HOW VIDO LEARNED THE TRICK
Josh Reynolds


 	In this second story by Josh Reynolds, it’s time for the servant to put all his skills to use if he wants to survive the arrival of an assassin. It’s a battle of wits between halfling Vido and the mysterious Pike as they search for Zavant Konniger, in a detective story with a twist. Can Vido use what he’s learned to outwit the assassin and save his master? Or will he pay the ultimate price for loyalty?

 
 
 	 



 	‘He’s not here, if that’s what you were wondering,’ a voice said, startling Vido even as he entered his master’s study. The voice was smooth, polished and erudite. A rich man’s voice, Vido thought, as he froze in place. But rich men didn’t break into private studies, especially those belonging to Zavant Konniger. Vido nearly choked on the half-chewed lump of Wissenland sausage in his mouth. 
 	‘You are Vido.’ It wasn’t a question. Vido didn’t move. He had been coming into the study to light his master’s fire for the evening and he had an armful of wood. With the instincts of a born street rat, he knew that there was a weapon inches away from sending him to Ranald’s eternal craps game. And where was Zavant? Nowhere in sight, that was where.
 	He swallowed his sausage and said, ‘Yes?’
 	‘I hope that wasn’t a question,’ the unseen man said, his voice a velvet purr. ‘I was told that you are quite bright, for a halfling. I would hate for that to be wrong.’
 	‘Can I turn around?’
 	‘Another question,’ the man said. ‘My hopes dim. I should simply dispose of you now and be done with it.’
 	Vido heard the click of some mechanism. He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. Then, ‘If you intended to kill me, you would have done it the minute I entered the room.’
 	It was a stab in the dark. But better that than an arrow in the back. 
 	‘Maybe I enjoy talking to my prey,’ the man said mildly. The way he said ‘prey’ would have curled Vido’s hair, if it weren’t already curly. Only men two barrels short a brewery talked like that. Faces spun through his head, old enemies of his employer. Which one was this? The voice didn’t sound familiar. An assassin then, but who was he working for? The crime lord Klasst, perhaps, or maybe the Lady Khemalla, she of the carmine eyes and sharp fangs? Did it even matter? 
 	‘Maybe,’ Vido said. His tongue felt thick, and he was sweating despite the clammy fog rolling in through the open windows. That was how the man had got in. He could smell the Reik, and hear the calls of the watchmen, and the ringing of their bells. None close enough to come to his rescue, drat the luck, even if they had been inclined to answer cries for help in the fog. ‘Or maybe you were hoping I could tell you something.’
 	There was no answer. Vido began to sweat more, and his throat felt like sandpaper. Then there was a chuckle, and, ‘Are you a gamester, Vido?’
 	‘I’ve been known to roll the bones, aye,’ he said. 
 	‘Then how would you feel about a wager?’
 	‘What are the stakes?’ Vido said, licking his lips.
 	‘Your life,’ the man said. Wood creaked. ‘If you win, you go free. If you lose… Well. I wouldn’t lose, Vido.’
 	Vido swallowed, a lump sticking in his craw. ‘Can I turn around?’
 	‘Of course, where are my manners? Turn, turn,’ the man said. Vido did. The man had a buttery complexion that spoke of too much drink and too many sweet things, but his body was lean and lethal-looking. He sat in Konniger’s chair, slumped in a relaxed pose, a small, compact crossbow clutched in one hand. Vido’s eyes lingered on the weapon, and the man smiled. ‘Cathayan,’ he said. ‘They are an ingenious people, with a fondness for intricacy. They have seventy-two words for the concept of assassination, in contrast to the Tileans, who have a mere twelve.’
 	‘That’s interesting,’ Vido said, his eyes never leaving the wickedly tipped head of the quarrel. ‘Can I put this wood down?’
 	‘Oh, by all means, please.’ 
 	Vido carefully set the pile of wood down, his hand brushing his belt where two throwing blades, crafted to fit a Mootlander’s hand, were sheathed. 
 	The man frowned. ‘Don’t play silly twits with me, Vido. I have little patience. Unsheathe those blades – slowly! – and toss them over here.’
