Even so, worrying. It wouldn’t do to have his young brother so close to Gerun Eberict.
For if Tehol possessed a true enemy, a foe to match his own cleverness who – it would appear – surpassed Tehol himself in viciousness – it was Finadd Gerun Eberict, possessor of the King’s Leave.
And he’d been sniffing around, twisting arms. Safer, then, to assume Gerun knew that Tehol was not as destitute as most would believe. Nor entirely… inactive.
Thus, a new fold to consider in this rumpled, tangled tapestry.
Gerun was immune. But not without enemies. Granted, deadly with a sword, and known to have a dozen sworn, blood-bound bodyguards to protect him when he slept. His estate was rumoured to be impregnable, and possessed of its own armoury, apothecary with resident alchemist well versed in poisons and their antidotes, voluminous store-houses, and independent source of water. All in all, Gerun had planned for virtually every contingency.
Barring the singular focus of the mind of one Tehol Beddict.
Sometimes the only solution was also the simplest, most obvious. See a weed between the cobbles … pull it out .
‘Bugg!’
A faint voice from below. ‘What?’
‘Who was holding Gerun’s tiles on that bet this afternoon?’
His servant’s grizzled head appeared in the hatch. ‘You already know, since you own the bastard. Turble. Assuming he’s not dead of a heart attack… or suicide.’
‘Turble? Not a chance. My guess is, the man’s packing. A sudden trip to the Outer Isles.’
‘He’ll never make it to the city gates.’
‘Meaning Gerun is on the poor bastard.’
‘Wouldn’t you be? With that payoff?’
Tehol frowned. ‘Suicide, I’m now thinking, might well be Turble’s conclusion to his sorry state of affairs. Unexpected, true, and all the more shocking for it. He’s got no kin, as I recall. So the debt dies with him.’
‘And Gerun is out eight hundred docks.’
‘He might wince at that, but not so much as you’d notice. The man’s worth a peak, maybe more.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘All right, so I was generalizing. Of course I know, down to the last dock. Nay, the last stripling. In any case, I was saying, or, rather, suggesting, that the loss of eight hundred docks is not what would make Gerun sting. It’s the escape . The one trail even Gerun can’t doggedly follow – not willingly, anyway. Thus, Turble has to commit suicide.’