Never mind how well the shutters fit, it was the window itself that featured prominently in Skif's plans.
He flung open the shutters to let air in, and unrolled his pallet of blankets on the floor, adding his spare clothing beneath as extra padding, and untied the kerchief in which he had bundled the rest of his few belongings. Including the one, very special object that he had gone to a lot of trouble to filch.
A glass. A real glass.
He set it in the corner out of harm's way, and laid himself down on his pallet, closing his eyes and opening his ears, taking stock of his surroundings. Bazie would have been proud of him.
Not a lot of street noise; this house was on a dead-end, and most of the other places on the street also supplied rooms to let. Skif identified the few sounds coming from outside and ignored them, one by one.
Above him, footsteps. Four, perhaps five children of varying ages, all barefoot. A woman, also barefoot. That would be Widder Koil, who made artificial flowers with paper and fabric. Presumably the children helped as well; otherwise, he couldn't imagine how she alone would earn enough to feed them all. The voices drifted down from above, edgy with hunger, but not loud.
Below, nothing. The first-floor tenant was still asleep; he was a night carter, one of the few tenants here with a respectable and relatively well-paying job.
To the left, the wall with no fireplace, four shrill female voices. Whores, four sisters sharing two rooms; relatively Prosperous and without a protector. They didn't need one; the arsonist slept with at least two of them on a regular basis, and no one wanted to chance his anger.
And to the right…
Snores. The chimney echoed with them. Not surprising; like Skif, the arsonist worked at night The question was, which of the two rooms was the man's bed
Skif's hope was that it was not the one with the fireplace, but there was no way of telling if the man was snoring very loudly in the next room, or not quite as loudly in the fireplace room.
At least I can hear him.
Well there was nothing more to do now. He let his concentration lapse, and consciously relaxed the muscles of his face and jaw as he had learned to do when he wanted to sleep. He would be able to learn more in a few candlemarks. And when his target went out tonight, so would he.
* * * * * * * * * *
He woke all at once, and knew why. The window above his head showed a dark-blue sky with a single star, his room was shrouded in shadows, and next door, the snoring had stopped.
Jass-Taln was awake.
He sat up quickly and felt in the corner for his precious glass. He put it up against the wall and put his ear against the bottom of it.
The man moved like a cat; Skif had to give him that much grudging credit. He made very little noise as he walked around his rooms, and unlike some people, he didn't talk to himself. No coughing, no sneezing, no spitting; how ironic that a cold blooded murderer made such an ideal neighbor.
Ideal. Unless, of course, you actually wanted to hear what he was up to.
Now there was some noise in the fireplace! Skif frowned in concentration, isolating the sounds.
Whiffling. Shavings hitting the bricks. The sound of a hand scraping the shavings together, then putting them in the grate.
Then the rattling and scratching of a handful of twigs. A log coming down atop them.
A metallic clunk startled him, though he should have expected it. Taln-Jass had just slapped a pan down onto the grill over his cooking fire.
A while later; the sound of something scraping and rattling in the pan. Eating sounds. Frequent belches.
All of which were sweeter than any Bard's music to Skif's ears. The trick with the glass worked, just as his teacher had claimed it would! And it sounded as if the room with the fireplace was the arsonist's “public” room, for all of these noises were nearer than the snores had been. Which meant that when the man brought clients here for private discussions, it would be the room nearest Skif where those discussions would take place.