 	‘I wasn’t, I swear!’ Vido said, raising his hands well away from his belt. At the man’s gesture, he pulled the throwing knives free and tossed them to the floor.
 	‘And the cheese wire in your sleeve,’ the man said. Ruefully, Vido pulled the garrotte out of his sleeve and dropped it. ‘And the cosh in your trousers.’ Vido sighed and extricated the cosh too. ‘And the razor hidden behind the flat of your belt,’ the man added. Vido smiled weakly and undid his belt and slid the straight razor out of its hidden sheath on the inside.
 	The man broke into a cheerful smile. ‘Good. Glad to hear it. We shall be friends, I think, Vido. Won’t that be nice? A fellow in your position needs all the help he can get, don’t you agree?’
 	‘Wholeheartedly,’ Vido said, nodding jerkily. Where was Zavant? His eyes scanned the study, searching for any sign of the sage. Where could he have gone? As far as Vido had known, his master had been in his study, reading some blasted text or other. He had sent Vido out for sausages and cheese for his eventide meal, and Vido knew that he had only been gone for as long as it had taken him to skip down to the night market one street over. Granted, he may have haggled with the cheesemonger for longer than absolutely necessary, but two Karls for a wheel of Stirland Sour? Outrageous! His old dad had taught him principles. 
 	‘Good,’ the man said, interrupting his outraged reverie. ‘You may call me Pike. I will call you Vido, as I have been. Now, let us waste no more time. Where is Zavant Konniger?’
 	‘I don’t know,’ Vido said automatically. He didn’t, but this wasn’t the first time others had come looking. Vido had standing orders regarding certain persons of unpleasant demeanour. But this Pike was something different, albeit equally unpleasant. 
 	Pike clucked his tongue. ‘Would you lose the bet before we begin the game, Vido? You came up the stairs. I heard you. If he ran out of the room, as I suspect, you would have seen him.’
 	‘He didn’t! And if I don’t know–’
 	‘I bet you can find out though, can’t you?’ Pike shifted in the seat. The crossbow didn’t waver. ‘You seem like a smart lad, Vido. How long have you served Konniger, hmm? A few years, isn’t it? You must have picked up a trick or two.’
 	Vido didn’t reply. Pike grunted. ‘Silence is not an answer, Vido,’ he prompted.
 	‘I know a thing or three,’ Vido said. More than that, or I’m a plucked hen, he thought, not without some pride. His years in service to Zavant Konniger had been rough ones, no two ways there, but they’d been educational. 
 	‘Show me,’ Pike said, gesturing with his free hand. ‘Show me what you learned from the Great Sage of Altdorf.’
 	Vido hesitated. ‘What do you want him for?’
 	‘That’s not part of the wager, Vido,’ Pike chided. ‘Show me.’
 	Vido gulped and turned. The study was lit by soft oil lamps set into the walls. Shelves stuffed to overflowing with books, parchments and papyri of all sizes and materials lined the walls. Once, Konniger had allowed only a single candle in his study, but Vido had eventually prevailed upon him to use lamps. Konniger’s desk was as cluttered as ever, an avalanche of paper waiting to happen. Some had been disturbed by the night breeze, and he saw a scrawl of names and diagrams, including what looked to be a set of plans for the Grand Temple of Handrich in Marienburg.
 	The windows were open and the lights were bright. Vido sucked on his teeth. He glanced at Pike. ‘You saw him?’ he said hesitantly. 
 	‘You do not impress me so far, Vido,’ Pike said. 
 	‘You saw him,’ Vido said, taking the threat as assent. ‘That’s why you came in through the window. But he was not at the desk. If you’d seen him at the desk, you’d have shot him from the window.’
 	Pike had an amused smirk on his face. ‘And how do you know that?’
 	Vido made a face. ‘There’s mud and dirt on the sill there. The marks on your cuffs and the knees and shins of your trousers are tar and dust. I’ve known enough second-storey men to know what that means. You’re wearing black to hide it, but I’ve got good eyes.’
 	‘If you want to keep them, you’ll turn them back to the task at hand,’ Pike said mildly. 
