by Hilari Bell
I drew my dagger and did so, my sore wrist a little stiffer in the cold. “What if Worthington goes out the back gate?”
“We’ll wait an hour after your messenger comes out, assume he’s gone, and go in. You told the boy to give the note to Worthington personally, didn’t you?”
“Just as we planned.”
“Then that’s the best we can do. Life’s not perfect—if Judith had done it, I’d be a lot warmer now. You know, she could still be involved. Maybe she’s Worthington’s inside man, instead of Trimmer.”
“And what’s her motive supposed to be now?”
Fisk grinned. “Maybe she and Worthington are lovers—she’s smart enough to look to the money.”
“He’s old enough to be her father!”
“So? It didn’t stop Max. Maybe…Is that the boy you hired to bring the note? So soon?”
“I told him to wait half an hour before he set out. Why stand in the cold longer than we must?”
“Um.”
We watched from the clinging shadows as the boy rang the gate bell. He was admitted so quickly, I blinked in astonishment.
“Does Worthington have some poor gatekeeper standing out in this cold?”
“Don’t feel too sorry for him. He’s got a little hut with a brazier, and I think the menservants take it in shifts. They spent the day a lot warmer than I did.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I managed to deliver a package earlier and become completely lost when I tried to find my way out. I got a pretty good look at the grounds. I didn’t get a chance to count the staff, but Lissy’s best guess was about two dozen.”
“Lissy?”
“Why not? She’d just spent the night here, and a bit of blackmail ensures discretion wonderfully well. She even drew me a rough floor plan.”
“Blackmail? You’re black—”
“Shh! Here he comes.”
The boy I’d paid to carry Nettie’s Ma’s note emerged from the gate and hurried down the street. By now ’twas almost too dark to see him go; only a hint of sunset colored the western sky, and the moons had not yet risen. It was very cold.
“The dance commences,” Fisk said softly. He sounded as if he was quoting someone, but before I could ask, he went on, “I wonder how long it will take Worthington to—Is that him? I’ll be hanged! I didn’t expect him to move so fast.”
Worthington stopped to talk with the gatekeeper, who passed him something—almost certainly the key. ’Twas considerate, not to keep his servant waiting in the cold while he was out disposing of inconvenient witnesses. I began to share Fisk’s dislike for the man, especially when he locked the gate behind him.
“Are you going to pick the lock?” I whispered, watching Worthington’s cloaked form stride briskly down the street toward the marish. He carried a long walking stick—something I’d never seen him use before.
“To keep him from slipping in the snow, no doubt,” Fisk murmured.
“Nettie’s Ma knows what she’s about.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt, but I doubt I succeeded.
Fisk grimaced. “No, I’m not going to kneel on cold stone for ten minutes while every neighbor peers out his window and wonders whether he should fetch the sheriff. We’re going over the back wall, which will take about ten seconds.”
And so it proved, for in this tidy part of town they’d placed bins for the midden outside the back gates. They made a most convenient stepping stone.
Once we were sitting comfortably atop the wall, Fisk glanced at the dark back windows of the nearby houses. “Stay here a moment, will you? I’m going to scout the grounds, and if I have to get out in a hurry you can pull me up.”
I gazed over the empty expanse of the gardens. “Why should you need to escape? There’s nothing here. I don’t even see a privy.”
“All inside, according to Lissy. Nice on a night like this. I don’t know why I’d need to escape in a hurry. You never know until it happens. Why is it everything I do with you ends up in burglary? I hate burglary. I retired from burglary!”
I grinned. “Mayhap ’tis your destiny.”
Fisk gave me a black look, lowered himself till he hung from his hands, then dropped into the snow.
He crouched low, going from one clump of barren bushes to another, but his every step left a trail a babe could track, a matter I resolved to mention to him. But I wasn’t too concerned as he made his way along the side of the house, for ’twas far too cold for anyone to wander outside.
