‘How’s the crowd in’ the tavern tonight?’
‘Loud, smelly and mostly drunk.’
‘There’s nothing new about that. What I meant, though, was
how many of them are there?’
‘Fifteen or twenty. There are three of our
men in there who know what to do.’
‘Good. Thank you, Sir Knight.’
‘You’re welcome, Sir knight.’ Sparhawk led Talen and Stragen up the stairs.
‘This inn, I gather, isn’t altogether what it seems,’ Stragen observed.
‘The Pandions own it,’ Talen told him. ‘They come here when they don’t want
to attract attention.’
‘There’s a little more to it than that,’ Sparhawk told
him. He opened the door at the top oF the stairs, and the three of them
entered. Stragen looked at the workmen’s smocks hanging on pegs near the
door. ‘We’re going to resort to subterfuge, I see.’
‘It’s fairly standard practice,’ Sparhawk shrugged.
‘Lets get changed. I’d sort of like
to get back to the palace before my wife sends out search parties.’ The
smocks were of blue canvas, worn and patched and with a few
artfully-placed smudges on them. There were woollen leggings as well and
thick-soled workmen’s boots. The caps were baggy affairs, designed more to
keep off weather than they were for appearance. ‘You’re going to have to
leave that here,’ Sparhawk said, pointing at Stragen’s rapier. ‘It’s a
little obvious.’ The big Pandion tucked a heavy dagger under his belt.
‘You know that there are people watching the gate of the inn, don’t you,
Sparhawk?’ talen said.
‘I hope they enjoy their evening. We aren’t going
out through the gate, though.’.’ Sparhawk led them back down to the inn
yard, crossed to a narrow door in a side wall and opened it. The warm air
that boiled out through the doorway smelled of stale beer .and unwashed
bodies. The three of them went inside and closed the door behind them.
They seemed to be in a small storeroom. The straw on the floor was mouldy.
‘Where are we?’ Talen whisPered. ‘In a tavern,’ Sparhawk replied softly.
‘There’s going to be a fight in just a few minutes. We’ll slip out into
the main room during the confusion.’ He went to the curtained doorway
leading out into the tavern and twitched the curtain several times. ‘All
right,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll mingle with the crowd during the fight, and
after a while, we’ll leave. Behave as if you’re slightly drunk, but don’t
over-do it.’
‘i’m impressed,’ Stragen said.
‘i’m more than impressed,’
Talen added. ‘Not even Platime knows that there’s more than one way out of
that inn.’ The fight began not long after that. It was noisy, involving a
great deal of shouting and pushing and finally a few blows. Two totally
uninvolved and evidently innocent by-standers were knocked senseless
during the course of the altercation. Sparhawk and his friends smoothly
insinuated themselves into the crowd, and after ten minutes or so, they
reeled out through the door. ‘A little unprofessional,’ Stragen sniffed.
‘A staged fight shouldn’t involve the spectators that way.’
‘It should when the spectators might be looking for something other than a
few tankards of ale,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘The two who fell asleep weren’t
regular patrons in the tavern. They might have been completely innocent,
but then again, they might not. This way, we don’t have to worry about them
trailing along behind US.’
‘There’s more to being a Pandion Knight than I thought,’ Talen noted. ‘I
may like it after all.’
They walked through the foggy streets towards the rundown quarter near the
west gate, a maze of interconnecting lanes and unpaved alleys. They
entered one of those alleys and went through it to a flight of muddy stone
stairs leading down. A thick-bodied man lounged against the stone wall
beside the stairs. ‘You’re late,’ he said to Talen in a flat voice.
‘We had to make sure we weren’t being followed,’ the boy’ shrugged.
