Free Shadow's Witness by Paul Kemp Page B

noble family, but harmless to the Uskevren.
    Generally meticulous about bis posture, he deliberately slouched when making his rounds. He had found that guests went silent if the keen-eyed, towering butler approached, but did not seem to notice him at all if he shrank in on himself and softened his habitually hard expression.
    The best servants are like old furniture, he thought, recalling an old Sembian adage, there when you need them,* but otherwise not to be noticed.
    Wearing his best furniture disguise, he wove his way through the crowd. He refilled drinks as he went, casually spoke the praises of Usk Fine Old, and kept his keen ears attuned to nearby conversations. As expected, most was simply the mundane, after-dinner chatter of silly nobles.
    “… hear Lady Baerent had taken an interest in the work of a young artist, if you take my meaning,” said Lord Colvith with a laugh.
    “… the Boaters sure are a strange lot,” Lord Relendar was saying to a plump young woman Gale did not recognize. “I hear they sacrifice….”
    Gale moved along, smiling, filling drinks, listening for anything that might be of use to the Righteous Man or to Thamalon.
    In a quiet corner he noticed Thildar Foxmantle— partially drunk as usual—engaged in an earnest conversation with Owyl Thisvin, a fat mage-merchant who worked primarily in the neighboring city of Saer-loon. Thildar’s heavy mustache and the dim light made lip-reading impossible, so Gale approached them, wine bottle in hand. They fell silent as he drew near, further piquing his interest.
    “My Lords?” Gale held the wine bottle aloft.
     
    “None for me, butler,” Owyl replied dismissively.
    Gale swallowed the urge to punch the smugness from Owyl’s blotchy visage and instead turned to Thildar, who acknowledged him only by holding forth a silver goblet. Deferentially, Gale refilled it, walked a discreet distance away, and pretended to observe the crowd. Only then did Thildar and Owyl renew their conversation.
    This must be interesting, Gale thought.
    He tuned out the crowd noise and focused his hearing on the two men. When he heard them speaking Elvish, he had to contain his surprise. No doubt they felt secure in speaking the language of the elves—few Selgauntans had ever even seen one of the fair folk, much less understood their tongue. Gale silently thanked them for their arrogance. He had learned the expressive, intricate language of the elves at nineteen. A long tune ago, when he had been a very different man.
    “Body sucked as dry as a Chondathan raisin,” said Thildar, drunk and too loud. “My man in the household guard tells me a shadow streaked out the window just as the guards burst in.”
    At Thildar’s overloud tone, Owyl glanced about in irritable nervousness. The mage-merchant’s eyes fell on Gale but passed over and by him as though he didn’t exist. Unnoticed furniture, Gale thought with a smile.
    Owyl slipped back into the common tongue. “Did you say a shadow?”
    “Yes,” replied Thildar, again hi Elvish. “Or at least so he tells it.” He waved a hand dismissively and gulped from his goblet. “But you know servants. In any case, that is neither here nor there, as they say. The important thing is this: with Boarim Soargyl and the Lady dead, you’ll need someone else to move your wares
    across the Inner Sea. I can help with that. No doubt we can reach an amicable agreement….”
    Gale ignored the rest of the conversation, mere commercial negotiations of no interest to him. He found the news about Lord and Lady Soargyl only mildly surprising. The Soargyls had not made a public appearance in over a tenday, a rarity for them, and rumors had been flying. Through his own sources, Cale had heard a story of murder in Sarntrumpet Towers, though nothing about a shadow. He would have to relate this news to Thamalon. With Boarim Soargyl dead and his untested son Rorsin heading the family, the rest of the Old Chauncel families would scramble to take