by Joseph Lallo
“That’s because most of the women you know work at brothels.”
“The best kind. Very amenable ladies.”
“You missed a spot shaving.” Amaranthe’s hand dropped to her utility knife. “Want me to...?”
“No!” Wholt sidled away. “Don’t you ever grow weary of being the ideal enforcer? Perfectly pressed uniform, gleaming weapons, not a single hair out of place in that unflattering brown bun.”
Frowning, Amaranthe touched her hair. It was neat and out of the way. That counted more than beauty.
“You come to work early,” Wholt continued, “stay late, precisely follow every regulation, and where’s it gotten you? You’re still a corporal after six years.”
“You’re still a corporal after six years too,” she said.
“Actually,” he said, tone growing calm, and a smile coming to his lips, “I came up on the list for promotion. It’ll be sergeant next month.”
“You? You’re going to make sergeant? You don’t know half the regulations and you’re late for work every other day.”
Wholt looked away. “You’re my partner, Amaranthe. I figured you’d be happy for me.”
She stared at the snow edging the cracks in the sidewalk. He was right. She should be happy for him, but it was all too unfair. “Congratulations,” she managed, though she doubted it sounded sincere.
“I’m sure it’ll be your turn next month,” Wholt said.
Amaranthe was sure it would not, even if the chief forgot to mark her file with a demerit for that morning’s lie. She knew of no female sergeants in the Stumps force. The empire did not permit women to join its armies, and it was only in the last generation that it had begun allowing them to join the city law enforcers—grudgingly.
“Wholt.” Amaranthe looked him in the eyes and touched his arm. “Try to...be a good sergeant. You represent the empire when you wear that uniform. And you represent yourself. That should matter.”
He actually stood taller. “I will. I know. It does.”
“Good.”
His attention shifted over her shoulder. “Is that smoke?” He pointed toward the blocky buildings crouched alongside the lake. “Or just factory haze?”
Down the hill, dozens of men and machines toiled on the frozen water, hacking out blocks of ice that would be stored for summer use, but smoke blurred the scene. Amaranthe pinpointed the source.
“There’s not a factory there.” She grabbed Wholt’s arm and tugged him forward. “Fire!”
They took a trolley toward the waterfront and hopped off at the nearest stop. Smoke thickened the air, and they slipped and skidded as they negotiated the slick sidewalks. They ran around a corner, almost crashing into the back ranks of a gathering crowd.
In a residential district, where wooden structures were more common, people might have raced back and forth with buckets to help, but this dilapidated wooden building was an island surrounded by brick, stone, and cement. The onlookers appeared more fascinated than concerned about the flames spreading, and the Imperial Fire Brigade had already arrived with one of the city’s self-propelled fire pumps. Black smoke poured from the stack, mingling with the plumes rising from the building. A thick hose was attached to the pump and to a fireplug up the street. Water streamed onto the flames flickering through the broken windows of the old building. Only one corner, which was dominated by a multistory brick kiln, was not burning.
“You mentioned something about the city not catching on fire today?” Amaranthe asked as she and Wholt pushed their way through the onlookers.
“Did I say that?”
Heat flooded over them, dry and powerful. Charred flakes of wood and paper floated through the air.
“We better help with crowd control,” Amaranthe said, but as they advanced, she glimpsed a merchant standing at her counter in a tea-and-coffee import store. Other shop owners had joined the gawking crowd. Two men loomed in front of this woman. Customers? Given the proximity of the fire, shopping seemed unlikely. “Or we could help this lady who I believe is being robbed.”
“Huh?” Wholt turned his head. “Oh. It wouldn’t hurt these businesses to be looted once in a while. Merchants are practically running things around here anyway.” But he drew his sword.
“I’ll go in the front,” Amaranthe said. “You go around back.”
“Be careful.” Wholt trotted down the street toward an alley where he could cut over.
