Quint handed Danko the certificate.
“I’m sure you can join a Cloister,” Danko said. “They would recognize this, especially if you are willing to be tested again.”
“Why would I go to Narukun?” Quint asked.
“It is a hubite country. You wouldn’t have such a large target on your back. Narukun isn’t a perfect place, but better than Racellia,” Danko said. “I have a ship in the harbor that is ready to take Calee and me back to Narukun, but I’m not ready to go, yet.”
“I’ll have to find a place to stay. I can’t live here.”
“No, you cannot stay here,” Danko said. “If you permit, I’ll call on your landlady. Perhaps she knows of a safe place.”
Quint wrote a note and hoped that Marena was in the flat, a few buildings away. Calee volunteered to deliver Quint’s message. In less that half an hour, she returned with a sealed reply from Marena.
“She is glad you are alive,” Calee said, “but she wishes you hadn’t returned to the capital.”
“I understand, but I have nowhere else to go.”
Calee nodded. “She realized that when I told her your parents had been murdered. That fact has not reached the city, yet. The good news is she wrote down three places where you can hide out. She doesn’t want to know which one you choose and don’t try to see her. Marena is being watched, that’s why I brought the bag of spices for Slinnon cooking to give her.”
Quint looked at Marena’s suggestions. One address was on the edge of the international quarter, closer to the council palace. The other two were on the other side of the city.
“I not going to show you the options,” Quint said.
“You probably don’t have money. Take this purse.”
Quint looked inside. “This is too generous.”
Fedor smiled. “I have plenty, but I suggest you wait here long enough so I can purchase some better fitting clothes. I presume you don’t want to attract attention?”
Quint groaned. “No, I don’t.”
Fedor and Calee returned from a shopping trip. “Food, a few necessities, and two sets of clothes, one to wear now and another to wear later.”
“That’s simple enough, Quint said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Thank you, will do,” Fedor said.
Quint waited for twilight before he went out the back way. As he passed his flat, he saw Marena through the fourth-floor window. Sadness filled him since he couldn’t contact those who had helped him in Bocarre.
The address was another flat block. Quint circled the building to the back alley, but the gate was locked. He climbed over the fence and stepped inside. The flat was on the second floor, facing the front. He looked out the window and found the latch. The window opened. Quint could jump to the ground if he had to.
After closing the shutters, he cast a magic light and walked through the flat. It was clean and well-kept. A note was left on the kitchen table.
“Roberto and Anna will return in two months.” The dated note was a week old. Quint had a six-week window to figure out what to do. He would have to let Fedor know in case the ship anchored in Bocarre’s harbor could be used as a hiding place.
The pantry was restocked recently, and Quint thought he’d have enough food to last until the tenants returned, if he didn’t die from his own cooking. He put his head back on the couch and closed his eyes. He felt like he was safe for the moment, but that could change at any time. If his horse was located, those seeking him would know he was in Bocarre and that he had been to the international quarter.
Telling someone else about the hubite massacre took some of the pressure off his return, but he didn’t know what to do next. Colleto had spies in Bocarre, General Baltacco was after him, and whoever led the soldiers against the hubites would have people out to kill him as soon as they discovered Quint.
The prospect of casting a portent string came to mind, but Quint’s life was in so much peril, he was afraid of what he might see.
Chapter Twenty-Nin
e
Quint’s first act in the morning was to buy a wide brimmed hat that was popular among young Bocarren men. The darkness would hide Quint’s eye color as well as anything else he could think of. He also noticed that more people had taken to wearing swords recently. Perhaps Colleto’s threats were seeping into the consciousness of the general populace. Because of that, Quint purchased a used army sword, a fistful of newssheets, and finished his purchases with a day’s supply of market food.
The hat he wore back to the flat, and Quint retired to the kitchen, enjoying his purchases. He cast a string to sharpen the sword and his father’s knife.
After Quint had eaten his fill, he returned to the living room to read periodicals. He found paper and pencils in a desk drawer and began to analyze what the people thought of the current situation.
His research wasn’t very promising. It was clear that the concern about Colleto’s empire-building had picked up during Quint’s absence. The swords worn in the open confirmed that.
Comments about the massacre in the southeast hadn’t made it into the papers, yet, and that concerned Quint. From his perspective, the repression of the atrocity was being withheld for effect by those in power. Other than Baltacco’s feud with General Obellia, Quint learned little about the political landscape in Racellia, but there had to be Council members involved to clamp down on the news so completely.
Master Pozella might have a broader understanding and Quint decided to see if he could track his friend by observing the strategic operations building.
Quint stuffed himself for lunch and walked out through the back of the building and continued for a few blocks out of the international quarter and into the vicinity of strategic operations building.
He found a shady alley across from the strategic operations building and waited. It was mid-afternoon when he spotted Pozella walking down the building steps with Colonel Sarrefo. They walked across the street toward Quint, but then as Quint withdrew a few steps, the pair turned down the street and then walked left toward the international quarter.
Quint followed them, hoping he could catch a few words, but they weren’t really talking. He stopped when the pair walked into a pub on the edge of the quarter close to Quint’s borrowed flat.
