file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Sheri%20S.%20Tepper%20%20-%20Jinian%20Stareye.html by Jinian Stareye

Author:Jinian Stareye [Stareye, Jinian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

8

Peter's Story: The Spy

Himaggery and Barish had decided that our first and most important problem was the one of spies. Huldra and Dedrina had set out from the north with quantities of the amethyst crystals, and we had to expect they would use the vile things. If there were a spy in the kitchen, any meal might contain an unpleasant surprise. If there were a spy in the wine cellar, the shock could be equally unexpected and even more widespread. So, we very methodically set about determining whether those employed in sensitive positions were trustworthy, using me for part of the task and well-trusted Demons for the rest.

'It would be a good deal easier,' Barish fussed, 'if we could do the whole thing openly, just line them all up against a wall and have at them, but the way the men are feeling just now, full of suspicion and ill will, it wouldn't take much to have a rebellion on our hands. No. Better take a little longer and do it quietly.'

So we took longer and did it quietly, with me pushing the idea of cooperation to everyone I encountered, remembering how the Eesty shape had done it. It was hard, tiring work, frustrating because we found nothing. It made no sense! Why put one not-very-clever spy into the Demesne when they could have planted a dozen?

I went down to the dungeons to have a word with Shaggan, the one spy we knew of.

'I don't know,' he kept babbling in answer to my questions. 'I haven't any idea how I got here. The last 122

thing I knew, I was on the road from Fangel, south to Betand, with a few friends, all of us making for Pfarb Durim for the Harvest Festival, and the next thing I knew I was here.'

'He came shortly before the siege, Lord Peter,' said another of the guards. 'I remember it well enough. He came knocking at the gates saying he was out of coin and out of patience and needed something to keep himself for the next season or so. Well, we'd been recruiting right along, so I saw no reason not to take him.'

'No one else presented himself at that same time, or around that time?'

'Nobody. Later on, the Lady Sylbie came, of course, but those who escorted her simply left her at the gates and went on south. And then only a few days after that, here came the besiegers with enough baggage to last them two seasons.'

Shaggan wasn't lying. He really didn't know what he'd been supposed to do as a spy, so after a time he returned to duty - or, shall I say, enlisted for duty since he couldn't remember having been on duty before.

I took the time to search his cubby down in the guardsmen's dormitory, and it had nothing in it but what one would expect. No amethyst crystals lurking in the bottom of his weapons chest or the hems of his tunics.

It occurred to me then

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