He shrugged. ‘At the very least, Adjunct, I can negotiate with him from a position of some knowledge-with respect to his history among my people, and so on.’
‘And you would risk this for us?’
Brys hesitated, never adept at lying. ‘It is no risk, Adjunct,’ he managed.
And saw his abysmal failure in her narrowed gaze. ‘Courtesy and decency demand that I reject your generous offer. However,’ she added, ‘I must descend to rudeness and say to you that your presence would be most appreciated.’
He bowed again.
‘If you need to report back to your king,’ said the Adjunct, ‘there is still time-not much time, but sufficient for a brief account, I should think.’
‘That will not be necessary,’ said Brys.
‘Then please, help yourself to some wine.’
He grimaced. ‘Thank you, but I have given up wine, Adjunct.’
‘There is a jug of ale, there, under that side table. Falari, I believe-a decent brew, I’m told.’
He smiled and saw her start, and wondered, although not for long, as women often reacted that way when he smiled. ‘Yes, I would like to give that a try, thank you.’
‘What I can’t tolerate,’ he said, ‘is the very fact of your existence.’
The man sitting opposite him looked up. ‘So it’s mutual.’
The tavern was crowded, the clientele decidedly upscale, smug with privilege. Coins in heaps, dusty bottles and glittering glass goblets, and an eye-dazzling array of ostentatious attire-most of which suggested some version of the Royal Blanket, although this generally involved only a narrow wrap swathing the hips and groin. Here and there, some overscented young man also wore woollen pants with one trouser leg ending halfway down.
In a cage near the table where the two Malazans sat, two strange birds exchanged guttural comments every now and then, in tones singularly unimpressed. Short-beaked, yellow-plumed and grey-hooded, they were the size of starlings.
‘Maybe it is,’ the first man said after taking a mouthful of the heady wine, ‘but it’s still different.’
‘That’s what you think.’
‘It is, you ear-flapped idiot. For one thing, you were dead. You hatched a damned cusser under your butt. Those clothes you’re wearing right now, they were in shreds. Fragments. Flecks of ash. I don’t care how good Hood’s seamstresses might be-or even how many millions of ’em he’s got by now, nobody could have stitched all that back together-of course, there are no stitches, not where they’re not supposed to be, I mean. So, your clothes are intact. Just like you.’
‘What’s your point, Quick? I put myself back together in Hood’s cellar, right? I even helped out Ganoes Paran, and rode with a Trygalle troupe for a time. When you’re dead you can do… stuff-’
‘That depends on your will-power, actually-’
‘The Bridgeburners ascended,’ Hedge pointed out. ‘Blame Fid for that-nothing to do with me.’
‘And you’re their messenger, are you?’
‘Could be. It’s not like I was taking orders from anybody-’
‘Whiskeyjack?’
Hedge shifted uneasily, glanced away, and then shrugged. ‘Funny, that.’
‘What?’
The sapper nodded towards the two caged birds. ‘Those are jaraks, aren’t they?’
Quick Ben tilted his head downward and knuckled his brow with both hands. ‘Some kind of geas, maybe? Some curse of evasiveness? Or just the usual obstinate stupidity we all knew so well?’
‘There you go,’ said Hedge, reaching for his ale, ‘talkin’ to yourself again.’
‘You’re shying from certain topics, Hedge. There’s secrets you don’t want to spill, and that makes me nervous. And not just me-’
‘Fid always gets nervous round me. You all do. It’s just my stunning looks and charm, I figure.’
‘Nice try,’ drawled Quick Ben. ‘I was actually talking about the Adjunct.’
‘What reason’s she got to be nervous about me?’ Hedge demanded. ‘In fact, it’s the other damned way round! There’s no making sense of that woman-you’ve said so yourself often enough, Quick.’ He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. ‘You heard something new? About where we’re going? About what in Hood’s name we’re doing next?’
The wizard simply stared.
Hedge reached under a flap and scratched above his ear, and then settled back, looking pleased with himself.
A moment later two people arrived to halt at their table. Glancing up, Hedge started guiltily.
‘High Mage, sapper,’ said Lostara Yil, ‘the Adjunct requests your immediate presence. If you will follow us.’
‘Me?’ asked Hedge, his voice almost a squeal.
‘First name on the list,’ said Faradan Sort with a hard smile.
‘Now you’ve done it,’ hissed Quick Ben.
As the four foreigners left, one of the jarak birds said, ‘I smell death.’
‘No you don’t,’ croaked the other.
‘I smell death,’ the first one insisted.
‘No. You smell dead.’
After a moment, the first bird lifted a wing and thrust its head underneath, and then withdrew and settled once more. ‘Sorry.’
The matted wicker bars of the pen wall between them, Captain Kindly and the Wickan cattle-dog Bent glared at each other with bared teeth.
‘Listen to me, dog,’ said Kindly, ‘I want you to find Sinn, and Grub. Any funny business, like trying to rip out my throat, and I’ll stick you. Mouth to butt, straight through. Then I’ll saw off your head and sink it in the river. I’ll chop off your paws and sell ’em to ugly witches. I’ll strip your hide and get it cut up and made into codpieces for penitent sex-addicts-turned-priests, the ones with certain items hidden under their cots. And I’ll do all this while you’re still alive. Am I understood?’
The lips on the beast’s scarred, twisted muzzle had if anything curled back even further, revealing blood-red lacerations from the splintered fangs. Crimson froth bubbled out between the gaps. Above that smashed mouth, Bent’s eyes burned like two tunnels into a demon lord’s brain, swirling with enraged madness. At the dog’s back end, the stub of the tail wagged in fits and starts, as if particularly pleasing thoughts spasmed through the beast.
Kindly stood, holding a braided leather leash with one end tied into a noose. ‘I’m going to slip this over your head, dog. Make a fuss and I’ll hang you high and laugh at every twitch. In fact, I’ll devise a hundred new ways of killing you and I’ll use every one of them.’ He lifted the noose into view.
A matted ball of twigs, hair and clumps of mud that had been lying off to one side of the pen-a heap that had been doing its own growling-suddenly launched itself forward in a flurry of bounds until it drew close enough to fling itself into the air-sharp, tiny teeth aiming for the captain’s neck.
He lashed out his left fist, intercepting the lapdog in mid-air. A muted crunching sound, and the clack of jaws snapping shut on nothing, as the Hengese lapdog named Roach abruptly altered course, landing and bouncing a few times behind Bent, where it lay stunned, small chest heaving, pink tongue lolling.
The gazes of Kindly and the cattle-dog had remained locked through all of this.
‘Oh, never mind the damned leash,’ said the captain after a moment. ‘Never mind Grub and Sinn. Let’s make this as simple as possible. I am going to draw my sword and chop you to pieces, dog.’
‘Don’t do that!’ said a voice behind him.
Kindly turned to see Grub and, behind the boy, Sinn. Both stood just inside the stable entrance, wearing innocent expressions. ‘Convenient,’ he said. ‘The Adjunct wants you both.’
‘The reading?’ Grub asked. ‘No, we can’t do that.’
‘But you will.’
‘We thought we could hide in the old Azath,’ said Grub, ‘but that won’t work-’
‘Why?’ Kindly demanded.
Grub shook his head. ‘We don’t want to go. It’d be… bad.’
The captain held up the leash with its noose. ‘One way or the other, maggots.’
‘Sinn will burn you to a crisp!’
Kindly snorted. ‘Her? Probably just wet herself, from the look on her face. Now, will this be nice or will it be my way? Aye, you can guess which way I’m leaning, can’t you?’