The man raised his eyebrows. ‘You think all whores are women? That all men prefer women? You are unaware that this is not the case?’
‘Actually,’ said Gerens solemnly, ‘you would be surprised at the number of things he is unaware of.’
The man turned to Brann and spoke patiently. ‘Would it help you to know the background?’
Brann nodded vaguely. He couldn’t think of anything else to do.
‘I did not plan this career. My sister, Eloise, and I – I am Philippe, by the way – we came here as members of a troupe of actors. Some months before, I had met a man in another town and, to my surprise, he had offered to pay for, shall we say, what I had expected to be a fleeting experience of mutual enjoyment. I became aware that there were men who were willing to enter into the same sort of transaction with me in every town and village our show visited, and it became a more than useful method of augmenting an income that, let’s face it, could have been improved by a change of career to pig herder. It became even more lucrative than I had envisaged, in fact, because these men pay for two elements, gratification and discretion, and when the transaction is between two men rather than a man and a woman, the desire for discretion transpired to be greater, and therefore more expensive. However, in this fair town, my efforts to keep my lucrative sideline hidden from the leader of the troupe ceased to be successful and, on his discovering my infidelity to him in both a professional and emotional sense, I found that I was no longer a member of the troupe. And so I stayed here, and my sister with me, this new profession replacing, rather than augmenting, our acting.’
‘Believe me, my dear,’ Joceline drawled as she sauntered across the room, ‘all whores play a dozen parts every day. It just so happens that these two play them with more skill than most, and are lucky enough to have the stunning looks to help them along the way.’
Brann looked at the girl, a picture of nervous innocence. ‘These two?’
Eloise straightened and gave him a brazen smile. ‘Admit it, you felt sorry for me, didn’t you? Would you have found it easier or harder to cut my throat with that fancy knife of yours, having felt compassion towards me?’
Brann nodded weakly at one more surprise to rock him. ‘Not all would have felt so reluctant, though.’
Joceline put an arm around Eloise. ‘Men as bad as that would have done what they were going to do, regardless. Better to reduce the chance though, my love, don’t you think?’
Brann sat on the edge of the bed to process his thoughts. Philippe looked at him enquiringly and Grakk coughed politely.
‘Should the rest of us retire from the room, young Brann?’
He looked at Grakk, then at the man standing by the bed. His eyes went wide and he jumped to his feet, taking a quick step away. ‘No!’ He edged closer to Grakk and Gerens. ‘No, I… er… I mean…’ He looked at Philippe, waiting patiently. ‘Oh! I mean no offence. You seem a very nice person and I’m sure you’re very good at your job, but…’
Joceline’s laugh cut through the room, and Brann saw the amusement on the faces around him. He smiled sheepishly. ‘I think we had better move the conversation on.’
Brann composed himself. It did make some sense. And it opened up new possibilities for his plans. A guard captain with even more to hide…
‘Please excuse my ignorance,’ he said. ‘We have much to discuss.’
Brann awoke the next morning in a chair in Joceline’s room, having slept where he sat after plotting through the night. The others seemed to assume that Brann would devise a strategy, and he had pushed aside his initial discomfort at being left to do so by people with far more experience or education in such matters to use the time productively. In ones and twos, the others had returned to join the discussion after Brann had worked out the skeleton of the plan and, once they were all sure of the role each would play and how it connected to those of all others, most of the party had retired to the room they had taken for the night. Most of the party: Breta had decided that the large bed where they were was much more suitable than the bunks in their own room, and had thoughtfully left Joceline a small space at one side of her own mattress, where the whore was still sleeping despite the stentorian snores of the huge warrior beside her.
Brann stretched, feeling the sharp pain of the wound down his ribs as it pulled against the stitches. The gash on his arm was healing more quickly, but he had to be careful not to open the big wound whenever he twisted or reached, and it was annoying him. Still, he had suffered worse, and survived worse.
He ran back over the plan in his head. It was not intricate – the simpler, the less there was to go wrong and the easier it was to adapt as, inevitably, any plan has to do – and it didn’t even involve all of their group, but he was happy it should serve the purpose. It was not even a complicated job they were attempting. After all, they just wanted to gain access to the Duke of this region in his bedchamber at the top of his tower home, with an entire contingent of his soldiers filling the grounds around the building and the floors beneath the man’s quarters.
Despite Breta’s sound snoring, he woke her with an ease born of a warrior’s instant readiness and padded down the corridor to the other bedroom where he roused Marlo and Hakon – the three would complete the delivery of the oil before joining Cannick and Mongoose outside the town, ready to greet, and if necessary defend, the exit of the small party who would visit the Duke.
Brann thought of the barrel he had kicked over in the yard the night before, and shook Marlo’s shoulder as the boy sat rubbing his eyes, slower to alertness than the experienced fighters. ‘Remember, when you take the barrels…’
‘Yes, yes,’ the Sagian boy grumbled. ‘Only take two and pick up the other two from here to take out of the town to the others. But what about the merchant? He will be expecting four.’
‘Did you not hear last night?’ Brann was exasperated. He only felt comfortable if everyone understood what needed to be done.
‘The fire was warm and the night was late,’ Marlo shrugged. ‘How could I not fall asleep?’
‘Next time, stay further from the fire,’ Brann growled. ‘All you have to say is that when the wheel fell off, two of the barrels dropped from the cart and smashed. He will only pay you for two, but we already covered the full cost to the carter, so all is fine. He’ll grumble and you can look apologetic, and there will be nothing else anyone can do about it, so he’ll just have to accept it.’
‘Excellent!’ Marlo beamed infectiously as ever, and Brann found himself unable to resist smiling back, as ever. ‘I can manage that.’
Brann nodded. ‘Good. We’ll see you outside the walls. Cannick will organise you all out there.’
The hours of the day stretched out interminably, as waiting always did. It was with relief that night fell upon them, and they eventually left the inn, guided by Joceline and Eloise as they wound their way through the cobbled streets. It was a clearer sky than the previous night, allowing them to see their way without the revealing light of lanterns, and making for a more marked contrast between moonlit areas and the shadows cast by buildings, but Brann would have preferred by far to be moving through a deeper and more general gloom, particularly when he thought ahead to trying to remain unseen in the grounds of the Duke’s tower.
He need not have bothered worrying about the weather. Moon or no moon, clouds or no clouds, it made no difference. Eloise had halted them at a corner across a narrow street from the plain stone wall around the tower’s compound, around a man-and-a-half in height and with a gateway fronted by two lounging guards halfway along the wall to their left. What had caught their attention, however, was not the expected barrier but what came from behind it: even from here, the glow from lanterns or torches that must illuminate the area within was bright enough over the top of the wall to suggest that they may as well have been in daylight. Philippe’s assignation with the guard captain