by Paul Durham
Folly arrived just behind them. “There you are,” she said, gasping for breath.
Quinn struggled to remove his helmet.
“What happened back there?” Bramble demanded. He grabbed Quinn’s helmet and yanked it off with a pop. Quinn rubbed the red welt it had left across his forehead.
“Rye hit the Constable with a fish,” Folly said.
Bramble looked at Rye in disbelief and shook his head. “Perhaps we need to discuss the meaning of inconspicuous.”
They followed him to an obscure flight of carved stone steps tucked under a crumbling archway. It was called Mutineer’s Alley. No guards or gate blocked their path, but everyone in Drowning knew where those steps led. And it was no place for the unwelcome.
Rye glanced over her shoulder as they started down. No soldiers followed, but someone was standing in the shadows of the backstreet she and Quinn had taken to reach Dread Captain’s Way. She thought it looked like the Constable’s squire.
Bramble nudged her with an elbow. “A fish, eh?”
Rye shrugged sheepishly.
“That’s my niece,” he said with a wink.
She looked back again, but the squire, if he had been there at all, was now gone.
At the bottom of a deep embankment, below the village itself, sat the Shambles. Its black-market shops, grog houses, and gambling dens had grown up like persistent weeds on the damp edges of the village, until eventually the Earl had stopped trying to pluck them. The Laws of Longchance weren’t enforced here. The Shambles was not a safe place for allies of the Earl.
Shortstraw chittered happily as they worked their way down Little Water Street, the snail trail of a dirt road that traced the banks of River Drowning. Dinghies bobbed at the docks. In the distance, where the mouth of the river met the sea, Rye could see the tall mast of an anchored schooner silhouetted against the sky. Rye was sure the invisible eyes of the Shambles were on them, but their faces were familiar here.
At the end of the street, a four-story inn squatted in the shadow of the great arched bridge that spanned the river’s narrowest point. Overhead, a black banner with a white fishbone logo snapped in the wind. The thick iron doors of the Dead Fish Inn rose above them like portals to a castle, and they always struck Rye as more suited to withstanding a siege than welcoming guests. But at that moment, there was no place she would rather be.
8
Where Nobody Knows Your Name
The air was stale with stout and sailor sweat, which made perfect sense since a small fleet of grog-swigging boatmen had congregated at the center of the inn. They’d pushed aside the tables and chairs and huddled in a large circle around two blindfolded, bare-knuckled combatants. The men traded wild, flailing punches over the cheers and groans of the onlookers.
Folly’s two oldest brothers, the twins Fitz and Flint, leaned against a heavy beam and watched with interest from under their manes of white-blond hair. The twins, each massive individually, had been born conjoined at the hip, giving them the formidable aura of a two-headed giant. Their matching glowers and otherworldly appearance assured even the surliest patrons of the Dead Fish behaved themselves.
So it was that Rye, her uncle, and her friends arrived relatively unnoticed. Rye pulled her hood from her head and the inn’s roaring fireplaces immediately warmed her chilled cheeks. A woman bustled past, balancing a full serving tray of empty glasses on her round belly with one hand. She paused at the sight of the children, blinked in disbelief, and abruptly dropped her tray onto a table. The woman’s hair was as white-blond as Folly’s except for a single streak of silver that she pushed behind her ear.
“Riley O’Chanter!” Faye Flood exclaimed. “What in the Shale are you doing here?”
Before Rye could answer, Folly’s mother threw her arms around her and pressed her tight. Faye’s stomach was as hard as a melon and, when she saw the look of concern on Rye’s face, she waved it off.
“Don’t worry about my little shelf,” she said, rattling her fingers on her belly. “Flood babies are a hardy lot. More important, how did you get here?”
Folly jumped in excitedly. “I went to find her. There was a storm—”
“Rat in the jacks! There you are, Folly,” Faye interrupted. “I’ve hardly seen you the past two days, love. Your chores are piling up.”
Folly’s face fell.
“We’ve got freebooters in port,” Faye continued, with a nod to the crowd of sailors circling the brawlers. “There are bar rags and linens in need of washing. You can play with your friends after you’ve finished.”
