Matabar

Book II. Chapter 42 - Maryana Sestrova

Ardi pulled the knot tight against the hitching post, the coarse rope biting into the wood. He gave the calm steppe horse a reassuring pat on the withers, having a quiet conversation of hands and hide. The horse snorted, then began to draw water from the long trough with noisy, satisfying gulps.

On Nathan’s advice (it was likely included in the “small” token of gratitude Ardi had paid the man personally the day before… It was a good thing the man hadn’t demanded payment for his whole squad, or Ardi might have parted with the better part of his travel expenses already), he had stopped at a tavern called “The Pine Porridge.” It looked like a saloon that had swollen to a monstrous size, as if it had been fused together with several of its brethren.

It was three stories tall and painted white, the paint peeling in places so badly that it gave the impression that the young man was standing before some feathered behemoth that might, at any moment, flap its ”wings” and soar into the sky.

A sign swayed in the wind, its hinges complaining with a weary creak that set the rusted links of its chains grinding against each other. Once, you could have perhaps even made out the inscription and the drawing of a pine cone, but now it was all just a smear of paint, a mess that someone had long ago given up on meticulously restoring, choosing instead to just slap on a new coat of paint wherever and however it landed.

In truth, Larand itself looked much the same. It reminded him of Evergale in a way. Except here, the buildings, save for the church and the town hall, were not made of brick or stone, only wooden planks with frayed felt wedged between them. It had the same wide, dusty main road, with sidewalks made up of wooden planks abutting the low, broad buildings.

There was a general store, a butcher’s shop, several haberdasheries, a gunsmith, a post office… and everything else one might find in a small town perched on the edge of the Empire’s rapid, but far from all-encompassing, technological progress.

Even the clothes of the people, who were casting suspicious glances at the mounted mage, looked like an homage to a decade twice removed from the present. The women wore dresses far too heavy for the weather, all lush and complex, with corsets, petticoats, and patterns of ruffles and frills. Among the men, you could easily spot a frock coat begging for a wash and a top hat or a bowler hat that had been beaten down by life.

In other words, Larand looked exactly like Evergale might have had it not been for the latest industrial boom and the opening of a major railway hub in Delpas.

The tavern was tucked into a dead end of this peculiar thoroughfare, just past a crossroads from which narrow streets snaked away between sparse residential buildings. Towns like Larand were more a center of social life than of… life itself, as strange as that sounded. The locals mostly lived in separate houses in the surrounding area. They kept small farms, engaged in trade, and unfailingly hoped to move to Nigrad.

Truly… this was like Evergale.

The horse snorted again. Jolted from his thoughts, Ardi adjusted his hat and entered through the short swinging doors. They were the kind of doors that would have been more at home in a saloon than in a tavern or an inn.

The interior inspired no particular delight in him, either. The bar was old, eaten through by beetles, saturated with other people’s stories, and soaked in strong alcohol. There were a few round stools, about ten tables, and a staircase leading up to a gallery from which you could glimpse the residential floor.

At several tables, gentlemen that looked all too familiar to Ardi were playing Sevens. They were easy to recognize by their weathered faces, their light stubble, their calloused, wrinkled hands, and the wistful gaze they sometimes turned toward the windows, searching for the open spaces hidden behind the rooftops, a place where their souls, languishing within these tight walls, longed to be—cowboys.

Besides them, a group whose very existence made the tips of Ardan’s fingers tingle was dining—it was likely that each of them possessed an artifact of the Speakers and the Aean’Hane, and perhaps more than one at that. They were clearly Hunters, using the minimal comfort of the town as a waypoint. After all, even a place like this was still better, safer and calmer than the border of the Dead Lands (if Mart was to be believed, of course).

In addition to these colorful groups of people, there were also simple drifters at the tables. The kind who, from season to season, trusting only an old revolver and an equally-old horse, moved between towns in search of their fate. Sometimes, they found it under the skirts of a good-natured widow or on a railroad construction site, but far more often, they found it in the earth, at a depth of precisely three meters below its surface.

