Shortly, a tall, burly, and gray-haired patroller in greens, with a gold seven-pointed star on each collar, emerged from the building, accompanied by another patroller, and walked toward the waiting coach.
“… don’t care what’s wrong with his wife.… He keeps the schedule, or he can take an early stipend.… Tell him that.”
“Yes, Chief.”
Just from his body posture, the few words, and the chief’s tone of voice, Quaeryt didn’t care any more for the chief than for Duultyn, who, apparently, was Burchal’s nephew. That family tree has more than its share of sour lemons.
After the coach pulled away, Quaeryt decided to walk back to Hill Square, as much because he wanted to look around a nicer part of Nacliano as because there was little more he could learn by watching the Patrol building. Besides, he couldn’t hold the concealment shield for long, long periods without getting exhausted, and remaining near the Patrol building without concealment might call too much notice to himself.
As he walked along the even yellow-brick sidewalks that bordered the equally uneven yellow-brick surface of the streets, he couldn’t help but notice a certain almost furtive air displayed by many of those he passed, who moved with their eyes shifting quickly from point to point. Yet few eyes rested long on Quaeryt, as if those who did look at him quickly dismissed him and looked away.
When he neared Hill Square, he began looking for the narrow street that held the bookshop, then turned down it. He walked past the felter’s shop, then stopped. The dilapidated building between the felter’s and the cordwainer’s was closed, the iron-grated door locked. It looked abandoned, and as if it had been for years. Yet he had been there the day before. Abruptly, he nodded. Clearly, the use of the “cooperage” as a bookstore was a tacit accommodation between Burchal and the bookseller, who had to have once been other than a mere vendor of tomes.
He retraced his steps back uphill in the direction of the nearer pastry shop. Less than a quint later, he stood inside a white-walled shop filled with the scents of baking bread, almonds, and other nuts and spices.
A dark-haired girl who could not have stood to his shoulder looked over the counter at him. “Might I help you, sir?”
“What’s the best pastry you have?” he asked.
“The lime tarts are good, and so are the orange ones … or perhaps the walnut-honey layers…” The woman girl smiled shyly.
Lime tarts reminded him of sour lemons, and so might an orange one, especially if it were the slightest bit bitter. “I’ll try one of the walnut-honey pastries.”
“A walnut-honey layer it is. Two coppers.”
Two coppers? The shop definitely catered to the wealthier citizens of Nacliano. Quaeryt handed over the coppers and received in return a square of layers of thin pastry interspersed with honey and ground nuts and placed on a larger square of brown paper.
“There you are.”
Quaeryt took the pastry outside and walked slowly in the direction of the Tankard, not that he was in any hurry. He took a small bite of the walnut-honey layer, chewing it slowly.
For all its sweetness, the pastry tasted bitter.
Like Nacliano.
He finished the last crumbs and licked his fingers, then continued eastward toward the Tankard, which, for all its lack of comfort, somehow felt more honest than did Hill Square.
15
On Vendrei morning, Quaeryt did not get up quite so early. He didn’t see much point in tracking the patrollers exceptionally close to dawn. He had overheard that Duultyn was on duty, but, if that had changed, it wasn’t something that he could control. Still, he washed up and shaved and finished breakfast before seventh glass, then went out to the high desk in the front hall. The wall shelf remained empty of any pottery or other decorations.
When the gray lady appeared, he said, “Thank you. I won’t be staying tonight.”
“You find a ship?” asked Lily.
“I did.”
“Chexar’s Moon’s Son, I’d wager. He’s one of the few that goes north in summer. Good master, but not the most fortunate, I’ve heard tell.”
“And he’s still sailing?”
“He’s one of the best at sea. He hasn’t always picked the right cargoes at the right time.”
Quaeryt nodded. He understood that, and he didn’t care as much about the cargoes as arriving safely in Tilbora.
“Best of fortune.”
“Thank you.”
After making a few small purchases, including a large number of apricots, Quaeryt arrived across the street from the harbor Patrol building two quints before the ten bells of midday rang out. He took a seat at the cafe from where he could watch the Patrol building, set his small canvas bag between his boots, and ordered a lager and a domchana. He paid the server immediately in case he needed to depart in a hurry. Then, between bites and sips, he just watched.
The only places where the sidewalks were uncrowded were those fronting the Patrol building. Likewise, there were no street vendors there, either.
Quaeryt smiled as he watched a young bootblack persuade a couple to have their boots shined. He wasn’t quite so pleased when he saw a pleasant-faced young woman cozy up to a teamster about to unload his wagon, but he needn’t have worried, because the burly fellow backhanded her cutpurse companion with enough force to throw him into the wagon and leave him stunned. The two thieves scurried off, but their haste was unnecessary because there were no patrollers nearby, even in front of the Patrol building, and the teamster didn’t call for any.
Quaeryt ordered a second lager, not that he intended to drink it all, and kept watching, but also looking toward the harbor time and again, as if he were waiting for someone.
As on the previous day, Burchal did not leave at noon, but at just before a single bell struck the first glass of the afternoon, and he was accompanied by two other patrollers. No coach arrived, for which Quaeryt was grateful, although he had been prepared to follow the coach on foot, since Nacliano’s streets were narrow and crowded enough that coach or wagon movement near the harbor was slow.
As soon as he glimpsed the chief, Quaeryt stood and left, slipping a pair of coppers to the serving girl as he passed her. He moved into a shadowed doorway for a moment and raised a concealment shield, hoping that anyone looking in his direction would simply have thought he had entered the confectionery shop, while anyone watching from inside the shop would think that he had hurried away.
The three patrollers had covered less than twenty yards before Quaeryt had closed enough to overhear parts of their conversation.
“… talk about it later.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“What do you say we go to Ufyeryl’s?”
“The fare’s good there.”
“So are the servers,” replied Burchal with a deep rolling laugh. “It’s close, and I need to be back before half past second glass.”
No more than a block later, the three entered a large cafe. Ufyeryl had to have been the owner or the proprietor, because the signboard outside the stone-faced structure declared it to be the Sea Sprite. Unlike at most eating establishments in Nacliano, the windows were glazed and the shutters painted, if a shiny gray.
Quaeryt had to squeeze in behind the last patroller because he didn’t want people seeing a door open and close with no one apparently there.
“We have your favorite table available, Chief Burchal,” offered a corpulent man in a white shirt and purple vest, gesturing toward the left side of the dining area.
Burchal said nothing, but one of the two patrollers following murmured to the other, “As if he dared otherwise.”