21 #2
“Better than you’ll be after those thousand wounds.” Astarion began working the wire into shape. “I don’t suppose you’ve considered not dying in a heroic blaze of glory?”
“I’m afraid it’s part of being a paladin. What is it they say? The fox has a bag of tricks, the hedgehog only one.”
Astarion pursed his lips. “Do you know, there’s a type of bird near Silverymoon that specializes in eating hedgehogs. It has a very long beak, and it stabs right through the quills. Do you know what its primary predator is?”
The aasimar raised his eyebrows. “I have no idea.”
“Foxes.”
Den Suriel considered this for a long moment. “Okay. What’s your idea, then?”
Astarion held up his hands. The unlocked manacle clanged to the floor. He waved his makeshift wire lockpick gently at the aasimar. “Escape seems like a fine idea. Would you care to join me?”
Even chained to the floor, the paladin managed a bow. “It would be an honor.”
* * *
The ten years that Astarion spent studying law in Silverymoon were among the happiest of his life.
He made friends among the other apprentices, and occasionally lovers, though he never told them where he came from.
None of them ever came close to guessing.
As an Ancunín, he was assumed to be some minor offshoot of the house, come to Silverymoon for his own amusement.
He cultivated what he hoped was an air of mystery and knew was a sense of good taste.
Half his money was spent on elegant clothes at the height of fashion and the other half on entertainment.
“Wine, women, and song,” as Lazlo said, although there were also a great many men and very little singing.
Bajia came to check on him every now and again, bringing him news of his great-grandmother. No, she was still abroad. She planned to return soon, whatever soon meant. She sent her love. Astarion accepted this gravely and did not ask questions that he knew Bajia couldn’t answer.
And always there was the work, the delicate, twisty work of laws and rules that so often fell open like a lock if you simply poked the right bit and twisted just so.
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He kept his hand in picking actual locks, though he certainly did not announce it.
It was another apprentice who recognized it, one whose master had been known to represent individuals of dubious legal standing.
The young halfling woman moved like a centipede and smiled like an assassin.
She sat down beside him at the Cock and Warlock tavern and said, “You dropped this.”
“Oh? Thank you—” Astarion started to say, then recognized the skeleton key Bajia had given him, which he kept in a pocket next to his heart and most assuredly had not dropped.
“Interesting trinket to keep around,” she said.
“It was a gift,” he said stiffly. “From a friend.”
“Interesting friend.” She drew her finger through a puddle of spilled beer. “I’ve got some interesting friends, too.”
“How delightful for you. Perhaps you should run along and drink with them.”
“Mmm.” She propped her chin on her hand. “It can be dangerous, being too clever. Some of those interesting friends might get a little too interested, if you know what I mean.”
“Madam, I assure you that I have not the slightest idea what you mean, nor the slightest inclination to find out.”
She cocked her head and gave him a wry, amused look. “Are you drunk or just thick?”
He opened his mouth to deliver what he hoped was a devastating setdown, then something in his brain clicked belatedly. “Oh,” he said. “I see. Drunk, if you must know.”
The halfling chuckled. “Maybe don’t drink so much tomorrow,” she said. “And we can chat.”
It was thus that Astarion met the local thieves’ guild, a collection of like-minded artisans, fingersmiths, and occasional outright thugs.
He was on his best behavior and, with the help of his new halfling friend, managed to navigate the guild’s political waters without falling prey to any unexpected undercurrents.
It helped that no one actually cared about two junior apprentices and, in return for nominal yearly dues, continued not to care.
Astarion met some people who were indeed very interesting, learned how to pick a wider variety of locks, and even picked up the occasionally torturous dialect of Thieves’ Cant, though he was never more than passingly fluent in it.
He did not practice most of the things he learned, because being caught robbing a house would have had a detrimental effect on his legal career.
Nevertheless, he hugged that knowledge to him like a small, secret flame.
By the time he was twenty-seven, Astarion Ancunín had completed his apprenticeship to become a journeyman barrister; could pick an eight-tumbler lock armed with both curse powder and poisoned needles; and knew twenty-seven things he could do with his tongue, eleven he could do with his cock,
and fifteen he could do with someone else’s.
And then his great-grandmother came home to die, and everything changed.
* * *
—
Astarion heard voices coming from the office he shared with his cousin. The door was closed but not locked, so he knocked lightly and waited.