In Evergale, Sheriff Kelly and his deputies would regularly show such “wanderers” the door. Uninvited guests usually brought nothing but trouble and anxiety to the tight-knit communities of frontier towns. That was why Ardan wasn’t surprised when everyone in the room, except for the drifters themselves, measured him for a moment with less than pleasant gazes.

He was a strange mage, clearly just off the road, and without a party of Hunters accompanying him—not the kind of visitor one would be happy to see.

Ardan took off his hat, which immediately drew stifled laughter from the Hunters’ table and looks of mild interest from the cowboys, and approached the bar. Sitting on a stool that groaned pitifully beneath him, he placed one ex and ten kso on the counter.

“Good afternoon,” the young man said.

The bartender, an older man with a sharp gaze and an equally sharp, lean appearance, studied Ard in silence for a time. He seemed to be deciding what to pull out from under the counter: the ledger, or a sawed-off shotgun—the latter being easier to use indoors. Ardan would have recognized the smell of both items without fail even if he had been living in the Metropolis for ten years instead of just one.

“Got one on the second floor,” the bartender chose, praise the Sleeping Spirits, a dusty, thick and equally-battered ledger. Running a finger down the lines, the bartender finished his sentence. “With a barrel. Washstand’s broken. If you fix it, one dinner’s on the house. You get a wooden bed and a nightstand.”

“And-”

“Nothing else,” the bartender cut him off sharply.

Ardan could see that five of the sixteen rooms were empty, and judging by the columns in the table, they were much better furnished, but… Here, on the frontier, it wasn’t just Hunters who could determine a man’s lineage at a glance. And those brown eyes, which were so sharp you could cut yourself on their gaze with a careless movement, had clearly read a certain part of his family history in Ardi’s face.

The bartender truly had no other rooms.

Not for the Firstborn and their immediate descendants.

“I’m here on Balitsky’s recommendation,” Ardan decided to try his luck.

“You a friend of his?” The bartender narrowed his eyes slightly.

“Just an acquaintance,” Ardi didn’t prevaricate or use Skusty’s art.

The owner of the establishment spat some thick, yellowish saliva into an iron cup.

“You’re lucky, mage,” his voice wasn’t exactly rude, but it lacked any real warmth. “Otherwise, I’d have taken that ex as payment for the debt Nathan ran up last season.”

And for some reason, Ardan was not surprised…

“Do we have a deal?” The bartender wiped a grimy palm on his greasy apron, which was the same yellow as his spit… This, perhaps, made his hand a little cleaner.

“Is that enough for a week?” Ardan hurried to clarify.

“An ex and ten kso?” The bartender asked again, his hand still outstretched. “With breakfast?”

“Yes.”

“Six days, but you’ll pay extra for hot water.”

“How much?”

“Why are you so damn particular?” Squeezing his fist, the bartender seemed to squeeze his own voice as well, compressing it to a state where you could fight with it.

“Do I look like a man with a printing press hidden in his hat?” Ardan retorted, not matching his tone, but without any undue nervousness, either.

Thanks to the cowboys and the Polskih farm…

“Fair enough, but you don’t look much like a man at all…” The bartender nodded after a second’s thought. “The barrel holds seventy liters and we have no boiler, so… seven exes for an evening.”

Sleeping Spirits…

“Four.”

“Six, or you can grab your gear and get out of here, mage.”

Some might have taken it for rudeness, but Ardan had lived a third of his life among people who’d spoken in precisely this manner, using these very same words, on a regular basis.

“Done,” Ardan shook the bartender’s hand, which felt as wrinkled and rough as sandpaper.

The man immediately swept the bill and coin under the counter, then rummaged in a small box from which he fished out a small key with a tag. It had the number “12” on it.

“Get settled, mage,” the bartender said curtly and returned to his business. Ardan, taking his hat and satchel, went up the stairs. With every step, they threatened to open wide and bite his ankle. He walked down the corridor and fumbled for some time with the wretched lock. It refused to recognize the key as its own, but at some point, it finally gave way.

The room inside turned out to be even smaller and far more ravaged by mold than the one Ardan had shared with Cassara in Delpas.

