YARD BOYS WERE THE LOWEST. THEY SLEPT IN the hayloft and ate scraps from the inn dining room, and the stinking clothes on their backs were the only pay they ever saw—rags far too skimpy for this unseasonably cold Tenthmoon. All their lives they had been starved of education and intelligent conversation. They had never strayed outside Holmgarth and never would. Their ambition, if they had one, was to become stablemen one day, earning hunger wages eked out by tips from rich travelers. Yet they had no curiosity about the shiny coaches and splendid horsemen who streamed through their squalid little world.
They found Stalwart frightening because he had a sword and a lute hidden away in the loft and could make music on the lute. He washed his hands every single night and he wrote letters that went off on the morning stage. He seemed more than human.
Like them, he rose from the hay before first light, shoveled and wheeled all day, and slept like a doorstep all night. His only visible difference was that he looked better fed and he wore a whistle on a string around his neck. He also took mental note of every traveler who entered the yard. But it was not until the fifth day of his yard torment that he saw anyone interesting going by, and even then it was not Silvercloak.
His daily reports held less meat than a roast sparrow. He mentioned seeing Lady Pillow’s coach returning, with a single passenger. The same day he noticed Sir Mandeville, an Ironhall knight who often carried letters from Grand Master to Leader or the King and so earned a brief stay at court. Two days later he saw Sir Etienne, another Ironhall knight. If Emerald was at Ironhall, as Stalwart suspected, she would be sending in reports, just as he was.
Two days after that, Sir Etienne and Sir Mandeville returned together. They had known Stalwart for years, fenced with him scores of times, but neither recognized the stinking urchin with the barrow who walked past them as they stood waiting for horses. That was comforting…sort of….
They paid their respects to old Sir Tancred and gave him a private letter from Lord Roland. Toward evening, after they had left, the letter was handed to Sheriff Sherwin, who showed it to Stalwart. The part that mattered was very brief:
Pray inform my agent that his Peachyard friend suspects the person we seek may actually be a woman.
Peachyard was Emerald’s family home, of course.
“You believe that, Pimple?” the fat man asked uneasily. “Still want us to hit him—or her— with quarterstaffs?”
“He didn’t look like a woman to me,” Stalwart said, and fortunately could add, “but I did warn you that he might disguise himself as a woman, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“So remind your men. Man or woman, if in doubt, hit to hurt. We’ll apologize later.”
Mandeville and Etienne had also passed on the latest news from court. Grandon, they said, was agog over a mass trial of the sorcerers who had been arrested at Brandford. Testimony from Snake and his helpers was sending gasps of horror through the capital.
Interesting! Stalwart had been in on the Brandford raid. He had not been scheduled to testify, but he knew the trial had not been due to start for several weeks yet. The only person who could have changed that date was Lord Chancellor Roland.
It might mean nothing. Or it might mean that the Old Blades were being kept in the public eye so that Silvercloak would know he need not worry about them just now. One more piece of cheese in the trap.
On the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, a wagon came rumbling in. Stalwart noted first that it held a few wooden crates but could have carried a much greater load. Having been a driver in his time, briefly, he disapproved of such wasteful loading on a long-distance haul. A short haul would not require posting. Then he realized that the man on the bench was Inquisitor Nicely—sinister, squat little snoop. Stalwart had enough respect for inquisitors’ powers of observation that he did not risk going close—indeed Nicely was already peering around as if sensing unfriendly eyes on him.
Instead, Stalwart wheeled his barrow over to a corner where Norton was talking with a couple of hands. Or listening to, more likely. Earthworms were chatterboxes compared to Norton.
“The wagon driver,” Stalwart said.
Norton reached out a lanky arm. It came back holding a quarterstaff. There were staffs cached all over the yard.
“No, no, he’s not the one! I’d like to know which road he takes out of town, though.”
Norton shrugged, nodded, replaced the staff, and walked away.
He did speak, an hour or so later. He said, “West.”
Stalwart said, “Thanks.”
Was Master Nicely heading for Ironhall? Not certainly but probably. It was something to put in tomorrow’s report, but not something likely to surprise Lord Roland. It might mean that things were about to happen at last.