Caine Black Knife

hair. “Long night. Sorry. Yes, it’s legal. We do very good trade among the eligibles, especially at daymeal. We just have to keep the dining areas separate.” He waved a hand toward a door under the stairs. “We can set a table for you on the grill side. It won’t be anything fancy.”

“As long as it’s quiet.”

“Oh, I can guarantee that. Give us a moment or two-”

“No problem. I need a chance to get into some dry clothes and warm up a little. Set me a plate of something hot, huh? I don’t care what, so long as there’s meat and a lot of it. I’ll make it worth your trouble.”

“Don’t think of it. Really. It’s no trouble at all.”

“You’re a goddamn liar.”

“Truth is flexible in this line of work,” Pratt said easily. “Oh, and-it won’t be a problem for you to be served by an ogrillo, will it?”

“Why would it?” I smiled faintly. “Aren’t I Ankhanan too?”

The meal turned out to be half a roast duckling with black cherry sauce and glazed walnuts over duck sausage dressing, and a peppered baked apple stuffed with pulled-pork confit. The ogrillo server turned out to also be the head cook and kitchen manager, an immense pudding-waisted eligible named Kravmik Red Horn: Lazzevget.

The junior partner.

Seemed Pratt took his Ankhanan principles seriously.

“Good man, good as they get,” Kravmik proudly proclaimed in a voice deep enough to vibrate the tabletop as he spun a steel cup of water and a mug of his own iced homebrew into place around the plate. “And I’m not talking flavor, either, hrk!”

“Mm-mmm.” I was too busy chewing to give a civil answer. There was a smoky tang to the limpid crust of fat under the skin of the duck breast that twisted my heart with unexpected, entirely astonishing longing for something I couldn’t quite recall. . something in the beer, too. . something dark, burnt-chocolate on the nose but fading and dry on the tongue. .

Gods, it was good. My eyes stung. What was that flavor. .?

Kravmik was more than capable of holding up both ends of the conversation. Before the half duckling was half gone, he had roughed out the highlights of the Pratt amp; Redhorn’s history, including thumbnail sketches of the more colorful members of the staff, the notables who’d stayed there, the luminaries who made a point of dining there, and, of course, the ongoing kitchen-sink romance of Lasser Pratt and his wild young Jheledi bride, even wilder now that she’d stopped nursing their infant twins and had a bit of freedom and got herself a pair of respectable tits in the bargain, not to mention the inappropriate amount of attention she was receiving from the Younger Pratt, who had a new bride of his own, y’know, and a child soon to be along as well-

Finally I stopped chewing long enough to stem the flood with a raised hand and a thoughtful “You speak better Westerling than any ogrillo I’ve ever met. Better than the Ankhanan ones, in fact.”

Kravmik opened hands the size of saucepans. “Want to get ahead, you gotta talk the talk, that’s what Pratt always says. He works with me. Helps me be presentable. Pratt says pretty soon my Westerling will be good as his. Good as yours.”

“Huh. In Ankhana, grills talk different on purpose. They’re proud of it.”

Kravmik nodded. “Pratt says that too. And he says they’re mostly thugs. Best jobs they can get is strongarm stuff, and they mostly die young. Me, I got stuff to live for.” He swung one of those hands at the kitchen. “Sure, I’m eligible, but I got staff here, they’re my family-ellie, human, whatever. Cubs ain’t everything in the world, y’know. Just bein’ alive’s worth something. Worth a lot.”

“Yeah.” I stared down at my plate. “I have a friend I’m hoping I can convince of that.”

“Hey, you’re not eatin’-it’s all right? That stuffing get cold?”

“No-no, it’s great. I just ran out of appetite.” I pushed the plate away, picked up the water cup, set it down again, and shoved aside the mug of iced beer. “Got anything to drink? I mean drink.”

“We do a little freeze-wine, from last winter-crack off the water-ice, and what’s left is-”

I made a face. “Real drink.”

Kravmik shook his head dolefully. “Can’t make fortified stuff. Nobody does-brandy’s illegal. And the import duty’s just impossible.”

“Shit. I’d start a revolution too.” I waved a hand. “All right. More of the beer, then. And ask Pratt if he can tell Tyrkilld I’m over here now.”

“Knight Aeddhar?” Astonishment tinged with suspicion flickered across the huge ogrillo’s face. “What’s he got to do with you? Why would he care you’re here?”

“He’ll care. That beer, huh?”

Kravmik’s professionalism overcame his skepticism enough that he only ducked his head and cleared away the remains of the meal. The beer arrived shortly before Tyrkilld did.

The Jheledi Knight moved around the empty tables in the gloom with the slow, dignified zags of a three- master tacking into the wind, one vast fist still wrapped around the stem of the bucket-size flagon. When he got to the table, he blinked down at the grease stains on the wadded napkin beside the mug of iced beer.

“You,” he said with ponderous precision. “Are not here. For the party.”

“Got that right. Sit down before you fall down.”

“While I am indebted. To you, master Monassbite Esoterassbite assassassassbite, for your kind hospitassitude. I would prefer to stand, fuck you very much.” Tyrkilld blinked again. “What are you doing here?”

“Your buddy Markham got me a room. By no fucking coincidence at all. Quite a sense of humor, that sonofabitch.”

“While I freely admit. To a catalogue of sins innumerable. Mortal, venial, and merely cheerful.” He swayed, and swung the flagon in a violent circle that managed to spill not a drop. “Accuse me but once more of being friend to Lord Tarkanen, sir, and we shall again. Make trial. Of Khryl’s Justice.”

He unleashed a belch that rattled the windows and seemed to unstring his knees, and he delicately settled the flagon on the tabletop and himself into the waiting chair. “A room, you say? Perhaps I may assay your Monassbite hospitassitude after all-a scrap of floor makes bed enow betimes-”

“I thought you had a call to make tonight-the Widow Braehew-?”

“And from whence gather’st thou requisite testicle to lecture a Knight of House Aeddhar upon the obligations of-”

“Yeah, yeah, ring of dog’s piss, goatherd and a sling, you told me already.” I squinted at him. For Khryllians, the obligations of command are absolute. . though there may be certain details of some obligations which no one could blame him for failing to fulfill, should the failure arise of incapacity due to doing a bit too much honor to the memory of a departed liegeman. . “All right, goddammit. What’s in the flagon?”

Tyrkilld blinked. “Your pardon?”

I leaned forward. “There is no possible way in Home or Hell you got completely pisseyed just on this crapass beer. I want to know what you’re drinking, and I want some.”

Tyrkilld’s face took on the sly cast of a man who’s drunk so much he thinks he’s sober, and he leaned far enough backward that he was in danger of toppling over. “First you share this issue of such. Staggering import that it warrants. Coming between a poor thirsty Knight and his much-deserved imbibulation. Then perhaps the matter of the contents of my flagon might arise, as it were, willy-nilly.”

He was bringing back my headache. “Do any other Jheledi talk like you, or is this just something you put on to aggravate people?”

Tyrkilld lifted the flagon and took such a long, slow sip that the studded steel rim of the cup strategically covered what might have otherwise looked like a long, slow wink. “And is that a matter of any great import at this dire hour?”

“Since when do Jheledi nobility go Khryllian, anyway? Last I heard, the noble houses of Jheled considered Lipke an occupying power up until Ankhana took you away from them in the Plains War, thousand years or