Rand didn't snarl, but Orm got the impression that he would have liked to. He glowered instead, and it was clear that he would really have preferred to find someone to punish for these checks to his plan. "Damn the Duke! Can't the Bardic Guild hold him in check?"
"Not after the Great Fire they can't," Orm replied, feeling rather smug. "Their credit is not very high with anyone in Kingsford, not when there are still persistent rumors that they had a part in trying to kill Duke Arden and in starting the Fire. Hadn't you noticed that you never see a Guild Bard on the street? When they have to travel, they do so in closed carriages, and not for warmth or ostentation. If they show their faces insome parts of the city, they're likely to get pelted with refuse." He warmed to his subject, since it was so obviously annoying Rand. "And meanwhile, since the Free Bards were the ones who actually foiled the plot, their credit is at an all-time high. Now if it was Guild Bards you wanted to murder, I'd have no shortage of them for you, and very few would mourn their passing."
Perversely, Orm found that he enjoyed annoying Rand. Perhaps it was the man's superior manner; perhaps it was just that he tried so hard to establish control over everything he came into contact with. Orm had never cared for being "under control," and any attempt to put him there only ended in resentment. So often in "conferences" like this one, the more annoyed Rand became, the more Orm's own humor improved.
Right now Rand was frowning so fiercely that his eyebrows formed a solid bar across his forehead. He looked curiously primitive, as if he might slam a club or gnawed thigh-bone down on the table at any moment.
"There are no women in the Guild," Rand replied sullenly, stating the obvious. "If you haven't got any Free Bards, whatdo you have for me?"
"Oh, the usual," Orm told him. That made Rand look blacker than before, if possible, for "the usual" was a mix of whores and street-entertainers, and such victims rarely yielded the amount of energy that kept Rand in his proper form for as long as he wished.
Then again, nothing ever kept Rand in his proper form for as long as he wished, so what was the difference?
Instead of answering that frown, Orm ignored it, bending over the map. "There's a good little prospect who lives here," he said, indicating a building with the feather-end of his quill-pen. "She's the closest thing to a musician that we're likely to get for now. Makes her living as half of a pickpocket team; she chants bawdy ballads to collect a crowd while he picks the pockets, he juggles objects thrown to him by the crowd while she picks pockets. It wouldn't be at all difficult to get your knife into his hands, and it could be a fairly plain one. He's often tossed knives to juggle, and if no one claimed this one at the end of his turn, he wouldn't go looking for the owner."
Rand nodded, still frowning, but listening now. "What else?" he asked.
"Unlicensed whore living here—" He touched another spot. "Calls herself a courtesan on the strength of reading poetry to her clients, and the fact that she doesn't charge a set fee. Of course, if you don't pay her what she thinks she's worth, you'll find your pockets lighter after you're home again. She's trained her brat to lift purses while the client's busy. We've done her type before." He tapped another spot on the map. "Now, if you don't mind going for a target who works under a roof, you might want this one. Girl here who thinks she's a musician; ran away from home on the strength of it. Can't make a copper on the street, so she's a tavern-wench until somebody notices what a genius she is." Orm chuckled heartlessly, for the girl was unattractive, sullen, and rebellious, and was probably going to get herself fired before too long. "She'd be all right if she just played other people's songs. But she's a genius, so she's got to do her own. Problem is, she's got two tunes, no voice, and a knack for lyrics that insult her audience. She's as easy as the pickpocket."
Now Rand's face cleared a little. "We'll look at her and the pickpocket, and I suspect we'll take both of them. Probably the pickpocket first, unless you find an opportunity to get the tavern-wench. I don't like working under a roof, but—"
Orm shrugged. "Suit yourself; unless the constables get her, the pickpocket is always there for the taking. I'll see if the other girl has a boyfriend or something; if she does, then we have a solid prospect for your knife-holder."
Orm watched Rand's brows furrow as he thought the situation over. "Does the girl lodge in the tavern?" he asked.
