belly of his instrument. When he looked up again, his face was troubled. ‘This
could be very dangerous,’ he said. ‘For you, and for anyone who sent you to this
man, if he took it amiss.’
‘I was serious about the payment,’ Samlor said. He thumbed a second crown of
Rankan gold from his left hand into the right to join the piece already there.
‘No, not that,’ said the minstrel, ‘not for this. But… I’ll give you
directions. Go after dark. And if I thought you might mention my name, I
wouldn’t tell you a thing. Even for a child.’
Samlor smiled wanly. ‘It’s possible,’ the caravan-master said, ‘that there are
two honourable men in Sanctuary this day. Though I wouldn’t expect anyone to
believe it, even the two of us.’
Cappen Varra began fingering an intricate sequence of chords from his lute.
‘There’s a temple of Ils in the Mercer’s Quarter,’ he began in a rhythmic
delivery. It would have suited the love lyrics his face was miming. ‘Just a
neighbourhood chapel. Go through it and turn right in the alley behind …’
It had been three hours to sundown when Samlor left the Vulgar Unicorn, but it
took him most of the remaining daylight to shop for what he would require during
the interview. Nothing illicit, but the city was unfamiliar; and the major
purchase was uncommon enough to take some searching. He found what he needed at
last at an apothecary’s.
The streets of Sanctuary had a different smell after dark, a serpent-cage miasma
that was more of the psychic atmosphere than the physical. Under the
circumstances, Samlor did not feel it would be politic to carry his dagger free