 	Vido swallowed, nervous. ‘Where was he?’
 	‘You tell me.’ Pike was having fun. He was smiling like a boy at a puppet show. Vido wasn’t enjoying playing puppet, however. Where are you? he thought. He went to the windows, trying to remember all of the things that Konniger had hammered into his thick, Moot-born skull. He saw the marks made where Pike had climbed over the sill. He hadn’t used tools. No self-respecting Altdorf burglar would go it bare-handed. Pike was either quite taken with his acrobatic skills, or he didn’t own or couldn’t get the right equipment. There was a gap between the level of the window and the slant of the roof across the alleyway. He saw tiles scraped loose from their moorings by Pike’s weight. 
 	Pike had come across the roof. What was that way? The docks, he knew. That was Klasst’s domain. But Pike didn’t have the look of one of Klasst’s roughs. He didn’t talk like one either. He was certain he could detect the faint strain of an accent. 
 	Vido turned, trying to mimic the expression he’d seen on Konniger’s face thousands of times. He imagined the steely eyes and the hawk-like nose, jutting out from the thin face. The look of complex calculation as patterns emerged seemingly from thin air and arranged themselves neatly before his gaze. 
 	‘I’d appreciate a warning if you’re having stomach problems,’ Pike said. Vido’s face fell and he pushed the heels of his fists into the sides of his head as he tried to think. How would Pike have seen Zavant if he wasn’t at the desk? 
 	He’d have to have been in the room. Not sitting, so… standing?
 	His eyes flickered up to the mirror set amidst the books on the shelf at an angle from the desk. The mirror was head height for a standing man, and if he’d seen the reflection from a distance, Pike might have made the honest assumption. The only problem was that the mirror was angled up slightly, so that Konniger had a clear look at what was behind him when he was sitting at the desk. It was one of his master’s little tricks – a mirror angled to catch anyone prowling across the roof opposite, if the windows were open and the night clear. Apparently it worked both ways. 
 	Vido turned, looking up. A second mirror sat above the windows. His eyes narrowed in thought. Konniger had ordered a number of mirrors in recent weeks. Vido had assumed that they were for one or another of his master’s inventions.
 	‘Well?’ Pike said, shifting impatiently in his chair. Zavant’s chair, Vido noted, pulled from behind the desk, likely when the assassin realised that he’d been tricked. But why would Konniger want an assassin to come into his study? And why wouldn’t he warn Vido beforehand?
 	Vido cleared his throat. ‘Mirrors,’ he said simply. ‘That bit of glass on the wall there?’
 	‘I know what a mirror is, yes,’ Pike said. He sounded insulted. A muscle in his jaw jumped. Had his accent slipped? Vido filed the thought away. He had to be like Konniger. Every­thing was important. Every clue had the potential to save his life. 
 	‘No, mirrors,’ Vido said, trying not to look at the crossbow. He gestured, more frantically than he would have liked. ‘You saw a reflection.’
 	‘So he was in the room,’ Pike said, looking at the mirrors; though he wasn’t looking at Vido, his crossbow never wavered from the halfling. Idly, he pulled a leather pouch out of his coat and flipped it open, revealing a number of twists of dark paper. He snagged one with his lips and extricated it, clamping it between yellow teeth. Vido restrained a grimace. Pike was a silt-weed smoker. It wasn’t proper pipe weed, that, but some dock-fuzz that Marienburgers wrapped in cheap paper and smoked straight. It stained the teeth and eventually the lips. 
 	‘I didn’t say that!’ Vido said. He gauged the line and angle of the mirror over the windows and followed it with his eyes. Another mirror, set into the corner of the wall on the opposite side of the room. His eyebrows jerked up. He was pretty sure that that one was a new one. He pointed to it and swung his arm to the door. ‘Was the door open or closed?’ he said. 
 	‘Open,’ Pike said. He rose from his chair and lit his smoke with a match scratched across Konniger’s desk. 
