The man did exactly that. Simply running through the street for a silver coin was a gift! You didn’t ask questions.

Thierry ducked into the shadows by The White Hart’s doorway. Same sort of second entrance The Lamb had, to the side. The footsteps behind him, also running, drew nearer. They’d follow the other man now. He hoped.

They did. Thierry had his knife out by then. The figure—just one man—appeared in the street in front of him. Thierry stepped forward and stabbed him in the ribs, and in the back.

A cry. The man fell to the street, lit by the white moon and a glow from within the tavern. A dropped sword clattered. The body didn’t move. Didn’t appear to be breathing. Thierry turned him over with his boot.

Knew him.

More running steps. “Villar!” he heard. “What have you done?”

His guard. His belated guard.

“Where were you?” he shouted, trembling.

“Fuck off,” the serjeant said. “Is he dead?”

“I think so. I know him!”

“What? Jad’s blood. Out of here now! Let’s go!”

They ran.

—

The guards at the provost’s house knew them. At the serjeant’s direction men went out to claim and take away whoever had been sent to kill him.

Whoever. He knew him. He knew him. He knew him.

Jad curse the day and the dark night.

“Rasse de Barille? Again? Really, Villar?” said Robbin de Vaux, when he’d been awakened and had come down to his study.

“Yes, really.”

The man he’d stabbed and almost killed in that stupid, stupid street fight over Jolis. It seemed so long ago. It wasn’t.

“You really didn’t like him, I see.” The provost was outrageously calm.

“He was chasing me! I had no idea why! Or who he was!”

“He’d joined the Barratin party. We had word. Thought to curry favour killing you, I suspect. A fool, but ambitious. He picked his side.”

Lamps had been lit in the room, by then. “Time for you to leave,” said de Vaux, behind his desk now. “Villar, we clearly cannot guard you properly, not in the life you want to live. Go away for a time, stay in contact, see what happens. People do that! It is better than dying.”

“Maybe,” Thierry said.

But he did. He did leave. And what followed was what followed.