The Stoneholding

hand and humour her."

"If you wish to put it that way, Captain, yes, precisely. Now that you have some idea of the arrangements, perhaps we can move along now to the royal apartments and collect the royal family. The sooner we set off upriver the better."

"Very well, Master Dorassy," said Baldrick, as he steepled his fingers, flexing them, his elbows on the table. "One last question. Why you? How is it they've sent you to fetch this pestilent battleaxe of a woman? I don't know that I've ever met you or even heard mention of your name, and it's my business to know all the scavenger fish that feed on scraps from the Mindal."

"Because they needed someone who'd not raise the Queen's hackles. Someone not known to swim with the scavenger fish, as you call them, but trustworthy all the same and sympathetic to their designs. It so happened that I had been invited to their meeting tonight for the first time, and they asked me to undertake the task, since I'd had some friendly dealings with the Queen when I was but a journeyman draper newly arrived in Dinas Antrum from my hometown."

"What hometown is that, may I ask?" Baldrick had unsheathed his dagger and fell to paring his nails with its razor-sharp edges.

"Woodglence, on the upper Dinastor." ...