The Brazen Gambit by Lynn Abbey Read Free Book Online Page A

lions in the other. All eyes were on the balance beam, which swung a few times before the pans settled as
close to level as mortal eye could determine.
    Rokka smiled and nodded. Pavek simply smiled. With practiced efficiency he knotted the pouch thong and
immersed it in a crucible of molten wax. He sealed the wax with the regulation customs stamp: a mekillot leg bone that
had been carved into the form of a rampant lion. The customhouse entry-hall echoed with the resonant sound of the
seal impressing the wax. The merchant made a hasty escape with his salt ration.
    "What brings you up here, Regulator?" Rokka asked before the next petitioner came forward. He slid the
lightweight tokens off the pan.
    Pavek shrugged. He returned the bone seal to its golden stand. "The usual, great one. Pure rotted luck." There
was no particular enmity between them, mostly because Pavek had been careful to avoid moments like this.
    "You know the drill?"
    "In my dreams, great one. In my dreams.''
    The procurer squinted one eye, trying to figure if Pavek and an angle and whether that angle crossed his own in
any unwelcome way. Pavek transformed himself into a study of disinterest and boredom, and after a moment Rokka's
face relaxed without becoming friendly. "See you stay awake. We're short-handed already-" He indicated the empty
tables. "Who knows who might be waiting outside?" "Who indeed, great one? I know what's expected of me." Their
gazes locked another moment, then Pavek took the empty pouch the merchant had left behind. He did know the drill
and performed it flawlessly, until Rokka's smile seemed almost genuine and he began to fear that the procurer would
request his assistance in the future.
    Mostly Pavek measured short-weights of salt, an especially precious commodity in the hot, arid Tablelands; but
sometimes he poured volatile oils into glazed ceramic flasks, and once he filled a sack with caustic soda from the
obsidian mines for the gluemaker who transformed all manner of rubbish into his sticky wares. No apothecaries came
to Rokka's table for Ral's Breath packets, but around midafternoon the beautiful, brown-haired druid led her two male
companions, each balancing a brace of amphorae on his shoulders, to the far side of Rokka's table.
    Pavek looked the other way as soon as he spotted them, although there was little chance he'd be recognized.
Ordinary folks seldom looked farther than the detested yellow robe every templar wore while on duty. Still, the woman
was a druid and, therefore, not at all ordinary.
    Hovering by the commodity chests with his back to the procurer's table, he finger-raked his hair until it hung in
front of his eyes, then rolled up the tell-tale sleeves of his robe.
    The druid woman didn't wilt in Rokka's scorn. When the dwarf tried to reject the amphorae because their seals
were obviously broken, she described what had happened at the gate. Her description of him as a "dung-skulled
baazrag masquerading as a human" seemed excessively insulting, but it did leave Rokka at a momentary loss for
words. She issued a soft-spoken ultimatum in the silence.
    "If you won't accept the trade your fellow templars tainted, then we shall be compelled to take it back with us
when we leave Urik. You will understand, of course, that it will be another sixty days before we can possibly return."
    Every mote of curiosity in Pavek"s mind craved a glance at her face. He wanted a good look at anyone who
could play the procurer's game and win. Previously his only knowledge of druidry had come from such druid-written
scrolls as the archive scholars had acquired over the ages. He knew they used the latent power of Adias itself in their
spellcraft, which' was, in essence, identical to the priestly spellcraft the sorcerer-king permitted his templars. For that
reason alone, he'd assumed they were like templars in other ways.
    He succumbed to curiosity's temptations. The druid wasn't overtly defiant or proud; the lowliest