Amaranthe strode through the front door. Barrels and canisters cluttered the aisles, and stuffed shelves rose from floor to ceiling on each wall. The scent of tea leaves and coffee beans from distant parts of the world soared above the pervading smell of smoke. Her strongbox open, the merchant was clutching a stack of bills. Her eyes brightened when she saw Amaranthe’s uniform.
Amaranthe focused on the two men towering over the shopkeeper. The huge brutes were only a couple feet shorter than the floor-to-ceiling stack of coffee tins fronting the aisle behind them.
“Well, well,” one man said, nudging his cohort, “it looks like a girl enforcer. We’re very concerned.”
His comrade snickered. Scars lined the faces of both men. Swords hung in belt scabbards, the hilts’ sweat-stained leather wrappings evidence of frequent use. One thug shifted to reveal a flintlock pistol aimed at the merchant. Apparently, he did not consider Amaranthe enough of a threat to warrant switching his target. Indignation flared and her hand twitched toward her sword. She caught herself before she acted foolishly. After all, it was better not to have a weapon pointed at her chest.
“Gentlemen,” Amaranthe said, “this robbery is over. If you put down your weapons and submit to being detained, perhaps I can speak to the magistrate on your behalf. Your possession of firearms, which, according to Imperial City Code seven-four-three dash A, are for military use only, will elevate your crime from simple theft to aggressive larceny.”
“Darn.” The thug waved a negligent hand at her, then leered at the merchant. “Give us the money, lady.”
Amaranthe drew her sword. The thugs displayed less concern than men chattered at by irate chipmunks. Probably rightfully so. They outnumbered her, and they had the miens of ex-soldiers. While she had undergone weapons and unarmed combat training at the Enforcer Academy, that was mediocre compared to the constant drilling military men endured. And they knew it. One of the robbers assumed a bored ready stance, lips canted in a knowing smirk.
A glance at the back of the building revealed no one charging in to help. What was keeping Wholt?
The thug shifted his weight to advance.
Amaranthe bent her legs, drew her shoulder back, and hurled her sword with all her strength. Reflexively, both men lifted their blades to block. As soon as they realized her weapon would not touch them, they burst into chortles.
The men were not her targets.
Her sword crashed into the ceiling-high collection of coffee tins behind them. The stack exploded, full canisters pummeling the robbers. Metal thudded against skin and bone, and the men cursed as they flailed, tripped, and inevitably toppled. One hit his head on the counter as he went down and did not move when he landed. The other fell, scrambled to rise, slipped on a canister, and cracked his chin on the tile floor.
Amaranthe picked her way through the mess, stepped on one man’s back, and collected their weapons. She handed the pistol to the merchant who pointed the weapon gleefully at the prone robbers while Amaranthe cuffed one and found twine to tie the other.
“Nicely done, Corporal,” a quiet voice said from the direction of the front door.
“Thanks.” She started to look up to identify the speaker when Wholt burst in through the back. “Where have you been?” she demanded. “Did you get lost?”
“There was a third one out back. I had to...uh...uhm...” Wholt’s mouth dropped open as he stared past Amaranthe. “Good morning, Sire,” he finally managed.
Sire? Amaranthe slowly stood and turned. Crowded at the entrance, six tall
broad men wearing black gold-trimmed uniforms—the color of the emperor’s elite bodyguard—framed a smaller man of eighteen or nineteen. He had pale brown hair, gentle dark brown eyes, and yes, his was the same face that adorned the currency in the merchant’s strongbox. Emperor Sespian Savarsin, in power this last year since reaching his majority.
“Good morning,” the emperor answered.
Amaranthe stammered a greeting. What’s the emperor doing down here? Shouldn’t he be somewhere safe, doing emperorly things? She ransacked her memory for the proper protocol and found...nothing. Emperors did not traditionally saunter through the waterfront shops. They certainly did not mingle with people of the labor class.
The merchant, equally flustered, curtseyed deeply and said, “Sire, I must apologize for the state of disarray infecting my store.”
