Mags turned all that over in his head, and nodded slowly. That made plenty of good, sound sense. ::Hope yer feelin’ unguilted,:: he told Nikolas.
::I would, if that were even a word,:: Nikolas retorted. But he sounded more like himself, and that pleased Mags no end.
“Gods, I am never getting the stench out of this uniform,” the first muttered.
“Toss it,” advised the second. “I can’t think of any good way to get it clean. It’s not as if they won’t give us more. It won’t be the first time I’ve tossed a uniform that reeked of death.”
Swiftly, Mags put two and tow together. “You’re not Guard,” he said flatly.
“Well... we wear the uniform. We get paid by the Quartermaster like everyone else.” The first man grinned at him.
“D’ye work fer Nikolas, or t’other way round?” Mags was very interested to hear that answer.
“Let’s just say we work for the same person. And since you do too, we probably ought to be polite and introduce ourselves. I’m Tal Merrick. This is Kan Betler. The other three members of our team are Jun Lysle, Ref Graden, and Serj Karmas.” Tal put his hand on his chest and made a little bow.
“Jest Mags,” Mags said, bowing awkwardly. “Got no other name.”
“We know,” said Kan, and waved a little. “Hello, Dallen.”
::Well! How thoughtful!:: Dallen sounded surprised and pleased. ::Tender my greetings please.::
“Dallen says ’lo.” Mags smiled a little. “Aight. Anythin’ I kin do?”
“Not really,” Kan told him. “Takes a bit of training to do what we do, to know what to look for. We investigate any death in Haven that doesn’t seem straightforward. Sometimes we investigate when we are asked to do so by relatives. Rarely we go outside Haven. We work with Nikolas a great deal because he has things we don’t.”
“Mindspeech,” Mags said instantly. “An’ Truth Spell.”
Tal touched one finger to his nose and pointed the same finger at Mags. “Sharp one. And he works with us because deaths that aren’t straightforward sometimes involve threats to the Kingdom and the King.”
“If you aren’t going to die of boredom, you might as well stay and watch,” Kan continued, going back to his methodical sifting of the foreigners’ belongings. “It will save us having to have the Weasel arrested so we can talk to him, and Nikolas will appreciate that we are educating you.”
::That’s only so they can get out of sharing some of the special brandy they keep down at their headquarters,:: Nikolas retorted.
“I ain’t bored,” Mags replied—and it was the truth. He was anything but bored. He watched carefully, making note of what they did and did not do. This was a skill worth having... .and now that the bodies were gone and the house was airing out, it was becoming more tolerable to be here.
As expected, they found nothing, and finally, at a point well after midnight, the Special Guards packed up the things they wanted to take away and departed, leaving Mags alone in the house.
He climbed back up on the roof per Nikolas’ instruction—but then something told him not to leave. Not just yet. There was something tickling around the edges of his awareness. A presence—no, several.
For a moment, he was afraid it might be the other assassins, come back to make sure the house had burned as they had planned. But as whoever it was neared, cautious as a feral cat, he knew immediately it wasn’t them.
There were three . . .
They were young. Very young. He sensed their hunger—very physical hunger. They might be young in age, but in the way of poor children, they were old in grief and experience. They were creeping up on the house full of anticipation, but as soon as they saw the doors and windows standing wide open, they stopped in their tracks, hidden in the alley, their anticipation turned to despair.
Mags crept across the roof to the point nearest where they were and strained his ears.
::What have you got, Mags?:: Nikolas asked him urgently.
::Dunno yet. Mebbe somethin’ worth chasin. Kids, but they was comin’ here fer a reason.::
“Hoi!” came a whispered voice. “They done a runner!”
There was a whimper. “We ain’t a-gonna git paid naow! I‘m hungry, Merrow!”
“Shut it!” said a third voice. Mags identified it as belonging to the oldest of the three. “Mebbe they done a runner, but they left house open. Lessee what we kin find. Mebbe they’s still stuff i’ there.”
With infinite caution the three slipped up to the back door. One skittered up to the door and peered inside.
“Ain’t nobody ’ere,” came the whisper. “Pew! Stinks!”
The youngest whimpered again, this time sounding terrified, and the whimper rose to a thin wail. “Noooooo!” the child cried, backing up from the door. “Don’ go in there! It’s Death! It’s Death!”
And despite the hunger that Mags sensed gnawing at her belly, the little girl fled.
The other two paused.
“She’s—” there was an audible gulp. “She’s right. Ma smelt like this, arfter a day . . .”
The older one was indifferent. “So? If they’s dead, they ain’t a-gonna need their stuff. Doors and winders open, must mean Guard’s been an’ gone, an’ ain’t nobody else aroun’. We’ll git first pickin’s. Gotta be somethin’ we kin use er sell.”
The younger hung back. “What if they’s—ghostes?”
“Then them ghostes kin pay us,” the elder said defiantly. “We done what we was ’sposed to. We kin take what they owes us outa their stuff.”
The two figures slipped inside the house, one boldly, one reluctantly.
Oho. So them bastiches got thesselves some errand-runners, eh? An’ th’ new ones don’ know ’bout ’em, or they’d’a tidied up the kids afore they bolted.
Mags weighed the notion of confronting the children—but they might manage to elude him and run, and even if he caught them, they’d probably lie. What to do? He wanted to find out just what sort of errands these youngsters had been running . . .
It made perfect sense for the assassins to use children for almost anything that didn’t require strength. A hungry orphan would do just about anything, no questions asked, if you approached him right, didn’t frighten him, made sure he thought he was getting the better of you.
I surely would’ve, back at th’ mine.
And if you needed to be rid of them, a couple of stray children would never be missed.
All right. Then the best thing to do would be to eavesdrop on them now, follow them back to whatever place they called home, and figure out exactly where that was. If he tried to intercept them now, they’d run. After all, they could tell by the stink that someone had died here. Anyone they encountered would likely be involved in a killing or be a rival looter. Better to approach them later, when he could figure out how best to get at them without spooking them.
He slipped back inside the house and stayed well out of sight, but not out of hearing. One of the two found a candle and the means of lighting it, and they carried it with them as they went from room to room. Once inside, when they thought they were alone, they were not exactly stealthy. Unfortunately, he didn’t learn very much from listening to them, since most of their comments were restricted to evaluating how much they could carry away and what was likely to bring the most money if they sold it.