“Yes.” Was he blushing now?
Still hiding behind the napkin, I picked the bit out with my pinkie nail. Success.
“Did you find out why my detective went there?”
“I asked around, and no one remembered seeing him, of course. The white of the uniform always seems to petrify witnesses’ tongues.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “But being a guard has some advantages—I was able to examine the dock master’s log. There were only five ships berthed there that night.”
Karolyne came with the kaffe, forcing Conrad to sit back so she could set it before him. She shot me a look. I ignored it. The place was busy, but I had at least another five minutes, or maybe it was two. I didn’t have a timepiece. Other than the chimes of the city clock, I relied on guesstimates.
“Which ships? What were they carrying?”
“Most were traders heading deeper into the Three Kingdoms, an ore hauler headed for the South...and one passenger ship. The passengers in this case being slaves.”
“Told you the slavers are involved,” I said, smug. “I figured out a few things myself, such as the fact the Solhan Circle, which includes Randall Kingsman...” I almost spat his name “...is selling captured slaves. They’re forging the breeder’s paperwork.”
“Really? I can arrest them for that alone and then question them about your brother when they’re in prison. What’s your evidence?”
“Well....” I thought about my sources: an illegally freed slave, the rogue wizard who had freed her, and documents I suspected were forged, but which I didn’t have in my possession yet. “Let’s just call it a hunch at this point.”
Conrad was halfway out of his chair. He sat back down and shook his head. “You shouldn’t get me excited.”
“Is that what gets you excited?”
“Catching bad guys, yes—and quite a few things about you.” His eyes sparkled and his insouciant smile was perfect. Everything about Conrad was perfect. I was such a damned flirt.
I stood. My break was over, and I didn’t need Karolyne’s glare from across the room to remind me. “I have to go, but I’ll let you know if I get anything solid.”
He raised an eyebrow. Ah oh, he was making me blush again. Not where I worked, please. He moved aside for me, but there was little room. I had to press against him as I slid past.
A question occurred to me. “The Solhan Circle came overland, by wagon, not by ship. Why was there a slave ship in port?”
“Oh, it wasn’t bringing slaves here, it was taking them away.”
“A ship full?”
“That’s what the manifest said.”
“Where were they headed?”
He thought for a moment before recalling. “Toulon? Some little town to the east.”
East? Odd. Other than a few mining towns, worked by teeming hordes of male dwarves, not slaves, there was nothing there. The Wall was east, of course. The front had been stable for a decade, but pickets still guarded the approach to Solheim. What use would soldiers have for so many slaves? A few concubines, maybe, but not a ship load. They needed food not farmers.
“Thanks,” I said, knowing I didn’t sound thankful, as I was stumped. “You don’t have to report to me every day, you know. I trust you’re doing all you can to help me.”
“I like seeing you every day. Until tomorrow.” Conrad bowed, his sword goosing a patron behind him. The man’s angry response was cut short at sight of the armor.
I went back to filling steins and wiping spills.
Karolyne was much happier when she saw me working. “You do like him.”
“Conrad? Yeah, I do.” I watched the machinations whirring behind her eyes and knew she was planning the wedding. It wasn’t going to happen, but I wasn’t going to mention I had already kissed someone else today. She might cut me some slack for my poorly timed breaks if she thought I would be joining the family someday.
The trip home that night was, thankfully, uneventful, but I kept my eyes and ears open in case more of Duane’s rivals showed up to harass me. I also kept thinking about what Conrad had said.
For some time now, I’d had the feeling Viktor’s death wasn’t simple vengeance enacted against a thief. Something bigger was going on. I felt it like a tingling in my fingertips. The detective I’d hired had stumbled on it right away and died right away. My own investigation was progressing a bit slower, but I hoped it would turn out better. I might not be a pro, but if I managed not to get myself killed I’d be happy.
