“I’m a very close friend of the new governor and she gave it to me.” He winked and stuck the tip of his tongue out the left corner of his mouth in a crude intimation of just how close he and the new governor were.

“You lie!” Lemiel laughed. “You’re a bum boy if I ever saw one.”

“Looks can be deceiving. Now, shall we discuss where you got this, and if there’s any more where it came from?”

“What makes you think there’s any more?” Lemiel asked, but his gaze slewed away to the left for an instant—a liar’s tell.

“Because you’re a man who knows how to keep something back for himself if I ever saw one.” Seregil winked again. “Why, what do I have in my pocket?” He felt around for a moment. “Well, look at this! I have another purse I forgot all about.” He tossed the leather money bag onto the table next to the arm ring. The coins inside clinked alluringly.

Lemiel eyed it like a dog at a butcher’s booth. “Guess there’s no harm in telling. I inherited it from my brother.”

“I see. And how did he come by it?”

“Can’t rightly say.” Lemiel’s eyes flicked sidelong in the tell again.

“He wouldn’t perhaps have been a workman at the oracle’s cave site?”

The other man pursed his lips, still staring at the money bag. “He was, but he never said where he found those things. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“You can’t possibly be blamed. So, there were other items?”

“A few. Just bits and pieces, really.”

Seregil picked up the money bag and rattled the coins. “I’d really like to have a look at those ‘bits and pieces.’ I can make it worth your while.”

“I don’t have them with me.”

Seregil pocketed the money bag and started to rise.

“Hold on now,” Lemiel said. “I never said I wouldn’t show you. I just don’t carry them around. You’ll have to come back to my house.”

Wandering off into the night with a stranger armed with nothing more than his poniard was a risk, but Seregil figured he could take Lemiel if he needed to, drunk as the man was. His sense was, though, that the promise of more gold was his new friend’s main motivation.

Lemiel’s little cottage was only a few streets away. Taking a key from around his neck, he let Seregil in and struck a light. As the lamp flickered to life Seregil was surprised at how clean and tidy the place was. The ground level was all one room, with a ladder leading up to a loft.

“Very cozy,” Seregil said.