“I hope you don’t mind Eskandelic furnishings. I’ve gone completely native,” he said, gesturing with the pitcher at the cushions, which made some water slop over its sides and speckle the hard-packed earth of the floor. “I’d almost want to move here if I didn’t love my own country so much.”
“I know what you mean.” Willow took a seat on one of the fat pillows and accepted a cup of warm but delicious water. “Eskandel certainly has compensations for being away from home.”
“The next time I come here—you know, when I’m not fleeing the law—I’ll bring my wife. I think she’d appreciate it.” Rafferty sat across from Willow and set the pitcher beside himself. He saluted Willow. “Here’s to the comforts of exile.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Willow took another swallow of water.
“But you came on business. You have good timing. I was going to send word to you this afternoon.” Rafferty drained his cup and set it next to the pitcher. “I think my people have identified your assassin. His name is James Martin—Hardnose to his friends, not that he has any.”
“What makes you think it’s him?”
“Well, for one, he’s the sort of man who’d kill his own mother if the money was right. He’s a thief, but the kind that gives honest women like you—” Rafferty grinned—“a bad name. And it’s no secret he’s done that kind of work before. So if someone in high places was looking for an assassin, Martin’s name would definitely come up.”
“That’s still not proof.”
“No. But there were some high and mighty types poking around here a week ago—some of my people noticed them on account of how they wore fancy livery the way an Ascendant or Tremontanan noble might. Purple and silver, with some kind of snake on the chest, they said. And when I inquired further, it turned out Clara—very observant old woman, I must say—saw them meeting with Martin in secret.” He grinned again. “Clara may or may not have gone out of her way to observe this. What’s more, Martin hasn’t been seen around here in the last three days—specifically, since you came here looking for an assassin. Since he’s not exactly the shy and retiring type, I call that strange.”
Willow finished her water and set her cup down. “That’s good evidence, but I need proof.”
“That’s the best I can do for you. However…Martin has lodgings not far from here.”
“Does he?”
“He does. Lodgings that haven’t been rented out yet, given as how nobody’s too worried about his absence yet. Lodgings that might have important evidence.”
“That’s interesting. Too bad his landlord probably won’t let just anyone go in, on account of respecting his privacy.”
Rafferty nodded and scratched his chin, the very image of a man deep in thought. “Too bad we don’t know anyone who might not need the landlord’s permission.”
Willow stood. “Can you take me there?”
The lodging house wasn’t far, but it might as well have been in another city for all it resembled the tidy Tremontanan enclave. The streets were narrower, and filthy, and the smooth plaster surfaces of the walls were streaked with dirt. The windows were empty, dark holes, giving Willow the unsettling feeling that she was being watched. Well, it wasn’t just a feeling. The men and women loitering on the corners eyed her and Rafferty as they passed. They were a mix of Eskandelic and Tremontanan, and wore dirty laborers’ clothing even though they seemed unemployed. Willow sensed a couple of them falling into step behind them and instinctively drew closer to Rafferty, who was now dressed much as everyone around them was, though his clothes were clean.
“How safe is this place?” she said.
Rafferty glanced down at her. “Safe enough. They just want us to know we’re here on their sufferance. I’ve never been molested in all the times I’ve come here.”
“How many times is that?”
“Two.”
“You’re not filling me with confidence.”
“Keep walking.”
They were approaching a larger building, its dirty white façade marked with rust-orange stains trickling down from the window holes and the corners where the roof met the walls. “That’s it,” Rafferty said, nodding once. “Rents rooms to anyone who can pay. You want to go around back?”
“Not if we’re being followed. Come with me.” Willow walked straight up to the doorway, which was a dark, empty hole like the windows, and went inside. Behind her, Rafferty cursed, then hurried to catch up.
The little room smelled of old garlic and onions, the remains of a hundred Eskandelic dinners, barely covering the whiff of urine that rose from the hard dirt floor. Another dark opening led deeper into the building, which was cool by comparison to the street, if not entirely comfortable. A white-haired Eskandelic man, his face a mask of wrinkles, looked up at their entry. He was seated hunched over on a tall stool and held a frame strung with beads in his hands. “Two ryad a night. Each.” His tiny eyes glittered at them.
“We’re here to pick up a friend’s things,” Willow said. “James Martin. Can you show us his room?”
“Very clever,” the man said, then coughed long and hard into the crook of his elbow. He wiped his lips and continued, “You think me a fool?”
Willow held two large silver five-ryad pieces toward the man. “He also sent us to pay his back rent.”
The man eyed the coins, but made no move to take the money. Willow held her breath and tried to ignore the fizzing against her fingers. Behind her, Giles shifted his weight but said nothing. Finally, the old man said, “Back rent is fifteen ryad, not ten.”
Willow held out another coin. The man set the beaded frame on the floor and took the coins, tucking them away in a purse dangling at his side. Then he stood, slowly, as if it hurt to move. “Follow,” he said, and limped away through the dark doorway.
They went down a short hallway off which opened several doors—except they weren’t doors, they were heavy curtains, blocking out any light that might come from within. Mallets with heads the size of Rafferty’s fist hung at eye level next to each door. The place was so still, Willow found herself slowing to make her steps even more silent. Even the noise of the street was muted to a low hum.
