“From Putnam?” The guard squinted suspiciously at the raised lettering around the sword and leaf pattern that was Putnam’s seal. “Ye en’t from Lind?”
The question shouldn’t have surprised Dallin, but it did. “Used to be.”
The guard tilted a skeptical stare at first Dallin, then Wil. “What’s yer business in Chester?”
“Our business is not yours.” Dallin pushed all his years of command into his tone. “But we would be happy to discuss it with your superior, if you feel it necessary. Of course, then we might find it equally necessary to explain how, at least in Putnam, we don’t growl at visiting colleagues and attempt to manhandle them at the gates.”
In truth, Putnam had no gates, and all visiting officers were required to check in at the constabulary and explain their business upon arrival within the city’s limits, but this man didn’t need to know that.
The guard glared but backed down a touch. He eyed Wil up and down, gaze going half-lidded with a knowing little smirk, but he addressed his next question to Dallin. “Yer little, uh… lad got a badge?”
Dallin’s jaw clenched. He’d used the wrong approach—he’d been looking for instant respect when he’d pushed authority into his demand, but what he’d got was instant jealousy and hatred. And since Dallin was too big to bully and had a badge that outranked the guard’s, the man chose Wil as his default. The inflection of the word lad made the insult to Wil all too clear, and the sudden deliberate interest blooming in the flat stupid eyes made it clearer. Dallin didn’t know if he was indignant on Wil’s behalf or his own.
“As I said,” Dallin made his tone low and dangerous, “he’s with me.”
“Who he’s with makes no nevermind.”
The guard was still eyeing Wil in a way that was beginning to make Dallin’s skin crawl. Wil saw it too, tensing even more.
“It’s what he’s got that matters.” The guard waggled his eyebrows. “Don’t know what sorts of arrangements they have out Putnam way, but here you’ll have to—”
“You finish that sentence,” Dallin said between his teeth, “and it’ll be the last your tongue sees of your filthy mouth. For the Mother’s sake, man, you’re on duty!”
The guard’s lip twitched, but the hateful smile remained. “If he en’t got a badge, he can’t carry a gun.”
He slid another slow glance over Wil, very clearly and purposefully lewd, then slanted it up to Dallin, challenging. Bluffing. Baiting. Ugh, he looked just like Elmar with his square, stupid face and smug air. Poking and provoking just because he could.
“Either he hands it over,” the guard went on with his pompous little smirk, “or he’s with me, and you can pick him up on yer way out.”
Dallin made himself breathe evenly, made himself think it through. Knowing it was all a bluff wasn’t helping. He didn’t like being provoked. The thought of giving in to this grandiose boor was repugnant, but the only two alternatives were to turn around and leave or demand to see the man’s superior. And Dallin didn’t want to do either. He supposed there was always the alternative of beating the shit out of the foul troll. Or letting Wil shoot him. But either of those would likely call attention to them they really didn’t want.
Dallin ground his teeth as he turned to Wil. “You’ll have to give it up.”
Wil tilted his head, peering at Dallin from the corner of his eye as he gave the horse a light swat and shrugged her away. “I know. I just didn’t want him touching me. And I… he’s….” Wil clenched his jaw with a huff. “I don’t want his grubby paws touching it either.”
Dallin thought about that too. Carefully. Then he smirked.
“As you wish.” He held out his hand. “Give it to me, then.”
Wil gave Dallin a curious frown, then slid the strap from his elbow, checked the safety on the rifle, and with one last glare for the guard, handed it over to Dallin. Dallin slipped the gun’s strap over his own shoulder, and turned back to the guard.
“There. No badge, no gun. We’ll be going now. Unless you’d care to go fetch your superior for that little chat?”
