A soft sea breeze greeted her with the brine tang of the ocean and the air refreshed her face. Drawing deep breaths, she surveyed the grey-blue water until her eyes rested on the distant bluff across the bay and the yellow stone buildings of the Royal Gaol. Her grandfather had been imprisoned there. He died there. She knew of other people who were sent to the Gaol and to the ancient caverns beneath it. No one escaped from the Bog Pit. Prisoners either died inside or were horrifically punished. That, of course, was the fundamental flaw in the tale of the young thief who visited her. He claimed he was imprisoned in the Bog Pit with her grandfather, and that in itself was an impossibility. What puzzled her since the thief’s visit was that none of her people had uncovered clues as to who sent him, and why. She had plenty of enemies because of her monopoly on the city’s drug trade. Some had tried to kill her in the past, just as they murdered her father, but she outsmarted them. Yet neither her network of contacts, nor her spies, nor her protectors could give her information to unlock the mystery of the unknown thief, the identity of his patron, or the motive for his visit. Her only hope remained the information that Hunter might have found by tracking the thief and Hunter was probably already waiting inside.
She re-entered her house and ascended to the business chamber. As she hoped, young Hunter was waiting in the company of her companion, Lin. ‘What have you learned?’ she asked as she sat at the table.
Hunter glanced at Lin before saying, ‘He’s a strange one, Mrs Merchant. People I spoke to say he’s dead.’
‘And why’s that?’
‘Well, he was sent to the Bog Pit for stealing from the palace.’
Crystal’s eyebrows rose. ‘He got inside the palace?’
‘That’s what they’re all saying,’ Hunter answered.
‘Who do you mean by “they”?’
‘People on the streets who know him,’ Hunter explained.
‘So he’s a professional thief?’
‘Has been all his life,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘Got a reputation for being one of the best. Never gets caught, which is probably why the authorities don’t really know anything about him. I asked a couple of the older soldiers and they’d never heard of him.’
‘But you said he was caught and thrown in the Bog Pit.’
‘He was, Mrs Merchant. First time he was ever caught. Normally they hang a thief for being in the palace, but they thought he was a first-timer so they sentenced him to a few weeks in the Bog Pit and then he was to have his arm severed as an example to others.’
‘And he escaped? No one escapes from there.’
‘Apparently he did. The authorities reported him as having died inside the Bog Pit, but he’s clearly very much alive.’
Crystal looked at Lin who shrugged to show her disbelief. ‘So who is he?’
‘His name’s Chase Goodenough. No one knows much about the parents, except that his mother ran off with a soldier and was never seen again and his father was killed in an accident in Miner’s gold factory. He and his sister survive on their own in one of the warrens in the Foundry Quarter. His sister’s a whore at the Perfect Pleasures on Main Way. He doesn’t have many friends as such, but then he doesn’t have enemies either. Mainly he hangs around the brothel, looking after his sister.’
‘So for whom does he work?’ Crystal asked.
‘No one, Mrs Merchant. He’s a freelancer. None of the mercantile families or anyone of importance have ever heard of him. He steals what he needs to keep his sister and himself going, and nothing more. He doesn’t even fence anything valuable, just goods that can be sold easily to the Main Way hawkers and can’t be traced.’
‘You got someone watching him at the moment?’
‘Hefty Saddler’s keeping an eye on him while I’m back here,’ Hunter explained. ‘He’s a good mate of mine.’
‘Thank you, Hunter. You’ve done well.’
‘There’s just one other thing, Mrs Merchant.’ Crystal nodded for Hunter to continue. ‘The last couple of days he’s been going around the factories and shops in the Foundry Quarter asking for work.’
‘So?’
‘Well, according to the people I’ve spoken to, he’s never tried to get work before. It’s like he’s looking for an honest living all of a sudden.’
‘Maybe he learned the error of his ways in the Bog Pit,’ Crystal suggested.
Hunter shook his head. ‘No, Mrs Merchant. People that know him say that’s just not in his nature. He’s a born thief. He’s so good at it he wouldn’t be happy doing anything regular.’
‘People can change,’ Crystal said. She thanked Hunter again and dismissed him. When Lin and she were alone in the lounge, she said, ‘So, what do you make out of all this?’