At the end of the hall, slender wooden steps ascended toward a faint glow above that turned out to be a window on the first landing. Another hallway led off this landing, but their elderly guide kept climbing until they reached the fourth floor, where he took them to a curtained doorway like all the others. He held the curtain for Willow, smirking. Willow ignored him and ducked past—and gasped.
Someone had slashed open the bed, which wasn’t more than a rectangular cushion against one wall, and straw lay scattered across the floor. A large chest with a flat top was knocked over, its lid flung wide open, and cheap clothes and a much-used razor lay nearby. The light that came through the single window illuminated the rest of the broken furniture, a low table whose legs had been wrenched off and a handful of cushions, also slashed. Down fluff mingled with straw.
Willow took a few more steps into the room, followed by Rafferty and the old innkeeper, who sucked in a shocked breath and then began speaking rapidly in Eskandelic. “We’re too late,” Rafferty said.
“Maybe,” Willow said. Aside from her own knives and the coin she carried, there was Rafferty, with a bag of coin of his own and the mysterious iron cross she still hadn’t found a way to ask him about, the innkeeper and his belt pouch, and—something else. Something out of place.
She made a show of lifting the bed cushion, which was heavy and awkward even missing half its stuffing, and the innkeeper’s voice went shrill. “Not to touch! It not yours is!”
“I can’t make it worse,” Willow said, turning her attention to the broken table. How much searching should she pretend to do, with Rafferty and the irate old man standing right next to her?
“What are we looking for?” Rafferty said.
“Probably nothing. But if Martin had something important in his possession—this looks more like a focused
search than just tossing the place for valuables.” Now she wandered over to the window and casually stuck her head outside. “And it looks like heaven’s smiling on us today.”
The window looked out on a narrow, stinking alley far below, splotched with dark wet spots where people had dumped their chamber pots out the windows. A thin, weary-looking dog scratched dispiritedly at a pile of refuse, hunting for food. Below Martin’s window, someone had hammered a nail into the plaster, and hanging from the nail was a small cloth sack. Willow waited for the old man to turn away, then retrieved it and dropped it into her shirt without opening it. She already knew it held far more gold than anyone living in this neighborhood was likely to have legitimately.
She glanced back into the room. The old man was muttering under his breath, trying to fit one of the table legs back on. “If this is how you protect your guests, I think we won’t be staying after all,” she said.
“Out!” The man turned on her, waving his arms at them. “Your friend should not return, he unwelcome is!”
Willow shrugged and hurried down the stairs, Rafferty just behind her. “What did you say about heaven?” Rafferty murmured.
“Nothing. Let’s get back to your place and I’ll explain.”
The street was more crowded when they emerged. “The gainfully employed, returning from their gainful employment,” Rafferty said, “but we should still be cautious.”
The gold was a burning lump against Willow’s belly. “You have no idea how right you are.”
No one followed them this time, but she moved quickly anyway, fast enough that Rafferty had to stretch to keep up with her. She kept up the pace all the way back to Rafferty’s door, where she waited for him to open it for her, noticing that he hadn’t locked it. Such a strange contrast.
“We have our own ways of controlling crime,” Rafferty said when he saw her interest. “Now, what did you find?”
Willow removed the sack from her shirt and sat, pouring its golden contents on the floor. Rafferty hissed in shock and dropped to kneel next to her. “There’s got to be five hundred guilders here,” he said. “Tremontanan coin.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, necessarily. It’s not impossible to get hold of Tremontanan coin here, and someone might want to throw us off the trail, start us thinking Terence Valant was behind the assassination attempt.” Willow pushed the coin into a not-so-little heap. “What did you say the people were wearing? The high and mighty types?”
“Purple and silver. With a snake on the chest.”
“That’s not a sign and shield. Sounds Eskandelic.” Willow sighed and pushed her hair back from her face. She really needed a haircut. “Or it could be Terence trying to make us believe it’s a principality.”
“That’s strange,” Rafferty said, and plucked a coin from the pile. Willow looked at it with her eyes instead of her magic and saw it wasn’t a coin. It was a disk-shaped gold pendant, engraved with curly Eskandelic writing around its edge. In the center, its edges worn down, was the outline of a bird of prey, its wings outstretched. “Does it mean anything to you?”
“No. I wonder what it says.” Willow took it from Rafferty’s hand and put it into the pouch around her neck. “I’ll ask the harem. It might tell us more about our would-be assassin.”
“And I suppose you’ll give the gold to them too.”
“There’s no way of proving it was payment for killing Felix, but the harem should see it, too.”
“Pity.” Rafferty grinned and helped her scoop the money back into the bag. “I could do a lot with five hundred guilders.”
“So could I. But I was thinking of saving it for Felix. It seems fitting.”
“I agree. It’s nearly suppertime, you want to eat with me?”
“I’d better get all this back to the harem. But thanks for the offer.”
Rafferty walked her back through the enclave, introducing her to a few men and women as they went. “Are they all here because of the Ascendants?” Willow asked after one of these introductions.