In fact, I thought his caution a waste of time. ’Twas also too cold to perch on a stone wall like an overlarge gargoyle. I was about to descend and follow him, despite his instructions, when he stiffened, turned, and raced for the wall—the sleek shadow on his heels gaining with every leaping bound.
Fisk must have known he wasn’t going to make it, for he changed course and raced toward a nearby tree. The dog was all but on his heels when he jumped for a low branch and swung up onto it—not quite in time.
The dog leapt, his jaws closing on a foot. Fisk’s balance on the branch wasn’t secure, and my heart surged into my throat as he tottered. Then his boot slipped off. The dog fell into the snow and shook his prize fiercely, making sure it was dead. Fisk scurried up three branches and perched there, clutching the trunk and rubbing his stockinged foot.
Seeing him safe, I became aware of two strange things. The first, that I was halfway across the garden with no memory of climbing down from the wall. And the second, even stranger, that this whole drama had taken place in silence—the dog wasn’t barking.
Not that he didn’t try. Now that the boot had been killed, he frisked beneath the tree, and his jaws moved but no sound emerged. I could hear the creak of snow-weighted branches and my own soft steps, or I might have feared for my ears. ’Twas not till I drew near that I heard his rasping gasps and realized the truth—the beast was mute. It was good of Worthington to keep him, for an animal born disabled is in the opposite position of one born magica. Few folk would have cared for him, and he’d be unlikely to survive in the wild.
I’d no fear for myself—animal handling is one of my more reliable Gifts, and I’m fond of dogs. Knowing it would be foolish to surprise him, I called softly. At first he was so excited, he didn’t hear; then his head snapped around and he ran toward me. I waited till he was about ten feet off before telling him to Sit! in a quiet, masterful voice.
He understood the tone, the command, and the lifted hand, and he skidded to a stop before me, haunches tucked beneath him and a comical expression of confusion on his face.
He looked to be a cross between a hound and one of the larger breeds built for running. ’Twas now full dark and hard to judge his color, but he’d long, floppy ears, a ropy tail, and a lean build. His short fur was soft, especially his ears, which I tugged gently as I told him what a good dog he was. His tail lashed the snow.
He was a fine fellow, not long past puppyhood, I thought, and we were on the best of terms when I finally led him back to Fisk’s tree. Fisk hadn’t budged an inch, not even to descend to a lower crouch, and his whisper was full of indignation. “I looked for dogs. I listened for a dog the whole cursed day and never heard a bark. Who ever heard of a mute watchdog? It’s insane.”
“’Twas charitable of Worthington to take him in.”
Fisk snorted. “Not that charitable—with three-inch teeth, who needs a bark? Lock it in a shed or something.”
“If I pen him up, they might miss him—especially if they call him in later, which I think likely on such a cold night. Once you’ve been properly introduced, he’ll be fine. Come down.”
Fisk eyed the dog, who sat at my side panting happily at his erstwhile prey. Dogs love to tree things.
“Thank you—I think I’ll be introduced from up here. How do you do, mutt? My name is Fisk. And yours?”
I laughed and he shushed me, even though I did it softly. “Well, ’tis your fault. For pity’s sake get down here.”
Fisk descend
ed reluctantly. The dog wagged his tail as he dropped to the ground, to show there were no hard feelings.
“This is Fisk,” I told him. “He’s a friend of mine, so you mustn’t chase him.” I knew it was my tone that mattered, but dogs understand us so well that you can’t help but speak sensibly to them. And actions matter as much as tone.
“Hold out your hand, Fisk, and let him smell you.”
“The way I’m sweating, it can do that from here.” But he held out his hand and permitted the pup to sniff his fingers, only pulling back when the soft tongue flicked out. “What did it do that for?”
“He’s just saying he accepts you. You can pet him now.”
