Or at least, he would try.
The ragpicker had been careful not to tell the Seraphic either his suspicions or his real intentions. The other might believe that the ragpicker trusted him to secure the staff and would simply wait around for that to happen. He might believe the ragpicker wanted the Seraphic to do the work for him. But the ragpicker had learned long ago that if you wanted something done, it was never a good idea to rely on others. Others were never as committed to achieving your goals as you were.
So let Skeal Eile think what he wanted to. Let him believe he had value. Don’t reveal the truth about what he was really needed for. Don’t tell him that when he provided information, he revealed far more than he knew. So much so he would have been appalled, had his understanding of what was happening not been deflected just enough to cloud his memory. Best if he remembered only certain things. Best if he didn’t think too carefully on what was going to happen next.
The ragpicker’s plans for the Seraphic, in fact, were complex and far reaching, and they would work best if the latter remained ignorant of true goals. Trusting the truth with such a man was a fool’s game. The ragpicker had spent sufficient time during the past few days learning about the Seraphic and his order, about how the people of his village regarded him and how he conducted himself as the self-appointed leader of his sect, to know what to expect. It was enough to enable the ragpicker to take the measure of the man and to determine accurately what was needed to secure his cooperation. Just enough, not too much—that was the key to what the Seraphic needed to know.
That way he wouldn’t realize he was doing the ragpicker’s work until it was too late.
But first things first. Having made contact with the Seraphic and given him reason to know he was being watched, he could turn his attention to more important things. Let Skeal Eile believe the demon was only interested in the black staff. Let him believe he could manipulate and deceive with impunity. He would learn the truth quickly enough.
The ragpicker was a harsh taskmaster.
He worked his way through the sleeping village to the council hall, intent on paying a visit next to the Drouj prisoner locked away in the building’s basement storeroom.
It took him only minutes to reach his destination. Once there, he stood in the shadows, hidden from prying eyes, searching for the guards on duty. There would be two, he had learned—one keeping watch from without and one stationed at the door to the makeshift prison in the basement. A double measure of protection, it was said, against any sort of escape attempt.
When he was satisfied there was no one in the building save the guards and their prisoner, the ragpicker detached himself from the shadows and walked to the main entrance. The first guard was sitting in the shadows against the veranda wall. He waited until the ragpicker had started to climb the steps before calling out to him to stop. The old man gestured vaguely, muttered something about his weary bones, and continued on until he had reached the top riser. He stopped there, stretching his arms and muttering on aimlessly.
When the guard walked over to escort him back down again, the ragpicker seized the man by the front of his tunic and cut his throat with a single swipe of his hunting knife.
Dragging the man inside, the ragpicker left him slumped in a corner of the room, bleeding out his life. It would have been quicker and less messy simply to crush his windpipe and leave him to strangle, but that form of killing wouldn’t have suited his purposes in this business.
The ragpicker walked through the hall to the basement stairway and started down the steps. A voice called out to him—the other guard presumably—but he made no response.
The second guard met him at the bottom of the stairs and had only just started to ask him his business when the ragpicker swiped his blade across this man’s throat, too.
Amateurs, he thought.
Without bothering to move the body, the ragpicker reached down to extract the storeroom keys, stepped carefully around the spreading pools of blood, and walked over to the storeroom door. Two tries with two different keys and he heard the lock give and pulled open the door.
The prisoner was chained to a wall ring in the far corner, sitting on a pallet and looking at him through the gloom. His face, like chiseled wood, was blank and expressionless, but there was a cunning in the gleam of his eyes as he studied this newcomer.
“Arik Siq?” the ragpicker asked.
The prisoner made no reply. The ragpicker crossed the room to stand in front of him.
“Are you Arik Siq or no?”
The Drouj stood up, towering over him. Tall and lean, he was so dark he was almost black. “Who are you?”
“Let’s have you answer my question first. That would be the polite thing for you to do.