Harquas exchanged a glance with his neighbor, who in turn looked beyond Jeirran for some signal. Whatever he saw satisfied Lehrer, his scarred face nodding to Harquas.
“If you’re prepared to do something to establish your good faith, I’ll buy from you,” said Harquas slowly. “If some misfortune lands on Vigo and his little gang, then I can be sure they’re not nosing around my business, do you see? If you were to be that mishap, then I’d know you weren’t hand in glove with them, wouldn’t I?”
“Why should we do your dirty work for you?” Jeirran ignored the rumble of annoyance behind him.
“Do you want to sell your furs or not?” inquired Harquas with silky menace.
“You want us to kill them?” asked Jeirran baldly.
Harquas frowned. “A dead Watchman gets the Justiciary unduly stirred up, in my experience. But they have to accept that every so often a nailer takes on a man just that bit too strong in his drink and gets a beating.”
“That’s the price of doing business with you?”
Harquas nodded. “Tell me where you’re lodging and if I hear the right word I’ll send someone to look over your stock at noon tomorrow.”
Jeirran shook his head. “We’ll meet at the market square, by the fountain.” He turned and glared up at the bull-necked man blocking his way.
“Let our friend pass, Teg,” said Harquas smoothly. “We’ll talk tomorrow, Jeirran.”
Teiriol followed Jeirran out of the cock-pit and back to the rowdy tavern. Jeirran’s eyes flickered from side to side until he saw Vigo, the Watchman, plump red face glistening with uncomplicated delight as he cradled a tangle-haired girl on his knee. Her unlaced bodice showed off heavy breasts to any who cared to look while Vigo hitched up her skirts to reveal bare and grubby legs beneath her tattered petticoats.
Jeirran pushed Teiriol into a gloomy corner and shook his head in disgust as the Watchman’s hand slid up and around the girl’s thigh. “Lowlanders. No more sense of fitness than dogs rutting in the street.”
“Never mind that,” Teiriol dragged his wide eyes away reluctantly. “How did that Harquas know your name?”
“How do you think?” replied Jeirran scornfully. “He’ll have men all over this city, won’t he? If he got word of our arrest, he’ll have had our names from the assize, maybe even our lodging.” He glowered darkly. “If his brutes come near Eirys, I’ll gut them, assize or no assize.”
“What are we going to do about these Watchmen?” Teiriol looked back at Vigo, whose head was now cradled in the girl’s arms, her wriggles feigning pleasure but her face bored.
“I can’t see him tupping that whore in full view. They’ll want a back alley at very least,” said Jeirran thoughtfully.
“We catch him with his trews around his boots?” Teiriol laughed a little nervously.
“Fair recompense for the way he nailed me and Keisyl yesterday,” answered Jeirran with cruel satisfaction. “Come on.”
Outside, the afternoon light was softening and a handful of wrestling bouts were being contested inside roughly marked-out circles of sand. Teiriol looked toward them regretfully but followed Jeirran obediently to a dark corner behind a gibbet. The wood was blackened with old blood and noisome corpses of rats dangled.
“Watch for him and for the others,” Jeirran ordered. They did not have long to wait. Vigo soon appeared with the whore hanging on his arm, Rif and Neth trailing after with expressions of eager anticipation.
“Are they all going to do her?” Teiriol wondered, startled.
“Like I said, they rut like dogs.” Jeirran moved cautiously as the Watchmen headed for the narrow entry between two dilapidated houses. “And they’re stupid enough to take their bitch down a blind alley,” he added with satisfaction, taking a pair of gloves from his belt and nodding to Teiriol to do the same. “Careful. We don’t want to start a fight anywhere we’ll be seen.”
Teiriol loosened his knife in its sheath as they crossed the open ground but Jeirran shook his head. “We’re not looking to kill them. We don’t use knives, not unless we have to.” He paused to pick up a stave from a broken barrel dumped outside a doorway and peered down the alley. “She’s taking them into that stable. We’ll give the fat one a few moments to get busy stuffing her. The other two will probably have their tools in their hands by then, so we can drop them before their boss gets himself unknotted.” Jeirran’s eyes were hard with a savage anticipation. Teiriol ran his own barrel stave through his hands, hefting the wood with a grin.
“Leave your cape here and tie something around your face.” Jeirran untucked his shirt and tore a wide strip of linen from the hem, suiting his actions to his words. “All they can claim is Mountain Men did for them, and if anyone comes looking at us we swear blind it was those other two we saw. When we get in, you bar the door.”
The alley was not long but gloomy in the double shadow of the city wall and the houses looming on either side. Refuse was piled high, discarded sacks, boxes and household rubbish mingled with old bones, nameless peelings and moldering muck, a fetid ooze seeping along a rough drain scraped into the bare earth. Teiriol and Jeirran moved silently forward, eyes fixed on the stable door dragged ajar on broken hinges. Jeirran brought his barrel stave up and back, nodding to Teiriol, who did the same. They paused, one each side of the doorway, but Vigo’s groans of pleasure and the whore’s practiced responses were enough to drown any footsteps.
Jeirran rushed inside, Teiriol a pace behind him, kicking the door shut with an ominous thud. Neth turned, face flushed, eager expression changing to startled horror. Jeirran’s stave scythed in to catch him under one ear. The impact sent him staggering into Rif, who clutched at him in confusion. Teiriol jumped forward and brought his club into Rif’s unprotected flank. Mountain-hardened muscles landed the blow squarely in the man’s kidney, forcing a yell of agony from him. Neth was still dazed but Rif threw him off and turned to rush at Teiriol. It was an unwise move. The Mountain Man sent him reeling back with a merciless jab to the gut.
Jeirran swung at Neth again, landing a vicious strike on the outside of his knee. The Watchman went stumbling sideways. Jeirran discarded his club and moved forward, gloved hands hammering face, ribs, gut and groin with a flurry of punishing blows, blood from the gash in his head soon coating the Watchman’s shirt and jerkin.
“What the shit—” Vigo had abandoned the whore and was scrambling to his feet. The Mountain Men ignored his impotent curses as he clutched at the breeches hampering his feet.
Rif had a stall to his back now, rocking from foot to foot, clenching his fists. Teiriol sneered at him and feinted with his stave, first to one side, then to the other. Rif was forced back against the splintered wood, painful blows punishing shoulders and thighs. He hunched in a vain attempt to protect himself, spat at Teiriol and snatched for a hanging harness strap. Teiriol brought the age-hardened stave up in a swift move to smash his forearm.
Rif’s yell of agony mingled with the crack of bone. His cry was drowned out by Vigo’s howl of outrage as he threw himself on Jeirran’s back, Neth lying limp and helpless in a mire of blood. The Watchman tried to get his broad hands around the Mountain Man’s thick neck but Jeirran was too quick, ducking his chin to his chest and hunching his shoulders. Jeirran stepped forward and sideways in one fluid move, dropping one shoulder and sending the unsuspecting Vigo clean over his head to land him into the slime of the stable drain.
Vigo was gasping at Teiriol’s feet, all breath knocked out of him. Teiriol used his boots, heavy leather reinforced with metal and nails going in hard to leave studded prints on Vigo’s shirt, his half-laced breeches, stamping on his hands and ankles, ripping open one cheek with a sweeping kick. The Watchman could only roll and twist in the muck, vainly trying to get away from the torment, curling around a blow in the stomach only to have his back arch in the agony of a boot to the base of his spine.