The Jasuru man’s face had the lines of a map too detailed for its own legibility, the bronze scales falling into the folds of underlying skin. A white scruff of hair clung to the back of the man’s skull like frost hidden from the sun, and a black tongue lolled behind vicious pointed teeth. Scars from a life of violence seared the man’s thick arms and neck.
Marcus grinned.
“Merrisen Koke,” he said, standing and embracing the old mercenary captain. “God, but you’re looking old.”
“What I get for being the best,” Koke said. “No matter what contracts I take, I keep not dying, yeah? These are my boys. Terrin, Saut. That one’s Davian. You’ll have met him before at Orsen.”
“I remember,” Marcus said, taking the lieutenant’s hand in his own. “Good to see you again.”
“An honor, sir,” the young man said.
Kit stepped over from across the room, curiosity in his gaze. Marcus waved an open hand toward him.
“This is Kitap rol Keshmet. We’re traveling together.”
“A job?” Koke asked.
“Small size, high stakes,” Marcus said.
“Pay?”
“Miserable.”
“And that,” Koke said, slapping Marcus on the shoulder, “is the man I knew. You’re eating. You mind if we come join?”
“As long as I’m not paying for you.”
Between them, they took up the better part of one table. The keep’s initial surprise at his two actors falling in with fighting men washed away quickly as Koke and his men paid for sea bass in black sauce and good ale. For the better part of an hour, Koke retold the things that had happened since he and Marcus had last seen each other. Marcus traded stories of his own, many of them changed to omit details. The food was all eaten and the dishes cleared away when Koke leaned forward, his scaled fingers laced together.
“So Marcus, old friend,” he said, the softness of his tone meaning that the business discussions had now begun. Marcus felt a chill run down his back.
“Was too much to hope this was only a social call.”
“I’ve got a fair number of hired eyes in this town and one of them told me Marcus Wester had come ashore.”
“You were watching for me?”
“I was. Seems there’s people looking for you. Offering a bit of coin for information about where you are and what you’ve been up to.”
Kit’s gaze sharpened, his attention sudden and focused. The two Timzinae at the far table broke out into peals of laughter that no one at the table took up.
“Admirers or enemies?” Marcus said.
“You tell me,” Koke said. “It’s Yardem Hane.”
“Really? Imagine that,” Marcus said. He idly cracked a knuckle. “And what’s old Yardem doing these days that he wants to know about me?”
Koke’s eyes narrowed, and his gaze jumped across Marcus like he was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.
“Don’t know what he wants with you. We’d all assumed he was still padding around in your footsteps trying to get square with you saving his life. Now the story is he’s hooked up with a bank in Suddapal,” Koke said.
“Porte Oliva,” Marcus said. “The bank’s in Porte Oliva.”
“Not this one. Karol Dannien’s set up a gymnasium in Suddapal. Yardem found him there and offered a fair trade for anything anyone heard of you. Said it was an open offer, and Karol spread the word. The place to send to’s Komme Medean’s branch in Suddapal.”
Marcus drank a sip of his beer to hide the sudden stab of dread. He’d imagined Yardem back in Porte Oliva with Cithrin, but that was as much hopeful fantasy as anything. The last he’d heard of Cithrin, she’d been caught in a civil war in Antea. If she’d escaped it, surely she would have gone back to her branch in Birancour. That Yardem was still with the bank but in Elassae raised a thousand questions, and Marcus’s neck prickled with the fear of the answers. If Cithrin had died in Camnipol because he hadn’t been there to protect her …
He put down the beer and belched.
“So,” he said through his smile. “Dannien’s remade himself as a teacher, has he? God, we are getting old, aren’t we?”
“Not a permanent thing, I don’t think. A few of us found something else to be doing when Antea lost its mind. Until that war’s over and we see what shape the world’s taken, it’s hard to know what’s a safe contract.”
Until that war’s over. All the time he’d been gone, the Antean civil war had been burning. Every night he’d spent digging through the vines and trees was another one where Cithrin might have been captured or killed. Every day was one she’d been in dangerous territory.