Solstice Day Gifts (an Emperor's Edge Short Story)

by Lindsay Buroker

  * * *

  Though Sicarius had taken a circuitous route to the enforcer building, he still arrived before Amaranthe and the girl. He spotted them at one point, strolling innocently along until no one was looking and then tearing down a bounty poster and replacing it with a caricature. At another place, near the docks, he spotted a group of teenage girls tittering around one of the posters that had already been replaced. The enforcers marching along the waterfront hadn’t noticed yet.

  Sicarius climbed a palm tree in an alley behind the two-story stone enforcer building—its blocky design and whitewashed walls did not match the colorful straw-and-thatch decor of the rest of the town, so he assumed it had been an imperial addition. The palm lacked branches, so he had to push off the side to leap onto the slanted red tile roof several feet away. Training exercise, he reminded himself, landing lightly above the gutter.

  Several of the second-story windows were open to let in the tropical breezes. He chose a corner one and lowered himself from the roof, hanging upside down so he could peer inside before committing himself to entry. An open loft stretched before him. The bamboo floorboards supported tables and desks, some stacked high with papers. Along the longest wall stood metal cabinets, one with doors open to reveal swords, crossbows, muskets, and padded armor and caps. If the enforcer headquarters occupied the top floor, the printing press and postal area must be downstairs.

  Since Sicarius didn’t see anyone wandering about—though a liquid-filled mug on one of those desks, as well as a half-eaten meal, suggested people had been in the loft recently—he swung through the window, twisting to land on his feet. He crouched for a moment, listening, smelling, and watching. A door creaked downstairs, and faint footsteps drifted up from the wood porch out front. The girl’s father leaving? Or a post office customer?

  Sicarius advanced toward the edge of the loft, pausing beside the weapons cabinet. It smelled oddly of coconut oil. Perhaps true weapons cleaning oil was in short supply down here, and the locals had to improvise. He couldn’t imagine slathering coconut goo on his knives.

  The door downstairs slammed open. “Da? Are you in here?” came Bashka’s voice.

  “Yes, girl, what do you want? I’m working.”

  “Did you hear about the posters?”

  “What posters?”

  “The ones of you. Well, they’re sort of you. They’re not very flattering. Someone tore down the bounty posters and stuck yours up all over town.” The girl sounded too excited—maybe even delighted—at making this announcement, and Sicarius thought the father would suspect her of being a part of this “prank” right away.

  “What?” he growled. The stomps of irritated feet allowed Sicarius to follow his progress from the back of the room to the front door. “Show me.”

  The door creaked open, then banged shut. As soon as their footsteps faded, Sicarius glided to the stairs. He hadn’t heard any other signs of people below, but he stuck his head down first again, making sure. There were doors to offices on the bottom floor, but most of it was open, with the post office counter up front and the printing press in a back area crowded with boxes of paper and jugs of ink. The numerous windows, unblocked to let light stream inside, would let anyone walking by outside see into the interior. It couldn’t be helped.

  Sicarius trotted down the stairs, flipping a sign in the window by the door to display that the workers were “out to lunch.” He jogged to the press side of the room, noting that it was operated by hand rather than by a steam engine, and poked into cabinets and drawers, searching for the bounty poster plates. A few storage areas had labels, but most did not. He hunted for the dustiest cabinets, assuming those particular engraving plates were not used often. There were all sorts of number and lettering sets for the newspaper, but bounty posters... Time bled past as he searched.

  In a corner, he found a narrow cabinet with locked drawers. He hadn’t brought his lock-picking kit onto the island—who would have thought he would have a need for it when shopping for gifts and supplies for the ship?—and thought about simply cutting through the fastening mechanism with his black dagger, but he shouldn’t leave a sign if he wanted his sleight-of-engraving-hand to go unnoticed. The locks appeared simple, so he grabbed a few paperclips from a desk drawer and set to work. The top one opened shortly, and he lucked onto the plates in the first try. There were eight blocks, each with different criminals’ faces. He picked out his own and the other three he remembered from the poster. The four remaining people must have been caught or had their plates retired for some other reason. He left those in the drawer. In the back, there was a pile of blank plates. Perfect, so long as nobody bothered taking inventory and noticed one missing.

  Sicarius risked taking the time to open the other drawers, hoping for engraving equipment. In a middle one, he came across a well cared for art set, including pens and ink jars, charcoal sticks, and rulers. In the bottom drawer, he found a set of ivory-handled engraving tools that would be deemed antique back on the mainland. He didn’t know how long he had until the postmaster returned, so he grabbed them.

  Sicarius set up in a corner of the room, choosing to work on the floor so he wouldn’t be visible to anyone walking by on the street. The old tools weren’t as sharp as he would have desired, but he reminded himself that the engraving didn’t have to be perfect. The other etchings weren’t particularly well done, though they were accurate enough to have allowed Bashka to identify him...

