The Wizardry Consulted (Wiz, #4)(68)

He couldn’t even take pride in his job, like he could writing a good tight module of code in something like COBOL. At heart he just wasn’t a con man and playing the role was taking its toll on him. He sucked a breath of the cold night air and sighed gustily. This wasn’t working out at all the way he had anticipated.

He was cold and tired and frustrated and a little scared and more than anything else he just wanted to go home.

Wiz never even saw the shadow that separated itself from the wall as he passed. And he never heard the hiss of the blade through the air. The edge landed squarely across his shoulders and as he froze into immobility a sharp whistle rang out from the darkness from whence the shadow had come.

“Ow!” said the shadow. “My wrist.”

“I told you not to hit him, didn’t I?” retorted a second cloaked man as he emerged from the darkness. He was shorter and for an instant a moonbeam gleamed off his dark pate. “Just tickle him in the ribs, I said. But no, you have to take a mucking great whack at him.”

There was a rattling on the cobblestones just around the corner.

“Here comes the cart,” said the first one. “Let’s get this business over with.”

Heaving and straining the three men loaded Wiz’s immobile form into the cart. The spell didn’t increase Wiz’s weight, but it did do funny things to his inertia. The footpads found they could only move him slowly and that made him seem even heavier. It didn’t help that one of them had to keep his sword pressed against Wiz at all times lest the spell break. That left two of them to do most of the work, including burying the frozen wizard under the turnips that made up two-thirds of the cart’s load.

It was not a quiet business, especially since all three men had a tendency to curse and mutter at every little bit of work. But not a shutter banged open nor even a light showed at a window, as if these kinds of goings-on were commonplace here.

Finally, with Wiz stowed and covered, the pair mounted the cart and rattled off in the night, leaving the occasional turnip behind to mark their passage.

A few minutes jolting over cobblestones brought them to the city’s west gate. It was lit by flaming torches on either side and before it stood a representative of the city’s guard. He was tall, gangly, wearing a steel cap and leather-covered jack. In the crook of his bony arm he carried a halberd that had definitely seen better days.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

“Out to my granny’s,” said the tall one. The medium-sized one next to him nodded vigorously and the short one sat twisted on the seat to keep his knife on Wiz’s throat under the pile of turnips.

“At this time of night?”

“We had to finish work,” the tall one said. “Then we had to eat dinner and harness the cart and load it, and . . .”

The guard peered past the driver. “What have you got in there?”

“Uh, turnips.”

“Why are you taking turnips out of the city?” he demanded.

“Granny lost her entire turnip crop,” the tall man said smoothly. “Weevils got them, they did.”

“Turnip weevils,” added the driver helpfully. “Terrible things, turnip weevils.” His companion, who recognized lily-gilding when he heard it, poked him in the ribs to shut up.

The guard had never heard of turnip weevils, but then he was a city boy. More importantly perhaps, in this city the best and brightest did not become city guardsmen and out of that lot, the best and brightest of the not-so-good and not-so-smart weren’t assigned to gate duty after curfew. Still, this was irregular and he had the reputation of the city guard to uphold.

“What’s the rest of that stuff?”

“Building supplies. We’re going to make some repairs on her cottage while we’re about it.”

“Fixing the fireplace,” the man in the back added helpfully.

“It’s after curfew. You won’t be able to get back in until morning.”

“That’s all right. We’ll stay at my granny’s.”

The guard still thought the whole thing was extremely fishy, but his orders were more about people and things coming into the city than people and things going out.

“All right. Pass on then. But I’m going to remember the lot of you.”

“Well?” said the tall one at last.

“Well what?” the guard replied.

“Aren’t you going to open the gate?”

“If you want the gate opened do it yourself. There’s three of you.”

The driver started to protest, thought better of it and nudged his companion to get down off the seat.

“Takes two to manage. Can you at least help him?”

The guard jerked his chin at the man in the back of the cart. “What’s wrong with him? And why’s he sitting funny like that?”

“Hurt meself loading the cart,” the little one said. “Set off me lumbago, it did, and sitting any other way hurts.” The guard snorted and turned to help the third man open the gate. The cart creaked through and off into the night with Wiz still magically frozen under a load of turnips.

“Hurry up with that cement, will you? My arm’s getting tired.”

A fire provided light and kept off the chill. A couple of hundred feet away the horse, still hitched to the cart, munched grass placidly. Wiz was standing in a tub half-full of cement, gesturing to empty air. One of the thugs was holding a sword to his throat and the other two were bent over another tub stirring the contents with wooden hoes.