unused blank books—blank books being the most innocuous and inexpensive objects he could think of—and paid a boy from his neighborhood to take them to the Abbey. He didn't want to send real books on the chance that Rufen might open the parcel and examine what was in it—and if by some horrible chance Orm managed to send books that interested him, Rufen might well try to find the rightful owner to buy them himself. That would be a recipe for trouble. These were inexpensive blank books of the kind that young girls used for journals and artists liked to sketch in. They would hardly be of any use to someone from the Abbey, who could get better quality versions of the same things simply by presenting himself at the Scriptorium, where they made hand-lettered and illuminated copies of books to add to the Abbey income.
'Someone left these at my table at lunch,' he told the boy, 'but I'm not sure who it was; it was crowded, and there were a number of people I didn't know sharing my table. A fellow called Tal Rufen from the Abbey was one of the people there, and I would think that someone from the Abbey would be the likeliest to have a parcel of books; go and see if it was him. I'll be here doing my inventory.'
No boy would ever question an adult about a paid errand; for one thing, no boy ever turned down the opportunity to run an errand for pay, and for another, any boy would automatically assume that the business of an adult was too important to be interrupted for a simple errand.
He had paid the boy just enough to make it worth the trouble to go across the bridge in the cold and blowing snow; he waited until the boy was gone, then followed in his wake. Once the boy had started out on the bridge, Orm took up a position in a clump of bushes on the bank, watching the gate with a distance-glass until the boy arrived.
When the boy reached the Abbey, he was made to wait outside; rude treatment, that was just what Orm had hoped for. After a bit of time, a fellow in the uniform of the Church Guards came out and listened to the boy's story. He didn't even bother to look at the parcel; he shook his head, gave the boy another small coin, and sent him back across the river. Orm got a very good look at the man, and was satisfied that he would recognize him again; before the boy reached the bridge, Orm was hurrying back to his apartment, where the boy found him.
'It wasn't that Tal Rufen fellow, sir,' he said, when Orm answered his door. The boy handed over the parcel —which was, remarkably, still unopened. 'He says he isn't missing anything.'
Orm made a noise of mingled vexation and worry. 'Well, I'll just take it back to the inn and leave it there with the proprietor,' he said at last, waving his hands helplessly. 'I really don't know what else to do. What a pity! I'm sure someone is missing these. Well, you did your best, and I'm sorry you had to go out in all that snow.'
He gave the boy another small coin, thus ensuring his gratitude, and sent him off.
He bundled himself up to his nose with a knitted hat pulled down to his eyes, and took a fishing-pole and bucket of bait out to the bridge. There was reasonably good fishing in the clear water under the bridge, and he wouldn't be the only citizen of Kingsford who paid the toll to perch out on the span and attempt to add to his larder, especially not in winter, when a job at casual labor was hard to find and no one was building anything, only doing interior work. This would be the best place to intercept his target, and even though his target might well know what Orm looked like from the sketch circulating among the constables, not even Rand would be able to pick Orm out from the rest of the hopeful fishermen out on the bridge in the cold.
Nevertheless, it was a miserable place to have to be. The wind rushed right up the river and cut through his clothing; he soon picked up the peculiar little dance of the other fishermen as he stamped his feet and swayed back and forth to try and increase his circulation. By the time Tal Rufen finally appeared, mounted on a sturdy old gelding, Orm was more than ready to leave the bridge. He hauled in his line and followed in Tal's wake; the bridge guard looked at his empty string, gave him a grimace of sympathy, and didn't charge him the toll. Orm gave him shivering, teeth-chattering thanks, and followed in Tal Rufen's wake.
Orm's disguise was quite enough to permit him to follow Tal unnoticed through the city, but it wouldn't have gotten him into the Ducal Palace, and as Tal presented himself at the postern-gate, Orm went on with his head down and his shoulders hunched.
His best bet at this point was to abandon the pole and bucket somewhere, and come back to watch the gate. There were plenty of places where he could loiter without attracting attention to himself. The palace was surrounded by the homes of the wealthy and powerful, like hens clustered around a rooster. But unlike the Ducal Palace, they did not have extensive grounds and gardens, only little patches of garden behind sheltering walls— which meant that the area around the palace was a maze of streets and alleys. In the summer and at night those would be patrolled by guards to discourage ne'er-do-wells and would-be thieves, but in the middle of winter no one would bother to patrol by day. The hard part would be to find a place where he could leave a fishing pole and a bucket without someone noticing and wondering where they had come from.
In the end, he had to wait for a rubbish-collector to come by, collecting rags and bones from the refuse of the mighty, and throw the items onto his cart when he wasn't looking. The rag-and-bone man would not question his good luck when he found those items; the poor never questioned windfalls, lest those windfalls be taken from them.
Now freed of his burdens, he hurried back to the palace and watched the gate.
Eventually Tal Rufen emerged, but without the horse—and no longer wearing his Church Guard livery. That probably meant that the man was planning on going about within the city.
