Guard Against Dishonor

by Simon R. Green

  "Sounds sensible," said Fisher. "What did you have in mind?"

  "I can't have you working together; word would be bound to get out. But as it happens, I've got two jobs to fill that should suit the pair of you nicely. As you know, even though officially you shouldn't, Peace Talks are taking place in Haven at the moment, to try and put an end to the border clashes between the Low Kingdoms and our traditional enemy Outremer, before they get out of hand. The Talks themselves seem to be going well enough, but there are a number of political and business interests on both sides who would like very much to see them fail. Captain David ap Owen is currently in charge of security, but he's been under a lot of pressure and could use some assistance. Think you could handle that, Captain Fisher?"

  "Sounds fair enough to me," said Fisher, glancing at Hawk. "What level of security are we talking about?"

  "Absolute minimum. Officially, the Talks aren't happening here at all. We can't use troops to guard the delegates; that would be too conspicuous, so there'll just be yourself, Captain ap Owen, and a dozen Constables in plainclothes. We can't use any magical protection, either. Same reason; it would just attract attention. So if anything happens, you're on your own. By the time you could get word to us it would all be over, one way or the other. You'll have to cope with what you've got."

  "Do the delegates know that?" said Hawk.

  "They suggested it. They're expendable, and they know it. Well, Captain Fisher, is the assignment to your liking?"

  "Sounds like fun," said Fisher.

  Glen looked at her for a moment, and then turned to Hawk. "I need someone to find the drugs that went missing. Surprisingly enough, I had worked out for myself how dangerous this super-chacal could be. I want to know how the stuff disappeared, and where it is now. And if you should find a way to incriminate Morgan in the process, I wouldn't be at all displeased. Find yourself another partner, someone you can trust, but keep your head down, and stay out of the public eye. If anything goes wrong, I'll swear blind you were acting on your own, and it's all nothing to do with me. I can't afford to have Morgan's friends as enemies. You'll report directly to me, and no one else. Is that acceptable, Captain Hawk?"

  "Sounds good to me," said Hawk. "Why didn't you tell us this earlier?"

  "You didn't exactly give me a chance. You were more interested in feeling aggrieved and wrecking my office."

  Fisher smiled. "Next time, talk faster."

  "Besides," said Hawk comfortingly, "it wasn't much of an office anyway."

  Glen looked at him.

  Hawk was working on his second beer when Captain Burns found him. The Cloudy Morning was a semiofficial off-duty tavern for the Guard, a traditional place for winding down at the end of a long shift. It was fairly basic as taverns go, with no frills and few comforts, but the beer was good and reasonably cheap, and the Guards needed a place where they could talk freely without having to worry about who might be listening. The place was run by an ex-Guard, and the general public were politely encouraged to drink elsewhere, unless they were Guard groupies. There were such, though not many Guards encouraged them. They tended to get obsessive.

  The place was crowded, as usual at the end of a shift, and Captain Burns had to squeeze his way through the press of bodies to reach the bar. Several Guards called out to him, and clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, but he just smiled and kept going. Hawk's message had sounded fairly urgent. He finally reached the bar, grabbed a seat as it became vacant, and sat down beside Hawk. For a moment Hawk didn't look up, staring into his beer. Then he took a long swallow, and gestured for the bartender to bring Burns a beer.

  "I'm surprised you're still on the loose," said Burns. "The smart money was betting you'd be arrested the moment you set foot in Headquarters. You've upset some really powerful people this time, Hawk."

  "There was some talk of suspension," said Hawk. "But I talked the Commander out of it."

  Bums smiled. "Yeah, I heard. Did you really bounce him off the walls of his own office?"

  Hawk looked at him innocently. "Would I do such a thing to a superior officer?"

  Burns nodded to the bartender as his drink arrived, and sipped it appreciatively. "So what's happening with you and Fisher? All forgiven?"

  "Hardly. We've been split up, and told to keep our heads down. But I've got a case to work on, and I'm looking for a new partner."

  For a moment, Burns didn't get it, and then he looked sharply at Hawk. "You mean me? We hardly know each other."

