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that. It was a pleasant enough view, but Arla was bored.
    She left the room and went downstairs. She looked for the room they’d been in earlier, but almost walked into Hekman in one of the corridors.
    “You’re up,” he said.
    “Yes.”
    “You saw the physic?”
    “Yes. She said it was alright as long as I didn’t do anything violent.” It was a half truth. She saw Hekman smile briefly.
    “Good timing, then,” he said. “I’ve had a message from Ella Saine. She’ll meet us in the Shining Wake. Are you up to walking?”
    “Yes,” Arla replied. She’d heard of the Shining Wake. It had a reputation for serving silver food at copper prices, mostly fish. Arla didn’t particularly like fish and she’d never been there. It wasn’t the sort of place you went if you needed to keep a low profile.
    It wasn’t far. Nowhere in the old town was far, really. They walked down a street towards the sea. It glittered ahead of them, and this particular street had been adopted as a market. It was lined with stalls selling whatever folk had to sell. Arla barely looked at them.
    “You lost your bow,” Hekman said. “In the warehouse fire.”
    “Aye.”
    “You’ll be needing another. The best bowyer in Samara is up on Kettle Lane, or so Ulric tells me. When we’ve done with Ella Saine you can go up there and see if he can make you what you want. A recurve, wasn’t it?”
    “A good one.” Arla was surprised. She’d thought to pay for a new bow out of what she earned. A good bow cost three or four gold – more than she expected to earn in a month. She stole glances at Hekman as they walked along. He was living up to Ulric’s promise that he was different. She’d not seen him laugh. She’d not seen him angry either. Whatever kind of life he’d had before this seemed to have burned such things out of him, and to be fair he didn’t look in the best of health.
    They came to the bottom of the street and stepped out onto the strand. The bay here was full of small, brightly painted boats. The piers that clustered near the mole at the eastern end were lined with small ships. Somehow the sea here seemed cleaner and more exciting than it did in Gulltown, even though it was the same sea. Arla knew nothing about boats, but they had an indefinable air of adventure about them, especially the ships.
    Hekman didn’t pause to admire the view. He turned left and walked steadily until they came to the Shining Wake. It was bigger than Arla had imagined. Its white face occupied fifty paces of the waterfront, and it was busy. She tried not to meet anyone’s eyes as they went in, easing through the lunchtime crowd.
    Sam seemed to know where he was going, and she followed as closely as she could. They came to a corner table by one of the low windows that looked out over the bay. A man and a woman were sitting at the table, and they could not have been more different.
    The woman, Arla guessed, must be Ella Saine, member of the king’s council, and one of the very few people in Samara said to be on terms with the Mage Lord himself. She looked like a child – small, pale, thin and quite dowdy. The man was something else. She knew him by reputation. The guards at Ocean’s Gate, and most of the folk in Gulltown, called him Killer Kane. The guard had been trying to kill the man for years before the Faer Karan ended, and it had been mutual. He was broad, scarred, powerfully built, and he sat with his back to the view scanning the tavern.
    There was a story going round Samara that Kane was Ella’s bondsman, that she’d won him in a wager from the king, or that she’d saved his life – something like that. Now Kane was hers and, if stories were to be credited, loyal as a dog.
    Ella smiled and stood.
    “Sam, how are you?”
    “Well enough,” he said. He sat at the table. Arla remained standing, unsure what she was supposed to do. Ella looked at her.
    “Arla, please sit,” she said.
    Arla sat, wedging herself at the end of the table