“No, but most of them are, in one way or another.” Rafferty nodded at a young man carrying a fat burlap sack over each shoulder. “The ones who weren’t actually insurgents became such after having to flee Ascendant persecution, or losing their livelihoods when an Ascendant decided to take what wasn’t his. Maybe it’s as well Terence killed Edmund Valant, Willow—Tremontane was already coming apart under his rule, and this has just made the strain more apparent.”
“For Felix’s sake, I can’t wish Edmund dead.”
“But you know what I mean.”
“I do. I’ve always wondered how the Counts and Barons feel about the Ascendants. I mean, Countess Cullinan turns a blind eye to Ascendant excesses, but I’d think she might feel their power is a threat to hers.”
“We’ve heard rumors that Countess Huddersfield has raised her standard against Terence Valant. Funny, I always thought she and the Ascendants were in each other’s pockets.”
“I guess not.”
They reached what Willow recognized as the edge of the enclave, and Rafferty slapped her on the back in a friendly way. “Come again, and bring the boy if you think it’s safe,” he said. “I find I miss him, though I’m sure he doesn’t feel the same about me.”
Willow nodded. “He knows he can trust you, and that’s what matters. I’ll let you know if I learn anything.”
Chapter Nine
It was late afternoon, and the markets were beginning to close down. Vendors packed up their wares, toted them inside the doors and furled the awnings that had protected them against the sun’s glare. Willow threaded her way through the bustle, thought about buying a skewer of meat and vegetables from one of the sellers vocally hawking the last of his food, but decided against it. The Serjian Principality always served an excellent evening meal.
The streets were growing more crowded as men and women headed home for their own suppers, and Willow had to move quickly to avoid bumping into people. If she’d been a pickpocket, this would be her time, all these bodies in close proximity, most of them careless about their possessions. She’d already seen five people whose belt pouches she could have lifted without their even noticing. She twitched her shoulders and felt the pouches around her neck settle more securely, put her hand on her belt pouch, and dodged out of the path of one person—and directly into someone else.
The woman, dressed in dark robes and heavily veiled, gasped and pulled away. Her veil shifted, slid, and she grabbed it, but not before Willow saw her face. “Imara?”
Imara turned to run, but Willow grabbed her wrist and pulled her to a halt. “You know, if you’d just stayed put, I wouldn’t have suspected you of anything,” she said. “But that was too guilty a move for me to ignore. What are you up to? I’m going to guess you’re not supposed to be out of the Residence unaccompanied.”
“It is not your concern. Let me go.”
“Felix was nearly killed twice in the last ten days. Anything suspicious is my concern.”
The veil once again concealed Imara’s face, but Willow could guess at the mulish look she was probably wearing. She wrenched at Willow’s hold, but Willow tightened her grip. Time to push harder. “Were you meeting your young man?”
Imara gasped again. Then she pulled her veil aside. “How dare you spy on me!”
“It was accidental. You’re terrible at hiding.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Do not tell my mother. Please.”
“I won’t tell anyone anything if you can convince me you’re not a threat to Felix.”
“I would never harm him!”
“No, but you might leave him open to harm.” Willow let Imara go. “Let’s just talk, shall we?”
They walked to one of the little parks in the center of Umberan, cool and green in the late afternoon heat. It had a small white fountain whose basin was littered with coins, mostly copper and a few silver. Willow stared at them, marveling. No one in Aurilien would just leave coin lying around like that.
Imara sat on one of the white marble benches flanking the fountain and removed her veil entirely. Her red hair was matted at the temples with sweat, and she was flushed as if she’d been running. That dark fabric couldn’t be comfortable in the heat.
“I do not know where to start,” Imara said. “Petrosh Pieran is the man I intend to marry. We met at school—he lives here in Umberan, and we correspond on scholarly topics, or at least that is what my mother believes. He is not poor, but he is not wealthy enough to support a wife yet. I tell him I will work as well, but he will not hear me. He wants my parents to respect him, and he thinks that means money.”
“I don’t understand why you have to sneak around. If you—”
“Mother wants me to join a harem.” Imara’s voice was low and bitter. “She thinks I will waste my talent—” she spat the word like a curse—“if I do not. I cannot convince her otherwise.”
“Surely Janida doesn’t want you to be unhappy.”
“She thinks I will be unhappy anywhere else. And no man is good enough for me, according to my father.”
“But—is Pieran such a bad choice? I mean, why do they reject him?”
“They do not. They have never met him.”
“Sweet heaven, Imara, how can you say they think he’s not good enough for you if they don’t know him?”
Imara’s lips pressed tight together. “I know what they will say.”
“Maybe, but you really ought to give them a chance to prove you wrong.”
Imara glared at Willow. “I did not ask you for advice.”
“No, you didn’t. And it’s none of my business. So what’s your plan? Are you going to run away with him?”
“I do not know.” Imara shrugged. “I am tired of lying.”
“Then tell Janida and Salveri the truth. At worst they’ll do exactly what you fear and forbid you to meet with him. But I think you should trust them.”
Imara stood and settled her veil over her face. “You are hardly one to advise trust, when you do not trust yourself.”
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