Intrigues

animals before they got stepped on—the last thing you wanted was for your inn patrons to come into your common room with manure from something they’d trodden on in your yard. And the noise—you had to shout to be heard over it. Hooves clattering, wheels rolling, music and laughter from the inns themselves, and people in the yard talking or yelling at one another.

He sensed Chamjey coming closer and closer, and finally positioned himself at the crucial moment right where he could get a good view of the road. As a result, Mags caught sight of the man himself going into one of the inns that catered to the prosperous, but not wealthy.

But that might be a ruse. Chamjey had proven himself quite clever at such things already. So Mags moved around through the crowd at that inn, making sure that Chamjey was, indeed, in there to stay. Then he retired to the back of the stable and the relatively quiet alley to think. How to get close to the man?

:Server?: Dallen suggested.

:Too risky. He mightn’t order nothin’, an’ he’ll spook if somethin’ he didn’t expect turns up.:

:Well you don’t need to get in the same room he’s in, you only need to get near enough to overhear.:

:Server’s still too risky. Some’un might catch me lurkin’. An’ I ain’t had a chance t’ talk t’ the keeper an’ get permission. Reckon I’d be taken fer a thief.:

:And you need to be doing something that will keep you in one place for a good long while as you listen.: Dallen pondered this. :I wonder... can you just nip in and look at the fireplace in the common room?:

Mags was baffled by the request, but Dallen obviously had a reason for it, so he did as he was asked.

The common room was full, but not so crowded he couldn’t get next to the fire. He glanced into it. It looked like a fireplace. But Dallen, looking through his eyes, obviously saw something else, something he had been hoping for.

:Aha! The ashes haven’t been collected. Good. Come on out. We’re going to pay a quick visit to a soapmaker.:

Now Mags was even more baffled, but from the “feel” of Chamjey, the person he was waiting for had not yet arrived, so there was no reason to balk at Dallen’s orders.

:Why a soapmaker?: he asked, getting himself up into the saddle again.

:Because soapmakers need ashes, and inns produce a lot of ash they don’t need. Most households save their ashes—they make their own soap, they use the ash on their back gardens, or they use it to polish metal, like silver and brass, with. Inns don’t. So soapmakers go around to collect it. Here we are.: Dallen stopped at the front of a little shop that had a workshop in the back. :Go in and ask which soapmaker has the concession for the ashes at The Splendid Table. Be friendly and casual.:

Mags walked into the shop, which was a little like walking into a wall of scent. There was a counter just inside the door; behind the counter were shelves full of soap cut neatly into wrapped bars, or stacked in great multicolored chunks.

The pretty young blond girl about his age behind the counter, dressed in a light blue gown with an embroidered apron, stared wide-eyed at him. She knew what a Companion was, of course; every child old enough to walk in Haven knew what a Companion was. But it wasn’t often that you saw someone not in Whites or Grays riding one.

“Evenin’ missus,” Mags said, “Wunner if ye kin tell me who has concession fer the ashes from Splendid Table?”

“Oh!” The girl got two very pink spots in her cheeks, and her voice went up in a squeak. “That would be us —is something wrong?” Without waiting for an answer, she darted through a curtain into the back of the shop, and returned with a woman that was an older version of herself in tow.

“I’m Mella Amise, Herald,” the woman said, wiping her hand carefully on her apron before offering it to him. “You wanted to know about the ash concession?”

“Trainee, missus,” said Mags, clasping her hand briefly, but firmly. “And aye—”

:Ask her if she’s due to collect.:

“Are ye due to collect?” he repeated.

“Overdue by a day or two,” the woman said with a sigh. “I’ve been right busy sending our boy out with deliveries.”

:Ask her if you can.:

But before Mags could repeat what Dallen had told him to say, the woman cocked her head at him with a shrewd look in her eye. “Reckon you want an excuse to be in there?” she offered.

He hesitated. She looked out the door, straight at Dallen.

“This isn’t some prank is it?” she asked Dallen directly.

Dallen shook his head vigorously, and gave her a long and penetrating look.

“Something he’s doing—he needs to be in the inn—” She stopped. “Something... a Herald knows about this?”

Dallen nodded just as hard.

She seemed satisfied. “I won’t ask Herald business, and I’m more than willing to help.” She eyed Mags a moment. “Aye, those clothes will do; I expect that’s why you’re in them and not proper Grays. Tellie, go get the ash-collector kit.”

The girl went behind the curtain again, and returned with a dusty, heavy canvas apron, a covered bucket, a dustpan and a small hand-broom. The woman helped Mags don the apron. “Now, it’s easy enough. Tellie will have the barrow out front for you. Just sweep the ashes into the pan, dump them into the bucket, when it’s full, take it downstairs to where you’ve left the barrow and dump the bucket in the barrow. No one will look twice at you. When you’ve got what you came for, just come straight back; the boy can do the rest of the job tomorrow.”

Mags nodded, feeling a little astonished that this was going so smoothly.

:She’s a law-abiding citizen of Haven, you silly boy. My presence and my confirmation tells her you have the authority to ask what you want from her for help.: Dallen’s mind-voice was amused. :My presence and the fact that I told her a Herald knows about this also assures her that what you want won’t be anything wrong, because I would kick you into the next city if you did abuse your authority.:

“All right then, off you go. You look like you’re no stranger to hard work, so you should be able to pass as one of my boys.” She made little shooing motions with her hands. “Your Companion can stay here if you like.”

“That’d be good, missus, thankee,” Mags managed to say. Dallen whickered. He carried the implements outside and there, as promised, a hand-barrow was waiting, but not one like he had ever seen before. This one, just like the bucket, had a cover. In fact, it looked less like a barrow and more like a crude chest with barrow handles and a wheel in front. He put his burden down inside, picked up the handles, and returned to the inn.

He was intercepted by one of the grooms, who sent him around to a side door where he could leave the barrow. He made certain of Chamjey’s location and headed inside. He hoped that the meeting hadn’t gone on too long. He hoped he could find a place where he could hear it!

Luck was still with him. He found a vacant room that shared the same chimney with the one Chamjey was in almost immediately; it was one of a long line of what looked to be private parlors. Getting down on his hands and knees, he removed the screen, the fire-dogs, the andirons, and the rest, and slowly began sweeping, listening as hard as he could.

The chimney proved to be an excellent carrier of sound, and Mags spared a moment to be grateful to Dallen for thinking of this.

“. . . and it gets better for us. That last late blizzard did for about half the lambs; it caught the shepherds right in the middle of lambing season,” someone was saying. “We haven’t even gotten into the rains, and those always take a toll as well. Right now all the herders are thinking about is to wonder how they’re going to survive without lamb to sell for meat until shearing time comes. And then, what with that wet-lung plague this past fall, they’ve all lost about ten percent of the adult flocks and the fleeces are going to be a bit dodgy this year, since a sick sheep makes a weak fleece. So they’ve been jumping at the chance to sell their wool as a future-speculation, while it’s still on the sheep’s back, and to sell lambs still trotting about and bleating.” There was glee in the man’s