“In fewkin’ winter!” Bad Tom interjected.
“Across the Green Hills to Osawa to retrieve the Emperor’s share of the fur trade.” The captain smiled. “Which paid off our bets, so to speak.”
“You ain’t telling any part of this right,” Sauce said.
Gabriel glared at her-she couldn’t tell, despite knowing him many years, whether this was his instant anger or a mock-glare. “Why don’t you tell it, then,” he said.
She raised and lowered her eyebrows very rapidly. “All right then.” She looked to the Keeper. “So we-” She paused. “Got very lucky and-” She thought of the security ramifications and realized she couldn’t actually name Kronmir, the spy, who had left the enemy and joined them and even now was making his way to Harndon with Gelfred and the green banda. “And… we… er…”
Gabriel met her eye and they both laughed.
“As I was saying,” he went on. “A month ago and more, we found through treason in the former duke’s court in Lonika the location of the Emperor, and we staged a daring rescue, met his army in the field and beat it, and killed his son Demetrius.”
“Who had already murdered his father,” Ser Alcaeus muttered, joining the circle.
“So we returned the Emperor to his loving daughter and grateful city, took our rewards, and came straight here to spend them,” the Red Knight said. “Leaving, as you don’t seem to notice, more than half our company to guard the Emperor.”
“His mouth is moving and I can’t understand a word he says.” Bad Tom laughed. “Except that we’re all still being paid.”
Ser Michael joined the giant. “You told what happened without any part of the story,” he said.
“That’s generally what happens,” Gabriel agreed. “We call the process ‘History.’ Anyway, we’ve been busy, we have silver, and we’re all on our way south. We’ll help Tom get his beeves to market and then most of us will go to the king’s tournament at Harndon at Pentecost.”
“With a stop in Albinkirk,” Ser Michael said.
Gabriel glared at his protégé, who was unbowed.
“To see a nun,” Michael added, greatly daring.
But the captain’s temper was well in check. He merely shrugged. “To negotiate a council of the north country,” Gabriel corrected him. “Ser John Crayford has invited a good many of the powers. It’ll run alongside the market at Lissen Carak.”
The Keeper nodded. “Aye-I’ve had my herald. I’ll be sending one o’ my brats wi’ Bad Tom. It’s a poor time to go, for mysel.” He wrinkled his nose. “And ye-pardon me. But you may be the king o’ sell-swords, but what ha’ ye to do wi’ the north country?”
Gabriel Muriens smiled. For a moment, he looked rather more like his mother than he would have liked. “I’m the Duke of Thrake,” he said. “My writ runs from the Great Sea to the shores at Ticondaga.”
“Sweet Christ and all the saints,” the Keeper said. “So the Muriens now hold the whole of the wall.”
Gabriel nodded. “The Abbess has some of it, out west. But yes, Keeper.”
The Keeper shook his head. “The Emperor gave you the wall?”
Sauce had a look on her face as if she’d never considered the implications of her captain being the Lord of the Wall. Bad Tom looked as if an axe had hit him between the eyes. Gavin was looking at his brother with something like suspicion.
Only Ser Michael looked unfazed. “The Emperor,” he said lightly, “is very unworldly.” He scratched his beard. “Unlike our esteemed lord and master.”
Whatever reaction this comment might have received was lost when a slim man with jet-black hair emerged from the dumbwaiter that brought kegs from the deep cellars. The Keeper’s folk rode the man-powered elevator from time to time, usually for a prank or when ale was needed very quickly; but most of the folk standing on the staff side of the bar had never seen the black-haired man before. He wore a well cut, very short black doublet and matching hose and had pale, almost translucent skin, like depictions of particularly ascetic saints.
“Master Smythe,” Gabriel said, with a bow.
The Keeper puffed his cheeks. “Could we,” he said carefully, “move this to another room?”
One by one they passed under the bar into the outer common room and then forced their way to the end of the great hall and out into a private solar under the eaves. It was chilly, and the young woman who had so carefully given the captain the eye knelt gracefully and began to make up a fire. She lit it with a taper and then curtsied-but this time her bright eyes were for Master Smythe.
Master Smythe surprised them all by watching her as she left for wine and ale, and a tiny wisp of smoke came from one nostril. “Ah, the children of men,” he said. He raised an eyebrow at Gabriel. “What curious animals you are. You don’t want her, but you resent her wanting me.”
Gabriel’s head snapped back as if he’d been struck and, behind him, Father Arnaud choked on his ale and hid his face.
“Must you always say what other people are thinking?” asked the Red Knight. “It would be a bad enough habit with your own thoughts. Please don’t do it with mine.”
Master Smythe smiled politely. “But why resent me?”
Gabriel exhaled for so long that it wasn’t a sigh. It was like a physical release of tension. His eyes moved-
He shrugged. “I miss the company of women in my bed,” he said with flat honesty. “And I like to be desired.”
Master Smythe nodded. “As do I. Do you perceive me as a rival?”
Sauce stepped in. “Given that you’re some sort of god and we’re not, I’m sure he does.” She smiled at the black-haired man. “But he’ll get over it.”
“I can fight my own fights,” the Red Knight said, putting a hand on Sauce’s shoulder. He nodded graciously to Master Smythe. “We are allies. Allies are-often-potential rivals. But I think you put too much on my surface thoughts and my animal reactions. I like a wench, and sometimes,” he smiled, “I do things from habit.”
Master Smythe nodded. “For my part, I am a surly companion, my allies. Do you know that before this little matter of the sorcerer in the north, I was quite happy to lie on my mountain and think? I retreated from this world for reasons. And as I play this game, the reasons seem to me ever more valid.” He looked around. “I am not filled with a sense of ambition or challenge, but just a vague fatigue. Facing our shared foe-” He paused. “I’d really rather that he just went off to another plot, another world.”
The serving girl returned. She had broad shoulders-extraordinarily broad. She had a peculiar grace, as if life in a big body had forced her to some extraordinary exercises.
The Red Knight leaned over. “You’re a dancer!” he said, delighted.
She bobbed her head. “Yes, m’lord,” she said.
“A Hillman!” Gabriel said.
Master Smythe laughed. “Surely-surely we call her a Hillwoman.”
She blushed and looked at the ground and then raised her eyes-to Master Smythe.
Gabriel took a sip of ale. “I think I’ve lost this round,” he said. Sauce rolled her eyes and leaned against the table.
The fire roared to life, the kindling bursting into an almost hermetical fire so that the small room was instantly warmer.
Father Arnaud whispered something as Bad Tom pushed in, and Sauce roared. “It’s like watching two lions with a bunny,” she said.
Father Arnaud was less than amused.
Master Smythe took his ale and sat in the chair at the end of the table, and the rest of them made do with two benches and a collection of stools brought by a trio of boys. There wasn’t really room for everyone-Ser Michael was filling out rapidly and bid fair to reach Bad Tom’s size; Bad Tom folded himself into a nook by the chimney, as if storing heat for his future of sleeping out on the moors with his flocks. Sauce hooked a stool across from the captain. Mag came in and settled on the bench next to the captain, and Gavin took the other side. The Keeper took a stool at the far end of the table from Master Smythe. Ser Alcaeus stood behind the captain, leaning with his shoulders wedged into the oak panels. Wilful Murder stood in the doorway for as long as a nun might say a prayer, and the captain made a sign with his hand and the old archer slipped away.