Everything was as the bartender had described, except he had forgotten to mention that the straw mattress had long since become a home to an entire family of bedbugs and other vermin. The white, knitted curtains on the small window looked especially amusing against this backdrop of desolation.

“You get used to the good things quickly,” Ardan sighed, remembering his and Tess’ apartment on Markov Canal.

Setting down his satchel, the first thing he did was touch the doorframe with his staff. The steel threads of protective enchantments spread across it, and the young man felt two rays wink out in his Red Star. The biggest advantage of the frontier was the complete absence of stationary protective wards, generators and Ley-wiring.

The second thing the young man concerned himself with was the mattress. Ardi, anticipating such a situation, had gathered the necessary herbs along the way. Crushing them in his hands, he clenched his fists and squeezed out a sap with a pungent, biting odor onto the bed. Then he applied it to the mattress, then the nightstand, and finally, he smeared the sap on everything nearby. And given the cramped confines, where one could, if they so desired, touch both walls with their outstretched fingers, this was no great trouble.

In a couple of hours, the bedbugs would flee, meaning that Ardan wouldn’t have to serve as someone else’s meal. Where would they go? Most likely to the neighboring rooms, but alas, that was no longer Ardi’s concern, but the tavern owner’s.

Peeking out the window, the young man did not hurry to unpack. The first thing he would have done, had he not been concealing his Black House credentials, was head to the sheriff’s office. Or the town hall. That was where he could have found useful documents, or at least ones that hinted at the truth.

But, since he had to stay incognito, he could not afford to ask for such a privilege.

On the other hand, he was still a stranger in a small town, unknown to the cowboys and the Hunters, and a mage to boot, and on top of all that—a half-blood of the Firstborn.

So…

“Mr. Mage!” A voice, muffled by the floorboards, was not long in coming.

But, oddly enough… it was a woman’s voice. Ardan, not expecting Larand to surprise him so soon, left his satchel and revolver in the room, taking only his grimoire and staff, which he had already placed in a thick case.

Not even fifteen minutes had passed since he had started treating the room for bedbugs, so there was nothing surprising about such a prompt visit. The same could not be said for the voice itself. And its gender.

Descending the stairs, Ardan passed the indifferent bartender and the only slightly-interested patrons, then found himself outside. A dry, hot wind was blowing. It brazenly kicked up clouds of road dust that immediately found a home on the saddlebags.

In front of the tavern, near the hitching post, three riders had stopped. Two of them were quite obviously former military men. Ardan had learned to distinguish them by their piercing, yet slightly wandering gaze, by their number of scars, and by the way they always held their iron so they could draw it in an instant.

They wore the silver badges of deputy sheriffs on their chests, which, on the whole, fit perfectly into the grand scheme of things. But what the young man could never have predicted was that standing near a black mustang, thumbs hooked into her belt, and chewing on a blade of grass under a wide-brimmed hat, was a woman.

She was a little younger than thirty. Perhaps Anita’s age. She lacked a waist, which seemed to have migrated from her stomach and hips to her face, which formed an almost perfect triangle with high, sharp cheekbones. She also had an aquiline, long nose that somehow didn’t look out of place, thin lips, and the tenacious, foxy gaze of truly dark eyes.

Her long hair, braided into a tight plait, was unexpectedly adorned with feathers and fangs, the kind the steppe orcs usually festooned themselves with. These were marks of distinction for a successful hunt.

And yet, judging by her scent and appearance, the woman, who was about a meter and seventy centimeters tall (which was very tall for a human woman), had no relation to the Firstborn whatsoever.

However, she was directly related to the authority of the Empire for the simple reason that, on the right side of her men’s jacket, which she wore over a women’s shirt, a sheriff’s medallion gleamed with gold. And this was despite the fact that women were not made sheriffs. They had started accepting them as marshals and guards only after the end of the Fatian Massacre, but never as sheriffs.

“Surprised?” And then, in exactly the same manner as the bartender, she spat on the ground at her feet. Her black, polished riding boots shone in the sun no less brightly than her sharp spurs. “A sheriff without a bulge in her britches—they don’t teach you about that in the capital, do they?”

