Shadow of the Raven (The Reckoning Book 1)

by Ward, Matthew

  The oil lamps alone marked this as a downmarket district. The well-to-do areas, to say nothing of the roads that linked the city to the rest of the world, were lit by firestone lamps – constructions of quartz, iron and glass that burst into brilliant light when night came down. They were more advanced than anything I'd known at home, but here in Tressia they were archaic. Firestone lamps were fuelled by magic – the same magic that Tressia's abjuration decrees had eliminated or driven underground. Though the magi of the Tressian Republic were long dead, their firestone lamps remained.

  Raucous laughter boomed from the Silverway's open door. Clearly I wouldn't manage to avoid drunken Tressians this evening –not if I wanted to eat. As I poked my head inside, I saw that at least one full merchantman's crew was crammed between the bowed plaster walls. They merrily caroused their way to oblivion, speeded along by frothing tankards full of what I knew from experience to be an unremarkable ale.

  I considered heading elsewhere, but then realised that the size of the convoy I'd seen earlier that day more or less guaranteed every single inn within a mile of the dockside would be in much the same state. Resigning myself, I walked across the uneven floorboards and staked my claim on one of the few empty tables.

  No sooner had I sat down than the laughter subsided. Heads turned in my direction. Fingers were pointed, and unkempt heads pressed close in hushed conversation.

  I had thought the tavern crowded nearly to capacity, but clearly I'd been wrong. As if by some unseen signal, the cluster of ship-hands grew tighter, their chairs and tables dragged further from me lest they somehow be tainted by proximity. I observed with amusement as one hoary old ale-sop realised with alarm that his chair was already hard up against a gnarled wooden pillar, and no other, more distant, seating remained. After a moment's thought he settled for turning his back on me. Presumably, if he couldn't see me, then I wasn't truly there.

  Though never the most sensitive of souls, I was all too aware how quickly ale fanned distaste into violence. I was just calculating my chance of escaping through the front door before the inevitable eruption, when one of the ship hands pointed at me and bellowed drunkenly. I had no idea what he'd said, but judging by the guffaws of his companions, it was riotously funny, for they all joined in. Whatever the joke, it had obviously also put me in my proper place for, honour satisfied, they returned to their drinking.

  A few minutes later, Kiel, the Silverway's owner, wandered over to my table with a bottle of red wine, a glass and a steaming plate of jakiri. "I see our gallant nautical heroes have made you welcome, then?" His extravagantly bushy beard did nothing to hide his broad grin. He, at least, was pleased to see me.

  "It's certainly a greeting I'll remember," I said, one eye still on the comedian and his companions. "Thank you."

  Kiel shrugged his massive shoulders. "Think nothing of it. You pay up without a fight, which is more than I can say for that sorry lot behind me. And besides, Elva enjoys turning her hand to Hadari cooking. There's not much call for it otherwise."

  I nodded politely and waited for him to withdraw, but he was plainly waiting for me to pass judgement on the jakiri, so I forked a portion into my mouth. It wasn't good, but it wasn't that bad. Elva was getting better, although she still had too heavy a hand when it came to spices. Nonetheless, I mumbled some approving noises.

  Kiel, basking in his wife's reflected glory, opened the bottle of wine with a flourish, poured me a glass and then returned to his station behind the bar, where he began polishing a succession of increasingly chipped glasses with a cloth that might, long ago, have been white.

  As soon as his back was turned, I gulped down a mouthful of wine to extinguish the fire threatening to burn me from inside to out. This proved a mistake. The wine was so sour it provoked a fit of coughs which I found could only be silenced with more jakiri. If Kiel noticed the discomfort his wife's cooking provoked, he didn't say anything. Little by little, I soldiered on.

  I'd almost finished the plateful, when the woman entered the tavern.

  To say that she looked out of place would have been a criminal understatement. She was a few years younger than I, slender and, though not classically beautiful, would nonetheless never want for admirers. Her height and bearing suggested noble lineage; her coldly aloof expression all but confirmed it.

