Closer to the Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

who’d pawned their tools and had the money to redeem them could do so before hurrying off to a job.
    This meant subterfuge, of course. Mags went down into Haven as a Herald, and left Dallen at the stables at a Guard post. Then he left the post by means of a tunnel under the street, and emerged in a back room at a tavern, where he became Harkon. Harkon staggered out, giving a convincing imitation of a man who had been drinking all night and needed to sober himself up before facing his uncle—stopping at a cookshop for a mug of tea so strong the spoon should have melted, at another for a second, not quite as strong, and at an apothecary for a dose of his “Sovereign Remedy.” By the time he got to the pawn shop, he was apparently sober enough to evade the Weasel’s wrath.
    The shop was already open, and as Mags entered, a fellow in a carpenter’s apron was just finishing redeeming his tools. The man hurried out with a nod to the “nephew,” as Nikolas—aka “Willy the Weasel”—grunted and unlocked the door into the protected part of the shop.
    Even if you had known that “Willy the Weasel” was the same person as Herald Nikolas, it would have taken a trained eye to see the Herald in the pawnshop owner. The Weasel’s greasy, graying hair straggled down his back in a most untidy manner, he had an unattractive squint, and his mouth wasalways primmed up tightly, as if he was afraid to give away so much as a word. If anything, the Weasel was
very
memorable, as opposed to Herald Nikolas, who was so very ordinary that if it had not been for his Heraldic Whites, he would have faded into the background of any crowd.
    The shop was really two rooms; the front part held the bulkier, heavier, or more inexpensive items on shelves all around it; the back part, behind a wall so sturdy it could have been a jail cell, had a locked door and a barred window, through which the pawnbrokers conducted their business. That part of the shop held all the valuable stuff, and, of course, the cashbox.
    â€œSee, Stef turned up like ’e promised, nuncle,” Mags said, locking the door behind him and taking Nikolas’s place on the stool so that the “Weasel” could drop into a far more comfortable chair that stood behind it.
:Have you been told about the circus we’re to put on?:
    â€œLe’s ’ope ’is work’s more reliable this time,” Nikolas growled. “’E’s got ’alf ’is ’ousehold on our shelves. I’d be best pleased t’clear ’is trash out.”
:I had breakfast with Kyril, so yes.:
Nikolas shook his head imperceptibly.
:I can’t make up my mind if it’s the idea of a genius or a disaster in the making.:
    â€œCould use th’ space,” Mags agreed, carefully counting out the money in the drawer under the counter. This was routine. Every time someone new took over the window, he was supposed to count the money.
:Amily and I decided last night that we aren’t taking any chances. We’re going to pop off quietly to a priest when we both have a free morning or an afternoon and just
do
the thing. We know half a dozen holy folk who’d tie the knot for us without a second thought, and neither of us care much who is the deity in charge. That way, when the disaster looms, at least we’ll already be shackled and it won’t matter to
us
if the thing falls apart, or gets stormed out ofexistence, or gets raided by bandits . . . or any of a thousand other things goes wrong.:
    Nikolas blinked at him blankly for a moment, then covered it by half-lidding his eyes and tucking his chin down as if he was about to take a nap.
:I take back everything I ever said about you being an idiot,:
he replied, with a mental chuckle.
:Am I invited?:
    :How could I dare say no? I’m not anxious to be knifed in the dark by my father-in-law.:
    A very faint chuckle emerged from the “drowsing”