She spoke a little strangely. And it wasn’t because of her accent (or rather, the complete lack of one), but her choice of words.

“Could I-”

“You could not,” the sheriff interrupted without any hesitation and, stepping almost right up to Ardan, held out a leather document case.

Inside, certified with all the necessary seals, was a crumpled and in places worn paper that announced:

“Sheriff Maryana Sestrova.

Town of Larand.

Province of the Dancing Peninsula.”

Below was the crest of the Empire, the signature of the province’s head guard, the governor himself, and the date she had been sworn in. All of it was as it should be. Ardan had seen the exact same documents on Kelly.

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“I’ve shown you mine, now you show me what your mama gave you, mage.”

Despite the strange and rather ambiguous words, her voice was sharp and hard, like a drover’s whip. Ardan, still in a state of mild shock, calmly handed the representative of local authority a whole stack of papers stored in two holders.

These were his papers that marked him as a citizen of the Empire with permission to move freely, and the papers that confirmed he was a student of the Grand University, which included those a mage was required to present. In total, there were eight papers, sixteen signatures, and twenty-four seals.

Bureaucracy…

Ardan was beginning to develop a fervent dislike for it.

Mrs. Sestrova (what an unusual surname, though it sounded similar to the usual Galessian ones) checked every paper with a scrupulousness worthy of the Black House’s accounting department. Nothing escaped her attention, including…

“Why are you hiding your rod?”

If not for her nod toward his staff, Ardan wouldn’t have immediately understood what the sheriff of Larand meant.

“You have a permit to openly carry it,” she jabbed a gnarled, slightly crooked index finger at the corresponding paper.

“I thought it would be easier for the locals this way.”

“The locals,” the sheriff spat again. “And what are you, some foreigner? You speak like you’re not from the Empire. According to your papers, you’re local.”

“I-”

“What a capital fu…” One of her deputies coughed behind Sestrova, and the sheriff cut herself off. “A capital dandy… So, what did you lose here? I don’t see any idiot Hunters with you, so out with it. And I’m warning you right now. Despite your pretty face, with those naive kitten eyes, you won’t be losing your virginity here either. But if some little fool takes a fancy to you, don’t be offended—I won’t be pulling your ass out of the fire. However much righteous fatherly lead it soaks up for spoiling a young thing is how much you’ll take with you when you leave.”

Despite her rather long monologue, the woman had spoken so quickly, sharply, and with that same whip-crack quality, that it seemed as if she had only uttered a few words.

Ardan had of course heard that some young mages from the capital, upon returning from the remote provinces, would boast of their success with the opposite sex, who had been quite generous with their attention to their regalia, but he had never paid it any mind. He’d considered it foolish bragging and tall tales, especially because common folk, especially far from the capital, usually feared mages, not welcomed them.

But maybe things worked differently for women…

“You’re not so big that it should take this long to get through to you, mage,” she rocked her pelvis back and forth. The gesture was not at all feminine. And in general, if not for her long hair and certain characteristic lines around her chest and hips, she could have been mistaken for a man.

She was even rougher than Tevona Elliny, and yet, her heart beat steadily and calmly. She was not the least bit afraid to be in Ard’s presence.

What a strange woman.

Ardan had just opened his mouth to speak when he felt pinpricks on his fingertips. His gaze caught on a leather cord around the sheriff’s neck, and it wasn’t hard to guess that she possessed the same kind of artifact as Nathan Balitsky. A consequence of being so close to the Dead Lands, most likely.

“I am looking for someone I care about,” Ardan replied, using his squirrel mentor’s art.

For a Cloak from the capital, or a detective of the guard, that answer would not have been nearly enough; rather, it would have been the starting point for further questioning.

But Larand was far from the Metropolis. Here, the residents were concerned with entirely different matters, and for the most part, who Ardan was looking for, as long as he himself wasn’t causing any trouble, was of no concern to the sheriff. He… she had far more important and pressing issues.

“I don’t see a permit allowing you to cross the borders of the Dead Lands,” despite the fact that the spark of interest in her eyes had instantly died, Sheriff Sestrova was still on duty, so she continued their “acquaintance” with the standard interrogation procedure.

