“It’s hard,” I said, trying not to sound pathetic and failing.
He ignored me, shoveling at twice my speed just to make my inadequacy clear. My throat was parched.
“You don’t have something to drink, do you?” I asked the doorman.
“Just finish up and go,” he snapped.
“Rude,” I observed to Garnet. Or the dog. It made little difference.
Ten minutes later we had both barrows fully loaded and were straining to force them out into the street. The air was blessedly cold, but there was so much ash stuck to my skin that I could barely feel it. The dog led the way, glad to get out of the stifling forge, but as soon as it reached the street it stopped, froze in fact. It was rigid, mid stride, head cocked and hackles up.
Something was wrong.
“Garnet,” I said warily.
“What?” he replied, his breathing labored. His barrow was rather fuller than mine.
I glanced down the street. On the corner I could see our wagon parked, waiting. The figure sitting at the front looked like Renthrette. There was no sign of the others.
There was a shout from somewhere beyond the wagon, an answering one from somewhere behind us, and suddenly the silent, empty street was full of noise and people. Soldiers. Diamond Empire troops: at least a dozen wrapped in gray wool night cloaks and wearing iron helmets. They carried full body shields marked with their garrison number and business-like cut-and-thrust swords, and they swarmed toward us. We, having nowhere to go, stood exactly where we were and tried to give them no excuse to kill us which, historically speaking, wouldn’t take much.
An officer emerged and started barking at us not to move (which we weren’t doing) if we valued our worthless lives (which we did). The dog growled and one of the troopers with a halberd-like spear materialized beside us and pointed the spiky business end at the animal. Ignoring all warnings to the contrary, Renthrette leapt down from the wagon and came sprinting over, yelling the dog’s name with such unreasonable ferocity that the guard with the halberd took a step back, his eyes on her. Another produced a bow and nocked an arrow.
“Not another step!” bellowed the officer.
I raised one hand to stop Renthrette and cautiously reached out to the dog with my other. I patted the beast on its head gingerly, and the snarling stopped.
“Empty those barrows!” ordered the officer as stillness returned.
A couple of the soldiers elbowed Garnet and I out of the way and pushed until the barrows overturned, splintering under their own weight. Ash and cinders, some of them smoking hot, spilled onto the cobbles and billowed up in clouds which doubled up the soldiers and left them coughing and spitting. The officer was annoyed.
“Get on with it!” he roared.
Humbled, and with dust encrusted hands clamped over their mouths, the soldiers began a desultory search, raking the ash heaps with the tips of their swords. There was an expectant hush, broken only by the creak of the forge’s front door. The doorman, terrified and miserable, stumbled out, shoved by the bigger man who emerged after him.
Rasnor Raines stood in the doorway, barely suppressing a smirk as he took in the unfolding scene.
“Morning officer,” he remarked conversationally. “Anything I can help you with?”
“Everything seems to be in hand, thank you,” the officer replied pointedly. He was on his dignity and wanted the civilians to keep out of it. Raines wasn’t that kind of civilian. He strode purposefully over to Garnet’s barrow, pulled a knife from his belt and plunged it into the ash heap. He moved it around, came up with nothing and tried a few alternate spots. He got up, unperturbed, and came over to me. His eyes met mine and his upper lip curled into a scornful and self-satisfied smile.
“Got something for me?” he inquired.
“Some ash?” I suggested. “Though it will cost you. And the embers are extra.”
His amusement turned to irritation, and he pushed me aside, setting to a sifting of my spilled barrow with increasingly baffled gusto.
“Where is it?” he demanded without looking up. “Where the hell…?”
There was an embarrassed silence from the troops. A couple exchanged glances, and the officer took a step toward me.
Raines leapt suddenly to his feet and got in my face.
“What have you done with it?” he demanded.
“With what?” I answered guilelessly.
“My…er,” he began, then corrected himself, “the Empire’s gold.”
I served him a blank look and took a moment to let it land.
“Gold?” I said. “We are garbage haulers. Not a lot of gold in our line of work.”
“Why you thieving little…” he spat. He made a lunging movement toward me but one of the guards put a hand on his shoulder. It was more caution than restraint, but it did the job. For now.
Renthrette stepped quickly between us, not to save me, you understand, but to make sure the petulant gold smith’s rage couldn’t redirect at the dog somehow. Soldiers bustled and shouted, the dog barked, the officer roared, and eventually we were all peeled apart and shunted aside at sword and spear point.
I raised my hands in surrender, as did Garnet. Renthrette—ignoring her guards—stroked the bristling hound, and Raines shouted more furious bile and assorted accusations, some of which included the hapless door keeper, whose puzzlement had hardened into resentment. For a long moment that was all there was: stillness and tension from everyone else, and Raines shrieking his ass-covering lies and accusations at us, the soldiers, and his surly employee.
And then it was like a light went on in the door keeper’s head. He frowned once more, deeper this time, and stared at Raines as the tumblers of the lock which had kept his brain from working for years finally clicked into place.
“Wait,” he said stupidly. “Me?” He glared at Raines who gave him the kind of dull amazement which would have been the same if the question and had been asked by the dog. “You’re saying I’ve been stealing from you—from them,” the door keeper continued with a wary glance at the Empire troops, “for months and working with these idiots? I’ve never seen them before in my life.”
His dull outrage was so clearly honest that the soldiers flashed more uncertain looks at the officer, who hesitated, then nodded his command.
“Search the wagon,” he ordered.
A pair of soldiers, glad of something definitive to do, bustled off down the street. The rest of us stood in watchful silence, and there was a profound sense of the story changing. The officer and his men had come on stage sure of their roles, clear in their minds as to how the crisis would build and resolve, how they would go through their lines until gratefully receiving the audience’s applause. Suddenly it looked like they were in the wrong play, as if the whole stately tragedy they had dutifully rehearsed had somehow turned into a comedy full of twins and women dressed inexplicably as boys.
“Nothing,” said the troops shame-facedly as they returned from their search of the wagon. “No gold.”
Well, of course there wasn’t. Raines’s gold was nowhere near here. It had been liberated via the back entrance by Mithos, Orgos and Lisha while Raines slept upstairs, and I kept the illiterate door keeper busy at the front. By now it was heading to the other side of the city along with everything we owned from the inn. Assuming we got through the next few minutes, we’d be living elsewhere for a while. I said nothing and tried to look mildly interested.
“Gold?” said Garnet stupidly. “Don’t know anything about any gold.”
I glared at him. This was not the time for him to start dipping his toe into the noble thespian arts. That was my department.
“Personally,” I said, turning to the officer, “I’m offended that humble laborers like our good selves can’t go about their business without being falsely accused…”