Chapter 24: Taking a Gamble

WITH the workmen still on strike against working at Menosi, it was an easy matter to track down Master Lemiel. After some asking around and a coin here and there, Seregil was directed to the White Crow, a decent tavern near one of the refineries frequented by Aurënfaie and ya’shel freedmen. The acrid smell of the refinery smoke hung over the area, but the little cottages that lined the street were neat and well kept.

Dressed in his second-best coat and boots, with a red silk scarf tied rakishly over his head, Seregil charmed the ya’shel serving girl and she blushingly pointed out a paunchy, grizzled ya’shel with a drinker’s nose and once fair hands coarsened by years of hard labor. He and his cronies were drinking and playing bakshi at a table in the back corner of the room. One thing was already apparent: Lemiel couldn’t have fit down the tunnel to the innermost cave, so he was not the one who’d stolen the arm ring. Time to find out who had.

Sauntering up to the table, Seregil looked the game board over, then held up a golden sester. “You don’t mind if I make a little money off your luck, do you?” he asked with a grin.

“We don’t take gold off your kind,” Lemiel’s opponent growled, and several other workmen closed in around Seregil.

“My kind?” Seregil said, a bit baffled. There were enough of them to take him in the shape he was in without his sword, which hadn’t figured into tonight’s performance.

“You’re the one who’s been taking in strays,” Lemiel sneered. “Like we can’t take care of ourselves once we’re not slaves anymore. Sounds to me like those out at Mirror Moon have just traded one master for another—you and your yellow-haired half-breed.”

Seregil knew he was in the soup now, but pressed on. “Well, not every ’faie on the island is as fortunate as you lot, especially those who were in service,” he said with a smile. “And my talímenios and I are no one’s masters. They’re free to do as they like and those who choose to work for me are paid a fair wage.”

“A friend of mine, Anri the weaver, is out there,” a red-haired ya’shel told the others. “He speaks well of the barons, Lemiel. You’ve got no cause to insult him.”

“Please, titles are for Tírfaie,” said Seregil. “I’m just Seregil, a foolish man exiled from his clan.”

“You’re teth’brimash?” one of the others said in disbelief.