The crowd in front of them was ugly. Disgusted looks, sneers, spitting on the ground. More than a few shouting that the Fuergans should get the blazes out of their city.
Corrie didn’t exactly disagree.
As soon as the procession passed, the crowd on the street swooped in behind them, almost like mad animals. Corrie knew folk were in plenty of a hurry and this deal was clogging up their day, but there was no rutting need for that.
Then she saw why. Every so often when the feek lady reached the height of her wailing noise, she threw a handful of coins behind her.
“Trick,” Corrie whispered, since the skirt was walking along near them, “we gonna do something about that stupidity?”
“They’re her coins to throw away,” Trick said.
“Yeah, but—” Corrie glanced back. She didn’t see any fights breaking out behind them, not yet, but she imagined it was only a matter of rutting time. “That’s trouble brewing.”
“This all is trouble brewing,” Trick said. “Let’s just get them rutting home, all right?”
“You’re the specs here,” Corrie said.
The ride to the East took them the better part of an hour, and they were rutting up the traffic for all of Inemar in the process. Crossing Upper Bridge probably fouled things all the way across the river.
When they reached the East proper, though, things shifted. Now other feeks were approaching, and these folks were wailing and throwing coins in the air. More than one landed on Corrie. Then these new feeks joined in the procession.
“How much more of this, Trick?”
“To their home, I presume. Only a few more blocks.”
Suddenly there were shouts and cries up ahead. The front riders of the Cascade came charging back.
“We got a problem,” one said. “They ain’t moving.”
“Threw a rock at my horse!” the other said.
“I got this,” Corrie said. She spurred her horse forward to the intersection, where a group of eastern folk were gathered up.
“Clear off,” she shouted. “We’ve got a procession coming through.”
The mass of them shouted at her in their gibberish, and then shouted at the procession.
Corrie drew her crossbow. “Rutting well clear off, tossers!”
That only enraged them, and more of their type ran over. Imachs, Corrie thought.
“She told you to clear off!” Two more specs were on the scene—she recognized them, Kellman and Mirrell. Kellman was shouting at a specific one of the machs.
“This is our place!” the one Imach shouted back. “We will not suffer the indignity of their profane ritual!”
The procession had reached the intersection and halted. Feeks were now shouting at the machs, and the machs threw it right back.
“Form a wall!” Corrie shouted, putting her horse between the two groups. Several of the other riders took formation with her.
“Get your people to disperse!” Mirrell yelled.
The Imach leader pointed an accusing finger at the feeks. “Tell them to do that.”
The feek lady strode to the front of her people. She saw the Imach leader and shrieked in her own tongue. “Hrenssesa!”
The feeks all shouted and pressed forward.
Tricky tried to force her way to the front, but couldn’t make any progress in the angry throng.
“Hrenssesa!” the feek lady shouted again. “Murderer!”
Minox came out of the compound more troubled than when he went in. He knew nothing more about the case, had very few theories—beyond a wild speculation that some mystical element had an effect on Hieljam ab Wefi, and was now having a residual effect on him. But that was hardly something he could prove. Protector Hilsom would laugh it away.
“Inspector?” One of the red-haired Tsouljans was addressing him from the entranceway.
“Yes?” Minox asked. “Is there something you need to ask?”
“Will you be continuing the embargo of this facility?” His Tsouljan accent was strong, but he spoke Trade with confidence.
Minox’s own patrol people looked to him, their expressions indicating they wanted the answer to that as well. “I’m afraid it will need to continue. The entire compound is still an active crime scene, and everyone who is engaged here under suspicion.”
“Understandable,” the Tsouljan said. “This place must return to being a sanctuary of peace. We will enforce that.”
So the red-haired caste were peace officers. Green were laborers. Minox still hadn’t quite discerned the difference between the yellow and the blue, but they seemed to represent mental and spiritual disciplines.
“Specs!” Phillen Hace came running over, the page from the Protector’s Office right behind him. “You gotta come!”
“What’s going on, Hace?”
“A group of Imachs are up in Mirrell and Kellman’s faces. And there’s the Fuergan . . . something, like a parade, and we’ve got a Cascade Ride around it, but they’re gonna bump right into each other!”
Trouble indeed. “You, page, what’s your name again?”
“Torvie,” the Protector’s page said. “Torvie Belt.”
“Belt, I’m going to need Writs of House Binding. Possibly a lot of them.”
“All right,” Belt said. “I’ll need names to bring to Mister Hilsom.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t have them yet.” He turned to the two regulars guarding the Tsouljan compound. “I’ll put out a whistle call in just a bit. You two need to ignore it and stay here. No matter what. Even a Riot Call. Hear?”
“Heard,” said one of the regulars.
“Boys, with me,” Minox said, pulling his whistle out of his coat pocket. This one wasn’t going to be solved with his crossbow.
“Sir,” Belt said. “I’m serious, I can’t go to the Protector with a request for an open House Binding. Certainly not several.”
“I understand, Belt,” Minox said.
“What do you need from me, sir?” Hace asked.
“You’ve got a pad and charcoal, Hace?”
“Always, sir,” Hace said.
