Ordermaster

LXVII

Halfway through the early-evening meal, Kharl cleared his throat, then waited.

“We’re going to the White Pony tonight,” he finally announced. “Right after we eat.”

“Sounds like a tavern or an inn, ser,” offered Demyst.

“A tavern, mostly, and it’s not all that good. Cevor and Alynar will come with us.”

Demyst nodded. Puzzlement warred with curiosity on Erdyl’s face.

“I’d like to hear what people are saying.” Kharl paused. “We’ll walk, and I’ll need to find or borrow an old tunic. I will wear the truncheon.”

“You forgot this afternoon,” Demyst pointed out.

“You had your blade,” Kharl countered.

“Best one of us did, ser.”

“That’s true.” Kharl smiled and went back to finishing his cutlet.

Less than a glass later, the five walked toward the open door of the White Pony. Kharl mopped his brow with his sleeve. The sun had been down for over a glass, but the evening was still too warm for his liking, and harvest was a good three eightdays away, although some fruits were appearing in the market, according to Khelaya.

“Five of you …” said the red-faced man who greeted them. “You’ll not be making trouble, now?”

“We’re looking for a cool ale,” Kharl said. “It’s hot out.”

“That it is. Best you take the round table off the wall there.”

Kharl led the way. A third of the tables were empty. Most of those in the White Pony were men, and most of those were men older than Kharl, men with leather faces, rough-cut beards. There were a few women, but all three of those were graying or white-haired, and they were with older men. So were the handful or so of younger men.

Kharl and those with him had barely taken the wall table when the murmurs began, mumblings that Kharl could hear through his order-senses, despite the louder conversation and bustle. Still, he had to concentrate.

“ … who they are?”

“ … who cares … long as they got coins …”

“ … big fellow … follow him …”

“ … others … look like a clerk and three guards …”

“ … more like mercs …”

“ … all those Hamorians pissprick Egen’s got wouldn’t like that …”

“Careful … don’t know who’s listening …”

“Sides … what could four mercs do …”

“Fellows!” called an angular server, who had appeared at Demyst’sshoulder, “what you all want?” She brushed back a lock of short black hair, her eyes darting around the table before centering on Kharl.

“Pale ale,” Kharl said, recalling that lager in most taverns was merely watered ale.

“Lager’s a lot better. Doesn’t cost any more. Everything’s three coppers a mug. Wine’s five.”

“ … silver for bad wine?” murmured Erdyl.

“Look, fellows … times been hard … especially in the south.”

“Lager, then.” Kharl offered a smile.

“Make that two,” added Demyst.

“Four,” added Alynar.

Erdyl shrugged helplessly. “Five.”

“Any eats?” asked the server.

“Got any dark bread?” replied Kharl.

“Cost you. Rye’s one for a loaf, two for a basket. Dark’s two and four.”

“Basket of dark,” Kharl said, showing a pair of silvers.

“You got it. Five lagers and a basket of dark.”

The lower murmurs continued.

“ … got coins …”

“ … all of ‘em got blades, and the two big ‘uns’d break you in half …”

“ … always that way …”

“ … right it is … why they got coins and you don’t …“

The server returned with five brown crockery mugs, setting them quickly on the battered wooden tabletop, so deftly that despite her speed, not a drop slopped onto the wood. “Lagers.” Then she set down the basket of bread. “Be three silvers and four.”

Kharl handed over four silvers, as well as two more coppers.

“Thanks.” The broad smile was both warm and professional.

Before she could step away, Kharl spoke. “There used to be armsmen in here all the time, didn’t there?”

“Haven’t been any since spring. Say they all went south to get the brigands out of the hills. Said that was the reason we didn’t get no produce and stuff from there.” The server shrugged, tossing her head to flip the errant lock of black hair back. “Miss the coins. Don’t miss the rest of it.”

“Looks slow, even for mideightday.”

“Slow all the time now, except when the patrollers get off.” She glanced toward the door.

