Blinking, Gruntle eased slightly straighter on the bench. He leaned close to Harllo. 'What was that about killings?'
'Unexplained murders for four nights running, or something like that. A local problem, though I gather it's past.'
The captain grunted, then settled back once again, trying to ignore the cool sweat now prickling beneath his shirt. They made good time, well ahead of us — that carriage moved with preternatural speed. But it would never have managed Saltoan's streets. Too wide, too high. Must have camped in Waytown. A score of paces from Sunrise Gate. Proof of your convictions, friend Buke?
'I was bored out of my mind, what do you think?' Stonny poured herself another cup of wine. 'Nektara managed to alleviate that, and — if all those sweating hairy faces were any indication — not just for me. You're all pigs.'
'Wasn't us on such public display,' Gruntle said.
'So what? You didn't all have to watch, did you? What if it'd been a baby on my hip and my tit bared?'
'If that,' Harllo said, 'I would have positively stared .'
'You're disgusting.'
'You misunderstand me, dearest. Not your tit — though that would be a fine sight indeed — but you with a baby! Hah, a baby!'
Stonny threw him a sneer.
They were sitting in a back room in the tavern, the leavings of a meal on the table between them.
'In any case,' Gruntle said, sighing, 'that meeting will last the rest of the night, and come the morning our master will be the only one among us privileged to catch up on his sleep — in the comfy confines of his carriage. We've got rooms upstairs with almost-clean beds and I suggest we make use of them.'
'That would be to actually sleep, dearest Stonny,' Harllo explained.
'Rest assured I'll bar the door, runt.'
'Nektara has a secret knock, presumably.'
'Wipe that grin off your face or I'll do it for you, Harllo.'
'How come you get all the fun, anyway?'
She grinned. 'Breeding, mongrel. What I got and you ain't got.'
'Education, too, huh?'
'Precisely.'
A moment later, the door swung open and Keruli entered.
Gruntle leaned back in his chair and eyed the priest. 'So, have you succeeded in recruiting the city's thugs, murderers and extortionists to your cause?'
'More or less,' Keruli replied, striding over to pour himself some wine. 'War, alas,' he sighed, 'must be fought on more than one kind of battlefield. The campaign will be a long one, I fear.'
'Is that why we're headed to Capustan?'
The priest's gaze settled on Gruntle for a moment, then he turned away. 'I have other tasks awaiting me there, Captain. Our brief detour here in Saltoan is incidental, in the great scheme of things.'
And which great scheme is that, Priest? Gruntle wanted to ask, but didn't. His master was beginning to make him nervous, and he suspected that any answer to that question would only make matters worse. No, Keruli, you keep your secrets .
The archway beneath Sunrise Gate was as dark as a tomb, the air chill and damp. Waytown's shanty sprawl was visible just beyond, through a haze of smoke lit gold by the morning sun.
Grainy-eyed and itching with flea bites, Gruntle nudged his horse into an easy trot as soon as he rode into the sunlight. He'd remained in Saltoan, lingering around the Gate for two bells, whilst Harllo and Stonny had driven the carriage and its occupant out of the city a bell before dawn. They would be at least two leagues along the river road, he judged.
Most of the banditry on the first half of this stretch to Capustan was headquartered in Saltoan — the stretch's second half, in Capan territory, was infinitely safer. Spotters hung around Sunrise Gate to mark the caravans heading east, much as he'd seen their counterparts on the west wall at Sunset Gate keeping an eye out for caravans bound for Darujhistan. Gruntle had waited to see if any local packs had made plans for Keruli's party, but no-one had set out in pursuit, confirming the master's assertion that safe passage had been guaranteed. It wasn't in Gruntle's nature to take thieves at their word, however.
He worked his horse into a canter to escape Waytown's clouds of flies and, flanked by half-wild, barking dogs, rode clear of the shanty-town and onto the open, rocky river road. Vision Plain's gently rolling prairie reached out to the distant Barghast Range on his left. To his right was a rough bank of piled stones — mostly overgrown with grasses — and beyond it the reedy flats of the river's floodplain.