The Rackhutch Splatters were, by Fellport standards, among the elder statesmen of street gangs. The gang had existed for some thirty years in its current form, far removed from its origins as an association of painters whose application for legal recognition as a guild had been rejected in favour of their employers' more successful petition (and an accompanying bribe that dwarfed their own), leading to their violent disbandment and subsequent reformation as ruined and disgruntled outlaws. Now they were a loose-knit rabble of thieves, pickpockets and thugs gravitating around a central membership of a handful of its most feared and respected representatives. These tended to be its oldest surviving members. Seniority in the Splatters was linked more closely to longevity than any specific criminal qualification. This tradition had evolved in no small part due to a history of frequent, spectacular and amateur misadventures that usually resulted in the decimation of Splatter ranks. Invariably these incidents involved ambitious plans, unanticipated obstacles, overestimated capabilities and underestimated opponents. Most of its most venerated members had been participants in several such capers and proudly so. Splatter folklore had over time come to celebrate even its most spectacular and bloody failures by enshrining them in pub stories with fanciful epithets like the Cenautic Lime Haul and the Copperfoot Avenue Crossfire. Each new tale, no matter how self-evidently a litany of arrogant mistakes and costly blunders, would circulate like wildfire through the taverns of the western suburbs of Fellport, assuming legendary status in Rackhutch, Tokenwood and Ladderstand. Each tale would be told and retold with unaccountable pride, and every bard in that neighbourhood, whether an enthusiastic amateur or a calculating professional, knew to keep at least one or two of the better tales of the Splatters in his repertoire. They were always in demand. And though in general they could not have signaled more clearly that life expectancy in the Rackhutch Splatters was likely to be cut horribly short, what should have been cautionary stories instead had the opposite effect, attracting the admiration of a disturbing fraction of the local youth population. Despite the commonplace nature of its devastating setbacks, the Rackhutch Splatters never wanted for willing members.
Casimir Meldaran engineered the destruction of this venerable organisation in the course of a single week.
In the course of his years, Cas had followed a great many careers in the pursuit of his goals, from forger to procurer to burglar to impostor, and a few others less salutary. But until now he had never been a crime lord. He was not quite sure how to go about it, though by instinct he was aware that he must quickly establish his leadership credentials if his Golden Haired Boys were not to disband in short order, or worse produce a more worthy usurper to displace him.
He had subtly sounded out a few of his more ardent admirers to discern some sense of their desires, trying to establish what it would take to ensure a lasting impression. From a few of his more experienced recruits, he had divined something of the nature of Fellport's criminal underground, in particular the dominance of the Rackhutch Splatters over the area in which his Barrow Street headquarters was located. The gang's curious mythological standing, relayed with an enthusiasm bordering on reverence by his balding, goggle-eyed lieutenant Skull, caught his instant attention.
“One time,” Skull had reported, sweating excitedly in spite of the falling temperature, “this guy called Verney Wallow had this idea to recruit thirteen guys from different gangs all over Fellport to rob this merchant bringing in a shipment of Woleji tribal jewelery, turquoise and emeralds and such. So he hand picks all these guys from all over, a Needleman from Walkswell and one of the Golden Kage boys from Cagedale and, you know, all these thirteen specialist guys like a locksman and some upper-storey boys and all these other guys that he needs for his plan. Anyhow he thinks they don't know each other but -” As Skull told the rest of the anecdote, recounting with great relish and in surprising detail the numerous minor mishaps, mistaken assumptions and personality clashes that had led inevitably to mayhem and disaster, Casimir pondered how he would make his mark. He was looking for a way to establish a profile in the criminal underground without either drawing undue attention from the Sentry or furthering endangering his tenuous partnership with Udo Herronvale. There had to be some way to exploit the Splatters' notoriety to his ends. It had taken most of the morning, listening to the tales of his awestruck men as they carefully chopped, powdered and boiled dried flowers, tube roots and soft nuts from a variety of noxious plants, under the nervous supervision of Casimir's pet student. But as the nails sealed closed the first crate containing six dozen well-cushioned, wax-stoppered bottles, an idea found its purchase and began to spread.
Several of the Golden Haired Boys were Splatters themselves at one time or another, that much was obvious. Some of them probably still are, Casimir judged, interpreting their occasional exchanges of conspiratorial glances and their comments reconsidered before they were finished. The amorphous boundaries of gang membership in Murburan mystified him, but he had seen enough to know that fierce and dedicated loyalty to a single group was more the exception than the rule here. Gangs tended to be defined around a single charismatic leader and a core of his faithful followers, with the bulk of the ranks filled according to the ebb and flow of some undefined popular quality. Casimir might not have been able to recognise all the intricacies, but the fundamentals were all about reputation. Convince him you can provide him whatever he wants, be it money or willing women or a little power, and a man will deliver himself into your hands.