“They’re as bad as the armsmen?” suggested Kharl.

The server just shook her head. “Check on you fellows later.” She moved to another table, where three white-haired men and a woman sat. “Need a refill, gramps?”

“Hain’t finished what I got, Selda.”

“Way you’re drinkin”, gramps, you never will …“

Kharl smiled.

“She didn’t want to talk about the patrollers,” observed Erdyl.

“Seemed that way,” added Demyst.

Kharl said nothing, but studied the lager with his order-senses. There was no obvious chaos in it. He took a sip. He’d had better. He’d seldom had worse. After a second sip, he broke off a chunk of the bread and chewed off some. Warm, crusty, and flavorful, it was far better than the lager. He hated to think what the ale tasted like. He held the mug as though he would continue to sip, but concentrated on hearing what was being said at the other tables.

“ … sent Gorot home last fiveday … said wasn’t enough work for two …”

“ … Melanya … thinks her Fradol’s got eyes for Jaela …”

“ … knocks her up and looks elsewhere … Ought to knock him up …”

“She’d come home then, and your coppers’d be flowing then …”

“ … have children … always keep paying … they never notice … good times and bad …”

“ … seen better times …”

“Haven’t we all?”

Kharl had been slowly studying the servers as they passed, but he hadn′t seen Enelya, from whom Kharl and Jeka had wheedled, begged, and bought food. The long-faced blond server handing the tables in the far corner was familiar-but he couldn’t recall her name. He gestured to her, holding up a silver.

“Yes, ser?” She glanced toward the kitchen nervously. “Selda’s your server …”

“Not about servers,” Kharl replied. “A silver for you, if you can answer a question or two. Nothing more.’

“A silver?” Clearly, she didn’t believe him.

He beckoned for her to lean down. “When I was here, a year ago, therewas a dark-haired girl, very friendly. Enelya, I think her name was. She had a sister, too, except something terrible happened to her.”

“Right awful it was. She drowned in the harbor. The sister, I mean. Poor thing.”

“Does Enelya …?″

“Left here, not more ′n eightday ago. Couldn′t say where.”

Kharl could tell she was lying. He added a second silver to the first. “You might know where she went.”

“Couldn’t say, ser.” Her voice wavered.

“Is she in trouble?”

The server glanced to the door. “Please, ser.”

“Egen?” Kharl added another silver.

Her mouth opened. “She told him no.” Her eyes darted away. “Said she had to go. Knew a place to hole up, wasn’t bein’ used. Didn’t say where.”

“The urchin′s place?”

The girl’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell.”

Kharl pressed the silvers into her hand. “I won’t. Tell the others that you’re meeting me later.” He smiled. “Then sneak away and get some sleep.”

“Ser …”

“Go …”

She darted away, but Kharl noted that she had kept the silvers-out of sight.

“Ser?” asked Erdyl.

“Later.” Kharl took another small swallow of the lager. He kept listening, but he heard nothing new.

After another half glass, he nodded to Demyst. “Time to go.” He stood and could feel eyes turning to watch him and the others as they walked from the White Pony.

Outside, Kharl walked to the first cross street, Second Cross, and turned westward.

“Ah, ser,” murmured Erdyl, “the residence is back that way.”

“I know,” Kharl said cheerfully. “We need to investigate something.”

“You know where the missing server is, don′t you?” Erdyl’s tone was almost accusatory. “What does she know?”

“I don’t know, but I’d like to find out. I’d also like to repay a favor, if Ican.” Kharl lengthened his stride. The air had cooled some while they had been in the White Pony, and a slight breeze blew out of the north, mixing the scent of harbor and dead fish with smoke, cooking oil, and other odors. A year before, he would not even have noticed the smell.

As they neared where Second Cross met Copper Road, Kharl could not only see but sense the Watch patrollers coming up the darkened Copper Road, even before he heard their boots on the yellow brick pavement of the street, not that he could tell the color in the darkness, but he recalled it all too well. “Patrollers are coming.”