  Everything about her, from the way she carried herself to the fine clothes she wore, spoke of money. Her cloak alone, a thick woollen garment lined with lustrous blue silk, had probably cost more coin than any of the Silverway's patrons saw in half a year – especially now, with the trade roads east blocked by the not-quite-siege. Add to that the cost of the rest of the well-tailored ensemble, the jewelled clips holding the ringletted chestnut hair back from her high cheekbones, and it was easy to understand why the room had descended into silence. Kiel and his patrons had been staring at her from the moment she'd passed through the door.

  If the woman was at all aware of the effect she'd had, she gave no sign, but peered around the room until her gaze fell upon me. Her quarry apparently sighted, she wove her way through the maze of tables. As she did so, the humorist who'd earlier set his wit upon me staggered to his feet and offered up another wisecrack. This time the newcomer was the target, and the comment was so crude that it didn't bear repeating.

  Raucous laughter broke out. The woman spun on her heel and fixed the humorist with a frosty stare. He met her gaze with defiance, but wilted a moment later, turning from the battle of wills to gaze sullenly into his drink. The other sailors instantly recognised that a new source of humour had presented itself, and laughter echoed around the room as they rounded on their humiliated comrade. One glance – that's all she'd needed. I had to learn how to do that. And it seemed that I'd be educated at the feet of a master, as the woman, honour intact and a slim, self-satisfied smile upon her face, approached my table.

  "Ambassador Saran?"

  Her speech was polite yet with an edge of knowing superiority; the mark of a woman born unabashed to wealth and privilege. It would seem Quintus was no longer the only Tressian to address me in a manner in keeping with my rank. This could, I reflected, mean only one thing: she wanted something. I looked up from the remains of my meal, finished the last mournful mouthful of the Torianan red, and nodded.

  "Do you mind if I sit?" Her tone suggested that she intended to, whether or not consent was forthcoming. I considered refusing, but then decided that the novelty of a Tressian seeking out my infidel company behoved me to show at least a few manners.

  "By all means." I gestured at the no man's land between me and the rest of the clientele. "As you can see, I'm not in demand."

  The woman smiled. Not the polite aristocratic smile I'd expected in reply to what had been, I had to admit, a boorish remark, but rather one that appeared to be a gesture of understanding. "You have my sympathies, Ambassador. It's never easy to be alone in a crowd."

  And with that, she'd thrown me. It had been a long time since anyone, Tressian or otherwise, had spoken so kindly to me. For a moment I felt almost well-disposed to my visitor. Then I remembered she almost certainly wanted me to do something that I almost certainly did not want to do, and so extinguished the spark of generosity before it tempted me to ruin.

  My thoughts had surely played across my face in an interesting manner, but I took solace from the fact that my visitor's full attention was on dragging a chair to the table.

  Here again, she surprised me. I'd expected her to summon Kiel from his station behind the bar rather than suffer the indignity of moving anything herself. But no, she got a firm grip on the chair, tipped it backwards and hauled it into place – albeit to the accompaniment of a terrible screeching noise that spoke ill of the fate of the Silverway's floorboards. When the chair was in its proper place, she gathered up her skirts and perched upon its edge.

  "Ambassador, I need your help."

  "And what could I possibly help you with?"

  "I want you to find Stefan Dalrand's murderer."
<
br />   This was getting interesting. "That's a job for the guard."

  "Normally I'd agree with you, but I spoke with Captain Quintus this afternoon. He doesn't expect to make any progress."

  "He said as much?" That didn't sound like Quintus.

  "In those very words. He said he had one suspect..."

  "...that suspect being me?"

  "Indeed."

  Quintus had an interesting interpretation of legal ethics, it seemed. It was just as well my visitor didn't appear to be the hot-blooded and vengeful type, or I'd probably be dead by now. "So why ask for my help? You want me to turn myself in? Confess?"

  She watched me closely, an eyebrow raised. "Quintus also said he didn't believe you'd be stupid enough to get caught in so incriminating a fashion – if you'd committed the deed, that is. I don't intend to sit around doing nothing whilst the killer remains at large."

