Firebrand

by A. J. Hartley

  “You think they’d retreat into the bush?” I said, not liking the idea.

  “They wouldn’t cross the river,” said Dahria, considering an old tea-colored map hanging on the parlor wall. “That would be too conspicuous, as well as leading into the heart of the city.”

  “So they’d head west along the south bank,” I mused.

  “Avoiding ranches owned by whites, looking for the closest thing to their own people.”

  “Unassimilated Mahweni,” I said.

  Mnenga, I thought, and his name brought a rush of comfort, as if I had been waiting for a reason to seek him out and it had finally appeared like an impala, peering at me from behind a bush. I suppressed a smile and said, “Herders and bush people, neither of which are easy to stumble upon down there.”

  “Which they wouldn’t know,” Dahria said, “so they’ll wander upriver.”

  “That would put them opposite the Drowning,” I said. “Someone there might have seen something on the far bank.”

  “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” said Dahria brightly. “Somewhere for you to start looking.”

  “I’m not allowed in the Drowning, remember?” I said.

  She frowned.

  “What’s on the other side of the river?” she asked.

  I shook my head, feeling suddenly uneasy, like a child waking from a nightmare and knowing that discussing it wouldn’t help—or uneasy and stupid, because I knew that what I wanted to say made no more sense than Tanish’s tales of the Gargoyle. But Dahria’s critical stare got to me, and the words came out anyway.

  “The haunted place,” I said.

  “What?” she exclaimed, mockery lighting her face.

  “I know,” I said miserably. “It’s what they always used to say to stop us crossing the river. It’s ancient Mahweni land. Sacred, I think. There’s some sort of ruined temple there, and a burial ground.”

  “Didn’t you grow up around temples and burial grounds of your own?” asked Dahria.

  “Lani temples, yes,” I said, feeling ridiculous and ashamed. “But this is … I don’t know. Different. Foreign. Weird. Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t say I wouldn’t investigate.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Dahria smugly. “Investigating. Like a professional detective or spy or whatever my brother thinks you are. I’ll try not to tell him you’re afraid of ghosts.”

  I gave her a baleful look and hoped to all the gods that she wouldn’t.

  * * *

  I GLOWERED MY WAY past the Standard’s doorman, asked Sureyna about reports of unassimilated Mahweni on the south bank, and explained why I was going to the Drowning so that someone would come looking if my trip across the river went badly. Or so I told myself. I think I really wanted her to talk me out of it. But she nodded noncommittally, and as soon as I stopped talking, she changed the subject.

  “So here’s a thing,” she said. “I spoke to the people at Elitus, who did everything they could to tell me nothing at all and threatened to have me arrested for trespassing. But the neighbors had told me that the night Agatha Markeson died there had been fireworks and the Elitus staff eventually confessed that there was a reception in honor of the Grappoli ambassador and a visiting dignitary from Istilia. One Lady Ki Misrai. A princess, no less.”

  “Really?” I said carefully. “I’m sure a club like that hosts those kinds of events all the time.”

  “I thought so too,” she said, clearly pleased with herself, “but, being the responsible reporter I am, I thought I’d get my facts right before printing anything. So I went to the Istilian embassy, and you’ll never guess what.”

  “What?”

  “They have never heard of this Lady Ki Misrai.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” she said, giving me a level look. “I got to thinking about how you said you had been there, how you had seen the old woman’s body and all, and I began to wonder. Guess how many female Lani work as servants at Elitus?”

  I sighed.

  “How many?” I said.

  “None,” she said. “So I’m wondering how someone like you—”

  “All right,” I said. “That’s enough.”

  “You really are quite the chameleon, aren’t you, Ang? Assuming that’s your actual name.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  She grinned, glad that her hunch had been right and, in a grudging sort of way, impressed.

  “One more thing,” she said. “Since, despite your shape-changing, you really are both a Lani and a steeplejack—”

  “Or I was,” I said, half joking.

