After giving the pair time to settle in, Seregil slipped through the boisterous crowd and made his way unnoticed up the stairs to a dim third-floor corridor. Waiting until he was alone in the passage, he went to the door at the end of it and peered through the keyhole.
Inside, Rythel and his woman were attending earnestly to business. The tiny room had no window or other exit that Seregil could see.
Paid for the whole night, did you? Seregil thought, stealing back the way he'd come.
Outside, he unhobbled his mare and glanced up at the moon; just past midnight. Alec was probably back by now, waiting for word from him. Gathering the reins, he headed for the Cockerel.
Alec was home. Seregil found him pacing morosely in front of the fire. He was still wearing his cloak, and there were twigs and dead leaves tangled in his hair.
"Problem with the job?"
Alec paused, scowling. "Lord Estmar is out for the night, but his new lady friend isn't. Seems she decided to have a few hundred friends in while he's gone. The whole damn place was lit up bright as noon. I skulked around the garden for hours, thinking things might die down. I gave up when fresh musicians showed up just before midnight. Anything new with Rythel?"
"Only his choice of whores," Seregil replied. "Come on. I've had enough of trailing around after this bastard. Show me this map of his."
"All right." Alec arched an eyebrow knowingly, then went to his bed and pulled a coil of rope from beneath it. "And this time, I'm prepared."
Galloping through the darkened city under a wan, lopsided moon, Alec felt a hunter's-thrill of anticipation. The seemingly fruitless days of stalking Rythel wouldn't be wasted if they could use him and his map to bring down larger game. And for once, he was the one to lead. He was rather proud of himself for finding the hollowed bedpost on his own and was looking forward to showing Seregil.
Just as they came within sight of the Sea Market, however, one of Nysander's tiny message spheres materialized suddenly in front of Seregil. Although Alec could not hear it, he knew by the way his friend reined sharply to a halt that there was about to be a change in plans.
"What did he say?" he asked when the little light had winked out.
Seregil pushed his hood back and Alec saw that he was frowning. "He wants us at the Queen's Palace immediately. He didn't say why, just that I should come right away, and bring you if you're with me."
"Damn! Look, you could go back and I'll meet you—"
"He asked for both of us."
"But what about the map? And what if Rythel does come back and then heads out somewhere else?"
"I know, I know—" Seregil shrugged. "But Watchers can't ignore a summons to the Palace. Besides, Rythel's out for the night and Tym's clever enough to keep an eye on things until we get back. Come on now. Back we go!"
But Rythel did return to Sailmaker Street, and not long after Seregil and Alec turned back toward the Palace.
What the bloody hell are you doing home on this fine night?
Tym thought. More surprising yet was the fact that the smith was not alone. A lantern still burned over the door and by its light Tym caught a glimpse of the two men with him. They had their hoods pulled forward, but the gleam of their fine boots in the lamplight told him they were not denizens of the area. Reaching behind him, he gave a rough shake to the small ragged boy dozing against the alley wall just behind him.
"Skut, wake up, damn you!"
The child jerked up, instantly tense and alert. "Yeah, Tym?"
"You ever see any gentleman types go in there?"
"Naw, nothing like that."
Watching a house was child's work, and it hadn't taken Tym long to find a child to help him do it. Having survived to the lucky old age of nine, scrawny, gap-toothed little Skut knew all the Folk as well as he did himself and feared Tym's wrath enough to be dependable. It was Skut, in fact, who'd spotted a gaterunner called Pry the Beetle late that same afternoon while Tym was off to his supper. The Beetle had shown up soon after the smith returned from work that evening and, by Skut's estimation, stayed long enough for a decent conversation.
Learning this, Tym had gone off again to track the Beetle down and soon found him already half-drunk in one of the filthy waterfront stews the runner frequented. A little silver loosened the man's tongue and Tym judged the resulting information well worth the price. It seemed a certain tenant on the top floor of the Sailmaker Street house was buying information about the sewers, information only a Scavenger or runner was privy to, so to speak.
Tym allowed himself a wolfish grin; that was just the sort of information Lord Seregil might loosen his purse strings for.
Returning to Sailmaker Street, he'd settled in for another uneventful evening, but here was something else unexpected. And lucrative, no doubt.
He waited until light showed through a chink in the shutters of the smith's room, then turned to Skut again.
"I'm going up for a listen. You keep your eyes open down here and give the signal if anyone comes along that might see me," he whispered, punctuating his instructions to the boy with a light cuff over the ear. "You doze off while I'm up there and I'll strangle you with your own guts, you hear?"
"I ain't never dozed on nobody," Skut hissed back resentfully.
Unwittingly following the same route Alec had taken several days before, Tym clambered up the rickety wooden stairs at the back of the house and crept over the slates to the edge of the roof just over Rythel's window. Stretched out on his belly, he peered carefully over for an upside-down view of the window below. A crack at the top of the left shutter showed only a thin slice of the room, but he could just make out scraps of the conversation going on inside.
"Three more days." That was the smith; Tym had heard him speak in the street.
"Well done," said another man. "You'll be well rewarded."
"I have another letter, as well."
"Are you certain no one—" a third man broke in, and this voice carried a strong Plenimaran accent.
Tym heard movement inside and the voices dropped too low for him to make out. Cursing silently, he kept still, hoping they'd move closer to the window.
He was just wondering if he should chance opening the shutter a bit more for a peek when some inner alarm sent an uncomfortable prickle down his spine. Gripping the lead gutter with one hand, his knife in the other, he twisted sharply around, scanning back up the steep pitch of the roof.
There, just to the left of a chimney pot, the black outline of a head was visible above the roof peak.
More of the figure rose up, moving with uncanny silence.
There's something wrong about him, was Tym's first thought.
The other stood in full view now, a long black stain against the starry sky. He looked unusually tall, and he didn't move right, either. There was none of the ungainliness of a cripple-and what in hell would a cripple be doing up here? — but a queer set to the shoulders of the silhouette, the crooked thrust of the torso over the legs—
The other suddenly jerked his head in Tym's direction. The thief could still make out no more than the stranger's outline, but he knew instinctively that he'd been spotted.
The figure stooped, bent down as if making Tym a ridiculously low bow. But that was not the end of it, and Tym's mouth suddenly went dry.
The other somehow curled himself downward, arms still at his sides, until his hooded head touched the roof slates below his feet. Down he went, and down, sinuous as an eel-chest, belly, legs, all bent at angles chillingly wrong. And like some huge and loathsome eel, the long black shape began slithering down toward him.