:As if you could be anything other than conspicuous,: Kantor scoffed.
:When I'm with you, perhaps not,: he acknowledged. :You are rather conspicuous all by yourself.:
By alleys and shortcuts that only he knew, he and Kantor slipped quietly among the mansions of the highborn, through the townhouses of the wealthy, and suddenly came out on a side street in a neighborhood of inns and taverns. They were only paces away from the Companion's Bell, a respectable inn that was their intermediate goal.
Alberich felt that tightening of his muscles again, and a quickening of his pulse. It was time to go to work, work that he understood, work that he, and only he, could do.
The Bell had several distinct advantages for what he was about to do. Firstly, it was a place often frequented by Heralds, so the sight of a Companion in a loose-box would not go remarked, nor would the sight of Alberich entering the stable-yard. Second, the Heralds had a private taproom available to them—Heralds could and did mingle with the regular customers, but no one would think twice about Alberich not appearing among them, for plenty of Heralds who came here kept to the private room.
Ah, but then there was the third reason.... He dismounted, and Kantor followed him into the stable. There were two other Companions there already, who whickered a welcome to both of them. Excellent,: Kantor said. :I shall have reinforcements—if you need them.:
Alberich snorted, and left Kantor to make himself at home in a third loose-box as he approached the far wall, and the third reason for his being here.
The third reason for his being here and no other place, was that the Bell had a locked room at the back of the stable that contained a trunk, and had a second locked door that let out onto an alley. A very dark alley, and one that, somehow, never had patrols of constables or City Guard at night.
He unlocked the door. He paused just long enough to light a spill at the lantern beside the door, then locked himself inside. There was a second lantern there, which he lit.
In that trunk had been Dethor's disguises; now it held Alberich's.
Someone else—Alberich thought it was probably the innkeeper himself—had a key to that room, for any clothing he left atop the trunk was taken away and laundered and placed back inside it. Some disguises, of course, shouldn't be cleaned—the stains and yes, the odor lent verisimilitude to his persona. Those he put back in the trunk himself, wrapped in a waxed canvas bag to keep from stinking up the rest of his gear.
Tonight, however, it was about time for Aarak Benshane, a common enough thug with a reputation for not asking too many questions of prospective employers, to put in an appearance at the Blue Boar. Aarak was not too noisome a fellow; Alberich could get away with cleanliness tonight.
Alberich opened the trunk and selected his disguise with care; leather trews, battered boots and hat, scarred black leather jerkin strong enough to turn most blades, and a shirt of no particular color that was a bit frayed about the cuffs and collar. Over these, he slung a belt holding two knives, but no sword. Aarak did most of his work with his fists.
:That should suit you, considering the mood you're in.: Kantor was not being ironic nor sarcastic this time.
:As a matter of fact,: Alberich replied, :it does.:
By day, the tavern that was his goal, the Boar, was a quiet enough tavern, serving manual laborers at the nearby warehouses. At night, however, it took on a rougher clientele. Some of the laborers returned to drink away their earnings, and they were joined by others, for whom the warehouses were of less-than-legitimate interest. Aarak fit right in there; he might hire himself out as a day laborer, if he was inclined to do manual labor, or forced into it, but he would far rather serve as the lookout for thugs who planned a little late-night looting.
Alberich let himself out into the alley. It was dark back there, shadowed on both sides by tall buildings, but he knew his way around Haven even in pitchy black. He kept to the alleys for the most part, only crossing streets when he had to, and at length, found himself in the warehouse area where the Boar stood.
There was a lot of coming and going around a warehouse, and no one asked what was being stored there very often. And, of course, warehouses were full of things that were already packed for transportation; what could be more attractive and easier for a bold gang of thieves?
Alberich had been recruited by such gangs, once or twice, though never out of the Blue Boar, and never as Aarak. He had hopes, though, and he nursed his thin, sour beer at a table here several times a moon, waiting to see if his patient fishing would catch him another gang of thieves.
He opened the door quietly. It wasn't a good idea to make any kind of an entrance into the Boar. There were always people there who would take that sort of hubris amiss.
Flash of blue—a tangle of thrashing bodies on the floor—
He paused, just inside the door, and caught himself.
Damn. Come on. Don't show anything, or you're dead. He shoved on inside the door on strength of will, until his vision cleared and he could pretend that he hadn't just had a flash of Foresight.
The regular servers knew him by now, or at least, they knew Aarak's distinctive hat. He caught the eye of one, nodded at a vacant table off to one side of the room, and took his seat there. Within a reasonable length of time, the server appeared with a jack of beer.
Despite Kantor's needling, he'd had a few hopes that someone might try to recruit him tonight—a full moon now meant moon-dark in a fortnight, and moon-dark meant the possibility of work.
But the truth was, from the moment he'd crossed the threshold, he knew that Dethor had been right about a tavern brawl in the offing. Even if he hadn't gotten that brief—very brief—glimpse of a tumble of fighting bodies on the floor of the place from his Foresight, he'd have known it. There was something in the air tonight, something wild and edgy, something that made Kantor, back in his stall, prick up his ears and ask wordlessly, and in all seriousness this time, if Alberich thought he'd need any help.
Alberich never actually got a chance to reply. He was just starting on the first swallow of his beer, when the fight erupted over a card cheat, three tables down.
The cheater had friends, and the friends waded in, and Alberich saw—
Flash of blue—
The fight was only a pretext to rob the only person here with any real cash. That was the owner of the Blue Boar himself.
Three people swarming the bar, as combat seemed to thrust them toward it by accident.
He came to himself long enough to dodge out of the way of a tumbling body, and shoved his hand into a special belt pouch he always wore as Aarak. It held weighted knuckle guards, his preferred weapon for brawling. He didn't like using blades in a brawl—he was there to immobilize people, not kill them. No point in killing them, when, if they were what he really wanted, he wanted them alive, to question. Another flash of blue, freezing him for a moment. The three thieves—he assumed that was what they were—waited for the fight to reach the bar and then threw themselves over it, the surprised tavern owner trying to get out of the way as they all three landed atop him. There were short, heavy clubs in their hands.