The Thief's Gamble (Einarinn 1) by Juliet E. McKenna Page A

tricks?' the oldest girl pleaded, blue eyes wide open in appeal.
    'I'd be happy to,' Geris offered.
    Harna smiled. 'Just a few.' She began to clear the table while Geris proved remarkably competent at sliding coins round his fingers and making them appear out of the baby's ears. I resisted the temptation to join in and turned to Shiv.
    'Are you sure those two won't gossip about their master's strange visitors over their ale?' I gestured to the door after the journeymen. 'Harna said you've been here a lot since Spring Equinox.'
    Shiv shook his head as he took a long drink of Travor's excellent mead. 'They won't talk.'
    'Can you be certain?' I didn't even attempt to conceal my scepticism.
    'Absolutely.' There was no doubt in his voice.
    Rather to my surprise, my instincts told me to trust him.
    'Shiv, Shiv, can you do us an illusion?'
    I stared at the boy who was asking and choked on my mead.
    'Harna?'
    'Oh, all right.' Harna smiled and filled a large flat bowl with water. Shiv rubbed his hands together and green magelight gathered round his fingers. My eyes must have been as round as any of the children's as I watched a pond appear, grassy banks, reeds round the fringe, lilies dotting the surface.
    'Do ducks, do ducks,' one of the little ones begged. Shiv obliged with an improbably yellow bird with a tail of ducklings following her. The image nickered suddenly and the ducklings began hiding in the reeds and leaves, the mother trying in vain to round them up again.
    Shiv suddenly burst out laughing. 'Harna!' he protested. I looked up to see green light flickering in her hands and amusement in her eyes.
    Shiv got the ducks under control again. 'Right, that's enough. Bedtime for you lot.'
    The children obeyed with remarkably little protest. Well, the trick with the ducks certainly left tales of the Eldritch
    Kin looking pretty dusty as bedtime entertainment. Harna and Geris chivvied them upstairs and Darni and Shiv went out for a last check on the horses. I wondered in passing where the chests had disappeared to.
    'Come into the study.' Travor rose and led me to a neatly furnished room next door. He lit the fire, laid ready and waiting, and then opened a polished cabinet and offered me a delicate ceramic cup.
    'Wine? It's heathberry, we make it ourselves. Or there's some juniper liquor, or more mead.'
    I've had some bad experiences with fruit wines. 'Juniper, please.'
    He poured me the hefty sort of measure you only get from someone who doesn't drink the stuff himself then stole a sideways glance at a desk where a large slate lay covered in neat diagrams.
    'Are you working on something? Don't let me stop you if you want to carry on with it.'
    'If you don't mind.' He sat as he spoke, relieved to abandon social niceties.
    'What is it?' I peered at the drawing but could make no sense of it.
    'There's a new way of smelting being developed in Gidesta; the Mountain Men have come up with something called a blast furnace.' He frowned at some calculations, wiped a patch of his slate clean and started afresh.
    I peered over his shoulder. 'Is Harna a mage then?' The liquor had me speaking before my brain caught up with my mouth.
    'That's right.' Travor seemed unconcerned.
    'So…' I could not think how to frame my next question.
    He looked up and a grin relaxed his square, rather harsh features. 'So how does she come to be married to a potter in the arse-end of nowhere?' Clearly a question he was used to.
    I laughed. 'Something like that.'
    He shrugged and returned to his mathematics. 'She has the talents but what she really wants out of life is a good marriage, a happy home and lots of children. We met when she was travelling with another mage, we stayed in touch and when she fell for Seyn, we got married.'
    I drank my juniper; it was quite beyond me.
    A sudden commotion of dogs outside made Travor look up. 'I'd better go and see to the hounds.'
    As he left, Shiv reappeared. 'Any problem?' I asked.
    'A fox or something sniffing round the