Grinsa looked up at him, his yellow eyes holding the man’s gaze. “We’ve no other questions, if that’s what you mean,” he finally said. “But we’ll need a room for tonight. Two beds.”

The barman didn’t look at all pleased with the notion that they’d be staying the night, but he nodded before walking off.

“That’s it?” Tavis asked. “You just let him go?”

“There’s nothing to be gained by asking him more questions,” Grinsa said calmly.

“But he was lying.”

“Yes, he was. And he was going to keep on lying no matter what we asked him.”

Tavis looked away, pressing his lips in a thin line, much as his father often did. Grinsa was right. Again.

“We learned all we needed to,” the gleaner told him, his voice dropping nearly to a whisper. “Corbin was here when Chago died, and because our friend at the bar is such a poor liar, we know as well that he spoke with someone. Given how he reacted to our questions, I think we can assume it was someone this man fears.”

“Maybe,” Tavis said. “Or maybe he fears us.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said before that for all we knew the barman was with the conspiracy. What if he’s not, but he thinks we are? We’re looking for an assassin, because, in your words, ‘he owes us something.’ With all that’s happened in the Forelands in the past few turns, and with all the talk of Qirsi plotting against the courts, that would be enough to scare me.”

Grinsa’s white eyebrows went up. “A fair point. If you’re right, I certainly don’t think we should do anything to disabuse him of the idea. Having him afraid of us could be helpful.”

Tavis glanced around the large room. “Should we talk to anyone else? It may be that others noticed the singer as well. A patron may be more willing to talk to us than the barman.”

“I’d rather not let it be known too widely that we’re looking for him. He may still be nearby; we shouldn’t do anything to scare him off.”

The boy smiled. “It seems we won’t be going north to find Shurik after all.”

Grinsa gave a reluctant nod. “Not yet, at least.”

After finishing their ales, Grinsa paid the barman for a room and he and Tavis ascended a creaking wooden stairway to the tavern’s upper floor. Their room was the first one on the hallway. In most ways it was no different from every other room in which they had stayed since leaving Eibithar: small, dirty, smelling slightly of must and stale sweat.

“I hope we didn’t pay too much for this,” Tavis said, eyeing the beds doubtfully.

“It wasn’t a lot, though it was more than the room’s worth.”

“How much of my father’s gold-?”

He never finished the question. From the streets below the room’s lone shuttered window, Tavis heard shouts and, after a moment, a loud cheer. Grinsa strode to the window and threw open the shutters.

A large group of men had gathered in the lane, many of them bearing torches. There was a good deal of laughter, and Tavis could hear shouts and cheering from further off, as if the scene was repeating itself throughout the city.

“What is it?” he asked.

The gleaner shook his head. “I don’t know.” He shuttered the window again and crossed to the door. “But we should find out.”

They hurried back down the stairs, and finding the tavern empty, stepped out into the street. The barman was there, as were his Qirsi patrons. But it was the Eandi who were making most of the noise, shouting back and forth to each other, most of them grinning.

“What’s happened?” Grinsa asked.

The barman looked at him for a moment, as if unsure whether or not to speak with him.

“A messenger just arrived from Solkara,” he said at last, watching the Eandi once more. “The king is dead.”

Grinsa gaped at him. “What? How did he die?”

“The man didn’t say.”

Tavis looked at the gleaner, their eyes meeting briefly. Had the king been murdered as well?

“Did he refuse to say, or did no one ask?”

The barman offered a dark smile. “Look at them,” he said, gesturing toward the people in the street. “They don’t care how the man died. They care only that their duke has been avenged. He had Chago garroted, and now the Deceiver has taken him as well. Songs will be written of this day.”

“He was your king,” Tavis said.

The boy regretted speaking the moment the words passed his lips, and Grinsa cast a withering look his way. But with all the noise from the revelers, the barman did not seem to notice his accent.

“Perhaps he was your king,” the man said. “But in Bistari, he was just another Solkaran tyrant.”

“So it’s like this here every time a king dies?” Grinsa asked.

“I was just a boy when Farrad the Sixth died. I don’t remember it that well. But when Tomaz died, people danced in the streets, yes. Maybe not like this-Carden was more hated than most of the Solkaran kings, and he dies without an heir, which gives the people here some hope that another house will claim the throne.”

Tavis couldn’t have said for certain how old Carden the Third had been. Not old, though. He knew that much. He had died young, with no heir, and of some cause alarming or private enough to be excluded from the message announcing his death. Abruptly, the young lord knew where he and Grinsa would be journeying next.

“Will Bistari challenge for the crown?” Grinsa asked.

The barman shook his head, apparently eager to talk now that the conversation wouldn’t affect his business. “Hard to say. If the old duke were still alive I’d think so, but Silbron, his son, is only just past his Determining, and he and his mother still grieve.”

“Then who?”

“Dantrielle might try, or Mertesse. Maybe even Orvinti. In the end, though, the crown will fall to Grigor.”

“Grigor?”

The man turned to look at Grinsa once more. “The oldest of the king’s brothers. You’re not Aneiran, are you?”

“We’re from Wethyrn,” the gleaner said. “Jistingham, to be precise.”

“You’ve come a long way to look for your singer.”

“We’re eager to find him. Eager enough to pay for the names of those he met in your tavern.” Grinsa glanced around them for a moment. “Your customers are gone now,” he said, lowering his voice. “My friend and I are the only ones listening. And we’ve got gold.”

The man gave a thin smile. “I told you already: I never saw him with anyone.”

“Very well.” Grinsa started toward the tavern again. “Come, Xaver,” he said, beckoning to Tavis with a wave of his hand. “There’s nothing more we can learn here.”

The young lord followed him back into the inn.

“He refused gold,” the gleaner said as they climbed the steps again.

“I heard.”

“That tells me it wasn’t us he feared, but rather the person he saw with the assassin.”

“A minister, perhaps?”

Grinsa glanced at him. “Perhaps.”

“Since when are you so interested in the affairs of the Aneiran houses?” Tavis asked him, once they were back in their room. “By revealing that we weren’t from Aneira you might have made him even more suspicious than he already was.”

“True, but it was worth the risk. Knowing who stood to gain the most from Carden’s death may tell us where to go next.”

“After Solkara, you mean.”

The gleaner nodded. “Yes. After Solkara.”