The emperor arched his eyebrows. “I should be apologizing to you, madam. For allowing this—” he gestured toward the fallen thugs, “—in the city. Fortunately, our enforcers are quite competent.” He bounced a little at this and smiled at Amaranthe, more like a young man hungering for a friend than a leader over millions. Don’t be presumptuous, Amaranthe.
“Yes, Sire,” she said. It felt like a safe answer.
“What’s your name?” he asked. “Both of your names?” He waved to include Wholt.
“Corporal Lokdon,” Amaranthe said. “And this is soon-to-be Sergeant Wholt,” she added when Wholt did not manage to utter anything intelligible.
A ponderous man with flapping jowls thundered through the doorway. Beads of sweat gleamed on his face. The emperor sighed like a boy whose tutor had caught up with him.
“Sire, there you are. They’ve got the fire under control. Do you want to finish the inspection now?”
“Not really.” The emperor smiled wistfully.
“Commander of the Armies Hollowcrest will be expecting our punctual return.”
“I suppose.” The emperor cast a mournful gaze at Amaranthe as he trooped out the door flanked by his guards.
When the entourage had departed, Wholt shuffled through the tins and elbowed Amaranthe. “I think he liked you.”
She snorted. “Yes, I’m surely destined to be the next empress.”
“That might be ambitious, but you could have asked him for a promotion.”
For a moment, Wholt’s words enticed her. If the emperor told the chief someone should be promoted to sergeant, surely it would happen. And she deserved it, didn’t she? She worked harder than Wholt. But no.... “If I get promoted, it’ll be because I earned it, the same as everyone else. Not because I begged someone for a favor.”
“You have earned it.”
* * * * *
The bodies were charred into anonymity and still smoldering. Eight, Amaranthe counted as she walked around the pile, sodden floorboards creaking ominously beneath her feet. It was a dangerous spot, since the fire had also charred the support posts and beams in the basement. Several boards had already given way and plunged below. A great hole in the floor marked the spot where a worktable had stood. Yet she stayed, breathing air thick with the stench of fire and death, seeking answers from the carnage.
The corpses had been there, piled just like this, when the first firemen walked in. They had left the bodies untouched for the enforcers. The flames had seared facial features, clothing, skin and hair color into indistinguishable black lumps. Amaranthe could not even tell gender for certain.
“Definitely arson, sir,” a rookie enforcer reported to Wholt, who stood near a window. The flooring was more stable next to the walls. “We found empty kerosene tins downstairs.”
“Thank you, ah...”
“Quets,” Amaranthe supplied the name, looking up from the bodies to focus on the younger enforcer. He and his partner had been nearby and had also responded early to the fire. “What else is down there?”
“Just some tools, a bunch of pots stored on shelves, and the biggest kiln I’ve ever seen,” Quets said.
“One wonders why they didn’t just cremate the bodies in the kiln,” Amaranthe mused. “Why torch the whole building?”
“They?” Wholt asked.
She could only shrug, having no idea yet who ‘they’ were nor why anyone would choose a pottery studio for a mass murder. Of course, the corpses could have come from anywhere and been brought here and arranged like this for...what? She shook her head.
“Quets,” Amaranthe said, “take the trolley back to HQ, tell the chief what we’ve found and that we need a steam wagon. The Sawbones will want to take a look at these corpses.”
The smell of singed flesh was turning her stomach. Amaranthe picked a path around puddles and over to the window where Wholt stood. Soot stained the panes that were not broken. Snowflakes flitted in through burned holes in the ceiling, mingling with water dripping from the rafters.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“It’s a mess.”
“Very perceptive, thank you.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Wholt asked. “Someone killed a bunch of people and wanted to cover it up by rendering the bodies unidentifiable. They probably meant for them and the floor to burn completely. The Fire Brigade was just too good.”
“Hm,” Amaranthe said. “I want to look in the basement. Then we’ll have to interview the artists who work here, see if anybody—eight anybodies—are known to be missing and if anything odd has been going on around here. We should find out who owns the building too.”
