8.

 

“I thought I smelled something foul.”

“It’s a delight, admit it.” The door closed solidly behind Bueralan. “I found this perfume just for you.”

Across from him, Aerala wrinkled her nose in distaste. Wearing a long, thin green skirt and a brown singlet, the dark-haired, olive-skinned archer lay in a hammock, swaying slightly as her foot pushed against the rope pegged in the wall. In her lap was a half-filled parchment and as he entered she placed a quill into a small well at her side. “It’s no wonder your romances never end well.”

Bueralan chuckled and placed his axes on the weapon rack, noting with satisfaction that the weapons there had been clean and sharpened already. “Where the others at?”

“Dinner.”

“I hope they don’t come back drunk.”

“Mercenaries don’t drink in this town,” Aerala said. “Though your smell would make me risk the gibbet of Lady Wagan.”

He lifted an arm, sniffed. “It’s that bad?”

“You have no idea.”

Grimacing, the saboteur continued through the barracks, picking up a cake of rough, yellow soap and a towel as he reached the end. A small room built upon a cement block with a claw-footed bath awaited him. The water he poured into the basin came from pipes in the floor, which were connected to a series of tanks beneath the city. The huge, bronze containers had originally been put in so that the city would not have their water supplies cut off in a siege, though they had since then been adapted to use the heavy summer rain falls more industriously. There were coals beneath the bath, but after thrusting his arm beneath the cold running water and feeling the freshness against his skin, he sank in straight away.

Once he had finished bathing, he drained the tub and refilled it, lighting the coals this time. As he lay in the clean, warm water, his mind drifted. He thought about the Quor’lo, the Lady Wagan, the money and the mystery that lay in Leera. That, he had to admit, he still did not like: the mystery was not one he cared to solve with the lives of Dark. But Heast had surprised him, in the last moments of their meeting.

“Samuel Orlan will be traveling with you,” the Captain of the Spine had said.

Hand on the door to his office, slants of lamp light cracking through the opening, Bueralan paused. “That’s quite an honor,” he said, finally.

“It is,” the other replied. “He visited me this morning to tell me just that.”

The door closed. “He told you?”

Heast was silent. When Bueralan turned, he found that the old soldier’s pale gaze was not focused on him. “In Mireea,” he said, finally, “I watch everyone of consequence. For the most part, it is a little bit of history, investment in politics. My knowledge comes from contacts, spies and simple intuition. No one is beyond me in this city, not even Keepers. But Orlan … Samuel Orlan I know very little beyond his considerable reputation. Sometimes I know when he leaves the city. I know the hours he keeps when he is here and they are erratic and I do not know what changes them. I do not know who tries to win his favor or influence him. A part of me even believes he is making a game out of this knowledge, a test between two old men. If that’s so, it is not a game between equals.”

“I would rather he not ride with us,” he said.

“I could not say no.” Heast’s pale, cold gaze met his. “Do you understand, Bueralan? As he stood before me, I saw a small, fat man with no military training whatsoever. I saw a man who I know intellectually will be not only be deadweight to you in any fight, but who will also slow you down and put you in a greater danger. Even his knowledge of the land does not compensate for this. Yet, I could not tell him no. I hinted at it, suggested that it might not be wise of him, but he looked me in the eye and told me that he was not asking, he was telling me. I was nothing but a pause in thought. A curiosity. A kindness.”

“What game is he playing at?” he said. “Is it vengeance? The Quor’lo did come into his shop and attack his apprentice. He lost years of work, maps of importance never to be returned to history.”

“I do not believe Samuel Orlan is a man of vengeance.”

Bueralan let the memory drift away. Heast could add no more, and it became clear that the Captain of the Spine did not want to keep him in Mireea. The awareness sat poorly, if Bueralan was honest. The exiled Baron of Kein had once been a man of some importance, both in title and reputation. He had watched politics, taken part in it, enjoyed it. He had lost his nerve at the end when the stakes were at their highest, when a queen could have fallen, but he had never left the world of politics. He was a shadow in it, a politician made into a soldier, a saboteur who stood on the sides of other people’s plans.

Before Elar, he had not lost a man or woman in seven years. He had forgotten how much it could hurt, all of Dark had, and it was part of why they had agreed to Heast’s offer. The decision had not been made on facts, on money, on success: it was about forgiveness and the memory of the man they had lost. Now, however, he felt as if he had agreed to something that was verging on being large, violent and costly.

He had no doubt who would be asked, first, to pay the price.