The guard gawped, but Dallin nearly let a malicious little grin curl at his mouth when he heard Wil give a very quiet but very satisfied “Ha” behind him. The glare the guard gave them was sincere, but the flourishing gesture as he handed back the badge and papers and finally let them pass was grudging and thwarted. Dallin could feel the guard’s dead-eyed glower between his shoulder blades well after they cleared the gate and entered the city center. Still seething, Dallin searched for and found a provisional livery with a post to tether the horses, waited impatiently for a call chit, then flipped a gilder to the lad who tendered it with the promise of more if their saddlebags and Dallin’s crossbow were unmolested when he came back to claim them. Tucking the receipt into his breast pocket, Dallin pulled Wil over and around a leather worker’s stall.
“Sorry about the gate. Took me a bit off guard. And we need to get something very clear.” Dallin held the rifle up. “You can’t just go about shooting people when they piss you off.”
Wil dragged his arm from Dallin’s grip and looked down with a bit of a sulk. “I wouldn’t’ve shot him.”
It would be very unwise of Dallin to snort right now. “You can’t point it at him either, or wave it about, or even make threatening gestures or look at him cross-eyed. I know he’s a great knob, but he’s got a badge and isn’t afraid to use it. You fuck with someone like that and he’ll have you in irons just because he can, and I’ll have a bugger of a time getting you back. Now, I’m hanging on to this—” Dallin held up the gun again. “—just until we leave Chester. You can have it back again once we’re outside the gates, all right? But they’ve apparently got an actual law against weapons on market day, which makes sense when you think about, and if you get nabbed with it, we’ll end up getting more acquainted with the local law than we want to be. And keep the damned knife in your boot. We’re lucky they didn’t search you at the gate.” Dallin slipped the rifle’s strap over his shoulder. “Now. I smell roasting meat coming from somewhere—would a hot lunch lift your spirits any?”
Wil looked down, still sullen and scuffing his boot in the dirt like a five-year-old. “Some.” The scowl lost some of its fierceness. “A hot lunch and a beer would do better.”
And there it was—feed Wil and he’d forgive you just about anything.
Dallin rolled his eyes. “Come on, then.”
THEY WERE at a gunsmith’s stall—Wil ogling the small array of handguns, running careful fingers over each burled grip while Dallin haggled with the owner over the cost of shells—when Wil quietly and casually sauntered up behind Dallin, grabbed his sleeve, and dragged him down. He leaned in.
“Shouldn’t’ve pissed off that guard.” It was a low murmur next to Dallin’s ear. Wil shot a surreptitious glance at the stall owner and then leaned around Dallin. Dallin thought at first Wil was perusing the knives set out on a black velvet cloth on the table to the side, but Wil’s eyes darted a quick sweep to all points beneath the brim of his hat before he picked up a knife and held it up as though he was showing it to Dallin. “There’s two of them over by the fountain.” Wil turned the knife around in his hand and caught the light with it. “Your friend from the gate and three others are standing across the street, pretending to but not actually buying pasties from a very angry-looking cart owner.”
Shit. Shitshitshit. Seriously. Could Dallin have possibly bungled their supposedly unnoticed entry into Chester more badly? He clenched his teeth, barely resisting the near overwhelming urge to follow Wil’s glance.
Instead, Dallin nodded at the knife. “You like that one?” He made it louder than he needed to, but the gunsmith was eyeing them with a touch of suspicion now. Dallin leaned down to Wil, even slipped a serene smile to his face—just a silly, smitten man having a private moment with his companion, perhaps deciding whether or not to treat him to a new blade. “Good eye,” he said calmly. “Well done, you.” He turned back to the stall’s o
wner. “We’ll take that and this.” He pointed to the knife in Wil’s hand and gathered the ammunition over which he’d been arguing just a moment ago.
Wil grinned, leaning against Dallin and giving the owner a smile that was somehow shy and sly all at once. “Is there perhaps a back way out of here?” He nudged Dallin, sliding his glance down to where Dallin’s purse hung from his belt. “A nice, quiet… oh, alley, maybe, where a man could say proper thanks?”
The gunsmith pursed his lips and rolled his eyes, but when Dallin drew four gilders more than necessary from his purse, laying it all out on the counter next the purchases, the gunsmith sighed with a grimace. “Through the curtain past the longbows.” It was offered grudgingly, though he swept up the coins in his nimble fingers without hesitation.