  "Why do you care?" It was a heartless thing to say, and I deserved the disgusted glance thrown in my direction. But the woman didn't seem inclined to fill the awkward silence that followed, so I pressed on. "Let me see, then. Stefan didn't have any children that I know of and, besides, you'd be too young for a daughter and too old for a grandchild." I paused, more for effect than to gather my thoughts. "You're a protégée? An apprentice in the art of disentombing the dead and whatever history lies wrapped about their bones. Or a niece perhaps?"

  "You are mostly correct." She smiled thinly. Clearly she wasn't quite ready to forgive my rudeness. "My name is Arianwyn Kallindri. Stefan Dalrand was indeed my uncle. And while I didn't indulge in them myself, I do believe his studies have some bearing on his death."

  I gestured to Kiel, who brought a fresh bottle of wine over to the table, along with a glass for my visitor. I nodded my thanks, then poured for both myself and Miss Kallindri. Nothing eases the suffering of a poor wine like sharing it with others.

  "Fair enough," I said. "We've established why you care, but I'm still not seeing why I should."

  Again she ignored the provocation. I took a sip of the wine and frowned. Sadly, the second bottle wasn't appreciably better than the first.

  "I'm also unclear as to why you'd want my help in the first place, even if I were inclined to give it."

  At that, it seemed that the woman finally lost patience. She stood, her wine untouched, and shrugged. "Very well, Ambassador. I can see I'm wasting my time. I thought you'd welcome an opportunity to clear your name, but apparently I was wrong."

  She turned to leave, but stopped as I too rose and rested my hand on her shoulder. "My apologies, Miss Kallindri. I chose my words poorly."

  That last was a lie. I'd chosen them very carefully indeed, and I was growing more ashamed of them with every passing moment. Suspicion was all very well, but had I really been reduced to this? Muttering veiled insults at someone seeking my help? I was better than that. At least, I used to be. Besides, what would Stefan have done had our positions been reversed?

  "Let us start again." I raised my glass in traditional welcome. "On behalf of myself, Prince Edric Saran, and of the great and just Hadari Empire, I greet you." It was a pompous and slightly comedic gesture, but it did at least win me a small, brilliant, smile. Indeed, the woman even raised her own glass in reply.

  "Thank you." She inclined her head and sat down. Only then did she take a sip of her drink, wincing slightly as the full, insipid flavour made itself known to her palate. "Your taste in wine is almost as fine as your manners," she said sweetly.

  Unable to deny the truth to her words, I sat down. "Let's assume, for the moment, that I'm prepared to help. Why trust me – the chief and, as far as I know, only suspect?"

  "A few reasons. My uncle spoke often of you – whether you realise it or not, he valued your friendship. Hadari history always intrigued him, and he was overjoyed to find someone who was so freely prepared to fill the gaps in his knowledge."

  "It was nice to find someone eager to listen." And to find someone prepared to treat me as a man, not some curiosity or devil from foreign lands, but I didn't dare say so for fear of being though self-pitying.

  Arianwyn took another sip of wine, and then pointedly replaced the glass on the table, ever so slightly out of convenient reach. Clearly she didn't appreciate the flavour. "Stefan was always a good judge of character. I hope you'll not think me immodest if I tell you that I've had several offers of marriage, all from men of good standing and unimpeachable reputation, but my dear uncle always had a knack of seeing their true natures, no matter how well concealed." The tightness around her eyes said more than words ever could.

  "He preserved you from an unfortunate fate?"

  "Several, as it happens. One of my suitors deserted to the enemy – that is to say, to your side – during the Battle of Callastair. Another is even now chained up in Blackwater for crimes that I won't sully even this... establishment... by mentioning. Another is a functionary on the city council."

  The tone of the final revelation suggested she found this to be the most appalling fate of all. Heaven forfend that a man use marriage to rise above his middling station.

  "Could any of these fine fellows have been responsible? Revenge for their spurned proposals, perhaps?"