  For a moment, he thought about etching Deret Mancrest’s face on the plate, a warrior-caste dandy who had displayed an interest in Amaranthe of which Sicarius had not approved. Would she consider that suitable as part of a prank? It seemed unlikely the newspaper man would ever sail to this location and run into trouble. Ultimately, he decided the man’s face, the thick shoulder-length locks in particular, would be too much of a departure from Sicarius’s own angular features. He should make the face different enough that it couldn’t be used to identify him, but not so different that people noticed a new person had been placed on the posters.

  Voices drifted through the windows from people passing by on the streets, but thus far, they had all belonged to women, so he kept working. It was the irate heavy tread of the father that he was listening for, though he remained aware of all of his surroundings as he worked. When light footfalls sounded on the front porch, he rose to a crouch, the plate and tools in hand, suspecting he might have to dart out one of the open windows in the back.

  A tapping came at the window beside the door. The left half of a woman in a cotton dress and sunhat was visible. Sicarius waited, expecting her to notice the sign and leave.

  “Filuston,” the woman called, “it’s an hour until your lunch break, so you better not have gone off, or I’ll let your superiors know.” She leaned to the side, shadowing her eyes with her hands and peering in the window. Gray hair and a weathered face with puckered, disapproving lips lay beneath that sunhat.

  Sicarius didn’t move. The front counter and the bars and wheels of the press stood between him and the front window. Though there weren’t as many shadows in the corner as he would have preferred—tropical equatorial islands with their bright sunlight were surely not as amenable to the assassin’s trade as the wintery depths of Turgonia—he doubted she would be able to pick him out. She would move on soon.

  Except she didn’t. She rapped at the window again. “Filuston, are you truly gone? Marcest? Ligg? If nobody comes out here this instant to post my letter, I’ll pull an enforcer off the street to do it for me, and then you’ll be in trouble for shirking your duty.”

  Sicarius eyed his half-engraved plate. He only needed ten more minutes, but the woman might return with the law in that time.

  “Last warning,” she called, unaware of Sicarius setting down his work and gliding out of the shadows. He plucked a green postal workers’ cap off a hat rack, dropped it on his head, and opened the door. The woman had her fist raised, about to knock again.

  “Oh.” She blinke
d and stepped back when she saw him.

  Sicarius stepped aside so she could enter, casting his gaze up and down the street at the same time, making sure her caterwauling wasn’t bringing anyone to investigate. Most of the people wandering about appeared to be tourists who had disembarked from the ship. He didn’t spot any enforcer uniforms, though a pair of soldiers was walking down the hill from the escarpment.

  “Your letter,” Sicarius said, stepping behind the counter.

  “You’re not one of the usual postal workers,” the woman observed.

  “No.”

  “You’re dressed oddly too. All in black. Where does one find clothing like that here? Did you just arrive?”

  It seemed she was a nosey gossip in addition to being a nag. He shouldn’t have answered the door.

  “Your letter,” Sicarius said.

  The woman sniffed at this refusal to answer questions, but dug in her purse. She laid a brown envelope on the desk. Fortunately, rates and instructions were posted on a faded sign behind the counter.

  “A quarter ranmya,” Sicarius stated, pulling out a stamp pad.

  “Filuston always gives me a discount.” The woman smiled at him.

  If Filuston was the name of the man who had left his wife and daughter to the streets, Sicarius deemed that unlikely. “A quarter ranmya,” he stated again.

  The pair of soldiers had drawn even with the postal building.

  “Fine, fine,” the woman said, digging in her purse again. And digging. Apparently the coin she sought lay in a crevice beneath a book, sewing kit, hairbrush, shawl, and what was clearly more items than Sicarius and Amaranthe had packed in the entire submarine.

  At first, the soldiers looked like they would continue past, whatever errand they were on having nothing to do with newspaper presses, enforcer buildings, or post offices, but one halted abruptly and patted his pockets. His comrade asked something, but he lifted a hand to point at the two-story building. The other waved and pointed up the street. They parted ways, and the first soldier trotting toward the post office, a letter now clutched in his hand.

  Sicarius never let his expression change, though he leveled his eyes at the woman’s forehead, as if they could bore a hole into her skull. He definitely shouldn’t have answered the door. He might yet end up with the fight this whole scheme had been intended to avoid. And what would he do with this soldier once he subdued him? And the woman who would doubtlessly be a witness? Tie them both up in the loft? When Bashka’s father returned, he would find them.

  “Ah,” the woman said, “there we go.”

  Sicarius expected her to pull out the coin, though it was already too late to lock the door and hide in the corner again. Two more steps would bring the soldier to the porch. He must have seen someone being helped at the counter already.

  The woman pulled out some sort of baked item in a paper wrapper. “Would you care for a coconut pineapple cookie?”