Conrad and Erick were helping me, but there were things I needed to do myself. First thing tomorrow, I was going to see Randall, get Kali’s documents, and then give the proof to Conrad. He could put the merchants under lock and key before they moved on to the next city and out of Highcrowne’s jurisdiction.
My ‘to do’ list sounded straightforward enough, but the next morning everything got off on the wrong foot and fell into utter chaos.
12│ LOOKING FOR TROUBLE
~
I PLANNED TO GET A solid eight hours sleep, but Nanny was oblivious to the fact I had worked the night shift. It wasn’t dawn yet when she opened my door, shouted “Get up!”, and pulled my blankets off, putting them into a basket to take to the well for washing.
I lay there shivering, needing rest so bad my eyeballs ached, but after a few minutes of fleeting dreams, in which I was buried up to my neck in snow, I tumbled out of bed and put on my clothes, trying to get warm. The stove in my room was useless. There was no fuel for it, and Nanny had the only key to the coal cellar. Getting a copy of that key was my first priority.
When I went downstairs to complain, Nanny shoved her key ring down her brassiere and said, “You can warm yourself by the hearth in the morning like the rest of us, miss High and Mighty Wants Her Own Fire.”
I looked over at the massive fireplace sheltering a miniscule flame. Kali was practically sitting inside the hearth, stirring a small cauldron of porridge, her teeth chattering. Obviously, Nanny’s plan was to see us all catch cold and die of pneumonia so she could have the house to herself.
“Unlike you, we’re not Ice Queens. You will give me the key, or so help me, I’ll send you all the way to the mines to fetch the coal for Kali and me.”
Her mouth gaped. “You’re going to turn me out! How can you live with yourself, treating an old woman like this? I’ll die of the black lung, you heartless....” She stopped in mid tirade, bursting into tears. I thought she was laying on the melodrama a little thick, but then I heard her whisper Viktor’s name. She was old and insecure, I got it, but I didn’t want to suffer for it.
“I’m not literally going to send you to the mines. You wouldn’t be able to heft a pick worth a damn.” She sobbed more violently, and I really felt like crap, so I said, “Sorry. Forget about it.”
She heaved in a big breath of air and choked back the tears. Kali was right; Nanny could turn the waterworks on and off at will. Despite what I’d told her, I had no intention of giving up. I would add buying my own coal to the list of things to do today, as well as buying a lump of wax, so I could get an impression of the key while Nanny was sleeping.
I suffered through a bowl of porridge. Kali couldn’t cook either. It was salty and lumpy, but it was better than Nanny’s stew.
I had an overwhelming sense of homesickness for Morgan and the roast tomatoes on toast he made me for breakfast every morning. After tasting it in my memory, I couldn’t finish the clotted chunks at the bottom of my bowl. I was going to starve living here.
It wasn’t only the cooking I worried about. We were all going to starve. Supporting three people with the amount of money I earned was impossible. Gruel would soon be a luxury. I needed to hold a book sale soon, but that wasn’t a permanent solution. I hoped there was a solution.
I boiled water for a sponge bath, got cleaned up, put on my other blue shirt and riding pants rescued by Morgan and set off for the Slave Quarter.
If facing potentially murderous slavers wasn’t bad enough, the area was
now a war zone between Duane and Jessup’s gang, so I brought my mother’s Ashur cane along. Not that I thought I could take on the whole district by myself, but it was better than stumbling in there wearing Ilsa’s heels like last time.
As I was about to cross the invisible line between my neighborhood and the Quarter, Gormless stepped in front of me. The itch between my shoulder blades told me Grim had snuck up behind. I considered myself observant, but somehow those two always managed to get the jump on me.
“Tell Duane you couldn’t find me. I’m busy,” I said.
“Boss wants us to keep you safe,” Grim said. “You can’t go over there. It’s dangerous.”
“How long have you been following me?”
“Two days.”
Gormless smiled. “It’s been easy. You’s only go to work and home.”
“But if you go into the Slave Quarter, things will get real hard,” Grim added.