 	Vido wrinkled his nose at the smell and looked at the lamps, and then at the corridor beyond. Another mirror sat there. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? Something tugged at his memory. Something about lights and mirrors… He snapped his fingers. ‘He wasn’t in the room. He was in the corridor. You saw a reflection of a reflection of a reflection.’ Where there was light, there was a reflection. Part of him wondered if that was why Konniger had agreed to the lamps. Had he been planning something like this? His master was a big one for contingencies. His eyes found the plans for the temple again. The temple was in Marienburg. Pike was smoking cheap Marienburg tobacco. Was there a connection? Konniger would have seen it. 
 	Maybe he had, Vido thought. Maybe that was why he wasn’t here.
 	‘So where is he now?’ Pike stood behind him, his voice calm and measured. 
 	‘I need to check the corridor. For clues,’ Vido said hurriedly. 
 	‘Chop-chop, halfling,’ Pike said. It was an odd turn of phrase. Not one Vido had heard before, not in Altdorf. Was he an Ostlander? No, the vowels were too smooth. Konniger had made him listen to and memorise the peculiarities of the provincial accents of the Empire, believing it to be important to know everything a man’s voice could tell him. 
 	Vido stepped into the corridor, alert to every creak and groan of the house. Konniger had once sent him a message via the precise squeal of a loose floorboard, and Vido wouldn’t put it past him to try a similar tactic now. But nothing revealed itself. There was nothing in the corridor but the mirrors, angled just so, to better catch and throw a reflection from… Where? 
 	‘Are you planning on telling me why you’re here?’ he said, glancing over his shoulder. 
 	‘Why would I do that? It must be obvious,’ Pike said. ‘Your master has made a certain – ah – individual quite unhappy with his incessant interference. Thus, here we are.’ He glanced up at the wall. ‘Nice mural. Konniger certainly has eclectic tastes.’ He knocked on the wall with a knuckle, indicating the particularly lewd Tilean pastoral landscape featuring satyrs and nymphs at play that stretched from the landing to the study. 
 	‘He knows what he likes,’ Vido muttered, not thinking it worth the bother of mentioning that Konniger only had the mural painted in order to throw potential clients off balance. 
 	‘What he likes is gaudy and cheap. Killing him might just be the most merciful act I’ve ever committed, if this is the sort of thing he thinks is “art”,’ Pike mused. 
 	Vido racked his brain, all too aware of the… Averlander? No, the accent was too liquid. He was definitely a Wastelander. It was the only thing that fitted the man standing behind him with a crossbow in an increasingly twitchy hand. He looked to the floor. Zavant insisted on thick carpets. Said it muffled noise, but they also tended to hold tracks about as well as Talabec mud. Vido uttered a yelp and fell on all fours. ‘Footprints!’
 	He traced the faint outlines. Small, thin, Zavant’s, he was certain. Zavant wore soft-soled boots of Bretonnian leather when in the city, and the imprint they left was distinctive to one who had polished them as often as Vido. He looked up. Three mirrors, one on each side of the corridor and a third on the far wall. ‘He stood here and held up a light,’ he said, gesturing. ‘It carried his image down the hall, into the study. You saw him. He was turned away, facing that mirror. You saw him and thought he had his back to you, but in reality, he could see you just fine, once you got into sight of the first mirror in the study!’
 	Pike blinked. ‘What?’
 	‘It has to do with the shape of the mirrors and the amount of light,’ Vido said smugly, even though he didn’t have the first idea what Konniger had been on about. He looked up at the mirror that Konniger must have stared into. How long had he been standing there before Pike took the bait? 
 	‘I wouldn’t sound so pleased. You still haven’t won the wager, Vido,’ Pike said. Vido’s pleasure evaporated. ‘He tricked me. Very well, I accept that. False pride is no sort of pride. Where is he?’
 	‘I–’ Vido began. He hesitated.
 	Pike smiled. ‘He could only have gone one way, isn’t that right? He could only have gone down those stairs which you have so recently ascended.’ The assassin’s smile faded. ‘Thus, one may infer that you told me a fib, Vido. That you saw Konniger and have been keeping me distracted while he – what? – goes for help? Or is he simply scurrying to some hidey-hole like the rat he is?’
