The Sword-Edged blonde - Страница 4

Доступ к книге ограничен фрагменом по требованию правообладателя.

“Are you offering to bribe me?” she demanded, her voice loud with false outrage. The Fechinians behind me began to murmur, and the customs guard looked up, suddenly interested at the possibility of action.

I just looked at her. She was only the latest in a lengthy roll of corrupt minor officials I’d encountered, and I’d learned long ago that the best thing to threaten them with was a break in the routine that would mean more work and uncomfortable explanations. Finally she scratched her forehead with two fingers, and I put two coins down when I bent to sign my pass. She stamped it with a wax seal, palming the money in the same motion. “This is good for three days. If the sun rises on the fourth day and finds you here, you’ll be subject to arrest and immediate death by hanging.”

“If I’m still here in four days, I’ll hang myself,” I said, and pushed through the narrow opening past the guard. He tried to trip me, but instead I locked his ankle with my own and threw him off-balance. He didn’t fall, but he stumbled back into the fat woman who snapped in annoyance, “Harry, will you watch it, please? My hair.”

THREE

Pema was what Neceda would be if King Archibald gave a rat’s ass about anything beyond his castle walls and let real businessmen flourish. People and wagons traveled in unbroken lines in both directions on the cobblestoned main street. Every other building seemed to be a tavern, and most of those were also whorehouses; these would attract the newcomers, and if that didn’t hold them, the gaming houses waited a little further down the street. Past them, though, would be the real rough part of town, home to the folks who made their living off the weary and unguarded travelers and knew how to slip across the border without niceties like travel papers. If they were in town, this was where I’d find my princess-snatching border thugs. If they weren’t, a little money might grease someone’s memory about where they could be found.

I appeared suitably bad-assed with my sword and general scruff, so I had not bothered with a disguise. I tossed my saddlebags over my shoulder and kept my eyes resolutely ahead. I knew what a real potential victim looked like, so I didn’t look like one unless I meant to.

I passed an alley, and caught a peripheral glimpse of a mugging in progress. I considered aiding the victim, but he slammed one of the tough guys against the wall, and I heard the snick sound of a knife, followed by the wet gurgle of a cut throat. He whirled on the other mugger, dagger ready. He seemed to have it under control.

I’d gone half a block before I had the odd feeling that I knew the mugging victim from somewhere. I backtracked, but by then the whole encounter was over, and the alley was empty except for the sprawled body of one of the attackers.

The edge of town, and the businesses that catered to its denizens, was the first place to start looking for the kind of cocky border raiders who might kidnap a princess. I checked three disreputable and dangerous taverns before I reached a low-roofed building with only the words RUM and GIRLS painted on its sign. A pair of torches blazed on poles just outside the entrance. A dozen horses stood tied to the hitching posts, and from the size of their shitpiles, some of them had been there awhile. All had worn saddles and tack, but they’d been modified and personalized the way you do when you want to show off.

This rum joint had one big main room, with a small kitchen and stock area blocked off in the back. A bar ran the length of the wall to my left, and about ten small tables filled the open floor space. A bunch of those tables had been pulled together in the back corner, and were occupied by the owners of the horses. The hanging oil lamps along that stretch of the wall had been extinguished, creating a pool of relative darkness; I couldn’t see them, but I knew at least some of them would check me out as soon as I walked through the door.

I let my shoulders slump and my gut stick out (easier to do the older I got) so I would appear no more than a poor weary traveler anxious for a drink and maybe a quick roll with one of the working girls. I shuffled to the bar and took an empty stool on the end. It wasn’t the best vantage place, since it kept my back to the door, but if I’d chosen a better one, I might’ve given myself away. If I squinted, I had a pretty good view of the room in the long, smoke-stained mirror.

I counted ten big rough-looking hard boys in need of haircuts and shaves. They were armed with swords and knives, including some big two-hander blades that, if their wielders could actually lift them, would slice through a cow. A quick count of the empty mugs on the tables told me they’d been drinking a while, and that might take the edge off their skill. I wasn’t going to bet on it, though.