“I don’t plan my day around making things easier on you two. And I don’t want you following me anymore. Go back to Duane and tell him he is really pissing me off.”
I was wearing proper footwear this time and managed to dodge the two of them. I walked quickly past the invisible border and kept walking. Gormless jogged beside me.
The slightest exertion made him break into a sweat, and he was panting when he said, “Please. We can’t disobey Boss. We supposed to keep you out of trouble.”
“Too late.” I stared resolutely ahead as I walked, and it was a few moments before I realized I was alone again. They had vanished. I saw wagons and pedestrians but no mismatched pair of thugs. I hoped they had listened and left, but more likely they had returned to shadowing me in that eerily effective way of theirs.
I was entering a contested area in a gang war, but I was not Duane’s girl, and I was not going to let his little intrigues interfere with what I had to do. The gall of him, having his flunkies guard me like I was part of his territory. Still, it might not be bad having Lucky and Unlucky watching my back.
I reached the slavers’ encampment and immediately spotted the old man Erick told me about. He was climbing into a wagon, a tin of water and a breakfast roll in his hand. This was my chance to talk to him, so I followed him inside. This was when the day really soured.
“What are you doing here?” Olaf cried, “Help! Thief!”
“Shhh!” I said. “I’m not here to steal anything. I only want to talk to you.”
“Help!”
“Viktor was my brother. You know Viktor? The one who set you free.”
I caught the briefest flicker of recognition in his eyes, but it was too late. The curtain across the back of the wagon was flung aside, and both Randall and his grall glowered at me. Of course, with the grall I couldn’t be sure of his expression: those tusks made it impossible to tell the difference between a smile and a snarl.
“You,” Randall said. “Stealing means I can see you stripped naked and whipped.”
“Whoa there with the whipping. I’m only here to get...” I almost said, ‘Kali’s papers’, but she was property to these people, and they wouldn’t recognize the name. “...I’m here for my slave’s documentation.”
“You didn’t pay the fee.”
“They said there was no fee,” the grall pointed out.
“Thank you, Jorg.” I reappraised his expression and decided it wasn’t a snarl after all.
“You remembered my name. What a nice lady. How do you do?” Jorg held out a giant hand, each rounded knuckle and taut sinew as smooth as though they had been molded from clay. The yellowed claws were striated and flaking and appeared tacked on the surface.
I reached out to complete the handshake, but Randall yanked the grall’s arm back down. “You work for me, remember? Stop making friends and get her out of my wagon.”
I wasn’t about to let anyone drag me anywhere, so I flung back my hair and climbed down the small ladder to the cobbles. I straightened my shirt and stuck my nose in the air. When I realized I was doing a fair impersonation of a lady, I stopped acting insulted and gave Randall a straightforward glare instead. “Now, give me the documents.”
“You know?” Randall folded his arms and looked me up and down. “You aren’t as pretty as Ilsa. Too skinny.”
There was no room to draw the Ashur, which was my first reaction, so I cursed him in Solhan. A good, long string of epithets Nanny used often. It’s not as though I cared what Randall thought, but anger was my automatic response to hearing Ilsa’s name. I hated how she always brought out the worst in me.
“Get her out of here,” Randall told to the grall.
“You need to leave. Sorry.” Jorg reached for me.
“I’m only here for what’s mine. Why are you so reluctant to give me those papers, Randall? Hiding something?”
The slaver narrowed his eyes. Ah oh, I had aroused his suspicions. “You need to stay out of things, girl. If you weren’t your uncle’s ward, I’d have even less tolerance for your stupidity.”
I wouldn’t let anyone call me stupid but me. “I know you’re a lying, conniving, criminal. I know my slave was born free.”
“Shut your mouth.”
“That’s why you won’t give me those papers. You know I ask too many questions and would expose you if I found out. Well, it’s too late. I already know and so does the Guard.” I wouldn’t mention that by ‘the Guard’ I meant Conrad, or that he wouldn’t act without proof.
