“Seefa.” With that, the imp disappeared, turning back into a window.
“What—” Aleta shook her head and pointed at the window. “What was that?”
Dannee stared at the other three in amazement. “Don’t any of you speak Imprata?”
Manfred slowly shook his head. “I have enough trouble with Common.”
“I assume,” Kellan asked, “that that’s the imp’s language?”
“I didn’t even know they had a language,” Manfred said.
“Everyone has a language,” Aleta said witheringly. “But there was never any need to learn Imprata in the Shranlaseth.”
“Startin’ to think there’s a need to learn it now,” Manfred muttered.
“I can’t believe you’ve never spoken to Ep in his own language!”
To Manfred’s surprise, and relief, Dannee did not speak those words in a rebuking tone. She seemed genuinely surprised, but not upset.
That was okay, though, because he felt upset enough for them both.
Jonas came back in. “Manfred, Kellan, you’ve got your shot at number thirteen. Messenger just came from Sergeant Mannit. That Emmegan-paint graffiti has turned up again, and this time he wants a proper investigation.”
“What’s the big deal?” Manfred asked. “It’s just some random shitbrain painting words on boats with magickally enhanced paint. Nobody’s seen them, but it’s Mermaid. Who cares?”
“A lot of people when it’s Sir Louff’s yacht.”
Manfred winced.
“Fine,” Kellan said, going to fetch his and Manfred’s cloaks both. “Let’s go see who vandalized a noble’s yacht.”
SIX
The first time Danthres Tresyllione had seen the Rising Jewel, she’d been a child in Sorlin. She’d been standing on the cliffs that overlooked the Garamin Sea with her adoptive sister Lil, and the pair of them had watched in awe as this big beautiful boat, topped by a foreboding black flag, appeared out of the fog and slowly settled in among the reefs.
“What is that?” she’d asked, eyes wide with disbelief.
“It’s a boat,” Lil had replied with a twinkle in her eye.
“Very funny. I know it’s a boat. What’s it doing there?”
“Crashing and sinking, if it’s like every other boat that’s tried to approach from the Garamin.” Part of why Sorlin had been founded on the Kone Peninsula was due to its coastline being a cliff above rocky reefs that were death on small boats and very damaging to large ones.
However, the Rising Jewel hadn’t crashed or sunk, to Lil’s surprise.
Rowing toward it now on the dinghy, approaching it directly from the sea, it loomed larger in Danthres’s vision than it had from atop the peninsula cliffs back then.
As the dinghy approached, Danthres suddenly felt a tingle all up and down her body.
Torin shivered, so he obviously felt it as well. “What was that?”
Lisson smiled. “I told you the ship is quite heavily warded.”
Gazing at Danthres, Torin said, “If the wards are so intense that we’re feeling them, I shudder to think how Boneen would respond.”
“Poorly.” Danthres was, if anything, understating it. Boneen was cranky under the best of circumstances, and being confronted with wards of sufficient power that non-mages could feel them would be the worst of circumstances for him.
Someone on the deck threw a rope ladder over the side, and it bounced off the hull with a thunk.
Lisson pointed at the ladder. “After you, Lieutenants.”
Torin shook his head. “After you, I would say.”
Danthres sighed. On the one hand, yes, this was a pirate ship, but Torin was taking his mistrust to an absurd extreme.
He continued: “I suspect that your shipmates will be far more comfortable having the first face onto the deck being a familiar one rather than two armed and armored members of the local law-enforcement.”
At that, Danthres relented. “My partner is correct.”
Shrugging, Lisson said, “As you wish. I was merely attempting politeness.”
“Hence our confusion.” Torin grinned, a sight that still disconcerted Danthres without a huge red beard surrounding it. “We encounter very little of such in our line of work.”
Lisson chuckled. “Nor do we.”
The sailing master climbed up the ladder, and Danthres followed him up, Torin trailing behind her.
As she climbed up onto the deck, Danthres heard a deep voice say, “I still think this is a stupid idea.”
