The Dead of Winter- - Thieves World 07 (8 page)

Taking no breakfast and seeming uninterested in the chatter of last night's bloody PFLS activities, she went forth into ratty Thieves' World of the creaking commerce and cracking, peeled stucco and stones leaking their mortar onto the streets and "streets." Its powder freighted the wind that whistled along those streets, disarranging cloaks and scarves while bearing the scent of death. She was noticed wherever she went in damned Sanctuary. Hair of a dark red, the shining maroon of a rich old wine. Large eyes that were perhaps hazel and perhaps green-it depended upon the viewer, and where she was standing with relation to the sun. A face in which the bones were prominent and the mouth generous. (Some few marked the absence of what passed for dimples and later for creases and were truly smile-lines, and pounced to the conclusion that, incredibly for one of her looks, she had had no happy life.) A figure to turn dry the mouths of men and never mind their ages. A lackey called Wints whose face was washed and who strove to look mean while keeping his hand on one of those dauntingly long Ilbarsi "knives" thrust through a red-and-yellow sash worn over his old brown cloak.

In the Bazaar she crossed a brown, clutching palm with a small silver coin, and was allowed to adjourn to a rearward chamber. She emerged with her hair caught in a plain snood of dull old green. A veil of medium green concealed her lower face. Displayed were ears pierced but not be jeweled, which she knew was unattractive.

She tarried there, in that booth of a seer blindingly dressed in multicolor, while the S'danzo's daughter and the lackey Wints bore the ring back to the White Swan. No, she did not care to be read by the S'danzo. Was the kind S'danzo discreet?-Yes. Then did she perhaps know of a certain man ... And the newcomer, veiled again, mentioned a name and then a description. No, the S'danzo did not know him; perhaps a reading might help?-No, no reading; there would be no Seeing into the affairs of the veiled lady. The S'danzo wisely said no more. She assumed that this stranger either was so cautious as to want not even a close-mouthed seer to know aught of her-or wished not to know more of herself and her future's possibilities and probabilities than she already did.

Wintsenay and the nine-year-old returned anon with the veiled lady's three horses. She dispatched them to arrange lodgings for her at the inn suggested by her new S'danzo friend.

She did not see him she sought, that day. Twice she must stop and show her face to members of the occupying force, but apparently she did not resemble whomever they sought. Two of their number had been slain last night. The word was murder, but Sanctuarites did not use it in connection with the deaths of the Beysa's minions.

She kept Wintsenay with her, calling him Wints, that he might not talk o'ermuch to his acquaintances and, if he had any, his friends. Obviously he was enjoying his role as well as the pay. Wints was quite willing to remain with her and comply with any of her wishes.

On the day following she wore a still different guise, and changed her lodgings yet again. Again, the inn was a good one. Having gained some knowledge of bankers, she left money and jewels with a man she felt she could trust. He also stabled her horses. She left with a receipt and a more secure feeling. That day, again, she looked more for him she sought.

In mid-aftemoon on the fringe of the Bazaar, she saw him.

"Oh my," she said, from behind her lower-face veil of scarlet (and above her garish S'danzo garb, skirts and apron and blouse in seven colors and six hues),

"whoever is that big man who just ordered crockery from your neighbor, there?"

"Ah, m'girl, that's Ahdio-Ahdiovizun, but it's Ahdio he's callt. Runs that hole, back in the Maze-Sly's Place, it's callt. You know. Big, ain't he!"

"Indeed," the veiled lady said softly, and went away.

"Well, I can't help that," the very big man said to the dealer. "You just tell Goatfoot what I said: When even my customers complain about his beer, it's bad!

Thin as ... well, if I find out he has a lot of cats over there, I'll be mighty suspicious about what he puts into his so-called prime ale!"

"That ain't nice, Ahdio. You want good stuff, whyn't you buy it then?"

"As you damned well know, Ak, I do. But not from Goatfoot! However, not all my patrons can afford the premium brew, and not all of them know the difference, anyhow. I serve maybe twenty to one of the stuff made by Goatfoot and Maeder. And based on the quality, I ought to be charging more for Maeder's Red Gold!"

"Or maybe less for Goatfoot's True Brew," Akarlain said, tilting his head to one side and doing his best to look clever. It was a strain.

