The Brazen Gambit Read Online Free PDF Page B

"Itinerants: 'Come today and gone away. Come
again? Who knows when?'"
    "They registered last night at Modekan."
    Coincidence? Pavek felt an invisible noose settle around his neck. He gulped; it didn't budge. Modekan was
another of the villages that lent its name to one of Urik's ten market days. Today, in fact, was Modekan's day.
    Coincidence? Not unless his luck had suddenly gotten a lot better.
    King Hamanu didn't like surprises in his city. The massive walls and gates were more than convenient places to
carve his portrait. Nobody came into Urik without registering at one of the outlying villages. Nobody brought a draft
beast into the city; the streets were crowded enough with people, and hard enough on that account to keep clean.
Nobody stayed inside the city after the gates were closed at sunset unless they paid a poll tax or could prove
residence.
    The great merchants paid the tax. For them, it was a pittance. Just about everyone else, including itinerants,
stopped in a market village, stabled their beasts, announced their intent to visit the city to a civil bureau registrator
conveniently assigned to the village inn, and then set out for Urik the following morning.
    He assessed the angle of the morning sun streaming onto Metica's worktable. If he assumed the itinerants had
set out from Modekan at dawn and weren't crippled, they should be approaching the gates right about now. He'd
rather lose every thread of orange and crimson in his sleeves than poke his nose into Rokka's affairs, but he owed
Metica. She'd made that perfectly dear.
    "How many? Names? Descriptions?" He hoped for anything that might give him a chance to get out of this
without earning the dwarf for an enemy.
    "Three. One female, two males. A cart, four amphorae- large clay jugs with pointed bottoms-filled with zarneeka.
They should be easy to spot coming through the gate."
    Pavek supposed he should be grateful that the registrator had recorded so much extra information. He wondered,
idly, how much Metica paid for that extra knowledge. And whether she'd told him everything she'd bought. "Anything
else?"
    The administrator pretended not to hear the question, instead of answering she selecting a stick of ordinary
sap-wax from a supply in an expensive wooden box. She sparked, a little oil lamp-also expensive-and held the wax in its
flame until it softened and shone. Pavek watched with morbid fascination. Metica was preparing to give him an
impression of her personal seal.
    He could think of worse omens... maybe...
If he tried hard.
    Metica rehooked her cylindrical seal onto the thong around her neck, where it hung beside her gold-edged
medallion. She blew on the impressed wax to hasten its hardening, and smiled sweetly at her debtor.
    Pavek held his breath.
    "The amphorae are bonded-sealed at their point of origin. Be careful when you break them open. Take this to the
gate-" She held out the molded lump of wax. It was about as long as Pavek's thumb and half as thick. He took it like a
death sentence. "You're clever, Regulator. You'll think of something. Don't forget who you're working for. I'll be waiting
for you tomorrow."
    "I'm off tomorrow," he replied, feeling like a fool as the words left his mouth.
    Her smile grew broader, showed teeth filed down to sharp, precise points. Pavek had never noticed his
taskmaster's teeth before, but then, he'd never seen her smile like this before.
    "Then the day after tomorrow. You'll know twice as much by then, won't you?"
    Sap-wax didn't hold a sharp image for more than a day in the oppressive Athasian heat. The way Pavek's hands
were sweating, the impression would be gone by the time he got to the gate. He quickly tucked the wax into the slit
hem of his sleeve. When the wax was out of harm's way, he got to his feet. He was at the threshold when he
remembered the messenger.
    "The girl you sent. She asked me to put in a good word for her."
    "And do you?"
    "Yeah-she'll make a fine regulator