Then silence was thick enough to cut with a knife, of which the thief owned an abundance. He waited. And waited.
At last he stepped, still crouching, into the crenel. Turning, he carefully winched himself, backwards, down the wall. Down and down, until he came to a particular window. It was cut in the shape of a diamond. That decision had involved more than aesthetics; the damned thing was harder to enter.
Most carefully indeed, he turned. He paid out the cord with his hands until he was quite upside down outside that window. Blood flowed into his head while he strained muscles and vision until he was assured that the chamber was uninhabited.
Then, grinning, Hanse the thief flipped down and dropped lightly into the bedchamber of H.R.H. Kadakithis, Prince-Governor of Sanctuary.
He had done it again! And this time all on his own and without aid. He had breached the wall, eluded the guards, broken into the palace, and was in the very privatemost chamber of the Prince-Governor himself!
Well, lord Prince, you wanted to see Shadowspawn - here he is, awaiting you! Thus he thought while he freed his ankles of expensive silken line and removed his gloves. At least this time no bedmate waited here for her youthful lord.
It was all Hanse could do to keep from laughing aloud in sheerest prideful delight.
'A nice-looking girl left this here for you, Hanse,' Moonflower the Seer had told him. 'She got it from another - along with a coin for her trouble - who got it from still another.'
Hanse raised his dark, dark brows and hooked a thumb in the shagreen belt he wore over a screamingly red sash. From one side of the belt was slung a dagger. An Ilbarsi knife, long as his whole arm, hung down his other leg.
'This you ... Saw, Passionflower?'
She smiled, a hugely fat and grossly misnamed woman who overflowed two cushions atop a low stool. She saw him as a boyish boy and had ever let him turn her head with his charm, which she was almost alone in seeing.
'Oh no,' Moonflower said almost archly, 'I needed to go to no such trouble. I know things, you know.'
'Oh, I know you know things, you clever darling,' he told that gross dumpling in her several skirts, each of more than one unrepeated colour. 'And this time you're going to let me know how you know, I know.'
She nodded at the wax-sealed walnut shell he was idly tossing in his left hand. 'You know me too well, don't you, you naughty scamp! Smell it.'
Up went his close-snuggling brows again, and he brought the shell to his nose. He rolled his eyes. 'Aha! Perfume. A good one. Times are good for the only true mage of Sanctuary, then.'
'You know that is not my perfume,' she said, not without a sideward turn of her blue-tressed head to give him an arch look.
'Now I know that,' Shadowspawn said, jocular and easygoing and almost cute in the sunlight, 'because you tell me so. The walnut was given you by a well-off girl wearing good perfume, then. Betwixt her breasts, I'll bet, where she bore this charming charm.'
She lifted a dimpled finger. 'Ah! But that is the point. The scent on that charm is not mine, and the girl who gave it me wore none at all.' -
'Oh Moonflower, pride of the S'danzo and of Sanctuary! By Ils if the P-G knew of your genius, he'd not have that ugly old charlatan at court, but you, only you! So. By the perfume you know that there was a third woman, who gave this and a coin to another to give to you to give to me.' He wagged his head. 'What a game of roundabout! But what makes you think this thing was given her by still another, to begin with?'
'I saw the coin,' Moonflower said, all kittenish inside a body to block a door or bring groans to a good steed.
'It bore still another scent?'
Moonflower laughed. 'Ah Hanse, Hanse. I know that. Soon you will know too, surely, once you open the walnut shell. Surely it contains a message from someone who wanted no one to know he sent it to you.'
'He?'
'Do you care to make a wager?'
He who was called Shadowspawn clutched the walnut to him in mock terror. With his other hand he clutched his purse theatrically. 'Wager with you about your wisdom? Never! No one has accused me of being stupid.' Well, almost no one, he mentally added, thinking of that burly stranger, Tempus the Hell Hound ... Tempus the ... what?
'Be off with you and open it privily then. You're standing between me and paying clients!'
There were none present, Hanse assured himself before he said, 'In a moment,' and thumb-nailed the brownish wax along the lip-like closure of the walnut shell. He knew Moonflower was frowning, believing that he should be more secretive, but he also knew what he wanted to do. A gesture, merely a gesture. The scrap of extra fine leaf-paper he took out and poked, still folded, into his sash. Pressing the shell closed and thumbing the wax into a semblance of seal, he proffered it to the S'danzo seer who consistently proved that she was no charlatan.
'For Mignureal,' he said, pretending shyness. 'To scent her... her clothing, or something?'
For a moment the flicker of a frown appeared on Moonflower's doughy face, for her big-eyed daughter was quite taken with this dangerous youth from Downwind, whose means of income was no secret. Then she smiled and accepted the scented shell. It swiftly vanished into the vast cleavage of what she called her treasure chest, under her shawl.
'You're such a nice boy, Hanse. I'll give it to her. Now you git, and inspect your message. Maybe some highborn lady wants a bit of dalliance with your handsome self!'
The rangy young man called Shadowspawn had left her then. Smile and even pleasant expression left his face and he swaggered like a Mrsevadan gamecock. Face and walk were part of his image, which none would dare say might stem from insecurity. Still, Moonflower's words would not have made him smile anyhow. He was not handsome and knew it, as he knew that his height was no more than average. The biggest thing about him was his ego - although his lips, which some thought were sensuous, were to him too full. His nickname others had given him. He did not dislike it; his mentor Cudget Swearoath had told him a nickname was good to have - even such a one as 'Swearoath'. Hanse was just a name; Shadowspawn was dramatic, with a romantic and rather sinister sound that appealed to the youth.
He left Moonflower remembering how he had indeed dallied with a beauty of means. Highborn she was not, though she had been from the palace, and richly garbed. Hanse had been touched both in his ego and in his greed, by her attentions. Only later had he discovered that it was not truly he she was interested in. She and a fellow plotter were in the employ of someone back in Ranke -the Emperor himself, perhaps envious or wary of Kadakithis's good looks? - who wanted to discredit and destroy the new Prince-Governor, him they called Kitty-K-at. They had elected to use Hanse in their plot; Hanse had been their dupe! - for a while.
But that was done with, and on this later day he left Moon-flower and swaggered along the streets. His eyes were hooded and the weapons all too obvious on him. Some stepped off the narrow planking of the sidewalk for him, and (quietly) cursed themselves for it. Still, they would do it again. In appearance, all tucked in behind his eyes and abristle with sharp blades, he was 'about as pleasant as gout or dropsy', as a certain merchant had once described him.
Well, he was alive. Both the lovely plotter and her traitorous Hell Hound co conspirator were not. Further, Kadakithis was grateful. And now, as Hanse discovered to his astonishment back in his quarters, the Prince-Governor had actually sent him a note!