Lin smiled slightly, and replied, ‘Hunter may be right. He’s a strange one.’
‘Someone’s going to a great deal of trouble to hide,’ Crystal said. ‘Maybe there’s a new player in the field.’
‘Perhaps you need to have the boys talk directly to this Chase and get the truth from him.’
Crystal pondered Lin’s suggestion for several moments. Finally she said, ‘Or we can try his sister.’
Chase heard the crying and yelling before he rounded the corner. In the alley, a man was pushing another younger man viciously in the chest and a woman was slumped on the ground, cradling the head and shoulders of a young woman in her arms. Three people were watching the fracas. ‘It was bad stuff!’ the older man yelled. ‘Your poison killed her!’
‘Let me go!’ the younger man pleaded. ‘It wasn’t my fault!’
The older man swung his fist and felled the younger man, and started kicking his victim on the ground. One spectator, a young man, walked towards Chase. ‘What’s going on?’ Chase asked, as the young man went to pass him.
‘Carver’s daughter just died from some bad euphoria. He’s blaming her boyfriend,’ the young man explained hastily, and walked on.
Chase stared at the tragic scene, but it was none of his business so he followed the young man back into the street. Further along, three boys were lying against a wall, giggling wide-eyed, an empty euphoria drawstring purse on the ground beside one boy’s outstretched hand, a telltale purple stain on the ground. It seemed to Chase that the drug use was worse than ever. He had been a user for a long time, since he was nine, and he’d enjoyed the drug’s kick, especially when times were bad for Passion and him. Everyone used the drug. Passion relied on euphoria to get through her hours with the customers at the Perfect Pleasures, like many of the girls did. It was an easy escape from the misery of daily life in the city. He could do with some at the moment to get through the boredom of hunting for work.
The bootmaker’s hanging sign attracted his interest, so he crossed the street to look in the window at the small display of shoes and boots, most of them made for working men. He opened the little door and stepped inside. ‘Can I help you, lad?’ a stout man asked from behind a low, cheaply-made counter.
‘Can you use some extra hands?’ Chase inquired, savouring the rich scent of leather.
‘Is there a sign in the window?’
Chase glanced at the display shelf in the window. ‘Only selling boots,’ he said.
‘Then I’m not looking for anyone to employ, am I?’ the storeman said gruffly.
Chase nodded and retreated from the shop. Two shops on, he spotted a butcher’s plaque, so he smoothed back his loose hair and headed for the shop. He checked the window, but there were no signs except those hanging from the chunks of meat. Undaunted, he entered. The shop was empty when he stepped into the pungent smell of raw meat and offal. Sawdust littered the floor. He stared hungrily at the hunks of beef ribs and lamb shanks hanging from hooks behind the counter, and was tempted to help himself and run, but a man emerged from an adjoining room with a bloodied cleaver in his left hand, and inquired, ‘Yes?’
Chase smiled. ‘I’m looking for work. Any work.’
‘None here,’ the butcher abruptly replied.
‘I can
do anything. Sweep. Clean.’
The butcher’s eyes narrowed. ‘Can you dress a side of beef?’
‘No,’ Chase admitted, ‘but I can learn quick,’ he added, eagerly.
‘No use to me, lad. On your way. Unless you want to buy something.’ Chase shook his head and withdrew.
Outside again, he looked up and down the street. The apothecary sign hung above a small crowd of people. He crossed the street to see what they were doing. ‘Latest crop and clean!’ a woman was spruiking beside the shop door. ‘One shilling a bag! Straight from the Joker’s own stock! Fresh!’ Customers were buying their euphoria fixes. One shilling was a week’s wage for most people, but Chase saw that some were leaving with ten or more bags.
An elderly man grabbed Chase’s sleeve and tugged at it. ‘Lend an old man a shilling, son?’ he wheezed. ‘Show some kindness.’
Chase pulled his arm free and pushed through the crowd to the store’s doorway, but a brawny arm blocked his entry. ‘Get back in line, mate,’ a deep voice warned. He looked up into the solidly framed and bearded face of a man in his early thirties. ‘I won’t warn you again, mate.’