  “No,” Sicarius said. He should have offered to post the letter for free when she had first asked after a discount.

  “Are you sure? You’re so lean. Doesn’t your lady feed you? A man should have some padding, the better to grab onto when—”

  The door opened, and the soldier walked in. He stepped into line behind the woman, giving her a polite nod when she glanced back.

  “Ah,” she said, “Corporal Fandor. Would you like a cookie? I made a batch this morning and took most of them to the schoolyard where my daughter works, but I have one left, and this humorless fellow here isn’t interested. Have you ever seen him before? I understand he’s new.”

  Both faces turned toward him. Sicarius gazed back impassively, though he was thinking that the green cap made a poor disguise. If the girl had recognized him...

  “Must be seasonal help,” the soldier said.

  “Yes,” Sicarius said. “A quarter ranmya.”

  The woman waved at him and delved into her purse again. “Yes, yes, I know. One moment.”

  The soldier stepped forward, considering Sicarius uncertainly. Should his eyes widen in recognition, Sicarius planned the course of action he would take to keep the man from escaping. As always, these encounters grew more complicated when the plan became to capture and subdue rather than to kill. Though even in his old days as an assassin—and as a man defending against soldiers who were constantly trying to kill him—he would have found it inappropriate to kill someone who had simply come to post his mail.

  The soldier took another step until he was even with the counter. Still watching Sicarius, he lifted his hand. It was an empty hand, his sword still hanging from his belt. If it hadn’t been, Sicarius already would have reacted.

  The soldier reached across the counter ever so slowly... then smiled and took the cookie. When Sicarius didn’t object, he returned to his spot in line and munched on it. Huh. Hadn’t Amaranthe once swayed soldiers to leave her alone with sweets? Odd what sugar could do to a man’s mind.

  “Here we go.” This time the lady laid a coin on the counter.

  Sicarius took it, dropped it in a cash box below the counter, stamped her letter, and tossed it in a bin labeled “outgoing mail.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said. “Tell Filuston I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  She strolled outside. The soldier laid his letter on the counter with the appropriate coin. Wordlessly, Sicarius took the money, stamped his envelope, and tossed it into the bin. The soldier thanked him and jogged off to catch up with his comrade.

  Sicarius was about to lock the door—and reaffix the “out to lunch” sign in a higher and more noticeable position—when he spotted Amaranthe strolling toward the building. She gave the soldiers a cheeky smile as she passed them. They tipped their hats and continued on without glancing back. Sicarius let her in, then shut and locked the door behind her.

  “Bashka’s father is going around collecting all the signs,” she announced. “I think you may have five minutes until he heads back.”

  “I have been delayed,” Sicarius said. “I require ten minutes.”

  Her gaze drifted upward to the green cap. “I see that. When I mentioned the idea of a costume, that isn’t what I had in mind.”

  Sicarius removed the hat, tossed it so that it landed on the rack again, and hopped over the counter. Once in the corner, he knelt again and returned to etching the hairline of the imaginary man that was replacing him. “You must delay the father further.”

  “Not interested in hearing about what I did have in mind, eh?”

  Sicarius hoped it had nothing to do with that garish rack of banana-yellow and lime-green shirts.

  “Eight minutes,” he announced.

  “Sicarius, pranks are supposed to be fun. You’re taking this far too seriously.”

  If more soldiers wandered in, including one who actually recognized him, their “prank” would come to a bloody end. He kept the thought to himself, reluctant to speak words that would steal her smile. “I am considering this a training exercise.”

  “All right, I’ll go pester the man about a package that should have come in weeks ago and give you your eight minutes, but I must warn you that costumes might play a role in our gift exchange tonight.”

  Intent on his work, Sicarius didn’t look up as she left. He did groan inwardly, certain he was going to get one of those shirts. This thought motivated him—or perhaps terrified him—into finishing the engraving more quickly than he had anticipated. The final image had little more in common with him than a short hairstyle, but their differences shouldn’t stand out to those familiar with the first poster.

  He returned the tools and plates to the drawer, careful to place them as he had found them, and to throw the locks afterward. The plate with his own face on it he stuck in a pocket to toss into an ocean trench. He checked a window, expecting to see Amaranthe on the road, planted in the path of Bashka’s father, but she had either intercepted him farther away, or the man was taking longer than expected to remove the final posters. Another ship had come
in, spewing visitors into the streets, many of them Nurian. Perhaps Bashka’s father, if he was an enforcer as well as post master, would be delayed further, keeping an eye on the suspicious foreigners. And if Amaranthe was keeping an eye on him, Sicarius might have more time than he had requested.

  On a whim, he opened the drawer containing the art supplies. He grabbed an oversized piece of paper from a box near the press and laid it out on the counter. In between listening for foot traffic and keeping an eye on the street, he drew.