The moon had set and it was still an hour short of dawn. The usual morning haze lay over Erdin. The vegetable seller halted his pushcart outside the gatekeeper's wicket.
"Reava baked cherry tarts this morning," he said. He unwrapped the broad mullein leaf from around the pastry the cook had given him when he delivered the day's produce to the kitchen at the back of the house.
"I'd hang around her even if there was nothing but her cooking to keep me warm," the gatekeeper said as the two men divided the tart in their usual fashion. The vegetable seller muttered agreement around a mouthful.
The cook and the gatekeeper had an arrangement during the long periods when the cook's husband was at sea. The sailor was home in Erdin now; the gatekeeper discreetly avoided the kitchen and the cook never came to the front gate. She invariably slipped a tidbit from the family's table to the vegetable seller for delivery, though.
"Quiet, I guess?" the vegetable seller said. The men had known each other for a decade; the bor-Mulliman family had kept the same staff and the same method of provisioning when they'd moved from the outskirts of Erdin to this mansion in a wealthy district. Each was probably the other's closest friend, though they had little contact except for the early-morning greeting and chat.
"As the grave," the gatekeeper agreed from the other side of the wrought-
iron fence. "Mind you, I'm not complaining. Better quiet than watching a mob come up the street to rape and pillage the rich folks."
The vegetable seller laughed. "Guess you'd sell your life dearly to protect the master and mistress, hey Esil?" he said.
The gatekeeper snorted. "They don't pay me enough to convince me I'm rich, Toze," he said. He licked the last of the filling off his fingers. "Mind, I'd go some lengths to get Reava clear. She can cook."
"Shepherd spurn me if it's not the truth," the vegetable seller agreed as he chewed. His jaws slowed and he frowned along the foggy street. "There's a fellow just went down the side alley," he said.
"No law against that," the gatekeeper said, but his eyes narrowed. "Probably just a drunk watering the ivy. He'll be back out in a minute."
"He walked an all-fired long ways to take a whiz," the vegetable seller muttered.
He continued to watch for movement where the alley joined the boulevard. Unless the gatekeeper opened the gates and went out, he could only see the wedge of street directly in front of the wicket.
"He wasn't anything special," the vegetable seller said, working his tongue over his teeth to clean them. "A fat guy in a white tunic. He must've had a light with him, though . . ."
He wanted to describe the blue glow he thought he'd seen, but he wasn't sure how to.
Iron rubbed from the back corner of the property. "Sister take him!" the gatekeeper muttered. He got up from his stool and lifted the axe-bladed halberd leaning against the wicket. "Guess I earn my wages."
He looked at the vegetable seller. "Want to come along?" he asked.
The vegetable seller grimaced. "Yeah, sure," he said. He turned and got the three-foot oak cudgel from the pushcart while his friend unlocked the gate.
The grounds within the vine-grown fence were well manicured. Shrubs that the previous owners had ignored for years were pruned back, or cut down and replaced where they'd been allowed to spread beyond normal maintenance.
The men didn't speak as they walked in the direction of the sound. In order to screen the tomb at the back of the property, the bor-Mullimans had built a brick planter after they moved in. While the men were just the other side of its profusion of scarlet lobelias, a blue flash lit the night. When it vanished, it sucked the darkness deeper than before. Metal snapped with a clang.
The gatekeeper cursed softly and shifted his grip slightly on the shaft of his halberd. He stepped forward. The vegetable seller caught his sleeve and held him.
A door opened, then thumped closed. The haze of blue light glowing through the foliage was as insubstantial as the odor of rotting meat.
The men looked at one another. The vegetable seller tugged his friend away. Together they walked slowly toward the front gate, looking over their shoulders.
"It's not your job, right?" the vegetable seller said. "It's not part of the grounds that come with the house. You told me that."
"Yeah," the gatekeeper muttered. "It's not my job."
He opened the gate for the vegetable seller, then ran his hand up and down the bars. The feel of cold iron settled his mind a little.
"You could tell somebody come morning when you go off duty," the vegetable seller said slowly. "Of course if you did, then they might wonder why you waited."
"Right," the gatekeeper said, staring toward darkness and wishing the sun would rise a little sooner. "There wasn't anything there, you know. I'm not sure there was even a light."
Then he added, "You know, Toze? If that mob came down the street right now, I'd welcome their company."