The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [154]
There was a silversmith in Cerrmor who did business with the silver daggers. Even though he couldn’t make the daggers themselves, he was known for giving a fair price for battle loot and making decent repairs to ordinary weapons. His shop was the smallest and shabbiest on the street of the silversmiths, which ran down by the river but a good ways north of the Bilge; yet for all the squalor of the peeling wooden sign and filthy whitewash of the walls, when Jill pushed open the door, a string of beautifully crafted silver bells rang a sweet warning. She found herself in a narrow slice of the round house and faced with another door in a stout wooden wall. In a few moments, a stork-skinny bent-shouldered youngish man came out through it.
“And what can I do for you, silver dagger? Got somewhat to sell?”
“I don’t, but I might be in the market to buy—information, that is. Have the gwerbret’s men been in here, asking you about a man named Rhodry of Aberwyn?”
“They have, and of course I’ve told them I never laid eyes on him.”
“You were lying, I take it.”
“Of course. He was in here not more than two nights ago, asking me about herbmen. I recommended a good one that I know, and he slipped out the back way. He knew that the wardens were on the prowl after him.”
Jill swore under her breath.
“Here, good smith, if you see Rhodry again, for the love of the gods, tell him to go to the gwerbret. He’s not been accused of any crime, no matter what he thinks. Tell him that the woman he’s looking for is under Ladoic’s protection.”
It was the smith’s turn for oaths.
“I would’ve told His Grace’s men if I’d known that! But Rhodry tells me that he’s been accused of taking someone’s head, and cursed if he’ll lose his own over it, so of course I lied for him.”
“Honorable of you.” Jill meant it quite sincerely. “But that’s torn it, then. Here, don’t you think it’s passing strange that every man in the rhan is looking for him and he hasn’t turned up?”
“He must have left, I suppose.”
“Maybe. Suppose you wanted to hire a couple of lads to get someone out of the way. Where would you go in the Bilge?”
“I see what you mean.” The smith sucked his teeth for a few moments while he thought. “How come you’re so interested in all of this?”
“He’s a friend of mine. We rode on a couple of hires together. If somewhat’s happened to him. I’ll want vengeance for it—any silver dagger would.” She took two silver pieces out of the pouch hanging from her belt. “I’ll pay for the information.”
“I won’t take your coin, because I don’t know anything for certain, but I’ve heard that there’s a tavern in the Bilge called the Red Man. Supposedly if you ask the right questions there, you can hire anyone for anything.”
“And if you ask the wrong ones?”
The smith smiled and pantomimed running a knife across his throat.
After she left the shop, Jill spent some time wandering the streets while she planned out her visit to the Bilge. Even without the smith’s warning, she knew quite well that no one simply barged into the Bilge and started asking questions. She found a little open space around a public well and sat down on a wooden bench to think. Even the denizens of the Bilge were afraid of silver daggers, who avenged any murdered member of their band. On the other hand, if they thought her set to avenge Rhodry, they might well eliminate her first and worry about other silver daggers later. But of course Rhodry wasn’t dead. Suddenly she realized that she had a move in this ugly game of gwyddbwcl: since he wasn’t dead, the Bilge knew it, too. Once she let them know she knew, the rules would change.
When she started for the Bilge, she took a detour to a leatherworker’s shop that she’d noticed earlier. She found the owner sitting cross-legged on a table, pieces of a saddlebag around him as he stitched. In the corner of the room a dirty child of three played with a pair of puppies, and from the back room came the smell of cooking and the sound of a crying baby.