Mart’s spine prickled as he remembered that the man he was tracking wasn’t the only footpad in this part of town. “Y’know, men, we may be dressed for rough work, but our clothes are much better quality than most of the garments people wear around here.”
“What of it?” Sir Orizhan asked, frowning.
“He means that our garments show us to have money,” the sergeant explained. “Do you track a murderer, yet fear simple footpads, Lord Wizard?”
“Good clothing might be enough to put a small gang with clubs and daggers on our trail,” Matt told him.
“You are a knight as well as a wizard,” Sir Orizhan said softly. “You should have no need to concern yourself over peasants.”
“Don’t underestimate the poor, Sir Knight,” Matt answered. “They can be tougher than you think, especially if they travel in packs—and they could slow us down a lot.”
Sergeant Brock looked pleasantly surprised—he was a peasant himself, and not used to having knights view his kind with anything but contempt.
Matt rested a hand on his sword just in case.
Sir Orizhan couldn’t believe his ears. “Surely you do not fear them!”
“Of course not,” Matt said, nettled. He’d been knighted, after all, and courage was one of the side effects of the knighting ceremony, at least in this universe. “I think of peasants the same way I mink of electr—uh, lightning, Sir Orizhan. I don’t fear them, but I do treat them with a very healthy respect.”
Sir Orizhan looked scandalized, but Sergeant Brock almost smiled.
The footprints led out of the alley and into the street, which wasn’t much better—but the center was clear of refuse, and the footsteps disappeared as they hit hard-packed dirt. Matt sighed, wishing there had been a little rain early in the evening. Since there hadn’t, he took out his vial of chalk and sprinkled it lightly before him, chanting, “Powder of the old antacid, Show me where the foot has pass-ed!”
A few grains glowed dimly in the night.
Sergeant Brock gawked. “What are those spots that glow so?”
“Grains of the powder I sprinkled, that landed where the fugitive stepped,” Matt told him.
“How can they tell his steps from all the others?” Sir Orizhan was striving for composure.
“The Law of Contagion,” Matt explained. “I made the powder identify his footsteps back beneath the window, so it still does, even though we can’t see them.”
Sir Orizhan frowned, not understanding. Matt wasn’t sure he did himself, so he let it pass. He set off following the trail, sprinkling a little powder and chanting a couplet every ten feet or so. Sure enough, the faint glow confirmed that he was still going in the right direction. “Just hope our man went to ground nearby.”
“Why?” Sergeant Brock asked.
“Because he has a two-hour lead,” Matt explained. “If he just kept going, I can’t possibly catch up with him before I run out of chalk.”
“Is that all that substance is?” Sir Orizhan asked, wide-eyed “Just powdered chalk,” Matt assured him. “The magic is in the verse I made up, not in the powder itself.”
The footprints led him out of the maze of crooked alleys and into a nicer part of town, or one that was at least a little less run-down.
“Luck is with us.” Sergeant Brock pointed at the faint glow of the powder. “Either that, or your spell has weakened.”
The footprints stopped at the door of the first decent-looking inn.
“Or,” said Sir Orizhan, “our quarry is overconfident.”
“I don’t think it’s my spell.” Matt started to knock on the door, then hesitated; Sir Orizhan’s words raised a doubt.
“Yes, you see my point,” Sir Orizhan said. “The man we are hunting must be supremely overconfident to have done no more to escape than to take a room in an inn for the night.”
“You might be right,” Matt admitted. “I would have expected him to try to climb the city wall, at least.”
“The lout didn’t even choose a bolt hole that would be hard to find,” Sergeant Brock grunted.
Matt nodded. “We could have done nothing more than send a dozen soldiers knocking on the door of every inn in town, asking if a man had checked in within the last two hours. What would he have done then?”
“Gone out the window and into the night again,” Sergeant Brock answered.
Sir Orizhan agreed. “Soldiers asking questions would have been all the warning he needed.”
Matt couldn’t very well disagree, considering that their quarry had already gone out the window once that night. “I still can’t help feeling that we might be stepping into a trap.”
Sir Orizhan looked up, startled. “Why, so we might!”
“Aye, now that you mention it,” Sergeant Brock growled. “That might be reason enough for hiding so plainly, might it not?”
“I think we’d better take precautions,” Matt told them. “Sir Orizhan, you pound on the door and wake the landlord. When he lets you in, find the inside door to the yard.”
“A distraction?” The nobleman frowned.
“That,” Matt told him, “and enough noise to flush our quarry like a pheasant from a brake.”
“And you and I shall watch the windows?” Sergeant Brock asked, teeth gleaming in a grin.
“No,” Matt said. “If someone’s pounding on the door, he’ll expect soldiers outside. He’ll jump down into the innyard and hide in the stable or try to go out the wagon door.”
“Where we shall be waiting!”
“Right” Matt stepped back, addressing them both. “Let me confront him. You two stay in the shadows and be ready to help out if he tries to fight.”
Sir Orizhan nodded. “Surprise is always the best weapon.”
“Right. Let’s hope he thinks he’s safe. Give me a few minutes—count to two hundred slowly, then start pounding and yelling.” Matt turned away from the door. “Come on, Sergeant.”
They went around the side of the building to the great wagon door—like most medieval inns, this one was built around three sides of a courtyard, with the fourth side closed off by stables, and doors wide enough to admit carts and wagons. They were shut, of course, but it didn’t take Matt more than a few minutes to swing over the top and land lightly inside. He heard the soft thud as Sergeant Brock landed behind him, but didn’t look.
Stables blocked his view to either side; he went past them and looked about the innyard. The moon was still helping out, though it was very low, and he could make out the shape of the well with its watering trough, the railed balconies outside the guests’ rooms, and the dark shape of several wagons. But the moonlight struck only the center of the yard, making the shadows all about seem even darker. Matt noticed movement in those shadows, off to his left, and felt reassured that Sergeant Brock was sliding into place.
Then he remembered that the sergeant was one of King Drustan’s men, and the feeling of reassurance evaporated. He found himself wishing that he’d picked the Merovencian knight to steal into the courtyard with him. Then a form in black tunic and hose separated itself from one of the dark looming shapes and stepped out of the shadows. Moonlight flashed off a gloating grin, and Matt felt his stomach sink.
“You’re late, Lord Wizard.” The fugitive spoke with a strong Bretanglian accent. “I expected you when the moon was still high.”
“Well, you didn’t make an appointment,” Matt said, somewhat nettled. “Besides, the guardsman who reported the murder had to nerve himself up to telling us, and that took a while. It took a longer while to calm down Drustan and Petronille enough for them to start making sense.”
“Ah, were they distressed, then? Good, good!” The man grinned wide, fists on his hips, cocky as a bantam rooster.