  “Or you were. What do you know about the Gargoyle?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Not you too,” I said. “If you want to be considered a serious journalist, I wouldn’t even bother asking about it.”

  “Didn’t say I believed in it myself,” said Sureyna. “But other people apparently do, and that makes it news.”

  “People have always believed in it, but it wasn’t news before. The ones who believe in it now are no smarter, so why do you care?”

  “The people who believe in it now aren’t just Lani steeplejacks.”

  “Ah,” I said with a bleak smile. “What was a quaint and silly folk belief becomes a major news item when white people believe in it.”

  “Not just white,” said Sureyna. “Some of the reports are coming from the black shanties by the docks. That’s not the point, though, because this isn’t just about rumor and spooky stories. Not anymore. The police have three bodies—all with their throats cut—which they are linking to sightings of a strange, hairless figure seen scaling high buildings.”

  I stared at her.

  Three bodies?

  “They’re sure it’s not an animal?” I asked. Weancats and leopards are both climbers, though they rarely venture near the city.

  “Seem pretty sure,” she said. “Animals rarely take your money.”

  “Where did the attacks take place?”

  “All over. Two on the south bank, one in the Financial District, one outside the Trade Exchange, one on Fifth Street. The fatal attacks were…” She pulled out her notepad and, for once, had to check the details. “By the South Road fish market, in Mahweni Old Town, and under the suspension bridge—north bank. You think there’s a pattern?”

  “Not one I can see. Who were the victims?”

  “A corrupt banker called Jeremiah Walpole, who had business dealings with the disgraced secretary of trade, Archibald Mandel,” she said, off her notes again. “A street thug called Jarvis who ran an opium and prostitution ring, and an unidentified white male who was killed, according to a witness, while threatening said witness with rape.”

  “So not huge losses to society,” I said.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” said Sureyna, raising a finger as if I had just hit the nail on the end. “Multiple sightings, multiple robberies, but only three killings, and all of people the city won’t—not to put too fine a point on it—be sorry to see the back of. So now while some people are terrified of the Gargoyle, others are starting to see him—it, whatever—as a hero. A vigilante.”

  I shook my head.

  “The Gargoyle’s a fairy story,” I said. “Or I always thought so. Maybe someone is copying the old legends. Or maybe it’s some homeless crazy person. There are good secret places to hide out in the city if you have a head for heights. I suppose if you were looking to attack and rob people, dropping on them from above would work pretty well. You’d be amazed how little people look up, even when they’re on their guard.”

  It was Sureyna’s turn to make a face.

  She said, “I’d keep insights like that to yourself.”

  I grinned. Still, the idea that the Gargoyle story might contain a germ of murderous truth gave me pause. I was glad I had Madame Nahreem’s pistol in my satchel, even if it did feel more like an ornament than a weapon.

  “One more thing,” I said. “You have a copy of that story about Darius’s identity?”


  “Sure,” she said. “Why?

  “Something I want to check on my way to the Drowning.”

  * * *

  VANDEMAR PAINT AND SIGNAGE was located above a tobacconist’s facing the South Road fish market, on a narrow, soot-blackened terrace once quite respectable but long since gone to seed. Several windows had been replaced with permanent shutters, and the mbeti nest on the chimney suggested it had not been swept in a season or more. The proprietor, a skinny, fiftyish man in a suit a little small for him, threadbare at the elbows, looked up from his desk with a welcoming air that faltered tellingly when he took in my appearance.

  “Mr. Vandemar?” I asked. “I’m from the Standard. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about the late Karl Gillies?”

  “Karl,” said Vandemar, sitting back and removing his spectacles with a wistful expression. “I was wondering if you people would come back. One minute he was the talk of the town, the next … nothing. I thought I’d have a line of customers right round the corner.”

  He seemed quite indignant about it.

