The Magehound

Tzigone brightened. "That's a good thing, isn't it? Becoming the queen's counselor?"

"Not if it means going to the palace in disgrace, as a means of saving my current patron trouble."

"After you've arrived at a destination, does it truly matter if you traveled by horse or mule?" she pointed out "Once you're there, the journey is quickly forgotten."

Matteo had to admit that there was a certain practicality to this. "I am beginning to follow the paths your arguments take," he told her, and then sighed. "This worries me."

She laughed merrily and linked her arm through his, pulling him back into a slow walk. "Didn't I tell you that you'd get used to me in time?"

"That is something we must discuss," he said slowly. "I cannot deny that I enjoy your company, and I have thought of you often since last we met. Believe me when I tell you I have no wish to give offense, but I must insist that you stop interfering in my affairs."

Tzigone stopped dead and stared up at him. "Interfering!"

She looked so dumbfounded that Matteo felt compelled to provide illumination. "Meddling. Or influencing, if you prefer that term. The most recent example was your performance in the Arbor Square."

"A man was getting ready to pull two very nasty-looking knives on you. My story served as a distraction," she pointed out.

"A distraction that offended a fellow jordain and prompted him to issue a challenge."

Tzigone folded her arms. "Which in turn brought you to the attention of the king's high counselor."

"Not all attention is desirable. Cassia thinks me an inept fool, and for that reason, she intends to recommend me to her rival."

"Who happens to be the Queen of Halruaa," Tzigone concluded, exasperation edging her tones. "I thought jordaini were supposed to be ambitious! Who cares how you arrive at such a high place? Once you get there, you set about to make your mark." She struck a haughty pose. "If you cannot do so, then you're the fool that the king's counselor named you," she concluded in Cassia's voice.

The imitation was uncannily accurate, more precise than an echo. Matteo shook his head in amazement. "How do you do that?"

"The voices?" She shrugged. "I'm told that I'm a natural mimic. I used to travel with a troupe of entertainers who hawked me as 'The Human Mockingbird. It was fun for a while," she confided, "but the feathers on the costume made me sneeze. You've heard of Old Bess?"

It took Matteo a moment to follow the abrupt shift in her conversation, but he nodded. Few people in the coastal lowlands did not know of the notorious pirate. A plump, middle-aged woman with the cheery manner of an aging milkmaid, Old Bess was nonetheless among the bloodiest and most ruthless captains to sail the Great Sea.

"I have had occasion to speak with her," Matteo admitted. "Two years past, she spent part of the summer rains at the jordaini house, insensible with fever."

"That old shark?" Tzigone said incredulously. "I'm surprised the jordaini would have anything to do with her."

"Sometimes criminals and foreigners are brought to the house for treatment so that the students might observe the course of serious disease and injury and learn of their treatments," he explained. "In all truth, no one expected her to live. When she recovered, she insisted upon paying for her keep and her care by instructing some of the students in tides and currents. It was her tales of battle, however, that provided the liveliest lessons," he confessed with a little grin.

"Then you know the voice." Tzigone cleared her throat and pursed her lips as she smiled, in a manner that made her cheeks puff up and her eyes appear to twinkle. To complete the illusion, she stepped under the crimson awning. Light filtered through it, adding reddish lights to her hair and painting her face a wind-burned pink. Without changing her form or features, she managed to portray the essence of the jovial, apple-cheeked pirate.

"Wot'll ye be havin' now, dearie?" she said with bright charm and a thick north-isle Moonshae accent. "Will it be a fish knife through yer gizzard, or will ye be having a sit-down on the business end of a pike?"

She went on, cheerfully listing increasingly gory methods of death in a tone more suited to a tavern wench's blithe recitation of the night's fare.

As he listened, Matteo felt his lips twitch and his ire begin to fade. It was difficult to remain angry with Tzigone for long. The wench was amusing, and in her own way, she truly did seem to mean well.

He also found her interesting in a manner that went far beyond her tall stories, for there was about her something of a puzzle. It did not escape him that Tzigone's speech dropped easily into Common, the widely used trade tongue that few Halruaans, who were in general both insular and proud, saw need to master.

"And now a recitation from the decadent northlands," she suggested, her voice smoothed from a Moonshae burr into an affected drawl.

"They're far from staid after a raid,