“We?” Wholt raised his eyebrows. “We’re patrollers, not detectives. The chief will send a lieutenant down to oversee the investigation.”
Amaranthe grimaced. He was right, of course. This case would make the papers, though, probably the front page. Working on it might be just the opportunity she needed to stand out and earn her promotion. Maybe she could get herself put on the investigation team.
“I bet it’s Sicarius,” Wholt said.
Amaranthe blinked. “What?”
Wholt was staring at the charred corpses. “You know, Sicarius, the assassin, the only criminal with a million-ranmya bounty on his head. The only criminal with a bounty signed by Emperor Sespian himself.”
“I know who Sicarius is,” Amaranthe said. Thanks to that bounty, everyone in the empire knew who he was. “But why would you think he’s responsible for this?”
“He’s back in town. I just heard last night. One of the gymnasium pickpockets we’ve been after all winter turned himself in. Seems he was in the baths, doing his looting circuit, and he touched Sicarius’s towel before realizing whose stuff he was trolling through. The thief spent half the day looking over his shoulder and then showed up at HQ wanting to be arrested so he could hide out in a cell.”
“Did the chief send some men to the gym?” Amaranthe asked, annoyed at the idea of a criminal daring to exercise and bathe in public facilities.
“He claims he doesn’t believe the pickpocket,” Wholt said. “I don’t blame him. The last time Sicarius was in Stumps, we lost thirty men trying to get him.”
“I remember.” A couple of men from her class at the Academy had been among the slain. Still, the idea of looking the other way for a criminal did not sit well with her. Throwing men at someone so dangerous might not be the answer, but surely there were alternatives. If she were chief, there was much she would do differently. Amaranthe sighed. “I’m checking the basement.”
Several of the blackened wooden stair treads were broken where the big rookie’s foot had gone through. For once, being smaller than all the men was helpful, for she made it to the bottom unscathed.
Fallen boards, broken tables, and other detritus from above littered the cement floor. When she spotted a soot-covered broom in the corner, she almost went over to grab it. Alas, whoever came to investigate officially would not appreciate her cleaning the crime scene.
Her foot crunched on ceramic as she walked toward the kiln entrance. None of the pots on the back shelves were bro
ken. Why were there shards all over the floor?
She knelt for a closer look.
The first piece she picked up didn’t look like part of a pot at all. Cone-shaped, it reminded her of a cup, but since it couldn’t be set flat, it seemed fairly useless in that capacity. She turned it sideways and then upside down. In the last position it looked a bit like a perked dog or cat ear, though it was far too large to be either.
Other shards she picked up were even less identifiable. It would take someone with a lot of time and devotion to piece together the puzzle.
“There are fresh ashes in here,” Amaranthe called when she reached the firebox.
Wholt dared a few steps down the precarious staircase. “You may not have noticed, but there are fresh ashes everywhere.”
“These are from the kiln, not the building fire.” Amaranthe held her hand above the embers. “They’re still warm.”
“Again, you may not have noticed, but everything is still warm here.”
“You’re not being very helpful, Wholt. I’m saying the kiln was used recently.”
“I imagine people fire pots here every day.”
She grabbed a poker and overturned gray coal to find still-red embers. “How about in the middle of the night?”
Wholt had no sarcastic answer for that question.
“What if...” Amaranthe chomped on her lip and eyed the broken pieces of ceramic on the floor. “What if the fire wasn’t about covering up the bodies at all? Or maybe that was a secondary reason. What if someone was down here, trying to destroy something in the kiln, but there wasn’t enough room?” That seemed unlikely given its massive two-story size. “Or maybe they were making something in the kiln, something they didn’t want anyone to see. Or what if—”
“Emperor’s balls, Amaranthe. What nefarious thing could you possibly make in a kiln?”
“I, well, you’re probably right. I’m just thinking out loud.”
“Well, quit it. The steam wagon is here, and, yup, there’s a lieutenant from the NoDoc District. Better get up here before he yells at you for disturbing things.”