He frowned. "Not as such."
"Uh huh."
He looked uncomfortable, which was at least a little encouraging. "What exactly do you need?"
"I came here looking for my family," I said. "My mother's kin."
"Yes," he said. "I'm sorry about what happened."
I need to explain that Fenarian makes a distinction between, "I apologize for an injury," and, "I express my sympathy." He used the latter formulation. I grunted or something.
"I'm going to find out who did it," I said.
His eyebrow went up. "And then?"
I cocked my head at him. "Why, then I will turn the guilty party over to the duly constituted authority, of course."
It was his turn to grunt. "In Burz," he said, "the duly constituted authority is me."
"Is that the law?" I asked. "Or just how it works?"
"What's the difference?"
"You're a blunt son-of-a-bitch, I'll give you that."
He laughed, throwing his head back and letting his belly shake. I hadn't thought it was that funny.
"Yes, Lord, ah, Merss, I am a blunt son-of-a-bitch. And I'll tell you bluntly that I like how things are here in my town, and if you do anything to interfere with it, we will no longer be friends."
"Yeah," I said. "I guessed that part."
"So," he said. "Now what will you do?"
"Let me assume you had nothing against the Merss family, because if you're responsible, you wouldn't tell me. So, who did?"
"I couldn't tell you," he said.
I rubbed my chin. "You know," I said, "if you interfere with me finding out what I want to find out, you might no longer be my friend."
"Is that a threat?"
"I'm not sure. I guess it'll sort of do for one. As a threat, how does it rate?"
"Hollow," he said.
I fixed him with patented Jhereg stare number six, lowered my voice, and said, "Then you can safely ignore it, I guess."
I had the satisfaction of seeing that go home; he looked uncomfortable.
I stood up abruptly, before he could announce the end of the interview. "I'd appreciate it," I said, "if my name wouldn't go any further."
"It won't," he told me. "Only Shandy and I know it, and he won't say anything."
I nodded, turned, and made my way across the long, long room to the stairway, then down and out. Shandy didn't look up as I walked past him.
It was still raining when I got outside, but not too hard. I made it back to the Hat somewhere between wet and soaked.
"Boss, not to put too fine a point on it, but we need to get out of this place. Now. I mean, without stopping. Pick a direction and start walking."
"Yeah, I know.”
"Boss, they know who you are."
"I know.”
"That bastard could get rich just by dropping your name in the right ear."
"I know. But, Loiosh, why hasn't he done so already? Why am I still breathing?"
"Boss, can we please talk about this after we're out of town? I'm too old to learn to hunt for myself."
"You don't hunt, you scavenge."
"Boss—"
"Loiosh, have you ever known me to walk into something this strange and just walk away from it without finding out what's going on?"
"This would be a really, really good time to start."
"I'll take it under advisement"
I got inarticulate thoughts that were probably the jhereg equivalent of cursing.
I stamped some of the rain off my clothes and shook my head like a dog.
"Thanks for the shower, Boss."
"Like you were dry before?"
I found a drink and a chair and sat down.
"Loiosh, how in blazes did they learn my name?"
"Huh? You don't know?"
"You do?"
"Of course!"
"All right, how?"
"When you took the amulet off and did the spell, Boss. Remember, I felt something?"
This time it was my turn to curse. "They got it right out of my head."
"There's still the question of who did it."
"Who could it be? It wasn't the Jhereg. If they knew I was here, they'd send someone in to kill me. End of discussion."
'Uh, okay.”
"There's Chayoor himself.”
"Boss, he didn't tell himself who you are; someone has to have told him.”
"Sorry, chum. I'm not just going over who might have told Chayoor, I'm trying to work out all the players in this mess."
"Heh. Good luck with that."
"There's Orbahn, who's either too helpful, or not helpful enough."
"Right.”
"There are these witches. There's most likely a Coven. They could have acted on their own behalf, as the Coven. Even if not, one of their members must have done the Working, so either way they could know.
"Then there's the coachman, who's the only guy I've found who has been really helpful, which makes me suspicious."
"Uh... all right.”
"And then there's Count Saekeresh, however he fits in. Have I left anyone out?"
"Sure. Everyone else in town, and everyone, everyone knows.”
"I take your point, Loiosh. But let's keep it within reason."
"We're way beyond that, Boss."
"Loiosh.”
"All right. The host?"
"Right. The host. Good position to hear things, and knows I've been asking questions."
"Boss, can't we please leave?"
"No."
I accepted the psychic form of a resigned sigh and continued my ruminations.
"What are you thinking about, Boss? You know and I know you're going to march up to the Count and try to intimidate him. Probably work as well as—"
"Shut up.”
I hate it when he's right.
Well, if I was going to do it, may as well do it properly. I went over to Inchay. "Can you find someone to run a message to Count Saekeresh for me?"
He looked at me sharply, decided that was a mistake, and washed a cup that didn't need washing while he thought it over. At last he said, "Very well. What is the message?"
"If you have paper and ink."
He nodded, dried his hands, and vanished into a small room behind the bar, then emerged with the necessary equipment. I wrote and handed it to him, unsealed.
"How urgent is it?"
"Today would be good."
"I'll see that it gets there today."
I gave him more of that jingly stuff that keeps tradesmen wanting to be helpful, then settled back to see if Orbahn would show up, and if Loiosh would calm down.
No, and no.
Later I had more lamb stew. Sometimes I get into ruts where I'll eat the same thing for days. I used to do that, long ago, I guess in part out of laziness. Cawti had largely broken me of the habit just because I liked trying new ideas out on her, but now I was falling back into the pattern. But I guess part of it was that the lamb stew was good. I
liked the bread, too; having the right kind of bread to mop up stew is its own art.
No, and no.
The place started to fill up, and I moved to a back table. I was getting more covert looks than I had before; I wasn't sure exactly what sort of word was spreading about me, but something was. I reflected that that was part of the problem—I didn't know. I'd gotten spoiled, I suppose, by having Kragar near at hand, and access to Morrolan's spy network (he never used that term, I think he found it distasteful, but that's what it was), and Kiera and her nearly endless knowledge of the arcana of the Underworld. If I wanted to know what was going on, all I had to do was decide who to ask first; eventually I'd find out. Here, I was in the dark, and I didn't care for it. Cawti would have told me to figure out exactly what I wanted to accomplish, and then helped me break it down into steps, and—