“I am not a member of the Hunters’ Guild,” Ardi answered honestly.

“Then how do you plan on finding your relative?”

This was the art of Skusty in action… She had heard the existence of a family tie in what he had said, so all Ardi had to do was not dispel this misconception.

“I thought it would be useful to make inquiries at the archives of the town hall and the sheriff’s office.”

Sestrova looked him in the eyes, practically inviting him to dive into her consciousness, but Ardan restrained the impulse. He couldn’t know for sure if she had some hidden amulet that would either shield her from his Witch’s Gaze or allow her to feel its touch.

Ardi felt a tingling in his fingers, which indicated that the art of the Aean’Hane was perhaps being used, but with his still-limited abilities as a Speaker, he couldn’t grasp the specifics.

“The wait for a permit is six days,” Maryana finally returned his documents.

“Yes, I just rented a room for a week,” Ardan gestured behind him with his staff.

“I’m aware,” Maryana added grimly and, turning on her heel, leaped deftly into the saddle from a standstill.

She sat a horse even better than she walked on the ground.

“I hope this is our last conversation, Mr. Egobar,” she touched her fingers to the brim of her hat and, without waiting for a reply, guided her black horse up the street.

Ardan, in turn, headed back into the tavern. Just as he reached the doors, his keen hearing, which he had, in fact, focused on the receding clatter of hooves and jingle of saddlebags, caught the words:

“Send a letter to the capital guards through the marshals today,” the voice carried over the hoofbeats. “Have them send everything they have on Mr. Egobar.”

“Alright, Sheriff, but that will take at least a week. It might not be necessary.”

“It might not be… but you know that I don’t like surprises. Especially when those surprises are bigger than I can fit inside me.”

“Eternal Angels, Sheriff! Not even drunk cowboys talk like that!”

“Bronsky, not even rosy-cheeked maidens on their wedding day complain like that.”

Indeed, this was a strange woman with a strange surname. And, most unpleasantly, Ardan now had a clearly defined time limit. The guard corps would obviously be unable to share information about a certain “Egobar’s” work for the Black House, but his kinship with Aror was another matter entirely… and then he could forget about a quiet investigation.

***

Just as he had done a couple of days earlier in Nigrad, Ardan sat at a remote table, reading some scientific literature. Before him, on the rough table covered in stains that had eaten into the time-grayed wood, next to an empty clay cup, lay a scientific treatise published only a few years prior.

“The Incompleteness Theorem” was on the list that Grand Magister Lukas Krayt had given him.

The work argued that in any sufficiently complex, consistent formal system, such as the mathematics of the runic connections of Ley structures, there are always some true but unprovable statements. It was a rather convoluted study, in which numbers and equations mixed with philosophy and axiomatic proofs… of the unprovable.

But for some reason, it was the reading of this particular work, of which Ardan understood a tenth at best, that inspired him to continue his search… not for Lusha’s sister, but for a solution to his research in the field of transmutational runic links and, possibly, methods of long-distance communication. This was because, if one were to believe “The Incompleteness Theorem,” whose author had been awarded a Senior Magister medallion at the last Congress of Scientific Guilds, then, despite the fact that Ardan was not yet able to prove either of these things, they could still be true.

Why was he engaged in his research and not the investigation? A noisy crowd of cowboys, local residents and seasoned Hunters had gathered at one of the tables. They were drinking, throwing coins and Sevens cards on the table, and were clearly looking for a reason to loosen their tongues, which were not very tightly tethered to the roofs of their mouths to begin with.

It was hard to imagine more fertile ground for gathering rumors about the Monastery of the Sisters of Light and its orphanage.

There was just one “but” there—no one here would chat with a stranger. So Ardan didn’t waste his energy. He just waited. As Ergar and Shali had taught him, a hunter spends most of their time planning, then just as much time waiting and tracking, and only a fraction of a moment is allotted for the strike itself, a moment you won’t even remember later.

Fortunately, Ardan did not have to wait any longer than he had planned.