Chase backed up, but someone grabbed his sleeve again and he turned to find the same old man, pleading, ‘Just one shilling, son. That’s all I ask.’ Chase walked away from the bustling scene, wondering how much money the Joker, the granddaughter of old Sunlight, was siphoning from the city poor. For himself, his morning was a disaster. The small shop owners didn’t want anyone to work for them. As much as he hated the idea, he’d have to try for work in the factories.
‘No luck today?’ Rose asked as Chase slumped into a chair in the red room.
He shook his head. ‘No one’s hiring. Couldn’t even get a job as a cart boy at the iron foundry.’
‘Perhaps you should try along Main Way. Plenty of houses need bodyguards. You could even ask Rose.’
Chase laughed. ‘I couldn’t work in the same brothel as my sister. I’d be checking out who she’s getting as her clients. It’s bad enough when I come to pick her up.’ He brushed back his hair and asked, ‘Is she around?’
‘She’s with a client,’ the bouncer’s rumbling voice informed him from the doorway to the hall.
‘Thanks, Wahim,’ Chase said. ‘I might go and check out the Come On Inn.’
‘Isn’t that asking for trouble?’ Rose cautioned. ‘They know you there.’
‘Easy pickings, though. And I’m broke.’
A door opened in the hall and a girl’s giggle mixed with a man’s deeper chuckle. A moment later, a waiflike figure appeared in the doorway, naked to the waist, with long, messy blonde hair reaching over her shoulders to her hips. When she saw Chase lounging on the chair beside Rose, she laughed and loosely covered her breasts with one arm while she passed a small bag of coins with her free hand to Wahim. Then she approached Chase, leaned forward to kiss his cheek coquettishly, and exited to the tub room. ‘You are such a slut, Mouse,’ Rose called after the girl. She put an arm on Chase’s shoulder and said teasingly, ‘She told Passion she’s in love with you.’
Chase screwed up his face in mock alarm, laughed and replied, ‘I know. Passion keeps trying to get me to ask her out.’
‘And?’ Rose asked.
Before Chase could answer, he heard a muffled scream from a room along the hallway and rose from his chair. Wahim held up a cautionary hand and waited. They heard a second, strangled cry at which point Wahim strode into the hall with Chase behind him. Beyond the third door, they heard the desperate sounds of a struggle and a man swore. Wahim pushed the door open. Inside the candle-lit room was a naked man sitting astride Passion on the floor, one hand gripping her throat, the other raised to hit her. Wahim grabbed under the man’s armpits and hoisted him aside, against the bed, while Chase pulled Passion to her feet and ushered her from the room.
Furniture crashed to the floor and the candles scattered, and the brothel girls crowded in the hall entrance behind Rose. Chase released his sister to Rose’s arms and looked into the room. Wahim and the client were fighting. The client was as powerfully built as Wahim and the fighting was brutal, but the client eventually went down to a solid punch. As Wahim bent to pin him, the client kicked at the bouncer’s legs and sent Wahim sprawling across the shattered bed frame. The client staggered to his feet, sank a quick kick into Wahim’s face before the bouncer could recover, and lunged for the doorway. Chase tripped him. The falling man’s head crashed into the wall, and as he hit the floor Chase kicked him solidly in the right kidney. Resorting to the street-fighting tricks that saved his skin as a youth, he jumped over the prone figure and punched him in the base of the skull and his victim grunted.
Wahim crashed out of the room and fell on the man’s back, pinning him and wheezing, ‘Got you, you bastard.’ He smacked the client’s head with the heel of his hand. ‘And that’s for not knowing when you’re beaten,’ he growled triumphantly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
‘He’s one of Mrs Merchant’s thugs,’ Chase announced, staring at the bound, gagged and bloodied prisoner in the red room.
‘He works for the Joker?’ Wahim rasped, his throat bruised from the brawl.
‘He and his mates gave me a send-off when I went there a couple of weeks ago.’
‘He was asking about you,’ Passion said. ‘When I wouldn’t tell him anything, he said he was going to beat it out of me.’ She glared at the prisoner.
