‘With the utmost pleasure,’ responded the other man, straightening a pair of gold-framed glasses made of bluish-coloured crystal, which were perched on his hooked nose. ‘As long as the liquor hasn’t been adulterated with any additives.’

The innkeeper poured. Aplegatt noticed that his hands were trembling slightly. The men leaned back against the bar and unhurriedly drank from the earthenware cups.

‘My dear innkeeper,’ began the one in the glasses suddenly. ‘I conjecture that two ladies rode through here not long ago, speeding their way towards Gors Velen?’

‘All sorts ride through here,’ mumbled the innkeeper.

‘You could not have missed the aforementioned ladies,’ said the bespectacled one slowly. ‘One is black-haired and exceedingly fair. She rides a black gelding. The other is younger, fair-haired and green-eyed and journeys on a dappled grey mare. Have they been here?’

‘No,’ interrupted Aplegatt, suddenly going cold, ‘they haven’t.’

Greyfeathered danger. Hot sand…

‘A messenger?’

Aplegatt nodded.

‘Travelling from where to where?’

‘From where and to where the royal fortune sends me.’

‘Have your travels adventitiously crossed the path of the women on the road about whom I enquired?’

‘No.’

‘Your denial is too swift,’ barked the third man, as tall and thin as a beanpole. His hair was black and glistened as if covered in grease. ‘And it seems to me you weren’t trying especially hard to remember.’

‘Let it drop, Heimo,’ said the bespectacled man, waving his hand. ‘He’s a messenger. Don’t vex yourself. What is this station’s name, innkeeper?’

‘Anchor.’

‘What is the proximity of Gors Velen?’

‘Beg pardon?’

‘How many miles?’

‘Can’t say I’ve ever measured it. But it’ll be a three-day journey…’

‘On horseback?’

‘By cart.’

‘Hey,’ called the stocky one suddenly in a hushed voice, straightening up and looking out onto the courtyard through the wide-open door. ‘Have a butchers, Professor. Who would that be? Isn’t it that… ?’

The man in glasses also looked out at the courtyard, and his face suddenly tightened.

‘Yes,’ he hissed. ‘It’s indisputably him. It appears fortune smiles on us.’

‘Will we wait till he comes in?’

‘He won’t. He saw our horses.’

‘He knows we’re—’

‘Silence, Yaxa. He’s saying something.’

‘You have a choice,’ a slightly gruff but powerful voice resounded from the courtyard, a voice which Aplegatt recognised at once. ‘One of you will come out and tell me who hired you. Then you may ride away without any trouble. Or all three of you may come out. I’m waiting.’

‘Whoreson…’ growled the black-haired man. ‘He knows. What do we do?’

The bespectacled man put his mug down on the bar with a slow movement.

‘We do what we’re paid to do.’

He spat on his palm, flexed his fingers and drew his sword. At the sight of it the two other men also bared their blades. The innkeeper opened his mouth to shout but quickly shut it on seeing the cold eyes peering above the blue glasses.