  "I've seen you fight, and I thought you might like a chance to get back at the bastards who killed your partner. Besides, Morgan isn't going to stop with Fisher and me. Eventually, he's going to go after everyone who helped destroy his factory. He takes setbacks personally. If you don't go after him now, while he's vulnerable, you can bet that sooner or later he's going to be coming after you."

  "You've got a point there," said Burns. "But you've got a real nerve, you know that? You got me into this mess, and now I'm supposed to help save your neck."

  "Are you in or not?"

  "Of course I'm in. I don't really have any choice, do I? And you're right about one thing, at least. I'd worked with Doughty on and off for nearly eight years. He was a good partner. Never had much to say for himself, but the best damned swordsman I ever saw. I always felt safer with him to guard my back. I didn't see who killed him at the factory. Everything was happening too fast. But even if I didn't see whose hand held the sword, I know who was responsible for his death."

  "Morgan."

  "Right. I'm with you, Hawk. But it's not going to be easy. Morgan has influential friends. The kind of people it's dangerous to cross."

  "Everyone keeps telling me that," said Hawk calmly. "It's not going to stop me. I can be dangerous too, when I put my mind to it. But I shouldn't worry about his precious friends too much. If we bring Morgan down hard enough, his friends will desert him like rats leaving a sinking ship rather than risk being brought down with him."

  Burns shook his head amusedly. "You almost make it sound easy. All right, what do we do first?"

  "Well, to begin with we could do with another drink. We've got some hard thinking to do."

  Burns chose his words carefully. "Not for me, thanks. I think better on a clear head."

  "You're probably right," said Hawk. "But it has to be said, there's something about Haven that drives a man to drink." He looked at his empty glass, then pushed it regretfully away. "You know, when I first joined the Guard, I really thought I could make a difference. I was going to be a force for justice, and put all the bad guys behind bars, where they belonged. It didn't work out that way. Crime and corruption are a way of life for most people here. Some days I think the only way to clean up Haven would be to burn it down and start over again."

  Burns shrugged. "I've lived here all my life, but from what I've heard, Haven isn't really that different from any other city. We're just more honest about it here. You mustn't let it get to you, Hawk. You can't expect to undo centuries of corruption overnight. Real change always takes time. In the meantime, we do our best to hold things together, and every now and again we get a chance to put away a piece of slime like Morgan. Settle for that."

  They sat for a while in silence, each thinking his own thoughts.

  "Where did you come from originally?" said Burns.

  "Up north. There were family problems over my marriage to Isobel, so we struck out on our own. Traveled around a lot, and finally ended up here. It seemed a good idea at the time."

  "There are worse places than Haven."

  "Name two." Hawk looked thoughtfully into his empty glass. "It was my fault, you know. If I hadn't gone barging in, without checking the situation properly, I might have found a way to shut down Morgan's factory without destroying everything. And all those men and women and children would be alive now."

  "Maybe," said Burns. "But I doubt it. Morgan was ready to ship those drugs out. If we'd burst in even an hour later, we'd probably have found nothing but an emp
ty warehouse. But either way, it doesn't make any difference. You did what you thought was right at the time. That's all any of us can do. Beyond a certain point, worrying about past mistakes just becomes self-pity and self-indulgence."

  Hawk looked at him, and smiled. "Maybe. Let's talk about Morgan, the bastard. The first thing we have to do is figure out where the super-chacal disappeared to, and then try and link it directly to Morgan in a way he can't shrug off. Which means asking pointed questions and making a nuisance of ourselves until people tell us what we want to know."

  "Just once," said Burns, "wouldn't you like to try it the easy way? Morgan is going to have to shift the super-chacal in a hurry, so that he can't be caught with it in his possession. Which means using established channels of distribution. And there aren't that many people in Haven who can handle a deal that size. All we have to do is discover which distributor has suddenly become very busy, and we'll have our first lead."

  "But that's only part of it," said Hawk. "We also need to know which Guards took money from Morgan to look the other way while the drugs went missing."

