by Martin Scott
She’s lost me completely here.
“What are you talking about?”
“Everyone is laying bets on how many deaths there are going to be in the case you’re working on! It’s because I warned you there was going to be a bloodbath! A bookmaker has been here and they’re taking bets!”
“Dandelion!” says Makri, loudly. “Don’t distract Thraxas with your fanciful stories. He’s a busy man.”
“She gets these strange ideas,” says Gurd, and looks guilty.
I stare at the pair of them.
“Is this true?”
“First I’ve heard about it,” says Makri. “Shouldn’t you be on your way to the College to clear me of theft?”
“That can wait. I wondered why you were so keen to know the exact body count.”
Makri contrives to look innocent.
“I wouldn’t place a bet on such a tragedy as four deaths,” she says, in a dignified manner.
“Four?”
It’s Parax, who’s been listening in the background. “Did you say four? Already?”
He turns to Moxalan.
“I want to raise my bet.”
There are some mutters of interest from various onlookers who seem to be heavily involved already.
“We could be looking at double figures,” says one of them.
I’m furious.
“Is the whole tavern in on this? I can’t believe you’d all stoop so low!” I cry, taking in Gurd, Makri and the assembled lowlifes in one sweeping stare.
“Couldn’t you just have stayed quiet, you idiot?” says Makri to Dandelion.
“Don’t pick on Dandelion,” I roar. “She’s the only honest person in the place. Makri, I’m appalled at you.”
A vocal faction want to know if it’s true that the Sorcerers Guild has declared war on the Brotherhood.
“If they start throwing spells around we could be talking about fifty deaths. Maybe more.”
“If Thraxas gets killed, do we keep on counting?” demands Parax of Moxalan.
“No. It’s clearly stated in the rules that Thraxas’s death ends the body count.”
“What rules?” I demand.
“The rules of the contest. Hey, don’t look at me like that, Thraxas. I’m a bookmaker’s son. Just because I’m going to college doesn’t mean I’ve left the business.”
I shake my head. Sweat is pouring down my tunic. I never expected to find any trace of ethics among the clientele of the Avenging Axe, but even I’m surprised at this. It’s immoral. Taking bets on how many deaths there are going to be in my current case? What’s that going to do for my reputation?
I curse everyone roundly. So irate am I that I actually march out of the tavern without picking up a beer and I can’t remember the last time I did that. I need to get to the Mermaid to recover the pendant as quickly as possible, so I set off at a brisk pace, promising myself that I’ll have more than a few harsh words for Makri and Gurd when I get back.
Youthful dwa dealers hover round the alleyway that leads to the Mermaid. Close by are customers in various states of consciousness. Even in the open air the heavy aroma of burning dwa is easily discernible. The situation with this narcotic has now got completely out of hand. Ten years ago the local youths would have been stealing fruit from the market. Now they’re knifing strangers in the back for a few gurans. The violence of the gangs that control the trade has increased in proportion to the profits involved. The huge increase in illegal profits has led to city-wide corruption on unheard-of levels. Turai is a mess. It’s not just the Orcs we need protecting from.
Lisutaris hired me to retrieve her pendant. I’ve failed once and I don’t intend to fail again. I march towards the Mermaid ready to look Casax, the Brotherhood boss, squarely in the eye and demand the return of the jewel. This doesn’t work out so well. Before I reach the door it bursts open and Casax, Karlox and about twenty of their associates rush out of the building, pursued by smoke and flames. The Mermaid is about to burn to the ground. I shake my head. It’s turning into another really bad day.