 	‘He didn’t go past me, I swear!’ Vido said, raising his hands. He began to back away. If he could make it to the stairs–
 	‘Stop sidling, Vido. Those who sidle come to bad ends.’ Pike stepped forward, his hand snapping out and his fingers tangling in the front of Vido’s doublet. 
 	Vido grabbed the assassin’s wrist, his thick thumb stabbing the pressure point where the palm met the wrist: another thing Konniger had taught him. Pike yelped as Vido twisted his arm around. The crossbow went off, slicing the air and nipping a curl of Vido’s hair off his head. Pike sank to one knee and Vido released him and threw himself to the side. He’d learned the art of the harmless tumble as a sprat, and those lessons stood him in good stead, allowing him to carom off the wall and bounce to his feet behind the killer. He ran as fast as he could towards the study. 
 	Pike rose to his feet, cursing. Vido was already at the desk as the assassin followed him into the room. The telltale wasp-hum that heralded his arrival said that he had reloaded his crossbow on the move. It was Vido’s turn to yelp as the bolt dug a groove in the desk even as he narrowly snatched up Konniger’s silver letter opener. Spinning the thin, light blade with a practised gesture, he sent it wobbling through the air towards Pike. The assassin flinched, giving Vido enough time to scramble out of the open window. 
 	The night was damp and the air stank. Vido hooked his fingers into the brick and began climbing with every ounce of speed his sturdy frame possessed. If he could make it to the roof, Pike would never catch him. If, if, if. 
 	A cough alerted him. He glanced down. Pike had leaned backwards out of the window, his crossbow aimed upwards, a rag held over his mouth to combat the Altdorf effluvium. The bolt skidded across Vido’s backside and shoulder, making him howl. Pain shooting through his limbs, he scampered awkwardly up onto the sloping, slippery tiles of the roof. He climbed towards the bulky shape of the chimney, blood running down his trouser leg.
 	As his hand touched brick, he turned. The slope of Bleaker Street descended away from him in a serpentine length of roofs and chimneys and soft torchlight. He pulled himself behind the stack and tried to ignore the pain in his shoulder and backside in order to devise a scheme to get himself out of his current situation. From the other side of the chimney, he could hear Pike cursing as he climbed. It was harder for a man, even as experienced a second-storey man as the assassin seemed to be, to climb than a halfling. Big-jobs were too heavy to ascend quickly, something that had saved Vido more than once in his previous identity. 
 	‘Not this time though, hey?’ he muttered sourly. Where was Konniger? He had hoped that this was some plan of his, but more and more it was looking like Vido was on his own. ‘As per bloody usual,’ he spat. 
 	‘Is that you whining, Vido?’ Pike said. Vido risked a look. The assassin crouched on the edge of the roof, his crossbow resting on his knee. ‘Going to join your master? If you lead me to him, I might forget the indignity of having to chase you up here.’
 	Vido called out, ‘Really?’
 	‘No. Not really,’ Pike said, raising the crossbow. ‘I see you, you hairy-footed little sneak-thief.’
 	Vido pressed himself flat against the chimney. ‘Wait, wait, wait!’ he shouted. 
 	‘No more waiting, Vido,’ Pike said. Tiles creaked beneath his weight as he moved. ‘No more distractions.’
 	‘You still don’t know where Konniger is!’
 	‘Can you tell me?’
 	‘No.’
 	‘Goodbye, Vido,’ Pike said, much closer now. 
 	‘At least tell me who hired you,’ Vido tried, wondering whether or not he could fit into the chimney. ‘Don’t let me die with a mystery in my head, please. I’ve had too much of mysteries…’
 	‘That’s an odd sort of mercy.’ Pike sounded amused. If anything, that was worse than Pike angry. 
 	‘Tell me,’ Vido said, eyes darting around frantically, looking for a way out. 
 	‘Oh, Vido, if I could I would, but I can’t so I won’t,’ Pike said. ‘Would you be willing to move from behind the chimney, Vido? I’d hate to miss again.’
 	‘Sorry, if I could I would, but–’
 	‘Yes, yes,’ Pike said testily. The crossbow hummed. Vido flinched as the bolt stabbed into the tile he’d been standing on seconds earlier. He swung around the chimney, scraping his cheek. Gasping, he hauled himself up top. 
