“Well, all right, if you believe him, but do you really think even a bastard prince would be abroad in those clothes? Everything soaking, not even a gilt clasp to his belt, and look at his sandals. I grant you it’s a good cloak, but it’s torn. More likely the first story was true, and he’s a slave running away with his master’s things.”

It was, of course, Hanno’s voice, and he was talking in Breton. Luckily I had my back to them, curled up in the welter of blankets. It was easy to pretend to be asleep. I lay still, and tried to keep my breathing even.

“No, it’s the bastard all right; I’ve seen him in the town. I’d have known him sooner if we’d been able to show a light.” The deeper voice was Marric’s. “In any case it would hardly matter who he was; slave or royal bastard, he’s been privy to a lot in that palace that Ambrosius will want to listen to. And he’s a bright lad; oh, yes, he’s what he says he is. You don’t learn those cool ways and that kind of talking in the kitchens.”

“Well, but . . .” The change in Hanno’s voice made my skin shift on my bones. I kept very still.

“Well, but what?”

The Weasel dropped his voice still further. “Maybe if we made him talk to us first . . . I mean, look at it this way. All that stuff he told us, hearing what King Camlach meant to do and all that . . . If we’d got that information for ourselves and got away to report it, there’d be a fat purse for us, wouldn’t there?”

Marric grunted. “And then when he gets ashore and tells someone where he comes from? Ambrosius would hear. He hears everything.”

“Are you trying to be simple?” The question was waspish.

It was all I could do to keep still. There was a space between my shoulder-blades where the skin tightened cold over the flesh as if it already felt the knife.

“Oh, I’m not as simple as that. I get you. But I don’t see that it—”

“Nobody in Maridunum knows where he went.” Hanno’s whisper was hurried and eager. “As for the men who saw him come on board, they’ll think we’ve taken him off with us now. In fact, that’s what we’ll do, take him with us now, and there are plenty of places between here and the town . . .” I heard him swallow. “I told you before we put out, it’s senseless to have spent the money on his passage—”