Gabriella tried to keep her emotions in check. As the equivalent of an Eminence in the Brotherhood of the Divine Path, Sandor Feyn had been responsible for more heresy than she could possibly imagine. A great urge to step forward and cut him down where he stood was barely tempered by a sense of satisfaction at having tracked him down and tricked her way into his confidence. The Faith had been looking for him for years. Now she was standing right in front of him. At heart, only the thought of the information he could supply was saving him right now.
"So," Sandor Feyn said, eyeing Gabriella appreciatively as she sat before him, "who's she?"
Crowe looked casually at Gabriella. "Who, the skirt? She's just a Knight of the Swords Of Dawn who's walked right through all your security by the clever scheme of not wearing a big sign over her chest."
Gabriella couldn't believe her ears, and stiffened, ready to spring for the window.
Feyn laughed at the obvious absurdity of the answer and Crowe joined in.
"You want anything, just ask Erno at the bar." Feyn said, before leading Crowe to a back room.
"So, who is the girlie then?" Feyn said once they were in private. "Really, I mean. And is she for sale?"
Crowe grinned. "She's a Knight of the Swords who just walked in — "
"You did that joke already."
"Not everything I say is carefully calculated to make you laugh."
"Eh?"
"She really is a Knight of the Swords," Crowe said. "I wasn't joking." "What…" Feyn managed hoarsely. "What in the name of a demon's balls did you bring her here for?"
"Oh, well, I know how much you enjoy having a pretty face around."
"And you also know how much I hate having to bury a pretty face. Which I'll now have to do!" Feyn glanced towards the door, looking as if he expected a troop of soldiers to kick it down at any second. "How much does she know about me?"
"Pretty much everything. If I was you I'd be pretty bloody worried right now, mate."
"If you — " Feyn rose, kicking away the table and drawing a dagger.
Crowe punched him in the face and easily wrested the dagger away.
"Yeah, I'm quaking. Is this really how you do business here? Maybe there's something in this religion stuff after all, because, frankly, it's a miracle you're not dead." He slipped the dagger into his sleeve and shoved Feyn back into his chair, then set the table upright again. "I brought her here because you and her both have a common purpose."
"We worship the same God, if that's what you mean, but, believe me — "
Crowe shook his head. "I meant an immediate practical purpose, Sandor. You and she both know that Goran Kell's man didn't pull off that shot at Ludwig Rhodon. She and Kell both want to know who did and who actually hired him."
Sandor Feyn was silent for a moment, glaring at Crowe. "Go on."
"She's the one who caught the bloke who took the shot. You can put names to most of the faces in this part of the world."
"But I didn't see — "
"I told you, she caught him."
Feyn suddenly took on a queasy green pallor. "Oh no, tell me she hasn't brought the head?"
"I wish. That'd be easy. The face is in her head, though. All you need to do is get her to remember it right and draw it."
"Draw it?"
"She's good." Crowe promised.
"All right. We'll try it, but you know I can't let her walk out of here and go looking for Kell. She's not leaving this tavern alive."
"That's between you and her. None of my business."
Gabriella was leaning casually against the bar top, dipping black bread into gravy, when Crowe and Feyn returned. Feyn looked at her with a mix of curiosity and fear, and Gabriella knew instinctively that Crowe had made clear to him that the apparent joke he had told about her was indeed the truth.
"It's all right, God-girl," Crowe said, as if reading her mind. "We're all looking for the same truth today."
"It must rankle you, being in here." Feyn said.
"I didn't come here to cause trouble." Gabriella said.
"No, so your friend — my friend here, actually — has told me." Feyn sat on a stool next to her and nodded to the man behind the bar. "Bring us some paper and charcoal sticks."
"Is one of us writing a confession?"
"The deal is this," Crowe said. "Feyn is going to talk to you, set your mind at ease. He'll help you remember."
"I remember perfectly well." She saw his face in her dreams now and again, whether she wanted to or not.
"Forgive me for wanting to be sure you're not wilfully misleading me," Feyn replied.
Crowe cleared his throat. "You, Dez, will scribble down the face of the assassin you caught. Hopefully, Feyn here will recognise him."
"What if he doesn't?"
"Then we go our separate ways. If he does, though — and I bet he will — then you get his name and a lead on Goran Kell and the Brotherhood knows who to call on and put down."
Gabriella knew that Feyn wouldn't honour his end of the bargain and was sure he must know that she couldn't honour hers either. He would never give up the location of someone as senior as Goran Kell to the Faith. Evidently neither of them intended to let the other leave this tavern alive. She searched Crowe's face, looking for any sign as to which side he was on. She didn't see anything.
Gabriella smiled. "All right."
Feyn led her to a low couch by the window. "I'm just going to talk, all right. Listen to my voice and only my voice."
Gabriella soon found herself falling into the snow-laden morning of the wedding and suddenly she was running again. Faces rushed past her and disappeared into the darkness as she pursued the fleeing assassin.
Somewhere in the distance a voice was whispering.
Suddenly she awoke and found her finger stained with charcoal and a detailed sketch beneath her right hand.
"Well, well," Feyn was saying. "Joachim Foll."
"Who is this Joachim Foll?"
"A mercenary. He used to be one of Mandrian's lieutenants in the Hands."
"Mandrian's Hands…" Gabriella said to herself. "I've heard of them. They fought at Freiport in the war, for the Faith and Vos."
"This has all been a scam, hasn't it?" Feyn's voice rose to a shout as he sensed a conspiracy closing on him. "A con to get this Faith bitch in here where she can kill me!"
The man behind the bar, Erno, suddenly lifted a heavy crossbow and trained it on Gabriella. She wasn't stupid enough to try to run away, but instead grabbed Feyn and pulled him in front of her just as the barman loosed the bolt. It took Feyn in the gut. Crowe grabbed the weapon from the barman's hands and shoved the stock into his face. Feyn lay on the floor, screaming like a stuck pig.
Gabriella knelt beside Feyn. "Tell me where I can find Goran Kell and I'll stop the pain."
"Freedom," he gasped. "He's gone to Freedom."
"At the Glass Mountain?" Gabriella taunted him and was rewarded with a look of utter horror. "We already know about it. And now I know you're not going to be able to warn him, even if any of your spies find out before we get there." She derived satisfaction from his appalled expression. In fact, she got more satisfaction from that than from the way the light went out of his eyes when she broke his neck a second later.
"Come on," Crowe grabbed Gabriella's hand and shoved her out of the tavern. They bolted onto the streets of Turnitia and made a series of quick turns at the first couple of junctions they came to. Racing onto a wide thoroughfare, they bowled over a young man in a grey woollen cloak and then came to a dead stop in front of a platoon of Imperial Vos guards.
Their Captain stepped forward. "You seem to be in a hurry. Perhaps you'd care to explain the great rush at the Citadel?"