I jumped up the steps two at a time and reached the top just before my pursuers did. This town took a fairly aggressive stance on preventing trouble and I was already wanted in two cities. They had nothing on me in this city but they weren’t going to let that stop them from running me out of town. They would have to catch me first though. Not only would my employers be unhappy if I got evicted from town, my reputation would also be greatly diminished. As a mercenary my reputation was very important, it was how I got jobs and it determined my pay rate.
The city guards, in this city they called themselves police, were still hot on my trail as I rounded the corner, skidding on the smooth cobbles. I had two choices, I could continue to try to shake them or I could stop and fight them. Either way had its risks of failure and its chance of success. Fighting the guards would increase my reputation but it would also cement their wish to catch me, at the moment I hadn’t done anything so they might just give up. That was my hope anyway, so I just kept running. It didn’t look good to run from anyone but that was the smart way at the moment. The police would be after me soon enough, after I had done my job, they always were.
In the end it took diving through a house and hiding under a market stall to get away from the police. I had to bribe the stall keeper to not turn me over. That put a dent in my wallet but I was expecting to earn a lot. I never let my services get undervalued. I like to think that I’m not like the thugs you can hire in any alley of a city who will kill for a couple of bucks, I’m a skilled craftsman and I like to be paid as such. The people who hire me expect service and they get it.
I didn’t go back to my room; instead I found a new one. I never carried anything that I minded to lose with me on a job and if the police around here were any good at all they probably knew where I had been staying by now. Changing lodgings a lot is part of the job description. After I had gotten settled into my new room and bought the necessities I had left behind at my old place I set out to go talk with my boss.
I have an agent who takes care of a lot of my business transactions. He works on commission so if I don’t eat neither does he. I don’t trust my bargaining skills so I leave that up to the professional. He was waiting for me when I knocked on the back door of my employer’s house. The servants’ entrance, after all I was a hired hand.
“You’re late,” he hissed at me as we walked down the hall. Household servants moved out of our way as we passed, fear in their eyes, news gets around. My agent looked, if anything, scarier then I did. The reason that he was so good at his job was that he had made a lot of connections back when he had been a mercenary himself. He had a bad knee now and had been forced to retire but he had survived for years in this line of work so he could take care of himself still.
“Sorry,” I whispered back. “I had something to wrap up before coming to talk. I didn’t think the boss would be happy if I led the guard right to his house.”
“You’re supposed to be keeping your head down, what do the police want with you,” complained my agent.
“Nothing, you don’t have to worry, they’re just worried about my reputation. You know the one that you wanted me to cultivate so much,” I snapped back.
“Oh, yeah, that happens,” my agent admitted.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment