Free The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns by Django Wexler Page B

her—a man would go out for a walk and never come back. He’d end up in the Vendre, all right, but not in a tower cell where anybody would ever see him again. The dungeons under Vordan’s most notorious prison were rumored to be both noisome and extensive. The thought of Concordat thugs in black leather cloaks turning up at the Blue Mask and dragging them away—dragging Cora away—made it hard for Raesinia to affect Ben’s casual confidence, or Faro’s studied nonchalance.
    “Ben,” she said, interrupting their argument, “what was it you wanted us to see?”
    “Oh! This way.” He pointed. “I only hope they’re in the same place.”
    They walked along the grid, two streets down and one street over. Ben gently guided Sarton whenever they made a turn, since the medical student had become absorbed in his new reading material. Finally, they reached a place where two large streets crossed and made a little square, in the center of which a flat-bedded wagon had been parked to make an impromptu stage. It wassurrounded by a crowd, mostly Newtowners in their ragged cotton trousers and coarse brown linen. There was a man on the stage in a black evening coat and three-cornered hat, cutting a dashing if somewhat antiquated figure. The people in the front rank of the crowd were shouting something at him, but Raesinia couldn’t make it out from her position at the rear.
    “So, what are we looking at?” said Faro.
    Ben pointed. A sign on the edge of the stage read BARON DE BORN AIS’ POTENT CURE-ALL , followed by a lot of smaller type listing the many afflictions this product was supposed to address. Faro followed Ben’s gaze and rolled his eyes.
    “Something wrong with you that you haven’t told us about?” Faro said. “I think you might as well drink bathwater and call it a magic potion.”
    “Forget the potion,” Ben said. “Listen to the sales pitch.”
    “It doesn’t look like anything much so far,” Faro said. “I hope you aren’t suggesting we invest in this fellow. No offense, old buddy, but you should leave the market games to Cora—”
    A murmur rippled through the crowd, followed by a respectful silence as the man on the stage—presumably de Bornais—began to speak. This in itself was odd, since in Raesinia’s experience it was not in the nature of a crowd of Vordanai to listen quietly to anyone who wasn’t actually a priest. De Bornais’ presentation seemed to be pandering of a quite ordinary sort, which made it hard to explain the rapt attention.
    “Ben . . . ,” she said.
    “Wait,” Ben said. “This isn’t it, not yet.”
    “—how many of you are sick?” de Bornais said. There was a wave of muttering from the crowd. “How many of you are afflicted? How many of you have the doctors given up on? How many of you can’t afford to even visit the damned bloodsuckers?”
    This last drew a louder rumble than the others, and de Bornais went with the theme. “I’m taking an awful risk coming here, ladies and gentlemen. They don’t want you to hear about this, oh no. All those Borel cutters and the fancy robes up at the University”—he mimed a swishing, effeminate gait—“they would just about shit their britches if they heard about me. Might want to shut me up, I wouldn’t wonder. Because what I have here . . .” He paused, smiled, revealing a glittering gold tooth. “But I don’t expect you to take
my
word for it.”
    The crowd let out a collective sigh. De Bornais bowed and stepped aside asanother man climbed up from behind the stage. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a shock of wild black hair and an enormous bristling beard. He was dressed in leather trousers and a vest that hung open to the waist, making it obvious that he was well muscled and apparently in rude health.
    “My name,” he said, “is Danton Aurenne. And I was not always the man you see before you.”
    Raesinia blinked. He had a fine, carrying voice, but it was more than that. It cracked like a