Yeah, well.
The ceiling provided no good place for Loiosh to hide, either.
“I beg to differ.”
“The hanging lamp? You think you can use that?”
“I’d be concealed from one direction, and in shadows from the other.”
“You know what would happen if you were spotted? A jhereg in the Palace? Someone would scream, and they’d run and get everybody and—”
“Maybe they’d just shoo me out the nearest window.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. And you won’t be able to follow her without being spotted. And whenever you leave, it’ll be problematical.”
“Rocza will do it. All she has to do is let me know when she leaves, and which direction she goes. And she can stay here until we can fetch her.”
“How do we—?”
“Oh, come on, Boss. There’s no one around. She can just fly up there.”
“You sure about this?”
“Yep.”
“Okay.”
I walked over to the place where the hall came together, opened my cloak, and she flapped up to the lamp. I studied her. I could see her, but I had to be looking. I felt a little better about the whole thing.
“What does she think about all of this?”
“She thinks it’s hot up there.”
A couple of young-looking Iorich walked by, evidently on the way to see Desaniek, or maybe some other business in that office involving subtleties of jurisprudence. I bowed respectfully. They both glanced at me and kept walking; one might have nodded slightly.
At the bottom of the stairs things became complicated: There were passages in three directions, and I could make out further branchings on two of them; also the stairs kept going down. I checked the nearest doors: one of them was a privy, which I took the opportunity to use, because if you’re going to be following someone for maybe hours, that’s a problem you don’t need. Another was locked, and one was open and empty—it would probably be someone’s office when the need arose for legal advice on comparative flower arrangement. I stepped in, shut the door, and let Loiosh out from my cloak; a great relief to us both.
“Oh, do we get to wait now, Boss? You know that’s my favorite part.”
We waited.
Loiosh kept up a stream of suggestions about how to decorate the empty room, while I tried to think up creative things to say if someone happened to come walking in. Every once in a while, he’d reassure me that Rocza was still undiscovered, and that Desaniek hadn’t been by.
We waited a long time.
Either she had a lot to do in the office and was disgustingly dedicated, or she had another way out. After four hours, with my stomach rumbling, I’d about decided it was the latter. After five hours, I was pretty well sure of it. It had almost been six hours when Loiosh said, “There she is! Coming toward us, Boss,” and we were off.
Loiosh ducked into my cloak again, and I stepped out of the hall and walked over to the stairway.
“What’s Rocza doing?”
“Waiting.”
“Good. Tell her to stay with it.”
I turned so that when she walked past me I was going the other way; I made a slight bow. My peripheral vision told me only that she was of average height, with a rather light complexion for an Iorich and a firm stride. Once she was well past me, I turned around and followed. This not only permitted me to watch for anyone else who might be following her, but also showed me how to get out of the Palace.
We pretty quickly reached a place where there were lots of people, which wasn’t good for me. It’s too easy to follow someone in a crowd, which means it’s hard to spot someone else doing so. I didn’t lose her, of course; I can manage to stay with someone even without Loiosh, thank you very much. But it did get simpler once we left the Palace itself, and I could take a moment when I was unobserved to let him out.
The easy part was following Desaniek. The hard part was spotting someone else following Desaniek. The scary part was leaving the confines of the Palace area and wondering if I had someone following me with unfriendly intentions. The painful part was walking quickly enough to keep up with her.
She didn’t go far, as it happened—just outside the Palace district to a place I’d eaten at once before. The food was okay, but the wine list was amazing. Among the things I hadn’t practiced lately was following around someone who was eating better than I was.
To the left, however, I could leave Loiosh there in case she was a fast eater, and go retrieve Rocza.
“Which means you walking through a lot of bad areas without me spotting for you.”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Think how much you could you do in twenty minutes.”
“Did you see anyone on the way here?”
“No, but—”
“Hang tight. I’ll be back soon.”
And I was, too, believe it or not. It took longer than it should have, because I got lost trying to find the office and had to ask directions three times, but find it I did, and Rocza was there, and I had no trouble getting back out. It’s very strange how it can be hard to find your way to a place, but easy to find your way back.
“Okay, we’re about there. Is it safe?”
“You’re safe from everyone but Rocza, who’s hungry, overheated, and bad-tempered.”
“I trust you to protect me.”
“I charge for those services.”
I found a safe place to wait while Desaniek finished eating. Loiosh and Rocza scanned the area for anyone watching either her or me.
“How will you tell which it is, Boss?”
“Just spot him, then we’ll worry about it.”
“In other words, you have no clue.”
“Something like that.”
But we didn’t spot anyone. If there was anyone following her, he could be at the table next to her, eating, and staring off in the opposite direction; I’d done that before.
So I waited some more. Feh.
It might be interesting to give you the rest of what happened that night in great detail if it had turned out to have been interesting, but in fact I never spotted anyone. I was with her for about three more painful hours, as she visited a private club where, I guess, high-powered Iorich like to relax; then eventually she went home. In the end, it was a big nothing.
I went back to the inn, got a little sleep and an early start, and waited outside her home. Loiosh spotted a Jhereg, but it was before we got there, and he was obviously looking for me, based on how carefully he avoided watching the inn. Crap. We lost him on the way to Desaniek’s home.
She went straight to the office; I had the jhereg in my cloak and all three of us waited. She didn’t eat any morning meal at all, and must have had lunch sent in. What she did in there for eighteen hours I don’t know, but there she was, and no one else seemed interested. That night she ate in the same place, but went straight home afterward. She took the same route both times.
Back in my room at the inn, I got a note from Kiera that she had information for me; I wrote back asking her to hold it for a day or two, since I had no time to do anything except follow Desaniek around.
Is it all right if I stop talking about how much it hurt just to walk? You can’t be enjoying hearing about it, and I don’t enjoy remembering it. Let’s just say that, of all the times I’ve followed people around, this was the least pleasant.