Dragonbait had left her a note that he’d be with Mintassan, so she snatched up some breakfast rolls and set out for the Tower, where the watch and Durgar were headquartered.
At the edge of the market, a Turmishwoman was hawking short wooden skewers laden with roasted, spiced meat. The smell was not only enticing, but brought back memories of her old friend Akabar, who had once prepared her meat the same way. The Turmishwoman caught her eye and thrust out a stick laden with meat, saying, “Lady, you look hungry.”
Alias laughed. “I am,” she admitted. She bought two sticks of meat, and while she was wolfing down the dripping lamb, she noticed Jamal’s troupe. They were set up in the corner of an open-air cafe, apparently with the owner’s blessings, for he was doing a booming business selling chowder in bread bowls to the audience.
There was no sign of the Faceless. Evidently Jamal was still in no condition to perform and her understudy did not feel up to the role. The actress who usually played Alias was present, as were the halfling juggler and the actor wearing the Dragonbait costume.
On the stage were six small kegs stacked in a pyramid, representing, Alias realized, the barrels of wine in the Thalavar warehouse. One of the three stage Night Masks carried on her shoulders a cyclops head puppet—the symbol of House Urdo.
Alias tried to figure out the appearance of the Urdo puppet. Was House Urdo behind the raid? To get the wine?
There was the usual slapstick swordplay until the Night Mask carrying Urdo blew up a paper bag and popped it in the halfling’s face. Black powder billowed from the bag, and the halfling and the other two Night Masks dropped to the stage and lay still.
Alias swallowed back a return of last night’s grief. The audience reacted with an angry mutter, but their anger was not with the serious turn the troupe had suddenly taken; it was aimed at the Night Masks. Although human-halfling relationships were sometimes strained in Westgate, the general consensus was that only a coward would kill a halfling.
In the play, Alias’s reaction was swift and sure. She yanked the Urdo puppet away from the remaining Night Mask and kicked the thief off the stage. The Night Mask lay still at the audience’s feet. Dragonbait pulled out a miniature prison stocks, and Alias locked the Urdo puppet in it. The audience participated immediately, throwing scraps of food and rocks at the puppet and booing loudly.
The halfling rose from the stage and called out, “This collection’s for the family of Maxwell Berrybuck. He’s left behind a wife, a stout son, and two fine little girls.” As the musicians played a dirge, the Night Mask actors yanked off their masks. All the actors took up the small kegs and plowed their way through the audience, collecting far more coin than Alias had ever seen any of Jamal’s shows earn.
There was the trill of a watch whistle in the distance, and the entire acting troupe looked up. While Jamal might go toe-to-toe with the local authorities, her people obviously recognized the better part of valor. Wrapping themselves and their kegs of coin in their cloaks, they disappeared down one alley, the musicians down another. Although the actors had plenty of time, they made no effort to retrieve the food-spattered Urdo puppet, but left it sitting in the stocks.
Discretely, Alias stepped into the shadow of a building and looked down the street in the direction of the whistle. A phalanx of guards, headed not by Sergeant Rodney, but by the humorless, freckle-faced officer, bore down on the cafe. Of course, by the time they arrived, there was no one but innocent cafe customers picking at their chowder-soaked bread bowls and a puppet. The freckle-faced officer’s reaction to the puppet locked in the stocks surprised the swordswoman. He pulled the puppet out and ordered one of his men to hide it beneath his cloak. The patrol then turned and marched back toward the Tower.
Alias gave them a friendly nod as they went marching past her, but they all kept their eyes locked forward and did not acknowledge her presence. She shook her head with disdain at their rigid attitude. Not wanting to arrive at the Tower on the heels of the patrol, Alias strolled more casually through the market.
The market was a rainbow of tents and stalls erected each dawn and removed, by order of the watch, before sunset. Here all the merchants of Westgate were out in full force, extolling the virtues of their wares and pressing them into view of all potential customers. Even merchants who had a shop in town kept a stall in the market to hawk their best items.
A bolt of shining yellow fabric caught Alias’s eye, and she paused for a moment to finger the shimmering cloth. A moment was all the stall’s salesman needed to notice her interest and descend on her. He was a short young man in saffron robes and a long, long plait of hennaed hair. He had the most ridiculous patter about how silk from Kara-Tur was harvested from great purple worms herded by giants and spun into cloth with the aid of magic.
Alias had fought purple worms before and knew that the beast’s tail was armed with a scorpionlike stinger, not spinnerets, but she knew better than to reply. She’d learned from Akabar that such fanciful tales were a common merchant’s trick along the southern coast. If the potential buyer believed the tale, the product was enhanced. If not, any time spent arguing about the tale kept the buyer looking at the product, and, hopefully, increasing her desire to own it. Alias smiled wordlessly at the merchant and passed on. She could hear him tell another passerby how Mulhorand silk was made from moonspiders who tried to snare Selune each night from her orbit.
The swordswoman paused by a jewelry stall. As she lingered over a large display of silver and gold earrings, she began wondering what she would wear for the Dhostar boat party. She traveled light, and she suspected that nothing in her backpack would be suitable. She’d brought plenty of money to buy something, but there wasn’t time to have anything sewn.
Lost in her own thoughts, it was a few moments before Alias noticed the stall’s saleswoman, a southerner who, being quite tall and dressed in a gown splatter-dyed with every imaginable color, was hard to miss. Yet while the woman watched Alias curiously, she kept a respectful distance, allowing the swordswoman to browse without pestering her.
Alias examined three sets of earrings. The first was a pair of tiny daggers with blue stones in the pommels. The daggers were beautifully crafted, but Alias decided they were too fierce. The second set of earrings was a moon engraved with Selune’s face, matched with a dangling set of tears—the shards that followed the moon across the sky. The moon and tears, while clever, reminded her uneasily of the arguments she’d had with Finder Wyvernspur over his song The Tears of Selune. The third pair, a set of interlocking stars, reminded her of the stars in the Dhostar trading badge. Victor, she thought, would appreciate the connection. She held out the earrings to the saleswoman asking, “How much?”
“No charge,” the large woman said, shaking her head, “I recognize you. You’re Alias.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Alias replied with a smile as she reached for her purse.
The saleswoman’s face clouded for a moment with hurt, “Please, take them,” she insisted. “You have done so much good. Consider them a gift on behalf of all of Westgate.”
Alias chuckled, “The last time I received a gift on behalf of a whole town, I’d just killed a kalmari. I haven’t done that much yet here.”
“Hmmph,” the woman said dismissively. “Kalmaris are nothing. Night Masks, they’re trouble. You take those. Don’t feel bad. Once I tell people Alias-Who-Unmasks-the-Night wears my jewelry, I’ll sell it all.” She smiled broadly, revealing two rows of perfect white teeth.