Steven Brust: Hawk

“Maybe. It depends on how awake she is, how much awareness she has to pull in energy to use later. That isn’t something I’d know.”

“You know a lot about this sort of thing for an Easterner.”

“I try to be useful to Her Majesty.”

I bit back an observation that would have been vulgar and said, “I suppose. So, how did the Jhereg find me?”

“Sorry, no idea.”

“Just when I was sure you knew everything.”

“Not everything. Not even most things. Just a lot of things.”

“I was thinking they put some sort of spell on my familiars.”

He looked at Loiosh. Rocza flapped her wings and hissed; Loiosh hissed at her and she settled down.

After a moment, he said, “No.”

I very much wanted to say, “Are you sure?” But I resisted; it would just have annoyed him. I muttered.

“What?” he said.

“It would be very, very convenient to figure out how the Jhereg found me. That way, I could maybe, you know, keep them from doing it again. I’d prefer to avoid another attack, even if I manage to recover from this last one.”

He shrugged. “My guess is they followed you.”

“Yeah, not likely.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’ve been watching for it.”

“This is outside my area of expertise, but, you can’t follow someone who’s watching for it?”

“It’s pretty damned hard without a whole lot of people.”

“And does the Jhereg have a whole lot of people?”

“I…”

“Yes?”

“You really think it’s that simple?”

“I don’t know. Have you been somewhere they could have expected you to be? Somewhere they could pick you up?”

“Yes, but-”

“Hmmm?”

“Gods of the Paths! They’d have needed five, six different people with the way we were watching for it, all of them with illusions so they looked human. And they’d have to pay each of them for several days to make sure they caught me when I finally showed up, plus paying the sorcerer. Do you have any idea how much that would cost?”

“Well, no,” he said.

“A lot.”

“And do they want you badly enough to spend a lot?”

I didn’t answer. They did, of course. Was it really that simple? They’d picked me up at Cawti’s, followed me, set up an attack at the flophouse, and, when that didn’t work, followed me until they could set up another?

Someone was spending a lot of gold. I mean, a lot.

“Loiosh? What do you think?”

“I can believe it, Boss. You did really annoy them. But you know them better than I do.”

Yeah, I really did annoy them.

“You’ll thank Her Majesty for me?”

“She said to tell you no thanks are necessary. You hold an Imperial title. That makes it her duty to render aid when needed, and if she notices.”

“Uh-huh. You’ll thank her for me?”

“I will.”

“And, ah, thank you as well.”

“I serve Her Majesty.”

“Yeah. About that. Think Her Majesty might manage to forbid the Jhereg from trying to, you know, kill me and stuff?”

He shook his head. “She’d like to. She is not, of course, unaware of your situation. But that’s an internal House matter, and she can’t interfere.”

“But she can send a rescue party?”

“That’s different. They tried to kill you. That’s illegal.”

“But-”

“If they’d just be kind enough to admit they were trying to kill you, she could tell them not to.”

I shook my head, which I ought not to have done. “Yeah, I get it.”

His cat and his dog-just a cat and a dog now-came back. The dog curled up by his feet, the cat rubbed his leg then sat down and started licking itself. Loiosh hissed at the cat, I guess just on general principle; the cat pretended Loiosh didn’t exist.

“You should get somewhere safe,” he said.

I nodded. “That’s next on my list. Right after I figure out where.”

“I could escort you to the Palace.”

I shook my head. “That’s the last place I want to be.”

“Then maybe you should see how far from Adrilankha you can get how fast?”

“No, I’m sticking around. And that means-”

“Why?”

“Why? Why am I sticking around?”

“Yes.”

“He asks good questions, Boss.”

“Shut up.”

Aloud I said, “They’ve threatened my son.”

“We’re watching out for him, and for your ex-wife.”

“And I’m tired of running from them. I want this settled.”

He started to speak, then just nodded.

I said, “I need to stay in South Adrilankha, at least until I’m feeling better. Dragaerans stand out here a bit more, Jhereg in particular. It’s easier for me to vanish, and harder for the Jhereg to be sneaky.”

“How’d that work out today?”

I shrugged.

“All right,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced. “If you know of a place where you’ll be safe.”

“I’m still thinking about-oh.”

“Not bad, Boss. Sort of safe at least.”

“Thanks for the reassurance.”

“You’ve thought of a place.”

“I think so.”

“Need an escort?”

“There are no Jhereg around now, are there?”

“No.”

“Then no, thanks. I’d as soon keep this private. No offense intended to you or Her Majesty.”

“None taken. Best of luck to you, Lord Taltos. That is, Count Szurke.”

He turned away, his familiars following. I really hoped he was right about there being no Jhereg around, or I was going to feel very foolish for a short time.

I started walking east, then turned north. I was still slow, but getting better. Above all, I was hungry: very, very hungry. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that the Warlock was right-that it was nothing more than a bunch of Jhereg following me around, and taking whatever shots at me they could. It didn’t have to be any one of the big bosses committing that much money. A group that big? Sure. The amount being offered for me was so high that a group of eight or nine could conceivably get together and agree to help each other and split the bounty afterward. It was hard to imagine a group that size trusting each other to the point where they could see each other starred-the main reasons assassins work alone is because no matter how much pressure the Imperial Justicers apply, no one can testify to something he doesn’t know about.

But, yeah. Sometimes you need to take a leap and accept that the improbable has happened. Sometimes you even need to accept that the impossible is more possible than you’d thought. I considered this and all its implications as I made my slow, painful way through South Adrilankha.

After taking an hour to make a ten-minute walk, we reached an area that for reasons I’d love to discover someday is called the Noose. I took Calf Lane to stay off the main thoroughfares. The houses here were wooden, old, rickety, three-story, and held eight or nine families each, and they all smelled bad. There were piles of refuse and rats to scurry around them, and here and there well-controlled fires in the middle of streets where someone was risking a conflagration in order to reduce his trash for a while. Some of the buildings had once been shops but now held families; a few of the houses now sported signs indicating a smith, a cobbler, a physicker, a tailor. I passed the place my grandfather had once lived, but I didn’t stop; I didn’t want to see what it had become.

A little past it was a tiny cottage with a tent attached to the front, looking both out of place among the larger buildings and absurd just by itself. The entrance to the tent was covered with a quilt that had floral patterns in red and blue. Often the home of a witch is indicated by any of several symbols that depend on which culture the witch came from; but a witch who is well known in the neighborhood needs no sign.