Few of the other tables on the balcony were occupied, the establishment's noble patrons preferring the scented airs of the dining room within. Murillio found comfort in the buzzing life of the streets, and he knew his guest did too-at least in this instance. With all the noise rising from below, their chances of being overheard were slight.
As his gaze wandered aimlessly along Morul's Street of jewels, he stiffened slightly, eyes widening as they focused on a figure standing in a doorway opposite him. He shifted in his seat, dropping his left hand past the stone railing, out of the woman's sight. Then he jerked it repeatedly, glaring down at the figure.
Rallick Nom's smile broadened. He stepped away from the doorway and strolled up the street, pausing to inspect an array of pearls laid out on an ebony table in front of a store. The proprietor took a nervous step forward then relaxed as Rallick moved on.
Murillio sighed, leaning back and taking a mouthful of liquor. Idiot!
The man's face, his hands, his walk, his eyes, all said one thing: killer.
Hell, even his wardrobe had all the warmth and vitality of an executioner's uniform.
When it came to subtlety Rallick Nom was sorely lacking. Which made this whole thing rather odd, that such a complex scheme could have been born from the assassin's rigidly geometric brain. Still, whatever its origins, it was pure genius.
«Do you dearly wish to attend, Murillio?» the woman asked.
Murillio smiled his warmest smile. He looked away. «It's a large estate, isn't it?»
«Lady Sinital's? Indeed, fraught with rooms.» The woman dipped one dainty finger into the pungent, fiery liquid, then raised it to her lips, inserting it into her mouth as if in afterthought. She continued studying the goblet in her other hand. «I would expect a good many of the servants» quarters, though lacking in the simplest needs of luxury, will remain empty for much of the night.»
No clearer invitation did Murillio require. Rallick's plan centred on this very moment, and its consequences. Still, adultery had one drawback. Murillio, had no desire to meet this woman's husband on the duelling piste. He drove such disturbing thoughts away with another mouthful of wine. «I would love to attend the Lady's festival, on one condition.» He looked up and locked gazes with the woman. «That you will grace me with your company that night-for an hour or two, that is.» His brow assumed a troubled furrow. «I would not wish to impinge on your husband's claim on you, of course.» Which is exactly what he would be doing, and they both knew it.
«Of course,» the woman replied, suddenly coy. «That would be unseemly. How many invitations do you require?» «Two,» he said. «Best that I be seen with a companion.»
«Yes, it's best.»
Murillio glanced down at his now empty goblet with a rueful expression. Then he sighed. «Alas, I must be taking my leave.»
«I admire your self-discipline,» the woman said.
You won't on Gedderone's Eve, Murillio answered silently, as he rose from his chair. «The Lady of Chance has graced me with this meeting of ours,» he said, bowing. «Until the eve, Lady Orr.»
«Until then,» the councilman's wife answered, seeming already to lose interest in him. «Goodbye.»
Murillio, bowed again, then left the balcony. Among the crowded tables more than a few noblewomen's heavy-lidded eyes watched him leave.
Morul's Street of jewels ended at Sickle Gate. Rallick felt the wide eyes of the two guards beside the ramp following him as he passed through the passage between the massive stones of the Third Tier Wall. Ocelot had told him to make it plain, and while Murillio was of the opinion that only a blind man could ever mistake him for anything other than a killer, Rallick had taken pains to achieve the obvious.
The guards did nothing, of course. Giving the appearance of being a murderer wasn't the same as being one in truth. The city's laws were strict in such things. He knew he might find himself being followed as he strode down the opulent streets of Higher Estates, but he'd leave them to it, making no effort to lose them. Darujhistan's nobles paid good money to loose spies on to the streets day after day. Might as well make them earn their bread.
Rallick had no sympathy for them. He did not, however, share the commoner's hatred for the nobility. Their constant airs, prickly honours and endless squabbles made for good business, after all.
When the Malazan Empire came that would end, he suspected. In the Empire, assassin guilds were illegal, and those of the trade who were deemed worthy were enlisted into the secret ranks of the Claw. As for those who weren't considered worthy, they simply disappeared. The nobles didn't fare much better, if the rumours from Pale held any truth.
It would be a different world when the Empire came, and Rallick wasn't sure he wanted to be part of it.
Still, there were things left to achieve. He wondered if Murillio had succeeded in getting the invitations. Everything hinged on that. There'd been a long-drawn-out argument about it the night before. Murillio preferred widows. Adultery had never been his style. But Rallick had remained insistent, and finally Murillio had given in.
The assassin still wondered about his friend's reluctance. His first thought was that Murillio feared the possibility of a duel with Turban Orr. But Murillio was no slouch with a rapier. Rallick had practised with him in secluded places enough times to suspect that he was an Adept-and to that even Turban Orr could not make claim.
No, it wasn't fear that made Murillio shy from this part of the plan. It dawned on Rallick that there was a moral issue at stake. A whole new side of Murillio had revealed itself to Rallick then.
He was pondering the implications when his gaze found a familiar face among the street's crowd. He stopped and studied the surrounding buildings, and his eyes widened as he realized where his wanderings had taken him. His attention snapped back to the familiar figure appearing every few moments on the street's opposite side. The assassin's eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
Beneath the mid-morning's blue and silver hue, Crokus walked along Lakefront Street surrounded by the bedlam of merchants and shoppers.
A dozen streets ahead rose the city hills beyond the Third Tier Wall. On the easternmost hill stood the K'rul belfry, its green-patched bronze scales glimmering in the sun's light.
To his mind the tower challenged Majesty Hall's bright mien, gazing over the estates and buildings crouched on the lower hills with its rheumed eyes and history-scarred face-a jaded cast to its mocking gleam.
Crokus shared something of the tower's imagined sardonic reserve for the pretence so rife in Majesty Hall, an emotion of his uncle's that had seeped into the lad over the years. Adding fuel to this fire was a healthy dose of youthful resentment towards anything that smacked of authority.
And though he gave it little thought, these provided the primary impulses for his thieving activities. Yet he'd never before understood the most subtle and hurtful insult his thefts delivered-the invasion and violation of privacy. Again and again, in his dreamy wanderings both day and night, the vision of the young woman asleep in her bed returned to him.
Eventually Crokus grasped that the vision had everything to do with everything. He'd come into her room, a place where the noble brats drooling at her heels couldn't enter, a place where she might talk to the ragged dolls of her childhood, when innocence didn't just mean a flower not yet plucked. Her sanctuary. And he'd despoiled it, he'd snatched from this young woman her most precious possession: her privacy.
No matter that she was the daughter of the D'Arles, that she was born to the pure blood-untainted by the Lady of Beggars» touch-that she would flow through life protected and shielded from the degradations of the real world. No matter any of these things. For Crokus, his crime against her was tantamount to rape. To have so boldly shattered her world: