Bristling Wood (45 page)

“We don’t get many silver daggers in here, lad.”

“I suppose you’re too good to be serving the likes of me.”

“Not too good, too cautious. You’re welcome to drink, but only a little. Listen, silver dagger, I know your kind. Two tankards, three—all is fine, no trouble. Then one more or suchlike, and somewhat snaps. There is the fight, there is the blood on my nice walls, there is the corpse on my clean floor. I serve you two tankards, no more. Done?”

Jill noticed the men at the table listening, and their hands were near their sword hilts. She gave them an insolent stare, then turned back to the tavernman.

“Done. Give me a tankard of dark.”

Jill found a table where she could sit with her back to the wall and made a mental note of the position of every window and door. When the tavernman gave her the ale, she held up a silver piece.

“I’m looking for someone, someone who seems to have disappeared.”

The tavernman’s eyes flicked this way and that. The men at the other table leaned forward, listening.

“Someone else is looking for him, too,” she went on. “I’ll wager you can guess who I mean.”

“Rhodry of Aberwyn?”

“Just that. I’ve got a score to settle with that lying little bastard. I don’t give a pig’s fart why the gwerbret wants him. His Grace can hang what’s left after I’m done with him, for all I care.”

The tavernman considered her shrewdly, then nodded, accepting her tale.

“I am glad I am not this Rhodry with the likes of you after me. What makes you think I know somewhat about him?”

“I’ll wager you know naught but the name of a man who knows more.”

“Here, they look for this Rhodry everywhere and never find him. I say he is dead. Forget him. You can’t bring a man back from the dead to kill him a second time.”

“Dead?” Here was the moment she’d been counting on, and she paused, giving him a twisted, ugly smile. “Come now, my friend. We both know better than that. Word gets around.”

He hesitated, his dark face going a bit ashy in honest fear. A burly brown-haired fellow at the other table got up, swinging himself free of the bench, and strolled over, his narrowed eyes revealing nothing of what he might have been thinking. He had the biggest hands that Jill had ever seen on a man, enormous bear paws like clubs.

“Just how much is your hatred worth, silver dagger?”

“Hard coin.”

Smiling a little, he sat down and took the silver piece she offered him.

“I had naught to do with getting him away, but I had a chance at the job, and I saw who was doing the hiring.”

“I like a man who doesn’t mince words.” She got out two more coins and flipped him one. “You’ll get the other at the end of the tale.”

“Well and good, then. Now here, you’re right enough. There never was any question of killing him, far as I could tell. I’ve got a friend who’s made somewhat of himself, risen in the world, like. He’s a footman for one of the rich merchants up on the cliffs, see, a man who doesn’t fancy being jumped in the street one dark night, so my friend, he goes around with him. And his master’s rich friends know that my friend is always useful for a bit or rough work, like convincing a man who owes them coin to pay up. So my friend comes in here, oh, three nights ago, it was, and saying that he’s maybe got a job for us. A business acquaintance of his master’s wants a word with a certain silver dagger, and he’ll pay if we take this lad on the road and bring him somewhere.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, because we never did it.” He leaned closer in garlic-breathed sincerity. “If you’d have seen this Briddyn, you wouldn’t have taken a copper from him, either. He was this big man, not paunchy, but all porky-like, and he had this smooth little face like a lad’s, and this slick black hair and beard, like it was greased with lard, it was that slick.”

“Indeed? Did you notice whether his hands were smooth, too?”

“I did, and they were. I can still see him, like, in my mind.” He shuddered slightly. “In his beard he had this clip like lasses put in their hair, but it was a silver lizard with a butterfly in its mouth. There was somewhat about him that creeped my flesh, and it wasn’t just his taste in jewelry, neither.”

“Was he a Bardek man?”

“He might have been, but then again, he might have been a Deverry man with some Bardek blood in his clan. He was brownish, sort of, but it might have been just a lot of sun. So anyway, this Briddyn offers us a lot of coin, but it wasn’t near half enough, not for meddling with a silver dagger. When we turned him down, I was blasted close to fouling my brigga. What if he takes it amiss, like? think I. I could tell my friend was thinking the same. Now, I don’t know what he could’ve done to us, but he just took us that way. Creeped my flesh, he did.”

Jill considered him and his story both over a sip of ale. Although she was inclined to think every inhabitant of the Bilge a liar, she doubted very much that a man like him had the imagination to think up so detailed and strange a description of this Briddyn fellow. When she looked at the other men, listening carefully at their table, she realized that her informant’s little tale had made them uneasy, too. Yet, something simply smelled wrong. She slid over the last silver piece.

“My thanks. Now, this Briddyn was staying at the Golden Dragon Inn, but I’ll wager he’s long gone by now.”

“No doubt.”

In one fluid motion she drew her dagger with her right hand and grabbed his shirt with the left, dragging him half onto the table. Except for one slight shudder, he went perfectly still, staring into her eyes like a rat mesmerized by a ferret. He apparently could tell that she wanted to kill him just for the satisfaction of seeing blood run.

“Listen to me carefully, or you die. The first thing you said to me was this: ‘I had naught to do with getting him away.’ Getting him away where? You know more than you’re telling.”

He whimpered then, and threw a desperate look to the others sitting at their table. None of them moved; one even made an ostentatious show of drinking from his tankard, as if naught in the world troubled him at that moment.

“You whoreson scum,” she went on. “I came here willing to pay good coin for what you know, and you hold out on me. Has the Bilge fallen on evil times? A man used to be able to buy what he wanted here.” She laughed, a little mutter that was utterly crazed, and let him go with a shove that had him reeling in his chair. “Answer me. Get him away where?”

“I don’t truly know.” The fellow was whining like a child. “I don’t. Please believe me. All I know is that Briddyn said that once we had him, he’d be taken away. So we didn’t have to worry, like, about having to kill him or suchlike.”

There was more—she knew it—but the others were beginning to get restless, and there were, after all, five of them as well as her informant. Jill rose, keeping the dagger in hand.

“You in the blue brigga! Get your hand away from that throwing dagger, or I’ll nail you with mine.”

With an oddly good-natured grin he complied, settling down again on the bench. The tavernman stepped forward.

“Get out, silver dagger. Get out of my tavern now. You have what answer you get. No one knows what happened to Rhodry. Briddyn must have gotten him, and after that, no one knows. Now get out.”

“Well and good, then. I will. Oh, I believe you well enough. Who knows where the hawks fly, huh?”

She’d said it just as an idle chance, a random bit of bait, but the trap sprung closed fast. As the blood drained from his face, his dark skin turned as gray and sickly as dirty snow.

“I said get out.” He could barely whisper. “Get out before you die.”

The Deverry men watched in sincere puzzlement at his terror. Jill stepped closer, raising the dagger, and let herself laugh, that same crazed chortle, wailing higher and higher until he sank to his knees in the straw.

“Here!” One of the others rose to his feet. “What are you doing to our Araelo?”

“Leave him alone!” The tavernman was screaming now. “Leave him alone! Get out! All of you!” Then he burst into tears, dropping his face into his hands.

The men sat as if turned to stone. Jill stopped laughing cold, sheathed the dagger, and walked out. It took all her will, but she left slowly, calmly, and strolled down the middle of the street for about a hundred yards. When she glanced back, she saw that the door of the Red Man was closed—and bolted on the inside, too, she’d wager. She let out her breath in a long sigh and felt a fear-cold sweat running down her back and breasts under the leather jerkin. It was time to get out of the Bilge. Luck had brought her some important information, and she wanted to live long enough to tell Salamander.

Although her flesh creeped with nerves the whole way, Jill left the Bilge without incident and asked one of the town wardens the way to the Golden Dragon Inn. It turned out to be near the west gate, on the far side of the river, not far from the gwerbret’s dun. Bold as brass, they are, she thought to herself. As she crossed the white stone bridge that arched over the river, she felt Salamander’s mind tug at hers. She paused to lean over the rail and look down at the swift-flowing river. Although she failed to see his image, she could hear his thoughts in her mind and answer back.

“Jill, by the gods! I was trying to scry you out, and I saw you in the Bilge! You shouldn’t have gone there alone.”

“I did, and I lived, didn’t I? I’ve got some horrible news, but I doubt me if I should tell you this way.”

“It’s time for me to ‘hire’ you anyway. I’ve moved into the Golden Dragon Inn.”

“I’ll be round straightaway.”

