Exploitable Weaknesses by Brian Keller (red queen free ebook txt) 📗

any recently freed Guild members among them would be taken to one of the Houses being repaired. Non-Guild prisoners would be taken to the other House. Any prisoners that wished to make their own way, would be released without revealing where the others were being taken.

If all arrangements could be made in time, they’d go this afternoon. Everyone would catch a couple hours of sleep whenever they could in the meantime.

After they discussed the plan and the others had started to go their own way, Birt spoke quietly with Cooper, “Might I make a suggestion?” Cooper replied, “Of course. Something you didn’t want to suggest to the group?” Birt ducked his head and shrugged, “Well, I didn’t want to sound negative in front of the rest of them.” Cooper turned to face him fully, “Well?” Birt drew a small pouch and gave it a shake. The dull clatter that resulted made it apparent that the pouch held gems. Birt raised an eyebrow, “Plan B?” Rukle had witnessed the discussion and approached to include himself, “What’s this? I thought we were finished with planning?” he asked as he looked from one to the other, then the pouch and back. Birt shrugged, “I just think it’s wise to have options.” Cooper nodded, “I agree. But I think the guards aren’t likely to accept a bribe unless they’re pressed first.” Rukle nodded, “A bribe as a means of avoiding a worse fate… agreed.”

Cooper faced Birt, “Get the horses, wagons and firewood. Take Dailen and one of the Journeymen with you.” Birt nodded and walked away as Cooper turned to Rukle, “I’m sending Loryn after the blankets. She’ll end up laying within and under them for a few hours, so she should be the one to select them. Buy about thirty, maybe forty, of them then come back and tell Dailen where to take the empty wagon to pick them up. Tell her all that, then go with her.” Rukle turned and went to find Loryn. Cooper squatted down to look over Birt’s model of the quarry and he stood abruptly, “Rukle!” The boy stopped and turned around as Cooper quickly walked to him, “I want you to go check in with the Dreg’s Houses, to find out anything they’ve learned about the suspicious foreigners. I’ll send Gaff to ask Mardon the same thing. Tell Loryn what I told you, then have her take either one of the others with her.” Rukle nodded and turned to walk away. Cooper added, “And if Birt grabbed Gaff to go with him, tell him to take one of the others instead.” Rukle continued walking but raised a hand to indicate that he’d understood and Cooper went to find Gaff.

After everyone dispersed to their assigned tasks, Cooper returned to Birt’s handiwork. He wasn’t so much studying it as staring at it while sifting through his own observations. Spen walked over to join him and Cooper glanced up as he approached, “They left you here with me, eh?” Spen nodded and squatted low to shift one of the rocks in the ‘quarry’, the workmen’s hut. Spen’s voice sounded a little rough as he spoke, “Thanks for not prying.” Cooper shifted himself to a seated position, “Prying? Oh, about your childhood horse ride?” Spen nodded, “I know we all come from somewhere. We all have our personal tales of woe. I just fail to see any benefit in sharing, and re-living, mine.” Cooper let a few seconds pass as he formed his reply, “I’ll not ask, but I will explain a possible benefit of sharing.” Spen quickly replied in a voice laden with bitterness, “If you’re about to tell me that I’ll ‘feel better’ after sharing, you can save your breath.” Cooper took a breath, uncertain how to respond, “No. I wasn’t about to suggest that. What I will suggest is that you keep in mind who it is that you’re talking to. I am not your pal. We might, one day, grow to become friends, but as it stands…” Spen became silent and Cooper continued, “What I was about to say is that I know Gaff was a Waterfront kid. That tells me that he knows his way around that neighborhood. I can send him on tasks in the Waterfront, and if something isn’t right, he’d likely recognize it before some kid from the Dregs would.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Spen spoke first, “My father was a fairly wealthy merchant, or at least I think he was. We lived in an estate in the Grid. I can’t remember which one. As near as I understand it, another merchant, a competitor, was able to drive my father either out of business or into unrecoverable debt. My father hung himself to escape the shame. That, along with the fact that we were destitute and forced from our home, drove my mother mad. She was unable to care for me, or herself. I was taken by the Guild and placed in a House, the southern Waterfront House.”

Cooper waited a few seconds, to make sure Spen had finished, before he replied, “That’s much more information than I needed. ‘Born in the Grid and moved to the southern Waterfront’ would’ve been good enough.” Spen stood up abruptly and fairly spat the words, “You really are a bastard, aren’t you?!” Cooper shrugged, “Not by birth, but perhaps by nature.” He stood slowly, “My concerns are to rebuild the Guild. To free as many of our captured members as possible, from the quarry and Serpent Tooth Prison, while keeping the rest of us alive in the meantime. Perhaps once we’ve accomplished a few of those things I’ll feel better prepared to show sympathy. But even then, I doubt it.” He took a breath, then quickly added, “I said I wouldn’t pry. I meant it. I wanted to know a little of your background, not your history. As you observed, we all have stories of our own. I