Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

His companion frowned. “Such as?”

“Such as trying to keep the murder of an imperial legate quiet. Right now, I guarantee you, they’re shitting milk and sugared biscuits up at the Keep. They need all the time and quiet they can buy just to work out how they handle the Tlanmar garrison commander when he finally comes calling. This is a frontier town. They’ve got a lot to lose if that boils down badly.”

“No one mentioned the legate down there in the square, huh?”

“No one. Like it never happened.”

Eril grunted. He was a career criminal; he understood the dynamic. Ringil poured them both more wine.

“Yeah, like that. And there’s something else.” He set down the flagon, picked up his goblet, and studied its contents without much enthusiasm. Hinerion, as Shend had been fond of whinging, wasn’t exactly famed for its viticulture. “These guys have got the best part of a thousand captured slaves milling around now with no apparent owner. That’s a lot of quick cash for the city if they can parcel it out before anyone gets down here from Trelayne to claim ownership.”

“Oho.”

“Yeah. My best guess? Sometime in the next couple of days, you’re going to see an open auction for city coffers. And I doubt very much they’ll be sending any bonded couriers to Trelayne until that’s done.”

“Gives us some time, huh?”

“Yeah.” Ringil sipped his wine. Grimaced and put it down again. “Gives us some time. So—you see anything good in the harbor?”

The Marsh Brotherhood enforcer gestured with his bone shard at the cheap glass panes of the window they sat beside. The snug was on the ground floor of the inn, and it was full dark outside by now; but even through the grubby, distorted glass and the lanternlit gloom beyond, you could make out gathered thickets of mast-tops over the roofs of the intervening houses.

“There’s a caravel flying marsh daisy pennants tied up at the south dock. Couldn’t make out the name from here, even with the spyglass, but she doesn’t look familiar.” A shrug. “No reason she should. Half the merchantmen out of Trelayne fly those pennants now, just to scare off pirates.”

“But they’ve got to be paying dues, right?”

“Dues, yeah.” Eril pulled a sour face. “But that doesn’t have to mean much of anything anymore. When I was coming up in the city, you knew the name and rig of every keel flying the daisy, and you knew the crew on those ships would be solid Brotherhood to a man. These days…” Another shrug. He stabbed at the fowl carcass with his bone shard, left it sticking there. “These days, it’s like every other fucking thing. Comes down to haggling.”

Ringil tried to muster some enthusiasm. Eating seemed to have pushed back his fever a little, and the marsh daisy vessel had the gossamer feel of luck come calling. Dark Lady Firfirdar, seated on her iron throne, blowing the ghost seed off her fingers and into their path, so it danced and lit their way.

“Well, look,” he said reasonably, holding off a deep, rolling urge to shiver. “At a minimum she’s out of Trelayne, and going back there at some point. Now with that, and maybe some haggling like you say, or just a judicious bit of leaning on the captain—I’d say we’re nearly home dry.”

Eril nodded. “Lean on him’s right. I’ll fucking—”

Quick rapping at the snug door. Both men stiffened and swung to face the sound. Eril’s hand slipped under his coat without fuss. Ringil loosened his sleeve where the dragon-tooth dagger was stowed.

“Yes?”

The door opened a crack. The boy who’d served them earlier stuck his head and one scrawny shoulder around the jamb.

“My lord Laraninthal?” Stumbling over the Tethanne syllables, nervousness taut in the hurried tones. His face was pale and sweaty in the lamplight. A cool combat tension soaked into Ringil’s limbs, settled there.

“Yes?”

“Uh… Somebody here to see you, sir. It’s uh…” The boy swallowed, licked his lips. “They’re soldiers, my lord.”

He found the pawnshop easily enough—there were several on that stretch of the An-Monal road, but only a couple offered rooms above. Counting the time spent to climb one of the staircases in the dizzying Kiriath architecture and then walk the Black Folk Span across, the whole search took him not much more than an hour.

The pawnbroker, a wiry old man with a patched eye, bought the line about family the same way the Lizard’s Head publican had. He waved Egar through musty gloom and out again to the shop’s backyard. Rickety outside stairs went up the wall above them to a row of doors under the eaves.

“Second room,” he said wheezily. “Tell him I’ll need him tonight.”

Egar went up the stairs. Laid knuckles on sun-bleached wood a couple of times.

“Fuck do you want?” someone bellowed, in bad Tethanne.

Sounds like a hangover in there . Egar grinned and called back through the door in Majak.

“Is that any way to talk to a brother?”

Sudden quiet. He thought he heard the creak of someone moving off a cot. Sensed the weapon lifted stealthily from its resting place against the wall.

“Harath? Let’s not get off on the wrong foot here, son.”

The voice behind the door came back, matching Egar’s change of tongue.

“What do you want, brother ?”

Youthful sneer and an Ishlinak twang on it, blunted somewhat by time away from the steppes. And the thick, unmistakable smolder of mistrust. Egar chose his words carefully.

“Could take a while to explain that. How ’bout I buy you some belly lining and a pint?”

“That fuck Alnarh send you? He wants me dead, he should have the balls to come down here and do the work himself.”

“No one sent me. I got some questions I’d like to ask you, is all. About the fight down at the Lizard’s Head.”

Footfalls across the boards inside. Egar judged the other man was still a good three feet back from the door, and probably off to one side. It was the same basic precaution he would have taken himself. If the door got smashed suddenly inward, you’d want the space.

“I’m not a big fan of the Citadel myself, see. Thought maybe you could help me out.”

Silence. A floorboard creaked. Harath cleared his throat.

“I didn’t get your name, brother.”

“Egar. Of the Skaranak. They call me the Dragonbane.”

Coughed laughter. “Yeah, right. ”

“Look.” A spurt of genuine anger licked through him. “You going to open this fucking door or what?”

A final quiet, but the tone of it had changed, and Egar knew he was getting in. He waited. A bolt slatted back. The bleached wood paneling swung inward a grudging handbreadth and a young Majak face glowered out from around the jamb. Wispy beard, long unkempt hair across the bloodshot eyes. Harath of the Ishlinak stared blearily at the Dragonbane for a couple of seconds, but seemed not to see a threat.

“Anyone tells you I started that fight, they’re a fucking liar.”

Egar nodded. “Why I came to ask your side. Want to let me in?”

The younger man shrugged gracelessly and shoved the door wide. Backed up a couple of paces and held out both arms like a seller displaying his wares—or a man as he submits to being frisked by the City Guard.

“Sure. Mind your head.”

The room behind the door was hot and cramped, jammed under the eaves as it was. Stoop height only except in the very center. Harath filled the space simply by virtue of standing up in it—he was a big lad, still slim with youth but built in the shoulders and thighs from a lifetime of horsemanship and staff lance practice. Behind him, Egar saw a low cot under a tiny window, stained and tangled sheets, a threadbare cloth curtain that did little more than strain the sunlight blasting into the room. A chamber pot sat in one corner, but the bearish reek of the room was general.