Masquerades - Kate Novak [72]
Alias had no trouble keeping Twig's bright green tunic in sight. He did noot seem concerned that he might be followed. The watch didn't come down here, and the inhabitants weren't about to challenge the Night Masks. Alias kept waiting for some show of resistance, but no one made any trouble for Twig. After half an hour, the collector turned and made a beeline due west. Alias paused at the outskirts of the neighborhood and watched Twig cross an empty field. Across the field, in front of a thick woods, was Lilda's, a large festhall with a reputation for tolerating rowdy customers.
Alias moved toward the woods and crept up on the building from the rear. One wing had suffered a recent fire. Scorch marks ran from windows up the plaster walls of the building, and charred bits of wood, the remains of the shutters, hung beside the windows. The smell of smoke was still strong. Piled in the rear were remnants of Lilda's business, which someone had managed to rescue from the fire: scorched feather-filled ticks, bedsteads covered with soot, tapestries stained with smoke, a painting of a female sphinx reclining like an odalisque.
Recalling the arson of Jamal's home, Alias wondered if the Night Masks had been involved in this fire, too. The damage here wasn't extensive, but perhaps the thieves guild had meant only to frighten Lilda into making "insurance payments" more promptly, without actually destroying her lucrative business.
The sounds of hammering and sawing echoed inside the building. Lilda apparently had enough stashed away to cover emergency rebuilding.
Alias slid along the end of the burned-out wing and peeked around the corner. Twig stood on the front porch, shifting his weight impatiently from foot to foot as another man, seated at a table, counted it out. The counter was a tall, skinny man with a long braid of gold hair hanging down his back. Twig's boss, Alias guessed. He shoved some coin back at Twig and poured the rest into his swelling belt pouch. Twig's cut was smaller than Alias had supposed; he received only a quarter of the take, one gold worth of copper coin, but that was still a lot for a few hours of unskilled "labor."
After Twig left, his boss yanked a knife out of the porch floor boards and proceeded to whittle a small stick into a smaller stick. A few minutes later, a pair of children showed up with their collection. The pair were maybe twelve to fourteen years old, a brother and sister by the looks of them. They brought in somewhat more than Twig, but received the same quarter share. The boss whispered something to the girl, which Alias did not hear, but from the girl's weak smile and uncomfortable squirm and the boss's lewd wink, the swordswoman could guess the content. She fought off the temptation to blacken the boss's winking eye, deciding it could wait until sometime later, but not too long from now. The girl noticed Alias watching from around the corner, and for a moment Alias worried that the child might point her out to the boss. The girl remained silent, though. She pocketed her and her brother's cut, then the pair ran back to the Shore. The man resumed his whittling.
The next collector came three whittled sticks later. He was a powerful-looking man, made mean and miserable by personal neglect and overconsumption of ale. The whittler growled at him for being the last one to arrive, as usual, and the collector snarled something back to the effect that the boss had nothing to do but sit on his rear end and wait. He turned his collection over, sullenly pocketed his take, and stomped into the undamaged section of Lilda's festhall.
The boss rose, threw away his stick, sheathed his knife, and strode west, toward the road. Alias wondered if it would be possible to follow the money