 	‘Ah-ah, Vido, there’s no escape from Pike,’ the assassin said. Vido felt a hand seize his ankle and he screamed and lashed out with his other foot. He heard a crunch and then the hiss of a crossbow firing and then another scream, and then he was slithering down the chimney, his mouth and eyes filled with soot. Coughing and gagging, he tried to control his fall. Blindly he shoved his hands and feet out, twisting, trying desperately to find a grip. Skin was shaved off his palms and the calloused soles of his feet lost a layer of thickness as the rough, fire-worn brick gouged and bit him. Pain flared in his shoulder and haunch, and he coughed out a groan. Chest heaving, he hung braced, thanking all the gods he knew that he hadn’t had time to light that fire. 
 	There was no sound from above, save for a clatter. He was a sitting duck if Pike decided to fire down at him, however. Carefully, with grunts and curses aplenty, Vido began to scuff himself down, barely moving, hoping his caution didn’t get him killed. If he could make it to the bottom, he’d reach the study hearth, and from there, a quick run for the stairs…
 	It seemed to take an eternity, right up until the moment one foot began to slide up of its own volition, his heel skidding on a patch of thick char. His head slipped down and his feet went up as he cried out. Stars spun crazily overhead and then he was striking the smoke shelf and spinning down into the study hearth in an explosion of ash and soot. 
 	‘Ow,’ Vido moaned. 
 	‘Indeed,’ a voice said. 
 	Vido hastily scrubbed at his watering eyes. The first thing he saw was a pair of men’s boots. They were slim, dark boots of Bretonnian leather, enclosing thin feet. His heart wobbled in his chest. The boots didn’t belong to Pike. 
 	‘Master,’ he said, reaching out desperately. ‘An assassin–’
 	‘Has been dispatched,’ Zavant Konniger said. ‘You are quite safe, Vido. You always were, in fact.’
 	‘He almost killed me,’ Vido said harshly, picking himself up. Konniger didn’t offer to help him. 
 	‘But he didn’t. Nor would he have. I was watching the entire time,’ Konniger said, picking up his pipe and filling the bowl. A regular-sized crossbow, its bright metal smudged dull by ash, sat on the desk. Konniger lit his pipe. Vido patted ineffectually at himself. ‘You’re getting soot all over my study, Vido.’
 	‘Hang your study!’ Vido erupted. ‘What do you mean you were watching? Where were you?’
 	‘Surely you can surmise my location, based on the clues you gathered earlier,’ Konniger said, unperturbed by his dogsbody’s outburst. He clucked and pulled his chair back around his desk and sat down, still sucking on his pipe. 
 	Vido gaped at him, mouth opening and closing like that of a hooked fish. ‘What?’ Konniger smiled thinly and gestured for Vido to proceed. Vido flushed. ‘Fine,’ he snapped, still unsteady on his feet. ‘Where is he?’ 
 	‘On the roof, one assumes, unless he’s rolled off into the alleyway. We shall check in a moment,’ Konniger said. 
 	‘You shot him?’
 	‘If I hadn’t, we would not be speaking,’ Konniger said mildly.
 	‘You were on the roof,’ Vido said uncertainly. Konniger raised a finger, but Vido hurried on before the sage could interrupt. ‘The opposite roof, I mean.’ Vido’s brow furrowed. ‘But that doesn’t make sense. If you were there, wouldn’t he have–’ Realisation dawned and Vido snapped his fingers. ‘You did run past me,’ he said accusingly. 
 	‘Did I?’
 	Vido stood in the centre of the study, fuming. ‘You had to have! There’s no other way you could have got out!’
 	‘Then indeed I must have,’ Konniger said, puffing on his pipe, long fingers intertwined over his stomach. ‘What is it that I always say, Vido?’
 	‘Don’t rob the cadavers?’
 	‘I believe I shout that. Try again,’ Konniger said. The trace of a smile ghosted across his lean features. 
 	‘Go through his pockets?’
 	Konniger sighed. ‘No. When all other possibilities have been eliminated, no matter what remains, no matter how impossible, that is the truth.’
