Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [37]
—“Shalpa’s cloak—it was the Dragon who did it,” another voice insisted. “The froggin’ Dragon or someone close to him.”
Cauvin didn’t try to connect the voice with a face. He might be sheep-shite stupid, but he knew better to look where he listened.
“Or a score of others,” a third, slightly softer and soberer, voice suggested. “That Torch—he’s been collecting enemies since Grandpa was a pup. Enemies, secrets, and gold. My pa says it’s a froggin’ wonder no one got him before this.”
“’Cause the Torch’s a frog-rotting sorcerer, that’s why,” the quartet’s fourth and loudest voice weighed in.
“He’s a froggin’ priest!”
“Of a froggin’ dead god,” Loudmouth added. “And he’d’ve died, too, right with the Stormbringer, if he wasn’t a frog-rotting sorcerer. He says the Torch’s been sucking souls for years. About time somebody got rid of him.”
“Someone paid by Ilsig,” the soft-voiced man suggested.
“No …” two men chorused, and Cauvin, in silence, was inclined to agree—not merely because the Torch wasn’t dead, but because if there was one thing the Wrigglies of Sanctuary could take pride in it was that their ancestors had refused to remain slaves and prisoners of the Ilsigi kings. Froggin’ sure the Ilsigi kings were on the rise. It was their armies, and not the Rankan emperor’s, that broke the backs of the Nisibisi, the northern witches. And it was their warships that kept the sea-lanes clear between Sanctuary and Inception Island. But a royal assassin stalking the Torch near Pyrtanis Street? A royal assassin with an Imperial knife? That was froggin’ impossible.
Cauvin had no sooner reached his judgment than he began to have doubts. If King Sepheris the Fourth of Ilsig had offered him a chest of golden royals to kill the Torch—not that Cauvin would have taken the money—but wouldn’t it have made sense to kill the froggin’ geezer with an Imperial knife, a knife that wouldn’t ever be associated with an Ilsigi assassin or with a Wrigglie, either …?
The Torch had admitted he had enemies, but that was all. The froggin’ geezer hadn’t said a word about the man who’d attacked him, the man he’d killed. Of course, Cauvin hadn’t actually asked any questions. He’d thought about it. Sitting in the common room at the Vulgar Unicorn, Cauvin clearly remembered questions forming, but each time the froggin’ geezer opened his mouth first and Cauvin’s questions—questions that needed answering—went unasked.
He’d have to do better tomorrow … somehow.
As if a sheep-shite stupid stone-smasher could outwit the froggin’ Hero of Sanctuary!
“You’ve come at a bad time—”
Cauvin leapt off the stool, fists at the ready, startling the woman who’d startled him. “Mimise! Sorry,” he sputtered, realizing his mistake. Every head in the room had turned toward them. Cauvin felt like a froggin’ fool and wished the floor would melt beneath his feet.
Mimise closed her eyes with a sigh. “Reenie’s already gone upstairs.”
“For the night?”
Whatever the Vulgar Unicorn had been in the past—and it had been around longer than even Lord Molin Torchholder—these days it was more than a tavern. The wenches who wandered among the tables were freelancers who bought every drink before they served it and picked up extra soldats and shaboozh in upstairs rooms.
Mimise wrinkled her nose. “Don’t think so. Except for his silver, he wasn’t her type. Want I should send a boy up to scratch her door?”
Cauvin shook his head. “I’ll take a chance and wait.”
“Gotta drink, if you’re planning to wait.”
“Which is better tonight, the wine or the ale?”
“Wouldn’t touch the wine ’til the Stick taps a new barrel.”
“Get me a mug of ale, then.” He scooped the silver coin out of his boot.
Mimise dug a fistful of blackened padpols from the crack between her less-than-plump breasts. She took Cauvin’s uncut coin and offered him five irregularly shaped bits in exchange. Three of Mimise’s padpols were larger