Demyst, Cevor, and Alynar all checked their sabres. Belatedly, so did Erdyl.

Kharl stopped at the intersection, waiting.

“Where are you headed?” The lead patroller barked at Kharl. Then as his eyes took in Demyst, Erdyl, and the two guards, he added, “Ser.”

“I was taking an evening walk, patroller,” Kharl said politely. “I was told it was unwise to walk alone. So I brought some friends.”

The patroller looked at Kharl, then at Erdyl and the others. “Can be, ser. Take care. Best to avoid the area just above the harbor.”

“Thank you.” Kharl watched as the patrollers turned and headed back along Second Cross.

“ … hate that … have to tell the serjeant … five of ′em … three guards … think I’m going to take on that …”

“ … serjeant understands …”

“Captain doesn’t …”

“Serjeant won’t tell him … never does …”

Only when the patrollers were a good five rods away did Kharl turn onto Copper Road, heading toward the tannery and the rendering yard.

Kharl could smell the rendering yard long before they reached it, except the pungency was not what he had recalled. “That’s the renderer’s.”

“Looks like the gate’s boarded up,” Erdyl said, stopping momentarily.

Kharl tensed momentarily, then took a deep breath. Werwal had been known for speaking his mind. “Is there a proclamation or anything posted there?”

“No, ser.”

Werwal would have to wait. There was little Kharl could do now. There might be little enough he could do for Enelya, but if the other server at the White Pony knew where she was, she would not be safe from Egen long. Kharl kept walking.

Uphill from the renderer’s was the serviceway off the alley, and Kharl recalled both all too well. He stopped and studied the short serviceway beyond the alley.

“You going in there, ser?” asked Demyst.

“There aren′t any brigands or beggars here,” Kharl replied softly. He eased forward along the alley, then turned into the serviceway, stopping short of the brick wall. Behind it were hidden two walls less than four cubits apart, one the brick wall of the renderer and the other stone wall of Drenzel the tanner. Even in the dim light the ancient and worn yellow bricks of the wall directly before him stood out from the newer red bricks paving the serviceway. He cast his order-senses beyond the wall that was but a head or so above his own height. One person crouched in the hidey-hole that had been Jeka’s. Enelya? Who else could it be?

“She’s alone,” Kharl whispered to Demyst. “I’m climbing over.”

“Ser!” hissed the undercaptain.

“I’ll be careful.”

Kharl scrambled up to the top of the wall, then used his order-senses to harden the air just outside where Enelya crouched in the hidey-hole Jeka had made-or found. He stumbled slightly coming down off the wall, but caught his balance. There was no sound from behind the worn burlap that concealed the hidey-hole.

“Enelya, I’m someone Jeka sent.”

Still no sound.

“You stay here, and Egen’ll find you, sure as I’m standing here.”

She lurched from the hole, half-staggering, half-lunging at him, using a sabre broken off a span short of the tip-but with a sharp and jagged edge that almost came to a point.

Clang! Fragments of metal sprayed off the hardened air shield onto the summer-hardened clay between the two walls. Enelya went down in a heap.

Kharl could sense the knife.

“The knife won’t help. You can either trust me, or wait for Egen to find you.″

“Won’t go … no one …″

Kharl stood there. What could he do? He didn′t know the gentler uses of order. After a moment, he tried again, speaking softly and trying to use his order-senses to project a sense of truth and calm. “I’m trying to help you.”

“No one can.”

“I can.” He dropped the air shield, but remained ready to call it up again if he needed to.

“Sure … and I’m Lady of Brysta.” Enelya sat up, her eyes taking in Kharl. Abruptly, she swallowed, looking at the fragments of metal on the clay, then at Kharl. “You some kind of mage?”

“I know a little.”

“Why didn’t you …” She shook her head.

“It doesn′t work that way. It’s better for defense.” Kharl didn’t like mentioning magery, but he didn’t know what else to say.

“You … you coulda killed me.”