  “Well, I’m here to fix that,” I lied, smiling. The fact that the man saw the death of his employee as an opportunity to promote his business sickened me a little. “You told the police you were surprised to learn that he was Darius the cat burglar.”

  “Astonished,” he said.

  “He never gave you any reason to suspect he had a separate source of income?”

  “Never, but then he was very private, Karl was. I didn’t even know he had a lady friend, let alone a fiancée.”

  I remembered the newspaper reporting that the woman to whom he had been engaged had been the one to identify his body.

  “You didn’t meet her till after he died?” I asked.

  “Still haven’t,” he said.

  “Not even at the funeral?”

  “There weren’t no funeral,” he said. “Not that I were invited to, anyways. I figured it were a family-only thing.”

  “Did he have a large family?”

  “So far as I knew, he lived alone. Parents were dead.”

  I paused. Something about this felt wrong.

  “Was Karl good at his job, Mr. Vandemar?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes,” said the proprietor, breaking into a real smile. “Wonderful brushwork, Karl had. Best I’ve ever seen. Met … met … What’s the word? Careful, you know. Painstaking.”

  “Meticulous?”

  “Exactly. Meticulous. Fancy a person like you knowing a big word like that! Anyways, yes. Meticulous. That’s what he was. If I had to describe Karl’s work, I’d say it was meticulous.”

  “And a good climber?” I asked.

  “Climber? Oh lord, no!” said Vandemar, chuckling.

  “No?”

  “Couldn’t go more than two rungs on the ladder without freezing up. Scared of heights! All the high boards had to be brought down so he could work on them. Doubled the cost, of course, but some people still wanted him.”

  I stared at him. The man I had pursued over the rooftops had been deft, confident.

  “So it must have come as a shock to hear that he was Darius the cat burglar,” I said.

  “Exactly so,” he answered. “Must have been some kind of mistake. That’s what I told the police when they came round. A mistake of some kind, I told them, but they didn’t want to know. Well, they wouldn’t, would they? Like the papers. Present company excepted, of course. But then someone like you might think differently about people like us.”

  “People like me?”

  “Lani,” he said. “No offense meant. Speak as I find, me. Never had any cause to gripe about the Lani. But the society types, they wanted their cat burglar to be Baron Such and Such. When they found out it was just Karl, well. Didn’t want to know, did they?”

  He frowned again, and I realized he hadn’t just been indignant about missing out on some business. He resented the way Karl had been ignored and, by extension, how he—we—were always ignored by what he called the society types. When this was all done, I would have to ask Sureyna to write some version of the article I had promised.

  “You said he had no girlfriend that you knew of,” I said. “Was he not popular with the ladies?”

  Vandemar’s manner shifted, and he was suddenly on the defensive.

  “Nothing was ever proved,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Those girls who said he … that he made unwelcome advances,” said Vandemar, his color rising. “All charges were dropped, and I’d thank you not to bring the matter up again. Slandering a dead man on the word of some gin-totting floozy? It’s not right.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “He was a good lad, was Karl,” he answered, daring me to contradict him. “Liked his bit of fun is all.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Vandemar,” I said, with less compassion than I had felt only moments before. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  CHAPTER

  25

  I GAVE RAHVEY HER money while the children were about their games, and she vanished it into her purse.

  “Aab is still playing with Radesh,” I observed, watching the disconcerting deaf girl. There was a lack of self-consciousness about the child that felt wild, feral. Rahvey shrugged wearily.

  “Nothing else for her to do,” she said, adjusting Kalla who was nursing.

  “They come down here most days?” I asked.

  “Yes. Why? You think they should be in school learning about Panbroke and reading books?”

  “No,” I said, ignoring the edge in her tone. “I just wondered if they had seen other children. Not Lani. Maybe on the other side of the river.”

  “Over there?” asked Rahvey. “What would anyone be doing over there? Where the old temple is, you mean? No one in their right mind would go over there. You know there’s a clavtar? Been there at least a year. We hear it roaring at night all the way across the river.”