  "If you say so," said Burns. "But Hawk, we're going to do this professionally, right? Getting personally involved in a case is always a bad idea. It stops you thinking clearly. In Haven, you win some and you lose some. That's just the way it is."

  Hawk looked at him. "I don't believe in losing."

  Chapter Three

  Talking Peace and War

  Fisher strode scowling through the well-ordered streets of Low Tory, and wished Hawk was with her. She didn't like leaving him alone in his present mood. He'd taken the deaths in the Hook personally, and right now he was mad enough and depressed enough to do something stupid. Usually it was the other way round, with Hawk keeping her from doing something dumb, but there were times when he needed her to see the right path clearly. He needed her now, and she couldn't be with him. Commander Glen had made it very clear that their splitting up was a condition of their continuing to work. Still, they'd had time to discuss who Hawk should choose as his new partner, and Captain Burns seemed solid enough. She wondered what her own new partner would be like. Probably turn out to be some ex-mercenary with more muscle than brain, and even less ethics. There were a lot like that in the Guard.

  She looked unobtrusively about her as she strode along, trying to get the feel of the new area. She hadn't worked Low Tory before, but by all accounts it was an upwardly mobile, middle-class area, full of merchant families so long established they were city aristocracy in all but blood and breeding. They were indecently rich, had a finger in every political pie, and, as a class, showed all the ethical restraint of a shark in a feeding frenzy. Having reached the pinnacle of their profession, their ambition turned in the only direction left to them, and they set their sights on the Quality. Even in Haven, the poorest aristocrat could still look down his nose at the richest trader. So, in recent times certain wealthy merchant families had been negotiating marriage contracts with the more impoverished Quality Families, quite openly offering to pay off a Family's debts in return for marriage into the Quality. The results were rarely happy, with the nouveau Quality snubbed and openly mocked by High Society, but the practice persisted.

  As a result, Low Tory had flourished in the past few years, tearing down the faded and crumbling houses of the lesser Quality and replacing them with grand new mansions that rivaled and occasionally even surpassed the old Family Halls and Granges of High Tory. The streets were wide and open and bordered with neat, orderly rows of specially imported trees. New walls had been replaced with newer walls carefully constructed to appear old and weathered. Everything had to look right. Unlike most of Haven, the streets were calm and quiet and practically deserted. Regular patrols by private guards and men-at-arms saw to that. Only those with approved business in the area were allowed to tarry in Low Tory. To Fisher, more used to the bustling crowds of the Northside, the streets appeared almost eerily deserted.

  The recent snow had been shoveled aside into tidy piles at the street kerbs, but here and there small bands of workmen still struggled with the more stubborn drifts. Servants attired in finery more costly than that worn by some lower-class merchants hurried along, looking neither left nor right, bearing messages and business documents and an almost palpable sense of their own self-importance. Private guards patrolled in pairs, looking faintly embarrassed by their overelaborate uniforms. None of them looked particularly pleased to see Fisher. She ignored them all, and concentrated on the directions she'd been given. They'd seemed simple enough back at Guard Headquarters, but Fisher had a positive genius for getting lost, and today seemed no different. Still, after a certain amount of backtracking she'd finally found the right street, so all she had to do now was locate the right house.

  It occurred to her that this street was actually surprisingly busy, by Low Tory standards. There were half a dozen workmen lackadaisically shoveling snow, and as many servants strolling unhurriedly up and down the street. A hot-chestnut seller was tending his brazier, but showed remarkably little interest in drumming up trade. Two men were bent over an open sewer grating, but seemed to be spending as much time watching the street as anything else. Fisher had to smile. Try as they might, some Guards just couldn't get the hang of plainclothes work. It wasn't enough to look the part; you had to act it as well. Still, it showed she was in the right place.

  None of the plainclothes people made any move to approach her, for which Fisher was grateful. She wasn't in the mood to explain what she was doing there without Hawk. She finally reached her destination, and stopped at the main gate to study the surroundings with an experienced eye. It was a plain, pleasantly unornamented house, standing a way back from the street in its own grounds. The high stone wall surrounding the snow-covered lawns was topped with iron spikes and broken glass. Fairly impressive, but the tall iron gates were unlocked and unguarded. She'd have to speak to someone about that.