“Humph! Seeing if I taste like a late-night snack more like.” He stroked the dog’s head rather clumsily, and I made note of yet another thing to teach my squire. But the pup took the effort for the deed and beat the snow with his tail again. Indeed, after Fisk retrieved his boot, he followed us to the house, only going about his business when it became clear we weren’t going to play anymore.
And creeping along the mansion’s wall, thrashing through prickly junipers as Fisk sought a window frame loose enough to yield to a narrow knife blade, was far from play. The ground floor windows were dark, but some of the attic windows cast gold squares onto the snow. The servants, who rose early, were beginning to retire.
“Shouldn’t we do this later, when everyone’s in bed?” I whispered.
“One, it would have been hard to deliver a note to Worthington after he’d gone to bed. Two, he’d be a lot less likely to go haring off to the marish in the middle of the night than at dusk, even if it is dark by now. Three—”
“All right, all right. I just—”
Fisk’s knife slid through a window frame, and he hissed in satisfaction as the latch twisted free. The window swung out without a sound, warm air breathing over us.
Fisk knocked his boots together to shake the snow off before climbing over the sill. I followed his example and then stood still, for the room was darker than the night outside.
“Wait a second for your eyes to adapt,” Fisk whispered.
I’ve sometimes wondered if my squire is part cat because of his love of comfort and sleep, and when he ghosted forward after only a few seconds, I was certain of it.
Candlelight from the hall spilled in as Fisk opened the door. I joined him without knocking anything over, though my boots sounded louder than I liked when I stepped off the carpet.
Fisk stood in the open doorway for a long time, and I realized he was listening, though for what I couldn’t say.
I heard only a soft clatter from the back of the house—it sounded as though someone was washing the dinner dishes—and an occasional creak of settling wood.
Finally he was satisfied and we crept down the hall, making little noise, for there was carpet here too. Even the stairs were carpeted, and we stole up them like…well, like burglars.
Fisk counted doors on the left, and Lissy’s floor plan must have been accurate; when he finally opened a door the light from the hall sconces revealed a large, paper-piled desk.
A small fire still flickered on the hearth, and the first thing Fisk did was to hurry across the room and draw the draperies over the tall windows. Then he dragged the rug that lay before the desk over to the door and folded one corner under so the roll of carpet blocked any light that might seep into the hall. Only then did he deal with the desk lamp, a chore that consisted of clipping up its side panels. Worthington was rich enough to light his study with magica phosphor moss. Its clear, white light made me glad for the thick curtains.
The furniture was made of richly grained wood with padded leather seats, and the big chair behind the desk had a padded back too. But even the elaborately patterned rug that covered the elaborately parqueted floor (or had before Fisk folded it against the door) was less expensive than the shelves of books that covered the entire wall opposite the fireplace.
“Hoof and horn! I’ve never seen a private library this large. And Master Worthington doesn’t strike me as a scholar, either. What do you think they cost him?”
Fisk glanced at the books without much interest—strange, since books usually draw him like a magnet draws iron. “About six thousand, seven hundred gold roundels, give or take a few hundred.”
His voice was soft but not a whisper. I assumed he knew what he was doing and replied at the same volume. “How do you know? You haven’t even counted them.”
“I don’t have to. My father had about that many books.”
“Your father had a library like this? But I thought…” The remote expression on his face silenced me.
“Oh, he made enough money,” said Fisk. “And every fract of it went into books. He had the best history collection on the coast—even better than a university’s.”
“What became of it?” I asked.
“He willed it to the university. Sort of a ‘see, I really was a scholar after all’ gesture. It gave him a lot of satisfaction, in the end.” Fisk’s gaze roved over the shelves with a kind of hungry hatred. Then his eyes narrowed. One set of books had the tall, lean look of ledgers. They filled most of two shelves.
“I suppose we have to check,” said Fisk slowly. “Though I’ll bet the ledgers we want are tucked in a secret compartment somewhere. Rich people love secret compartments.”
“Mayhap he disguised it to look like an older ledger—then he could hide it in plain sight.”