“What’ll you have, pal?” the bartender asked. Tattoos ran down his arms and his right eyelid drooped.

“Cheapest rum you got,” I said, sounding like I’d been on the road for weeks. “I’m on a tight budget.”

“Cheapest I got’ll take off varnish,” he said.

I shrugged. I had no intention of drinking it anyway. “Challenges make you a better person.” He nodded and went to pour the drink.

I checked out the women milling around the tough guys. Like bars, bar whores tended to be the same everywhere. If they were under twenty-five, they still had that little hint of hope that some shining knight would rescue them from their life of degradation and despair. Over that age, they were either resigned to their fate, or they actually enjoyed the job and thus were always the happiest people in the room.

Five ladies sought the attention of the men in the corner. Three of them were not young enough to be my missing princess. The fourth had a bit too much flesh spilling over her bodice.

The last one sat demurely next to a big man who, in the dimness, looked familiar. I put it down as a trick of the firelight; although it wasn’t impossible, the chances that I really knew the guy were pretty slim.

The bartender brought my drink, and I nonchalantly turned to survey the room, the way any traveler would. The demure girl’s face wasn’t any clearer from this angle, but she had the right kind of hair and looked about the right age to be my missing princess. Travelers from Gurius, Balaton’s capital, might stop in here; it was pretty ballsy of these guys to bring their prisoner into a bar where she might be recognized, even dressed like a farm girl come to town.

At that moment the girl raised her head and said something to the man next to her. Damn if it wasn’t her all right, Princess Lila of the Royal House of Balaton. She looked only slightly the worse for wear, although some kinds of wear wouldn’t show. The man turned to answer her, and suddenly I knew why he had looked familiar, and why the princess had run away.

Lila stood and walked a bit unsteadily toward the door that led to the outhouses, clearly unused to whatever she’d been drinking. The man watched her the whole way.

I guess I wasn’t as smooth as I thought, because the bartender suddenly appeared and cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t stare at Ryan’s girl if I was you,” he said.

“If he don’t want people to look, he shouldn’t bring her to town,” I said gruffly. I made myself take a sip of my drink for effect, and immediately wished I hadn’t. It burned all the way down.

“I’ll make sure they put that on your headstone,” the bartender said, and walked away.

I gave the princess time to get settled on her throne, then threw down the rest of the drink and got to my feet. I hoped no one saw how red my face turned from the rum; I couldn’t drink like a young man anymore.

I went out the same door, and in the moonlight saw four outhouses in a row at the end of a narrow stone walkway. Three of them were unoccupied; I threw open the door to the fourth.

Lila looked up sharply from her seat, and her eyes widened in surprise when she realized I was a man. One eye didn’t widen as much as the other, due to the puffy, fading bruise around it. I said, “So this is the real story behind the ‘Princess and the Pea.’ ”

“Who the hell are you?” she cried. She tried to pull down her skirt without standing. Then, more in control, she said, “There’s three empty ones, you know.”

“No, I’m in the right spot, Lila.”

She froze, and glared at me. “I’m not going back,” she said through her teeth.

“Yeah, I figured you’d say that.” I wearily scratched my beard. “So who gave you the shiner?”

“Who do you think?” she muttered. “Would you mind turning around so I can get decent?”

“I didn’t get to be this old turning my back on people. You just go ahead, I promise I won’t enjoy it.” And I didn’t. Battered children don’t do a thing for me.

While she adjusted her pantaloons and skirts I said, “So I guess we have a dilemma.”

“I’m not going back,” she repeated. The bruise around her eye looked about three weeks old, right around the time she disappeared. “You can kill me, but you can’t take me back to that place.”

I hadn’t quite made up my mind how to proceed, but there was no need for her to know that. “I’ve already taken some of their money.”

She reached for a pouch at her waist. “I can pay you twice what they did—”