LITMIR.BIZ

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keep you off the headsman’s block.’ Pasko rubbed his throat. ‘I’ve always thought beheading a barbaric choice. Now, the Kingdom hangs its felons. A short drop –’ he snapped his fingers ‘– and the neck is broken, and it’s over. No mess, no fuss, no bother.

      ‘In Great Kesh, I’ve been told, they have many different choices of execution, depending on the location and nature of the crime: decapitation, burning at the stake, being buried up to your neck next to an anthill, drowning, exposure, being pulled apart by camels, being buried alive, defenestration –’

      ‘What?’

      ‘That’s throwing someone off a very high place onto the rocks below. My personal favourite is castration, then being fed to the crocodiles in the Overn Deep after having watched them first consume your manhood.’

      Tal stood up. ‘Have I ever mentioned that you have a seriously morbid streak? Rather than contemplate the means of my demise, I’ll spend my energies on staying alive.’

      ‘Then, to a practical concern?’

      Tal nodded.

      ‘While I suspect Duke Kaspar would intervene on your behalf in such a circumstance – the humiliation of Prince Matthew, I mean, not the feeding to crocodiles thing …’

      Tal smiled.

      ‘… isn’t it going to be difficult for him to do so from across the seas?’

      Tal’s smile broadened. ‘Nakor had intelligence from the north just as I left Salador; Duke Kaspar arrives within the week for a state visit.’

      Pasko shrugged. ‘In aid of what?’

      ‘A little hand-holding for his distant cousin, I imagine, prior to doing something that might otherwise earn the King’s displeasure.’

      ‘Such as?’

      ‘We have no idea, but the north is constantly on a low roil, and Kaspar only has to raise the heat in one place or another for a kettle to boil over somewhere. That’s one of the many things I wish to find out.’

      Pasko nodded. ‘Shall I draw you a bath?’

      ‘I think I’ll take a walk to Remarga’s and indulge in a long massage and tub there. Bring suitable clothing for an evening in town.’

      ‘Where will you be dining, master?’

      ‘I don’t know. Somewhere public.’

      ‘Dawson’s?’ The former inn was now exclusively a dining establishment for the noble and the rich, and had spawned a dozen imitators. ‘Dining out’ had become something of a pastime for those in the capital city.

      ‘Perhaps that new establishment, the Metropol. It’s considered the place to be seen, I have been told.’

      ‘It’s a private club, master.’

      ‘Then get me an invitation while I bathe, Pasko.’

      With a wry expression, Pasko said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

      ‘I must be seen in public so word will spread I’m back in the city, but I need to be alone tonight when I finish supper and return to these quarters.’

      ‘Why, master?’

      ‘So I can find out who’s been following me since I left Salador, and what’s on his mind.’

      ‘A spy?’

      With a stretch and a yawn, Tal said, ‘Probably an assassin.’

      Sighing, Pasko said, ‘So it begins.’

      Nodding as he headed for the door, Tal said, ‘Yes. So it begins.’

      Fog shrouded the city. Mist hung so thick it was impossible to see more than three feet ahead. The bright lamps at each corner of the merchants’ quarter were reduced to dim yellow spots in the distance, and even the occasional lantern beside a tavern door became just a faint pool of light across the street. There were places on long streets where no light was visible, and the senses were confounded, distances were meaningless and the entirety of the universe was murk.

      Even sound was muted. The taverns he passed offered just a murmur of voices rather than the raucous cacophony normally heard. Footfalls were a soft grinding of heel on caked mud rather than a clatter of leather on stone.

      Even so, Tal Hawkins knew he was being stalked. He had known that the instant he had departed Lady Gavorkin’s home. He had lingered over dinner at the Metropol – it had taken only minutes for Pasko to gain an invitation on behalf of the owner of the establishment for the Champion of the Masters’ Court to dine as his guest – and Tal had left with a free membership in the club. He had been impressed with the decor, the ambiance and the service. The food was only just acceptable, and he planned on having words with the chef, but he could see this club business might be a useful enterprise.

      Roldem lived on commerce more than any nation in the east, and this new club was in a location where nobles and wealthy commoners could come together in casual surroundings to socialize in a fashion impossible to imagine anywhere else in the city. Tal suspected that over the coming years fortunes would be lost and titles gained, marriages arranged and alliances formed in the quiet interior of the Metropol. Even before he had finished dining, a note from Lady Gavorkin had been handed to him, and Tal judged it as likely he would encounter his stalker on his way to her townhouse as he would back to his own. He had not, however, been accosted by whoever followed, and had spent a pleasant two hours, first being scolded for his long absence, then being ardently forgiven by Lady Gavorkin.

      The lady was recently widowed, her husband having perished in a raid against a nest of Ceresian pirates operating out of an isolated bay off Kesh. His service to the Roldemish Crown had garnered Lady Gavorkin a fair amount of sympathy, some guarantees of a modest pension in addition to her ample estates and holdings, and an appetite for a new husband as soon as the proper mourning period had been observed. She was childless, and her estates stood at risk if the Crown decided that another noble would better able manage them. Ideally, from the royal perspective it would be ideal that Lady Gavorkin, Countess of Dravinko, should marry some other noble who was favoured by the Crown, which would tie up two loose ends nicely.

      Tal knew he would have to sever all contact with Lady Gavorkin soon because he would never withstand the close scrutiny reserved for those marrying into Roldemish nobility. A minor squire’s son from a town outside a distant Kingdom city who was socially acceptable as an escort for galas and festivals was one thing, but someone who wed the widow of a recently departed war hero was another matter entirely. Besides, being tied down to anyone, even someone as attractive as Lady Margaret Gavorkin, held limited appeal for Tal, her substantial wealth, holdings, and energetic lovemaking notwithstanding.

      Tal listened as he walked and let his hunter’s instincts serve him well. He had learned years earlier that a city was nothing but a different kind of wilderness, and that the skills he had learned as a child in the mountains to the far north, across the sea, could keep him alive in any city. Each place had its own rhythm and pace, its own dynamic feeling, and once he was comfortable within that environment, threats and opportunities for a hunt would be recognized, just as they were in the wild.

      Whoever followed him was desperately trying to keep a proper distance and would have gone unnoticed by anyone less keenly aware of his surroundings than Tal. Tal knew this area of the city as well as anyone born here, and he knew he would be able to lose his stalker at whim. But he was curious as to who was following him, and more to the point, why.

      Tal paused for half a step, just enough of a break in the rhythm of his walking for his stalker to reveal his whereabouts, then continued. He turned right at the corner, and stepped inside a deep doorway, the entrance to a tailor shop he had frequented. Forgoing his sword, he deftly removed a dagger from his belt and waited. At the moment Tal expected, the man following him turned the corner and stepped in front of him.

      Tal reached out and grabbed the man’s right shoulder, bearing down and twisting as he pulled. The man reacted, but Tal was quicker;

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