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‘The Master at Arms rode off after superstitious rumours?’

‘Ma’am, I be well ‘ave a cousin on the shore-’Advertisement

‘The ditsy one, aye,’ interjected the other hag.

‘Be well ditsy but that don’t matter in this, in this being the voices of the sea, which she heard an’ heard more’n once too. Voices, ma’am, like the ghosts of the drowned as she says, havin’ heard them an’ heard them more’n once too.’

Two of her sergeants were now behind the Atri-Preda, listening. Twilight loosened the strap on her helm. ‘This Master stays sober?’ she asked.

‘One a them hast, be well an’ all.’

‘It be him,’ the other agreed. ‘An’ that a curse what make us worse at bad times of the night like now-’

‘Shush you! This ma’am be a soljer outrankin’ Dresh himself!’

‘You don’t know that, Pully! Why-’

‘But I do! Whose nephew dug latrines for the Grass Jackets, be well he did! It’s ranks an’ neck tores an’ the cut of the cape an’ all-’

Yan Tovis turned to one of her sergeants. ‘Are there fresh horses in the stables?’

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A nod. ‘Four, Atri-Preda.’

The first old woman pushed at the other at that and said, ‘Tolya! Be well I did!’

Yan Tovis tilted her head back in an effort to loosen the muscles of her neck. She closed her eyes for a moment, then sighed. ‘Saddle them up, Sergeant. Pick me three of the least exhausted riders. I am off to find our missing Master at Arms.’

‘Sir.’ The man saluted and departed.

Turning back to the old women, the Atri-Preda asked, ‘Where is the nearest detachment of Tiste Edur?’

A half-dozen heartbeats of non-verbal communication between the two hags, then the first one nodded and said, ‘Rennis, ma’am. An’ they be well not once visited neither.’

‘Be glad they haven’t,’ Twilight said. ‘They would have separated Boaral’s head from his shoulders.’

The second woman snorted. ‘Not so’s he’d notice-’

‘Shush!’ scolded the first one. Then, to Twilight, ‘Ma’am, Dresh Boaral, he lost mostly alia his kin when the Edur come down. Lost his wife, too, in Noose Bog, what, now be well three years-’

The other hag spat onto the floor they had just cleaned. ‘Lost? Be well strangled and dumped, Pully, by his master himself! So now he drowns on his own drinkin’! But oh she was fire wasn’t she-no time for mewlin’ husbands only he likes his mewlin’ and be well likes it enough to murder his own wife!’

Twilight said to the sergeant who had remained, ‘We will stay for a few days. I want the Dresh here under house arrest. Send a rider to Rennis to request adjudication by the Tiste Edur. The investigation will involve some sorcery, specifically speaking with the dead.’

The sergeant saluted and left.

‘Best be well not speak wi’ the mistress, ma’am.’

Twilight frowned at the woman. ‘Why not?’

‘Liable she is t’start talkin’ and ne’er stop. Master drunk an’ she’s fire, all fire-she’s a might claw his eyes out, be well an’ that.’

‘Are you two witches?’

More silent communication between the two hags, then the first one edged one knobby, hairy foot forward and care-fully wiped at the gobbet of spit on the pavestones. The toes, Twilight saw, were taloned.

‘You are Shake? Shoulderwomen of the Old Ways?’

Wrinkled brows rose, then the one named Pully curtsied again. ‘Local born you be well as we’d known, aye. It’s there, ma’am, you’re a child of the shore an’ ain’t you gone far, but not so far as to f’get. Mistress ne’er liked us much.’

‘So who strangled her and dumped her corpse in Noose Bog, Pully?’

The other seemed to choke, then she said, ‘Dresh give ‘is orders plain as web on a trail, didn’t he, Pully? Give ‘is orders an’ wi’ us we be well here since the Keep’s first Mack stone was laid. Loyal, aye. Boaral blood was Letherii blood, the first t’these lands, the first masters a’all. Dresh the First give us ‘is blood in full knowing, t’blacken the Black Stone.’

‘The first Dresh here found you and forced your blessing?’

A cackle from the second woman. ‘What he be well think were blessing!’

Twilight looked away, then stepped to one side and leaned a shoulder against the grimy wall. She was too tired for this. Boaral line cursed by Shake witches-who remained, alive and watchful, through generation after generation. She closed her eyes. ‘Pully, how many wives have you two murdered?’ pqdm.com