  “Do you mind if I ask the children?”

  Rahvey shrugged. “Why would I mind?” she remarked. It was a challenge rather than a real question.

  “Wouldn’t want to intrude,” I said.

  “Just because you pay me doesn’t mean we’re not sisters anymore,” she remarked stiffly, avoiding my gaze.

  I smiled and, emboldened by her concession, said, “I hear Tanish has been visiting.”

  “Always under my feet, he is,” said Rahvey, though she couldn’t quite suppress a grin. “Still, makes a change to have a boy around. So long as he doesn’t get ideas about my girls. I don’t want Jadary marrying some two-bit steeplejack. No offense.”

  “None taken,” I said. I bit my lip. This seemed as good an opening as I was going to get. “You want good things for your daughters,” I said. “I understand. So how would you feel if I brought a teacher here? Paid her myself. Just for a couple of hours in the evening. You wouldn’t mind that, would you?”

  Rahvey got that watchful look of hers, as if I might be up to something, but she shrugged, still looking away.

  “I don’t see why not,” she said, her eyes on the infant at her breast.

  I nodded, then stood up and waved up to what passed for a road so close to the Drowning’s uncertain ground. Bertha got to her feet and began to plod her way toward me.

  “You brought someone?” asked Rahvey, turning back to me aghast. “Today?”

  “I thought you wouldn’t mind,” I said.

  My sister was flustered, torn between indignant speeches about how it was her job to make decisions about what was best for her family, even about involving non-Lani in the life of her children, and something softer, something grateful and pleased, even thrilled, which flashed through her unwary eyes. Before she could resolve the conflict, Bertha was there, and she was big and beaming, and Rahvey was embarrassed into nodding and smiling graciously.

  “I am Bertha,” said Bertha, so loudly a bittern that had been motionless in the reeds took startled flight.

  “Her hearing is not the best,” I said qu
ickly to Rahvey, who had nearly fallen off her rock, “but she has training and she speaks good Feldish. She reads and writes. Knows math and geography—”

  “Rahvey,” said my sister, offering her hand.

  The black woman shook it once.

  “Where are the children?” she roared, loud as the putative clavtar.

  Rahvey nodded down the bank, and as Bertha followed her gaze, she gave me an uncertain look. I shrugged and left my sister sitting on her rock with Kalla, and Bertha followed me down to the other children.

  The four of them, made five by Tanish, who had been half adopted by the girls as a kind of strange, dashing brother, were in a sandy hollow surrounded by long grass. Radesh was singing to the rest, and her sisters were clapping along, laughing to themselves. Aab was fiddling with something in the sand, barely aware of the others, as if trapped in a bubble of glass.

  They gazed at Bertha wide-eyed when I introduced her as Miss Dinangwe, but she showed no self-consciousness or irritation, even when they giggled at her booming voice. In fact, she seemed to expand with patience, generosity, and goodwill, and it occurred to me how hard it must have been for such a person to spend her days slaving over a loom.

  When they had introduced themselves, I said that I would leave them to get to know each other. While Bertha was producing a few ragged picture books from her bag, items which the children treated as exotic treasures from some distant land, I asked them if they had seen any black children in the area. The Drowning was exclusively a Lani district, and it was a matter of some concern on the rare occasions that Mahweni were glimpsed near the shanty. The girls shook their heads.

  “On the other side of the river?” I tried, dropping to my haunches so I could look them in the face.

  They stared at me.

  “In the haunted place?” asked Radesh, standing up and turning to stare across the river. On the far bank you could just make out the rough stone top of an ancient, moldering structure through the marula trees. “No one goes there.”

  Bertha was watching closely, studying our lips.

  “Sometimes we see baboons or hippos,” said Jadary. “They come down to the river to drink, but we tell the village if the water is shallow enough for any to come across. The hippos, I mean. The baboons don’t cross, but we have them on this side too.”