“Have you got a sack for all this?” Dallin waited for the man to turn before he leaned down again to Wil to murmur, “You first. Calm and slow, as you’ve been doing, then wait for me.”
Wil didn’t even nod, just patted at the small of Dallin’s back—almost intimate, like he’d been doing it all his life—and wandered to the rear of the stall to eye up the array of bows. The curtain was drawn but for a slight opening to the side; Wil made to walk past it, did a bit of a double take, as though something behind it had caught his eye, and angled through.
Dallin had to stop himself from grinning and applauding the performance.
“Don’t see too many Linders fraternizing.” The gunsmith lifted an eyebrow as he loaded the sack with the ammunition Dallin had just paid too much for. “They’re usually in and out o’ here without much more than a ‘Mother may I’ to anyone else.” His eyes narrowed—not with suspicion but with interest. “You one o’ them exiles?”
Someone driven from the village, ostracized and shunned for any number of things, the most common Dallin remembered being too much collusion with outsiders. Service in the Commonwealth’s military was the only exception. The Old Ones didn’t abide the thinning and dilution of their flock.
“Yes.” Dallin held the man’s eye. It felt like a stone in his mouth—he’d never really thought to wonder what his reception in Lind might be, or what they might think of a man who’d run away as a boy and returned as an outlander—but it was the easiest answer and the fastest way to end the conversation and get out of there. The stares of the men behind him were beginning to tingle at the back of Dallin’s neck.
The gunsmith merely shrugged as he handed over the sack. “I hope he was worth it.”
Dallin withstood the attitude for another moment while he got specifics on the when and where of the livestock auctions, then thanked the gunsmith politely and sauntered as casually as he could manage toward the back of the stall. With a performance that probably wasn’t half as convincing as Wil’s had been, Dallin slipped through the curtain and out through a small anteroom to the door, ducking down as he made his way through it.
The alley was indeed quiet, no traffic but a young woman pushing a barrow full of vegetables over the broken cobbles. Dallin gave her a nod as she passed, gaze reaching and scanning what appeared to be an otherwise empty stretch of alley. Damn it, if those men had spooked Wil and he’d taken off—
“Down this way” came from behind him, accompanied by a light tug at his elbow.
Dallin only twitched a little as he turned to find Wil at his side.
“Where did you come from?” That space had been decidedly unoccupied two seconds ago. And where the hell were Dallin’s reflexes? He couldn’t remember the last time someone had successfully got behind him without him knowing it.
“I can turn myself invisible.” Wil said it with a wry wink, smirking when Dallin’s mouth twisted. “I was right there.” Wil pointed to a tiny shadowed alcove to the side of the gunsmith’s stall and gave Dallin’s sleeve another tug. “This whole place is crosshatched with alleys and little side streets—we could probably get lost if we’re not careful, but it’ll likely throw those men off for a while.”
Dallin just shook his head. “You’ve been doing pretty well so far.” He waved down the alley. “Lead on.”
A surprised little half smile flitted over Wil’s face, but he only nodded before he turned and led Dallin into a labyrinthine crisscross of overgrown bricked paths and dirt alleyways that were intersected now and again by neater cobbles and stone walks. The sun slanted lower over the tops of the buildings they passed, roofed variously with thatch, tin, and slate. They were losing time—another two hours ’til the auctions—but losing the guard and his little posse was a bit more important right now.
They fetched up some time later when the random path they were following dead-ended at the rear of a great stone building, stately and dignified, with portcullises that looked like they’d never been closed in their long years and grown over with ivy and the crumpled autumn remnants of wild roses. The characteristics were universal and unmistakable. Dallin grinned.
“A library. Perfect. I’ve been wishing for Manning and his know-it-all lectures, but this will do very well indeed.”
Wil’s mouth twisted. “You want to go in there?” He eyed the building, its crouched stone bulk and stained glass windows. “What am I supposed to do in a library?”
“Hm, well, yes, but it might turn out to be important. Or at least somewhat informative. I hope.” Dallin shrugged. “It shouldn’t take too awfully long, and those men wouldn’t venture in there unless they were serving free beer.”
