"Don't know."
"Where could I find Fast Mickle?"
Tym shrugged again. "Ain't seen him for a while."
Seregil snatched the coins away with a disgusted sigh and rose, motioning for Alec to follow. "Let's go. There's nothing to be learned here."
"There's talk," Tym added hastily.
Halfway to the door already, Seregil turned with an exasperated frown. "What talk?"
"It's the gaterunners mostly. Some turn up flush all of a sudden, then they turn up dead or not at all."
Alec exchanged a quick look with Seregil, thinking of what the woman had told them in the sewers.
"Madrin, Dinstil, Slim Lily, Wanderin' Ki, all of 'em dead one way or another just in the last month," Tym continued.
"Tarl's been lookin" for Farin the Fish for a week now."
"I thought Farin was a breaker?" Seregil returned to the table. Alec remained standing just behind him.
"He is, but still it's funny he's gone. Him and Tarl been together for years."
"Any others?"
"Virella maybe, she's another runner, but you don't never know with her. And that young breaker, Shady—they found her floating in the harbor out past the moles. Some are even wondering about the Rhiminee Cat, but he's another you don't never know about."
Seregil jingled the coins in his fist. "Who's supposed to be doing all this killing?"
For the first time Tym looked uneasy. "Don't know. Don't nobody know, and that is strange. The snuffers claim ain't none of them doing it. Folks is gettin' nervous. You don't hardly know whether to take a job or not."
"I have a job, if you're interested," Seregil told him, sliding the silver enticingly closer.
Tym looked hungrily at the stack of coins. "This wouldn't be a running job would it?"
"No, just a snoop. There's a house near here I want watched. If you see anyone you know go in—breaker, runner, keek, anything — I want to know about it. Or anyone you think doesn't fit with the neighborhood. Is that clear?"
"Breakers and runners?" Tym's eyes narrowed again. "This got to do with the killings?"
"Maybe he's scared," Alec suggested quietly, speaking for the first time.
Tym lurched up, gripping the hilt of his knife. "Maybe I ought to fix that pretty face of yours!"
"Sit down!" barked Seregil.
Alec stiffened, but remained where he was. Tym sullenly obeyed.
"Now," Seregil resumed calmly, "do you want the job or not?"
"Yeah, I want it," Tym growled. "But it'll cost you."
"Name your price."
"Two sesters a week."
"Done." Seregil spat in his palm and clasped hands with the thief. As Tym tried to withdraw his, Seregil gripped it tight.
"You've never turned on me yet. This would be a poor time to start." Seregil smiled, but that only made the threat implicit in his tone more ominous. The force of it drove the cocky sneer from Tym's face. "If anyone tumbles and offers you more to turn to them, you smile and you take their money, then you come straight back to me."
"I will, sure I will!" Tym stammered, wincing. "I ain't never turned on you. I ain't going to."
"Of course you aren't." Seregil relinquished his hold at last, but the imprint of his long fingers glowed for a moment in white, bloodless stripes across the back of the thief's hand. "The house is the tenement in Sailmaker Street with the red and white striped lintel. You know the one?"
Tym nodded curtly, flexing his hand. "Yeah, I know it."
"You can start now. Report to me in the usual way."
Alec shook his head incredulously as Tym disappeared down the stairs. "You actually trust him?"
"After a fashion. He just needs the occasional reminder." Seregil drummed his fingers lightly on the table. "In his own way, Tym trusts me. He trusts that I'll pay. He trusts that I won't double-cross him, and he trusts that I'll hunt him to the ends of the earth and slit his throat if he turns on me. You'd do well to watch your step with him, though. That was no idle threat just now."
"I was just trying to push him along," Alec began, but Seregil held up a hand.
"I know what you were doing, and it worked. But you don't understand people like him. He respects me because he fears me. I nearly killed him once and he's the sort that takes to you afterward because of it. But he'd slice you open in a minute and worry about my reaction later. Insulting him the way you did is enough to make him your enemy for life."
"I'll keep that in mind," Alec said. He'd never quite gotten around to telling Seregil of his last confrontation with Tym. Now didn't seem to be the right time, either, but he stored away the advice.
20
Through the next week the dreary Klesin rains rolled in off the sea in earnest, melting away the last of the filthy snow still lingering in the shelter of alleyways and corners, and insuring that Seregil and his company were perpetually damp.
Tym kept watch over the Sailmaker Street house, but reported nothing beyond Rythel's expected movements between there and the sewer site.
Work for the Rhiminee Cat—a papers job—came in at midweek. This fell to Alec, who spent the next few days scouting the household of a certain lord whose estranged wife wanted certain papers stolen. During the evenings, however, he became a welcome regular at the Hammer and Tongs.
Whether Rythel would remain in his uncle's shop once the work was completed seemed to be a matter of speculation, though it was unclear whether this was grounded in some hint from Rythel or mere wishful thinking on the part of the other smiths. Meanwhile, Seregil set to work on the connection between the smith and Lord General Zymanis, but his discreet inquiries yielded little beyond what Nysander had already told them.
A young valet had disappeared four months before, but there was no evidence that he'd stolen anything.
At week's end the winds changed, shredding the clouds into tatters of vermilion and gold against the late afternoon sky.
"Rythel will be going out soon. What's the plan for tonight?" asked Alec, gazing out the window beside the workbench.
Seregil looked up from a pick he'd been repairing and smiled. The slanting sunlight bathed Alec's profile as he leaned against the window frame, striking fiery glints in his hair and casting his cheekbones and the folds of his clothing into fine relief.
A painter should capture him like that, all light and eagerness.
"What are we going to do?" Alec asked again, turning to look at him.
"Since we don't have any new information, I think I'll shadow him this time," Seregil replied, sliding the pick back into Alec's tool roll and handing it to him. "Why don't you go ahead with that papers job for Lady Hylia?"
Alec grinned. "On my own?"
"You've done all the legwork. You're sure Lord Estmar will be away until tomorrow?"
"That's what his cook says. It looks like an easy job, too. Lady Hylia's instructions to the Cat said the papers she wants are hidden in the wine cellar. The door leading down to it is in the second pantry, which has a decent-sized window."
"All the same, take your time and be careful," Seregil cautioned. "The cook knows your face. You can't afford to get caught."
"I know, I know," Alec muttered happily, only half listening as he checked his tools and tucked the roll away in his coat. "I expect I'll be done by midnight, in case you need me later on."
"I'll look for you here if I do."
Either he's following some plan, or he's the most dismally predictable spy in Rhiminee, Seregil thought, watching from a discreet distance as Rhythel went into the Heron.
A few coins to the doorkeeper, Stark, bought Seregil hourly reports on the goings-on inside. Rythel asked after Lord Seregil and expressed regret at not finding him among the company. He soon consoled himself by falling in with another young noble, the son of Lady Tytiana, Mistress of the Queen's Wardrobe. They parted company early, however, and Seregil shadowed him to the Maiden's Laugh, a moderately respectable tavern and brothel near the center of the city. Settling in with the tavern crowd downstairs, Seregil soon charmed a weary tap girl into confiding which girl Rythel had gone up with, which room was hers, and that he'd paid for the entire night.