"I've told you, though!"

"Indeed, you have been very cooperative, but I suspect there are details that could be of use to me that you have not yet revealed, details that you know but do not realize could be of use. You may not even know you know them. So I ask questions, in hopes of stumbling upon these things that seem to you to be the most utterly mundane, boring, trivial, and irrelevant facts, but which might reveal to me entire vistas of possibility I had not considered – or that may instead close off doors that I had thought were open, and save my men hours of wasted effort in their pursuit of these criminals."

Gita stared at the old man, baffled, then threw Emmis a quick look.

Emmis turned up an empty palm. Ildirin's manner of speaking was a little hard to follow sometimes, but this last speech had been clear enough, and Emmis could not see how to make it much plainer.

"He thinks you might not realize some little detail is important," Emmis said, when Gita appeared unsatisfied with the gesture. "Something that will tell him where the guards can find the assassins. Some name they mentioned, some little thing they were carrying, something."

"I don't know anything like that!" Gita insisted.

"Perhaps you don't," Ildirin said soothingly, "but perhaps you do, and careful questioning may discover it."

"But I don't."

Ildirin sighed. "Then think of this as your chance to ride in a fine carriage, and perhaps visit a house in Allston, and spend more time in this pleasant young man's company, and be paid a round for your trouble."

"A round?"

"Eight bits. Yes."

"In copper? Not iron?"

Ildirin snorted. "Girl, I am the overlord's uncle. I haven't even seen an iron coin in the last twenty years!"

"Foreign sailors try to use them sometimes," Gita said. "My uncle gets furious if I accept them."

"As well he should," Ildirin said. "They haven't been legal currency in the city for more than two hundred years."

"We use them on the docks sometimes," Emmis said. "For gambling, when we don't want to risk real money, since we do get them from foreigners sometimes and they aren't accepted anywhere."

"Interesting," Ildirin said. "I hadn't known that." Then he focused on Gita. "Did any of the Lumethans try to pay with iron?"

"No," Gita said, and the questioning that had gone so long at the inn was begun anew in the carriage.

The nobleman switched back and forth between Gita and Emmis, trying to ferret out new details. Emmis did his best to answer Lord Ildirin's questions, but also looked out the windows every so often, trying to identify the route they were taking.

They rolled along Warehouse Street, almost into Spicetown, and then turned onto Moat Street, before turning again onto North Street, which brought them out onto the plaza in front of the Palace. It would never have occurred to Emmis to take so northerly a path, but it did avoid any sort of upgrade, and of course Lord Ildirin would be accustomed to routes that led to and from the Palace.

They did not stop in the plaza, though, but rolled across it at a stately pace as people hurried out of the path of the horses, and out the southeast corner, up onto Arena Street.

Here at last was an upgrade they could not avoid, but it did not seem to trouble the horses or the coachman; the carriage rolled on, unhindered, up Arena Street.

Lord Ildirin's questions were finally slowing, to Emmis's relief; he really could not see any significance in whether or not he had noticed the length of Hagai's fingernails – which he hadn't – or in some of the other details Ildirin was now asking about. He was relieved that Ildirin's questions had never approached too closely anything Lar had told him not to repeat; the old man seemed to be focused entirely on what had taken place at the Crooked Candle, or on his encounter with the two assassins, and not interested in why Lar had come to Ethshar.

And then, rather than asking another question, Lord Ildirin gestured toward the guardsman sitting beside Emmis and said, "This is Ahan, by the way. He will be accompanying you on your errands."

"What errands, my lord?" Emmis asked, startled.

"Whatever errands your employer sends you on; I want you out of the house while the two of us speak. The coachman will be escorting Gita back to the Crooked Candle, but I assume the ambassador can find something more constructive for you to do."

"You're done with us, then?"

"For the present."

"And have you figured out who the Lumethans hired to kill the ambassador, or where they might be found?"

Emmis regretted the snide words even as they were leaving his lips, but apologizing would probably only make matters worse; he let the question stand.

Lord Ildirin smiled at him – not a nice smile this time, not like his previous expressions. "Not yet," he said. "Have you?"

"No," Emmis said. "I'm just a dockworker and guide. I don't investigate anything."

"Of course." Ildirin glanced at Gita.

"I just help out my uncle!" she said. "None of this has anything to do with me."

"And I just help out my nephew," Ildirin said. "It seems a better use of my time than sitting around waiting to die."

Gita looked at him nervously, then turned away.

The exchange made Emmis uncomfortable; he looked out the carriage window just in time to see them negotiate the turn onto Through Street.

"We're here," he said.

Ildirin glanced out. "So we are," he said.

A moment later the carriage came to a halt, and three of the four inside passengers debarked at the front door of the rented house. Gita started to climb out as well, but Lord Ildirin held up a bony hand to stop her.

"You will stay in the carriage, please," he said. He reached for his purse and counted out eight bits; she crouched in the door of the coach, waiting, as he did. Then he held out the handful of money.

She cupped her own hands, and he poured the coins into them.

"Thank you, my lord," she said.

"You're welcome," he said. Then he called to the coachman, "Take her to Shiphaven Market and leave her there, then come back here and wait for me."

"Yes, my lord."

One of the two guards who had been riding on the back of the carriage had jumped down; the other remained in place. While Emmis and the disembarked guard unloaded Emmis's two bags, Lord Ildirin took a moment to whisper instructions to the man on the carriage, then turned away.

The coachman shook the reins, and the carriage rolled away, leaving Emmis, Lord Ildirin, and two guardsman behind. Emmis lifted his baggage, delighted to have it back. He wondered whether anything might be missing. He peered after the carriage, hoping for one more glimpse of Gita; she had saved his belongings for him, which had been kind of her, but it didn't mean he didn't think she might have gone through a few things and perhaps appropriated an item or two. She was pleasant enough, but he didn't trust her.

"Now, to meet with this ambassador," Ildirin said, and the four of them turned toward the big green door.