 	‘I have never once, in my life, heard you say that,’ Vido said. 
 	‘Obviously you weren’t listening as attentively as you claimed, then,’ Konniger said sharply. ‘You are quite observant when you wish to be, Vido, but in other cases, such as while sneaking one of the sausages you went out to procure for my evening meal whilst squirreling away the remainder of the coin I gave you into the hollow spot beneath the kitchen hearth–’ Vido grimaced guiltily as Konniger went on. ‘Your attentions were diverted and focused. It was child’s play to slip past you and out the still-open door. Earlier in the day, while on my morning constitutional, I noticed our friend Pike following me, likely to determine our address. Satisfied that he had the right residence – a fact I made sure of, gleaning his intent as I had – I then stepped out, placed my crossbow and a supply of quarrels on the opposite roof, and returned to set my trap.’
 	‘The mirrors, you mean. You used me for bait, didn’t you?’ Vido said, feeling put on. 
 	‘Of course I did. One does not draw the wolf into the gorge without a tied kid, Vido,’ Konniger said sternly. ‘And draw him in I certainly needed to do.’ Konniger leaned back and pressed his fingers together beneath his chin. ‘I chafe at nooses, and someone is drawing one with several knots tight about me, for reasons that are, as yet, hypothetical and uncertain.’ His eyes gleamed in the soft light of the study, and Vido knew he was looking at the plans for the temple of Handrich. ‘Tell me about this particular knot, Vido.’
 	Vido hesitated. ‘He was from Marienburg.’ 
 	Konniger grunted. ‘Explain.’
 	‘His accent,’ Vido said. ‘I couldn’t pin it down at first, but I’d wager my old dad’s horse and cart that he’s – was – a Wastelander.’
 	‘Go on,’ Konniger said, gesturing smoothly. 
 	‘That crossbow of his… It was foreign. Not even Klasst can afford to arm his boys with those, but they’re ten a penny in Marienburg, from what I hear.’
 	‘Hardly ten a penny,’ Konniger murmured. 
 	‘His twists,’ Vido said. He mimed smoking. ‘Right-thinking folks smoke a pipe, or even one of them Cathayan smoke-flutes. Only fellows I ever seen that smoked those twists were Marienburgers. They get the weed cheap on the docks, and the prisoners on Rijker’s Isle use them for currency.’ He stopped, looking at Konniger expectantly. 
 	‘Adequate, if circumstantial,’ Konniger said, nodding. ‘Disappointingly, you missed the most obvious clue, of course.’
 	‘What?’ Vido said, annoyed.
 	‘Mud on the sill,’ Konniger said, gesturing lazily to the window sill. ‘It is from the River Reik, as you no doubt surmised, but if you had tasted it, you would have noted a distinct tang of brine, thus illuminating its origins as where the river spills into the Manaanspoort Sea.’ Konniger bobbed to his feet. 
 	‘Who sent him, master?’ Vido said. His rear and shoulder ached, and the blood had dried, sticking his clothes to him. Konniger retrieved the healer’s kit that he kept on hand for emergencies from his desk. He knelt before Vido and began the process of seeing to his wounds. 
 	‘If I knew that, I would never have drawn him into a trap, Vido.’
 	‘But you know now, right?’ Vido said. ‘I mean, all that stuff – you know now?’ 
 	Konniger frowned. ‘I might have, had you managed to keep him in the study and keep him talking as I intended, you Moot-born clod. Sometimes I despair of you, Vido. I left you all the signs necessary for you to divine my plan and adapt your behaviour accordingly. And what did you do? You scurried out the window at the first opportunity and forced my hand.’ 
 	Vido swallowed and flushed at his master’s harsh tone. ‘I didn’t do so badly as all that, did I?’ he protested. 
 	‘I wasn’t finished,’ Konniger snapped. ‘Despite your idiocy, you displayed a remarkable grasp of the observational sciences.’ He hesitated. ‘All in all, you performed satisfactorily, I suppose.’
 	‘Master?’ Vido said questioningly.
 	Konniger sighed. ‘Good job, Vido.’