Murillio leaned close to him. “Something wrong, friend?”
“Guild business,” Rallick replied. “You thirsty?”
Murillio grinned. “An offer I can't refuse.”
After a single, bemused glance at Coll's unconscious form, slumped in the chair, the assassin left the table. What had all that been about five black dragons? He made his way to the bar. As he pushed through the crowd, he gave one youth a hard elbow to the back. The boy gasped, then surreptitiously slipped towards the kitchen.
Rallick arrived, called Scurve over, then ordered another pitcher.
Though he did not look the man's way, he knew he'd been marked by him. It was no more than a feeling, but one he'd learned to trust. He sighed as Scurve delivered the foaming pitcher. Well, he'd done what Ocelot had demanded of him, though he suspected his Clan Leader would be asking for more.
He returned to the table and conversed with Murillio for a time, plying his friend with the majority of the ale. Murillio sensed a growing tension around Rallick and took his cue. He drained the last of his drink and rose. “Well,” he said, “Kruppe's scurried off, Crokus too. And Coll's once again dead to the world. Rallick, I thank you for the ale. Time to find a warm bed. Until the morrow, then.”
Rallick remained seated for another five minutes, only once brushing gazes with the black man leaning against the bar. Then he rose and strode into the kitchen. The two cooks rolled their eyes at each other as he strode past. Rallick. ignored them. He came to the door, which had been left ajar in hopes of a cooling draught. The alley beyond was wet, though the rain had passed. From a shadowed recess on the wall opposite the inn stepped a familiar figure.
Rallick walked up to Ocelot. “It's done. Your man is the big black one nursing an ale. Two daggers, hatch-marked. He looks mean and not one I'd like to tussle with. He's all yours, Ocelot.”
The man's pocked face twisted. “He's still inside? Good. Head back in. Make sure you've been noticed-damn sure, Nom.”
Rallick crossed his arms. “I'm sure already,” he drawled.
“You're to draw him out, lead him into Tarlow's warehouse-into the loading grounds.” Ocelot sneered. “Vorcan's orders, Nom. And when you head out, do it by the front door No mistakes, nothing subtle.”
“The man's an assassin,” Rallick grated. “If I'm not subtle he'll know it's a trap and crawl all over me in seconds flat.”
“You do as Vorcan wills, Nom. Now get back inside!”
Rallick stared at his commander, to make his disgust plain, then returned to the kitchen. The cooks grinned at him, but only for moment. One look at Rallick's face was enough to kill any humour in the room. They bent to their tasks as if prodded by a landmaster.
Rallick entered the main room, then stopped dead in his tracks “Damn,” he muttered. The black man was gone. Now what? He shrugged. “Front door it is.” He made his way through the crowd.
In an alley, on one side of which ran a high stone wall, Crokus leaned against the damp bricks of a merchant's house and gazed steadily at a window. It was on the third floor, beyond the wall, and behind it shuttered face was a room he knew intimately.
There'd been a light on inside for most of the two hours he'd stood below, but for the last fifteen minutes the room within had been dark.
Numb with exhaustion and plagued with doubts, Crokus pulled his cloak tighter around him. He wondered what he was doing here, and not for the first time. All his resolve seemed to have drained into the gutters along with the rain.
Had it been the dark-haired woman in the Phoenix Inn? Had she rattled him that much? The blood on her dagger made it obvious that she wouldn't hesitate to kill him just to keep her secret intact. Maybe it was the spinning coin that had him so confused. Nothing about that incident had been natural.
What was so wrong with his dream of being introduced to the D'Arle maiden? It had nothing to do with that killer woman in the bar.
“Nothing,” he mumbled, then scowled. Now he was talking aloud to himself.
A thought came to him that deepened his scowl. Everything had begun its mad unravelling the night he'd robbed the maiden. If only he hadn't paused, if only he hadn't looked upon her soft, round, lovely face.
A groan escaped him, and he shifted his feet. A high-born. That was the real problem, wasn't it?
It all seemed so stupid now, so absurd. How could he have convinced himself that such a thing as meeting her was possible? He shook himself.
It didn't matter, he'd planned this, now it was time to do it.
