Hecht said, "Think I'll range ahead. You two stick with Buck."

Ghort nodded. "Be careful." By which Hecht understood that he, too, had noted that one fewer rider had returned than had gone east.

Pella betrayed his own quick eye. "Let me do it. They ain't looking to ambush me. Whoever they are."

Ghort told him, "Go to it, kid."

With Pella out of earshot, Hecht asked, "And what would you do now, Child of Fortune?"

"Play it straight. He don't see any obvious way to cash in. He knows they'll just rob him if he tries to cut himself a share of whatever Vali is worth." A bit later, Ghort added, "He's making a long-term investment. That's what I did. It worked for me. He'll probably end up brokenhearted."

Ahead, Pella rounded a verge of the woods and disappeared. Whistling.

"He has nerve."

"You need that to survive when you're on your own."

This sounded more like the real Pinkus Ghort than most of the stories he told. "I'll stroll ahead, now. Vali, stay by Buck."

Hecht rounded the trees and found Pella in a brisk argument with a tall, bony, skinny man whose natural posture made him lean forward. His hands swooped and flew as he talked. His horse was tied to a bush beside the road, on a long tether, busy grazing and ignoring its rider. Its saddle, loosened, bore a Sonsan household crest.

Hecht stalked closer. Durandanti. The Durandanti family had an old relationship with the Brotherhood of War. That broke down when the Brotherhood tried to plunder the Devedian quarter of Sonsa, but, evidently, peace had been made, under the table. The Durandanti plan for reviving Sonsa must require becoming intimate with the ambitions of Sublime V and the Brotherhood.

Where did Vali fit?

That depended on who she was.

Pella demonstrated his street bona fides by maneuvering the bony man round to present his back to eastbound traffic. He remained unaware of Hecht until his horse became restless.

The Durandanti spun. His face was unnaturally pale. He had one of those lantern-jawed faces that looked like the planners forgot to put meat on over the bone.

"Hi!" Hecht smacked the man solidly between the eyes. "Ow! d.a.m.n! I forgot how much that hurts!" He shook his lingers vigorously. "My guess is, this fellow doesn't do this sort of thing for a living." His victim staggered two steps, cross-eyed, then went down on one knee.

"You're probably right, Your Honor. He was only trying to sound tough."

Hecht breathed on his knuckles. "I'm a Your Honor again, eh?"

"Just being careful, Your Honor. You've started smacking people."

Hecht chuckled. "You are like Buck. Help me move him over by that tree." The bony man had both knees and a hand down in the dust now.

Ghort and Vali arrived. The Durandanti, his back against a sapling, groggily worked on a leaky nose. Ghort asked, What did you do that for?"

"Seemed like the most direct way. Get that mare ready. We'll put him back aboard. Vali can ride pillion. That'll let us pick up the pace."

"You think they won't miss him?"

"I expect they will. We'll talk to him while we walk. He'll let us know what we need to do."

"Uhm." Ghort got it. In his own way.

They would pump the Durandanti full of false information while draining him of what he knew.

Hecht shared his theory about the Durandanti and Brotherhood getting into bed. Ghort readied the mare, then examined the Durandanti's nose. "Not broken. Not even b.l.o.o.d.y, just running bad. Got some tears going, too."

"You knocked the snot out of him, Your Honor." Pella giggled.

They made good time, now, and pa.s.sed through Alicea without attracting attention an hour before sunset. They saw no other travelers till they neared the town. The area was busier than last time Hecht pa.s.sed through. Ragged tents and shanties had appeared. Beggars came out. He had seen none of those before.

Hecht released the Durandanti two miles past Alicea, up the West Way, tied to a willow tree. With his horse tethered nearby, contentedly grazing. Master Stain Hamil had been cooperative. "You don't do a lot of yelling, you can get those ropes off pretty quick. You do yell, chances are you'll get robbed. Maybe even murdered."

Ghort and the children had dropped off just east of Alicea, turning back to get established at the Knight of Wands. Master Stain Hamil of House Durandanti was led to believe that they would scrounge supplies, catch up, and trek on east to Plemenza. Having been prisoners there Hecht and Ghort were able to talk about Plemenza convincingly.

Hecht entered the Knight of Wands carefully. It proved uncrowded. He spotted Ghort, joined him. Ghort asked, "It go all right?"

"Tied him to a tree. Left him his horse. He'll be home tomorrow night. If the boogies don't get him."

"We might be sorry. If they got b.a.l.l.s enough to come after us on somebody else's turf. But I'm glad you didn't do the hard thing." the hard thing."

"He was a worker bee. He didn't even know why were chasing us. Did you get us in here?" The Knight of Wands was a sprawling derelict of a building, mostly story high, that had been added to a dozen times. The old parts looked like they would just fall down and be abandoned once they did. When Hecht arrived a boy younger than Pella was outside plugging holes leaking smoke using the contents of a bucket of mud. The smoke came from a fireplace in common room that needed its chimney cleaned. The upside of the smoke was that it helped quell the stench of the place.

"Sure. Room and board. Fleas, lice, and bedbugs on the house."

"Only because they don't have the imagination to charge. Where are the kids?"

"Out running around. They get along. Vali has problems, Pipe. I'm wondering if maybe somebody didn't rape her. Pella's trying to show her how to be a kid."

"Why doesn't she run away?"

