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worst possible moment. The only thing complicated about Blade's plan was its
use of eight Sea Masters and their trained yulon. But that was also something
nobody in Nurn would believe even if they saw it. So nobody would be looking
for it. Blade hoped things would stay that way until he had finished his work.
That work went slowly at first, slowly enough to have given Blade a few
sleepless nights if he had been the type to lie awake worrying. He wasn't. He
was painfully aware that the more time passed, the greater his chances of
returning to Talgar and finding Svera's head nailed on the Traitors' Beam by
the dockyard entrance.
Fox dropped anchor at Clintrod, and Blade and four sailors donned heavy
disguises and went ashore. In their chests and bags rode armor and weapons,
a good sum in gold, and enough other disguises to make the five men look like
forty other ones. The chest also contained two sealed envelopes.
One held credentials showing Blade to be an authorized arms purchaser for the
Autocracy of Finance of the Sea Cities of Talgar. The other showed Blade to be
an equally authorized arms buyer for the Clan
Gnyr of the Sea Masters. The arms dealer would not ask any questions once they
saw those letters. The arms trade was far too profitable for any dealer to
wish to doubt a buyer's word and risk driving him into the arms (or warehouse)
of a competitor.
They nearly came to grief even before they entered Mestron. A mile from the
North Gate they heard the thunder of fast-moving hooves and the blare of
trumpets behind them. Then came shouts of "Way, way for the Duke Tymgur and
his household! Way all!" Blade pulled the two pack mules to one side of the
road and turned.
A long, cavalcade of men in black and green livery on sleek black horses was
coming up behind them. In the center rode a tall, thin man with a
close-cropped black beard fringing his pale, bony face. He was flanked by two
banner bearers. The banners they carried were green, with a black bull's head
on them.
The cavalcade pounded on toward the gates of the City. Blade led his little
caravan back onto the road. As he did, he overheard a brief grumbling exchange
between two porters staggering along under massive loads of pots.
"Hunh Tymgur be gettin' much abo' hisself, nae?"
"Yar. No t'Emperor hisself do ride like thot on common roads."
"Maybe Tymgur ha' dreams o' "
"Hssssh!"
Blade kept that exchange and the Duke's face very much in his mind as they
rode on into Mestron. A
small bribe to the sentries got them the names of several reliable inns that
catered to arms buyers and other merchants. Blade chose one called the Inn of
the Seven Cats.
There were a good many more than seven cats underfoot as he entered, but the
place was tolerably clean, and the landlord asked no more than the usual
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number of questions. Blade settled his party in two adjoining rooms and gave
them a quick lecture on disguises and a longer lecture on keeping their mouths
shut. "Never mind what good wine or willing girls you find. If you can't
handle them and keep your tongue from flapping too, then leave them alone!
Flapping tongues have been known to slit their owners'
throats or stretch their owners' necks."
The next morning Blade went out into the city and down to the waterfront
warehouses, to begin his career as an arms buyer.
The first few days were almost straight espionage work. The city was strange,
the streets reeked of fish and horse droppings, and the policemen carried
swords and crossbows instead of pistols. But it was the same sort of
painstaking, careful work that Blade had done for the first twenty years of
his career, in
Prague and Ankara and Tokyo. However, he was too experienced ever to let
himself assume that something was completely routine. That assumption might
eventually take the edge off his alertness and his head off his shoulders.
So he was alert as he made the rounds of one stuffy warehouse after another,
talking with one greasy bearded armorer's representative after another,
inspecting one barrel or crate of weapons after another.
He had been advised to bargain ruthlessly, sneering freely at the quality of
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