The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 8: Lord Marhollow's Pursuit, Part 7

 Denisius had wanted to head straight for Munazyr, unknowingly echoing Carala: the city was a bustling port and if it turned out to be a fruitless effort, then a sea voyage to either Gallowsport or Summervale would be less of a hardship. But Vos seemed to think that Swiftfoot Carting merited closer inspection. He had found Varallo Thray's willingness to contradict the Emperor, even on so ambiguous a matter as this, most intriguing. "I told you he knows more than he's letting on, Deni," he had snapped, sneering at Thray as he hurried away from the inn. "It's not that he isn't sure about the Gallowsport fellow. He fucking well knows it."

That may well have been, but if there was indeed a living cursewright in Gallowsport, Vos and Denisius had been unable to find so much as a whisper of it. They visited taverns and gaming dens and merchant stalls; prowled the docks and alleys in the Foreign Quarter, hustled by drunken sailors from the realms of the Ocean Kings and Lao-Xian and propositioned by slovenly whores not fit to wash the feet of the girls at the Prideful Lioness; combed through the ruins of Nightgate Academy, which had been converted into an armory for the city guard. They displayed Denisius's scrolled letter from the Emperor at taverns, guildhalls, and even the Grand Curia itself. But no amount of gossiping, plying tavern girls and barmen with drink and coin, or rifling through seemingly endless stacks of collated court documents and records at the Curia had turned up a trace of anything useful. Worse, Denisius's inexperience in such things had nearly gotten them into serious trouble.

They had been in Gallowsport less than two hours, afternoon dimming into evening, and found their way to a modest tavern called the King's Faithful Hound. It sounded friendly enough, and was a trice cleaner than either of them expected a Gallowsport tavern to be, so Vos secured them a table while Denisius approached the bar with a polite smile on his face and the Emperor's letter in one hand.

"Good afternoon, my good man," he said, Vos pricking up his ears and turning his face toward his master with growing alarm. "My name is Denisius Gallis Lord Marhollow. I come here on urgent business from the Chalcedony Palace. I need to know if there are any rumors in this city of a cursewright operating illegally. I would pay you for your trouble, of course, if you have information."

Vos groaned aloud.

"Cursewrights?" the polite barman thundered, flaring up into red-faced fury almost at once. "Cursewrights? How fucking dare you be darkening my bar with that old truck, boy! Take your urgent business and your gold and shove 'em up your fat ass!"

"Now, sir, please, I meant no offense -- "

"Get out! Get out of here, ye stupid, pig face boy! May the Hangman take ye! Get out wi' your man or so help me by the gods I'll plant this in your skull!" The barman's voice had grown shrill and panicky, and at this last he yanked a cleaver from his butcher block and waved it threateningly in Denisius's direction. His eyes were bulging from his crimson face and he looked utterly mad.

"I -- all right, sir -- just -- "

Before Vos could salvage the situation (which meant merely that he got his master out of the King's Faithful Hound with his skull unsplit), the barman shrieked and started hurling raw potatoes at Denisius. Most of them bounced off his upper body painlessly (well, mostly painlessly), but one caught him directly on the bridge of his nose, knocking him on his heels and making his eyes water. Vos dragged him out of the tavern by the waist, growling at the barman to back away.

"With your permission, milord," Vos said in the next tavern, all the way in the adjacent quarter, "I think I ought to handle the questioning for now." A whey-faced, thoroughly humiliated Denisius agreed without protest.

"Do I really have a pig face?" he asked Vos sheepishly as his manservant inspected his forehead to make sure it wouldn't be bruising too badly.

"Not at all, milord. More like a groundhog's," Vos replied soothingly.