Folly frowned at Rye with a look that said I told you, and slumped off.
“As for you, Riley dear, Abby is around here somewhere.” Faye glanced about.
But Rye’s gaze had already found her. Her mother’s face seemed even more lined with worry than it had just days before, but to Rye she was still the most beautiful woman in the whole village. Rye felt her eyes well up with tears.
Abby opened her arms wide. Rye stepped forward and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. She didn’t let go for a long while.
Rye started to ask questions, but Abby just pressed her head back to her shoulder and held her close. Once Rye had settled, Abby eased her toward the Mermaid’s Nook, the secluded corner of the inn that housed Rye’s favorite table. Rye set her walking stick on the carved tabletop and sat down.
“Mama,” Rye said finally, “the Willow’s Wares?”
“Don’t give it another thought,” Abby said quietly. “It was just a building. No more than brick and wood. What’s important is that we are all safe now.”
“Are we?” Rye asked.
“Of course,” Abby said.
“But we were attacked this morning.”
Rye explained their encounter with the sniggler and detailed the Constable’s announcement on Market Street. Abby listened intently.
“And this,” Rye added, unfurling the crumpled parchment in her pocket.
Abby looked over the Earl’s proclamation. Rye watched her mother’s grim face. Abby was silent.
Finally, Abby spoke. “Do I always look that cross?” She arched a playful eyebrow.
“Sometimes,” Rye said, but she was not calmed by her mother’s jest. “The Earl is searching for us,” she said matter-of-factly.
Abby nodded. “It seems so. Not that he’ll find us easily.” She gave Rye just a hint of a knowing grin. “No one here knows our names.”
The correct answer when asked about someone’s identity at the Dead Fish Inn was always, Who? Never heard of him. Abby tossed the parchment into the roaring fireplace.
“But why come after us now?” Rye asked. “Does he believe this new Constable will protect him?”
Abby shook her head gravely. “That I don’t know. But if Longchance seeks trouble hard enough he’s sure to find it sooner or later. I expect your father will be here shortly. When he arrives . . . he, your uncle, the others . . . will be certain the matter is addressed.”
Rye looked across the inn to where Bramble had joined two men at the bar. They sat casually over numerous empty mugs, their mud-caked boots tapping on the rungs of their stools. But Rye sensed a wariness in their constantly shifting eyes, like hungry predators watchful for their next mark.
“Bramble told me to give you this,” Rye said, remembering the battered box. She took it from her coat and handed it to Abby.
“Did you look inside?” Abby asked as she pried apart the bent clasp. She opened it a crack.
“No,” Rye said, shaking her head, and was surprised to realize that, for once, her curiosity hadn’t gotten the better of her. “What’s in there?”
“Memories,” Abby said. A warm thought seemed to cross her mind.
Abby removed a small metal object from the box. It was a hair clip in the shape of a dragonfly, its silver so tarnished it was almost black.
“Someone gave this to me long ago, but it seems you could best use it now,” she said. She pushed Rye’s unruly hair from her e
yes and clipped it back. “Much better.”
Quinn arrived and placed two mugs of plum cider on the table along with his handmade helmet. His eyes widened and he stared slack-jawed at the realistic, life-size mermaid carved into the tabletop. Abby strategically slid the helmet across the table to afford the mermaid some degree of modesty.
Bramble joined them with goblets for himself and Abby. “What do you have here?” he asked Rye, examining her hand staff on the table. “May I see it?”
“My walking stick? Sure.”
Bramble felt its heft in his hands. He squinted and examined its polished features.
“A walking stick, you say?” He sounded amused. “This, my dear niece, is a High Isle cudgel. Made from the hardest blackthorn ever felled. I haven’t seen one in years.”
Abby raised an eyebrow.
“Like a club?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, like a club,” Bramble said. “But nastier.”
With two lightning-quick strikes, he brought the cudgel down against Quinn’s helmet on the table. Rye, Abby, and Quinn all jumped at the sound. Shortstraw fled under a chair. The rest of the inn hardly noticed.
