‘Is he dead?’ Erytus asked finally. He didn’t kneel to check for himself, Crispin noted.
‘What is happening? I can’t see! He shoved me inside!’ ‘Listen, then. Little to see. But be quiet. I need to be careful, now.’ ‘Now, you need to be careful? After I’m almost broken in pieces?’ ‘Please, my dear.’
It occurred to Crispin that he’d never said anything like that to the bird before. It might have occurred to Linon, too. She fell silent.
One of the cousins did kneel, head bent to the prone man. ‘He’s alive,’ he said, looking up at his father. Crispin closed his eyes briefly; he had swung hard, but not as hard as he could. He was still holding the staff.
It was cold in the courtyard. A north wind blowing. None of them had had time for cloaks or mantles. Crispin felt mud oozing beneath his sandalled feet. It wasn’t raining now, though there was a feel of rain in the wind. Neither moon was visible, and only a changing handful of stars where the racing clouds parted to the south towards the unseen mountains.
Crispin drew a breath. It was time to move this forward and he needed an audience. He looked directly at the innkeeper and said, in his most frigid voice-the one that terrified the apprentices at home-‘I wish to know, ‘keeper, if this thief, indeed his entire party are in possession of Permits that allow them to stay at an Imperial Posting Inn. I wish to know it now.’ There was an abrupt, shuffling silence in the courtyard. Morax actually staggered. This was not what he had expected. He opened his mouth. No words came out.
New voices now. Others approaching, out of the dark towards the circle of torches. Crispin glanced over and saw the girl, Kasia, being hustled over, two of the inn’s servants on either side of her, hands gripping her elbows. They weren’t being gentle. She stumbled and they dragged her forward.
‘What is happening? I can’t see!’
‘The girl’s here.’
‘Make her the hero.’
‘Of course. Why do you think I sent her up?’
‘Ah! You were thinking, this afternoon.’
‘Alarming, I know.’
‘Let her go, rot you!’ he said aloud to the men jostling her. ‘I owe this girl my Permit and my purse.’ They released her quickly. Crispin saw that she was barefoot. Most of the servants were.
He turned deliberately back to Morax. ‘I haven’t had an answer to my question, ‘keeper.’ Morax gestured helplessly, then clasped his hands together pleadingly. Crispin saw the man’s wife behind him. Her eyes were burning: a rage without immediate direction, but deep.
‘I will answer that. We have no Permit, Martinian.’ It was Erytus, the uncle. His narrow face was pale in the ring of torches. ‘It is autumn. Morax has been kind enough to allow us his hearth and rooms on occasions when the inn is less busy.’
‘The inn is full, merchant. And I assume Morax’s kindness has a price and the price is of no benefit to the Imperial Post. Was I to pay a surcharge to your nephew?’
‘Oh, well done! A bowshot at both of them!’ ‘Linon! Hush!’
The satchel strap remained in the nephew’s hand. No one had dared touch it. Lying on his back in the mud, Thelon of Megarium had not moved since Crispin felled him. He was breathing evenly, though. Crispin saw it with relief. Killing the man had not been part of his plans, though he was unavoidably aware that someone else might. In the north, a thief is hanged on the god’s tree. He was moving quickly here, little time to assess, and less to sort out why he was doing it.
Erytus swallowed, said nothing. Morax cleared his throat, glanced at the merchant, then back at Crispin. His wife was right behind him and he knew it. His shoulders were hunched forward. He looked like a hunted man.
Crispin, no longer a fisherman with a lure but a hunter with a bow, said icily, ‘It becomes clear that this contemptible thief was staying here illicidy with the sanction of the authorized ‘keeper of an Imperial Posting Inn. How much are they paying you, Morax? Gesius might want to know. Or Faustinus, the Master of Offices.’