‘Why so much interest in you and your sister?’ Rose asked. ‘Did you do the Joker’s place over?’
‘No,’ Chase replied. ‘I went to see her.’
‘Really?’
Rose’s raunchy tone raised a brief grin from Chase, before he explained, ‘It was a message I promised to deliver from her grandfather when I was in the Bog Pit. He asked me to give it to her.’
‘Well, that’s cute,’ Rose remarked. ‘What did you have to tell her that was so important?’
‘Something about the Seers and the Demon Horsemen,’ Chase explained.
‘The Demon Horsemen? You mean the Demon Horsemen of the old religious stories?’ Rose asked.
Chase nodded. ‘The old man said the Seers were going to recall them. It’s a plot to get Prince Shadow on the throne.’
‘Sounds like a load of bullshit to me,’ Wahim growled. ‘All your Kerwyn and Shessian religious stuff’s bullshit.’
‘Well, we know the Demon Horsemen aren’t real,’ Rose protested. ‘I remember hearing all those stories when my mother used to take us to the temples. There were stories about the Demon Horsemen and Jarudha’s Paradise. They scared me when I was a little kid.’
‘So why’d you want to get mixed up in all that religious and political shit?’ Wahim asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Chase replied. ‘I felt sorry for the old man. He’d been in the Bog Pit for more than fifteen years. I figured because he was a Seer maybe he knew something I didn’t.’
‘A Seer?’ Rose queried.
‘Seer Sunlight,’ Passion explained.
‘A Seer was locked in the Bog Pit?’ Rose gasped. ‘And you wanted to help a Seer?’
‘I felt I owed the old man something. He was the only person in that stinking gaol to offer me some kindness when I first got put in there.’
‘The problem is,’ said Wahim, ‘what are we going to do with the Joker’s friend here?’
‘Ask him a few questions first,’ said Chase.
Humiliation was not a state Hunter accepted graciously. The whores, their bouncer and the thief humiliated him by tying him up and interrogating him, and the whores were malicious in what they did to convince him to talk. Not that he had much to share—except the knowledge that Mrs Merchant was trying to find out everything she could concerning the thief. Then, without returning his clothes, they put him in a cart under a tarpaulin and dropped him within a few paces of King’s Bridge in full view of the Kerwyn soldiers. By the time the laughing soldiers untied him and gave him a scrap of cloth to cover his indignity, he was seething wi
th anger and afraid to return to Mrs Merchant’s house. But he had no alternative. Mrs Merchant’s irritation at his failure, when he told her what had happened, was as abrasive as his colleagues’ derisive teasing. Some time, he’d repay the thief and his whores for what they’d done to him. He swore that to himself as he took the berating from his boss. ‘Thank you, Hunter,’ Crystal said, curtly dismissing her young bodyguard, but when the door to the business chamber closed she turned to Lin and burst out laughing.
‘Oh, how could you?’ Lin asked, catching her breath. ‘Poor Hunter was mortified.’
‘So he should be,’ Crystal replied, wiping her tears. ‘The idiot well and truly got caught with his pants down, didn’t he?’ She laughed again, and rose from her chair. ‘In fact, he’s lucky to be alive, isn’t he? What do you think that means?’
‘It could mean the thief and his friends are very naive,’ Lin offered.
‘Or they’re very clever,’ Crystal suggested.
‘If it had been any of our better known enemies, Hunter would be dead,’ said Lin, a serious tone returning to her voice.
‘Exactly,’ Crystal agreed. ‘So now I’m curious. What game is this young man playing?’
‘Be careful. That might be his whole intention. Get you curious, then lead you into making a mistake.’
Crystal smiled at Lin, and said calmly, ‘I’ve thought of that—but I think I need to talk to this thief just the same.’
‘There’s nothing here, lad, for someone of your age without any experience.’ The baker turned his back and shut his door.
Chase scuffed the cobbles with his boot and spat. He ran his hands through his hair and looked along the street. He’d tried the tanner’s shop, the butcher’s, the jeweller’s. He’d tried every factory in the Foundry Quarter. He’d tried the tradesmen. As the plasterer told him, ‘If you’ve never worked before now, lad, what have you been doing?’
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