Lisson replied, “We’ve already had this argument, Chamblin. And we agreed. They’re here now, so let’s let them do what they do best.”
Settling onto the deck, Danthres turned and reached a hand out to Torin, guiding him onto the deck. They both turned as one to face a semicircle of pirates. Danthres recognized a couple of faces, but most were strangers—it had been almost two decades, so it was more of a surprise that she knew any of them beyond Lisson. Though the deck was bucking and bouncing with the tide while the ship was anchored, they all stood steadily.
Danthres couldn’t really say the same. She struggled to keep her footing, and she could see that Torin was having similar difficulties.
At the center of the semicircle—which was effectively blocking the two detectives from actually going anywhere else on the vessel—was a gnome with dark hair and a deep scowl.
Pointing at the pair of them, Lisson said to the gnome, “These are the detectives: Lieutenant Danthres Tresyllione and her partner, Torin ban Wyvald. Lieutenants, this is Chamblin, the quartermaster.”
Danthres recalled that the quartermaster was the equivalent of the ship’s first mate—the second-in-command after the Pirate Queen herself. When she was a girl, it was an old man whose name she couldn’t recall now two decades on.
Chamblin scoffed. “They’re thugs in armor.”
“They’re more than that,” Lisson said. “Danthres used to live in Sorlin, and I knew her then—so did the Cap’n. And Lieutenant ban Wyvald is from Myverin.”
“Myverin’s full’a shit-suckers.”
Torin stepped forward, then stumbled. Danthres grabbed his arm to keep him from falling to the deck. “Thank you,” he said to her, then looked back at Chamblin. “I agree with that assessment, which is indeed why I left.”
Several of the pirates chuckled, though Chamblin, Danthres noted, wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t sure if they were making light of their unsteadiness afoot or Torin’s rejoinder.
“The point,” Lisson said, “is that he was raised there and attended the collegium. I can vouch for Danthres, and ban Wyvald’s pedigree speaks for itself.”
“And what will they tell us? That the Captain’s dead? We already know that.”
“They’ll tell us who did it, so he may be punished.”
“I doubt that.”
“In case your doubts prove fruitless,” Danthres said, “we should see the body.”
For a moment, Danthres feared that Chamblin would not allow the semicircle to be broken and they’d be told to climb back down the ladder. Worse, Chamblin might do as Torin had feared and take them prisoner. He obviously didn’t want them there, and his wishes would override those of Lisson, in theory, since he was now in charge.
Torin then moved back toward the rope ladder, falling more than stepping to the railing and grabbing it for purchase. “Come, Danthres, it’s obvious that our services are not required here.”
“Where do you think you’re goin, shit-sucker?” the gnome asked.
“Back to Cliff’s End. I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t wish our aid. After all, we serve the cause of justice, and I see very little of that in the lives that you’ve chosen to lead.”
A susurrus of anger flew through the assembled pirates, and Chamblin’s scowl deepened, an action Danthres wouldn’t have considered possible a moment earlier.
One of the crew asked, “You think we don’t want justice for the Captain?”
“I think some of
you do. Enough to have overridden the wishes of this gnome, who obviously doesn’t want us here. But that discussion has already been had, or Lisson would never have come to fetch us in the first place. So I can only conclude that something has changed, and we are no longer needed or wanted. Therefore—”
“Stop.” Chamblin stepped forward. “You really are from Myverin. You talk just like those shit-suckers.” He turned, nodded to the assembled pirates, and they all stepped away, returning to their duties. “I agreed to let you try to find her killer, and I will abide by that agreement. But I have no intention of liking it.” That last was said with a sneer at the sailing master. Lisson, for his part, was completely unabashed, which Danthres appreciated.
Pointedly looking away from Chamblin, Lisson said, “Let’s go. She’s in her cabin.”
The two pirates led the way across the deck to a staircase below. Torin and Danthres followed behind, holding onto whatever they could to keep from falling gracelessly to the deck.
As they walked, Chamblin said, “We first realized something was wrong when the Captain didn’t report for first watch.”
