Might be worth, my while to catch her then, even if you two can't be bothered, Doranei thought, drawing long on his cigar.
Tobacco was a spy's friend. King Emin had told him that, years back. He didn't much care for the habit himself, but he recognised its importance and smoked just enough to ensure he didn't look out of place with pipe or cigar. Soldiers were the same the Land over: simple men, more often than not, with too much time on their hands. They'd rarely refuse the offer of a smoke, and once their guard was down they'd gossip worse than any knitting circle.
The King's Men of Narkang didn't have to play court games; King Emin had aristocrats to do that. The information Doranei got came from footmen, guards and kitchen-hands. He'd spent half a year when he was twelve winters getting slapped from one end of The Light Feathers' kitchen to the other, and that experience had served him well countless times since. As Sebe put it, make friends with a cook who doesn't know anything useful and you still get a meal for your trouble.
Monkey-faced little bugger will do anything for food, he added to himself, smiling inwardly.
He raised the cigar in a sort of half-salute to the two guards. 'Right, I best be clearing off. Don't want people to think I'm messing in anything illegal, don't sound like the regiments have much sense of humour these days.'
'Aye, you're right enough there,' Loris agreed. 'Glad we're well out of it over here. The city's going to shit so fast Kiyer herself can't wash the streets fast enough. Take the bastard's money and find yourself a pretty young tart for the night instead. You clear out of sight and he won't bother doing much about it, and the regiments will care about as much as a magistrate.'
Doranei grinned. 'You could be right there. I left my stuff with the wagon'inaster, but six quarters will sort that out with change to spare. Teach him for being a crap judge of character.'
He made his excuses and left; the guards didn't mind – talking to a passing stranger to ensure he wasn't going to cause trouble was one thing, gossiping for too long smacked of shirking duty. Doranei made his way back to a crossroads he'd scouted out earlier: anyone coming from Burn would pass this junction, even if they were taking an oblique route. He didn't think he'd need much luck to identify the young girl Yanai had been talking about, but he would need to avoid a scene – she was certain to be armed, with so many bored soldiers and mercenaries on the streets.
'She comes only after sunset,' he mused as he watched the glistening frost on the rooftops. 'Looking for Mikiss or Nai, or Zhia herself? Can't be an informant for the duchess or she'd be watching the door all day too.'
He was leaning against the trunk of an ancient creeper that covered a high courtyard wall and reached up the wall of the adjoining house to the rooftop. Though leafless, the ragged mess of tangled stems made a curtain dense enough to make Doranei near-in visible as he waited.
At the end of the wall, on the corner of the main street, a dozen or so long strips of white ribbon tied to the creeper fluttered in the brisk evening breeze – small offerings to Sheredal, Spreader of the Frost, he guessed. The owner of the house was probably elderly, and with this chill wind the ground in winter would very quickly become icy, a real threat to the elderly and infirm. However good High Priest Antil and his portly band of healers might be, a bad fall could easily be fatal. From what Doranei had seen on his travels, ribbons on a wall was as close to a shrine as Sheredal ever got, and the only image he had even seen of Asenn's gentle Aspect was part of a carved frieze in Narkang. King Emin had commissioned it: a strange collection of minor Gods and Aspects that summed up the king's whimsical nature perfectly; the image of Sheredal was a bent old woman with jagged, spiky hair and long, crooked fingers. She had looked sad and lonely, stuck between more noble Gods, but as far as Doranei knew, she was entirely the product of the artist's mind.
But that doesn't matter, not now. That's how half of Narkang imagines the Spreader of the Frost these days. 1 think he commissioned the piece to give some of us a lesson in the power of belief.
Doranei's vigil didn't last long. None of the few passers-by noticed him standing there. He spotted a hunched figure trudging up the road, bundled up in a tatty sheepskin coat made for someone much larger, and realised immediately this was the girl the Yanai had spoken of.
He'd taken the precaution of filling a pocket with small stones earlier. He flung one at the girl as she reached the centre of the square and it thwacked harmlessly against the coat, stopping her dead, just as he'd intended. She looked around in puzzlement. The street was empty in both directions, and she had been so intent on watching where she was going that she'd not seen him emerge from the ivy to throw the stone.
'Sorry,' he called; assuming most thieves and murderers in By or a didn't start by apologising to their victims. She turned towards the sound and peered forward. He took a step out into the street and waved.
'What you do that for?' she asked angrily. Her voice was high and rough, and even with Doranei's imperfect command of the dialect he could tell she was from the poorest part of the city. She sounded younger than her height implied.
'So you wouldn't take fright.'
The girl checked behind her in case someone was creeping up on her, but she was still alone, other than the strange man now talking to her. She tensed, ready to run.
'What you want then?'
'One thing first,' he said, holding up a hand to stop her questions. 'My aim's good with stones, better with a knife.'
'So?'
'So,' he said, trying to sound as un-threatening as possible, 'I've got less friendly ways of stopping you in the street.' As he spoke he produced a knife from his sleeve and spun it in his fingers so it was ready to throw.
The girl froze, about to run, but Doranei knew she didn't want to turn her back on him. 'There's guards in the next street and they'll come runnin' if I scream.'
'Yeah, I've met them. One old, one young. Neither think much of you, and you better believe I can take them both.'
'What you want?' She was clearly confused. Doranei had threatened her, but he hadn't yet taken a step closer. He wasn't so close that he could be certain of hitting her, or catching her on foot, but she knew that'd be a dangerous gamble to take.
'To talk to someone.'
'Can't afford a whore?'
Doranei laughed. 'You remind me of a woman I know. Her mouth's got her in trouble all her life; if she weren't one of the toughest bitches I ever met she'd have died years back.' He sniffed. 'Point is, you keep talking like that and you better be trained to kill as well as her, get me?'
The girl hesitated, then gave a quick nod.
'I can't hear you.'
'Yes, sir,' she replied in a sullen voice.
'Good. Now just listen. I don't care about you, and you'll get in no trouble for talking to me. You were going to Rose Fountain Square to check one of the buildings there again – any movement, any lights showing, that sort of thing-just like you've been ordered to.'
A longer pause, then another nod.
'Good, least you're not lying to me. Now, I'm guessing you work for someone in Burn or Wheel, right? You'll be taking me back with you. I think they want to talk to me.'
'She won't like it,' the girl answered, 'she's gotta bad temper on her. Most likely she'll get Vasca to break our heads.'
'Who's Vasca?'
'Doorman.'
'Brothel? Tavern?'
'Both.'
Doranei put the knife away. 'He wouldn't get a punch in,' he said confidently, taking a step towards her.
'Now who got too big a mouth?' she demanded.
He shrugged. 'Doesn't matter if you believe me. He's no friend of mine and if I have to break his face to talk to whoever wants that door watched, that's fine by me.' He clapped his hands together with forced jollity and then pulled his cloak tight around his body. 'It's getting pretty cold out here though, so if you want to argue further let's do it walking in the right direction.'
