Free The Light of Heaven by David A McIntee Page A

been causing a stir in the marketplace this morning."
    "Stealing?" Erak asked. Neither of them were interested; that was the town guards' business, not theirs.
    The guard shook his head. "Asking awkward questions and demanding to talk to either an Enlightened One or a member of the Swords." The guard shrugged. "You're here, and all the others are busy, so..."
    "Define an awkward question," Gabriella suggested.
    "He's been asking about the shooting of Eminence Rhodon. Asking if there's a reward for information." Gabriella and Erak exchanged rueful looks. This would be the fifth such inquiry she had heard this morning and the Lord alone knew how many more the other Swords or the Duke's guards might have handled. "Funny thing, though," the guard mused, "the man claims he only got into Kalten this morning."
    That did interest Gabriella. It wasn't unusual for the people of a town to seek to profit from some event that had just occurred, but how would an outsider even know to ask yet? Gabriella decided that that would be the first question she asked him.
     
    "I didn't," the man who called himself Hasso had said, answering Gabriella's question. She, Erak and Hasso were strolling within the courtyard of Castle Kalten, as the cells were already full, and Gabriella wanted to both keep an eye on the man, and make him think he was being dealt with as a contact rather than as a prisoner.
    Hasso was eyeing his surroundings warily; he seemed wisely cautious, but not intimidated. Gabriella took him for a soldier at once and his mismatched equipment suggested a mercenary. She doubted that this was his first time dealing with the Order, or the Faith as a whole.
    "I came to find the Preceptory to ask if there was a reward for information on the whereabouts of a Brotherhood man," he went on, "but when I got into Kalten I found the whole place still in this uproar. I asked a few people, and they said that an Eminence had been shot."
    "And suddenly you decided to ask if there was a reward about that?" Erak asked dubiously. "Or did you just assume that mentioning it would get you an interested ear?"
    Hasso narrowed his eyes and Gabriella was glad that the guards had disarmed him. He seemed a very angry man, for some reason.
    "Let's just say I have good reason to think that the man I originally came in to talk about might have had something to do with it."
    "Because he's Brotherhood?"
    "Because he and another fella had a meeting a couple of leagues out of town, and they seemed pretty excited about something that had happened here. Being civic-minded I thought it might be of interest to you."
    Gabriella kept her eyes on his. If she was any judge, he was being fairly truthful, though probably not about his motives in coming.
    "All right, who was it you were going to talk about to start with?"
    "Do you know a man called Scarra?" Gabriella and Erak looked blankly at each other. "He's a fat slimeball. Lives down in Pontaine, though he's Empire-born." That was unusual, but not unheard of. Gabriella herself had been born in the Pontaine city of Andon. "He has various holdings northwest of Andon. The one you'll want is a vineyard."
    "And why will we want that one?"
    "Because that's where he's heading now."
    "And why are you telling us this? And please, no crap about civic-mindedness."
    Hasso shrugged. "Scarra crossed me. He wanted to hire me and my mates in the Red Daggers as bodyguards, but stiffed us on the payment. Some of them went with him, I didn't."
    Gabriella understood perfectly. "And a reward would make up the shortfall? Of course, you realise serving under someone you knew was Brotherhood is a sin."
    Hasso nodded again. "But I'm not serving him. I'm here, turning him in."
    "The other man he met; do you know his name?"
    "Goran Kell."
    "What do you know of their plans?"
    "Sod all."
    "You expect us to believe that?"
    "Not really, but it's true anyway. I'm just a sword-hand escorting people through bandit-country. Scarra didn't tell me