The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [69]
The wagon-driver gave him a grin that split a straggly beard to show a few gaps where teeth should be and replied, "Folks who has money rot."
"Money rot?"
"Aye; them who think about coins and think more about 'em and finally go mad when they get enough. Their brains rot, and they get all sorts of funny ideas-some always to do with how to show everyone else how rich they are by spending money on things the rest of us've got too much sense to waste good coin on-like scented bathing oil."
The boatmaster let out a bark of laughter. "A clever mouth on you, Jorl!"
The wagon-driver struck a preening pose and then cocked his head, took a step along the dock and said, "Ah, that'll be our missing wagon. Baerlus can move when I tell him to."
"Tell him the right way, I'll bet," the boatmaster snorted. "Here, help me with the lashing-lines, in yon roof box. Hold's full, o' course."
"Aye," Jorl agreed good-naturedly, holding up his hands to catch the lines the boatmaster tossed. He hooked the well-used ropes down securely as they came; they held down the crockery long jugs in rows across the cabin roof, so that hopefully not more than a handful would crack on the voyage downriver. Baerlus had brought the proper coins and two sleepy-eyed jacks to help in the loading, so both wagons were rumbling away in a surprisingly short time.
Craer watched them turn a corner and disappear before he led his three companions to the boat's boarding plank, but he hadn't seen Jorl slip down off one wagon and step into an alley.
The wagon driver peered between two crazily stacked crates. Aye, these must be the four he'd been told to look out for, right enough: three men and an imperious woman-with one of the men short and weasel-like and another a muscular giant of a swordswinger-even if they didn't quite match the descriptions the wizard's voice had snarled at him out of his shaving-mirror this morn.
Jorl smiled. Scented bathing oil, indeed. Baerlus had wasted a little cheap perfume out of the warehouse stock by sprinkling a bottle's worth over the long jugs now festooning the cabin roof… but inside those jugs sloshed the usual old cooking oil. A right good thing he'd caught sight of the four before loading proper swig-worthy beer aboard; 'twould be a pity to lose that. After all, if one was to keep both neck and position-as Baron Silvertree's chief factor in Adeln, responsible for nigh twenty thousand falcons in profit this last summer, let the good baron not forget-intact, one had to watch where the copper wheels rolled to, hmm?
After all, these little unforeseen expenses kept arising. A trusty boatmaster and his boat, too, for instance. Ah, well. All lives and cozy arrangements must end sometime…
Jorl smiled. The little weasel of a procurer-well, maybe he looked more like a spider, now that he was moving around a bit-was peering around to make sure no one had noticed that he'd hired a boat to slip out of Adeln before dawn. Clever dog.
But not, of course, clever enough to get ahead of the baron's best factor. Jorl's smile widened, in the instant before he turned and hurried off to do some hiring of his own.
He'd always liked the hangings in this part of Castle Silvertree. Klamantle waved to the perpetually astonished centauress in his favorite scene, winked at the saucy courtesan leaning out from her balcony in the next hanging, murmured "Temptress!" to the lady bard with the runes painted all up one bared thigh who featured in a third scene, and strode on to his chambers, humming his satisfaction aloud.
"A clever lad, our Klamantle," he told the door to his rooms grandly, and slipped through the faint tingling of the ward spell that ensured his privacy-even against such powerful mages as Spellmaster Ambelter. Its familiar chiming told him it had not been disturbed, which meant that it was safe to gloat at last!
Klamantle threw back his head and laughed aloud. He'd managed to slip a phrase into the shielding incantation that made him-and him alone, not Ingryl Ambelter-able to trace, when