Moon's Artifice by Tom Lloyd Page B

tie him up and keep him hidden ? Let him disappear from the world no matter what he wants or who might be looking for him ? Have you no morals ?’
    Enchei grinned. ‘Sold ’em off years ago. Got a good price too.’
    ‘Now is the time for jokes ?’
    He stopped and put down his knife, the smile vanishing from his face. ‘Jokes ? Who says I was joking ? You strip and wash him ; I’ll even help you if you want. You look at the marks on his body and I’ll tell you what most likely caused ’em. That man’s lived a violent life and if he’s goshe he’s probably good at it. Men like that live by different rules and Imperial laws of confinement don’t figure much in them. I doubt he’ll be overly upset by being cared for and hidden for a week, whatever the constraints.’
    He walked around her with a grim look on his face and knelt at the goshe’s side. ‘But sure, we could try it your way and worry about Lord Shield later. Gods are notoriously easy to stop when you’ve pissed them off.’
    Sheti didn’t reply. After a moment she joined the two men in stripping off the remainder of the stranger’s clothes and sponging the sweat and dried blood off his body. It didn’t take them long, half the job already having been done, and swiftly she saw Enchei was right. The tattoos on the man’s shoulder proclaimed military service, but she doubted all of his injuries had come from that. A life of crime afterwards seemed likely. Gang fights or assassinations she had no way of telling, but this was a lifetime of injuries unless he had been a remarkably inept soldier.
    ‘Now his belongings,’ Narin declared once they were finished, retrieving the pile from the other side of the bed. Enchei left them to it, returning to his cooking while they picked over each item in turn and looked for clues.
    It didn’t take long, everything being plain and unremarkable, but at last they found something tucked into an inside pocket of the man’s tunic – a rough piece of paper with small, neat writing on it. Narin spent a while peering at it then handed it over to Sheti. ‘A list of street names ?’
    She didn’t reply immediately. There were numbers on the paper as well, accompanying some but not all of the words, while each string of numbers and words ended in one written just a shade more definitely than the rest.
    ‘I know some of these streets – Tessail leads off Grand Adahn over in House Dragon’s district. I don’t see where all the numbers fit in though.’
    ‘Door numbers ?’
    She shook her head. ‘Tessail’s a poor street ; I doubt any of the houses will be numbered there. The next words are Cettas Han though, that’s a few streets away from Tessail – they’re not connected.’
    ‘If you’re following a route, you need to count streets to know when you’re turning,’ Enchei called. ‘Otherwise how do you tell where you’re going ? Half the streets won’t have posted names so you can’t go directly from one to the next.’
    ‘Does that fit ?’ Narin wondered aloud. He took the paper back and ran his finger along the words, muttering each one under his breath. ‘Ah, I can’t tell, I don’t know these districts well enough to remember.’
    Sheti pushed the goshe’s weapons under the narrow bed and stood. ‘There you go then, there’s your evidence. Tell Rhe your story and show him the paper. Between the two of you, you should be able to follow these directions. There are what, four destinations by the looks of it ? Find something to tie them and you might know what you’re involved in. Don’t find something, maybe you stop assuming this man is a dangerous criminal. There are enough disappearances in the Empire without you adding to their numbers.’
    Narin looked down again at the paper and nodded briefly. ‘Got to start somewhere, I suppose.’
    ‘And come and eat your greens, young man,’ Enchei added with a laugh. ‘Your mystery will still be there once we’ve eaten.’

Chapter 3
    With the