“Think about it,” she said. “Sooner or later we’re bound to have separate bedrooms. Or we can just shove Davith in a locked closet for a night.”
“I assure you,” said Shane dryly, “I will be thinking about nothing else for days.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
“WELL,” said Marguerite, looking at the map, then across the landscape, “apparently this is Cambraith.”
It looked exactly like everywhere else they had been. A river snaked across the rolling hills, and the endless green shaded toward blue to the north, where the hills turned into mountains.
“Just this valley?” asked Shane.
“This one, and the next one, and…” Marguerite consulted the map. “The next three after that.”
They looked toward the hills. There were certainly a lot of them. Presumably they weren’t quite so identical when you got up close, but Marguerite wouldn’t swear to it.
“Maybe we should ask for directions,” said Davith.
“So that the Sail can come up behind us and know exactly where we’re going?” asked Wren.
“If the alternative is walking around knocking on doors asking if anyone’s seen the artificer, yes.”
“We’ll have to ask someone,” Marguerite said, “but we’ll attempt to be subtle and unmemorable.”
She paused, studying the other three. “Which…ah…is easier said than done, I suppose. Wren, can you put your axe away long enough to come into an inn and look respectable with me?”
“Sure.”
“I can look respectable,” said Shane.
“No, you can’t.” Marguerite put the map away. “You look noble, which isn’t the same thing.
Respectable is subtle and boring. Noble isn’t boring. Davith, don’t start.”
“Aww…”
“Right,” said Marguerite an hour later, making sure that her hair was covered and adjusting her clothing. “We are traders of small valuable goods who are looking to finish our business as soon as possible and go back to the lowlands. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Wren, who had handed her axes over to Shane at the outskirts of the village. It was a sizeable enough place, in that it had both an inn and a store. She pushed the door to the inn open, did a quick scan for assassins—none, unless they were disguised as chairs—and let Marguerite enter first.
Marguerite strolled up to the bar, which was manned by a middle-aged man with hair that had
thinned considerably in front, but made up for it by descending over his bare shoulders. He wore an apron and the impersonally friendly expression of innkeepers everywhere.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“God, I hope so,” said Marguerite, with a broader accent than usual. “I’m looking for…” She dug through her belt pouch and came up with a scrap of paper. “A clan called the Kerseys? Maybe? Crest looks like a wolf?”
The innkeeper considered this. “Coupla Kerseys around these parts. Don’t know about the crest, though. You might try over in Half-Stone, there’s plenty of them there.”
“Oh, thank the gods,” said Marguerite, beginning to get into character. “The last time I asked, I got accused of being a bounty hunter, wanting to run someone in for banditry. I don’t think they believed me when I said I was just supposed to make a delivery. I ask you, do I look like a bounty hunter?”
She did a little twirl. The innkeeper grinned. “No, ma’am. Though I ain’t saying some of those Kersey boys don’t get up to some mischief now and again, so I can see why they were worried.”
Marguerite sighed heavily. “All I want is to settle this order. All right, what about…” She consulted the paper again, which was actually one of the leftover invitations to the perfume salon.
“The Nallans? At a ford somewhere, I think?”
“That one’s easy,” said the innkeeper. “Nallanford’s up the mountain, next valley over.” He grinned again. “Word is the lord took a new bride not long ago, actually. Would that have anything to do with your delivery?”
“Oho, so that’s the way the wind is blowing, is it?” Marguerite said. “That’d make sense.” She patted her pack. “Wondered why my guildmaster sent me all the way out here with fripperies, but if he’s expecting to get another few orders from a new bride…”
The innkeeper gave her a conspiratorial wink. “I hear tell she’s quite a bit younger, too. And Lord Nallan ain’t poor.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She knocked on the bar and bought two meat pies without more than token haggling. “Now, about these Kerseys…safe for two women to travel there with a hired guard, or should I be worried?”
The innkeeper was happy to give her directions to the respectable Kerseys, their less-respectable cousins, the Keirseys, which road was safe and which was asking for mischief of an unspecified variety. Marguerite listened, nodded, made ostentatious notes on her map, had him repeat directions twice, then swept out with Wren at her heels.
“What was all that about the Kerseys?” Wren asked in an undertone.
“Hopefully that’s what he’ll remember of the conversation,” said Marguerite cheerfully. “Now, let’s get to Nallanford before we’re spotted.”
“You think there’s Sail people around?” Wren glanced around as if one might emerge at any moment and need to be dismembered.
“I can practically guarantee it.”
THEY WERE HALFWAY to Nallanford before the Sail finally caught up with them, or they caught up with the Sail, depending on how you looked at it. Marguerite went into a public house and came out again in a hurry, carrying several meat pies and looking remarkably grim about it.
“Trouble?” asked Shane, who didn’t think she’d normally have that kind of expression over pastries.
“Two men,” she said, in a clipped voice, shoving the meat pies at Davith. “I recognize one of them. I told the bartender we were looking for the Kerseys again.” She was already walking briskly away from the pub, down possibly the only alley the village possessed, and around the back of a row of houses.
“Are they going to follow us?” Wren asked.
“Almost certainly.”
“Do they know you saw them?” asked Shane.
“I don’t think I gave us away, but if they’re smart, they should know better than to trust me.”
I should probably know better too, but that hasn’t stopped me, either. Shane dipped his head in acknowledgment. In a city, he’d simply lie in wait until the men passed, but they were rapidly running out of village to wait in. The only thing left was the church and the graveyard around it. Judging by the number of graves, which exceeded the number of houses many times over, the town was either very old or very, very unlucky.
The two Sail operatives were also unlucky. They came around the side of the church, spotted Marguerite, Wren, and Davith walking away, and stepped into the obvious hiding place, between two tall obelisks leaning drunkenly together.
Shane stood up from behind the gravestone where he’d been crouched, grabbed them both by the hair, and bashed their heads together. Both men went limp. Shane dropped them behind the obelisks, dusted off his hands, and followed after the other three.