The steel crown of the helmet was crushed as if pummeled by a boulder. Rye was relieved nobody’s head was in it.
Bramble chuckled and handed the cudgel back to Rye. “This is a rare find. Guard it closely until you learn how to use it.”
Quinn stared at his bashed handiwork.
“Apologies, Quinn,” Bramble said. “I’ll buy you another.”
Rye noticed Quinn’s fallen face and didn’t think that cost was the point.
“Your uncle and I need to discuss a few matters,” Abby said to Rye while shooting Bramble a reproachful look. It always amazed Rye how a glare from her mother could give pause to even the most dangerous of men. “Why don’t you and Quinn go find your sister? She’s made herself quite at home here, so I can’t say where she is . . . in trouble, no doubt.”
There was a heavy thud in Rye’s lap, and a warm furry mass stretched across her like a blanket.
“Shady!” Rye hugged him around his thick neck.
“Obviously someone else has missed you too,” Abby said. “He’s taken a liking to the inn himself. The twins guard the door well, so he’s stopped trying to escape.”
Shady’s kind were known as Gloaming Beasts—mysterious catlike creatures who could go years hiding in plain sight. Rye had always taken him for a simple house pet. That is, until he revealed his true nature by helping Harmless thwart a clan of ruthless Bog Noblins. Gloaming Beasts were the bog monsters’ only natural predator. They were also renowned for their wanderlust, which was why Abby kept him under lock and key.
Rye set him on the floor and she and Quinn headed off to find Lottie. Shady snaked in and out of Rye’s gait as she walked, rubbing his back against her legs.
The freebooters were still hard at the grog and their gambling.
“Round six!” barked a man at the center of the crowd.
His thick hair was the color of steel and tied into a ponytail that stretched down his back. One eyelid sagged at half mast, a hollow, empty socket peeking out from under it. He held six fingers in the air.
“Get your bets in now,” he shouted. Gold grommets and silver shims began to change hands. “All right, spin the lads six times apiece!”
Leathery hands grabbed each blindfolded fighter and began to turn them in circles.
“Wait!” he called out, and Rye started in alarm.
The ringleader pinched his dead eye shut and used the other to examine Rye, Quinn, and Shady.
“What’s going on around here? I’ve never seen so many children or animals in one tavern,” he grumbled. “And not one looks to be of the edible sort. Animal or child.”
Rye took a step back.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m looking for a little girl.”
“Is Fletcher Flood running an orphanage now?”
“She has red hair. Carries a pink rag doll wherever she goes. She’s loud—”
“Wait a moment. Pickle?” he asked.
“No, her name’s Lottie,” Rye began, “although I can see why someone might—”
“Yes, yes, Pickle. You know her?” the man asked.
“Er, yes,” Rye said, shocked. “She’s my sister.”
“Why didn’t you say so? In that case, come, come.” He waved a hand. “Out of the way, you deck rats.”
As the sailors moved aside, Rye spotted the three-year-old on the shoulders of a hulking brute at the back of the crowd, her perch giving her a bird’s-eye view of the fighting. Lottie’s face beamed when she spotted Rye, and she slapped the sailor on his bald head with Mona Monster until he lowered her to the floor.
Lottie rushed forward and threw her arms around Rye’s waist with such force she nearly knocked her down. Rye kissed Lottie on her tuft of hair that always smelled like straw and syrup drippings, and for a moment it brought her back to the bed they shared on Mud Puddle Lane.
Lottie pulled herself away and demanded, “Come,” tugging Rye by the sleeve to be sure there was no misunderstanding.
She picked up a wire birdcage and hurried to the Mermaid’s Nook, placing it on the table with Abby and Bramble.
“My baby blue dragon,” Lottie announced proudly as she opened its little door and reached inside.
Rye and Quinn exchanged curious glances.
“Lottie was very proud to finally learn to use her chamber pot,” Abby explained. “So for Silvermas we got her this . . . a baby blue dragon. As promised.”
Lottie extended both hands. “Newtie!” she proclaimed.
