“I could probably manage that,” said Brenner, and smiled.
“Madam Slate?”
Slate looked up from her work. “You can skip the madam bit. It makes me sound like my mother.”
“Was her name also Slate?”
“No, but she was a madame.” Slate leaned back in her chair, enjoying the expression that Caliban was trying (and failing) to hide. “What do you need?”
“I wish to attend a service at the temple,” he said.
He was standing in parade rest again. The ridiculous demon-killing sword was slung over his back. He looked exceedingly martial and faintly ridiculous standing in the middle of a moderately priced inn room.
“So do it,” said Slate. “I know I’m supposed to be in charge, but we haven’t gone anywhere yet. Go do whatever you want. Get drunk, get laid…go to the temple…err…whatever it is paladins do for fun.”
He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then said, very patiently, “I cannot go to the temple of the Dreaming God.”
“Oh?” And then, as realization dawned, “Oh!Right. They know you there, don’t they?”
He nodded.
“You, uh…” Slate started to make a hand gesture, realized that there was absolutely no way to express,You kinda murdered a bunch of people there, didn’t you?that would not come out as horrible, and let her hand drop. “Right.”
“I know that you are skilled in…ah…clandestine work. I was hoping that you might be able to assist me. A disguise of some sort, perhaps.”
A disguise. Right.Slate looked up at him.Six feet tall and some change, face the sort they stamped on coins, could probably model for a statue of the god of justice or courage or hitting things with swords. A disguise. Yeah.
“I could dress you up as a really big leper,” she said. “Or put you in a packing crate and arrange for delivery during a service. That’s about as much as I’ve got in the way of disguises.”
“I thought…perhaps a large hat…”
Dear god, he’s serious.
“It’s gonna take more than a hat,” said Slate. “Look, I’ll see what I can arrange.”
He bowed his head. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, well. Don’t thank me yet.”
She came back two hours later, tossed him an oilcloth cloak, and said “Get ready for the evening service.”
He looked up at her, astonished. “Truly? So quickly?”
“I’m talented.”
“I have never doubted.”
Slate fought back a sigh. She knew he had a sense of humor, sometimes even a particularly sardonic one, but it seemed to manifest very erratically. She was pretty sure that right at this moment, he was entirely serious.
They stepped outside the inn together and into a downpour.
“Here’s your disguise,” said Slate, pulling her own hood up over her head.
“…I see.” Caliban glanced at the sky. He looked as if he was rethinking his assessment of her talent. “Convenient. Do we simplynot remove our cloaks at the temple?”
“We can do better than that.”
He fell immediately into guard position behind her. She felt like she had a very large dog at heel. People were probably giving them odd looks, but everyone caught out in the downpour were wearing cloaks and heavy hoods or broad brimmed hats of their own, so she couldn’t tell.
