Luminous

50 - The Usurer

Tyriel Wert was peering at his latest acquisition through a loupe when three knocks sounded from the door. The impulse to ignore them overwhelmed him, then his rational half surged back in control.

That knock meant business. Day business. Cumbersome as it may be, for the good part of a decade it had allowed him to conduct his actual business in peace. The wool over the wary eyes of the Jaisian law.

Swallowing his sigh, he slipped the loupe and the ruby necklace into his desk drawer.

"Yes, Gertha?"

The door opened just enough for the maid's masked face to squeeze in for a nervous word,

"A Madam...Dunstaal...is here to see you, sir." Gertha glanced at the unseen client for confirmation. Tyriel cocked his head as he rifled through his memories. The name rang no bells. A new client.

He browsed through his array of practiced smiles and slotted on the humble and welcoming one. He traversed the room in three brisk strides and pulled the door wide open.

Draped from the shoulder down in her black veil, Madam Dunstaal reminded Tyriel of a velvet jewelry display. Her mask featured a stunning white peacock, whose trailing train seemed as if to loop around her neck in silver-white chains, beset with rubies, sapphires and emeralds. Tassels of gold cascaded from her earlobes onto her shoulders. Metal bands thick and thin pooled at her wrists. Rings adorned every other finger of her gloved hands.

Tyriel beckoned the client over to the seat before his desk with a bow. Once Madam Dunstaal had lowered herself onto the velvet-padded chair, Tyriel settled on his own.

"My lady, it is our pleasure to host you in our humble bathhouse. What seems to be the problem?"

He steepled his fingers, his eyes alighting on the empty eye-sockets of Madam Dunstaal's mask. Madam Dunstaal started, her honeyed smile faltering.

"Oh no, no. I'm not here with a complaint." She waved her ornament-laden hand. Judging from her voice and the size of her bosom, he guessed she'd had children, and was well into her fourth decade. Yet, she dissolved into a bout of coquettish giggles as she leaned in,

"I have an offer for you."

Tyriel's hand spasmed on the desk. He'd pinned her for a westerner from the fair skin around her lips. How had this foreign lady been introduced to his actual business? And calling for his services during daylight hours, no less.

"Do tell, my lady." He let his mask deal with his pallor and apprehension, and simply dredged the tremors out of his voice. Madam Dunstaal smiled. She glanced around his office, appraising the various memorabilia from previous business dealings he had framed in gold on the wall, or rested on velvet busts atop marble plinths.

Rows of ancient Tyldornian dubloons. A diamond necklace with a sapphire centerpiece the size of a quail egg. A jet-studded tiara. An ornate copper shield. A puzzle box of carved ivory. A polished tortoiseshell bowl. A hunk of aged ambergris. She lingered on the amiant cloak with Lattis yarn goldwork Tyriel had pawned off a Greeneye trafficker. A shiver rushed down her arms. Or just a trick of the light—the woman was a constellation.

The lady returned to him at last. Fondling a ruby brooch over her heart, she heaved a sigh and shone him a guilty smile,

"Pardon me for ogling. I have a weakness for shiny trinkets. You'd think I'm an overgrown magpie."

Tyriel responded with his obligatory smile.

"Not at all, my lady. I see it as an appreciation for rare beauty we share."