‘Go on down,’ the man told them. ‘Platime’s waiting. ‘
The cellar hadn’t changed. It was still smoky and dim, and it was filled
with a babble of coarse voices coming from the thieves,’ whores and
cutthroats who lived there. ‘I don’t know how Platime can stand this
place,’ Stragen shuddered. Platime sat enthroned on a large chair on the
other side of a smoky fire burning in an open pit. He heaved himself to
his feet when he saw Sparhawk. ‘Where have you been?’ he bellowed in a
thunderous voice. ‘Making sure that we weren’t followed,’ Sparhawk
replied. The fat man grunted. ‘He’s back here,’ he said; leading them
toward the rear of the cellar. ‘He’s very interested in his health at the
moment, so I’m keeping him more or less out of sight.’ He pushed his way
into a small, closet-like chamber where a man sat on a stool nursing a
tankard of watery beer. The man was a small,’ nervous-looking fellow with
thinning hair and a cringing manner. ‘This is Polk,’ Platime said. ‘He’s a
sneak-thief. I sent him to Cardos to have a look around and to see what he
could find out about some people we’re interested in. Tell him what you
found out, Polk.’
‘Well sir, good masters,’ the weedy man began, ‘it tuk
me a goodly while to git close to them fellers, I’ll tell the world, but I
made myself useful, an’ they finally sort of assepted me. They was all
sorts of rigimarole I had to go thee – swearin’ oaths an’ gettin’
blindFolded the first couple times they tuk me to their camp an all, but
after a while, they kinda let down then guard, an’ I come an’ went putty
much as I pleased. Like Platime prob’ly tole you, we figgered a’t first
they wuz gist a buncha amachooms what didn’t know nothin’ about the way
things is supposed to be did. We sees that sorta thing all the time, don’t
we, Platime? Them’s the kind as gits thenselves caught an’ hung.’
‘And good riddance to them,’ Platime growled.
‘Well sir,’ Polk continued, ‘like
I say, me’n Platime we figgered as how them fellers in the mountings was
gist a buncha them amachoors I tole you about – fellers what’d took up
cuttin’ th’oats fer fun an’ profit, don’t y’know. As she turns out,
howsomever, they was more’n that. Then leaders was six er seven noblemen
as was real disappointed ’bout the way the big plans of the Primate Annias
fell on then faces, an’ they was powerful unhappy ’bout what the queen had
writ down on the warrants she put out fer ’em – nobles not bein’
accustomed to bein’ called them sorta names. ‘Well sir, t’ short it up
some, these here noblemen all run off into the mountings ’bout one jump
ahead of the hangman, an’ they go t’ robbin’ travellers t’ make ends meet
an’ spent the resta then time thinkin’ up nasty names t’ call the queen.’
‘Get to the point, Polk,’ Platime told him wearily.
‘Yessir, I wuz gist about to. Well now, it went on like that fer a spell,
an’ then this here Krager feller, he come into camp, an’ some of them there
nobles, they knowed him. He tole ’em as how he knowed some furriners as’d
help ’em out iffn they’d raise enough fuss here ‘in Elenia t’ keep the
queen an’ her folks from gittin’ too curious ’bout some stuff what’s goin’
on off in Lamorkand. This here Krager feller, he sez as how this stuff in
Lamorkand might just could be a way fer ’em all t’ change the way then
forchunes bin goin’ since ol’ Annias got hisself kilt. Well, sir, them
dukes an’ earls an’ such got real innerested at that point, an’ they tole
us all t’ go talk t’ the local peasants an’ t’ start runnin’ down the
tax-collectors an’ t’ say as how it ain’t natural fer no country t’ be run
by no woman an’ the like. We wuz’supposed t’ stir up them peasants an’ t’
git ’em t’ talkin’ among themselves ,’bout how the people oughtta all git
together an’ thaw the queen out an’ the like, an’ then them nobles, they
caught a few tax collectors an’ hung ’em an’ give the money back t’ the
folks it’d been stole from in the first place, an’ them peasants, they wuz
all happy as pigs in mud ’bout that.’ Polk scratched at his head. ‘Well
sir, I guess I’ve said m’piece now. At’s the way she stands in the
mountings now. This here Krager feller, he’s got some money with ‘im, an’
he’s mighty free with it, so them nobles what’s bin on short rations is
gettin’ downright fond of ‘im.
‘Polk,’ Sparhawk told him, ‘you’re a treasure.’ he gave the
man several coins, and then’ he and his friends left the cubicle. ‘What
are we going to do about it, Sparhawk?’ Platime asked.
‘We’re going to take steps,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘How many of these
‘liberators’ are there?’
‘A hundred or so.