Renart was quiet for a moment. He was the kind of man who, when he ran into a wall, looked for the door rather than walking away, and the door here was obvious.
'I'd like to purchase him,' he said.
Edric looked at Haru. Haru looked at Edric. Then Haru made a sound — a short, resonant noise from deep in his chest that was not a growl and not a bark but was the specific sound of an animal registering an opinion about a proposal it had just heard.
Renart's brow moved.
'He's not for sale,' Edric said.
'I understand the attachment, but — '
'He's not for sale.'
'Ten gold crowns,' Renart said. He said it the way people said a number they expected to end a conversation, with the slight pause before it of someone who knows they are being generous and wants the other party to understand that they know it.
Ten gold crowns was approximately four times what the farm's entire harvest would bring at market.
Edric looked at the man. He looked at the number, in the sense of considering it, not in the sense of being moved by it. He looked at Haru, who was now looking at the middle distance with the dignified composure of an animal that had already expressed its position and did not intend to repeat it.
'No,' Edric said.
A pause. Renart was not accustomed to this word in this context. He wore it the way people wore unexpected weather — briefly, before adjusting.
'Fifteen,' he said.
'He's not for sale at any price,' Edric said, still pleasantly, still with the quality of a man who had decided and was simply informing. 'He's a member of my household. I wouldn't sell my farm dog any more than I'd sell my plow horse or my children. I appreciate the interest.'
The last sentence closed the conversation with the specific courtesy of a man who had been raised to be polite about things he was not going to budge on.
Renart looked at him. He looked at Haru once more — the gold coat, the easy posture, the absolute lack of concern about the outcome of any of this. He looked at the wagon, at the careful packing, at the farm family's general presentation.
'Of course,' he said. 'A household animal. I understand completely.' He smiled the smile of someone who understood nothing of the kind and was filing the information away. 'Good business to you.'
He turned and walked back toward the storage yard entrance.
Edric watched him go with the expression of a man who knew the conversation was not over.
◆ ◆ ◆
Arthur had clocked the guard the moment Renart walked away.
He had been in the shadow of the wagon after having helped his dad unload the cart and also secrettly removing more barrels of grain from his dimensional storage— genuinely in the shadow, which was convenient — and he had watched Renart's path back to the storage yard entrance and noted the pause, the brief exchange with a man near the wall who was not a steward and not a merchant but who had the lean watchful quality of someone employed for a different kind of work. The man had glanced at the wagon once, tucked something into his coat, and drifted in a direction that was not toward the market and not toward anything else obvious but which put him in a position to see which way the wagon left the yard.
Arthur watched this from the shadow of the wagon and said nothing.
He let his father finish the unloading. He helped carry two crates himself, working alongside Haru, who had resumed his helpful telekinesis with the complete equanimity of an animal that had registered its opinion about the purchase offer and considered the matter closed. The inspection went smoothly. The grain weight was correct because it always was. Edric arranged the sale terms with the storage master and they were good terms because his father had a reputation for quality and knew it.
They left the yard at mid-morning.
The man near the wall left about ninety seconds after they did, in the same general direction, maintaining a careful distance.
Arthur sent a Shadow copy to follow him.
◆ ◆ ◆
The copy came back with its report by early afternoon.
The man had followed them to the White Grain inn, noted the name and location, then walked to a townhouse on the northern side of Calmere — the good side, the side with wider streets and stone rather than timber construction, the side where the buildings had crests above the doors. He had gone inside and not come back out.
The townhouse had a crest: a silver tower on a blue field, the device of a minor lordship whose name Arthur had not encountered before. He sent two more copies to run the perimeter of the building and read what they could through the windows — not inside, the copies needed shadow to move and the inside of the building was too well-lit for reliable access, but the exterior told him things. Guards, two visible. A carriage in the yard that was not a working carriage. A staff that moved with the slightly pressured efficiency of people who worked for someone with standards.
A household with money and a lord who had made a point of attending the market personally.
He thought about this on the walk back to the inn.
◆ ◆ ◆