I laughed but she turned an acid glare on me.
“I was serious,” she said.
“So was I,” I shot back.
“You didn’t say anything,” said Garnet, always helpful.
“No,” I agreed as if this was obvious, “I didn’t need to. My seriousness was in that dismissive laugh, so full of scorn and derision.”
“Meaning?” said Garnet.
“Meaning the dog doesn’t get a vote,” I clarified, “because it’s a dog.”
“Dogs can be excellent judges of character,” said Garnet pensively.
“Is there evidence for this preposterous claim?” I shot back.
“He didn’t like you,” said Renthrette, as if that proved it.
“That’s not the point,” I scoffed.
“What is the point?” asked Mithos with his patented your-stupidity-is-starting-to-annoy-me stare.
“That we are the thinking, talking, ruling mind of our little band of warriors and we don’t take advice from dogs.”
Orgos leaned forward, one hand massaging his jaw thoughtfully.
“He’s right,” he said. “The dog didn’t like him.”
I was so caught up in that “he’s right” stuff that I almost missed the tail end of the remark, and it was a moment before I realized that the “he” who was right was not me but Garnet. Which is never true.
“What?” I exclaimed. “Are you serious? You are going to trust a dumb animal over me?” Garnet glared murderously, so I qualified my rhetorical question. “I meant the dog. A dumb animal and Garnet.”
“And me,” said Renthrette.
“And I’m starting to lean that way,” Orgos added, grinning brightly at me.
“Of course you are,” I snapped.
“Mithos?”
Lisha had said nothing so far, drawing vaguely with her finger on the table where the wine had splashed. Her question made the others go quiet and watchful. Mithos considered the dog for a moment, then nodded very small and solemn like a judge agreeing that, on the preponderance of evidence, the large man who had been found covered in the victim’s blood and yelling, “He got what he deserved” should be released immediately.
It was enough for Lisha.
“Then it’s settled,” she said.
“You’re joking!” I yelled. “This is insane! We are changing our entire plan, our basic attitude to this whole situation because the dog didn’t like him? It’s madness. And if Raines is so obviously untrustworthy, what exactly do you think he’s doing paying us?”
Lisha nodded.
“A fair question,” she said. “Thoughts?”
“Say he’s been milking the Empire for a while,” Mithos ventured, putting his mug down. “Someone has gotten wise to him, or he fears they might have.”
“So, he’s looking for someone to blame,” Orgos joined in.
“Right,” said Mithos. “He’ll pin the accountancy stuff on some lowly clerk on the inside, but he needs outsiders to be caught red handed with the gold.”
“Enter us,” said Renthrette. “We show up, load up our wagon, only to find a couple of platoons of the Empire’s finest blockading the street.”
“Raines expresses his amazement at us and loyalty to them, hands over the expendable clerk and,” Mithos concluded with a self-satisfied shrug, “life goes on.”
There was a thoughtful pause and Orgos took a sip of his ale.
“So, we don’t go,” I said. “We pocket his money—serves him right too—and we make sure we are nowhere near Low Street at four in the morning. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
Mithos tipped his head on one side, his eyes narrowed in thought. It wasn’t a look I liked.
“Right?” I said, trying not to sound desperate. “Stands to reason. Hello?”
“Or,” Mithos mused, “we take the opportunity to repay a scoundrel for his bad faith and leave the Empire’s nose out of joint in the process.”
Orgos put down his mug and grinned widely. “I like the sound of that,” he said.
“What?” I demanded. “No. That has a terrible sound. It has the sound of people being arrested and tortured, people being creatively executed, people a lot like us. It is not a good sound.”
Lisha turned her gaze on Mithos.
“You have an idea?” she asked.
And, as it happened, he did. It was an awful idea almost certain to get us all killed, but it was an idea, and—perhaps predictably—they liked it. Even the bloody dog.
So, we went. First, we sat up till everyone else in the inn had gone to bed, eating and planning and trying not to throw up with terror, though that last one might just have been me. Then we went, picking our way across town in the dark like suicidal moles.
There was no curfew in Bowescroft like there was in Cresdon, but the Empire kept sentries at the gates and patrols around the streets. The soldiers stopped you or didn’t if they saw you, depending on their mood. There was no curfew, but their default position was suspicious with a side order of hostile, and they were always armed to the teeth.
Our fiendishly clever plan to outsmart the evil gold smith was to show up precisely where he had told us to at the very time he had instructed. Genius, right? But—and this is where it got really good—I was to go in alone.
Why me, you ask, as—believe me—did I?
“Because we don’t know what you’ll find when you get there,” said Mithos levelly, “and you are good at thinking on your feet.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I exclaimed.
“It means you lie like other people draw breath,” said Renthrette nastily.
I gave her a wounded look.
“It means,” said Orgos, grinning, “that you, my friend, can talk the hind leg off a donkey and then persuade it to enter a dancing contest.”
I frowned and Lisha leaned in, her dark eyes serious.
“We need someone who is good at improvising,” she said. “Someone who can stall and who can convincingly play innocence.”
“And idiocy,” Renthrette added.
Lisha ignored her with difficulty.
“You’re an actor, Will,” she said. “A storyteller. In this situation, that’s what we need.”
“I’m gonna get killed, aren’t I?” I said, matter-of-factly.
“You’re not going to get killed,” said Lisha. “We’ll be on hand and, to make doubly sure, you can take Durnok.”
“The dog?” I exclaimed. “You are sending me into a trap where a dozen Empire troops will be lying in wait, spears at the ready, but I’ll be fine because I’ve got the bloody dog that tries to bite my hand off every time I look at it?”
“Him,” Renthrette corrected. “Not it. He’s not a thing.”
And that was that.
So, at precisely four in a dark, cold morning, I sidled unhappily up to the side door of Raines’s forge, took a breath, and rapped imperiously on the wood in the manner of a man who didn’t want to be kept waiting. A thin fog hung between the silent, ramshackle warehouses and workshops, and the place felt ominous, as if I was being watched by eyes I couldn’t see. At my side the big white dog stood still and silent as the street, its breath clouding like the fog. I listened, and heard nothing inside the forge, and gave the dog a nervous glance. The thin chain leash chinked, and the great beast looked up at me, its cool blue eyes meeting mine expressionlessly.
“Just you and me, dog,” I muttered.
It continued to watch me with those frank, animal eyes, till I felt uncomfortably transparent, and looked away, just as I heard the snap of a bolt. The door cracked open. A glimmer of lamp light showed a heavily shadowed face peering out. I didn’t know the man.
“Ash transfer,” I managed. “Vat four.”
“You’re early,” said the door keeper. He sounded curt, irritated. “And where’s the rest of them?”