When Lazlo opened the door, his face was pale and set. “Thank the gods,” he said. “You’re here.” He hustled Astarion inside and locked the door behind him, then crossed to his table and began to write.
Bajia sat in one of the chairs. She lifted a hand in greeting, but her face was grave.
“Something’s wrong with Grandmother,” he guessed.
“She’s dying,” Bajia said. “She did not come home sooner because she was not well enough to travel. She still isn’t, but she knew that it was time. I’ve come to take you to the manor house.”
Astarion nodded. He was surprised to feel a pang for the old lady, given how long it had been since they had seen each other. But she had lifted him out of the wretchedness of his childhood and given him a chance at a better life.
“Lazlo,” he said, “I’m working on the gnomish guild case. It’s not urgent, so if you can tender my apologies for the delay, I’ll be back as soon as—”
“No, you won’t,” Lazlo said.
Astarion blinked at him. “Say again?”
“Pack everything you mean to keep,” Lazlo said. He picked up the page he’d been writing and thrust it at him. “Here’s a letter of introduction to an old friend of mine in Baldur’s Gate.”
“Baldur’s Gate? But that’s hundreds of miles—”
“And the gods willing, that will be far enough.” Lazlo shoved more papers at him. “You are now the last scion of the obscure Baldur’s Gate branch of the Ancuníns, just returned from legal work abroad.”
“I’m what?”
Lazlo startled him by catching him in a brief, savage hug. “I’ll try to keep the dogs off, but you have to get away.”
“What? What dogs? What are you talking about?”
His cousin laughed mirthlessly. “I’m sorry, Astarion. The old lady made you her heir.”
* * *
—
“She meant it kindly,” Bajia said as he frantically flung clothes into a pack. “She’s slipped rather a lot, I’m afraid.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
“I did stop her, the first two times. Then she did it while I was traveling. I don’t think she understands quite what she’s leaving you.”
“She’s not in her right mind,” Astarion said. “Surely I can challenge the will on those grounds.”
“Lazlo will do his best. Most likely it will work, once it comes before the Silver Lady, and the creditors will have to be content dismantling the estate. But it’s best that you’re far away by then.”
“Otherwise they’ll seize everything I own to pay her debts,” Astarion said grimly.
“Possibly including me.” He had learned how these things worked in his years as both a lawyer and a Guild member.
Debts were things that could be bought and sold, and the respectable creditors who had loaned money to Lady Erikinia had likely been dissolved and their debts sold to other, less respectable individuals who would try to collect.
In Silverymoon, of course, it would be entirely illegal for someone to grab Astarion off the street and sell him, but that would be cold comfort if he found himself hog-tied and bound for an auction block in Skullport.
It was cold comfort now, as he looked at his small jewel box of an apartment.
It had a balcony that overlooked a park, and it was exquisitely tailored to his needs.
He had furnished it lovingly over the course of years, trading out the battered castoffs of his apprenticeship for lacquered wood and embroidered silk.
Every surface you trailed your fingertips over was a sensual delight.
In a matter of hours, it would likely be pulled apart by vultures. The law was slower to react than the creditors, and even in Silverymoon, possession was nine-tenths of the law.
Astarion paused in front of a large oil painting.
A market scene, rendered so lovingly by the artist that you could almost smell the spices and hear the clink of coins changing hands.
He had spent nearly a month’s salary on it and never regretted a copper of it.
Sometimes in the evenings, he would stare at it, a cup of wine clasped loosely in his fingers, inventing stories for each of the figures, even the ones in the far distance that were little more than a blob of paint.
Losing it felt like losing a friend. But he could hardly load it onto the back of a packhorse. It was five feet long, and Bajia was already jittering with impatience.
He took a last look over the balcony. The sun was setting, dyeing the towers a hundred shades of orange and gold. The view, too, felt like a friend. He could feel anger begin to burn away his shock, rising like bile in his throat.
He had friends and a living and a life. How dare someone take those things away? And not even because of something he’d done, but because his great-grandmother was going to die and was so far gone that she’d made him her heir.
He couldn’t even really blame her, much as he wanted to blame someone. Without her, he would still be scrabbling miserably in the dirt.
Astarion had never expected the world to be fair, but he had at least expected it to be just. Why even have gods and laws and governments otherwise? What was the point?