The Black Bouquet

"I assume," Miri said, "that even Oeble has some sort of watch, or constables."

The man across the table nodded and said, "The Gray Blades, and I daresay they'll make a genuine effort to find a robber who committed an outrage in the Paer. Indeed, my patron can take measures to encourage them to do their utmost. But let's not tell them what the rogue stole."

"Surely if they knew how valuable it-"

"Within a day, every scoundrel in town would know it, too, and that might be less than helpful. We can still reclaim our property if and when the Gray Blades actually recover it."

Miri scowled and said, "You don't seem confident they will."

"They're competent, some are even halfway honest, but they only number about thirty. Oeble is a big place and, I must concede, a rogue's haven, where every day dozens of new crimes compete for the law's attention. We'll just have to hope for the best."

"That's not good enough," Miri said. The warm, stale air was oppressive, and made her head pound. She irritably tugged at her green leather armor, pulling it away from her neck to help her breathe. "We'll find the wretch ourselves."

Hostegym grunted and said, "I wonder if that's a practical idea."

"I'm a scout," she said. "A tracker and hunter. It's what I do."

"It's what you do out in the woods," the mercenary leader replied. "What makes you think you'll have the same kind of luck in a warren like this?"

"Your friend may have a point," the functionary said. "I don't mean to discourage you. As I understand it, your employer has his own problems, and urgently needs the rest of his coin. To say the least, it's in everyone's best interests that we recover the item and complete our transaction. But it won't help anybody if you, Mistress Buckman, merely wind up getting tossed on the Dead Cart."

Miri made a spitting sound and said, "You must be joking. It's only one man who got away."

"If you truly mean to do this," the functionary said, "you'd better get that notion right out of your head. Oeble is full of knaves who'll resent strangers asking questions about one of their own, or about anything, really."

"Fine, point taken. But surely they're no match for a band of trained warriors."

The Oeble man arched an eyebrow.

"All right," she said, "I admit, the four rogues made us look like idiots, but only because they had magic and luck on their side. The wizard's dead now, and the whoreson who jumped off the wall has surely run through all the good fortune the Lady Who Smiles was willing to grant him."

"That's as may be," Hostegym said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair, "but I have to tell you, Miri, if you go ahead with this, you won't have that 'band of trained warriors' watching your back. The lads and me, we're done."

"What?" she cried.

"Now, don't glare like that. We signed on to get your mysterious saddlebag to Oeble, and we did. We fulfilled the letter of the contract."

She laughed and replied, "Do you honestly expect me to see it that way, and meekly hand over the rest of your coin? I couldn't even if I were willing. I was supposed to pay you out of what our contact here was going to give me."

The beefy warrior frowned.

"Ouch," he said. "That's bad news."

"So I take it we're still in this together?"

Hostegym sat pondering for a heartbeat or two, then finally shook his head and answered, "No, I don't think so. You know what the boys and I are good at. That's why you hired us. We understand fighting on horseback, watching for bandits and trolls in open country. We're not thief takers, and I don't think we'd fare well playing at it in a place as tricky as Oeble. Fortunately, caravans leave from here all the time, and I reckon the smart way for us to make more coin is to take another job as guards. Come with us if you like. We'd be glad to have you."

She glared at him and said, "You miserable, treacherous coward…"

"Call me all the names you like. It won't change anything. The fact is, the 'item' is lost because you made a mistake. When the thieves were on the steps, you could have shot the fellow with the saddlebag first, before your bowstring broke."

He was right, of course. It had been the only sensible thing to do. Yet she hadn't, and didn't quite know why. Perhaps it was because she'd recognized that, a minute or two earlier, the bogus beggar could easily have killed her, yet had contented himself with knocking her down and kicking her. Thus, she'd felt obliged to give him one last chance to surrender.

Seeing she had no answer, Hostegym heaved himself to his feet, wincing as his bad leg took his weight.

"I guess we'll stay here at the i

He nodded to the plump man, then limped out the door.

"Does this change your mind?" the functionary asked.

"No," Miri said. "In my guildhouse, they teach us to honor our commitments. I'll recover the item by myself."

"Do you have any idea how?"

"Well, at least I got a look at the thief." The wretch had been lean and fit, with green eyes and keen, intelligent features. Given his agility, she assumed the sores on his legs were fake. Perhaps his goatee was, also. "But beyond that…"

She shrugged.

"Well, I know my master will want me to give you all the help I can," the functionary said. "Unfortunately, we don't have many contacts among the gangs and other outlaws. No matter what outsiders may believe, Oeble does have some citizens who don't work hand-in-glove with the robbers and smugglers. But at the very least, I can provide some general information."

Miri nodded and said, "Tell me."

CHAPTER 2

Aeron skulked up the twisting stairs with the saddlebag tucked under one arm, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be lurking there. The risers, a number of which were soft with dry rot or broken outright, would have creaked and groaned beneath most people's feet, but were silent under his. He knew where and how to step.

As usual, he reached his own door without incident. Considering that his father was a cripple, some might think it ridiculous that after all those years they still lived on the uppermost floor of a dilapidated tower. But it was marginally safer. The average housebreaker wouldn't climb so high just to break into such humble lodgings. And in any case, Nicos sar Randal refused to move. He liked the view.

In fact, once Aeron stepped inside the small, sparsely furnished room, locking and barring the door behind himself with reflexive caution, he saw that his father was enjoying the vista even then. The older man sprawled in a chair on the sagging balcony with its broken railing, looking out over the River Scelptar. The sunset stained the water red and burnished the three bridges arching over the flow. The floods carried the spans away every spring, and Oeble rebuilt them every summer. At the moment, they were likely the only spanking new structures in all the ancient city.

Nicos was gaunt, and no longer young, but younger than his frailty made him appear. His scars, the creases on his face and ski

"Come watch the sun go down," he rasped.

Once upon a time, he'd possessed a voice as rich as a bard's, but the rope had taken it.

"In a minute," Aeron replied.

Glum as he felt, he would have preferred solitude, but didn't have the heart to say so. He peeled off his beggar's rags, tossed them on the floor, poured water from the porcelain pitcher into the cracked bowl, and scrubbed the bogus sores off his legs and the brown dye from his coppery hair, eyebrows, and beard. That accomplished, he pulled on one of the slate-gray borato shirts he favored, found a bottle of white wine in the little wrought iron rack, and carried it and the saddlebag out onto the balcony.