Dragon Bones (Hurog #1)(20)

After I made everyone sufficiently uncomfortable by staring at them, I nodded my head. "Court is boring. I would have come here, too."

Landislaw laughed. "Truthfully said. I've enjoyed this past week more than any week at court. I'll be sorry to see it over." Landislaw was a panderer and a bully whom I disliked intensely.

Garranon was still rubbing his shoulder unobtrusively, but he had court manners. "I wish to express my condolences."

I looked at him inquiringly.

"For your father," he said.

"Oh," I said with sudden comprehension. "Yes, for my father. Died a few weeks ago."

Disconcerted at my lack of filial mourning, Garranon's practiced speech left him. I liked Garranon more than I wanted to like the high king's favorite. I liked him even better now when his presence meant I had to wait to tell Duraugh the truth.

My uncle stepped in smoothly. "Now that Ward's here, perhaps you will tell us what brings you here, my lords."

"Hunting?" I asked. Oreg had quit making any noise but soft grunts, but the sound of leather hitting flesh echoed in the hall, and the thick magic kept me from concentrating on our guests.

Garranon snorted sourly. "Yes, we're hunting - but not the kind you mean. Landislaw bought a slave from an acquaintance. Now he finds that the slave wasn't his friend's to sell." A slave? Poor abject things, they were commonplace in Estian at the high king's Tallvenish court as well as other parts of the Five Kingdoms. Shavigmen didn't own slaves.

"It belonged to his father," added Landislaw with a graceful grimace.

"His father," continued Garranon sourly, "is Black Ciernack."

"The moneylender?" asked my uncle, clearly shocked. Maybe he hadn't heard the rumors about Garranon's brother.

Oh, Landislaw was not in debt, quite the contrary. He brought friends from court into friendly gambling dens, just seedy enough to appeal to the jaded young courtiers. The dens belonged to Ciernack. If Landislaw's friends lost money there, it surely wasn't his fault. Just ask him.

"The moneylender," agreed Garranon. "Before Landislaw could return her, she ran away. So we've been chasing her ever since. Frankly, if Landislaw hadn't discovered that someone had been feeding her stories that Hurog is a refuge for slaves, we'd never have found her. From the tracks we've followed, she's in a tunnel down by the river. I don't know how she got in there: We couldn't move that grate. But her footprints continued beyond the grating."

Garranon was speaking to me rather than my uncle. It was one of the things that made me like him. Most people at court tried very hard to forget I was there, even if I was standing beside them.

I frowned at the floor. "Sewers."

Garranon snapped his fingers. "Of course. I was wondering what that tunnel was. I'd forgotten that this place - " He made a sweeping gesture around the room."  -  was dwarven made."

"No," I corrected. "Just the sewers."

"Ah." Garranon nodded. "Even so. We have an escaped slave in your sewers, and we can't get beyond the grate that seems to be sealed to the tunnel mouth."

Not when I'd been there last, I thought. As far as I knew, the grate should still be off its hinges, because I'd forgotten about it. Oreg must have sealed it after the slave ran inside. He had more reason than most to care for a runaway slave. Perhaps that was what had set him off on his fit.

Behind me, the sound of the whip had become rhythmical, though Oreg had quit making any sound at all.

"We left the men and dogs there and came here to see if you had a way into the sewers," said Garranon.

"No," I said.

"You've been in the sewers, Ward," reminded my uncle with a frown. "Certainly you know how to get into them."

I nodded. I did indeed. "No slaves at Hurog."

Garranon and his brother regarded me warily, but my uncle began frowning. He knew what I meant; I could see the apprehension in his eyes. I had no particular fondness for slavery or Landislaw. If Oreg wanted to save the poor thing, I felt no compunction about helping him.

"We followed her in," said Landislaw slowly, perhaps thinking I'd understand it better that way. "She went in through the grate. We could track her that far. But she won't be able to get back out that way, since we left men guarding the grate. We need a way in."

"Only way in is through the grates," I said mildly.

"You can open them?" snapped Landislaw, dropping his pleasant act. He must be really worried. It didn't bother me to see him sweat. One of the boys Landislaw had led into Black Ciernack's nets had killed himself. He'd been a good lad, kind to his stupid friends.

"Yes," I agreed.

"Then let's go get the slave out," snapped Landislaw, ignoring his brother's hand on his shoulder.

"There is no slave," I said, smiling at him as if I thought he were hard of understanding.

My uncle bowed his head, shaking it slowly.

Perhaps forgetting that my stupidity was in my head and not my body, Landislaw grabbed my upper arms.

"Wrestling," I said happily and tossed him a dozen feet into the pack of mastiffs that usually lolled about the fireplace when no one had them out hunting. "I like wrestling."