The muddy splash from the drainage ditch had barely settled before the alley went dead quiet again.
Down at the corner of Stone-Willow Lane, twelve elite guards in iron-gray tunics adjusted their halberds. They stood rigid, enforcing the strict silence order bought with merchant silver.
Not a single cart was permitted to rumble across the cobblestones. Even the neighborhood stray cats were shooed into the outer avenues with dried fish.
Inside the quiet courtyard, the afternoon breeze carried the crisp fragrance of dried plum blossoms.
As the late-afternoon shadows lengthened across the garden, Kaelen had migrated from the sunlit rattan daybed to a hemp hammock slung between a pair of plum trees.
Swaying three inches above the flagstones, he lay curled on his side with his faded gray bathrobe tucked snugly around his shins. Resting over his brow was his wide-brimmed straw hat, with the battered paper cover of Book 3 of The Bandit King’s Secret Bride draped across his face.
The beauty of hiring three merchant elders as gardeners is the prompt service, Kaelen thought with deep contentment as the sixth day in Red-River City drifted toward dusk. For twenty-eight straight hours since yesterday’s noon tea, anyone who dares raise a voice near my turnips gets stuffed into the gutter before I even have to open an eye.