“Cap’n always reports for first watch and is never late.” Lisson sighed. “Or, was never late, anyhow.”
The staircase and the corridor it emptied onto were barely narrow enough to accommodate the diminutive form of the quartermaster. Danthres found she had to walk sideways in order to fit, and Torin did likewise. The cramped corridor, at the very least, made it less likely that they would fall down with the bouncing deck.
“Came down here to her cabin to see what was wrong. I knocked, she didn’t answer, and then I opened the door.”
“She didn’t lock it?” Torin asked.
Lisson shook his head. “She never did. Said her door was always open.”
“She also said,” Chamblin added, “that the whole boat was her quarters, this space was just where she slept.”
The gnome opened the door to reveal a surprisingly sparse cabin. The bed had sheets made of Cormese silk, as well as a cotton blanket, but there was nothing else particularly lavish about the space.
The Pirate Queen herself lay on the bed, staring upward with dead black eyes.
“She barely seems to have aged a day.”
Torin moved past Lisson and Chamblin to inspect the body on the bed. “This is what she looked like twenty years ago?” he asked.
Danthres nodded. “There are a few more lines on her face, but not much. Same raven hair, same dark eyes, same leathery skin.”
“I’m assuming the blue tinge around her mouth is new.”
Lisson nodded. “Rat poison.”
“Of which we have a dozen barrels that the entire crew has access to,” Chamblin said, “so don’t even ask about that.”
Danthres nodded. Rats were a universal constant in sea travel, and rat poison was a brutal necessity on a seafaring vessel if you didn’t want your ship to get overrun. “When would she have been poisoned?”
“Hard to say.” Lisson rubbed his bearded chin. “She eats with the crew, and we all dined together. But those dishes and mugs have long since been cleaned.”
Torin looked around the cabin. “There appear to be no mugs or plates in here, either.”
“Damn.” Chamblin frowned. “She always kept a mug nearby. Sometimes it was ale, sometimes it was fruit juice, sometimes it was just water, but she always had a drink to hand.”
“All in the same mug?” Danthres asked.
Lisson shook his head. “No, she always used a different one when she changed drinks. But she just grabbed whatever mug was clean in the galley.”
“Whoever poisoned her probably used her current mug, then, and removed it after she died.” Torin looked more closely at the body. “I must confess, I expected someone—larger.”
That got a vicious smile out of Lisson. “Don’t let her height fool you, Lieutenant. She may’ve been shorter’n most, but the Cap’n always felt like the tallest person on the deck. Nobody messed with her.”
“Not twice, in any case.” Chamblin had a smile of his own for that.
Those smiles fell at Torin’s next words: “Well, nobody save whoever killed her.”
“I assume,” Danthres asked, “that you didn’t put into port anywhere since you found the body?”
Chamblin was staring daggers at Torin, so Lisson replied. “We were three days out of Kalvar’s Isle when Chamblin found her.”
The gnome, meanwhile, moved menacingly toward Torin. “I won’t have the Captain spoken of with disrespect.”
“Neither respect nor disrespect was intended,” Torin said tightly.
Danthres hastily added, “Our job here isn’t to mourn the Pirate Queen, nor are we here to pass judgment on her—or on anyone else who didn’t actually kill her. We are simply attempting to marshal facts in order to figure out who is responsible.”
“To that end,” Torin said before Chamblin could make a comment, “we will need to question your entire crew.”
“I assume everyone is accounted for?” Danthres asked.
Lisson nodded. “We did a nose count, and found no one missing.”
Danthres nodded. “So the killer is still on board.”
“Or doesn’t exist.” Torin, for the first time since they arrived at the docks, looked pained. “Forgive me, but there is a possibility that must be considered—the poisoning could be self-inflicted.”
Now Chamblin pulled out a dagger and moved toward Torin.
“Chamblin!” Lisson yelled.
“I will not have the Captain spoke of this way!”
Torin held up both hands. “Please, Chamblin, I—”
“Shut your shit-sucking mouth!”
Danthres said, “Chamblin you have one second to put that away or we will arrest you for assault on a member of the Castle Guard.”