"I'm willing to do that," Ahdio told him, "just as soon as you and Goatfoot get the keg price down to what it should be." He sighed and raised a silencing hand as the much smaller man started to reply. "That's all right, that's all right. I'll need thirteen more kegs tomorrow, and don't forget what I told you to tell Goatfoot. And that I'm looking for another brewer. My customers may be scum, but they've got rights!"

Ahdio, his face open and showing no menace, held eye contact with Akarlain for a long moment before he turned away. He moved on to another merchant's kiosk in the ever-noisy open market. Face working, Ak watched him. How was it that such a genuinely bigger than big man moved so easily in a gait that no one could ever describe as "lumbering"? He was almost graceful! And so lucky, Ak mused with a shiver; Ahdio seemed not to notice the cold although he was not wearing nearly as much clothing as most others. Like to have me a wife that generated that much heat, Akarlain thought, and with a sigh he turned to enter Ahdio's order on the slate headed G-Foot.

Ahdio stopped at a fold-down counter under a sheltering awning of bright green and faded yellow. After doubling his order for the sausages in brine he had tried out on consignment, he complimented their creator.

"They loved them, Ivalia. Helped sell more beer, too! My customers loved those special sausages of yours-and so did I!" Abruptly the big man laughed a big man's laugh. "Not my cat, though. Should've seen him wrinkle his nose and shake his head when he started to settle into a nice sausage meal and smelled that brine! Could've heard his ears rattle two buildings away!"

"Ohh, poor pussy cat," Ivalia said, interrupting her delighted marking down of his order to look up with a sympathetic expression. "What a mean shock for a cat

... well, here! You take this to that poor disappointed kitty of yours, Ahdio, with my compliments."

"Mighty nice of you, Ivalia," Ahdio said, accepting the brown-wrapped package she hurriedly prepared and proffered. It looked strangely smaller, once it was transferred from her hand to his huge one.

Someone passing behind Ahdio bumped him. Ahdio showed no hint of taking offense as his size would have allowed; he merely dropped a hand to the wallet at his belt. It was still there. The bump must have been a genuine one, then-not that it would have mattered much. He kept only three coppers, two sharply jagged bits of rusty steel, and a few pebbles in that leathern bag. His money was in a pocket-purse sewn inside the down-filled vest he wore in lieu of coat or winter cloak. Still, he was not anxious to lose what he thought of as the Fool's Purse at his belt; he'd just have to raise a great fuss and try to chase down the thief ... and of course replace the thing with another cheap bag of goatskin.

"Mighty nice order you just gave me, Ahdio," Ivalia was saying with a smile.

"Mighty nice doing business with you-and gracious, I had no idea you were a cat person, too! That makes it all the better."

The disposition of an angel, Ivalia had-a red-faced angel-and arms like a cooper's. Everything about her was round and healthy and on the large side, positively brimming and glowing ruddy with health. Everything except her nose and her chest, he thought, a little wistfully; both were as flat as a fallen pie. Still ... a man did get lonely and thought now and again of a real woman, a companion rather than merely some one-night wench. And in this gods-forsaken town to which he had exiled himself.... Ahdio smiled at her. That showed as a crinkling of his eyes and a writhing of his winter beard; he stopped shaving every year in autumn and removed the whole growth again a few months later when real heat started to set in. Just now the beard was not long, but already obscured most of his face.

"What's your kittycat's name, Ahdio?" she asked, practically burbling, beaming at him.

Ahdio looked a bit embarrassed, pushed a finger up into his brown-pepper-and salt beard, and scratched. "I, ah, named him Sweetboy," he admitted. The round-faced sausagemaker clapped her hands. "How sweet! My kittycats are named Cinnamon, and Topaz, and Micklety, and Kadakithis, wasn't that naughty of me?-and Chase (that's short for Chase-mouser) and Pan-pie, and Hakiem, and Babyface, and-oh, pardon me; yes, what would you like?" That to the new customer who had come to the unwitting rescue of Ahdio, whose expression of shock had increased with each new cat Ivalia listed-and without showing signs of running out of either names or cats anytime soon.

