your reputation as a shrewd trader is vastly exaggerated. I’ve known that for years. But can you truly have overlooked the fact that, with or without your consent, Alise signed on as a member of the Tarman expedition? That expedition has, according to rumor, discovered riches beyond imagining far up the Rain Wild River. Not just Elderling habitations and whatever artifacts and treasure they contain, but vast tracts of arable land. So the rumors fly. All know the liveship Tarman and Captain Leftrin returned briefly to Cassarick. What I have heard is that he quarreled with the Council and refused to give up his charts of the river. He accused them of putting a spy on his ship, and even insinuated that some of them were in league with Chalcedeans who were more interested in slaughtering the dragons than keeping our bargain with Tintaglia.”

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