Orca by Steven Brust Page B

because I had my clothes and my weapons stashed there. If I needed to visit the son and the widow, I figured it would wait, because evening was coming on and my feet were hurting like blazes, and I wanted a good meal and a drink, which was another reason to stop at the Riversend. But first things first. I asked Loiosh what my shadows were up to. He said, “One’s going around to the back, boss.”
    “Is the other one coming in?”
    “No.”
    “Okay.”
    I walked through the tavern, opened up the back door, moved a few empty crates, recovered the bundle that I’d made of my possessions, recovered my sword from behind the garbage pile, and slipped back inside before Timmer or Domm or whoever it was got there. The inn wasn’t very crowded, but no one particularly noticed me, anyway.
    I sat down at a table and caused the host (whose name really is Trim, by the way) to bring me some wine, a bowl of fish soup, and whatever fowl they had roasting away over the spit and producing those amazing smells. They were apparently basting it with some sort of honey and lemon mixture that made the fire dance very prettily and made my stomach growl like a dzur. Trim’s service was very fast, and his food was very good; I hoped that they wouldn’t question the poor bastard, or if they did, that they were nice about it. I ate, drank, rested, and tried to figure out my next step. The last was the hard part, the others come pretty easy if you practice long enough. Loiosh was getting hungry, too, which I felt bad about, but I needed him to keep watching, so my meal was accompanied by his running complaints. I didn’t allow this to detract from the food, however. Then Loiosh said, “Boss, the guy’s coming inside.”
    “Okay,” I said, and I placed the sword against the wall behind me, resting it against a support beam where it would be, if not hidden, at least not horribly obvious. I made sure I had a dagger near to hand, then I finished sopping up the meal with the remains of the bread—a good black bread made with seeds of some kind.
    In fact, they both came in—the man and the woman—and planted themselves in front of me; no doubt they’d received instructions from headquarters. I looked up at them with an expression of profound innocence, to which I tried to mix in a certain amount of alarm.
    “Lord Kaldor?” said the man.
    I nodded.
    “May we speak with you for a moment?”
    I nodded again.
    “I’m Lieutenant Domm, this is Ensign Timmer, of Her Imperial Majesty’s Guard.”
    I nodded for the third time. I was getting good at it.
    They sat down, even though I hadn’t invited them to; I think they felt that standing while I sat would make it harder for them to intimidate me. Meanwhile, I tried to act like I was intimidated but trying to act like I wasn’t. I don’t think I did very well—it’s a lot easier to pretend to be tough when you’re scared than to pretend to be scared when you’re tough. Or, at least, it is for me.
    “Needany help, boss?”
    “Not yet, Loiosh.”
    “We’d just like to ask you some questions. We understand that you’ve been telling people that we’re not conducting a thorough investigation into a certain matter. We’d like to know why you think so.”
    I was betting on Reega over Endra, so I said, “My lord, I went over to the city hall today, where they’re—you’re—talking to everyone, and I told them what I knew, and they didn’t care, so I figured that must mean—”
    “Bullshit,” said Timmer, opening her mouth for the first time. “What’s the real reason?”
    “That’s the only—”
    She turned to Domm and said, “Let’s take him back and work on him for a while. We don’t have time for this.”
    “Be patient,” said Domm. “I think he’ll talk to us.”
    “Why bother? We can peel him like an onion.”
    Domm shook his head. “Not unless we have to. The big guy doesn’t like us destroying people’s brains unless there’s no other choice.”
    “So