He bounced a coin on his knee, thinking about Tenik, and wondering if Tenik and Yaret would ever forgive him for disappearing right on the eve of finally clearing Landfall of the Blackhats.
“Guess we’ll have to find out.” Michel got to his feet, carrying the stool over to the corner of the great room. He set it against the wall, using it as a stepping point to lift himself onto the gaudy trim that went around the middle of the wall. He braced one leg on a hole in the plaster where someone had torn out a gas lantern, then kicked another hole in the plaster to get him up near the ceiling. He produced a knife, and began to stab through the ceiling until he hit something solid.
His legs trembled from the effort of bracing himself, and the half-healed gunshot wound in his chest began to burn. He quickly cut through the ceiling plaster and then used the handle of the knife to bash the rest of it until the ceiling finally gave way, a large metal box about the size of two saddlebags falling to the ground in a cloud of plaster dust.
Michel followed it down and cracked the seal on the box with his knife. He opened it cautiously, his face away from the lid until he was sure it wasn’t booby-trapped, and finally took a good look at the contents.
He gave a low whistle. “Taniel, you were really damn ready for anything, weren’t you?”
Michel found a large stable in the shadow of the plateau, a steady stream of carts moving in and out or parking in the street outside with loads of pumpkins or barrels or boxed uniforms for the Dynize Army. A sign over the door said HALFORD HAULING, and from what Michel had heard, the old man who owned the place had made himself a fortune just since the invasion by negotiating with some quartermaster to move supplies for a Dynize regiment.
Michel was dressed in a laborer’s cotton suit – his favorite disguise – and walked straight in through the front gate of the stable with hat in hand. Dozens of workers repaired wheels, transferred cargo, or tended to horses, and no one seemed to notice him as he slipped into one of the cart-parking stalls and found a young man checking equipment in the corner.
The young man had thinned since Michel saw him last, five or six months ago. His wisp of a beard was still a disgrace, and he still had that plain face of someone who could disappear into the crowd, but he moved with a purpose and confidence that he had not possessed before.
“Hello, Dristan,” Michel said, leaning against the wall beside him.
Dristan frowned and looked up at Michel, blinking a few times, clearly lost in his own thoughts. “Do I know you?”
“We only met briefly,” Michel said, “but we have met. I heard you drive for Halford now. That’s quite a step up from where you were before the invasion.”
Dristan got a sort of worried look, staring at Michel sidelong like one might a long-absent cousin who’d come looking for money. “I think you have the wrong man.”
Michel pointed at Dristan playfully. “That, I do not. The last time we saw each other, I was getting pissed at six o’clock in the morning in a pub in Lower Landfall.”
The color suddenly drained from Dristan’s face. He looked around quickly for anyone who might overhear, and he hissed at Michel. “Pit, I remember you now. You’re the spy who was supposed to train me.”
“I am.”
“Well, you listen to me. You never came looking for me, so I got a good job with Halford, and they just gave me my own route, and I don’t want nothing to do with anything spy business. The Blackhats are finished in this town, and I won’t let you take me down with them. Hear me?”
Michel held his hands up. “I’m not trying to take you down with anything, Dristan. I just want to hire you for a single route.”
“I just said I won’t do anything for the Blackhats.”
“I’m not with the Blackhats anymore. Pit, I changed sides just like old Halford, and the Dynize are making me rich. Ask around. There’s plenty of gossip about a Blackhat turncoat.”
Dristan eyed Michel with suspicion. “What do you want?”
“Like I said, I want to hire you. I just need someone to move a package for me.”
“If you need something hauled, you go inside and talk to Halford.”
“No, I won’t. I want you. I already checked your route. You’re taking supplies to the front about forty miles north of here. It’s, what, a week round-trip?”
Dristan swallowed hard.
Michel continued. “Next time you go north, I want you to take two people with you. They can hide in your supplies, or ride out front with you, or however the pit you want to do it. Just get them past the Dynize checkpoints with that little official card I know you carry around with you.”
“And what do I get in return? Are you going to blackmail me?”
“Not in the slightest. I’m not with the Blackhats anymore, and have no interest in forcing you to do anything illicit.”
“That sounds damned illicit to me.”
Michel gave a casual shrug. “Eh. It’s more of a convenience than anything else.” He produced a heavy little bag from his pocket and thumbed four shiny yellow disks, each about the size of a coin, into one hand. They were blank, without stamp or any national marking. He tossed one to Dristan, who caught it and stared for a moment before Michel said, “Solid gold. Ask a jeweler, if you want to confirm it. Four now, six when you get your passengers past the last checkpoint. And one more if you don’t ask any damn questions.”
Dristan continued to stare at the coin. “I could buy this whole stable with what you’re offering.”
“Right now,” Michel said, “convenience is more important to me than gold. Do we have a deal?”
Dristan bit the coin, muttering under his breath. “I’m allowed to take whichever of the next four shipments suits me. You give me a day, and we have a deal.”
Michel lifted one finger. “I’ll have to get back to you on the day.”
“You have big damn balls coming back here after storming out without an explanation the other day.” Ichtracia stood in her bedroom, watching Michel through puffy, red eyes that told him she’d either been crying or smoking mala. By the smell, it was the latter. She wore a dressing gown and slippers, and a discarded dress on the floor told Michel that she’d recently returned from somewhere.
Michel gave her his most charming smile, fingering the small bottle of chloroform wrapped in a rag in his left pocket. “I apologize.”
“I should turn you inside out.”
The words had no bite to them, and Michel wondered if maybe she had been crying. There was a defeated tone to her voice. He immediately began to worry, hoping this had nothing to do with him. Perhaps she’d just returned from another fight with her grandfather?
“I came to apologize and give you an explanation,” Michel said.
Ichtracia took a deep breath, and he waited for her to dismiss him without a word, but she let it out in a frustrated sigh instead. “I’d like to know why you left the other day. I could have used company.”
That tone was full of more hurt than Michel cared to plumb, and he found himself shocked by the rawness of it. He circled around her toward the window, glancing out into the street. “Are we alone?”