Midway through the evening, the doors of the nearly-packed tavern creaked open once more, and familiar faces appeared on the threshold. The stocky Nathan Balitsky, the lanky Bakket, and the young man, Ladmir.

“Lidag!” Nathan shouted from the doorway and, spreading his arms wide, headed for the bartender. “How glad I am to see you, my friend!”

“You’ll be my friend again when you pay the two exes and forty-seven kso you owe me, Nathan,” Lidag grumbled without much malice and shook the proffered hand.

“Well, as it just so happens, I have it on me, of course… one moment,” and Nathan pulled out the very same bills that Ardan had given him.

How did he know this? Because they weren’t crumpled, stained or torn. And, of course, the money being in such perfect condition could not go unnoticed by Lidag’s attentive gaze. He immediately nodded toward the table where Ardi was sitting.

Nathan turned to his acquaintance, and his face darkened slightly. Whispering something to the bartender, he, along with his colleagues, headed toward Ardi.

“Told you we’d see each other soon, Ard,” Nathan said after they exchanged handshakes. He was the first to sit at the table, followed by Bakket and Ladmir.

“You were quick,” Ardan said with as much “sincere” surprise as he could muster. Acting had never been his strong suit, so he could only be glad that Nathan’s group was already on edge.

In the end, they had carried out vigilante justice, which could have sent Nathan to the gallows and Bakket and Ladmir to the mines or, given their skills, it was more likely they’d have ended up in a penal assault squad on the Fatian or Armondian border.

“We rode for a day and a half without rest, Ard,” Nathan was clearly lying.

They hadn’t ridden all night at all, but had more likely been cleaning up the crime scene. After all, the path they had followed from Nigrad to Larand was relatively popular, so none of the three were going to needlessly risk their lives and freedom.

“And how did the guild take Anita’s story?” Ardi asked casually, closing his book.

“Who knows,” Nathan waved his hand a little jerkily. “We left her there and came straight back so as not to waste time. In a few days, we’re leaving as part of a large group of Hunters,” the man nodded toward his other colleagues, whose numbers in the tavern were growing by the hour. “We didn’t want to lose our spot.”

“I understand, and-”

“Listen, Ard,” Nathan interjected. Bakket and Ladmir had been silent this whole time, their eyes fixed on his staff, which lacked the inscribed seals they were used to. “You’re not a stupid guy. You understand how people might start looking at us if the story with Anita becomes, let’s say, public knowledge.”

“Yes, of course, Nathan, I won’t tell anyone anything.”

“Excellent!” The man slapped the table with a wide smile and obvious relief. Bakket and Ladmir looked away from his staff and also seemed a little more relaxed than before. “Just don’t mention her at all, okay? So no extra questions arise. If anyone asks, we split up in the middle of the road. Anita went back to Nigrad on… her own magical business, and we came here without her. And now we’re waiting for our… friend,” that last word was clearly difficult for Nathan to say. “Alright?”

“Agreed,” Ardan nodded.

All in all, he wasn’t concerned with the vigilante justice of Nathan and the others. Or rather, it wasn’t that he was indifferent to it, but that he had more important things to do.

“I told you that you were a great guy!” Nathan clapped Ardan on the shoulder and immediately pulled him toward the common table. “What are you doing sitting here all alone like a stranger... Come on! We’ll introduce you to our guys! We’ll play some Sevens, and maybe you’ll decide to look for your person beyond the Perimeter. We’re actually short a mage…”

The “Perimeter,” from what Ardan had managed to figure out, was what the Hunters called the border of the Dead Lands.

And that, in fact, was exactly what Ardan had been waiting for. Not an invitation to join their squad, of course, but an offer to sit at the common table. If Ardi had asked to join them himself, it might have aroused some suspicion in his prey… his companions. But this way, there was no problem, as Nathan himself had invited him.

And he couldn’t have possibly done otherwise. Maybe Nathan truly believed that Ardi wouldn’t blab, but his frayed nerves and the still-fresh smell of someone else’s blood wouldn’t let him rest easy. Not when the one whose word could mean so much to his future was sitting behind him, out of sight. And if Nathan and his men had been members of one of the gangs of the Metropolis, Ardan would have been seriously concerned for his safety.