“You’re welcome to try, halfbreed bitch!”
“Chamblin, stop being an idiot!” Lisson stepped between the quartermaster and Torin.
“Get out of my way, Lisson.”
“This isn’t the way to do this. The Cap’n deserves to have her murder solved. Besides, if she saw us squabbling like this...”
Taking his murderous gaze off Torin, Chamblin regarded Lisson with only slightly less anger. “She’d have us both swabbing the deck.”
Lisson nodded. “Exactly. Now put the knife away.” As Chamblin did so, the sailing master added, “Besides, she can’t have killed herself. The mug is gone. Someone had to take that away.”
“I’m afraid,” Torin said, “that Chamblin’s recent actions establish why that disproves nothing. He could have found the body and gotten rid of any evidence that pointed to suicide.”
“I didn’t,” Chamblin said through gritted teeth. “I touched nothing in the room once I realized the Captain was dead.”
“I don’t suppose,” Torin said slowly, “I could convince you to swear to that on the soul of Dwyte?”
Lisson’s face fell; Danthres winced; Chamblin’s dagger came back out. “How dare you!”
Before he could move forward, Lisson put a restraining hand on Chamblin’s shoulder. “Easy, Chamblin, he doesn’t know.”
“My apologies if I’ve stepped on a custom,” Torin said quickly. “I’ve only just learned of this oath.”
Danthres said, “It’s all right. One never requests the oath, Torin. It must be given voluntarily. If it’s requested, it’s meaningless.”
“Again, my apologies, sir. I spoke out of ignorance of your customs.” Torin bowed his head just before the ship bounced from the tide and he stumbled into the bulkhead.
To Danthres’s relief, Chamblin notably shifted posture at Torin’s use of the word “sir,” as well as from the respectful tone in her partner’s voice. Indeed, Torin was usually far more polite and deferential to witnesses than this, and she was glad to see it making a belated return.
“Apology accepted,” Chamblin said as he sheathed the dagger.
“As is your word that you removed nothing
from this room.” Torin said that with another bow of his head.
“Thank you.” Chamblin said. “I believe you mentioned something about talking to the crew? Our complement currently numbers forty-seven. Well—” He turned to look at the bed. “—forty-six now.”
Danthres shot the quartermaster a look. “I remember each boat having at least seventy when I was a child.”
“Times change,” Chamblin said.
Lisson smiled. “We’ve grown more efficient with time. And many of our duties are reduced, as our reputation often precedes us, allowing us to perform our tasks with efficiency and dispatch.”
“How fortunate for you.” Torin had returned to the disdainful tone, to Danthres’s annoyance.
She looked at him. “Twenty-three each?”
Torin nodded. “Do you have two rooms we might use?”
“Yes, of course.” Lisson moved toward the door. “Come this way.”
“You’ll also need to dock the Rising Jewel,” Danthres said.
Chamblin shook his head. “That’s out of the question.”
“I wasn’t making a request, Chamblin.” Danthres turned to face him and loomed over the gnome as much as she could—which was quite a bit, as she was tall even by the standards of her father’s people, and Chamblin had the usual lack of height found in gnomes. “We need to make sure that nobody leaves the ship. The easiest way to do that is for you to dock and then we’ll have Boneen magick the area around the ship—beyond the influence of the wards, but still surrounding them—to keep everyone on board.”
“And also nearby for follow-up interviews,” Torin added.
Proving to be utterly unintimidated by Danthres—disappointing her, as she prided herself on being able to scare the shit out of people on a regular basis—Chamblin said, “I’m sorry, that just isn’t possible. There’s too much risk in a port as crowded as Cliff’s End.”
“Fine, then we’ll leave. Good luck to you.” She moved toward the door where Torin was still standing.
“You can’t leave!” Lisson cried.
“Watch us.” Danthres stopped and turned to face him. “The Pirate Queen died at sea—you said you were, what, three days out of Kalvar’s Isle?”
Mermaid Precinct (ARC) Page 4