“But not too soon, I hope.”
As the town bells began to sound the hour, he straightened with a yawn of his own. “Well, that’ll be all for today, I guess,” he said, kissing each of his sons on the forehead. “Time for your da to go make a livin’.”
He grinned at the word. Da had always been his own da or Aiden. But now it was him. He didn’t think he was ever going to get tired of remembering that.
• • •
Ismy deftly collected both boys as he maneuvered inside the family flat a few moments later.
“Did you manage to get some sleep?” he asked, bending to kiss her cheek.
“A little,” she answered with a smile. “C’mon you two, time for your breakfast. An’ make sure to get yours as well, Hektor Dann,” she added over her shoulder. “You can’t expect to do a proper day’s work on no sleep and no breakfast.”
“Mm-hm. Love you. See you tonight.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, well, I love you too. Bring home some chamomile.”
“I will.” Hektor caught up his gray and blue Watchman’s tunic with one hand while catching up a couple of currant buns from the plate his mother held out to him with the other.
“Where’re Kassie an’ Paddy?” he asked, wondering at the quiet. Aiden and his family had moved into a flat of their own one floor down a few months before, taking Jakon and Raik, who worked the night shift, with them. Kassie had been up to tend her birds an hour ago, but she and Paddy should still be at their own breakfast.
His mother smiled. “Kassie left for the Watch House early; some of the new messenger birds need special tendin’ to, and Paddy’s gone downstairs to spend a few minutes with Rosie before his shift. She’s officially his girl now, you know.”
“Really? Officially, is it? He told you that?”
“Of course not,” she laughed. “Her mother told me that. So no teasin’ him, mind, until he’s ready to tell us himself.”
“No promises.”
“Well, at least tell him to be careful today. And you and Aiden be careful too. It’s hay market day, and the streets will be filled with wagoneers who pay little enough attention on a clear morning.”
“We will.”
“And take another bun.”
“Mm-hm. Love you. See you tonight.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, but when he just grinned back at her, she smiled. “I love you too. Bring home some lavender.”
The street was still thick with fog when he and Aiden headed down the tenement steps. Making their way along the ten long blocks to the Iron Street Watch House with the ease of long familiarity despite the weather, they walked in companionable silence until Hektor walked straight into an open shop door.
Aiden just shook his head. “You need more sleep.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen anytime soon,” Hektor answered, checking his nose for blood. “Remind me I have to stop at the herbalist’s on the way home, will you?”
Aiden gave a snort of weary laughter. “We’ll go together. You need blackthorn?”
“Chamomile. And lavender. You?”
“Blackthorn. And lavender.”
“Colic?”
“Croup.”
Yawning, Hektor rubbed a kink from the back of his neck before shooting his older and more experienced brother a slightly worried look. “You don’t think they’re actually sick, do you? Are all babies this fretful?”
“No. You were though.”
The sound of a crash and a long string of invectives cut off Hektor’s reply as both men took off running.
• • •
The wagon stood at an awkward angle, one wheel deep in a large pothole in the middle of the street.
“Is this the one out front of Linton’s shop?” Hektor asked, bending his head to squint across the street as Aiden moved to calm the irate wagoneer.
“No. It’s the one in front of Benj Grandstil’s, an’ it near broke my rear axle an’ sent my load tumblin’ into the gutter!” the wagoneer shouted, sputtering in rage.
Aiden raised both hands. “S’all right, Nev. Near broke ain’t really broke. Hektor’n I’ll push, you pull, an’ we’ll get you outta here in no time. Hek.” He turned. “Hektor? Sergeant, what’re you doin’?” He glared at his younger brother who was crouched in the street, measuring the pothole’s span with the palm of his hand.
“I coulda sworn it was smaller,” he muttered. “How many cobblestones you figure woulda filled this?”
“What?”
“Eight, maybe ten?”
“Why does it matter?” Aiden jerked his head at the wagon. “Quit fartin’ about an’ get over here.”
“Yer brother needs more sleep,” Nev noted with a snicker, as Hektor rose reluctantly.