As she went on, she was thinking that Briddyn must have a goodly amount of coin, if he shared Salamander’s taste in inns. She turned out to be right, because the Golden Dragon was a splendid three-story building in the Bardekian style—that is, a long rectangular plan with a curved roof like a ship turned upside down. At either end, set into the curving roof beams, were enormous wooden statues of some god or other with his hands raised in blessing. Before she went in, Jill circled the place, noticing how the lovely garden in the front became a mucky innyard in back, the dung heap and the well too close together for such an expensive place. As she loitered there, a young lass in a dirty apron came out the back with a pair of water buckets. When Jill went over, the lass wrinkled her nose.

“Get along, silver dagger. I’m not the kind of lass that would be interested in the likes of you.”

“You’re not to my taste anyway,” Jill said, suppressing a smile. “All I want is a bit of information about one of the guests here and I’ll pay for it.”

The lass considered, torn between greed and fear of her employer. When Jill held up a silver piece, the greed won.

“Who was this guest?”

“A merchant named Briddyn.”

“Oh, him!” She wrinkled her nose again. “I remember him well enough, my thanks, and a nasty lot he was. Always complaining, naught suited him, not the sheets, not the ale, not the wretched pot to piss in, I swear it. Thanks be to the gods that he left! I’d have gone daft if I’d had to wait upon him any longer.”

“I see.” Jill handed over the coin. “Do you know what he trafficked in?”

“Cloth. He rode in with a big caravan, and I heard the stablemen talking, saying that it’s a good thing his bales were light and easy to unload, because the bastard didn’t tip. And he had one special bale of cloth in his chamber. He told me that if I touched it, he’d slap me about, as if I’d be interested in his nasty cloth.”

“Did he have any visitors?”

“I never saw a one, but who would go visiting a nasty swine like that? When he left, he said he was going north to Dun Deverry. Huh—as if swine like that belonged in the king’s own city!”

Quite puzzled, Jill went on her way. It was the most peculiar turn so far, she decided; mysterious strangers bent on doing harm to someone normally don’t make such nuisances of themselves that every servant remembers them. As soon as she opened the front door of the inn, the innkeep and a beefy young man ran across the tavern room to bar her way.

“No silver daggers in my inn! Try the Capstan, lad.”

“One of your guests summoned me here, pork gut. Salamander the gerthddyn said he had a hire for me.”

When the innkeep snarled under his breath, she laid her hand on her sword hilt. He stepped back sharply.

“I’ll send a lad up to ask, silver dagger.” His voice shook badly. “But you’d best be telling the truth, or I’ll have the wardens on you.”

Jill crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at him until the lad returned with the news that Salamander did indeed want a silver dagger for a bodyguard. Muttering under his breath about possible thievery, the innkeep took her up himself to the chamber, which was on the top floor, far above the stink of the streets. When Salamander opened the door, he was resplendent in a brigga of soft blue wool, a shirt stiff with floral embroidery, and a tooled belt of red leather.

“Ah, my thanks, good innkeep. You have brought me a most highly recommended silver dagger, who, though young, is known for deeds of derring-do and blood and guts, such as eating the livers out of bandits and the hearts out of thieves.”

“You do go on so, sir! Will you be honoring us with a tale this evening?”

“Mayhap, mayhap. Come in, Gilyn. Let us discuss this hire.”

It turned out that he’d rented not a chamber but an entire suite, paneled in dark wood and furnished with a cushioned chair, a carved table, and a long purple Bardek divan as well as a bed in a separate room.

“You don’t stint yourself, do you?” Jill said.

“And why should I?” Salamander poured her a goblet of pale mead from a glass flagon. “Now, I’ll wager that you can guess that the gwerbret hasn’t found Rhodry.”

“He’s never going to.”

Salamander glanced up, the mead glass still in his hand, his lips half parted as he stared at her in sudden fear.

“Rhodry’s in the hands of the Hawks of the Brotherhood.”

For a long moment the gerthddyn never moved or spoke. It seemed, indeed, that he’d stopped breathing until at last he whispered out his words.

“Oh ye gods, not that! Are you certain?”

“The man who was hunting for him had handled so much arsenic that his skin and hair were turned slick. When I just barely mentioned the work ‘hawk’ the man I was talking to went all hysterical on me.” She slammed her fist on the table so hard that toe flagon jiggled and spilled. “I know what the Hawks do to men they get their hands on. If they’ve put Rhodry to torture, they’re going to die. One man for every mark they give him. I swear it. I’ll them down like ferrets after rats. One man for every mark.”