Wil scowled up at the wide stone walls for a moment before he sighed, groused “Anyway,” and pulled his shoulders up to his ears.
Dallin hadn’t noticed until just this second when he’d watched Wil hunch in again that, though the alert wariness had remained all through their diversion through the alleys, the expectant sullenness had disappeared. It was subtle, not a huge difference, but it was a difference, a marked distinction between how Wil behaved around Dallin as opposed to everyone else. And now that Dallin was thinking about it—about all the different faces Wil had donned just since they’d arrived at Chester’s gates—he realized the resentful look of a man constantly on tenterhooks, just waiting for the next offensive, had only really reemerged after Wil had been disarmed. He’d been cagey but determined when the guard had moved toward him, but became drawn-in and angrily sharp the moment the rifle left his hands. He’d gone from a man with the confidence of carbine and cartridge at his back to a back-alley grifter like a fish that had grown legs and lungs but still knew how to swim with the sharks. Dallin had more or less handed over the reins to him at the gunsmith’s stall, and Wil had taken them up as though he’d been born to this particular saddle. For all Dallin had seen in his years as a constable, he’d never know the underside of a city as well as one who’d spent time in it. Wil was much better at being a sneak than Dallin was.
“What?” Wil’s tone was sharp and defensive.
Dallin realized he’d been staring and not moving. He shook his head and breathed a small laugh. “Sorry. It’s just that you’ve impressed me again.”
One dark eyebrow rose. “Because I said I’d go to the library with you?”
“Because you got us out of a touchy situation without a shot being fired or a punch being thrown.”
Wil rolled his eyes. “You’re very easily impressed. Are we going in or not?”
Dallin only waved toward the path that led to the front of the building. Wil scowled and slouched around to the front steps. Smiling slightly, Dallin followed, waiting politely for a clutch of women to pass him before stepping out into the still-busy street as Wil shuffled up the steps ahead of him. They were well away from the main thoroughfare of the market, deeper into the city itself, but plenty of traffic still bustled alongside several stray carts that hadn’t been fortunate enough to win a prime location on the square, and Dallin thought about maybe taking a momentary detour to see if offering something more to the god of Wil’s stomach might make—
Dallin stopped dead with his foot on the bottom step of the library, body gone tense and
rigid. An abrupt, inexplicable shudder was fizzing up Dallin’s spine, and instinct sent his gaze in a cursory sweep over the sparser crowd.
It didn’t take long to spot him.
Wide and tall, hair the same color as Dallin’s but graying, though longer and with beaded braids holding it back at the temples. His dress was similar to those of the general public fanning around him and affording him a wide berth, but plainer, colors bland and tending toward browns and beiges. His face was clean-shaven and deeply tanned. Dallin couldn’t really see from here, but his mind’s eye etched a string of scars over the right cheekbone at the same instant he realized the man’s eyes were pinned over Dallin’s shoulder. Wil.
Dallin jerked his head and took a step up the stone stairs—meaning to block the man’s line of sight, perhaps, or just get between him and Wil—but Wil seemed to feel something too. His shoulders twitched, and his head ticced to the side before he spun around with a bemused frown. His eye caught Dallin’s, questioning. Dallin blinked and shook his head, turning his glance back out into the street.
No bulky figure stood staring; no blond head towered above the crowd.
The ghost of the Watcher from his dream, perhaps? Dedication and devotion to his calling reaching even beyond his foreign, anonymous grave? Or merely the lack of sleep and recent immersion in the bizarre finally catching up with him?
“Something wrong?” Wil asked from behind him.
“…Maybe.”
Dallin turned. Wil’s expression was clouded, anxious, his good hand gripping the library door’s handle in a white-knuckled fist. His gaze kept snapping from Dallin and then out into the street, searching, and back again to Dallin. Dallin wondered if Wil had seen too, or if Dallin’s own disquiet was leaking out onto Wil. In fact, Dallin wondered if he’d even seen anything himself, now that the initial rush of apprehension was beginning to subside.
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