Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

The afternoon sunlight lay thick on the well-swept cobbled streets. Prosperous tradesmen hurried by on business or strolled along, gossiping idly. Women with market baskets or water buckets glanced at Jill’s silver dagger and pointedly crossed the street. Jill turned down all the narrow alleys she could find and strolled slowly, as if lost in thought. Finally, in an alley between a bakery and a cobbler’s shop, her hunt brought her game. As a young man passed, he bumped into her. He made a gracious apology and began to hurry on, but Jill swirled and grabbed his wrist. Before he could squirm away, she slammed him into the stone wall of the cobbler’s shop and knocked the breath out of him. Jill’s catch, a skinny little fellow with pale hair and a warty nose, stared up at her and gasped for breath.

“My pardon, silver dagger, I never meant any insult.”

“Insult? The Lord of Hell can take the insult. Give me back my pouch.”

The thief kicked and made a dart sideways, but Jill grabbed and twisted him face forward against the wall. While he whimpered and kicked, she got her hand inside his shirt and retrieved her pouch, then took for good measure a wicked little dagger out of a hidden sheath. When she hauled him round to face her, he moaned and went limp in her hands.

“Now,” Jill said, “if I take you to the gwerbret’s men, they’ll cut your hands off in the marketplace.”

The thief’s face went dead white.

“But if you tell me who your master is, I’ll let you go.”

“I can’t! That would cost my life, not just my hands.”

“Oh, you dolt, what do you think I’m going to do? Run and tell the gwerbret?” She held out the dagger hilt first. “Here, have it back.”

As he considered, the color came back to his face. Finally he took the proffered dagger.

“Ogwern,” he said. “Down at the Red Dragon Inn, on the east side of the river near the commons. You can’t miss it. It’s right next to the candlemaker’s.”

Then he turned and ran, as fast as a startled deer in the forest. Jill strolled slowly after, letting him get back to Ogwern with news of her before she announced herself. She found that he was right about the candlemaker’s shop; it was indeed hard to miss. Out in a sunny yard in front of a long shed sat heaps of tallow, quietly stinking in the heat. Just across the narrow alley was a little wooden inn with balding thatch on the roof and unpainted, warped shutters at the windows. Unlike most inns, its door stood tightly shut. When Jill knocked, the door opened a bare inch to reveal a dark, suspicious eye pressed to the crack.

“Who are you?” said a deep male voice.

“The silver dagger who was asking for Ogwern. He’ll be cheating himself out of coin if he won’t speak to me.”

With a laugh the questioner swung the door open. He was enormously fat, his belly swelling out of his shirt, his jowls hanging around his bull’s throat.

“I like your gall. I’m Ogwern. Come in.”

The half-round tavern room reeked of old straw and wood smoke, and it sported four battered and unsteady tables. At Jill’s insistence they sat down where she could keep her back to the wall. An innkeep, as pale and skinny as Ogwern was fat, brought them tankards of surprisingly good ale, which Jill paid for.

“So then, fair lady,” Ogwern said. “For fair you are, though, truly, you can’t be a lady if you know the long road. What brings you to me?”

“A simple matter. Probably you know that I rode a message for his grace from the Cwm Pecl pass.”

“Oh, I do hear what tidbits are worth knowing.”

“Well and good, then. I rode into town on a horse belonging to one of the gwerbret’s vassals, but my own mount is coming along behind with a caravan that I was guarding. He’s a valuable horse, and I don’t want him stolen. I was thinking that a bit of coin in the right place would keep him nice and safe.”

“Naught could be simpler, and you have indeed come to the right place. What kind of horse is it?”

“A Western Hunter, a gelding, and he’s gold.”

“Battle trained?”

“He is.”

Ogwern considered, waggling one fat hand in the air.

“Well, if it was a stud, it would cost you ten silvers,” he said at last. “But for a gelding, we’ll say eight.”

“What? Ye gods! Highway robbery!”

“Kindly don’t use such nasty terms. They trouble my fat but precious heart. Seven, then.”

“Three and not a copper more.”

“Six. Let me remind you that there’s a considerable market for such a valuable animal.”

“Five—two now and three when we leave town safely.”

“Four if you hand it over now. I swear to you that my men take my orders.”

“Hah.”

“They have to. What do you think this is, silver dagger? The king’s own city or suchlike, all teeming with folk and custom? Not likely by half. I know everything that goes on, and besides, there’s not a lot of us. A small band, but all handpicked and trusty. Well, er, perhaps not. Actually, it’s mostly me and my blood kin.”

“Well and good, then, and I’ll stand you another tankard to seal the bargain.”

While Jill paid over the protection money, Ogwern considered her with shrewd brown eyes.

“Let me give you a bit of a tip,” he said, pocketing the coin. “Our most piously and despicably honest gwerbret’s set up a squad of town wardens, a patrol of six at all times, prowling the streets with naught better to do than to stick their snotty noses into other men’s affairs.”

“By the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell!” She feigned disgust. “And do they patrol at night?”

“They do. Revolting, I calls it. Ah, Blaen’s father was a splendid man—easygoing, much distracted with war, and rather stupid, just as a noble lord should be. Blaen, alas, takes after his clever mother, and life has been grim since he inherited the rhan.”

“A true pity, though I’ll admit to being pleased that he does his best to wipe out bandits.”

“True. Cursed louts, I hate them! I sincerely hope that you killed a few when they attacked that caravan of yours.”

“Now, here, you sound like one of the gwerbret’s men.”

“Kindly don’t be rude.” Ogwern laid a plump hand on the mound of flesh approximately over his heart. “Bandits are bloodthirsty dolts, cluttering up the roads and forcing honest men to hire guards. Why, if it weren’t for them, a true thief could go sneaking up on a caravan for a bit of real sport. Besides, they won’t pay me taxes.”

“Oho! So that’s the true thorn in your side, is it?”

Ogwern snorted in feigned hurt, then went on studying her. Jill began to realize that there was something that he wanted out of her as much as she wanted something out of him.

“Just an idle wondering,” he said at last. “I heard, of course, that the caravan was coming from Yr Auddglyn. I don’t suppose you were in Marcmwr.”

“I spent a couple of days there. Why?”

For a moment he frowned into his tankard.

“Well, here,” he said at last, “I don’t suppose a silver dagger would have any interest in stealing jewels.”

Jill’s heart thumped once in excitement.

“Not in the least,” she said. “I know we’re all cousins to thieves, but that’s not the same as being a brother.”

“Just so. I heard a bit of interesting news from down Deverry way, you see. A certain fellow was supposed to be riding up into Yr Auddglyn with a cursed large packet of stolen jewelry. He sounds like an utter dolt, by the way. Here he is, trying to pass himself off as a merchant, but his horse has a saddle and bridle fit for a gwerbret—a warrior’s saddle at that.”

Jill did her best to look only mildly interested.

“Now, if the stones are still in Yr Auddglyn,” Ogwern went on, somewhat meditatively, “it’s none of my affair. But some of the lads there were trying to find this so-called merchant, of course, to relieve him of the weight he was carrying. They tracked him to the Aver Lit, and poof! There he vanished. Just like sorcery!”