“Good. When we get there, you’ll be taking names.”
“There” was only two blocks away, where a clowder of Imachs were riled up in the center of an intersection, screaming and jeering at the procession of Fuergans. Hieljam ab Tishai was at the forefront of the Fuergans, screaming right back at the Imachs. Inspector Rainey was at the woman’s side, trying to restrain her without actually putting hands on the woman. On the Imach side, Kellman and Mirrell were not showing as much restraint. They were trying to grab the man leading the Imachs, but the rest of his crowd were blocking them.
A few horsepatrol had interceded in between the groups, but their presence didn’t look like it would hold either side off for long. One small bit of comfort was that Corrie was one of the horsepatrol here. The rest of the horsepatrol looked far too inexperienced. Minox wasn’t sure if any of them would hold up once the dam broke here.
“It’s gotten worse,” Hace muttered.
Minox nodded and blew a call for regulars to come. Hopefully the show of color would prevent any violence, but there was already a fair amount of color present, and that wasn’t dissuading them.
“All of you, disperse!” Minox shouted to no one in particular, approaching the horse line that Corrie’s squad had formed.
“We will not!” Hieljam ab Tishai shouted. “We will finish our srehtai, and we will not be impeded by these animals!”
“Animals!” the man in the center of the Imach group snarled. “How dare a hesesaan like yourself—”
“Enough, you!” Mirrell shouted. He pushed past the two that were blocking him and grabbed the Imach leader.
“You dare put hands?” One of the other Imachs, on the edge of that group, grew incensed. He grabbed a ston
e off the ground and hurled it at Mirrell.
Minox reacted, channeling magic to block the stone before it struck Inspector Mirrell.
Nothing was there. The magic didn’t flow, nothing happened.
Kellman, however, was on point. He lurched in front of his partner and caught the stone, sending it right back to the head of the man who threw it. That man howled and dropped to the ground, blood flowing from his head.
Now footmen were swarming onto the scene. They took position on all sides, boxing the Imachs and Fuergans into their positions.
Minox stood still, shocked at what just happened. The magical energy was around him, he could feel it coursing through his bones, but . . . nothing. He tried to bring a flame to his fingertips, an ability he had long since mastered.
Nothing. The magic coursed through his body, to his hands, and went nowhere.
“Everyone just stay calm!” Inspector Rainey was yelling. Her eyes darted to Minox, clearly showing concern. Probably wondering why he was so inactive in this moment. “Next person to move on anyone else will be ironed and put in the wagon!”
Minox pulled himself out of his reverie. The mystery of his inability would have to wait.
“Officers!” he shouted. “Question every person here—Imach, Fuergan, Kieran, whatever.” He added the Kierans, when he saw a couple looking on from the outskirts. One of them was Iliari, and he would bet his next meal the other was Kenorax. “I want names, I want home addresses, or the closest equivalent. I want you to check papers. Then each and every person here will be escorted to their residence for Home Binding.”
“For what?” This came from Hieljam ab Tishai.
Belt nudged him on the hip. “Yeah, specs, for what?”
Rainey took a cue from this. “You mean besides public danger? You’re all persons of suspicion in the death of Hieljam ab Wefi Loriz.”
“You can’t possibly think that,” Hieljam ab Tishai said. “The man who would want him dead is right there.” She pointed her accusing finger at the Imach leader.
Mirrell had the man in an armlock, and looked like he wanted nothing more than to shove his face into the cobblestone. “You know this one, Tricky. He’s Assan Jabiudal.”
“Oh, he is?” Rainey came up close. “We’ve been looking to talk to you.”
“Yes, talk,” Jabiudal said. “While Dahar bleeds to death in the street.”
Minox noticed the man, now inert on the ground, blood coming from the wound on his head. “Call for Yellowshields,” he told Hace. The page blew his whistle, while Minox closed in on the injured man.
“He threw a rock at city constables,” Kellman said, coming over. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You responded with equal force,” Minox said. “Or at least equivalent.” Kellman was a good deal more muscular than Dahar was. Minox turned the man onto his back. The gash on his head was bleeding quite heavily. Minox pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it against the wound.
“He’s going to have to go to Ironheart,” Kellman said. “I just . . . snapped back.”
“Hold it there,” Minox said, taking Kellman’s hand and pressing it on the wound. He didn’t have time to assuage Kellman’s guilt.
“Can you just, you know?” Kellman made a vague gesture over the bleeding man. The meaning was quite clear: Kellman wanted Minox to magically heal the man. Minox didn’t have any idea how to do that.
“No, I can’t,” Minox said, and left it at that. He went to Rainey, noting out of the corner of his eye that Yellowshields were approaching. The footpatrol regulars were following their orders, taking names and checking papers. Hace and Belt were hard at work gathering the information from the regulars.
“We must finish the srehtai,” Hieljam ab Tishai said. “It is unjust that my isahresa’s honor and peace is disrupted, especially by that man.”
“We’ll get you home,” Rainey told her. “You and your isahresa.”
“I have a crucial query,” Minox said. “When we asked you yesterday, your concern was about Nalassein Hajan. So why do you now call Mister Jabiudal a murderer?”