A rather small speckled lizard cocked its head and looked up at them. It seemed perfectly at ease in her hands.
“It’s so little,” Rye said.
“And brown,” Quinn added.
“Him’s just a baby,” Lottie said with a roll of her eyes, as if she’d explained this a dozen times already.
“Yes, Riley,” Abby said, nudging her gently. “It’s just a baby.”
“He no be blue until he’s older,” Lottie explained.
“Oh, of course,” Rye said.
“Much older,” Abby clarified.
Shady licked his lips at the sight of the little creature.
“No, no, Shady,” Lottie said crossly, shaking a finger. “Mice good. Newtie—no eat him.”
“Where did you find such a handsome dragon?” Rye said, looking at their mother and playing along. She had to admit, she’d never seen a lizard quite like this one in the bogs. He seemed to glisten in the light and had folds of skin, like fins, under each of his front legs.
“Your uncle came across him. He’s always had a strange fascination with exotic pets.”
“I bartered for him in Throcking,” Bramble said proudly. “The merchant had all sorts of interesting things. Scorpions, snapping turtles, razor eels. But your mother’s instructions were quite specific. This little fellow was the only, er . . . dragon . . . he had.”
“To be honest,” he whispered as an aside, “he seemed happy to be rid of it. Threw it in for free with two pelts and a flagon of ale.”
“Suppertime,” Lottie said, carefully setting Newtie on the table and digging into her pocket. She dumped onto the table a fistful of hard-shelled brown objects that looked like burnt pecans, until they scuttled in different directions on hairy legs. Shortstraw screeched and fled.
“He’s afraid of roaches,” Bramble explained with a shrug.
Newtie sprang to life. He cocked his head from side to side, puffing out his chest eagerly, on alert. A sail-like crest flared up from the ridge of his back and along his curled tail as he darted forward, snatching each roach with a long pink tongue until they were all gone. He crunched the bugs contentedly in his jaws.
“Lottie, where did you get those?” Abby asked in exasperation.
“The kitchen,” Lottie said, and seemed genuinely surprised by the fuss.
Quinn frowned. “I think I’ll be heading home for
supper now.”
Rye watched the lizard swallow its feast. “At least he’ll never go hungry around here.”
That night the cook prepared calf’s-head soup and Fletcher Flood grilled a boar on the spit over the fireplace. Rye ate with her family in the Mermaid’s Nook. She fished through her soup with her spoon, making sure she didn’t end up with an eye. Abby cut boar into bite-size chunks for Lottie while frowning at Shortstraw, who was sitting on the table and scratching his hindquarters.
“You’ll have to excuse him,” Bramble said. “The fleas have made him ill-mannered.”
Bramble stabbed a slab of pork with the tip of a sharp knife and ate it from the blade.
Lottie grabbed a cutting knife to do the same, banging it down with such force it nearly cracked the plate.
“Lottie,” Abby yelled, and snatched it from her hands before she put it in her mouth.
Rye sat back and stifled a giggle.
A louder sound caught all of their attention. The great iron doors of the inn creaked open. Fitz and Flint stepped from their post to block the way but eased aside as several broad-shouldered men in dark cloaks filed in.
Rye sat up in her chair and tried to make out their faces. A man followed briskly behind them and pulled his hood from his head. His keen eyes scanned the inn, and Rye saw the relief pass over his face once he’d spotted her. He headed for the Mermaid’s Nook quickly. Rye watched to see whether the men he’d arrived with would follow, but in the time it took her to blink they had already disappeared. In that fleeting instant it was as if the shadows of the Dead Fish Inn had swallowed them whole.
“Harmless!” Lottie called.
“And so the High Chieftain has finally arrived,” Bramble muttered, and slumped back into his chair, a tankard in his hands.
Harmless smiled and placed a hand on Rye’s shoulder, then stepped over and patted the crown of Lottie’s head with affection. His eyes fell on Abby, and Rye’s parents looked at each other with a degree of fondness that she couldn’t quite gauge. Even after all that had happened since his return to Drowning, they still hadn’t dwelled under the same roof in more than ten years.