The White Road - Lynn Flewelling [133]
Ulan gathered the trembling man in a fatherly embrace. "How many times have you wished to repay my kindness? Do this for me, Ilar, for the love you bear me. Just be quiet, and things should go as planned."
Ilar nodded, though he still looked terrified. "I won't fail you."
CHAPTER 29
Paths Cross
SEREGIL and the others spent that day and the next exploring the seaside district, taking note of potential hiding places in abandoned buildings and accessible cellars, and the layout of the streets. The new inn where Micum had taken a room was just two streets way from Ulan's villa, and had a spacious slave pen in the back, the door held by nothing but a stout bar; Micum was no hand at picking locks. For the time being, Seregil, Alec, and Rieser were the only ones there. There was no heat, but the straw was deep and clean and Micum saw to it that they had blankets and passable food.
Leaving his slaves behind, Micum went out to taverns each night, seeking information about Ulan's habits. He'd done this sort of nightrunning innumerable times over the years. He enjoyed the challenge of finding the right tosspot to coax information from. Most folks he talked to here didn't pay the Viresse any mind, though some allowed that Ulan was a fine man to trade with, except for being Aurenfaie. There was one well-dressed fellow, a cloth merchant, who confirmed what Micum had learned at Viresse: that Ulan i Sathil bought back slaves taken from the Viresse and the Golinil fai'thasts, and that he had bought the majority of them from Charis Yhakobin before the alchemist's murder. A few more men gathered around them when they overheard the name.
"That was the first slave killing in years," one of the old ones told him. "It's made a lot of masters take sterner measures with their own slaves, especially the males. And in the markets there's more call now for little ones that you can train up right. The slavers can hardly keep up with the demand."
Micum also learned that the Viresse 'faie kept carefully to themselves here in Riga, never ventured out unless in an armed group, and even then seldom at night and never to anywhere like a tavern. Not everyone respected the treaty between Plenimar and Viresse. As several of Micum's drinking companions were glad to tell him, once you got their head rags off and got a brand and collar on, who could tell one 'faie from another? And who was going to take the word of a slave if they tried to tell? A mile or two inland no one gave a damn about Viresse; a slave was a slave and they all lied.
He returned the second night to find Seregil and Alec in the midst of an argument made up of hand signs and whispers.
"What's going on?" Micum asked.
"He says I'm not going in!" Alec whispered, and it was clear it was an effort to keep his voice down.
"Why?"
"We were nearly caught last time," Seregil told him. "If he gets you and the book?" He gave Alec a meaningful look that was half order, half plea. "It's too risky."
In the end Alec gave in, but he wasn't happy about it.
One more day and Rhal should be there to meet them. That night, Micum waited until the house was asleep, then took up a pack and stole out to the slave pen. He lifted the bar as quietly as he could and let the other three out. Behind them, Micum could just make out two bodies prone on the thick straw that covered the floor. Another man with slaves had come to the inn that afternoon.
"Quick, the rope!" Seregil hissed. Micum pulled it from the pack and Seregil cut four short lengths of it. He and Alec quickly tied up the unconscious slaves. That done, they gagged them both with rags.
"I hate to do that to them," Alec murmured as they stole away from the inn. "They have a hard enough life as it is."
"There's no help for it," Seregil said.
The groom in the stable woke while they were saddling their horses, but a quiet word from Micum and a coin or two was enough to make him think they were getting an early start on a long ride.
They made their way to a small side