But Nathan, Bakket and Ladmir were not criminals, and so, they didn’t act like criminals. Their answer to the problem wasn’t “silence the witness forever,” but “invite him to the common table so he’s under our supervision and doesn’t let anything slip.” And then, when enough time had passed, if Ardi said anything, Nathan and the others would just shrug, throw up their hands, and say “where’s your proof?”

But that was for later.

“Hey, guys, meet Ard! He’s a mage from the capital and just a good guy all around! And his fangs are bigger than Skail’s little twig in his pants!”

“Hey, Nathan! Has it been a while since you got punched in your fat face?”

A few hours of Sevens and several liters of cheap whiskey and vodka later…

“Mine!” Throwing the winning combination, which turned out to be all dragons, numbered one to four, onto the table, Madmir, a cowboy with crooked teeth and a lazy right eye, took the whole pot.

It was almost… thirty kso. The stakes here were low. Both because cowboys and Hunters (the vast majority of them) weren’t that rich, and because they used the game as a way to keep their hands busy. It was a kind of garnish to the hearty conversation, which mostly revolved around the female sex, new models of rifles and revolvers, and horses. Sometimes, all three topics could be mentioned in the same sentence.

There were, of course, no women on the first floor of the tavern. Ardi could hear and smell clear evidence that a few members of the opposite sex were on the upper floors, but they didn’t come down. This was either because they were being prudent or because their companions wouldn’t let them.

“Alas,” Ardan openly folded his losing combination of a crown with six points, a ship with three masts, and a mage with three staves.

He was shamelessly lucky only in high-stakes games, so when the table didn’t even have half an ex in total on it, Lady Luck politely excused herself. Which, in this setting, was undoubtedly to the young man’s advantage.

“You play like shit, Ard, but your stories are interesting. Especially the one about… what was it… I forgot,” Madmir waved his hand and tipped a glass full of cheap, smelly vodka down his throat. The Hunters and cowboys drank a lot, with great passion, and yet, they got drunk very slowly.

Unless, of course, you counted those like Ladmir, who was already lying on the floor and sometimes even snoring. They were pushed aside, and if their body was too heavy, they just spread their legs so they could conveniently place a chair between them.

“Why are you listening to him,” Skail boomed, clumsily waving a finger in front of his eyes. “He came here to search… for girls, I bet. That is why he showed up.”

“Just look at him, Skail, what would he need our girls for,” Nathan immediately interjected. “His face is prettier than the ones in the newspapers.”

“I can’t read, Nathan.”

“You can’t drink either, Skail, you old ram.”

“Go to hell.”

“Into your fiery pit, you mean?”

“Is that what you’re into, huh?”

“Well, if I drink another… two barrels, then maybe you’ll pass for an old widow.”

“I see… let’s drink to that,” Skail raised his glass.

“Let’s drink!” A dozen raw throats roared.

Ardan also raised his glass… of whiskey. He brought it to his lips, swallowed his saliva, and put it back down. Everyone around him, as a result, thought that their companion was also drinking along with them. This was a little trick he’d picked up during his time on the farm.

“So… they say that you have almost no unmarried young women around here,” Ardan decided, finally, to step onto the hunting trail. “Except for the Sisters of Light.”

Someone laughed, others clapped Ardan on the back, and Skail raised his glass:

“Let’s drink to the Sisters!”

“And their ample hips!” Someone chimed in from the side.

They drank again.

“Nah, Ard,” Nathan said with a wave. Despite his inebriated state, he shuffled the cards very deftly and quickly, then dealt them to those who wanted in. “The monastery is a lost cause.”

“They won’t let you in?”

“Why wouldn’t they,” Madmir snorted. “They let in all who are suffering.”

“And what if I’m suffering from my desire to get them into bed?” A voice came from under the table.

“You can’t even drag your dick to the outhouse right now, Ladmir,” Bakket croaked, his eyes turning into two narrow slits—it seemed he was fighting off sleep with his last ounce of strength.

“Fair enough,” came the voice from below again.

“And if he does manage to drag it there, it’ll be as limp as your bland faces,” Nathan chuckled.