Chapter Five
With its hot, dry summers, Turai is prone to serious outbreaks of fire. Fortunately, the city’s fire-fighting services are well advanced. The best in the civilised world, some say. Given that much of the land is covered with tall wooden buildings crammed close to their neighbours, nothing else will do. Since half the city burned down around seventy years ago, there’s been a sustained effort to improve our fire-fighting capabilities, and thanks to a series of decrees from the Senate, the Prefect who runs each district is obliged to provide and maintain a sufficient number of water-carrying wagons, complete with equipment and emergency personnel to man them. This served us well during the last war, when the Orcish armies besieging Turai hurled fireballs over the walls with their siege devices but failed to destroy the city as intended. Around that time an engineer in the army developed an efficient new type of water pump which, in the hands of operators strong enough to keep the pistons moving, is capable of throwing water almost fifty yards. Equipped with this device, our fire-fighters have in recent years performed heroic service and are one of the few groups of people universally admired in Turai.
As the tavern empties and smoke starts to billow out of the windows, a great cry goes up for the fire services. A bell is sounded in alarm and people look to the end of the alleyway, anxiously expecting horse-drawn wagons to appear. Nothing happens. No wagons come. As Casax the Brotherhood boss sees his headquarters starting to disappear in flames, he becomes agitated. He screams for his men to bring water from neighbouring houses, waving his fists to encourage them. The way the flames are taking hold, I doubt that this is going to do much good.
Normally I’d enjoy seeing the Mermaid burning to the ground. However, it strikes me that it’s hardly helpful to my immediate purposes. I approach Casax. He doesn’t acknowledge me, being too busy trying to save the tavern to pay any attention to an unwelcome Investigator. I grab him by the arm.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Casax?”
I point to a young guy in a fancy cloak who’s slumped in the alleyway, suffering either from inhaling smoke or, more probably from shock at finding himself dragged out of a burning building in the nick of time.
“Your pet Sorcerer.”
“What?”
“Orius. Or, to give him his full name, Orius Fire Tamer. Which name leads me to suspect he ought to be able to do something.”
Casax wastes no time. In seconds he’s dragging the unfortunate young man up on to his feet and over to the fire.
“Put it out!” screams Casax.
Orius looks like he’d rather be elsewhere, concentrating on his recovery, and struggles to stand erect. I can’t say I’m sympathetic. I never thought it was a good idea for the young Sorcerer to get involved with the Brotherhood. Life for a gang member has its rewards, but it can be tough at times.
Just when it seems that the flames must engulf the tavern, Orius manages to catch his breath and gather his concentration. He chants a spell. The flames seem to weaken. He chants again, and they go out. The crowd cheer. Orius Fire Tamer collapses in a heap. To give him his due, it was a nice piece of sorcery, in difficult circumstances.
Casax doesn’t waste any time congratulating his Sorcerer. He needs to see that his headquarters have survived intact, so he strides swiftly into the tavern, motioning his henchmen to follow. I walk in after them, uninvited. The building hasn’t fared too badly. Part of the roof has collapsed, but Orius halted the flames before they really took hold. Coughing from the effects of the smoke that still hangs in the air, I look around. I don’t quite know what I’m looking for and I don’t get much of a chance to search before Casax spots me and angrily demands to know what I’m doing here.
“Just visiting. And incidentally, you owe me for reminding you about Orius Fire Tamer.”
“I’ll send you a present,” rasps Casax. “Now get out of here.”
“You want to tell me how the fire sta
rted?”
“I don’t want to tell you anything. Maybe you should be telling me something.”
I shake my head.
“All I know is that Prefect Galwinius has been pocketing the money he should’ve been spending on fire wagons.”
“So what are you doing here? I get suspicious when Investigators turn up just when my building is burning down.”
Casax stares at me. I stare back at him. We’ve had a few run-ins in the past. Nothing too serious. Nothing to make us lifelong friends. All around, Brotherhood men are dampening down the last few tongues of flame and carrying boxes here and there, presumably illicit goods, or maybe Casax’s records. Casax is an organised sort of guy. All Brotherhood bosses are. Organised and violent. I decide to tell him why I’m here.
“I’m looking for a stolen jewel. In the shape of a pendant.”
“So?”
“It was stolen from a Sorcerer. The Sorcerer traced it here.”