“Know what?” The female slaver from the other day said, stepping around the wagon. I could see her better in daylight and realized she was half-elf. Such mixes were rare, or rarely allowed to live.
Common belief was a half-elf child was a changeling, a corrupter. The elves did not want the purity of their race despoiled, and so the illegitimate spawn of their romantic pairings were put to death. At least that was the story. I had known a strange half-elf girl at boarding school, with an elvish mother, so I suspected it was more a matter of difficult breeding, like generating a fertile mule, rather than a carefully planned elf conspiracy.
The half-elf slaver put a restraining hand on Randall, who was ready to attack me. I wanted him to come charging so I could skewer him in self-defense. There were plenty of reasons the world would be a better place without him. I shook my head. The bloodlust I felt for Randall was a dangerous thing. I tried to calm myself and started by taking my hand off the hilt of the cane.
“She’s spreading vicious rumors,” Randall said, spitting at my feet.
“I only want the documents owed me,” I told her.
“I heard your accusation, and I’m happy to allay your fears.” Focusing on Olaf, she said, “Give Miss Thorne the paperwork for the Lallalokan.”
Olaf nodded, ducked inside, and began to rummage through a lockbox he took from a drawer of his desk.
“You’ll find everything is in order,” she said.
“The old man is your bookkeeper?”
“Yes.” She was smiling, but I saw how her large eyes watched me, trying to read me.
“A lot of responsibility for a slave. How did you teach him? Mine seems impossibly slow. I doubt she understands the reasons for her beatings.” Just us slaveholders here, I was trying to say, old chums exchanging information on how to make those pesky servants do our bidding.
“They’re very individual,” she said carefully. “Some are easier to train than others.”
“Of course.” I nodded.
I turned and caught Olaf staring at me. Had Viktor died because he helped this old man, or because he’d found out about the forged documents? How far would I be allowed to go with them before a stiletto was slipped beneath my sternum?
“Thank you,” I said, taking the parchment. On a whim, I asked Olaf, “Do you like your work?”
“He doesn’t like or dislike it,” she said, answering for him.
“This one is like her brother,” Randall said into the woman’s ear. “An emancipationist.”
“Don’t get nasty now,” I told Randall.
“...if it weren’t for my uncle,” I finished for him. “He makes you shiver like a skinny dog sniffing its behind.”
“Watch your tongue, Eva. You have no idea how fast your fortunes can change. You keep spreading accusations about me, and Ulric may lose patience with you, cut you loose. Then I’ll be there. He cares more about my reputation than yours, which is already tarnished.”
I felt unclean wherever his gaze touched me. “Why would my uncle care about your good name?”
The woman scowled at Randall. “Quiet.” To me, she said, “You have what you came for. Go, so we can get back to work.”
I really wanted to know what the comment meant. I might have pressed with a few more unwelcome questions, but a shout caught my attention.
“Get her!”
A horde of street thugs barreled toward me. I didn’t recognize any individuals, but I recognized the type. This must be Jessup’s gang and what was left of Killian’s. They were a brazen lot, coming after me in daylight in the heart of the slaver encampment. The war had found me.
“You’re right, I should go.” I tucked the folded documents into my belt purse and took off in the opposite direction of the pack chasing me.
I had to weave between slave cages, and I stirred up a nest of bogles. The creatures always seemed to lurk around human misery. Their camouflage melted away, and they leapt in all directions to avoid being stepped on. Leathery skin brushed against me. I cringed but kept going.
Thugs were sweeping around the sides of the slaver wagons and getting ahead of me as well as blocking off retreat behind. I ran full speed, hoping to break through before they closed ranks. There was half a dozen of them in my way now, and they had weapons drawn.
No getting past them. I stopped to assess the situation.
Where were my shadows, Grim and Gormless? I’d told them to leave me alone, but they hadn’t actually listened had they? This was exactly the sort of thing they were supposed to deal with. Not that I was condoning Duane’s actions in sending them to spy on me, but they really weren’t doing their job.
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