dirty look, but the duke was already absorbed in whatever he was writing, his pen scratching in neat, efficient strokes across the paper. With a sneer at being treated like a valet, Hern left the duke’s room in a huff, grabbing the first page he saw and literally shoving the boy toward the duke’s door before it had even finished closing.
The boy stumbled into the duke’s parlor, blinking in confusion for a few moments before recovering enough to drop the customary bow.
“You,” the duke said without looking up from his note, which he was folding into thirds. “Take this to the printing office on Little Shambles Street. Give it to Master Scribe Phelps, and only Master Scribe Phelps. Tell him that fortuitous circumstances have necessitated an acceleration of my order, and he is to have the numbers outlined on that note ready for distribution at the points written beside them by tomorrow morning. Repeat that.”
“Printing office, Little Shambles Street, Master Scribe Phelps,” the boy repeated with the practiced memory of a trained page who got this sort of request quite often. “I am to tell him that fortuitous circumstances have necessitated an acceleration of your order, and he is to have these numbers ready for distribution at the points written beside them by tomorrow morning.”
The duke handed him the folded note without a word of thanks, and the boy shuffled out, wishing that, just once, the duke would bother to tip for such feats of memory. He never did, but that was part of why Merchant Prince Whitefall charged the old cheapskate double for his rooms.
When the page was gone the duke stood alone at his table going over his plans step by step in his head. He did this often, for it gave him great pleasure to be thorough. Phelps would balk at having to print thousands of detailed posters and have them packed for distribution in one night, but a successful man seized opportunity when it arrived. The Court’s interest in Monpress had been the last uncontrollable element. If they were putting off their investigation thanks to this business in Mellinor, now was the time to strike. Accelerating the pace made him nervous, but he fought the feeling down. Surely this apprehension was merely a product of being in Zarin, where things were messy and chaotic. In a week, all his business here would be done and he’d be on his way back to Gaol, where everything was orderly, controlled, and perfect.
Just thinking about it brought a smile to his face, and he reached down for his teacup, newly refilled by the creeping teapot, which had already returned to its place on the tea service. Yes, he thought, walking over to the tall windows, sipping his tea as he watched Hern climb into an ostentatious carriage in the little courtyard below while, behind him, the page hurried toward the gates with the letter in his hands. Yes, things were going perfectly smoothly. If the printers did as they were paid to do, then tomorrow the net woven of everything he’d learned over years of following Monpress would finally be cast. All he had to do was sit back and wait for the thief to take the bait, and then even an element as chaotic as Eli Monpress would be drawn at last into predictable order.
The happiness of that thought carried him through the rest of his day, and if he drove particularly hard bargains in his meetings that afternoon, no one thought anything special of it. He was the Duke of Gaol, after all.
CHAPTER 8
Down the mountains from Slorn’s woods, where the ground began to level out into low hills and branching creeks, the city of Goin lay huddled between two muddy banks. Little more than an overgrown border outpost, Goin was claimed by two countries, neither of which bothered with it much, leaving the soggy dirt streets to the trappers and loggers who called it home. It was a rowdy, edge-of-nowhere outpost where the law, what there was of it, turned a blind eye to anything that wasn’t directed squarely at them, which was just how Eli liked it.
“Aren’t you glad I talked you out of making camp and coming down in the morning?” Eli said, strolling down the final half mile of rutted trail out of the mountains.
“I still don’t see why you wanted to come here at all,” Josef said. “I passed through here about two years ago chasing Met Skark, the assassin duelist. It