«Damn!» said Blade. All they needed now was for all the sailors and small boats in Mestron to turn out to hunt down a rogue yulon. His cherished message system would be up the creek-or rather, down to the bottom of the sea.
That night he almost did find it hard to sleep.
But the next morning, after two weeks of sifting sand, he found his first nugget. He found it in the course of an argument with an arms merchant.
«You're charging twenty silver bits apiece for these-these pieces of junk?» Blade sneered, pointing at a stack of crossbows. «I ought to-«
«Oh, ten thousand devils take all you damned bloodsucking buyers!» stormed the merchant. «You want finished crossbows at the price of scrap iron! If you want something that cheap, go to Duke Tymgur's armorers! They can afford to give away their work. The Duke pays them enough, curse them!»
«You're telling tales,» said Blade sourly. «Nobody's that rich or that foolish.»
The merchant threw his hands into the air, dislodging the wig from his bald and sweaty head. «So you don't believe me? All right, then waste your money. I give up!» He turned away decisively and began rummaging in his desk for a ledger.
Blade would have liked to ask a few more questions but didn't dare risk it. Not here and now, at least. He couldn't afford word getting around too soon that he was unnaturally interested in Duke Tymgur's strange business practices. If it did, his disguise might not be enough to save him. The word might go out to watch for any man asking about Tymgur, and possibly also to follow such a man back to his lodgings. That would be fatal. But for the first time in weeks, Blade allowed himself a small bit of hope as he left the dark warehouse for the glaring sun of the streets.
His hopes were justified. Over the next three days, he was able to pick up a good deal of information by casually dropping Duke Tymgur's name. So casually, in fact, that only a well-trained observer could have detected anything unusual in Blade's words. He had to hope that there were no well-trained observers listening to him or watching his comings and goings.
Gradually he began to build up a picture. As each piece of that picture fell into place, he sent it off in the night's message. Duke Tymgur was pouring much of his immense wealth into subsidizing arms sales to both Sea Masters and Sea Cities. He had begun doing this about the time the war between the two sea peoples became particularly violent. He had a large force of armed retainers on his estates to the north of Mestron, almost a private army. He had immense influence among the nobles and among the officers of the imperial fleet and army, being openhanded with both patronage and money. He was not popular among the arms merchants, whom he constantly undersold.
Blade began to meet with some of those merchants by night, slipping gold into their hands. They said to him things they would not have dared to say in daylight. It did not take long for Blade to finish his picture of what was going on in Nurn and send the last detail of it off to the people waiting aboard Fox at Clintrod.
The last message he sent from the Inn of the Seven Cats read:
I am going tonight to a dealer reputedly in the service of the Duke himself. This is dangerous, but I must visit at least one such before I finish my work here.
There may be a trap laid for me. In case there is, I am having the four sailors move in disguise tonight to another inn. They will wait for me there. If I do not rejoin them or send word that I am safe within a day, they will head north and go aboard Fox. You will not wait for me after they appear, but set sail at once for Talgar. My disappearance will be the final proof that Duke Tymgur is behind the plot to embroil Talgar and the Sea Masters with each other, to his advantage.
The Goddess be with you. Blade
Blade did not particularly enjoy the prospect of sticking himself up like a lightning rod and seeing what Duke Tymgur would throw at him. But he couldn't see that he had much choice.
Chapter FIFTEEN
Richard Blade was prowling the streets of Mestron, at an hour when they were normally deserted by all honest people. No, that was not true. The Sisters of the Night, the high-class courtesans, were honest in that they gave value for money received. But none of their elegant carriages were within sight or hearing now.
Tonight Blade was not moving through the waterfront warehouses and taverns. He slipped along paths and alleys in a residential quarter, high on a wooded hill a good three miles from the harbor. It was also where Duke Tymgur's agent had promised a meeting.
Blade didn't know the quarter nearly as well as he knew the waterfront. The wooded villas and estates around him could easily hide an ambush. But he had no choice. If Duke Tymgur's agent seriously wanted to do business, that was fine. If he was setting a trap-well, no one could ask better proof of the Duke's treachery than an effort to murder the agent probing into his affairs. Blade hoped that if there was a trap, he could spring it and make his escape. He remembered what he had told Alanyra about getting the word out.
He had taken and was taking all the precautions he could think of. For the last mile he had followed a wandering, unpredictable course toward the rendezvous, to throw off anyone trying to follow him. He avoided patches of light as though they were quicksand and watched from the shadows each time he rounded a corner. His eyes flickered endlessly from side to side, his footsteps were light, and his hand was never far from his sword hilt.
He wore a short-sword and a broadsword on his belt, and all of his garments from hood to boots were dark gray or black. Under his tunic he wore a shirt of fine mail that would keep out all daggers and most swords. In sheaths at wrists and ankles, Blade carried four knives equally well-suited for stabbing or throwing. If there was a better concealed weapon than a good knife for silent killing in any dimension, Blade hadn't met it.
He also carried three signal pots in a pouch on his belt. Thrown down hard, they broke, ignited, and poured out vast clouds of thick greenish-white smoke. They made a signal clearly visible by day. By night they could also make a fleeing man invisible in a moment. Blade wasn't sure whether he was going to be cat or mouse in this game. But he knew that he might change from one to the other in a matter of seconds.
He checked behind him, looking down the street and then searching the wall tops to the left and right of him. No movement, not even a prowling cat or a waving branch. Blade took advantage of the pool of shadow to do a few limbering-up exercises. Then he stalked on.
He came to the street that led to the agent's villa. He flattened himself against the base of a vine-grown wall. The street stretched out of sight, the gate of the villa clearly visible in the moonlight. There was no other light in the street and none visible through the trees rising above the villa wall. But there was plenty of light for an archer to aim by, and the street was open and bare of cover.
He wasn't going to walk down that street, an easy target for any archer lying in wait. If the agent was honest, and Blade's cautious approach made him uneasy, that was too bad. He could always say that he suspected the villa was being watched by the Emperor's agents. (Probably it was. And suppose they chose this moment to move in? That would solve the problem of Duke Tymgur, to be sure. But it wouldn't be much help to Blade if the Emperor's men stabbed first and asked questions afterward.)
Blade waited until a patch of cloud drifted across the moon. Then he flitted catfooted by the crossroads and dove into a ditch. Now he was at the foot of the villa's wall, around the corner from the gate.
Blade looked up, to the top of the wall. It was no more than eight feet high, overgrown with vines and jostled by small trees. He could see no spikes on top. He waited for another moment of dimmed moonlight. Then he was up the wall with a rush.