“So I keep tellin’ ’im.”
• • •
By the time they reached the Watch House, they’d helped another three wagons on their way; one from another pothole, and two locked together when one had tried to pass the other in the fog and misread the width of the street.
“I hate market day,” Aiden muttered as they made their way inside. “Any market day.”
Beside him, Hektor frowned at the street again before heading into his office and the mountain of paperwork waiting for him.
The fog cleared by midday but began to rise again by evening. Passing Benj’s shop on the way home, Hektor paused to fix the size of the pothole in his mind’s eye.
The next morning, with the fog no thinner, he frowned accusingly down at it.
“That’s bigger. I’m sure of it. An’ so was the one in front of Linton’s.”
“You think someone’s stealin’ cobblestones?” Aiden scoffed. “For what? To pave their very own street?”
“I dunno, maybe.” When Aiden shot him an exasperated look, Hektor shrugged. “Maybe not to pave their own street, but maybe to repair it if they’ve got anythin’ like this.” He crossed to the pothole, crouching down to wiggle the edges of the remaining cobblestones experimentally. “You’d need something to pry ’em up, though, a crowbar or somethin’. An’ a sack to carry ’em.”
“Not if they were loose to begin with,” Aiden retorted, drawn over despite himself. “You’d just pull ’em up with yer fingers, one at a time. An’ who’d notice or care if they saw someone walk by with somethin’ that looks no more’n a rock in their hand.”
“You’d need to know they were loose. Maybe you noticed the first one kicked up by a wagon an’ thought, that’d do perfect for the pothole in front of my place. Catch it up and go. After that, you might start lookin’ around for more loose stones, then finally, you might start prying up the rest ’cause you got away with it the first time.”
Spotting a crowd of merchants beginning to gather on the pavement, Aiden straightened with a scowl. “Or maybe they were all just kicked up by wagons an’ busted up or spun into an alley.”
“Then there’d be debris littered about,” Hektor insisted, ignoring the merchants, who’d begun to titter with amusement. “Nope, these have been lifted.”
“So, what do you want to do about it? Wander Haven looking for new repairs?”
“We could post a guard.”
“On a pothole? You’ve lost your mind.”
“I s’pose. But this needs fixin’ before someone actually gets hurt. Whose in charge of street repairs?”
“No idea. Get up before you get run over.”
“I mean it, Corporal. Someone needs to get down here an’ fix this.”
“An’ I mean it too, Sergeant. Get up now.” Aiden jerked his younger brother to his feet just as an empty hay wagon lumbered past, the driver barely registering their presence. “You need to get more sleep.”
“I’m fine.” Hektor wiped his hands on the sides of his breeches. “I’ll ask Paddy. He usually knows what’s what on
the street.”
“Good idea, but Paddy’s at the Watch House, where we should be. So, can we please get out of here before we lose what little respect this lot have ever accorded us?”
Hektor glanced over at the merchants, the oldest of which gave him a cheery, sarcastic wave in response.
“Um, yeah, I think that ship has sailed.”
• • •
At the Watch House, the youngest Dann brother narrowed his eyes. “You wanna know if I’ve seen anyone repairin’ the streets?”
“You’d have reported anyone diggin’ in the streets, wouldn’t you, Runner?” Hektor shot back.
“Well, sure, but I’ve never seen anybody actually doin’ either repairin’ or diggin’.”
The older Danns exchanged a look. “Come to think of it, neither have I,” Hektor admitted. “Have you?”
Aiden shook his head.
“But somebody must have made repairs at some time, shouldn’t they? Or the streets’d be nothin’ but potholes by now.”
“Pavers Guild, maybe?”
“Do we have a Pavers Guild?”
“Dunno. Don’t think so.”
“How would you find out?”
“Records Hall?”
“Where’s that?”
“Up by the Palace,” Paddy supplied.
“That’s a long walk in the fog,” Aiden pointed out. “Couldn’t we just ask someone, like Daedrus, maybe? He’s an Artificer; he’d know if anyone would.”
