Coimbra

Inside the room Hogan waited a while, before folding up the sheet of notes and burning them over the candle. One of his surveilance operatives had been compromised, which was bad news, but by the sounds of it the other had gone unnoticed.

He dumped the smouldering remains into the grate with the rest of the ashes, and wandered out into the corridor, heading back to his room. As he was walking he caught the arm of a sentry standing at one of the doors - a man he knew and trusted.

"Go to Marta's place," he murmured. "Leave by the kitchen and get there as quickly as you can. Tell Marta that Lieutenante Gomez sent you to settle his account. There might be a message to bring back."

The soldier nodded, turned and left to do as Hogan asked.

As he made his way back to his quarters, George wondered if Hogan realised that George suspected him and the General of placing the watch on him. Whatever the man knew or suspected, George still had to be careful for he doubted that the man he almost caught tonight was the only agent available to Hogan. He also doubted that the notes that Hogan took were still in existance.

Seated near the mouth of the alleyway the beggar shivered. The advantage of being huddled in a greasy old cloak was that nobody could tell whether he was watching or not.

Hunter returned to the house with his horse, looking somewhat peeved. Young fool, the beggar thought as he saw the captain's bloodied nose.

George led Firebird into the stables and taking off her bridle and reins, used some drinking water left for her to wash away the blood. The beggar was still there. George suddenly paused. A beggar? Sitting in the open at this time of night?! George kicked off his boots, climbed into the hayloft, out of the window, and swung himself up onto the roof. His footsteps soft and noisless, he walked, crouching across and stilled as soon as he could see the beggar sitting not far from the stables entrance. He did not know yet, whether he was being overly paranoid, but a close look would not hurt.

Unaware he was being watched, the beggar shuffled further back into the alleyway. May it might be, but still cold at night... He fumbled in his filthy coat, drawing out a bottle of brandy he had managed to get hold of earlier with his silver dollar and took a swig.

George carefully moved further along the roof. He wondered if he should perhaps simply kill the beggar and be done with it. Then he smiled. No, he will just startle him, see what reaction he gets. Carefully he stood up on the roof's edge and looked down. The stables were a low enough building and he spent a lot of time jumping off tall trees as a kid and falling off horses as adult to know how to land and not break a bone in the process. He jumped, landing a few feet behind the beggar.

[OOC: *sings* Everybody was kung-fu fighting...! XD ]

Startled, the beggar cried out, and started choking on his brandy, gasping for breath.

George straightened, stretching his legs to get rid of the stunned feeling in them, and approaching the beggar clapped him on the back.
'I am so sorry, did I startle you?'

"Fiend!" the beggar cried in Portuguese, gaining some control and keeping his character through all his choking. "Mother of God, help me! Jesus and Joseph!"

George tried not to laugh as he pretended to be horrified and embarassed by scaring the beggar.
'I am so sorry. Didn't see you down here. So dark.' George reverted to Spanish, as if he was hoping the that the certain similarities between the two languages would help the 'beggar' understand him.

The beggar scrabbled backwards, taking out the two coins Hunter had given him earlier and holding them out fearfully.

"Here, take them! I'm sorry, senhor, I don't need them! Please, don't hurt me!"

George shook his head and keeping the grin off his face, walked past the beggar and back into the stables where he finally allowed himself to laugh, though trying to smother the sound against his own arm.

Slowly the beggar settled down again, returning the coins to his pocket and taking another swig of his brandy. Mad this one was; completely and utterly cracked!

Finally, George put on his boots, checked that Firebird was alright and went back to his quarters giving a small wave to the beggar on the way.

He stepped into the room quietly and discarding the dirtied quickly slipped into the empty bed. He was still grinning.