Orm shook his head. "I don't think so; the other girls have said something about her being 'too good' to sleep on the floor with them when the tavern closes. And once in a while she'll try a street-corner. For that matter, maybe there's a way to lure her somewhere of your choosing by making her think someone's taken an interest in her as a singer."
And those should be obvious solutions,Orm thought with disgust.He ought to be able to reason that out for himself. Orm had his own reasons for steering the selection towards Shensi, the tavern-wench.He would much rather study a potential target indoors.
"All right," Rand said at last. "Get me more on this tavern-girl. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to try for her."
Rand got up from the table without another word, and stalked off to the front door. A moment later, Orm heard his footsteps on the staircase.
"Well, thank you for the audience, Your Majesty," he muttered, resentfully. Rand must be about to turn bird again; he was always unreasonable and rude, but he got worse just before he was about to turn.
With nothing better to do, Orm rose, shrugged on a coat, and went out into the dusk. Other folk scurried by, probably in a hurry to get home before full dark. Far down the street, Orm saw warm beads of light blossoming, as if someone was lighting up a string of pearls. The public lamplighters were out; an advantage to living in this neighborhood. Where Orm was going, there were no public lamps, which made the going occasionally hazardous, and made easy work for footpads. Not that Orm had to worry about footpads; when he entered areas with no lanterns, he moved as if he was one of the footpads himself. In lean times, it often amused him to fell one ofthem after they had taken a target, and help himself to their ill-gotten gains. It made him think of an old illustration he had once seen, of a big fish, about to swallow a small fish, who was in turn about to be swallowed by a bigger fish.
It was snowing again, which was going to keep some people home tonight. Thinning the crowd in a tavern wasn't a bad thing; it would enable Orm to see who the regulars were. Even if one of them had nothing whatsoever to do with the girl except order food and drink, the fact that he was a regular would bring him into contact with her on a regular basis. With the knife in his hands, perhaps he could be forced to wait for her outside the tavern door. Then, a note might lure her outside. You never knew.
For once, this wasn't the sort of tavern that Orm avoided at all costs—the kind where you risked poisoning if you ate or drank anything. One of his other prospects—one he hadn't bothered to mention—worked at one ofthose, and Orm would really rather not have had to go in there. Mostly drovers and butchers ate at the Golden Sheaf; it was near enough to the stockyards to get a fairly steady stream of customers.
Orm didn't look like either, but he could pass for an animal broker, and that would do. He knew the right language, and he kept rough track of what was coming into the stockyards. Depending on who he had to talk to, he could either have already sold "his" beasts, or be looking for a buyer.
The windows were alight, but there didn't seem to be a lot of people coming and going; Orm pushed the doors open and let them fall closed behind him. The place smelled of wet wool, mutton stew, and beer, with a faint undertone of manure. The men tried to clean their boots before they came in here, but it just wasn't possible to get all of the smell out.
The ceiling here was unusually high for a place that did not have a set of rooms on an upper floor. This might once have been a tavern of that sort, with a staircase up to a balcony, and six or eight rooms where the customer could take one of the serving girls. That sort of establishment had been outlawed on the recommendation of the Whore's Guild when Arden began the rebuilding of the city. The licensed whores didn't like such places; there was no way to control who worked "upstairs" and who didn't. A girl couldclaim she was only a serving wench, and actually be taking on customers. There was no sign of such a staircase or such rooms, but they could have been closed off or given back to the building next door, whichwas a Licensed House now.
Beneath the light of a half dozen lanterns hanging on chains from the ceiling, the Golden Sheaf was a pretty ordinary place. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all of dark wood, aged to that color by a great deal of greasy smoke. The tables had been polished only by years and use, and the benches beneath them were of the same dark color as the walls and floor. At the back of the room was a hatch where the wenches picked up food and drink; pitchers of beer stood ready on a table beside the hatch for quick refills. There were two fireplaces, one on the wall to the right, and one on the wall to the left; after working all day in the stockyards, drovers and butchers were always cold, and a warm fire would keep them here and drinking even though there was no entertainment.