Exile's Honor

sympathetic. He came across as unworldly and just a bit absent-minded. People confided in him a great deal, and generally had no idea how much they had told him.

Nevertheless, there was no doubt in Talamir's mind that if saboteurs and couriers were to materialize in Haven, they would be living and operating in the area that Alberich was responsible for. Elsewhere, people were curious about their neighbors. In effect, each little quarter outside of the most impoverished areas was a kind of village, where everyone knew everyone else and wanted to know what they were up to. Not so around Exile's Gate. The inhabitants were utterly indifferent to the doings around them, and with good reason. Those who were too curious often ended up on—at best—the wrong end of a beating.

'Plenty of damage can come out of Exile's Gate,' Talamir assured him. 'Anything you do to stop it from traveling to our enemies is another arrow in our quiver.'

Alberich sighed. 'It seems like not enough.' But he leaned back and accepted a refill and an apple, which he peeled with a frown of concentration, getting the entire peel off in one piece. The knife made a crisp sound as it passed through the flesh.

'If you were a maid, you'd be tossing that over your shoulder, and looking for the letters of your husband's name in it,' Dethor observed, as Alberich carefully set the long curl of peel aside.

Alberich regarded him somberly. 'Is that so? In Karse, such are for the children fried and dipped in honey. I have told you, divination a thing of witchcraft is. No Karsite maiden would dare such a thing, for the fear of the Fires.'

Once again, Talamir was struck by how very different the Karsites were. A Valdemaran wouldn't think twice about tossing an apple peel, reading the tea leaves, wishing in a fountain. And that was the essence of the problem that faced the agents sent into Karse.

'Have you eaten?' Talamir asked, instead of commenting. 'More than just that apple, I mean.'

Alberich shrugged; Talamir took that as a negative, and made up an impromptu meal for him from the remains of supper's meat and salad and some bread. Since Alberich took it with polite thanks, then absently ate it in less time than it had taken Talamir to make it, the King's Own was certain that he must have been famished.

'Glad enough, I am, to be rid of such filth as were locked away,' Alberich continued, swallowing the last bite whole and absently licking his fingers. 'Only, I wish it were more that I was doing. In the South...'

That was as good an opening as Talamir was likely to get, and he took it, explaining what he had in mind. He knew Alberich very well now; he didn't waste his breath in trying to convince the man of anything, just stated his case. He watched as Alberich's eyes took on that curiously unfocused appearance that meant he was discussing the idea with his Companion.

This gave Talamir plenty of time to study Alberich, and he didn't like what he saw.

Besides the bandaged forehead and forearm—not his sword arm, which was telling—there was a bulge beneath the sleeve covering the biceps of that same arm that suggested another bandage, perhaps of a previous wound. The scars left from the burns on his face were crisscrossed by others now. That, as Talamir recalled, was a favorite tactic of low-and-dirty street fighting—to go for the face, figuring that the pain and blood that any facial cut produced would be such a distraction that it would be easier to go in for a kill.

Not that facial scars were going to make him stand out in the neighborhoods and the company where Alberich was going at night. The opposite was true, actually; the more scars, the more he would fit in. Beneath the scars, the face was good, if carved on harsh lines—a long oblong with a stubborn chin, high cheekbones, wide brow, heavy eyebrows set in a permanent scowl, aquiline nose, and the eyes of a goshawk, fierce and wild, with the barest hint of something that was not quite sane. Or at least, it was a peculiar sort of sanity, that saw deeper into dark places and could stare into the abyss without flinching. Perhaps it was the curious quality that Alberich's eyes had of never being the same color twice in a row, varying from the gray of a threatening storm through a muddy green-brown, to (as they were tonight) something close to black.

For the rest, well, there was no doubt that even in the company of Heralds, who were a fit and athletic group, Alberich stood out. It was not that he had a perfect body—at least, not in the sculptural sense—it was something else. The practiced eye picked out the quality of muscle, the way every movement was just enough and no more, the absolute stillness at rest, and the immediate response when one was called for. Every movement was exact. It was difficult to describe, but easy to see when one knew what to look for. There was a fine economy in Alberich's actions, not a bit of energy wasted, and nothing held back when it was needed.

All of which, of course, came across as predatory and threatening, and probably all to the good down there in the slums.

'So,' Alberich said at last. 'I will think further on this.'

It was a disappointing reply, but Talamir tried not to show his disappointment. There was nothing more he could add to his argument, and anything else would be nothing more than pressure that Alberich would probably respond poorly to.

'Seeking my bed, I should be,' Alberich continued, rising, and looking down at them solemnly. 'Dethor's Second, I still am, and there Trainees always are.'