“I think I’m going back to sea,” said the sailor. He reached inside his tunic and pulled out a leather wallet, bulging with documents. “You can have this, sir,” he added with a drunken half-bow.
“You do and I’ll hunt you down myself and kill you,” said Roo. He took the wallet and said, “Go tell your friend’s father his freight is here at Barret’s and to ask for Roo Avery, then you can go drown yourself in ale for all I care.”
The sailor said nothing as Roo shoved him away, but he turned in the direction he had indicated Jacoby’s lay and not back toward the harbor.
“Jason!”
“Yes, Roo?”
“Run and find some knackers—wait!” he corrected himself. Knackers would charge money to cut up and haul away the animal. “Run to the Poor Quarter and find a sausage maker. Tell him what we’ve got here and that he only has to come and haul it away. The knackers are going to sell the meat for sausage anyway; why pay a middleman?”
Jason’s voice could be heard asking McKeller if that was all right, and when the answer came in the affirmative, he ran out into the rain and disappeared quickly toward the Poor Quarter.
Roo quickly inspected the wagon and knew that it would never be moved until it was unloaded. “I’m going for some porters,” he shouted to McKeller. “We need to unload the cargo before we can move this rig.”
McKeller said, “Very well. As quickly as possible, Avery.” Roo hurried down to the next street, then one street over, until he came to a Porters’ Guild hiring office. Stepping inside, he saw a dozen burly men sitting around a fire, waiting for work. Moving to the small desk where the Guild officer sat, he said, “I need eight men.”
“And who are you?” asked an officious little man sitting on the stool behind the desk.
“I’m from Barret’ s and we have a wagon stuck in the mud in front of the coffee house. It needs to be unloaded before it can be moved.”
At the mention of Barret’s, the man lost some of his officious manner. “How many men did you say?”
Years of being around teamsters and porters served Roo well, as without hesitation he said, “Your stoutest eight men.”
The officer quickly singled out eight of the twelve men and said, “There’s an extra charge for the weather.”
Roo narrowed his gaze. In his best no-nonsense tone he said, “What? They’re now tender boys who can’t stand to get wet? Don’t try to hold me up so you can cadge some extra drinking money, or I’ll be talking to the Guild Masters about how many other clever little schemes you may have conceived over the years. I was loading and unloading wagons since I could reach a tailgate, so don’t be telling me about guild rules.”
Roo actually had no idea what he was talking about, but he could smell a con in his sleep. The man’s face turned red as he made an inarticulate sound in his throat and said, “Actually, that is for snow and ice, not rain, now that I think on it. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”
Roo led the eight men back into the storm to the wagon. He unhitched the tailgate and pulled up the canvas. “Oh, damn,” he said. The cargo was mixed, but right before him was a large pile of fine silk, worth more gold than he’d make this year and the next, if he was any judge of fine fabric. But once wet and muddied, it might as well be homespun for the price it would command.
He said to the lead porter, “Wait here.” Rounding the wagon, he found McKeller still at the door with a mixed company of waiters and customers, the latter watching the performance with some amusement.
“I need one of the large, heavy tablecloths, sir.”
“Why?”
“Some of the cargo will have to be kept dry and . . .” He glanced around. Seeing the unused building catercorner to Barret’s, he continued, “and we can put it there for the afternoon. But we’d probably have less difficulty if we kept the cargo undamaged. They might claim we damaged their goods and should have let it sit where it was until they came to collect it.”
That argument might not have convinced any inn or tavern keeper in Krondor that it was a good idea to possibly ruin a precious tablecloth, but Barret’s was an establishment founded on protecting cargo, among other investments, and McKeller nodded. With dozens of litigators among his clientele, he wanted nothing to do with a possible hearing before the local magistrate. “Fetch a large tablecloth,” he instructed Kurt.
Looking pained to have to do anything to help Roo, Kurt turned and moved between the patrons, returning a few minutes later with a large cloth.