“Excellent. I’ll buy it for fifty. Deal?”
The smuggler gave up: “You’re a psycho.”
“Perhaps, but the coins I pay with weren’t minted in a madhouse.”
The venture turned out exactly as Sarrakesh predicted. When a warning catapult shot from a pursuing galley splashed in a moonlit fountain of water less than fifty yards across their bow, the skipper squinted to estimate the distance to the eddies boiling around reefs to starboard (that night the Flying Fish, taking advantage of its paltry draught, was attempting to slip by the very shore of the Peninsula, through reef-studded shallows off-limits to warships), turned to the baron and ordered: “Overboard with you! It’s less than a cable to the shore, you won’t melt. Find my cousin Botashaneanu’s house in Iguatalpa village, he’ll hide you. Give him my fifty dungans. Go!” So what did I gain by jumping into it headfirst? Tangorn thought. Truly it is said: shorter ain’t the same as faster; either way I lost a week. Whatever, hindsight never fails… Suddenly a new word – algvasils – surfaced in the table discussion of the mountain men, so he started listening intently.
Actually, those were city gendarmes, rather than algvasils, commanded by their own officer rather than a Corregidor. Nine men and one officer showed up in Irapuato the day before yesterday. Supposedly they’re looking for the famous bandit Uanako, but in a weird way: sending no patrols, instead they’re going house to house asking whether anyone has seen any strangers. Like anyone will tell those island jackals anything, even if he did see someone… On the other hand, one can understand these guys: the bosses want them to catch bandits, so they’re making a decent show of it; they’re not dumb enough to actually climb mountains, risking a crossbow bolt any minute for tiny pay, while their friends are safely milking caravans at the Long Dam…
When the guest has departed, Tangorn’s guide (whose name was Chekorello and whose relation to Sarrakesh was beyond the baron’s ken) remarked thoughtfully: “You know, it’s you they’re looking for.”
“Yep,” Tangorn nodded. “Are you by any chance figuring how to turn me in in Irapuato?”
“Are you crazy?! We shared bread!!” The mountain man cut himself short, figuring out Tangorn’s intention, but did not smile. “You know, the folks down below think we’re all dumb up here and don’t get jokes. Maybe so; the people here are intense and just might off you for such a joke… Besides,” he suddenly grinned just like a grandfather promising grandkids a magic trick, “nobody’s gonna pay fifty dungans you owe my family for your head. Better I should get you over to the city, like we agreed, and earn that money honestly, true?”
“Totally true. Have you considered the back paths?”
“Well, can’t go through Irapuato now, we’ll have to go around…”
“Around? This is more serious than it seems. There’re those strange peddlers in Uahapan – four of them and armed to the teeth, while the tax collector with his algvasils is in Koalkoman three weeks early. I strongly dislike this.”
“Yeah, tough… Uahapan, Koalkoman, Irapuato – we’re surrounded. Unless…”
The baron waved the implied suggestion aside: “If you mean the road to Tuanohato, forget it – bet you that it already has a presence. Most likely traveling circus men who show tricks like putting out candles with a crossbow bolt or slicing apricot pits in midair with a scimitar. But that’s all right; what bothers me is that we’re surrounded, yet there are no visitors in our village. Why?”
“Haven’t gotten around to us yet?”
“Nope – the only way to Uahapan is through Iguatalpa, right? Better tell me this: if such a team were to show up in our village, would they be able to take me?”
“No way! You’ve told us to watch out for strangers, and we have. Even if they came with a hundred gendarmes, I’d still have time to get you out of the village through backyards, and then good luck finding us in the mountains. Should there be dogs, I have tobacco with pepper.”
“Right, and they know it as well as we do. So what does this mean?”
“You wanna say,” the mountain man squeezed his dagger hilt hard enough to whiten knuckles, “that they’ve found out that you’re in Iguatalpa?”
“For sure. It doesn’t matter how at this point. That’s number one. Number two that I really don’t like is how crudely they’re working. It only seems like all these peddlers, bandit catchers, and tax collectors are a net tightening around us. In reality, it’s a bunch of noisemakers whose job is to chase the quarry towards the hunters.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s simple, actually. What did you immediately think about when you heard about gendarmes in Irapuato? Right – the back path through the mountains. Now, how smart does one have to be to station a couple of crossbowmen in camouflage gear by that path?”
Chekorello thought for a long time and then finally managed to say the obvious: “So what’re we gonna do?” thus acknowledging Tangorn as the leader. The baron shrugged: “We’ll think, and most importantly, we’ll not do anything rash, which is what they’re trying to make us do. So: Uahapan, Koalkoman, Irapuato – all these are the noisemakers. Let’s think of where the real hunters are and how to slip by them.”
It’s a standard problem, he thought. Once again I’m trying to catch a certain Baron Tangorn, thirty-two years old, brown hair, six feet tall, a Nordic complexion that really stands out around here, plus a recently acquired distinctive slight limp. Strangely enough, in reality it’s not such a simple task – where should I deploy my line of hunters? And who should these hunters be? That last is pretty clear, actually – operatives who can recognize him, and no weapon-clad muscle boys visible from a mile away. The baron will certainly be in make-up and disguise, so even those who know him will have a hard time. How many such people are there? Hardly more than a dozen, more likely seven or eight – it’s been four years, after all. Let’s say a dozen; divide them into four shifts, since an observer can’t be effective for more than six hours at a stretch. Not too many, is it? Makes no sense to split up the team, it has to be a fist, a squad of hunters; no way any of them can be a part of the noisemaking team, since by dividing them, we… Damn, but I’m stupid! No hunters among the noisemakers, who’re not expected to meet Tangorn at all – he’s not that much of a fool. Those teams actually have no need to know what this is all about; their job is just to rattle the bushes. So: key people are few, can’t disperse them, so they’ll have to be concentrated at… of course!
“They’ll be waiting for us at the Long Dam, which we can’t bypass,” he announced to Chekorello, who was going bug-eyed after half an hour of an unaccustomed mental effort. “Here’s how we’ll get past them…”
“You’re mad!” was all the mountain man could say after listening to Tangorn’s plan.
“I’ve been told that many times,” replied the baron, “so if I’m a madman, I’m a very lucky one. Are you coming with me? I won’t insist – it’ll be easier for me to do it alone.”
“It all checks out, milord. Men from 12 Shore Street did try to capture him both at the Seahorse Tavern and at Castamir Square. He escaped both times. Four dead at the Seahorse, three infected with leprosy at the Square; too expensive to cover a one-time diversion, to my taste. 4 Lamp Street is indeed a Gondorian Secret Guard safe house, and he did raid it: one of the sergeants keeping that house was grievously wounded in the chest, his physician confirmed Algali’s account. The Secret Guard badge is genuine; that Aravan’s handwriting matches the one he’s even now using to write explanations at the police headquarters. Plus the entire Gondorian station is turning over stones looking for Algali. In other words, it doesn’t seem to be a ruse.”