“A reliable man,” Norry said, watching the Guardsman leave. “Afrim Hansard. He served your mother faithfully, and knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
“Chains?’ Elayne said.
“This is Samwil Hark, my Lady,” Norry said, eyeing the man with the sort of curiosity he might have shown toward an unfamiliar and oddly shaped animal, “a remarkably successful cutpurse. The Guards only caught him because another ruffian . . . um . . . ‘turned the cat on him,’ as they say in the streets, hoping to lessen his own sentence for a third offense of strongarm robbery.” A thief would be eager for that. Not only was the flogging longer, the thief-mark branded on his forehead would be much harder to disguise or hide than the mark on his thumb for his second offense. “Anyone who has managed to keep from being caught for as long as Master Hark should be able to carry out the task I have in mind for him.”
“I’m innocent, I am, my Lady.” Hark knuckled his forehead, the iron chains of his fetters clinking, and put on an ingratiating smile. He talked very quickly. “It’s all lies and happenstances, it is. I’m a good Queen’s man, I am. I wore your mother’s colors in the riots, my Lady. Not that I took part in the rioting, you understand. I’m a clerk when I have work, which I’m out of at the moment. But I wore her colors on my cap for all to see, I did.” The bond was full of Birgitte’s skepticism.
“Master Hark’s rooms contained chests full of neatly cut purses,” the First Clerk went on. “There are thousands of them, my Lady. Quite literally thousands. I suppose he may regret keeping . . . um . . . trophies. Most cutpurses have sense enough to get rid of the purse as soon as possible.”
“1 picks them up when I sees one, I does, my Lady.” Hark spread his hands as far as his chains allowed and shrugged, the very image of injured innocence. “Maybe it were foolish, but I never saw no harm. Just a harmless sort of amusement, my Lady.”
Mistress Harfor sniffed loudly, disapproval clear on her face. Hark managed to look even more hurt.
“His rooms also contained coins to the value of over one hundred twenty gold crowns, secreted under the floorboards, in cubbyholes in the walls, in the rafters, everywhere. His excuse for that,” Norry raised his voice as Hark opened his mouth again, “is that he distrusts bankers. He claims the money is an inheritance from an aged aunt in Four Kings. I myself very much doubt the magistrates in Four Kings will have registered such an inheritance, though. The magistrate judging his case says he seemed surprised to learn that inheritances are registered.” Indeed, Hark’s smile faded somewhat at being reminded. “He says that he worked for Wilbin Saems, a merchant, until Saems’ death four months ago, but Master Saems’ daughter maintains the business, and neither she nor any of the other clerks recall any Samwil Hark.”
“They hates me, they does, my Lady,” Hark said in a sullen voice. His hands gripped the chain between them in fists. “I was gathering evidence of how they was stealing from the good master—his own daughter, mind!—only he died afore I could give it to him, and I was turned out in the streets without a reference or a penny, I was. They burned what I’d gathered, gave me a drubbing and threw me out.”
Elayne tapped her chin thoughtfully. “A clerk, you say. Most clerks are better spoken than you, Master Hark, but I’ll offer you a chance to give evidence for your claim. Would you send for a lapdesk, Master Norry?”
Norry gave a thin smile. How could the man make a smile seem dry? “No need, my Lady. The magistrate in the case had the same idea.” For the first time that she had ever seen, he took a sheet of paper from the folder clutched to his chest. She thought trumpets should sound! Hark’s smile faded away completely as his eyes followed that page from Norry’s hand to hers.
One glance was all that was needed. A few uneven lines covered less than half the sheet, the letters cramped and awkward. No more than half a dozen words were actually legible, and those barely.
“Hardly the hand of a clerk,” she murmured. Returning the page to Norry, she tried to make her face stern. She had seen her mother passing judgment. Morgase had been able to make herself appear implacable. “I fear, Master Hark, that you will sit in a cell until the magistrates in Four Kings can be queried, and soon after that you will hang.” Hark’s lips writhed, and he put a hand to his throat as if he could already feel the noose. “Unless, of course, you agree to follow a man for me. A dangerous man who doesn’t like to be followed. If you can tell me where he goes at night, instead of hanging, you will be exiled to Baerlon. Where you would be well advised to find a new line of work. The governor will be informed of you.”
Suddenly Hark’s smile was back. “Of course, my Lady. I’m innocent, but I can see how things look dark against me, I can. I’ll follow any man you want me to. I was your mother’s man, I was, and I’m your man, too. Loyal is what I am, my Lady, loyal if I suffers for it.” Birgitte snorted derisively.
“Arrange for Master Hark to see Mellar’s face without being seen, Birgitte.” The man was unmemorable, but there was no point in taking chances. “Then turn him loose.” Hark looked ready to dance, iron chains or no iron chains. “But first. . . . You see this, Master Hark?” She held up her right hand so he could not miss the Great Serpent ring. “You may have heard that I am Aes Sedai.” With the Power already in her, it was a simple matter to weave Spirit. “It is true.” The weave she laid on Hark’s belt buckle, his boots, his coat and breeches, was somewhat akin to that for the Warder bond, though much less complex. It would fade from the clothing and boots in a few weeks, or months at best, but metal would hold a Finder forever. “I’ve laid a weave on you, Master Hark. Now you can be found wherever you are.” In truth, only she would be able to find him—a Finder was attuned to the one who wove it—but there was no reason to tell him that. “Just to be sure that you are indeed loyal.”
Hark’s smile seemed frozen in place. Sweat beaded on his forehead. When Birgitte went to the door and called in Hansard, giving him instructions to take Hark away and keep him safe from prying eyes, Hark staggered and would have fallen if the husky Guardsman had not held him up on the way out of the room.
“I fear I may just have given Mellar a sixth victim,” Elayne muttered. “He hardly seems capable of following his own shadow without tripping over his boots.” It was not so much Hark’s death she regretted. The man would have hanged for sure. “I want whoever put that bloody man in my palace. I want them so badly my teeth ache!” The palace was riddled with spies—Reene had uncovered above a dozen beyond Skellit, though she believed that was all of them—but whether Mellar had been set to spy or to facilitate kidnapping her, he was worse than the others. He had arranged for men to die, or he had killed them, in order to gain his place. That those men had thought they were to kill her made no diff