“I’m trying to keep you from being killed.”

“Why me? You’re some sort of mage … or a lord. Easier to buy a girl from the Bardo …″ Enelya slowly stood, her eyes glancing past Kharl to the wall behind him.

“I’m not looking for that. I’m trying to pay a debt.”

“Think I’d pay a clipped copper for that?” The woman snorted.

“For a friend. Jeka helped him, and he said you helped her. He said that you’d been through hard times. You lost your sister. Everyone thought she drowned in the harbor. Jeka told my friend that she almost drowned as a child. She was afraid of water, and wouldn’t go near it.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to give you a position in my house, as a helper to the cook and as a server for dinners. I’ll pay you well, maybe not so much as you get at the White Pony, but you’ll keep every copper, and you’ll have a room of your own in a place where Egen won’t find you. Even if he did, he’d have to cross his father and his brother to hurt you.”

“He would? How’s that?”

“I’m the Austran envoy here in Brysta. I’ve been here less than two eightdays.”

“Sure …”

Kharl sighed. “Do you think that I’d go to the White Pony, and climb over renderer’s walls just to find someone for bed? Besides, you need a bath.”

Abruptly, Enelya laughed, if softly. After a moment, she said, “How are you going to get me to your place safe-like?”

Kharl gestured to the wall. “I have three guards and my secretary waiting to see if you’ll accept the offer.”

There was a long sigh. “Guess I’ve got little choice.”

“Ah … the knife …” Kharl said. “If you want to keep it, then you go over the wall first.”

“I’ll keep it.”

Kharl stepped back until he was almost against the stone wall. “Then you may go first.”

Enelya nodded, then nimbly climbed the wall.

Kharl followed, half-amazed that the woman was waiting in the serviceway when he descended. Then, the four men had stepped back.

“This is Enelya. I’ve offered her a position as a retainer at the residence. You’re not to mention her name to anyone except to people in the house.”

“Yes, ser.”

Kharl, his order-senses half on Enelya, led the way back to the residence. He did make one detour, to avoid another set of patrollers, but in half a glass, they stood in the back hall of the residence as Kharl rang the bell for Fundal.

The steward appeared, dressed in his trousers and boots, and in a hastily donned tunic.

Fundal looked from Kharl to the bedraggled Enelya. “Ser?”

“This is Enelya. She’s going to help Khelaya … and you, when she’s not working in the kitchen. She has some experience serving, but it’s mostly in taverns.″

“Ah … ser,” stammered the steward.

“It’s not like that,” Kharl snapped. “She once helped someone I knew. Someone I owe a lot to. There’s a man after her who’d kill her if he could. I’m paying a debt, and I don’t want a word about her going out of the residence. It does, and you go with it.” Kharl’s last words were cold.

Fundal took a step backward and swallowed.

“She’ll need some better clothes, but I imagine Khelaya can help with that, and she’s to have something to eat and a chance to clean up.″

“Ah …” Fundal kept glancing from the woman to Kharl, then back to Enelya.

″Fundal …″ Kharl sighed.

“You seen what’s happening to women here?” asked Demyst, glaring at the steward.

Surprised by the undercaptain’s statement, Kharl glanced at Demyst.

“I have,” came another voice-Khelaya′s. The cook stepped into the foyer. She nodded to Kharl. “Begging your pardon, Lord Kharl, but I waschecking the marinade.” Her eyes went to Enelya. Her voice softened. “You need a bath, woman, and some clean clothes. We’ll take care of you.” She looked back toward the men. “There won’t be any words out of the kitchen, and it’s about time we got more help around here, ser, especially if you want functions.”

Kharl suppressed a grin.

Khelaya looked at Kharl. “Lord Kharl … best you lay out that set of garments for cleaning. Look like you’ve been crawling through alleys.”

“We have,” Kharl replied. “And I will.”

He was smiling as he headed upstairs. He only hoped that Enelya would realize that she was safer in the residence than anywhere else.