The lad bobbed his head, grateful and relieved. He motioned to the rear. ‘We’d best go this way.’

‘The back? Why?’

The boy now squinted to the front. ‘Ah … reasons, sir.’

One of Enguf’s men appeared from the kitchens. ‘Can’t find the innkeep anywhere,’ he bellowed.

Fisher eyed the sturdy hewn planks of the front door. Come to think of it, no one had come or gone for some time. He motioned the lad onward. ‘After you.’

The boy took him out of the canted ill-fitting rear door, then immediately ducked behind a tall stack of firewood and crouched. Fisher joined him. ‘Company?’ he whispered.

‘The Countess’s men have closed the roads round the inn.’

‘Didn’t consider sharing that information?’

The lad studied him as if he was a fool. ‘Not my errand.’ He dashed for a rear outbuilding. Keeping low, Fisher followed. Entering a field of tall stubble the lad suddenly halted and Fisher saw that he faced one of the Countess’s men-at-arms. This fellow wore a loose oversized leather jack covered in iron studs that winked as they caught the moonlight. He had a crossbow levelled upon them.

‘Back inside,’ he growled through a ragged beard.

Fisher motioned to the lad. ‘He’s not with us.’

‘Doan’ care. Back inside. We’re arrestin’ you lot.’

‘What for?’ Fisher asked, almost smiling at the conceit.

But the question didn’t buy any time at all as the man spat to one side and smiled behind his beard. ‘For bein’ a damned foreigner.’

Fisher slowly raised his hands, and as he did so a coin appeared in each. Large ones that gleamed something other than silver in the moonlight. The man-at-arms’ tongue emerged to wet his lips and he peered about. He took his hand from the crossbow’s trigger bar and motioned for the coins to be tossed. Fisher threw them one after the other, then urged the lad onward with a hand pressed at his back. The man-at-arm ignored them as he held the coins up to the moon, squinting at them first through one eye then through the other.

The lad stumbled onward and kept slowing to peek back. ‘Keep going,’ Fisher whispered. Once the man was left behind, the lad scowled and hunched his shoulders.

‘I didn’t ask you to spend no coin,’ he finally complained.

Fisher understood the lad was worried he would press the debt upon his family. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he answered, quite untroubled. ‘The coins are from the Lether and worthless. The gold plating their brass is thinner than Letherii generosity – which is non-existent.’

The lad frowned, still uncertain. ‘Well …’ he finally judged. ‘All right.’

Fisher peered ahead into the night where the land fell to the coast. ‘You’re taking me to the harbour.’

‘Aye. We have him in our boat.’

‘I see.’