  She pushed the gates open and walked into the grounds. A few yards away stood a life-sized figure of a warrior, carved from pale marble in the classically idealized style popular in the last century. It carried a sword and shield, and was minutely detailed, even down to bulging veins on the muscular arms. Fisher looked away. She didn't care for such statues. They'd always given her the creeps as a child.

  As she passed the marble warrior, there was a low, grating sound as the statue slowly turned its head and looked at her. Fisher jumped back, her hand dropping to her sword. She stayed where she was, her heart beating painfully fast, but the statue made no further move. Fisher edged closer, a foot at a time, and reached out to poke it with a hesitant fingertip. It felt hard and unyielding, the way marble should. Fisher took a deep breath and backed away, still keeping a careful eye on the statue. The thing must be part of the house's security system. They might have warned her… She turned her back on the marble figure and continued on her way. Behind her she again heard a low grating sound as the statue turned its head to follow her progress. Fisher wouldn't let herself look back, but walked a little faster, despite herself. Up ahead, scattered across the grounds, were three more statues, staring off in different directions.

  Snow crunched loudly under Fisher's boots as she approached the house. Now that she'd had a chance to get used to the idea, she approved of the statues. Simple but effective security, and completely unobtrusive until activated by an intruder. She couldn't help wondering what other surprises Captain ap Owen might have set up in the grounds. The thought had only just crossed her mind when a huge dog suddenly appeared out of nowhere right in front of her. She stumbled to a halt, and the great hound thrust its head forward, sniffed at her suspiciously, and then vanished into thin air. Fisher opened her mouth to say something, and a second, different dog appeared out of nowhere just to her left. It was even bigger than the first, its head on a level with her belt. It sniffed at her, wagged its tail, then snapped out of existence. Fisher realized her mouth was still hanging open, and shut it. Guard dogs. Of course. Entirely logic
al. She walked on, and tried to get her breathing to go back to normal.

  She finally came to a halt before the massive front door, beat on it smartly with her fist, and made a quick use of the iron boot-scraper. And if anything else appears, I'm going to hit it first, and ask questions afterwards. The door opened almost immediately, confirming that they'd been watching her.

  The man in footman's uniform looked convincing enough, and even had the barely civil bow and haughty expression down right, but there was no getting away from the fact that he was simply far too muscular for a gentleman's servant. He stood back politely as she entered the brightly lit hall, then shut the door firmly behind her. The sound of a key turning in the lock was quickly followed by the sound of four separate bolts sliding home. Fisher smiled, and relaxed a little. Maybe they did know what they were doing here, after all. She handed the footman her cloak, waited patiently while he figured out where to hang it up, and then allowed him to lead her down the hall and into the study, where Captain David ap Owen was waiting for her.

  The study was too large to be really cosy, but had all the comforts money could buy. Captain ap Owen sat behind a large, ornate desk, talking quietly to someone who looked as though he might be a real footman. Ap Owen glanced at Fisher as she came in, but finished giving his instructions before waving both footmen away. He got up from behind the desk and came forward to greet Fisher with an outstretched hand. His handshake was firm, but hurried, and he sat down on the edge of the desk to take a good look at her. Fisher stared back just as openly.

  Captain ap Owen was in his mid-thirties, and a little less than average height, which meant he had to tilt his head back to meet her gaze. It didn't seem to bother him as much as it did some people. His build was stocky rather than muscular, and his uniform had a sloppy, lived-in look. Fisher approved of that. In her experience, Guards who worried too much about their appearance tended not to worry enough about getting the job done right. Ap Owen had flaming red hair and bright green eyes, along with a broad rash of freckles across his nose and cheekbones which made him look deceptively youthful and open. His apparently relaxed stance was undermined by an unwavering slight frown and occasional sudden, jerky movements. Even sitting still, he gave the impression of a man constantly on edge, just waiting for an attack so he could leap into action.