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Even so, worrying It wouldn’t do to have his young brother so close to Gerun Eberict

For if Tehol possessed a true enemy, a foe to match his own cleverness who – it would appear – surpassed Tehol himself in viciousness – it was Finadd Gerun Eberict, possessor of the King’s Leave

And he’d been sniffing around, twisting arms Safer, then, to assume Gerun knew that Tehol was not as destitute as most would believe Nor entirely… inactive

Thus, a new fold to consider in this ruled tapestry

Gerun was immune But not without enemies Granted, deadly with a sword, and known to have a dozen sworn, blood-bound bodyguards to protect hinable, and possessed of its own armoury, apothecary with resident alchemist well versed in poisons and their antidotes, voluminous store-houses, and independent source of water All in all, Gerun had planned for virtually every contingency

Barring the singular focus of the mind of one Tehol Beddict

Sometimes the only solution was also the simplest, most obvious See a weed between the cobbles … pull it out

‘Bugg!’

A faint voice fro Gerun’s tiles on that bet this afternoon?’

His servant’s grizzled head appeared in the hatch ‘You already know, since you own the bastard Turble Assu he’s not dead of a heart attack… or suicide’

‘Turble? Not a chance My guess is, theA sudden trip to the Outer Isles’

‘He’ll neverGerun is on the poor bastard’

‘Wouldn’t you be? With that payoff?’

Tehol frowned ‘Suicide, I’ht well be Turble’s conclusion to his sorry state of affairs Unexpected, true, and all the ot no kin, as I recall So the debt dies with hiht hundred docks’

‘He ht wince at that, but not so much as you’d notice The man’s worth a peak, maybe ht, so I was generalizing Of course I knon to the last dock Nay, the last stripling In any case, I was saying, or, rather, suggesting, that the loss of eight hundred docks is not ouldIt’s the escapeThe one trail even Gerun can’t doggedly follow – not willingly, anyway Thus, Turble has to coree to it’

‘No, probably not But set it inDown to the Eddies Find us a suitable corpse Fresh, and not yet drained Get a bottle or two of Turble’s blood froe-’

‘What’ll it be? Fire? Who co fire?’