Patience, he told himself, and in truth, this was the one thing in life where he had patience. Tell him to work a farmers tasks, and hed be gone in a day. Leave him to work as a chandler or a merchants runner… hed tried it once, and had lasted a full week before the itch got to him, the pressing, weighty feeling that this wasnt all there was, that there had to be more. Hed run off with half the mans takings and drunk most of it the week after to try to forget the sheer boredom of it.

Give him a locked place to look at, though, and he could wait all day. Had been waiting all day, just to make sure that everything hed gotten from the former guard was right. Renard smiled to himself at that; Lord Carrick should pay his guards better if he didnt want them betraying him. Apparently, hed spent enough on locks for his doors to make up for it.

Behind him, his horse whinnied where Renard had left it tied to a tree. It was obviously as impatient as he was, but then, it was a flighty horse. After all, the man hed stolen it from had sworn it was finest southern thoroughbred.

Now, Renard decided as the light started to fail. Changing quickly in a stand of bushes, he threw on darker clothing, complete with a hood to hide his features, and leathers that might at least do something to protect him if this all went wrong. He hurried forward, in the direction of a spot the guard had told him about, and which seemed obvious now that Renard knew it was there.

In that spot, the wall was crumbling slightly with age and disrepair; apparently, Lord Carrick didnt see the point in spending money on stone when he could spend it on gilt and silver for the inside. That was good, because it meant that a man like Renard could climb without the need to throw a grapnel, trusting to knowing hands and feet to raise him up a little at a time. He would drop a rope on the way back, but for now, it was better not to have the noise.

No harder than climbing a tree, Renard tried to tell himself, although in truth, it was plenty harder than that. Even with the handholds, the wall was a thing of nearly sheer stone, and Renard had to press himself to it like a lover, one limb and then the next searching for the way up. He was almost at the top when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps.