With the care and respect that would have done the most professional funerary priest proud, he uncapped the last roll and slid out the canvases.
“Moonstone Maddy,” he gently intoned.
Again, he not only caught the features perfectly, but he had captured the very essence of the girl. The delicate features, the merry eyes, and the slightly embarrassed smile as if she had been about to blush.
Telestra had used to tease her at the Bottle and Bucket about being the only whore in the city who blushed, often driving Maddy into hiding under her shawl, giggling helplessly. Then Tel would roll her eyes and observe dryly that giggling was frowned on too, and she would have to be drummed out of the profession as a stern warning to others.
Maddy could take great delight in as simple a thing as getting another little crescent moon trinket for her bracelet, and yet would also be honestly anguished to tears if she thought one of her friends was angry with her. It had always amazed me that she had survived in her profession.
I guess in the end, she didn’t.
“She wasn’t easy,” he chuckled. “She kept wanting to see what I was doing, or she would get distracted by something in the workshop and want to go examine it. I actually ended up having to include a little snow globe as part of her pay, on the promise she would sit still.”
The toymaker tenderly re-rolled the canvas, and put it safely back into its home.
I found myself feeling sorry for Telestra, the woman whose portrait had been lost. She had been the last victim. How hard had it been for her, returning to the street after so many others had died? And some of them were her friends. It was a pity I couldn’t at least help her rejoin them in this small way.
As the toymaker gathered the tubes and laid them on the counter, I reached for my coin pouch. The toymaker caught the motion, looked at me, and shook his head.
“No, lad,” he said gently, “let’s let them go to their new destination without money changing hands. They got sold enough when they were alive.”
I nodded respectfully, as appropriate for my role, not letting my true gratitude show through. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so with a courteous bow, I started gathering the tubes. They were long and awkward, and I still felt just a bit shaky from my encounter with the ghost. I fumbled with them, and tried to line them up again to carry better.
“Here now,” the toymaker chuckled, “there is a better way. I’ll have my granddaughter bring up an extra sack from my workshop.” He twisted his neck and called over his shoulder, “Nocce! Be a good lass and bring me that sack from under the wobbly bench up here.”
Turning back to me, he nodded his head toward the door to the market.
“You should spend that coinage you were going to give me on an escort out of the market. Hire one of those caravan guards to go with you, just to deter some thief from making a grab for the sack and maybe damaging the drawings. Ah! Here we go! Thank you, Nocce.”
I heard the beads in the doorway part for his granddaughter as I lined up the last tube on the counter. I should have realized that the toymaker would have an apprentice or family member to help him with the business. I straightened in order to give a polite bow…
…and found myself looking directly into the sultry, unforgettable eyes of Silver Telestra.
Only the fact that I had been playing a role, and therefore, already guarding my expression, saved me. Instead of stumbling and knocking the tubes everywhere in shock, I simply stared for a second in stunned silence.
Telestra’s face looked back at me calmly, as she held the bag out to me. Our eyes met, and for a brief second, I wondered if she would greet me by name…but there appeared no hint of recognition in her features. After a shocked couple of seconds, I realized why.
This wasn’t Telestra.
She looked like Telestra. No, that wasn’t right. This went way beyond mere resemblance. She had Telestra’s face.
The same languorous, smoky eyes that kept men coming back to her, hoping the expression of amused affection in those blue depths had been meant for them alone. The same cheekbones, straight nose and heart-bow mouth. And the same little mole on the right side below her mouth, where she would put her finger when resting her chin in her hand.
But Nocce stood a good hand taller, and Telestra never had a figure like this.
Even with her dress and workshop smock, anyone could see that Nocce had a stunning figure and long, smooth limbs. She possessed a fair complexion, and yet not a blemish to be seen. When you put the whole ensemble together, the effect was staggering.
Men had fought wars over women who looked like Nocce.
As I numbly took the bag from her, she inclined her head and gracefully turned to go back through the beaded curtain into the workshop beyond.
“Nocce,” Chappett remonstrated, “manners.”
“I’m sorry, Grandfather,” she said in a melodious voice that sounded completely different than Telestra’s throaty purr. “Good day to you, sir.”
I bowed in stunned silence, and she exited the room.
“She is a beauty, isn’t she,” the toymaker exclaimed with pride.
“Yes, sir,” I said reverently, as I recovered myself. “A rare beauty, indeed. You must have your hands full with suitors.”
“No, no,” he said with a laugh. “Nocce doesn’t get out much, and she is very devoted to the business. I confess, I would hate losing her. She is very helpful around the place.”
I bet she was.
Gathering the tubes and sliding them into the sack Chappett provided, I thanked the toymaker again and promised him a personal copy of the manuscript once the book had been written. I felt I had already overstayed my time, and I needed to get out of there before my composure slipped.
Slinging the sack over my shoulder, I hurried out the door and back into the shadowy depths of the market beyond.
***
Later that night, I sat in my bedroom chair and contemplated the framed picture of Camber on my wall.
It hurt to look and see through my eyes of today how young she had really been. How, despite the years of hard experience those earnest eyes reflected, there had still been room in them for the allowance of hope, even if only allowed after careful evaluation. Her life hadn't had much room for that, and up until that day on the brewery rooftop I had spent more time quashing any hope in her rather than encouraging it.
“Are you going to save me, Cargy?”
It killed me to realize I hadn’t.
I had hoped to draw some comfort from this newly discovered portrait, but I had been mistaken. The girl in that drawing had been captured in a moment I wasn’t a part of seventeen years ago, and the eyes that looked out of that picture would never, ever look across that gulf and see me now.
Seeing her image just drove home the reality that she was gone.
I stood and walked over to the dresser where I laid out all of the tools of my old profession.
A few years back, I had been a master of my craft. Right before I retired, I had put together a complete collection of the finest version of the tools I had ever found useful; items from various locksmiths, jewelry makers, alchemists, weapon smiths and armor smiths were carefully arranged for my perusal. Some of them, I designed myself.
I never really expected to use them again, but I guess it was just my nature to want to have them…just in case.
Tonight I would need them.
I had briefly entertained the idea of going to the Captain with what I had seen at the toymaker’s, but then dismissed it. What could I tell him? That the toymaker’s granddaughter looked exactly like one of the women killed all those years ago, but only in the face? And how could I even prove it was true? And if I could, so what? I had nothing. Worse than nothing, because the Captain would become aware of my line of thought and my intentions.
No, I couldn’t involve the Captain, and that suited me just fine.
It could be no coincidence that the toymaker lost only the portrait of the
woman whose face his “granddaughter” now possessed. Its omission proved to me her appearance had been no accident of nature. That deliberate omission meant the toymaker had something to hide, and whatever that something was had killed Camber.
And that made it personal.
I mentally reviewed what I knew of the toyshop and its surroundings as I started selecting what I would need for my mission tonight.
While the shop faced out into the market, it also had an alleyway that ran along its side and rear. That meant the possibility of a back door, although most assuredly, it would be strong and barred.
Most shops of its type usually featured personal quarters on the floor directly above it, which meant possible means of entrance through any second floor windows directly above the shop. There may or may not be windows overlooking the alley, but in any case, all of them would probably be shuttered and locked. The same would be true of the big window on the first floor. The third and fourth floor rooms above the shop were probably rented by other tenants of the building, and accessed from stairs elsewhere.
I considered the notion of delaying tonight’s venture in order to check out the availability of those rooms. Quietly prying up the floorboards and coming in from above is a method I used successfully in the past. After a few moments of deliberation, I decided to shelve that idea.
If other means failed tonight, I could always come back to it later.
A few years ago, I would have even explored the possibility of coming up from below, but that would have also taken weeks of research and watching the place, something that used to be my standard practice.
Tonight, I would be moving with a lot less preparation, something I used to swear I would never do, which meant I would need to be ready for a lot of contingencies.
Did the toymaker have other family living there? Were there animals? Traps or alarms? He may not have prepared for the likes of me, but there were plenty of other elements around the market he would need to be ready for. I would be going into this with rather large holes in my knowledge of the target and his toyshop.
A traitorous part of my mind started replaying scenes of Drayton questioning my judgment, then flashed to Heinryk stating I didn’t have my head on straight.
I silenced those warning bells with an irritated grimace.
I wouldn’t be trying to break into a palace tonight, just a damned toyshop. If I couldn’t do this on a moment’s notice, I had retired for all the wrong reasons.
I reached back into the back of my wardrobe and grabbed my “work clothes.”
A lot of younger people in my former profession favor tight leather outfits, often in black. I scoffed at the idea. If you couldn’t walk down the street in open daylight in your “work clothes” without people unconsciously reaching for their coin purses, your clothes were a liability—and may the gods save us all from the idiots who walked around in cloaks with their hoods up when it wasn’t raining. The City Watch probably considered them in a category of their own….
Comic relief.
Once I finished dressing, I could hardly be distinguished from any of the other laborers toiling throughout the city. Other than maybe being a little slimmer, and a little shorter, and a little older, and…the point being, I hardly looked a threat. I should be able to walk through the Stoneforest Market without raising any eyebrows.
I had sent Grabel out for the evening, saying I wanted to be alone. Since I had brought the framed drawings home with me, I doubted if anybody would question my motives and assume I wanted to view them in private. I would later hang the other three women’s portraits in the sitting room, but tonight I had them all upstairs. They were leaning against the wall in a line below Camber’s picture.
I stopped and looked at them as I slid the last knife home in its hidden sheath.
“Camber,” I whispered, “Maddy, Lia, Lani…Tel...I’m going to find out who did that to you, and why. And then I’m going to make him sorry. Really, really sorry.”
The four images looked out from their frames and through me, to wherever their thoughts had been seventeen years ago.
I took a deep breath and left.
Chapter Seven
“By order of the High Magistrate, the practice of impaling the heads of executed criminals along the South Caravan Road will be suspended for the duration of the winter. It has been discovered that urchins have been stealing the heads and using them as lures to attract crows for their consumption.” —notice posted on the City Criers’ boards
The toymaker must have had problems with thieves in the past.
Both his front door and the one I discovered in the alley were extra heavy affairs with sliding dead bolts and set into frames made of imported ramwood.
Ramwood came from an extinct tree that had been buried and partially fossilized under the dunes of the Fyrehaunt desert. It was harder than most metals, and could only be shaped by certain expert craftsman initiated in the secrets of working with the rare and expensive material. I found its use here interesting, but I hadn’t really expected to use the doors, anyway.
The shutters on the large window on the ground floor were of the same sturdy construction. The amount of force it would take to breach any of the entry points downstairs would wake the entire surrounding area.
The windows on the upper floor seemed to have standard wooden shutters, but they had no balconies and hardly anything in the way of sills to gain purchase. Unlike most other buildings in Khrem, the second story didn’t overhang the first on the alley side. The third and fourth did though, closing the alleyway completely from the sky.
I made a mental note of one window on the second floor over the alley smaller than the others. Going farther down the alley, I noticed a couple more spaced in such a way as to suggest one per tenant. I wondered…
Going back out of the alley and into the market, I walked down the front of the large building. Going past the toy shop, I wanted to see what other tenants inhabited the first floor. The doors looked evenly spaced, suggesting the probability of at least similar floor plans. Perhaps an inn or tavern would give me the opportunity to sneak into the back and get a peek at the feature that interested me, even if just for a second.
This was my lucky night, as something even better turned up.
The second door past the toy maker’s shop had been boarded shut. The sign over the door proclaimed this to be the business of Medir the Dressmaker. The old, tattered black ribbons clinging to the sign indicated Medir’s dressmaking days were over. This would make my planned reconnaissance a lot simpler.
The time had come to do a little shopping.
With a cheerful whistle, I strolled into the darkened market.
Most of the stalls were closed by now, but that was okay. I wouldn’t be a paying customer tonight. Over the course of the next half hour, I stole an iron pry bar, a fat candle, and had moved a ladder off of a wagon and leaned it on a column near the entrance to the alleyway. I evaded the three patrols of market guards with practiced ease.
If they were an example of what counted as adequate security nowadays, the current generation of thieves must be a truly sorry lot.
Lighting the candle from a torch on a nearby column, I headed back to the alleyway. Counting the windows on the second floor, I quickly arrived at what should be the abandoned dressmaker’s shop. Then I examined the sills on each of the ground floor windows that should also go with the shop until I saw what I expected to see…scuff marks.
Pulling a slender dagger, I swiftly worked the sliding bolt open on the shutters. Stepping away from the window and to the side, I pulled the shutters open.
Nothing came flying out of the window at me, which is always a good sign in my book.
“Hello!” I softly called, holding out a coin so it would be visible from inside the window. “Who in there is interested in making the easiest piece of silver he has ever earned?”
For a moment, I heard nothing but silence, but I waited patiently. I knew it wouldn’t be long. After
another moment there came just the barest sound of whispered arguing, then I got my reply.
“What do I got to do,” replied the voice of a young boy or teenage girl. It was filled with deeply ingrained suspicion, mixed with desperation.
Urchins.
Putting my big candle on the sill, I stepped back where we could see each other with both of my hands in view.
There stood a boy, no more than fourteen years old. I saw several other shadows fade back into the blackness at my appearance. I couldn’t tell if the boy was the leader of this little band, or a lieutenant sent to risk his neck for the coin. I guess it didn’t matter. In their world, somebody had to do it. Their life consisted of a running calculation of caution and risk, a test maybe three out of ten of them would survive to reach adulthood.
“I need you to pick up this candle,” I said, stepping back from the window, “and stand where I tell you with it. Then tell me what you see. You get to keep the candle, too.”
I knew that would be a big temptation. Having a little light to quiet the young ones at night, or navigate their temporary shelter, would make his job a lot easier.
Keeping a suspicious eye on me, he came forward and picked up the candle.
“Okay, now what?”
“I want you to face that way,” I said, pointing down the alley. “Take ten paces and stop.”
He disappeared as he started walking along the wall in the direction I indicated. His footsteps echoed in the empty shop. I approached the window once I felt he had moved far enough away not to feel threatened by my presence.
“What do you see?” I asked, looking back in the window.
“The stairs,” he replied, curiosity creeping into his voice.
Excellent, just what I had been hoping for.
“Now, look up above you,” I instructed. “Does the ceiling follow the stairs up at an angle, or is it level and high above you? Do you see a window?”
“It’s level and high. There’s a little window, but it’s way up there.”
The Ways of Khrem Page 19