“Hajan came to show his respects midday,” Hieljam said. “He told me that the weapon that killed my isahresa was a Kadabali one. He told me about Hajan.”
“What, exactly, did he tell you?”
“That Hajan was making threats to people who wouldn’t deal with him. My isahresa was not going to do that, which surely enraged Hajan.”
“What sort of deal?” Now this was necessary information.
“We have many arrangements all over the world, Inspector. I cannot speak in great detail of my isahresa’s long-term agendas. I was not privy to them.”
Footpatrol were clearing people out, one at a time. The immediate crisis seemed to be defused.
“Let me know when I can finish,” Hieljam ab Tishai said.
“Soon,” Rainey said. She stepped to the side with Minox. “What do you think? Is Jabiudal our man?”
“I think Miss Hieljam believes it. But that is hardly evidence.”
“What’s our play now? Besides Home Binding.”
“We talk to Hajan.”
“Hey, Mine,” Corrie said from her horse. “What’s our play, now that we’re here?”
Minox looked up at his sister. “I presume you’re on extra patrol, to counter the unrest from last night?”
“Presume rutting right.”
“For now, take Missus Hieljam and her people to their residence, and put them in under Home Binding.”
“Without a rolling writ?”
Minox pointed to Belt. “He’s your man.”
Corrie leaned down and lowered her voice. “You’re talking, like, thirty Writs of Binding. Won’t the Protector’s Office piss their shoes over that?”
“Likely,” Minox said. He pulled out his notepad from his pocket and his charcoal stylus. “Who is the command officer with feet on stone for tonight?”
“Beats the sewage out of me,” Corrie said.
“What are you thinking?” Rainey asked.
“I’m thinking I’d love to impose a curfew on the whole area,” Minox said, writing a quick note for the unknown night commander. “But I think that would put Hilsom into new levels of fit.”
“To say the least,” Rainey said.
Corrie guessed the instructions. “So you want a soft curfew. Strongly encourage folk to stay inside.”
“Exactly,” Minox said, tearing out the sheet and handing it to his sister. “I have a feeling tonight is going to be very challenging for you.”
A funeral rite nearly turned into a brawl. This was far away from the “minimal embarrassment” that Enbrain had asked for. And more fight than Satrine was in the mood for this late in the afternoon. The heat was oppressive, sticky, and threatening a rain that wouldn’t come.
Now the regulars and horsepatrol were rounding folk up. The Fuergans went quietly to their own blocks once the Imachs were cleared out of the way. The Imachs were hardly being quiet, especially Jabiudal. Most of them had to be searched for their papers, and hauled off by at least two or three footpatrol. Yellowshields came for the injured one—not Satrine’s problem. It was Kellman’s, though—the man looked devastated.
And Welling looked . . . spooked. Satrine suspected it had nothing to do with the incident.
“Unhand us!” This came from the Kierans who had come a bit too close to the proceedings. “Do you know who we are?”
Welling stepped forward, ready for response, though his face still betrayed that his attention was elsewhere. “You are Ravi Kenorax and Estiani Iliari. We met this morning, Mister Iliari.”
“Indeed, Inspector,” Iliari said. “I thought I made it clear you were to leave us alone.”
“Oh, is that how you think it works, Mister Iliari?” Satrine said. “I’d remind you that you are o
n Druth soil. Neither this neighborhood, nor your home, are an embassy. You are still subject to the law.”
“Then my lawyers will hear of this,” said Kenorax. Despite his Kieran appearance—the olive complexion and dark, almost wet hair—he had an accent indistinguishable from an educated South Maradaine resident. Which, Satrine reminded herself, was exactly what he was. Somehow she had expected Kenorax to be a pure Kieran in every aspect.
“In the meantime, we are issuing a Writ of Home Binding upon you. I don’t recommend you break it.”
“We’ll have to see it.”
“Belt!” Welling shouted out. “Make sure that Mister Ravi Kenorax and Estiani Iliari are the first to receive their Writs of Home Binding. And you should remember that address from this morning.”
“Aye, sir, on it,” the Protector’s page said.
“Good lad,” Welling said to no one in particular. “Footmen, stay with our friends here. If they try to escape, you are authorized to use force and bring them to the station.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Iliari’s eyes went wide.
“Oh, Mister Iliari,” Satrine said. “We would love to have the opportunity to question you in our house.”
Satrine walked away, with Welling beside her. “Mister Jabiudal now?” she asked him.
“Indeed,” Welling said.
“Something wrong, besides the obvious?” she asked him.
“Nothing directly relevant to the case.” She had learned well enough this was Minox Welling’s way of saying that something magical was bothering him and she should mind her own damn business. Which she did.
“You imprison my people?” Jabiudal snapped at them as they approached. He was staring down two regulars who were trying to get identification papers from a pair of Imach women. “And for what?”
“We’re sending them home with orders to stay there,” Welling said. “That’s very different from imprisoning.”
“It is unacceptable,” Jabiudal said.
“So is starting a brawl in the streets.”
“We started nothing,” Jabiudal said. “You on your horse tried to shove us away, then the Fuergan woman screamed at us.”
An Import of Intrigue Page 15