Paddy shook his head. “He’s away, visitin’ friends in Winefold.”
“So, ask the Capt’n.”
“Rather not,” Hektor answered.
“Why?” Aiden asked with a grin. “’Cause you’re afraid you’d look like a fool?”
Hektor opened his mouth, then closed it. “Somethin’ like that.”
“Good call. So, we need to ask someone old enough to have seen it done an’ nosy enough to know who it was.”
“Night sergeant’s old,” Paddy said.
“We can start with him.”
• • •
Sergeant Jons handed Hektor the night reports before scratching his beard in thought. “I seem to remember it was the responsibility of the city shop owners to keep the streets in front of their establishments in good repair,” he said after a moment. “Least ways, it was in the past.”
“No wonder no one remembers it bein’ done then,” Aiden scoffed. “I can’t see the shop owners around here forkin’ out for somethin’ like that.”
“That’s true enough,” Jons agreed with a chuckle. “The citizens of Iron Street are . . . careful with their coin.”
“But even if they were supposed to pay for it, they wouldn’t be the ones doin’ the actual work,” Hektor pointed out.
“No,” Aiden agreed, “but that answers the question about who to ask, anyway.”
When Hektor gave him a blank look, he grinned. “Think about it. Someone older . . .” he prompted, clearly enjoying himself. “Someone nosier . . . someone closer to you . . .”
Understanding finally dawned. “No.”
“’Fraid so.”
“There’s got to be someone else.”
“There isn’t. If the merchants really are responsible for street repairs, an’ that means they have to pay for ’em, there’s no one like your father-in-law for knowing it, an’ throwing a complete fit if anyone ever tried to make him. He’d probably be out there with a measurin’ tape trying to prove it was the responsibility of Willans across from ’im. Go ask Edzel.”
“He won’t answer. He hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you, he just enjoys pretendin’ he hates you. Take Ismy. For that matter, take the boys, there’s nothing like a couple of grandbabies to soften a man’s stance.”
“I suppose.”
• • •
“You wanna know what?”
Seated in the small workroom behind Edzel’s Iron Shop, the master smith glared at his son-in-law suspiciously.
“Who’s responsible for street repairs?” Hektor repeated in a stoic voice.
“Why?”
“’Cause someone’s stealin’ cobblestones, causin’ potholes that’re causin’ traffic havoc, an’ we need to get ’em repaired.”
“Not here in Anvil’s Close, they ain’t.”
“No. Mostly in Iron Street.”
“And why should I give a rat’s behind about traffic havoc in Iron Street?”
This was going about as well as Hektor’d envisioned. He turned a plaintive glance on Ismy, who gave her father an exasperated look. “Pa.”
Her reproachful tone drew a scowl from her father.
“Don’t Pa me,” he shot back. “An’ why’s little Eddie snuffling like that?”
“He has a cold.”
“Give ’im ’ere.”
Edzel caught his namesake up in one heavily muscled arm, rolling his eyes as Ronnie opened his mouth to protest. “Yeah, yeah, you too. Honestly, yer as spoiled as they come.” He caught the other boy up, tucking him easily into the crook of the other arm.
“They’re a set,” Hektor explained as the older man settled onto the corner of his workbench with a grunt.
“’Parently. Hmph. They seem a bit on the thin side. You feedin’ ’em proper?”
“Pa.” This time Ismy’s voice held a note of warning, and he chuckled.
“Just askin’. Clearly they get scrawny limbs from their father’s side.” Edzel pursed his lips as his daughter crossed her arms. “All right, all right. Seems to me that the ward court what handles cases in this part of the city named four men from the Stonemason’s Guild as street surveyors some years back. Let’s see, there was . . . Dray Hennon. That caused some bad feelin’s at the time. He was a foreigner. Came from Forchin originally. Older fellow. Been gone a decade or more now. Fell off a dock an’ drowned. Some say his wife pushed him in, but nothin’ ever came of it. She married a weaver a few a months later. Had a couple a littles without a lick a sense between ’em . . .”
