This room had been somewhere he could bring a Spicetown whore, or that drunken sailor woman who had taken a fancy to him, or the chandler's daughter who had shared his bed for a month before running off to Ethshar of the Sands; it wasn't somewhere he would bring a wife or raise a child.
The room on Through Street – well, any whore he brought there would probably come from Camptown rather than Spicetown, but otherwise, it was much the same. The sights and smells outside the window might be less familiar, but that didn't really matter.
Eventually he wanted a place of his own, a place he could settle in for good, but this wasn't it, and neither was the house in Allston. The ambassador's money, though, would bring him that much closer to someday finding it.
He closed the window, hoisted the duffel onto his shoulder, picked up the satchel, and left, closing the door behind him for one last time, and dropping the key in the landlady's waiting palm.
He trudged out of the alley, then across Canal Square and up Twixt Street. He turned left on Olive Street and made his way west a few hundred yards. There he paused, looking at the house his parents shared with two other families.
He had grown up here, with his two younger sisters, and with the seven kids of the other two families, though most of them had moved out now. The ten of them had all played together as children, and had been almost like a single family, instead of three. When he had been younger everyone took it for granted that he would eventually marry Azradelle the Tomboy, from upstairs, officially merging two of the three.
It hadn't happened, and no one still called her that. Now she was Azradelle of Shiphaven, married to Pergren the Pilot, and the mother of twins. They lived in a flat on Cinnamon Street, over in Spicetown, and had for a couple of years.
His behavior at their wedding was one reason he had moved out and found himself the room behind Canal Square – living in the same house as Azradelle's parents and younger siblings had been too uncomfortable after his spiteful drunken speech and… well, and other things.
It had been foolish, really; he hadn't wanted to marry Azradelle himself, and Pergren was a nice enough fellow, but somehow he hadn't been able to keep his mouth shut. He had felt cheated when she chose Pergren. It was completely unreasonable, and he knew that, he had known it at the time, but all those years of taking her for granted, combined with too much oushka, had somehow made him lose interest in being reasonable.
It was probably just as well Lar didn't know about that little episode.
He shifted the duffel, then climbed the stoop and knocked on the front door.
His father would probably be working over at the warehouse, and his mother was probably in the courtyard out back, but he was hoping one of his sisters would be within earshot. Sharra was in and out, despite her new husband, and Imirin had moved back after completing her apprenticeship.
Sure enough, the door opened, and Imirin peered out.
"Emmis!" she shrieked. "And you have luggage – are you coming home to stay?"
"No, no," he said. "I'm moving to Allston, and I wanted to let everyone know where I'll be living. Who's here?"
"Just me in the house. Mother's out back. Allston? What are you doing in Allston? There aren't any docks there!"
"Let me come in and put these things down, and I'll explain."
Imirin jumped aside. "Come in, come in!"
A few minutes later he was in the courtyard, explaining his new job to his sister, his mother, and half a dozen of the neighbors.
"Is he a warlock?" Klurйa the Seamstress from next door wanted to know. "I heard that everyone in Vond is a warlock."
"No, he's not a warlock," Emmis assured her. "I don't think he's any kind of magician, and I know he's not a warlock. He says there aren't any warlocks in the empire any more."
The question got him thinking, though – might Lar be a magician of some sort? He hadn't said so, had shown no sign of magic, but that didn't necessarily mean much, given his secrecy on certain subjects. Emmis was fairly sure the Lumethans were using magic of one variety or another, so why wouldn't the people of Vond? He would ask Lar about that when he got back to the house.
When at last he had answered everyone's questions about his new job, his new home, and his new employer – most of the answers were variations on, "I don't know yet" – the women took turns bringing him up to date on the local gossip. Imirin was trying to raise enough money to open her own shop, but so far was making do with operating a small still in the basement and selling her products to the local inns; Sharra was still furnishing her new home and living on her dowry and her husband Radler's earnings. Azradelle was expecting another child in a few months, her brother Kelder was keeping company with a merchant's daughter from Westgate, their sister Irith was still apprenticed to the old sailmaker on Shipwright Street but not happy about it, and so on.
Imirin insisted on giving him a sample of her latest batch, which seemed to make some of the neighbors nervous; presumably they remembered what a few cups of oushka had done to him at Pergren and Azradelle's wedding. Emmis limited himself to drinking perhaps half the small sample, just so no one would worry.
He had to admit that it was excellent oushka. Imirin's master had taught her well.
"Imirin the Distiller," their mother said proudly. "Doesn't that sound fine?"
Emmis agreed that it did, and carefully didn't mention any of the cognomens his youngest sister had had as a girl, before she lost her stammer and baby fat.
Finally Emmis was able to pry himself free, collect his baggage, and depart, making his way around to the west, then down Captain Street to Shiphaven Market, and along Commission Street to the Crooked Candle.
He stepped inside, and was immediately spotted.
"There you are!" Annis cried. "Come here, Emmis, and talk to me!" She pulled out a chair.
She was seated alone at a table in the back corner, facing the door. There was no sign of the Lumethans.
He hesitated. He had come here to see her, but he had not been prepared for quite so loud and enthusiastic a greeting. Gita the tavern wench was watching from the kitchen door, Annis' shout having caught her attention.
Somehow, Emmis had expected spies to behave with a little more circumspection. Still, this was why he had come, to talk to the foreigners. He crossed the room, and settled into the chair Annis had indicated, lowering his two bags to the floor by his feet.
Annis smiled at him. "So you've come to tell me what the Vondishman is up to?" she asked.
"Something like that," Emmis acknowledged.
She dismissed it with a wave. "You needn't bother," she said. "We already know all about it."
Emmis blinked at her. "You do?"
"Yes, we do. We talked to that warlock, that Ishta, this morning – Hagai took me down there to translate. She told us all about Lar's grandson."
"Oh. Yes."
"And we're agreed on what we'll have to do. It's drastic, but we don't have any choice."
Emmis did not like the sound of that at all. "Drastic?"
"I would say so, yes." Her smile vanished. "You don't object, do you? It will save hundreds of lives in the long run. I know he's paying you, but you don't owe him any loyalty, really. Not with something like this."
"Object to what?" he asked warily.
Annis stared at him, then looked to either side.
The inn's taproom was largely deserted; it was too early for the supper crowd. Emmis and Annis sat at one table, three sailors sat at another at least twenty feet away, and a man in a blue tunic was apparently passed out drunk in one corner. Gita was out of sight, presumably in the kitchen. No one else was visible.
Still, Annis leaned forward and whispered.
"Assassination, of course."
Chapter Ten