“An honor, sir,” the young man said.
Kit stepped over from across the room, curiosity in his gaze. Marcus waved an open hand toward him.
“This is Kitap rol Keshmet. We’re traveling together.”
“A job?” Koke asked.
“Small size, high stakes,” Marcus said.
“Pay?”
“Miserable.”
“And that,” Koke said, slapping Marcus on the shoulder, “is the man I knew. You’re eating. You mind if we come join?”
“As long as I’m not paying for you.”
Between them, they took up the better part of one table. The keep’s initial surprise at his two actors falling in with fighting men washed away quickly as Koke and his men paid for sea bass in black sauce and good ale. For the better part of an hour, Koke retold the things that had happened since he and Marcus had last seen each other. Marcus traded stories of his own, many of them changed to omit details. The food was all eaten and the dishes cleared away when Koke leaned forward, his scaled fingers laced together.
“So Marcus, old friend,” he said, the softness of his tone meaning that the business discussions had now begun. Marcus felt a chill run down his back.
“Was too much to hope this was only a social call.”
“I’ve got a fair number of hired eyes in this town and one of them told me Marcus Wester had come ashore.”
“You were watching for me?”
“I was. Seems there’s people looking for you. Offering a bit of coin for information about where you are and what you’ve been up to.”
Kit’s gaze sharpened, his attention sudden and focused. The two Timzinae at the far table broke out into peals of laughter that no one at the table took up.
“Admirers or enemies?” Marcus said.
“You tell me,” Koke said. “It’s Yardem Hane.”
“Really? Imagine that,” Marcus said. He idly cracked a knuckle. “And what’s old Yardem doing these days that he wants to know about me?”
Koke’s eyes narrowed, and his gaze jumped across Marcus like he was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.
“Don’t know what he wants with you. We’d all assumed he was still padding around in your footsteps trying to get square with you saving his life. Now the story is he’s hooked up with a bank in Suddapal,” Koke said.
“Porte Oliva,” Marcus said. “The bank’s in Porte Oliva.”
“Not this one. Karol Dannien’s set up a gymnasium in Suddapal. Yardem found him there and offered a fair trade for anything anyone heard of you. Said it was an open offer, and Karol spread the word. The place to send to’s Komme Medean’s branch in Suddapal.”
Marcus drank a sip of his beer to hide the sudden stab of dread. He’d imagined Yardem back in Porte Oliva with Cithrin, but that was as much hopeful fantasy as anything. The last he’d heard of Cithrin, she’d been caught in a civil war in Antea. If she’d escaped it, surely she would have gone back to her branch in Birancour. That Yardem was still with the bank but in Elassae raised a thousand questions, and Marcus’s neck prickled with the fear of the answers. If Cithrin had died in Camnipol because he hadn’t been there to protect her …
He put down the beer and belched.
“So,” he said through his smile. “Dannien’s remade himself as a teacher, has he? God, we are getting old, aren’t we?”
“Not a permanent thing, I don’t think. A few of us found something else to be doing when Antea lost its mind. Until that war’s over and we see what shape the world’s taken, it’s hard to know what’s a safe contract.”
“Camnipol’s still burning, is it?” he said, forcing his tone to be casual. From Koke’s reaction, he saw he’d failed.
“God damn, man. Where
Most men wouldn’t have noticed the change in Kit’s expression, but it was plain as daylight to Marcus. Not surprise. Maybe despair.
“How’s that going for him?”
“Better than it has a right to,” Koke said. “And you’re looking to change the subject.”
“Am I?”
The old Jasuru sighed and leaned forward. The first time Marcus had met him, his scales had been bright and burnished, his hair dark and pulled back in an oiled braid. Now he looked spent. Still the same man, but worn down by the years and the battles and unable to break free of the patterns and demands of a life spent fighting for pay.
“I can clear three hundred in Birancour silver for writing a letter about you, old friend,” Koke said. “And the truth is my company can use whatever falls off the trees. But I don’t have to if I don’t have to.”
The other fighters looked down, pretending not to be there. Kit turned toward the door as he he were expecting someone to barge through it at any moment. No one did.
“You’re asking if I want to better the price to keep you silent?” Marcus said.
“If it’s worth that to you,” Koke said. “Seeing how we’ve worked together, I wouldn’t ask more than matching. I’m not greedy.”
Marcus pretended a yawn and stretched his arms. His body felt as tight as a bowstring and his mind was cold and sharp.
“I appreciate the thought, but if I were you, I’d take all the coin Yardem’s got to hand out. In fact, if you’re sending to him, give him a message from me. Let him know as soon as I’m free, I’ll come see him.”
Koke chuckled, low and mirthless.
“More than one way to hear those words,” he said.
“Don’t jump at shadows,” Marcus said. “I’m guessing our mutual friend has a contract he’d throw my way or something of the sort. Nothing sinister in that.”
“For three hundred silver?”
“Maybe he needs my help badly,” Marcus said. “I am awfully damned good at what I do.”
“Which is what, in this instance?”
“Same as always. Whatever needs doing,” Marcus said, and rose to his feet. “Good seeing you again, Koke.”
“You’re going to bed already?” Koke said. “Night’s only just starting.”
“Not for me, it’s not. Kit, you’re on your own. But this bastard’s clever, and if he tries to get you drunk, he wants something.”
“My boyish affections, perhaps,” Kit said with a perfect timing that set Koke and his men laughing.
Koke stood and embraced Marcus again. “Take care of yourself, old friend. We’re in odd times.”
“Always have been,” Marcus said, then retreated to his room.
The bed that had been so comfortable not hours before seemed lumpy and awkward now. The rest his body had ached for couldn’t be coaxed back. Marcus lay in the darkness, hands behind his head, and listened to the murmur of distant voices like the rushing of a river. Yardem’s name had ripped off a scab he’d forgotten was there, and now he felt exposed and stung and less than halfway healed. He wanted to know why Yardem was in Suddapal, and what he meant by paying for information about Marcus. And he needed to know whether Cithrin was all right and what had happened to her in Camnipol, whether she’d lived, and if she had, at what price. The dread was like a weight on his breastbone. His mind flitted to all the sacked cities he’d been through, all the innocent victims of war he’d seen, and his imagination put Cithrin in their places.
The nightmares would come back tonight. The old ones of Alys and Merian. Women he’d failed to protect. If
