Just thinking about it brought a smile to his face, and he reached down for his teacup, newly refilled by the creeping teapot, which had already returned to its place on the tea service. Yes, he thought, walking over to the tall windows, sipping his tea as he watched Hern climb into an ostentatious carriage in the little courtyard below while, behind him, the page hurried toward the gates with the letter in his hands. Yes, things were going perfectly smoothly. If the printers did as they were paid to do, then tomorrow the net woven of everything he’d learned over years of following Monpress would finally be cast. All he had to do was sit back and wait for the thief to take the bait, and then even an element as chaotic as Eli Monpress would be drawn at last into predictable order.
The happiness of that thought carried him through the rest of his day, and if he drove particularly hard bargains in his meetings that afternoon, no one thought anything special of it. He was the Duke of Gaol, after all.
CHAPTER 8
Down the mountains from Slorn’s woods, where the ground began to level out into low hills and branching creeks, the city of Goin lay huddled between two muddy banks. Little more than an overgrown border outpost, Goin was claimed by two countries, neither of which bothered with it much, leaving the soggy dirt streets to the trappers and loggers who called it home. It was a rowdy, edge-of-nowhere outpost where the law, what there was of it, turned a blind eye to anything that wasn’t directed squarely at them, which was just how Eli liked it.
“Aren’t you glad I talked you out of making camp and coming down in the morning?” Eli said, strolling down the final half mile of rutted trail out of the mountains.
“I still don’t see why you wanted to come here at all,” Josef said. “I passed through here about two years ago chasing Met Skark, the assassin duelist. It was a mangy collection of lowlifes then too, and Met wasn’t nearly as good as his wanted posters made him out to be. Still,” he said, smiling warmly, “Goin did have some lively bar fights once the locals got drunk enough not to see the Heart, so it wasn’t a total waste.”
Eli looked at him sideways, eyeing the enormous wrapped hilt that poked up over Josef’s broad shoulders. “I don’t see how anyone could get that drunk.”
“The strained liquor they brew in the mountains is strong stuff.” Josef chuckled. “They don’t call it Northern Poison for nothing.”
Goin was surrounded by a high wall of split and sharpened logs set into the thick mud. The northern gate was closed when they reached it, but the guard door stood wide open.
“Sort of defeats the point of a gate in the first place,” Eli said, standing aside as Josef and Nico ducked through.
Josef shook his head. “Can’t say I blame them for not bothering.”
Eli sighed. The man had a point. Inside the wooden wall, the town was a maze of wood and stone buildings, dirt streets, flickering torches, filthy straw, burly, drunk men, and foul smells. Hardly a high-value target, even for the least discerning bandits.
“Civilization at last,” he mumbled, covering his face with his handkerchief. “This way.”
He led them deeper into the town, stepping over drunks and dodging fistfights, turning down blind alleys seemingly at random until he stopped in front of a small, run-down building. There was no sign, nothing to separate the building from the dozen other run-down buildings around it. Josef glared at it suspicously, but Eli smoothed his coat over his chest, checked his hair, then stepped forward to knock lightly on the rickety wooden door.
On the second knock, the door cracked open and a hand in a grubby leather glove shot out, palm up. With a flick of his fingers Eli produced a gold standard, which he dropped into the waiting hand. It must have been enough, for the door flew open and a burly man in a logger’s woolen shirt and leather pants welcomed them in.
“Sit down,” he said, motioning to a fur-covered bench. “I’ll get the broker.”
Eli smiled and sat. Josef, however, did not. He leaned on the wall by the door, arms crossed over his chest. Nico stayed right beside him, her eyes strangely luminous beneath the deep hood of her new coat.
The large man vanished through the little door at the rear of the building, leaving his guests alone in the tiny room, which was uncomfortably warm thanks to the red-hot stove in the corner and smelled like dust. A few moments later, the man came out again, this time trailed by a tall, thin woman in men’s trousers and a thick woolen coat, her graying hair pulled tight behind her head. She walked to a stool by the stove and sat down, looking Eli square in the eye as the large man took up position behind her.