“It certainly would,” she agreed, and reached out to accept the briefcase from him.
She stepped back through the open wicket gate to the massive, iron-strapped door of the hotel strongroom and used the key hanging from the chain around her neck to open the door. She stepped inside and slid the briefcase into one of the numbered heavy cabinets against the back wall, then closed and locked the cabinet door—also reinforced with iron—behind it. Then she closed the strongroom door, relocked it, as well, and returned to the desk, where she pulled a slip of paper from a pigeonhole, dipped her pen in the inkwell, and wrote in a quick, neat hand. She blew on the ink to dry it, then handed it to Hahdgkyn.
“Here’s his receipt,” she said, then spurted a little laugh as the maître d’ accepted it. “Not that he really needs one anymore. Charlz knows that briefcase as well as I do by now!”
“The light’s usually a little better when the Colonel collects it in the morning, though, I imagine.”
“Oh, I’m sure it is,” she agreed, and Hahdgkyn headed back to the restaurant to deliver the receipt.
Sahbahtyno watched him go, waited thirteen minutes by the clock—last time he’d waited only five, but the time before that he’d waited for thirty-three—then stood, folded his newspaper, signed the check lying beside his dessert plate, and ambled out of the restaurant. He crossed to the desk, and the clerk greeted him with a smile.
“Good evening, Master Sahbahtyno. How was dinner?”
“Excellent, as always,” Sahbahtyno replied with a matching smile. “Would you happen to have any mail for me, Sairaih?”
“I don’t believe we do tonight, actually,” she said. “Let me check.”
She ran her fingertip along the long row of wall mounted pigeonholes until it came to the one for Room 312, then turned back to him.
“I’m afraid not. Were you expecting something? I can have one of the bellboys run it up to your room when it arrives, if you are.”
“No, no.” He shook his head. “Just checking. There’s some routine paperwork en route from one of my suppliers, but nothing urgent. If anything does come this late, it’ll keep until tomorrow. No point sending one of the boys upstairs. Besides, I’m going to be turning in early tonight, I think.” He glanced out through the double-paned lobby windows as the snow driving along Lord Protector Ludovyc Avenue at a sharp angle and shivered theatrically. “I always sleep better on nights like this. I think listening to the wind howl on the other side of the wall makes the bed feel warmer.”
“It seems that way to me, sometimes, too,” she agreed. “Sleep well.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded pleasantly, turned from the desk, and headed across the lobby.
As one of the Republic’s capital’s premier hotels, the eight-floor Protector’s Arms boasted no less than three elevators, and he took the center one to the third floor, then strolled to his room, unlocked the door, and turned up the wick on the lit lamp housekeeping had left on the small table just inside it. A small, banked fire burned on the small grate—housekeeping always laid one for him promptly at sixteen o’clock, at the same time they lit the doorside lamp for him—and he closed the door behind himself and locked it. He crossed to the fireplace, setting the small lamp on the mantel while he poked up the fire and settled three or four lumps of fresh Glacierheart coal into the suddenly crackling flames. Then he lit a taper from the jar on the mantel and used it to light the larger lamp on the pleasant little sitting room’s table and the still larger one suspended from the coffered ceiling on a chain. The Protector’s Arms used only the finest first-quality kraken oil, and the lamps burned brightly and steadily as he settled into the armchair parked in front of the cheerfully dancing fire.
Despite his conversation with the desk clerk, he had no intention of sleeping. Not anytime soon, anyway. It would be—he pulled out his pocket watch and consulted it—another three hours or so before Sairaih Kwynlyn handed the desk over to Charlz Ohbyrlyn, her relief. And it would probably be at least another hour after that before Ohbyrlyn knocked ever so quietly at Sahbahtyno’s door.
He sat back in the chair, opened his personal copy of the Holy Writ, and resumed his study of the Book of Chihiro while he waited.
* * *
It was actually closer to five hours than four, but the knock came eventually.
Sahbahtyno marked his place, set the Writ on the table, and crossed quickly to open the door.
The man in the hall was at least ten years older than Sairaih, with brown hair and eyes, and his expression was nervous. It was also determined, however, and he held out a very large briefcase—almost large enough for a small suitcase, actually, and monogramed with the initials “ARS”—without a word. Sahbahtyno took it, the brown-haired man turned and walked quickly away, and the door closed and locked behind him.
Sahbahtyno moved with the smoothness of long practice as he opened the briefcase with his initials on it—the one which had been parked in the strongroom since the day before—and removed the considerably smaller briefcase which had been concealed within it He picked the locks securing the straps on the second briefcase, opened it, and gazed down into it, touching absolutely nothing for well over a minute while he carefully memorized how its contents were arranged. It would never do to put them back in a different order.
Finally he nodded to himself and extracted the neatly banded folders. He stacked them on the table, careful to maintain their order, and arranged a pad of paper and a pen at his elbow. Then he drew a deep breath, opened the first folder, and began to read.
Halfway down the first page, he paused, eyes widening. His gaze darted back up to the heading, rereading it carefully, and his nostrils flared as he reached for the pen and began jotting shorthand notes at a furious pace.
* * *
“Well, so far so good,” Merlin Athrawes murmured.
He and Nynian Rychtyr sat side-by-side on a comfortable, deeply upholstered couch in “Aivah Pahrsahn’s” luxurious townhouse. A carafe of hot chocolate sat on the small side table at Nynian’s end of the couch, but Merlin nursed an outsized mug of cherrybean tea. He hadn’t actually realized how much he’d missed Nimue Alban’s favorite hot beverage until he’d rediscovered it here in the Republic, and he wondered sometimes why it had taken him so long to reacquire Nimue’s addiction.
Probably because I’d spent so much time going cold turkey in Charis, he reflected. Wasn’t exactlty common there, and Seijin Merlin was already odd enough without adding that to the equation. And it’s not as if caffeine—or the lack thereof—has much effect on a PICA, either, so it wasn’t like I needed the stuff to stay awake the way Nimue did when she had the bridge watch.
“I told you and Cayleb that Sahbahtyno would be more useful alive than dead someday,” Nynian replied with a decided note of triumph.
“I still say it would’ve been more satisfying just to kill the bastard.”
“You see, that’s the difference between us,” Nynian told him with a twinkle. “You believe in brute force solutions, whereas I prefer more … subtle approaches. And unlike you, I understand that pleasure deferred is often much greater because of the wait. From where I sit, it’s far more satisfying to put Master Sahbahtyno to work for us. Just think about his reaction when we finally do arrest him and explain exactly how he’s been played!” She smiled seraphically. “The only thing better than that would be to find a way to send him home to report personally to Rayno and Clyntahn after they find out how we’ve used him but before he figures it out. I’m sure what they’d do to him would satisfy even someone as bloodthirsty as you and Cayleb!”