“Yes, sir.” Lyonyt didn’t even look puzzled, although his eyes never stopped moving.
I wasn’t sure they ever would, not until he was ashes.
I crossed the avenue and waited until they were a good block away before I hailed a hack to take me to NordEste Design. It was early enough that the direct route there wasn’t that crowded, with the only slowness occurring around the Guild Square, and the hack pulled up on Hagahl Lane just as the last bells of eighth glass were dying away.
For the first time since I had met Seliora, when I knocked, I had to wait for a time before someone came to the door-and that someone was Methyr. He was wearing faded and ragged trousers and a woolen shirt that had seen far better days.
“I’m sorry, Master Rhennthyl. I was cleaning the tiles on the terrace.”
“Up on the third level?”
“Yes, sir. It’s my turn.” He stepped back and let me enter, then shot the bolt. “If you’d come this way.” He walked up the stairs and through the second-level entry hall, leading me through the indirect corridors that led to the back stairs leading down to the courtyard.
Once we were in the courtyard, he said, “Seliora had to go with Mother and Father this morning. She said she hoped you wouldn’t mind. She should be here when you return, but if she isn’t, she asked if you’d mind grooming the mare and stalling her.”
“I can do that.”
We crossed the courtyard to where the mare was actually saddled and waiting, tied to a post in the rear courtyard outside the stable.
“Who saddled her? Seliora?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She didn’t have to do that,” I protested.
“She said it would be easier on you, and she wouldn’t worry as much.” Methyr looked away.
“If she’s not here . . .” I shook my head. I’d have to express my appreciation personally. I didn’t even dare write a note about it. “I do appreciate it, and I’ll tell her when I return.”
With that, I mounted and set out. Methyr watched until I was out of the courtyard and headed toward the Boulevard D’Este. I’d seen some mounted patrollers over the course of making patrol rounds, and Gulyart and the others had mentioned that there were mounted patrollers, used especially in riot situations. So I doubted that many people would take much notice of a Patrol rider headed along the Boulevard D’Este.
Once I reached the Plaza D’Nord, I added a concealment shield, the kind that blurred people’s vision. They’d see a rider and a mount, but the details would be fuzzy. But along the ride out toward Ryel’s estate, I passed only two wagons coming the other direction.
At the top of the rise south of the one that held the Ryel estate, I slowed the mare and studied the road and the estate itself. The road was empty, and the gates were closed. There was a flatter space, a semiswale next to the wall about a hundred yards up from the place where the stream flowed out from between the walls and into the large stone culvert under the road.
We started down toward the stream, and I could hear the rumble of a heavy wagon. It didn’t sound like a trap, but I wasn’t certain. I eased the mare to the right edge of the road and continued downhill. We’d almost reached the low ground between the two rises when I caught sight of a black wagon pulled by four drays coming slowly downhill, headed southward toward L’Excelsis.
Since the wagon wasn’t what I was seeking, I kept riding, if slowly, then eased the mare off to the side on the upslope, if a good hundred yards below where I really wanted to be in order not to get close to the wagon. The teamster frowned as he passed, probably because he couldn’t make us out too clearly. On the side of the wagon was a legend-“Kaenfyl amp; Sons, Fine Spirits.”
Would anyone in the spirits business claim that their wares were anything but fine?
Once the wagon passed out of sight beyond the rise to the south, I rode the mare uphill to the swale, then dismounted and tied to a stubby but sturdy short scrubby plant that looked to be half tree and half bush. Then I leaned against the wall to wait.
A quint passed before I heard something and raised full concealment shields.
Before long a private messenger, with the red and white sash, rode down the hill and toward L’Excelsis. Only a few moments passed before a coach followed, ornate in blue with gold-painted trim-some High Holder whose colors I didn’t know. But then, I really only knew Ryel’s colors, although I thought Councilor Suyrien’s were crimson and silver.
All in all, I waited for Alynat for more than two glasses, strengthening the concealment shields every time I heard the sounds of wagons or riders. More than a half score of wagons passed within a few yards of me and the mare, but no one even so much looked in our direction, and the mare didn’t so much as snort or whinny, for which I was grateful.
By the time I reached NordEste Design, it was two quints to second glass. There was no one in the courtyard, and I rode the mare right up to the stables and dismounted, then led her in and unsaddled her and groomed her. I just hoped I’d gotten the saddle on the right rack.
I was leaving the stable, crossing the courtyard when Shelim and Seliora drove into the courtyard with a panel wagon I hadn’t seen before. Both sides were painted with an identical design, an intertwined “N” and “E.”
Seliora jumped off the wagon as soon as Shelim brought it to a halt. “Rhenn!” Her face was filled with concern.
“At the moment, nothing’s happened, except I need to hurry to get back to Third District.” I paused. “Would it be all right to borrow the mare tomorrow?”
“As often as you need to.”
“Thank you.” I put my arms around her. “I appreciated your saddling the mare. You didn’t have to, but I do appreciate it.”
“You need all the help I can give.” Her arms went around me for a moment. Then she looked up and kissed me briefly. “You also need to wash up a bit. You smell too much like horse. Come along.”
I did feel cleaner and fresher after that-and after the slices of bread and cheese I wolfed down before I headed out to catch a hack back to the Third District. I had the hack drop me on the east side of the Plaza Sudeste. It was nearly two quints past two.
Guessing that Lyonyt was on Quierca, coming back toward the avenue, I headed south, but I’d only gone a block when an older woman, one who often had a cart with coal in it, called to me.
“Officer . . . you looking for Lyonyt, he just passed here heading for South Middle.”
“Thank you.”
I reversed directions and actually caught up with the two of them just short of Saelio.
“I was beginning to worry, sir,” offered Lyonyt.
I shook my head. “Everything, every little thing, takes longer than you think.”
The older patroller laughed.
“Any problems?” I asked.
“Not a one. Did see a few of Jadhyl’s fellows in the green. They looked worried.”
“They probably know something we don’t-like when the conscription team is arriving.” Everyone seemed to know, at least in general terms, except the Collegium and the Civic Patrol. I thought for a moment. Both the commander and Maitre Poincaryt had to know. They just chose not to tell anyone so that they could claim to the Navy that they hadn’t let anyone know. So the Tiempran priests knew more than we did, as did the taudischefs, and Captain Harraf, who could not say much besides telling some patrollers to be careful because he wasn’t supposed to know, either. Whether I cared much for him or not, there was definitely something wrong about that.
We walked down Saelio, but it was quiet, and so were each of the succeeding streets. A good glass and a half later, when we were headed back to the station, passing Dugalle on Quierca, I turned to Lyonyt. “The Tiempran Temple was still shuttered this morning. What about on the last round?”