He started simply, anonymously encouraging more or less accurate rumours to circulate concerning a group of upstart amateurs moving in on Splatter territory. Publicity was one of Casimir's few talents with legitimate application, and with no more than a deft shove on his part the story spread with obliging speed. As he hoped, by the time he heard it repeated back to him in the Damstead Street markets on Oxday afternoon, the size of his nascent organisation had allegedly swollen to a hundred men, each an exotic killer, from Leph knife men, or pirates hailing out of the Isles or a squad of Oirescente deserters, complete with pikes and armoured mules. Bemusement at some of the more implausible speculations aside, he found himself ready to move to the next phase.
Despite that he was planning on the run and building the Golden Haired Boys' legitimacy with a string of flimsy fabrications, he was confident that his next move would wrap some flesh around the bones. His simple faith was based on the indisputable observation that Murbs did not much care for foreigners. Oh, certainly, an individual here and there could always buy acceptance if they were talented or charming or rich enough – his own rising star was evidence enough of that, and the way that the Cardinals had embraced that filthy turncoat bitch Lynnis, you'd think she was born breathing fog – but taken as a whole, the average Murb cared little for outsiders. Actual xenophobia, comprising uncompromising mistrust and hostility, was reserved for the Lephali descendants of the invaders who had occupied Murburan centuries earlier (ironically creating the circumstances in which a Murburan Kingdom could later rise).
Only a little less disliked were those nations who had provided tacit support and succor to the loathed Empire, chief among whom were fleets of Cenautia. A Murb patriot might be prepared to do business with collaborators, and the less scrupulously they were treated the better, but no Murb of any decent character who ever condescend to call a man of Cenautic origin 'friend'. So Casimir picked a big, obvious target with no support network and little hope of recourse to either legal justice or underground reprisal – the Cenautic sailors aboard the Tidal Belligerence.
Casimir kept to his agreement to meet the smugglers, albeit meeting the terms of the arrangements only in the loosest possible sense. He arrived at the meeting with an entourage of six of his Golden Haired Boys, each well-equipped with an assortment of chains, clubs and knives. The four sailors representing the Cenautic part, whose natural unease at dealing with hostile Murbs had ramped up to full blown paranoia when Sellton and Kramus had learned of their alternate buyers and had threatened reprisals accordingly, had immediately blasted shrill warnings on the brass whistles always worn sewn to their faded red shirts. Then they fled, bearing their wax-sealed crates of dried yellowpetal as best they could. One stumbled and fell in his haste, two others stopped, trying to help him to his feet, and in an instant Casimir's men fell upon them, beating and slashing and cutting them down where they stood.
A significant fraction of the Belligerence's crew were participants in its undeclared enterprise. Each had been persuaded by the smuggling ringleaders that the current sale, by which they all stood to gain considerable profits, might not necessarily go as planned. They came prepared, sharpening their rope knives and stationing a lookout outside the door of that night's hostelry, one seedy dockside tavern among dozens. Upon hearing the frantic whistling, the sentry hailed the expectant crew, which poured onto the street like rum from a spiked hogshead. Nearly a dozen were cut down by loosed arrows, catapulted stones, flung bricks and one crossbow bolt that jutted from the throat of a teenaged deckhand with bad skin.
The remaining twenty of Casimir Meldaran's recruits exploded from their hiding places and set about the reeling sailors with vicious spite. A few, used to unexpected violence from an adulthood spent in foreign ports and a career in flirtation with piracy, tried to fight back. Skull was positioned on a ledge set above the eaves of a shop opposite with a good view of the brawl. He noted the resistance at once and shouted rallying orders, which the Goldens obeyed at once. Even this simple coordination was an order order of magnitude more sophisticated than the sailors' chaotic thrashing.
In less than a minute, there were ten Cenautic sailors dead. A few minutes later, those too wounded or unconscious to flee the scene were dragged to the nearest wharf and cast into the water with a cut throat or a knife in the belly. One body, that of the impaled youth, was thrown through the shuttered windows of the tavern with his hands cut off, the grisly gesture taking as a warning, as intended. The Golden Haired Boys gathered up the few of their number who had succumbed to injury – a broken wrist here, some gashes and missing teeth there, nothing serious – and disappeared into the night.
