His thoughts a storm of self-recrimination, the young thief turned up the Charms of Anise Street, pushing through the crowds.
In his mind the once-stalwart walls of righteous outrage were crumbling. The hated nobility had shown him a face that now haunted him with its beauty, and tugged him in a hundred unexpected directions.
The sweet scents of the spice stores, wafting like perfume on the warming breeze, had unaccountably lodged a nameless emotion in his throat.
The shouts of Daru children playing in the alleys brimmed his eyes w?h sentimental maundering.
Crokus strode through Clove Gate and entered Osserc Narrow.
Directly ahead rose the ramp leading into Higher Estates. As he approached he had to move quickly to one side to avoid a large carriage coming up on him from behind. He didn't need to see the crest adorning the carriage's side panel to recognize its house. The horses snapped and kicked, surging forward heedless of anyone or anything in their path.
Crokus paused to watch the carriage clatter up the ramp, people scattering to either side. From what he'd heard of Councilman Turban Orr, it seemed the duellist's horses matched his contempt for those he supposedly served.
By the time he reached the Orr estate the carriage had already passed through the outer gate. Four burly private guards had resumed their station to either side. The wall at their backs rose a full fifteen feet, topped with rusty iron cuttings set in sun-baked clay. Pumice torches lined the wall at ten-foot intervals. Crokus strolled past the gate, ignoring the guards. At the base the wall looked to be about four feet in breadth, the rough-hewn bricks a standard squared foot. He continued on along the street, then turned right to check the wall fronting the alley.
A single service door, tarred oak banded in bronze, was set in this wall at the nearest corner.
And no guard. The shadows of the opposite estate draped a heavy cloak across the narrow aisle. Crokus entered the damp, musty darkness.
He had travelled half the length of the alley when a hand closed around his mouth from behind and a dagger's sharp point pressed against his side. Crokus froze, then grunted as the hand pulled his face round. He found himself looking into familiar eyes.
Rallick Nom withdrew his dagger and stepped back, a severe frown marring his brow. Crokus gaped then licked his lips. «Rallick, Beru's Heart, you scared me!»
«Good,» the assassin said. He came close. «Listen carefully, Crokus.
You'll not try Orr's estate. You'll not go near it again.»
The thief shrugged. «It was just a thought, Nom.»
«Kill it,» Rallick said.
His lips thinning into a straight line, Crokus nodded. «All right.» He turned and headed towards the strip of bright sunlight marking the next street. He felt Rallick's eyes on him until he stepped out on to Traitor's Track. He stopped. Off to his left climbed High Gallows Hill, its immaculate flowered slope a burst of colours surrounding the fifty-three Winding Steps. The five nooses above the platform swung slightly in the breeze, their shadows streaks of black reaching down the slope to the cobbles of the street. It had been a long time since the last High Criminal was hanged, while off in the Gadrobi District the Low Gallows» ropes were replaced weekly due to stretching. An odd contrast to mark these tense times.
Abruptly, he shook his head. Avoiding the turmoil of questions was too much of an effort. Had Nom followed him? No, a lesser likelihood than the assassin having marked Orr or someone in the estate for murder.
A bold contract. He wondered who had had the guts to offer it-a fellow noble, no doubt. But the courage of the contract's offering paled when compared to Rallick's accepting it.
In any case, the weight of the assassin's warning was enough to crush any idea of thieving Orr's estate-at least for now. Crokus jammed his hands into his pockets. As he walked, his thoughts lost in a maze of dead ends, he frowned with the realization that one of his hands, probing deep in the pocket, had closed around a coin.
He withdrew it. Yes, it was the coin he'd found on the night of the assassinations. He recalled its inexplicable appearance, clattering at his feet an instant before the assassin's crossbow quarrel whizzed past.
Beneath the bright morning light Crokus now took the time to examine it. The first side he held up before him displayed the profile of a young man, with an amused expression, wearing some kind of floppy hat. Tiny rune-like lettering ran around the edge-a language the thief didn't recognize as it was so very different from the cursive Daru script with which he was familiar.
Crokus turned the coin. How odd! Another head, this one a woman's facing the other way. The etched script here was of a style different from the opposite side, a kind of left-slanting hatchwork. The woman looked young, with features similar to the man's; her expression held nothing of amusement, seeming to the thief's eyes cold and unyielding.
The metal was old, streaked here and there with raw copper and pitted around the faces with rough tin. The coin felt surprisingly heavy, though he concluded that its only worth lay in its uniqueness. He'd seen the coinage of Callows, Genabackis, Amat El and, once, the ridged bars of the Seguleh, but none had looked like this one.
Where had it fallen from? Had his clothing picked it up somewhere, or had he kicked it into motion while crossing the roof? Or had it been among the D'Arle maiden's treasure? Crokus shrugged. In any case, its arrival had been timely.
By this time his walk had taken him to the East Gate. Just outside the city wall and along the road called Jatem's Worry, crouched the handful of sagging buildings named Worrytown: the thief's destination. The gate remained open during daylight hours, and a slow-plodding line of vegetable-carts crowded the narrow passage. Among them, he saw as he pushed his way along one edge, were the first wagonloads of refugees from Pale, those who'd managed to slip through the siege lines during the battle and had crossed the south Rhivi Plain and then through the Gadrobi Hills and finally on to Jatem's Worry. Scanning their faces he saw a fiery desperation dulled by exhaustion: they looked upon the city with a jaded eye towards its meagre defences, realizing that they'd bought only a short measure of time with their flight, yet too tired to care.
Disturbed by what he saw, Crokus hurried through the gate and approached Worrytown's largest structure, a rambling wooden tavern.
Over the door hung a board on which had been painted, decades ago, a three-legged ram. To the thief's mind, the painting had nothing to do with the tavern's name, which was the Boar's Tears. The coin still in one hand, Crokus entered and paused just inside.
A few desultory faces turned to regard him briefly, then swung back to their cups. At a table in a gloomy corner opposite, Crokus saw a familiar figure, its hands raised above its head and gesticulating wildly. A grin tugged the thief's lips, and he strode forward.
«: and then did Kruppe sweep with motion so swift as to be unseen by any the king's crown and sceptre from the sarcophagus lid. Too many priests in this tomb, thinks Kruppe then, one less «twould be a relief to all lest the dead king's musty breath shorten and so awaken his wraith.
«Many times afore this had Kruppe faced a wraith's wrath in some deep pit of D'rek, droning its list of life-crimes and bemoaning its need to devour my soul-harrah! Kruppe was ever too elusive for such sundry spirits and their knock-kneed chatter-»
Crokus laid a hand on Kruppe's damp shoulder, and the shiny round face swung up to observe him. «Ah!» Kruppe exclaimed, waving a hand towards his lone companion at the table and explaining, «An apprentice past comes to fawn in due fashion! Crokus, be seated by all means possible. Wench! Some more of your finest wine, haste!» Crokus eyed the man seated opposite Kruppe. «Seems you two might be busy right now.»