"Try one of her pickled sausages," Ahdio said to the newcomer. "And remember it was Ahdio who told you. Stop in at my tavern-Sly's Place near Wrong Way Park. First beer's on me."

He waved a hand in friendly farewell to Ivalia and departed. Thus he did not see the look her prospective customer gave her, or hear him mutter, "Sly's Place!

Theba's eyeballs ... I'd as soon slit my throat as go near that dive!" Ivalia leaned on her counter, face in hands, and gave him a nice smile. "Why don't you, then?"

Bulkily visible with his broad back emphasized by the vest of tired red, Ahdio wended his way out of the Bazaar, returning greetings, stopping to say a few words to this or that merchant and a couple of Stepsons with ever-wary eyes. His words to the beautifully-dressed noble Shaf-ralain went unanswered and Ahdio grinned. He just managed not to wink at an armed but not particularly mean looking Bey, and headed for home.

Home was upstairs over the dive called Sly's Place, well back in that most unsavory and unsafe district of Sanctuary called the Maze. Today he had gone to the street called Path of Money early, to put away some of last night's income. He never visited his banker at the same time on two days within any week, so as not to be predictable. Sanctuary was that kind of town. It was a goodly walk, too. When he bore money out of Sly's, he got out of the Maze as fast as he could, and to hell with shortcuts. He stepped directly out onto the Street of Odors-also called Stink Street and Perfume Boulevard, with the tanners and charnel houses right there-and walked north to Straight Street. Once it crossed the Processional, it jogged a little and became the Path of Money. There bankers and lenders and changers lurked, and some were even honest. It was Ahdio's belief and hope that his was.

Then it was back to the Bazaar and/or Farmer's Market, by some route or other; he was a known walker who attracted little attention from the diwiers and

"guardians" of this or that section of town. Stepsons competent and in-, or 3rd Commando members, or the dangerous usually-youths of the PFLS-"Piffles," some were pronouncing it-or sword-backed Beysibs, forced by the weather to cloak the bare breasts they apparently loved to flaunt, painted. He gave them little attention in return, speaking when they were obviously not supposed to be concealed, and pretending not to see them when they were. Ahdio assumed that he was one of the very few in the Maze who had made a deal with the 3rd Commando Unit of Ranke. After all, it was in his back room that Kama of the 3rd C. and Zip of PFLS had met with Hanse, for the purpose of persuading that thief called Shadowspawn to break into the Palace. Oh, Ahdio knew that, now; Kama had been back and they were friends-make that "on friendly terms."

Not infrequently he stopped at a better inn just to take note of it and its clientele and enjoy a measure or two served by someone else. Then it was back to his residence and place of business, which was sort of sphinctered in the improbable three-way intersection where the Serpentine sort of extruded Tanner Lane as it slithered by, at the place where Odd Birt's Cross became Odd Birt's Dodge.

The lowest dive in the lowest of towns, some called Sly's Place. Ahdiovizun called it home. He also called it never dull and always fascinating, even inspiring. (Sly was a man dead these three years, but who wanted to change the name and take credit for the skungiest and most fight-prone watering-hole in all Thieves' World? In consequence, no one was sure just who did own it. True, Sly's widow seemed not to be hurting any for finances, but certainly she never came near the place, and no one ever reported having seen Ahdio or his helper Throde go to her home.)

Since today he had settled a few bills with last night's receipts, he had not gone over to the Path of Money at all. Thus he extended his walk by taking the longer way around from the Bazaar. When he entered the Maze from the north, onto the Serpentine, nature had been calling for several minutes. With a little smile he decided to avail himself of the little cul-de-sac variously called Tick's Vomitorium, or Safehaven, or more descriptively: The Outhouse. Even in the ever present shadows, the lower walls of all three buildings abutting on Safehaven were stained dark. The area, a squared horseshoe, reeked of urine and worse. The Vulgar Unicorn was just around the corner and many a patron had come hurrying into just this odd little shelter to relieve his bladder or his stomach or both. (This was the reason Ahdio had been known to refer jocularly to the place as the Vulgar Unicorn Annex.)

He was just contentedly spraying the eastward wall when a slight sound behind him was followed quickly by a swift, jerky pressure at his side, a shade forward of the kidney. The pressure-point was tiny, and Ahdio recognized the touch of a knife's tip.