"Not in her nature. If she was raised in a castle somewhere, with somebody doing everything for her but s.h.i.t, it wouldn't occur to her to run. Biggest thing she ever did on her own was latch on to us, probably. Which took some major guts."

"Or absolute certainty that going with us couldn't possibly be more horrible than staying where she was. How long you figure it'll be before your cousins show up?"

"I'm not gonna argue about that no more. You want them to be my family, so be it." Ghort pretended to count on his fingers. "We had good winds. We probably made twice as many miles a day as them. But they came almost straight in north while we went the long way around."

"How about a straight answer?" Ghort sometimes created drama where there was none.

"They could turn up tomorrow. If they ran all the way. Which would depend on whether they think you got killed or not."

How does that make a difference?"

"Just brainstorming. If they got you, a s.h.i.tload of people would be p.i.s.sed off and looking for somebody to burn at the stake. If they didn't, they'd figure us to be a little more relaxed. Here come the kids. Must be getting scary dark out."

Pella and Vali dodged a scruffy one-eyed man who tried to keep them out because they were obvious refugee trash. They zipped to the table, seated themselves. Vali did not appear particularly remote or frightened. Pella announced, "We're hungry."

Hecht said, "I'm not surprised. It's been a long day."

The one-eyed man arrived. "These yer brats?"

"Right. And they'll be in and out for the next several days. Till the rest of our people get here."

Ghort told the children, "Let's see what they've got in the pot."

"Just checking. We got problems with thieves, anymore."

"Of course." Hecht told the children, "You two be on your best behavior while we're here."

"Yes, sir, Uncle Matt," Pella said, struggling to keep a straight face. Vali managed a nod. It took an effort.

"They're good kids," Hecht told the one-eyed man. "But they are kids. Full of energy. Hey. Where can we go to church?"

Later, with the children in bed, Hecht and Ghort relocated to a shadowed corner, unoccupied because it was so far from the fire. They observed the clientele, watching for anyone who might be waiting to meet their quarry.

"Cold back here," Ghort muttered.

"Lonely, too. And so dark hardly anybody... Well. Look here. Master Hamil figured out my knots."

The Durandanti rider had stumbled into the Knight of Wands, paler than ever, deeply frightened. With a big bruise on his forehead. Ghort observed, "That's a man what ain't used to being out in the country after dark."

"Sshh. Let's don't make him stop thinking we're headed for Plemenza."

The one-eyed man braced Hamil. Hamil could not show him coin or anything else of value.

"You robbed him?" Ghort asked.

"Sure did. Didn't want him thinking we're honest folks on a mission."

"Good for you. There he goes."

With help from the one-eyed man, who shoved the pallid Sonsan back into the darkness. Hamil protested all the way, invoking Don Alsano Durandanti.

"Think One-eye just made a b.o.o.boo?" Ghort asked.

"Depends on how much the Don backs his troops. Uh-oh. Here's real trouble."

"What?"

"That dark corner over there. There's a guy in there. He wasn't there when we moved over here. I didn't see him slide in. He's wearing a pilgrim's robe. Catch him when the scullery boy throws the next load of wood on the fire."

Silent minutes pa.s.sed. The boy who had been caulking earlier brought firewood to beat back the chill of the night. The fire flared briefly.

"Well," Ghort murmured, "was I a betting man, an' I been known to lay one down now an' then, I'd put money on that fellow being Ferris Renfrow's ugly twin."

"Maybe his evil twin?"

"I'd say Renfrow is the evil twin. Interesting, though. You think he's involved?"

"My guess? Only obliquely, if at all." Ferris Renfrow and his masters in the Grail Empire had no cause to murder the Patriarch's Captain-General. "I'd guess it's coincidental. This would be a natural gathering place for conspirators."

Ferris Renfrow did as they did. Sat in the shadows and watched. Hecht and Ghort picked out three men they felt deserved closer scrutiny.

Time rolled on. And on. Ghort muttered, "I wish that a.s.shole would give up and go to bed. It was a long f.u.c.kin' day. I need some shut-eye."

"Uhm." Renfrow seemed to be paying them no heed. Hecht did not believe he was unaware of them. Their shadows were deeper than his, though.

Hecht began to feel the weariness, too.

"What're you doing, Pipe?"

"Going to see what he does when he recognizes me."

"Is that smart?"

Hecht shrugged. He crossed the room, stepping over and around sleeping men and men who had enjoyed too much of the heavy, dark, foul beer brewed by the Knight of Wands. Renfrow appeared disinterested at first, then started and swore, "Eis's b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.s boils! What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

Hecht settled beside the Imperial. "The very question I asked myself about you."

"I'm here on my lord's business."

"And I as well. With an added touch of the personal."

Renfrow contained his shock. "You're outside your home territories."

"Outside the Emperor's, too. Might be Sonsan."

"The Counts of Aloya, theoretically. But they haven't been seen since you and I were pups. n.o.body's moved in because that would be more trouble than leaving the territory to rot."

Which would lead to banditry and chaos, eventually. Of course.

"I've had a long day. I just wanted you to know I'm here." Hecht headed for his quarters before Renfrow could respond. Ghort stayed where he was.

"He left right after you did," Ghort reported. "He looked like he'd had a major shock. I don't think he recognized me."

"I wouldn't count on it. Who's always around when I'm somewhere?"

"Go teach granny to suck eggs. Put the kids on him. He won't expect them."