Chapter 683: What the Registry Didn’t Say

Chapter 683: What the Registry Didn’t Say

Loriel returned with the others less than an hour later.

She looked at Leon first, then at the folded paper beneath his hand. Whatever she read in his expression made her relax a little, but she asked no questions in front of Qingyue.

Vyra spread a supply list across the table.

"We can leave at first light, Young Master. The route takes four days at the pace we discussed."

"Good." Leon moved his notes aside and placed Ji’s plaque where everyone could see it. "Daily reports once we leave. An immediate update when we make contact with the delivery. We preserve the evidence and keep the Palace’s involvement private."

Seraphine read the authorization before passing it to Vyra.

"And if we find something that needs more people?" she asked.

"We tell my master what we’ve found. She’ll arrange support."

Vyra checked that part herself, then nodded.

Qingyue had brought news of the road and the crossing’s customs office. The officer in charge had held the position for six years, and the freight rules had apparently changed very little during that time.

"That helps," she said. "We can ask ordinary questions without looking as though we’ve arrived to inspect the place."

They settled the remaining arrangements over supper. By the time Leon went to bed, their evidence was packed securely and Vyra had made sure the resource-buying cover included actual resources worth buying.

They left Moonfall the next morning.

An hour beyond the gate, Ira brought her horse alongside Leon’s.

"You’ve been distracted since last night, Young Master."

"I had an idea."

She looked at him with immediate suspicion. "What kind?"

"Something I want to test when we have a quiet room and time to spare."

"Can it wait until then?"

Leon glanced at her.

Ira’s expression remained perfectly serious.

"Yes," he said.

"Good." She eased her horse back toward Loriel. "I wanted to hear you say it."

The road grew busier with freight as they traveled east. By the second day, grain wagons and covered cultivation-goods carts outnumbered passengers. At the waystations, almost every conversation eventually became an argument about tolls.

Qingyue pointed out the markings on a pair of wagons ahead.

"Bonded transit. Those are going straight onto a barge."

Leon studied the painted seal. "The owner’s mark?"

"The customs bond. The owner’s is underneath." She indicated a smaller character near the axle. "We’ll need to distinguish goods passing through from goods being held. Otherwise we could spend the whole visit watching wagons that leave an hour later."

It was the sort of detail Leon would have had to ask someone about. Qingyue knew it without slowing down.

On the third evening, they stopped at a merchants’ rest house with a crowded yard and a kitchen that smelled promising. Vyra secured a table while Seraphine checked the rooms.

By the time the food arrived, Qingyue was hungry enough to stop thinking about freight.

For a little while.

Ira took a piece of fish from Leon’s plate while answering Loriel’s question about the road.

She did it without asking. Leon merely shifted his cup out of the way so her sleeve would not catch it.

Qingyue noticed, then tried not to notice.

It was a small thing. People who traveled together grew comfortable with one another. She had shared food with companions herself.

A few minutes later, Seraphine leaned past Leon to reach the water jug. On the way back, she straightened the folded edge of his collar with two fingers. He continued explaining something to Vyra, apparently unaware that she had done it.

Loriel sat close beside him. When the server squeezed past their table, she moved nearer rather than drawing away, and remained there after the woman had gone.

Qingyue lowered her eyes to her bowl.

Oh.

The possibility settled into place with embarrassing ease.

He was probably sleeping with them.

Not necessarily all four. She could not establish that by watching people eat, and she had no intention of asking. But the easy familiarity suggested something that continued well beyond their public duties.

She had not thought he was like that.

Which was foolish, perhaps. Leon was extraordinarily handsome, and his talent had drawn the Palace Mistress’s personal attention. Of course women would be attracted to him. Nothing about that required an explanation.

It was the four attendants together that bothered her slightly.

With everything you have going for you, surely you could spend a little more time cultivating.

She took another bite and immediately remembered how little she knew about his days.

He could have spent every private hour working for all she knew. She had seen enough of his ability during the trouble at her family’s estate to know it had not appeared merely because he had a pleasing face.

Still, the thought persisted.

Four beautiful women attending to him, traveling with him, looking entirely at ease reaching into his space.

Leon asked her whether the western landing handled medicinal goods.

Qingyue looked up a fraction too late.

"Some," she said. "Mostly the packaged varieties. Fresh plants usually go through the smaller yards where they can be kept out of the sun."

He thanked her and returned to the discussion.

She watched him for another moment.

It isn’t my business.

That was true. Whatever happened in his rooms concerned him and the women involved. None of them looked unhappy with the arrangement.

Qingyue concentrated on her supper.

Leon caught her giving him an odd look the following morning.

He checked his sleeve in case he had spilled breakfast on it.

Nothing.

The second time, he met her eyes. Qingyue turned toward an approaching cart and remarked on its axle width as though that had been her interest all along.

Leon considered asking, then decided against it.

She was answering questions and helping with the route. Whatever else occupied her could remain hers until she chose to say it.

They reached White Reed Crossing on the fourth day.

A broad river ran beyond the customs house, brown-green beneath the afternoon light. The ford lay upstream, where carts waited their turn through the shallows. Downstream, three timber landings served the barges, with fenced holding yards stretching behind them.

Porters shouted over one another. Someone was trying to persuade a mule onto a loading ramp. The mule appeared to have a better understanding of the ramp’s condition than its owner.

Leon watched a plank bend beneath one hoof.

"I wouldn’t," he murmured.

The mule backed away.

Once they had rooms, Vyra checked the delivery date against their arrival.

"The handover is the evening after tomorrow, Young Master. We have this afternoon and tomorrow to locate it."

They began with the freight offices.

Qingyue identified the yards that accepted consignments held for named collectors. Vyra then visited one of the landing clerks to inquire about storage for a possible cultivation-goods purchase. The inquiry was genuine enough; if the terms were favorable, she intended to use them.

Leon accompanied her for the first conversation, then left her to it when the clerk began discussing insurance exclusions.

He understood every word. He simply suspected Vyra would get more out of the man without him standing there looking increasingly bored.

She returned with a rate card and two useful names.

"Only two yards regularly accept that arrangement," she said. "The eastern yard’s available space has been taken by a bonded tea shipment. The western one reserved its inner shed eleven days ago, paid through the end of the month."

"For what?" Leon asked.

"The clerk wasn’t told. He complained that they’re paying to keep most of it empty."

Seraphine spent the remaining daylight near the western yard.

Her report was brief.

"Four outer guards, Young Master. They rotate around the inner fence. The yard workers handle the front compound, but the foreman calls one of the guards whenever he needs anything beyond the second gate."

"Could it be valuable freight?" Qingyue asked.

"Easily," Seraphine replied. "It’s worth watching. That’s all we know yet."

Leon looked at the small sketch she had made of the yard.

A reserved shed, guards separate from the ordinary workers, and a collector expected soon.

Enough to follow.

He set his finger beside the river-facing wall.

"Then we find somewhere with a view of this side."