“Then the Sorcerer was mistaken.”
“I doubt it. And the Sorcerer would pay well to get it back. It’s a family heirloom.”
Before Casax can reply, he’s interrupted by Karlox, a tough enforcer.
“They’re dead,” says Karlox.
“Who’s dead?”
“The three strangers who wanted to see you. They’re still upstairs. But dead.”
“Burned?” asks Casax.
“No. Stabbed.”
Casax’s brow furrows.
“What do you mean, stabbed? No one gets stabbed in here unless I say so.”
“They weren’t by any chance three men who came here to sell you some stolen jewellery, were they?” I ask.
Casax stares at me.
“Time to leave. Investigator.”
Knowing that I’m not going to learn anything more, I turn to go. Casax calls after me. When I turn to face him again, he’s got a mocking smile on his face.
“That makes seven, I believe.”
“Seven? Seven what?”
“Seven bodies. You want to give me and Karlox here any inside information? We figured we might place a little wager with young Moxalan.”
His henchman Karlox laughs like this is a great joke. I try to disguise my feelings, without success. Now word of the betting in the Avenging Axe has reached the Brotherhood. Soon it will be all over Twelve Seas. All over the city, maybe. I’m fast becoming a laughing stock. Damn that idiot Dandelion and her foolish warnings.
I haven’t recovered the pendant, though my intuition is telling me pretty strongly that whoever the three guys were, they had it with them. Someone killed them, and made off with it, probably using the fire as a distraction. It was a neat piece of work. It’s not easy removing stolen goods from under the noses of the Brotherhood.
It’s a relief to get out of the smoky building. Not much relief, though, as the sun hits me full in the face. Despite the commotion caused by the fire, the dwa dealers are still doing a brisk trade in the alleyway.
Three more dead. Seven since I started looking. A bloodbath? Possibly Dandelion was right. Maybe she can read the stars. Maybe she can really talk to the dolphins. I wonder how many bodies Makri is betting on. I’d expect her to go for a high total. She’s used to a lot of carnage. As I’m so annoyed at Makri, I’m very tempted to refuse to investigate the accusation of theft against her. Let her sort it out herself. I sigh. If I let her sort it out herself she won’t mind at all, but she’ll end up on the gallows. Cursing the woman for her foolish academic pretensions, I set off along the dusty road to the College.
The Guild College is sited at the edge of Pashish, a slightly less unpleasant area than Twelve Seas. The streets are still narrow but they’re cleaner, and the aqueducts are in good repair. The tenements are less tall and better spaced. Here and there a small park serves as recreation for the families of artisans and lesser merchants. It’s the sons of these artisans and lesser merchants who attend the Guild College, some in preparation for careers in the service of the government and a few of them in preparation for the Imperial University.
Makri is, I believe, the only woman to attend the College, gaining entrance only after some anonymous but wealthy woman with a point to prove promoted her case. The College, discovering to their dismay that their written constitution did not actually forbid it, found themselves the unwilling instructors of a mixed-blood ex-gladiator, and to hear Makri tell it they’ve been trying to get rid of her ever since. Possibly they already would have had Makri and I not done some good work for Deputy Consul Cicerius last year, as a result of which I think he used his influence to enable her continued attendance.
To me it seems like a lot of trouble for nothing. I can’t see what good a sound grounding in the arts of philosophy, rhetoric and mathematics is ever going to do her, and as for her ambition to attend the Imperial University, it’s never going to happen. For one thing, their constitution does expressly forbid the admittance of women, and for another, if Makri ever walked through their marble portals, the uproar created by Turai’s aristocracy would send a shock wave through the Senate. No Senator would want his son in the same class as Makri, with her Orcish blood, barbaric manners and propensity for wielding an axe.