  "I doubt it. They probably didn't even realise Stefan had taken against them. Few people took him seriously, I'm afraid."

  "But Stefan trusted me? The word of a dead man is hard to gainsay, but the judgement of the living is more reliable..."

  "...and I have that too," she interrupted. "Quintus suggested I seek you out."

  The canny old man. The guard captain was using Arianwyn to keep me under observation after Constable Arval had failed so miserably, or else he was throwing all nearby ingredients into the pot, and watching gleefully to see what bubbled to the surface.

  "Very well. My credentials are apparently above suspicion." I arched my eyebrows meaningfully. "How about yours, Miss Kallindri?"

  She treated me to another brief smile. "Arianwyn. The word of a noblewoman is not?"

  "Sadly not."

  "Then I'm afraid nothing I can say will satisfy you."

  She edged forward on her chair. "Ambassador, I don't wish to beg, but I will do so if it's the only way to get your help. There's more at stake here than you realise."

  This was certainly starting to get interesting. "I'm listening."

  "Not here." She nodded at the nearby patrons.

  I stood and dropped a handful of coins on the table. Offering a half-bow, I gestured at the door with one hand, and presented the other to my companion. "Shall we take a walk?"

  Arianwyn nodded. She stood, completely ignored my hand, and walked past me.

  *******

  The weather had turned whilst I'd been in the Silverway. Heavy raindrops pelted from brooding clouds, drumming on windows, gutters and, alas, my uncovered head.

  Arianwyn, peering out from beneath the hood of her cloak, took mercy on me. After a brief glance at the understandably empty streets, she led me down a set of narrow steps to the river's edge, and then cut back under the stone arch of a bridge. Under cover at last, I watched the dull waters of the Silverway dance with every raindrop.

  "I'm sorry to have gotten you drenched," Arianwyn said, "but walls have ears."

  I nodded my understanding. I should have gallantly forgiven the discomfort, but the cold of the rain had settled into my bones and I was feeling neither gallant nor generous at that moment. "At least the rain should make things more difficult for eavesdroppers."

  "True."

  Arianwyn took one last look behind her, and moved in close. With her hood in place, the upper half of her face lay in shadow, with only her mouth and a few trailing ringlets visible below. All in all, it made for a sinister look, and one at odds with the vision of aristocratic hauteur that had first approached me.

  "As you know, Uncle Stefan's calling was the study of history, specifically that concerning relics from antiquity." She spoke quietly, but with urgency, as if she didn't otherwise expect to fi
nish what she had to say. "He'd been to all the great Tressian strongholds of old, even Callastair."

  That last comment surprised me. Callastair had once been the Tressian capital, but was now a ghost-haunted ruin where the stones bled and the winds howled with the voices of the damned. Or so, at least, I had been told. I was in no hurry to find out for myself.

  "A few weeks ago," Arianwyn went on, "he became very excited. One of his contacts had sent him a watchstone fragment 'acquired' from a competitor's dig."

  "So Stefan wasn't quite so upstanding as we like to think?"

  She bristled. "We all have our rough edges. And causes we hold more important than mere morality." She offered a thin smile, and I wondered just how much she knew about my recent past. "Ordinarily a watchstone wouldn't be so important, far less a fragment of one. Hundreds have been found across the Republic. That's more than enough to keep everyone mad with frustration at not being able to unlock their secrets." She shrugged. "They're curiosities, and little more than toys."

  Madness had a habit of following such relics, as I knew all too well. Some scholars reported dreaming of places they'd never been, in such explicit detail they could map every contour and every building. Others claimed experience of other lives, watching from behind the eyes of another unknown being.

  One man, a stalwart of the Golden Court convinced one such stone offered him the chance to speak with his dead son, had spent too long staring into a watchstone's murky depths, until one day he simply became someone else, his personality subsumed by something from within the stone. My father had put the poor man to death. My father, who loathed the cruelty his rank sometimes demanded.

  "They're a little more dangerous than toys."

  "Only to those who don't know what they're doing."

  "And you know of someone more qualified?"