blood on his houppelande, but no one on that street would be troubled by it.
Sometimes guardsmen came through, but not to harass the good citizens nor
criticize their quaint customs.
Two in one day, he thought; it had been a year or more since the last time that
happened. He felt vaguely good about it, though neither man had been much of a
challenge. The cutpurse was a clumsy amateur and the young noble from Ranke a
trusting fool (whose assassination had been commissioned by one of his father’s
ministers).
He came up the street south of the Vulgar Unicorn’s entrance and let himself in
the back door. He glanced at the inventory in the storeroom and noted that it
must have been a slow day, and went through to his office. He locked up the krrf
in a strongbox and then poured himself a small glass of lemony aperitif, and sat
down at the one-way mirror that allowed him to watch the bar unseen.
For an hour he watched money and drink change hands. The bar-tender, who had
been the cook aboard a pirate vessel until he’d lost a leg, seemed good with the
customers and reasonably honest, though he gave short measures to some of the
more intoxicated patrons – probably not out of concern for their welfare. He
started to pour a third glass of the liqueur and saw Amoli, the Lily Garden’s
mistress, come into the place, along with the eunuch and another bodyguard. He
went out to meet them.
‘Wine over here,’ he said to a serving wench, and escorted the three to a
curtained-off table.
Amoli was almost beautiful, though she was scarcely younger than One-Thumb, in a