an appraising glance and perked up instantly at the flash of colour on the lapels of Egimont’s men.
“Prelate’s guard, eh? Well, if you’re looking, I’ve got some fine horses for sale. Not that sorry lot over there, I keep the best in the stables around the back. How many do you want?”
“None.” Egimont slid down from his horse and tried – and failed – not to step in any shit. “You have a horse with one ear?”
Once he’d ascertained from Eneko that he’d get no help there, it hadn’t taken too long to find the previous victims of Kacha and Vocho since they started their new life of crime. Half a dozen men and women had told him everything they could, happy to help the prelate’s man apprehend the vicious highwaymen of Fusta Wood. One of the women had told him how, during the robbery, one of her attackers had shot the ear off the other’s horse. Egimont was certain both horses had the full complement of ears when the siblings had ambushed him, and so a trip to all the horse traders in the area seemed a good place to start.
The woman raised an eyebrow. “Not a lot of call for them. But yes, as it happens, I do. Can do you a good price too.”
“Oh, I don’t want to buy it,” Egimont said. “I want to know who you bought it from.”
The woman’s mouth twitched as she looked him over, noted the way his hand rested on his sword, went on over his men and back to him. “Don’t suppose I got much choice, then? A bloke from up the way there. New to the area, he said. Bit of a dandy, seemed to be, in his manner, but he reckoned he were a farmer. Didn’t look like no farmer to me, excepting his clothes. He looked like someone playing dress-up.”
“Did he say anything else?”
The woman hesitated with a greedy smile on her face, so Egimont took two bulls out of his purse and bounced them in his palm.
“Oh, aye, he did. Talkative bugger, he was. From Reyes, I reckon, accent sounded about right. Bit posh and all, for all he said he was a farmer. Reckon him and his sister are the ones renting the old place up past the Domenech manor. Said the beast had got too nervy, so I swapped him. Managed to beat him down, and all he got was a carthorse that’s seen better days.”
Egimont turned on his heel and mounted.
“The money?”
Once he’d have given her the money. Once he’d been an honourable duellist who wanted only to be the best there was. Once he’d had a heart that wasn’t dull and dead to anything except what he wanted, but money and a duchy and revenge were all that he wanted now.
“I’ll give you a tip instead. Always take the money up front.”
With that, he kicked his horse into a canter and led his men towards the Domenech place.
It took Vocho most of two days to get the first four locks off. He wasn’t too shabby at locks – the guild made sure the men and women they supplied for clients were well versed in whatever skills they might need, even if they looked down on them, and being able to pick a lock was very handy for certain jobs. But these locks were a make he’d never encountered before and none of his usual tricks worked, so it was down to brute force. At one point, covered in sweat and sporting a fine set of skinned knuckles, he’d considered putting the damned thing in with Kacha’s horse and letting him kick it to splinters, but the wood was harder than anything he’d encountered too. An axe barely even scratched it, and he no longer had the funds to buy a clockwork hammer that would have smashed the thing to bits in minutes. Fancy clockwork like that was for the rich; all most farmers had was one or two plainer pieces of machinery that they swapped about so everyone got a turn. Reyes city might be the clockwork wonder of the provinces, but the rural poor didn’t see a hell of a lot of it.
The thought of what the final lock must be protecting, and of the reward – ten thousand? It must be worth ten times that then – spurred him on. With Kacha out, taking Cospel’s share to the appointed place, he dragged the thing to the top of the yard,