“Let’s drink to that,” Skail, as always, raised his glass. “To limp dicks and bland faces!”

They drank. In the end, it didn’t matter what they were toasting anymore.

“The Sisters don’t have worldly husbands,” Madmir continued.

“Just as worldly husbands don’t have them…”

“Oh, just shut up!”

“What’s all the fuss… We’re all just…”

A sharp slap to the back of the head could be heard, and one of the young Hunters fell silent. This was one of the rules of hazing that Ardan had learned on the farm. Jokes that the “old-timers” were allowed to make, the “youngsters” were not even allowed to whisper. And it wasn’t so much about age as it was about the weight of your name and the skill of your hands.

“You wouldn’t want to do anything anyways, Ard,” Madmir looked at his cards and tossed them aside. “Once you see them… I don’t know. They’re blessed. Pure. Like a tear. It’s almost scary to even think of touching them. You feel like you’d stain them with your… ah, it’s nothing.”

“Let’s drink to nothing!” Skail, not to be forgotten, chimed in.

Lidag, who acted like he was casually passing by, refilled everyone’s drinks and, of course, made a few notes in his small notebook. When it came to those he knew, he would ask for payment in the morning, while others had to awkwardly fumble in their pockets or ask to borrow money from friends to pay on the spot.

“And the orphanage?” Ardi asked.

For a moment, a heavy, unkind silence fell over the tavern. It was as if someone had lifted the needle from a record on an old gramophone.

“I mean the governesses,” Ardan immediately clarified.

The silence was instantly replaced by thunderous laughter. The tension disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

“They’re all married, Ard,” Madmir grimaced. “No, if you have a desire to tumble in someone else’s bed with someone else’s wife, that’s your business. But this isn’t Nigrad. They’ll shoot you, bury you somewhere in the woods, and then say no such capital mage ever came here.”

At these words, Nathan tensed slightly and downed another shot.

“It’s a dead end, then,” Ardan carefully approached the question that interested him. He didn’t rush, just as his forest friends had taught him. “The Larand Monastery of the Sisters of Light.”

“Why should it be anything but,” Madmir shrugged. “They sit behind their walls. Keep livestock. Cultivate the land for their needs. Sometimes, when a ship docks, they sell them something. Woven baskets, sewn and knitted clothes. Look here, for example, my winter cloak was made by them. A fine piece of work. And much cheaper than in the shops.”

So far, everything fit with what Ardan already knew about life in the monasteries. Because the Church, as an institution, was separate from the state, all parishes and monasteries lived within their own means and received no subsidies. Officially. Unofficially, of course, they were supported by special decrees granting them certain sums of money.

“Well now, you say that it’s a dead end,” Ardan also folded his cards, and not because he would have lost, but quite the opposite. “But if there’s a sea route, then pleasure yachts from Nigrad must also come here.”

“Sometimes, but rarely,” Madmir confirmed his guess. “Only when some fat cat wants to atone for his sins and visits either the temple or the orphanage. He rubs a couple of exes with his greasy fingers and sails away satisfied. After all, he helped the orphans. Confessed before the Face of Light. And we, the working folk-”

“Let’s drink to the working folk!” The already-dozing Skail woke up.

So, the monastery could be visited for a perfectly normal reason… that fit perfectly with Peter Oglanov’s theory. Constant, baseless visits would sooner or later raise questions, but if the monastery was visited, albeit rarely, but regularly, then…

“I thought the Crown supported the orphanage,” Ardan moved a little closer.

“It does, yes, but how many other orphanages does it have? You can’t get enough exes for everyone… so sometimes, they help the orphans. And when they’re really lucky, they take them,” Madmir shook himself like an old dog, as if trying to shake off the approaching drunken slumber. “They even have some kind of holiday of their own… should be coming up soon. The Day of Weeping… in memory of the Martyrs… probably.”

At these words, Madmir’s head crashed onto the table, and Skail shouted:

“Let’s drink to… let’s just drink,” and he followed his friend into oblivion.

Ardan watched the rest keep playing and thought about what he’d just learned.

The Day of Weeping, then…