Changes

Who needs packs, iffen yer settled in? Iffen feller had it with ’im fer some reason, like ’e were keepin’ somethin’ needful in’t, it’d be at foot of bed, not th’ head, or off t’ side, mebbe i’ corner.” He thought of all the times he’d been briefly in the rooms of other Trainees, all the packs he’d seen. Always, empty ones were stowed on a shelf that was awkward to get to, anywhere out of the way. Always, if they held something the owner wanted to keep in them, they were at the foot of the bed, where they wouldn’t get kicked or tripped over.

Never where that one was. Unless . . .

“Reckon ’e were packin’ up,” Mags said thoughtfully. “Mebbe him an’ t’others cooked up a big meal t’git rid’a stuff that’d spoil. Thet’s when th’ others done ’em, after thet meal. Then they come up here an’ went through ev’thing, jest t’make sure. Prolly where they got thet book an’ stuff they sold Nikolas.”

“Good,” said the second with satisfaction. “And that is why I am fairly certain they heard the Weasel was making inquiries after they did this, not before. Probably shortly after. They would have made several passes through this place, making sure that nothing was left behind. If they hadn’t heard that someone was asking about their victims, they would simply have left this as a mystery—four men, dying after a big meal in this neighborhood—the Guard would have written it off as accidental. Maybe some of the food had gone bad. Maybe they picked the wrong mushrooms. If we tested for poison, we wouldn’t have found anything. No one would have been called on to investigate, the men would have been buried in the Poor Grounds, and that would have been that. But then they heard that someone was snooping about, and they realized they were going to have to clean up a bit more thoroughly than they had first thought, because someone would be smart enough to put four dead bodies together with the fact that the Weasel was looking for information. So they planted the story that these men had left town and set the fire, figuring it would take some time before the Weasel found his buyer. By that time the fire here would have destroyed all signs that there was anything other than four common laborers living here, and no one would associate what the Weasel wanted to know about with this place.”

Mags turned all that over in his head, and nodded slowly. That made plenty of good, sound sense. ::Hope yer feelin’ unguilted,:: he told Nikolas.

::I would, if that were even a word,:: Nikolas retorted. But he sounded more like himself, and that pleased Mags no end.

“Gods, I am never getting the stench out of this uniform,” the first muttered.

“Toss it,” advised the second. “I can’t think of any good way to get it clean. It’s not as if they won’t give us more. It won’t be the first time I’ve tossed a uniform that reeked of death.”

Swiftly, Mags put two and tow together. “You’re not Guard,” he said flatly.

“Well... we wear the uniform. We get paid by the Quartermaster like everyone else.” The first man grinned at him.

“D’ye work fer Nikolas, or t’other way round?” Mags was very interested to hear that answer.

“Let’s just say we work for the same person. And since you do too, we probably ought to be polite and introduce ourselves. I’m Tal Merrick. This is Kan Betler. The other three members of our team are Jun Lysle, Ref Graden, and Serj Karmas.” Tal put his hand on his chest and made a little bow.

“Jest Mags,” Mags said, bowing awkwardly. “Got no other name.”

“We know,” said Kan, and waved a little. “Hello, Dallen.”

::Well! How thoughtful!:: Dallen sounded surprised and pleased. ::Tender my greetings please.::

“Dallen says ’lo.” Mags smiled a little. “Aight. Anythin’ I kin do?”

“Not really,” Kan told him. “Takes a bit of training to do what we do, to know what to look for. We investigate any death in Haven that doesn’t seem straightforward. Sometimes we investigate when we are asked to do so by relatives. Rarely we go outside Haven. We work with Nikolas a great deal because he has things we don’t.”

“Mindspeech,” Mags said instantly. “An’ Truth Spell.”

Tal touched one finger to his nose and pointed the same finger at Mags. “Sharp one. And he works with us because deaths that aren’t straightforward sometimes involve threats to the Kingdom and the King.”

“If you aren’t going to die of boredom, you might as well stay and watch,” Kan continued, going back to his methodical sifting of the foreigners’ belongings. “It will save us having to have the Weasel arrested so we can talk to him, and Nikolas will appreciate that we are educating you.”

::That’s only so they can get out of sharing some of the special brandy they keep down at their headquarters,:: Nikolas retorted.

“I ain’t bored,” Mags replied—and it was the truth. He was anything but bored. He watched carefully, making note of what they did and did not do. This was a skill worth having... .and now that the bodies were gone and the house was airing out, it was becoming more tolerable to be here.

As expected, they found nothing, and finally, at a point well after midnight, the Special Guards packed up the things they wanted to take away and departed, leaving Mags alone in the house.

He climbed back up on the roof per Nikolas’ instruction—but then something told him not to leave. Not just yet. There was something tickling around the edges of his awareness. A presence—no, several.

For a moment, he was afraid it might be the other assassins, come back to make sure the house had burned as they had planned. But as whoever it was neared, cautious as a feral cat, he knew immediately it wasn’t them.

There were three . . .

They were young. Very young. He sensed their hunger—very physical hunger. They might be young in age, but in the way of poor children, they were old in grief and experience. They were creeping up on the house full of anticipation, but as soon as they saw the doors and windows standing wide open, they stopped in their tracks, hidden in the alley, their anticipation turned to despair.

Mags crept across the roof to the point nearest where they were and strained his ears.

::What have you got, Mags?:: Nikolas asked him urgently.