The College is not a grand affair. No grounds, no quadrangles with statues. Not even a fountain. It’s a dark old stone building that used to serve as the headquarters of the Honourable Merchants Association, till the Association grew wealthy and moved to a better part of town. Its dim corridors are full of young students carrying scrolls and trying to look studious. Several elderly men in togas, presumably professors, stand around looking severe. Though the wearing of a toga is standard among Turai’s upper classes, you don’t see many of them south of the river.
Professor Toarius has a very fine toga, as I discover when I enter his office. Gaining entry was easier than I expected, the receptionist outside not being used to repelling large Investigators. The Professor is elderly, grey-haired, aquiline-nosed and stuffed full of dignity. He’s a man of some reputation among Turai’s academics. He’s on the board at the Imperial University and it’s counted as a great favour from the Consul to the humble Guild College that the Professor was appointed to this position. I understand from Makri that Toarius rules the establishment in a manner which allows no room for debate. When I stride into his office he looks up from a dusty old book and frowns.
“Who let you in?” he demands.
“No one.”
“If this is some matter regarding your son’s education, you will have to make an appointment.”
“I don’t have a son. At least not to my knowledge. Although I did travel the world as a mercenary in my younger days, so I admit it’s not impossible.”
The room is crammed full of books and scrolls. As always when faced with evidence of learning, I’m uncomfortable.
“I’m here about Makri.”
The Professor goes rigid in his chair.
“Get out of my office,” he demands.
“What evidence do you have against her?”
Professor Toarius rises swiftly and pulls on a bell rope behind him. The clerk hurries in from the office outside.
“Call our security guards,” instructs the Professor.
This is worse than I expected. I feel surprised that Toarius is so unwilling to discuss the matter, and even more surprised that this place actually has security guards.
“You can’t just expel Makri like this, Professor.”
“I already have. It was a mistake to allow her to attend the College, and now that she has committed theft I have no option but to permanently exclude her.”
The door opens behind me and two brawny individuals in rough brown tunics hurry into the room. I ignore them.
“You don’t get my meaning, Professor. You can’t expel Makri because I won’t allow it.”
This amuses Toarius.
“You won’t allow it? And how will you prevent it?”
“By referring the matter to the Senate. Allow me to introduce
myself. I’m Thraxas, Tribune of the People.”
“Tribune? That post has been extinct for over a century.”
“Till recently revived by Deputy Consul Cicerius. And I have the power to prevent any act of exclusion against any citizen of Turai without the matter being debated in the Senate. So before I’m forced to make the matter public, why don’t we discuss it?”
“Do you think that the Senate will have the slightest interest in the fate of an Orcish thief?”
Makri isn’t actually Orcish. She has one quarter Orcish blood, along with one quarter Elvish. Having grown up in an Orcish slave pit, she hates them. Calling her an Orc is a deadly insult. I can see why she found life under the Professor tough.
“The Senate will have to show an interest. It’s the law, and Cicerius is a stickler for the law.”
“I am a good deal better acquainted with Deputy Consul Cicerius than you.”
The Professor puts down his book. His frown deepens.
“Are you the same Thraxas who was denounced last year in the Senate for your part in the scandal concerning the Elvish cloth which went missing?”
“Yes. But I was later exonerated.”
“No doubt,” says the Professor drily. “Few guilty men are convicted in this city. And now you claim to be some sort of employee of the government? I have heard nothing about it.”
“I’ve been keeping it quiet. Now, about Makri. What evidence do you have that she stole the money?”
Professor Toarius doesn’t want to discuss it. He abruptly orders his men to throw me out. They hesitate.
“I think this man really is a Tribune. I saw him stop an eviction a few months back… Senator Lodius was with him…”
The guards stand awkwardly, not quite knowing what to do. They don’t want to offend the Professor, but neither do they want to end up being hauled in front of a Senate committee for interfering with official business. Professor Toarius solves the impasse by marching out of the room, muttering about the degeneracy of a city which can allow a man like me to walk around unpunished.
“Is he always like this?” I ask the guards.