Yes

Brenan didn’t enjoy the walk through town back to his ship. Kyle and Tyler were so adamant about being inconspicuous that their constant staring into the ground and general unwillingness to even brush against people coming the other way did attract quite a lot of attention from pedestrians and shopkeepers, while Brenan’s constant lookout both for Veertorian agents and thugs coming to get their **** on him for stopping them from indulging their xenophobia caused him to glare at anyone who happened to look at him in such a way that they immediately looked away.

What was really bugging Brenan was not knowing whether or not the Veertorians were looking for him or if they were after someone else. He’d be fine with being hunted by them, if that was how things were going to be, because then he would at least know what was coming his way.

Stopping by the schooner to leave Kyle and Tyler there so that Kyle could rest his wounded leg, Brenan next stopped by Davy’s waterfront office and was told that he wasn’t there but had gone home for the day. So Brenan returned Davy’s horse to the small stable next to the headquarters of Davy’s financial empire and took a walk to his friend’s comfortable but reasonably modest home which consisted of two stories, one stone and one wooden, where he walked through the garden and up to the front door of the house and knocked on it.

Davy’s wife opened the door after about a minute, a happy smile forming on her round, friendly face when she spotted Brenan standing there.

“Brenan!” Joanna happily exclaimed and greeted him with a warm hug, pressing her stocky frame against his and then took him under the arm and led him into the hallway. Joanna might not be a beauty in any normal sense of the word, but she’d been the one who had nursed Davy back to health after the injury that left him scarred and crippled, and although his friend would routinely make crude comments about his reason for marrying Joanna being that he liked having plenty to hold onto to in the sack, Brenan suspected that it was more due to her kindness and maternal demeanour.

“So, where’s Davy?” Brenan asked after he’d answered the barrage of questions about his life that Joanna had subjected him to.

“He’s playing with the boys,” Joanna revealed, apparently having decided that her husband had no reason to be ashamed about spending time with his two young sons, “so why don’t you go wait in the garden while I tell him you’re here.”

“Alright,” Brenan said, and walked out to take a seat in a chair by the table which stood on the grass just in front of the family’s half-built gazebo, sitting in silence as their maid appeared and placed a teakettle, two cups and a tray of biscuits on the table before returning back inside.

“So, about the Dor-weasels…” It felt absurd to discuss whether or not he was being hunted by Veertorian cutthroats while sitting in Davy’s neatly kempt garden and sipping a cup of tea, but Brenan paid little heed to the humour in his situation and instead focused on the matter in hand, addressing Davy before he’d even gotten the chance to take a seat. He could tell him about the James brothers at a later point in their conversation.

“Yes, about them…” Davy replied and then took a look around to make sure that nobody was listening in, despite knowing Brenan well enough to know that he’d already checked that several times over while waiting for him.

“You know of the Hammer and Anvil?” Davy asked.

“Yes, it’s a pub that caters to effete merchantmen such as you, why?” Brenan couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to tease his friend a little.

“Oh no, it’s an establishment that isn’t aimed at brutal dregs such as you,” Davy shot back with a grin, “But anyway, I know one of the bartenders there, and he told me that a couple of strangers with a pretty military air about them showed up yesterday afternoon and started asking a lot of questions. I’d already noticed them moving about around a ship that anchored in the harbour yesterday morning, so I made some discreet enquiries about them.”

“And…?”

“And they’re not looking for you, apparently,” Davy revealed, “they’re looking for an attractive redhead.”

“Red?” Brenan asked as a mental picture of her popped up in his head as a sort of Pavlovian reaction to the phrase “attractive redhead.”

“I don’t know,” Davy replied, “though I’m sure that she will appreciate your concern.”