By now we both stood before the bookshelves. “He might have done that, but it’d be risky. Why don’t you check them out. Forget the dates, he could put down any date. Check the ending balance of each book and make sure it matches the beginning of the next.” Fisk took the last ledger to the desk and spread it in the lamplight.
“What are you doing?” I asked, obediently opening the first ledger. The date on its first page was over twenty years ago.
“Um? Oh, I’m curious about the state of our charitable friend’s finances about eight months ago.” Fisk was already half lost in the columns of figures, so I started going through the older ledgers, though my mind wasn’t on them. What kind of father leaves his one valuable asset to others, for vanity’s sake, and his family impoverished? But at the same time, he’d given them so much love that they still grieved. And couldn’t forgive. I wished I could give Fisk’s father back to him, but childhood scars go deepest. And judging by my own relations with my father, I was in no position to give anyone advice on that score.
I wouldn’t have recognized evidence of tampering if it had bitten me, but the sums matched and each was larger than the last. I traced the rise of Worthington’s fortune, slow at first, then swifter. It didn’t take long and I learned nothing but what I already knew—Worthington was a very wealthy man.
“Nothing.” I crossed to the desk, where Fisk had appropriated the master’s chair. “What have you found?”
“It’s not what I found, it’s what I haven’t. He was telling the truth, that he didn’t have much to invest eight months ago—two ships out on long voyages. One’s due back soon, the other in three months. Several large loans, mostly to the new mining towns that have the smiths and metalworkers so upset. Those notes aren’t due for over a year, though the towns are making small payments now.”
“That’s just what he told us.”
“Ah, but what I don’t see is any record of him investing in the cargo that burned—not even a fract. According to this, he hardly had a fract to spare.”
“But he said he’d invested. Just not much.”
“It was probably known that he invested something, so he couldn’t deny it entirely. I’ll show you something else that’s not here.” He turned a few pages and opened the ledger wide. I had to peer closely to see the edge of the neatly cut page.
“Clerks do cut pages out of ledgers sometimes,” I said. “When they’ve spilled ink on them, or some such thing.”
“So do merchants,” said Fisk. “When that page records a large loan from an out-of
-town bank that they have no legitimate means to repay. This”—he ran a finger down the cleft where the page had been—“is where his hidden ledger starts. All we have to do is find it.”
’Twas easier said than done. First Fisk took a ball of string from his pocket and we measured the width of the interior walls by running the string first from door frame to door frame, and then from the door frames to the interior wall on either side. This showed us the wall’s thickness—about five inches. The wall that held the bookshelves was the same width.
“At least ’twas a clever idea,” I commented.
“I wish I could take credit for it,” Fisk replied. “But I once bribed a carpenter who built secret compartments. He taught me a lot.”
“So where do we look next? Floors and ceilings?”
“Fireplace and furniture. Old Scroggin said you could hide a chest full of stuff in a fireplace, if you knew what you were about.”
Given the amount of heat the glowing coals generated, I was glad to leave it to him. As Fisk rapped and prodded amid the carved wood and marble, I searched the desk. I found the usual quills, inkwells, penknives, paper of assorted weights, string, glue, ribbons, wax, seals—the list went on and included seashells, a cache of nuts and a silver nutcracker, a broken jumping jack, used pen wipers, tacks, keys…
What I didn’t find were ledgers, or any compartment in which they might have been concealed. The hardest part was replacing everything so my search wouldn’t be apparent.
“This is taking too long,” I told Fisk, feeling the padding of the chair for concealed objects. I found nothing but padding.
“Relax. We were inside before he even reached the marish. Even if he came straight back, we’d have another hour, and Nettie’s Ma promised to keep him talking.”
“If he doesn’t kill her.” I had been searching the bottom of the chair; now I leaned against one side of the desk and gazed at the floor, fighting the worry that had lurked beneath my thoughts ever since this silly plan was first proposed.