Ismy sighed. “Pa . . .”
“What? Fine. Let’s see, the second fellow was Simon Winsel, as I remember. His father owned a brickworks just south of town. Simon took it over after he retired. Died of some kind of fit last year. They say his face took on a terrible purple hue an’ swelled up like . . . Stop chewing on them fingers, boy, I need ’em. Ismy, pass me that scrap a leather. I think your littles are teethin.”
“They’re too young,” Ismy answered, but she handed it to him anyway.
“Tell my knuckles.” Edzel folded the scrap and tucked the corner into Ronnie’s mouth. “’Sides, you had teeth at their age.”
“I did not.”
“The other two surveyors?” Hektor prompted.
Edzel’s lip curled, but then he shrugged. “Two of Linton’s cousins. Barrin and Tam. A meaner pair of drunks you’d never find, but good stone men. When they were sober. Which weren’t often. Twins like these two villains here,” he added, glancing down at the boys in his arms with a surprisingly gentle smile. “Best keep the drink away from ’em as they get older, Daughter, or they’ll bring you nothing but heartbreak, just as them two boys did to their own Ma.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Ismy answered in a distinctly chilly tone.
“So where are Barrin and Tam now?” Hektor asked with as much patience as he could manage.
Edzel glared at him but cast his mind back. “Let’s see. Barrin stumbled into the path of an oncoming wagon one night, drunk as usual, never saw it comin’. Nearly sent Tam off his rocker. That’s the way it goes with twins most times. As one goes so goes the other, or there’s trouble. You two best get used to bein’ apart,” he added glancing down, but when Ismy made to take Ronnie from him, he glared her away. “A year or two later, Tam took up with the sister of some priest at the
Temple of Thenoth,” he finished.
“That a Haven temple?” Hektor asked.
“Last time I looked.”
“So Tam’s still in the city?”
“How should I know? I said he took up with a priest’s sister, not became a priest himself, boy. Pay attention. I got no idea if Tam’s still in Haven. Go ask at the Temple. Maybe they know, maybe they don’t. But I’d walk careful if you do find ’im,” Edzel added with a cackle. “Tam never cared much for the Watch, an’ he had a right mean temper on ’im in the old days. You might find yourself in a passel of hot water.”
“So, where is this temple?” Hektor pressed, brushing off Edzel’s warning with ease. He’d dealt with plenty of drunks in his time.
His father-in-law shrugged. “Couldn’t tell ya. Ask yer sister. ’Parently they take in sick birds. Meantime, the one on the left here just messed himself. Take ’im off me.”
Hektor accepted Eddie, who, separated from his twin and his grandfather, began to scream.
• • •
“Oh, sure, I know where t’is. I can take you,” Kassie agreed, setting a small messenger bird back inside its coop in the Watch House aviary. “I’ve been there a few times with Master Aubrin, an’ a few times with the Healer Trainees out of the Collegium to see to the injured birds in their loft.
“They care for creatures there,” she explained when Hektor gave her a puzzled look. “The old an’ the sick, tame an’ the wild. Thenoth is some kind of Animal God or God of Animals,” she amended. “I’m not too sure which. When do you want to go?”
“Now, if Master Aubrin can spare you.”
“He’s with the Capt’n, goin’ over the monthly expenses.” She turned to where Paddy was fixing a twisted hinge on the main coop. “Can you tell ’im where I’ve gone?”
He nodded without looking around, and she caught up her Watch House Messenger Bird tabard and pulled it over her head. “He won’t mind,” she reassured Hektor. “I’ve finished my chores an’ tended the broody birds already. We can call this Watch House business ’cause I always learn somethin’ when I go there that helps with the birds here. Can you carry that sack?”
Hektor glanced at the burlap bag of grain she indicated.
“The Temple’s right poor, so we always take a bit of food for their birds when we go. S’all right,” she added, noting his uncertain expression. She picked up a charcoal stick and drew a line above the piled sacks. “Now, it’s official. Come on.”
Pathways Page 23