The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [139]
Of course, Fay remembered their quarry's description (brown-haired northerner, six feet tall, gray eyes, thirty-two but looks younger, slight right limp) word for word, despite only working operation support today, reporting directly to the blind beggar who worked recognition. Of course, she had no idea that the blind beggar was the Vice-Director for Operations himself, just like she had no knowledge of the stern warning Jacuzzi had received the day before – that if his Tangorn-catching venture did not bear fruit within a day, he would not get away with just being fired without a pension. With a piercing "Water, water, cold water with ice!" the girl slipped expertly into the crowd, trying to figure out who had attracted the chief's attention.
A cart loaded with what appeared to be sacks of corn was just entering the dam. A tall slender mountain man of about twenty-eight to thirty led a couple of mules pulling it; the gap between his raspberry fez and the pavement was exactly the required six feet. As for everything else… even discounting the lack of a limp (which could have been a distractive ruse like her erstwhile black eye), the man's eyes were definitely not gray. What about the sacks? The sacks are a serious possibility, which is why the baron has no hopes there. To get past the dam in a barrel or a sack is too obvious a move; it is so overused, banal, and ridiculed that its very kitschiness might tempt Tangorn, who is known for his paradoxical solutions. This is why the customs inspectors are working especially hard today (a rumor about undercover Treasury auditors had been planted among them), and a specially trained dog surreptitiously checks every single cart (which move very slowly because of the road repairs).
Having thus ruled out both the sacks and their owner, Fay glanced sharply at a team of mounted gendarmes with their catch – six mountain men chained in pairs – that had cut into the line ("Watch out! Move back – want some whip?"), made sure they looked all right and looked beyond them. Ah, so that's it!
A group of Hakimian pilgrims returning home from Shavar-Shavan – a traditional threeweek pilgrimage to one of their mountain shrines. About thirty people with their faces hooded as a sign of contrition, almost a half of them either epileptics or handicapped, including lameness. A truly ideal cover – even if they recognize the baron (practically impossible), how will they extract him from the crowd of pilgrims? By force, employing the team of 'road workers?' That will start a melee that doesn't bear thinking about, not to mention a possible deadly clash between Hakimians and Aritanians tomorrow in the city. Entice him to move aside? How? These thoughts almost caused Fay to miss the moment when 'her' blind man got up, yielding his lucrative spot to another member of the beggars guild, and followed the pilgrims, his cane clacking on the pavement; this meant that he had recognized Tangorn with certainty.
A few moments later Fay morphed from a water-carrier into a guide. The two mountain men that together with the hapless caravan-bashi had been ogling the dancer were following a little behind (one of them was Ras-Shua, DSD's resident spy on the Peninsula), followed by a strange group of two shady-looking young men and a worn customs official. Lunch time had arrived for the road workers; they began heading into