Surprisingly enough, Kadasah never even tried to cheat her patron. Some sort of honor thing Kaytin didn’t really understand, considering all the swindling and stealing she normally did.
“Why don’t you take two tattoos from the guy who has so many? It wouldn’t even be lying, you did kill two of them.”
Kadasah nodded and started to do the deed. She slipped the pieces of skin into the pouch she used specifically for that purpose, then she slashed the faces of her victims until they were unrecognizable and tossed the bodies into the swamp. She cleaned up in the muddy water and then they headed back to town.
Kaytin was only too glad to go. Dumping bodies was never one of his favorite things, but the Swamp of Night Secrets gave him goose bumps up and down his spine on the best of days.
There were evil things there; he knew it. Kadasah didn’t believe in such things. Kadasah believed in nothing except Kadasah. But despite what she might think, just because she didn’t believe in something didn’t mean it didn’t exist.
Kadasah sent Kaytin ahead to the Vulgar Unicorn as she went to leave the proof of her kill in her secret hiding place for her patron to find. She didn’t trust Kaytin to know where that was, and he guessed that said about everything you needed to know about their “relationship.”
Kaytin sulked up to the bar and ordered a tankard of Talulas Thunder ale. It was getting on toward the middle of the late watch, and the bar was sparsely populated.
“You look more than a little shaken this evening, Kaytin,” Pegrin the Ugly said with real concern.
“Were you ever in love, Pegrin?”
He laughed. “Oh, aye, many times,” he looked around. “So … where is the Irrune wench?”
“On business. She’ll be back shortly to drink too much and lie even more. We may even get back home and into bed before daybreak.”
“Doesn’t sound to me like love is your problem, sounds more like too much of each other.”
Kaytin’s head shot up and he nodded. “Exactly! The woman … she uses Kaytin till there is nothing left.”
Pegrin laughed loudly and said over his shoulder as he went to wait on another customer, “You know, in all my years behind the bar I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a man complain about that particular problem.”
Kaytin sipped at his ale. “All of Sanctuary is laughing at Kaytin’s pain,” he mumbled into his drink.
Kadasah awoke early the next afternoon lying crosswise across her “bed” with her head resting on Kaytin’s bare stomach and her feet laying out on the dirt outside the door. Her head was pounding, and her tongue felt hugely swollen. Damn! She hoped she’d had a good time.
She sat up and wiped the dirt off her feet. It was drizzling, apparently, because her feet were wet, or maybe they’d just had a very thick dew. No, it was raining, she could see the water dripping from a hole in the roof onto Kaytin’s head.
“Hey, Kaytin,” she said softly, as much for her head as his.
He covered his face with his arms. “No … not again, not so soon, I can’t, please, I beg you.”
“Whatever are you going on about? I was just going to tell you to move out of the drip.”
Kaytin moved his arms, looked up, and a drop of water landed in his eye. He got quickly to his feet and showed that he was at least a little hungover when he staggered and held his head.
“That’s it! I’ve had it. Do you hear me? This is the last straw. Would it be too damn much to ask for a new oilcloth at least, maybe a real door? You’re about to get paid, couldn’t we have a few comforts for the house? Do you really expect me to just continue to live here in this shack with you without even the simplest of conveniences? Does Kaytin mean anything to you at all, or am I just a convenient frog, a stooge to help you with your dirty work, a lackey to hold your horse and your place at the bar?”
“All right already,” Kadasah said, holding her hands over her ears to hold out his yelling. “You can have a new roof, and a new door.”
As soon as the rain let up they rode into town and Kadasah sent him to the changing house to swap the sword, dagger, boots, and clothes she’d taken from the two guys she’d killed the night before for the things he wanted.
He should have known it was too much to hope for that she might just hand him money and say, Go buy what you need.
Bezul looked at the still-wet clothing suspiciously, and Kaytin, who had stopped to wash the blood from the items of clothing, said quickly, “They got wet in the rain.”
“Uh-huh,” Bezul said skeptically. “And I suppose your girlfriend takes in laundry for a living.”
Kaytin smiled helplessly, and assured Bezul. “She didn’t steal them.”
Bezul shook his head, a smile on his face. “Get what you need.”
Kaytin found what he needed, the whole time wondering why she couldn’t just give him the money and come in and exchange things like the clothing and weapons of men she had killed herself. By the time he left the changing house his hands were shaking, and he didn’t feel guilty at all about keeping the few coins Bezul gave him in the trade.
The skies were gray and Kaytin was sure he could smell a storm coming. They worked through the rest of the day together to repair the door and lay the new oilcloth over the old one, tacking it down on the edges to what was left of the rafters.
When they had finished Kaytin was surprised at how much better he felt about everything. There was a certain security in knowing he had someplace to go where the wind couldn’t reach him and the rain couldn’t fall on him.
Besides, he had complained and she had actually cared enough to do something about it, which had to mean something.
They sat around the fire that evening chewing on some burnt animal or another, and Kaytin finally felt like he was home.
“I wish there was some way I could get Arizak and the others to listen to me,” Kadasah said.
“Just tell them about the guy you killed. That he came out of the tunnels, that he sang praises to the lady of death,” Kaytin said. “Why would you lie?”
“I’m sure they could come up with lots of reasons. They won’t believe me any more now than they did before. I don’t have any proof,” Kadasah said angrily, throwing what was left of her portion into the fire, not that it could burn any more than it already had. “More likely than not they’d string me up for confessing to the murder of ole-what’s -his-name.”
“You could tell them it was an accident.”
“Oh, yes, Kaytin, that will work. I accidentally stabbed him in the back of the neck, and then I accidentally stripped him, disfigured him, threw him in the swamp, and sold his stuff to fix my roof.”
“You had plenty of money to fix the roof,” Kaytin mumbled. Then he took a deep breath and said, “I heard that the Dragon and some of his people have left Sanctuary and gone off to the wilds to ride horses and play with sheep. And they say that Arizak’s taking so many drugs for the pain in his foot that he’s somewhat addled …”
“You apparently listen for the both of us,” Kadasah said with a smile. “But I fail to see of what use that information is to me.”
“Kaytin was just thinking that with everyone else so preoccupied, perhaps now would be a good time to approach Naimun, to tell him what you have learned Without of course telling him that you killed his friend. You could just say that you saw him go down into what you know is an entrance to the Dyareelan tunnels.”