The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,89

table. “Carn’s dead, Captain.”

Domon stared at him, frowning. Three others of his men had already been killed, one each time he refused a commission that would take him east. The magistrates had done nothing; the streets were dangerous at night, they said, and sailors a rough and quarrelsome lot. Magistrates seldom troubled themselves with what happened in the Perfumed Quarter, as long as no respectable citizens were injured.

“But this time I did accept them,” he muttered.

“ ’Tisn’t all, Captain,” Yarin said. “They worked Carn with knives, like they wanted him to tell them something. And some more men tried to sneak aboard Spray not an hour gone. The dock watch ran them off. Third time in ten days, and I never knew wharf rats to be so persistent. They like to let an alarm die down before they try again. And somebody tossed my room at the Silver Dolphin last night. Took some silver, so I’d think it was thieves, but they left that belt buckle of mine, the one set with garnets and moonstones, lying right out in plain sight. What’s going on, Captain? The men are afraid, and I’m a little nervous myself.”

Domon reared to his feet. “Roust the crew, Yarin. Find them and tell them Spray sails as soon as there do be men enough aboard to handle her.” Stuffing the parchment into his coat pocket, he snatched up the bag of gold and pushed his second out the door ahead of him. “Roust them, Yarin, for I’ll leave any man who no makes it, standing on the quay as he is.”

Domon gave Yarin a shove to start him running, then stalked off toward the docks. Even footpads who heard the clinking of the pouch he carried steered clear of him, for he walked now like a man going to do murder.

There were already crewmen scrambling aboard Spray when he arrived, and more running barefoot down the stone quay. They did not know what he feared was pursuing him, or even that anything did pursue him, but they knew he made good profits, and after the Illianer way, he gave shares to the crew.

Spray was eighty feet long, with two masts, and broad in the beam, with room for deck cargo as well as in the holds. Despite what Domon had told the Cairhienin—if they had been Cairhienin—he thought she could stand the open water. The Sea of Storms was quieter in the summer.

“She’ll have to,” he muttered, and strode below to his cabin.

He tossed the sack of gold on his bed, built neatly against the hull like everything else in the stern cabin, and dug out the parchment. Lighting a lantern, hanging in its swivel from the overhead, he studied the sealed document, turning it as if he could read what was inside without opening it. A rap on the door made him frown.

“Come.”

Yarin stuck his head in. “They’re all aboard but three I couldn’t find, Captain. But I’ve spread the word through every tavern, hell, and crib in the quarter. They’ll be aboard before it’s light enough to start upriver.”

“Spray do sail now. To sea.” Domon cut off Yarin’s protests about light and tides, and Spray not being built for the open sea. “Now! Spray can clear the bars at dead low tide. You’ve no forgotten how to sail by the stars, have you? Take her out, Yarin. Take her out now, and come back to me when we be beyond the breakwater.”

His second hesitated—Domon never let a tricky bit of sailing pass without him on deck giving orders, and taking Spray out in the night would be all of that, shallow draft or no—then nodded and vanished. In moments the sounds of Yarin shouting orders and bare feet thumping on the decks overhead penetrated Domon’s cabin. He ignored them, even when the ship lurched, catching the tide.

Finally he lifted the mantle of the lantern and stuck a knife into the flame. Smoke curled up as oil burned off the blade, but before the metal could turn red, he pushed charts out of the way and pressed the parchment flat on his desk, working the hot steel slowly under the sealing wax. The top fold lifted.

It was a simple document, without preamble or salutation, and it made sweat break out on his forehead.

The bearer of this is a Darkfriend wanted in Cairhien for murders and other foul crimes, least among them, theft from Our Person. We call upon you to seize this man and all