The Hidden City

Sparhawk heaved the barrel over onto its side, and he and his friend rolled it through the doorway into the cluttered room beyond. There was an unmade bed against one wall, and clothes littered the floor. The place was permeated with the acrid smell of Krager’s unwashed, wine-sodden body, and there was a heap of empty casks and broken earthenware bottles in one corner.

‘Where did you want these, Master Krager?’ Kalten asked.

‘Anyplace,’ Krager said impatiently.

‘That’s not thinking ahead,’ Kalten said critically. ‘They’re too heavy for you to move by yourself. Pick a spot that’ll be convenient.’

‘You might be right.’ Krager squinted around the room. Then he went to a place near the head of the bed and kicked some clothes out of the way. ‘Put them right here,’ he instructed.

‘Ah – before we go any further, why don’t we settle up? These are very expensive, Master Krager.’

‘How much?’

‘Senga told me that he had to have fifty crowns a barrel. Arcian red’s very hard to come by this far away from Arcium.’

‘Fifty crowns?’ Krager exclaimed.

‘Each,’ Kalten insisted. ‘He told me to open the barrels for you, too.’

‘I know how to open a wine barrel, Col.’

‘I’m sure of it, but Senga’s an honest businessman, and he wants me to make sure you’re satisfied before I take your money.’ He rolled the barrel over against the wall. ‘Help me set it up, Fron,’ he told Sparhawk. They righted the barrel, and Kalten took a pry-bar out from under his belt. ‘Beer’s a lot easier to deal with,’ he noted. ‘Somebody ought to tell those Arcian vintners about the advantages of putting a bung-hole in the side of a barrel.’ He carefully pried up the lid as Krager, cup in hand, eagerly waited at his elbow.

‘Give it a try, Master Krager,’ Kalten said then, lifting off the lid and stepping aside.

Krager dipped his cup into the deep red liquid, lifted it with a trembling hand, and drank deeply. ‘Marvelous!’ he sighed happily.

‘I’ll tell Senga that it meets with your approval,’ Kalten said. He laughed. ‘You wouldn’t expect it of a highway robber, but Senga’s very concerned about satisfying his customers. Would you believe that he even had us pour out a barrel of beer that had gone sour? Come on, Fron, let’s get the other barrel. We’ll have Master Krager test that one and then we’ll settle accounts.’

The two of them went back outside and manhandled the second barrel out of the cart.

‘Ask him why they’ve taken the guards off the doors of the house where they were holding Ehlana and Alean,’ Sparhawk muttered.

‘Right,’ Kalten grunted as they lowered the wine barrel to the ground.

They put the second barrel beside the first, Kalten pried open the lid, and Krager sampled it.

‘Satisfactory?’ Kalten asked.

‘Just fine,’ Krager said. He dipped out another cup and sank back happily on his bed. ‘Absolutely splendid.’

‘That’ll be a hundred crowns then.’

Krager pulled a heavy purse out from under his belt and negligently tossed it to Kalten. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Count it out yourself. Don’t steal too much.’

‘This is business, Master Krager,’ Kalten told him. ‘If I was robbing you, I’d have my knife against your throat.’ He swept some clothing and a few dried crusts of bread off the top of a table with his forearm, opened the purse, and started counting out coins. ‘We noticed that all the guards have been pulled away from the house with the bars on the windows,’ he said. ‘A couple of days ago a man couldn’t get within twenty paces of that place, but this morning Fron and I wheeled that cart right past the front door, and nobody paid any attention to us. Has Lord Scarpa moved whatever was so valuable out of there?’

Krager’s puffy face became suddenly alert. ‘That’s none of your business, Col.’

‘I didn’t say it was. You might just make a suggestion to Lord Scarpa, though. If he doesn’t want people to notice things like that, he shouldn’t change anything. He should have kept all the guards right where they were. Senga and the rest of us are all robbers, you know, and we all more or less believed that Lord Scarpa was keeping his treasure in that house. The word “treasure” makes men like us prick up our ears.’

Krager stared at him and then he began to laugh.

‘What’s so funny?’ Kalten looked up from his counting.

‘It was a treasure all right, Col,’ Krager smirked, ‘but not the kind you can count.’

‘Like you say, it’s none of my business, but every man who works in Senga’s tavern knows that it’s been moved. I’m sure they’ll all be poking around in these ruins looking for the new storehouse.’

‘Let them look,’ Krager shrugged. ‘The treasure’s a long, long way from here by now.’

‘I hope you’ve still got guards on it. Those woods out there are crawling with fellows like Fron and me. Would you come here and check my count?’

‘I trust you, Col.’

‘You’re a fool, then.’

‘Take another ten crowns for yourself and your man,’ Krager said expansively, ‘and then if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone with my two new friends here.’

‘You’re very generous, Master Krager.’ Kalten took some more coins from the purse, scooped up all the ones he had previously counted out, and dumped them into the side pocket of his smock. ‘Let’s go, Fron,’ he said to Sparhawk. ‘Master Krager wants to be alone.’

Tell Senga that I’m grateful to him,’ Krager said, dipping out more wine, ‘and tell him to keep his eye out for more of this excellent vintage. I’ll buy all he can find.’

‘I’ll tell him, Master Krager. Enjoy yourself.’ And Kalten led the way out of the reeking room.

Sparhawk closed the door and held out his hand.

‘What?’ Kalten asked.

‘My five crowns, if you don’t mind,’ Sparhawk said firmly. ‘Let’s keep accounts current, shall we?’

‘Thou art shrewd, Sir Kalten,’ Xanetia’s whispered voice came to them. ‘Thou didst most skillfully guide his thought in precisely the direction most useful to us.’

Kalten made some show of counting coins into sparhawk’s hand. ‘What did you find out, Anarae?’ he asked in a tense voice.