Glen Cook - Lord of the Silent Kingdom

"Cold back here," Ghort muttered.

"Lonely, too. And so dark hardly anybody… Well. Look here. Master Hamil figured out my knots."

The Durandanti rider had stumbled into the Knight of Wands, paler than ever, deeply frightened. With a big bruise on his forehead. Ghort observed, "That's a man what ain't used to being out in the country after dark."

"Sshh. Let's don't make him stop thinking we're headed for Plemenza."

The one-eyed man braced Hamil. Hamil could not show him coin or anything else of value.

"You robbed him?" Ghort asked.

"Sure did. Didn't want him thinking we're honest folks on a mission."

"Good for you. There he goes."

With help from the one-eyed man, who shoved the pallid Sonsan back into the darkness. Hamil protested all the way, invoking Don Alsano Durandanti.

"Think One-eye just made a booboo?" Ghort asked.

"Depends on how much the Don backs his troops. Uh-oh. Here's real trouble."

"What?"

"That dark corner over there. There's a guy in there. He wasn't there when we moved over here. I didn't see him slide in. He's wearing a pilgrim's robe. Catch him when the scullery boy throws the next load of wood on the fire."

Silent minutes passed. The boy who had been caulking earlier brought firewood to beat back the chill of the night. The fire flared briefly.

"Well," Ghort murmured, "was I a betting man, an' I been known to lay one down now an' then, I'd put money on that fellow being Ferris Renfrow's ugly twin."

"Maybe his evil twin?"

"I'd say Renfrow is the evil twin. Interesting, though. You think he's involved?"

"My guess? Only obliquely, if at all." Ferris Renfrow and his masters in the Grail Empire had no cause to murder the Patriarch's Captain-General. "I'd guess it's coincidental. This would be a natural gathering place for conspirators."

Ferris Renfrow did as they did. Sat in the shadows and watched. Hecht and Ghort picked out three men they felt deserved closer scrutiny.

Time rolled on. And on. Ghort muttered, "I wish that asshole would give up and go to bed. It was a long fuckin' day. I need some shut-eye."

"Uhm." Renfrow seemed to be paying them no heed. Hecht did not believe he was unaware of them. Their shadows were deeper than his, though.

Hecht began to feel the weariness, too.

"What're you doing, Pipe?"

"Going to see what he does when he recognizes me."

"Is that smart?"

Hecht shrugged. He crossed the room, stepping over and around sleeping men and men who had enjoyed too much of the heavy, dark, foul beer brewed by the Knight of Wands. Renfrow appeared disinterested at first, then started and swore, "Eis's bloody ass boils! What the hell are you doing here?"

Hecht settled beside the Imperial. "The very question I asked myself about you."

"I'm here on my lord's business."

"And I as well. With an added touch of the personal."

Renfrow contained his shock. "You're outside your home territories."

"Outside the Emperor's, too. Might be Sonsan."

"The Counts of Aloya, theoretically. But they haven't been seen since you and I were pups. Nobody's moved in because that would be more trouble than leaving the territory to rot."

Which would lead to banditry and chaos, eventually. Of course.

"I've had a long day. I just wanted you to know I'm here." Hecht headed for his quarters before Renfrow could respond. Ghort stayed where he was.

"He left right after you did," Ghort reported. "He looked like he'd had a major shock. I don't think he recognized me."

"I wouldn't count on it. Who's always around when I'm somewhere?"

"Go teach granny to suck eggs. Put the kids on him. He won't expect them."

Hecht nodded. "Warn them. So he doesn't see the connection right away."

Ferris Renfrow did not turn up next morning. Hecht asked a few questions but soon stopped. Questions about fellow guests were not well received. He assumed questions about himself would find equally small favor.

Renfrow did not reappear till the ownership opened the evening pot.

Prepared meals could be had any time but cost extra. Budget-minded guests lived out of the bottomless porridge and goulash pots. The ingredients of the latter varied according to what leftovers from custom cookery were available. One had to beware small bones.

Renfrow drew a portion and retreated into the same shadows as the night before.

Hecht had assumed his place in his own dark clot a half hour earlier. His day had been unproductive. The children had discovered nothing-though they did feed his suspicions of the men he and Ghort had tagged as probable villains. They were from farther north or west, by their accents. They had horses stabled behind the inn. The stable boys had been paid to keep their tack ready for instant use. They prayed a lot. Pella considered that the most damning thing about them.

Hecht told Pella to arrange for some of that tack to disappear.

The suspects did not seem unusually wary.

Sometime during their second morning there the Knight of Wands began to buzz. A Grolsacher mercenary force, supposedly armed with letters of marque from Sublime V, had come to a bad end in the Connec. Only a handful survived-by running faster than Count Raymone Garete could chase. One survivor was a dastardly coward of a bishop, Morcant Farfog of Strang. The band's captain, Haiden Backe, had been among the first to fall. Prisoners willingly betrayed the Patriarch's role in their bad behavior. Documentary evidence had been thin in the Grolsachers' camp, however. The actual letters of marque had vanished. Of course, they were extremely valuable instruments.

Ghort whispered, "Your boss is a raving madman, Pipe. What the hell was he thinking? That Raymone Garete was one of the guys who made the Calziran Crusade work. What kind of gratitude is that?"

"Typical gratitude. The gratitude of kings. Sublime has never been out of Brothe. He's never been outside his tiny little clique of family and associates. He only hears what they think he wants to hear. He honestly believes that most of the world thinks just like he does. That they're longing for a champion who'll lead them into the fray. He thinks big things will go his way because little things have ever since he was in diapers. He's absolutely convinced of his divine right and of Patriarchal Infallibility. I don't think there's any way to scrape the scales off his eyes. I've tried. Though I never get close enough to actually talk to him."

"People like that mostly end up prematurely dead."

"Now we know why Sublime and his gang weren't worried about money."

"Plundering the heretics was always part of his plan."

"It won't work out any better in the Connec than it did in Calzir. There's a lot of wealth there. That country has been peaceful for so long. But most of the wealth will get destroyed or disappear during the getting."

"Shit," Ghort murmured. "This news is gonna get back to Brothe before we do. Our asses are gonna be in a sling when they can't find us."

Hecht thought so, too. There would be a lot of running in circles, screaming and shouting, once this news reached the Mother City. Though it should not have much practical impact. "We might've made a bad career move, sneaking off."

"Maybe this guy will give us a job." He meant Ferris Renfrow, who was headed their way.

Renfrow said, "You've heard the news from the Connec."

Hecht nodded.

"You should know that while the results delight me, neither the Emperor nor I contributed to Haiden Backe's embarrassment."

"That makes it all right, then."

Renfrew grinned. Hecht had not seen that before. "Sublime… No. Mustn't show disrespect to the Father of the Church. But I have to wonder about a man who'd hire Grolsachers-and Backe in particular-after all the disasters involving those people the last ten years. It'll be a fearsome hard winter in Grolsach, for sure."