When the first Sentry officers arrived some twenty minutes thereafter (the guardsmen were reluctant to break up the frequent brawls in Dockside at all and never attempted to do so in groups of less than four, which usually delayed them to the point of irrelevance), the first speculations concerning the bold new gang were already in firm circulation. One or two more strategic rumourmongers saw to that. The stories gained a renewed fervour when daylight revealed that a subsequent midnight raid on the unmourned victims' own vessel had resulted in three further deaths including that of its hapless captain, one Maryak Rook. As no cargo could be accounted as missing in the investigation that followed, it became understood that the killings themselves had been the primary motivation. Some were horrified at the brutality of the crimes, of course, but most of the town's talk dwelt upon what the Cenautics must have done to deserve such a fate.
And as the stories spread throughout the night, Casimir calculated the street value of his booty and whistled with thoughtful avarice as he laid his plans.
New markets lay ready and waiting for his produce. Exotic narcotics had rarely been able to find a toehold in Fellport before now, apart from a few jaded decadents in the better classes and the occasional wealthy student well versed in the chemical and botanical disciplines. But Cas was well aware of the desirability of his wares through long personal acquaintance and knew just how to sell it. Within days it could be ordered - with discretion, by the informed and discerning, at certain particular venues - as an arousing condiment. The fragrant oil stirred through crushed berries and served with ice was an immediate favourite at the Chattering Casket, doing more in one evening to attract notables and curiosity-seekers than a season's worth of ribald poets and mentalists. In his startled delight Udo Herronvale forgot the Corphenite's promise to poach his songstress back from Beyda Chur.
Casimir aimed low as well as high, developing a powder that could be sprinkled on a meal or in a drink, to inflame the senses and dull caution. No sooner had his select group of silver-tongued and sharp-eyed salesmen begun to offer up tastes in a handful of Tokenwood day kitchens, soup stands and bars than its popular success was assured. When it became widely known that it encouraged potential bedmates to relinquish their virtue to even the most unexceptional proponents, its status acquired an aura of legend. With demand secured, Casimir choked off the supply and drove the prices up. Suddenly yellowpetal of any kind was an unaffordable luxury to all but a few.
Unsubtle market manipulations aside, Casimir was far from idle. Acting through his most intimidating and popular and experienced subordinates, he trebled the size of the Golden Haired Boys. Most of his new people defected straight from the Rackhutch Splatters. He organised them into smaller crews with only loose affiliations answerable to his lieutenants, who in turn reported directly to him. Beyond the initial intake, few of his growing army ever met him in person. Those special few who received an audience at all were selected either for their intimate knowledge of the whereabouts of the holdouts amongst the Splatter leadership, or because they were suspected as spies for them. In either case, murders followed. Eryll Fudge, the last surviving Rackhutch lieutenant, was found trying to flee the city in a caravan westbound for Tazeffenk. Two of his former loyals dragged him fouled and screeching from a barrel of peppered eels and slaughtered him with boning knives.
The same caravan carried the first of Casimir's envoys - a young woman named Bowre, who spoke the tongue and was quick enough with a knife to keep herself safe - on the long journey west to Corphena. She carried hidden letters addressed to Casimir's few trustworthy associates, and enough money to secure their interest. His stranglehold on Fellport's burgeoning population of yellowpetal enthusiasts depended wholly on his ability to maintain a steady supply. He took no more chances than he must, and other envoys were soon dispatched. Tough he would not know it for several weeks, he need not have worried. Bowre's mission was a resounding success. He had a knack for spotting remarkable women.
In fact, almost nothing he set in motion went other than precisely to plan. There were just two exceptions. The first was that Gardenio, the drunkard chef from the Moistened Cardinal, of whom he might have expected more significant results, proved to be a disappointment. He neither gained his revenge for the insults of Lynnis and Chur nor won any significant benefits for his ally Herronvale. Casimir chose to remain philosophical, considering the failure a minor setback at worst .
The second exception was unambiguously a mistake, though he was never to learn what went wrong. He had personally dashed in the brains of Jul Chrezesp, the Cenautic smuggler's gap-toothed mastermind, before he could be told that there was already local interest in their wares, or that the meeting had been compromised. Honitt Sellton, who had a lifetime's experience of not being seen on the streets of his city, had watched the whole bloody encounter with great interest. Unraveling the particulars did nothing to tax his considerable powers of deduction, nor did it take great foresight to guess the next few steps in the Corphenite's plan. And from there, it was comparative child's play to recruit Chroke Ilchard to join the Golden Haired Boys and report their every activity back to him.
Casimir was good, but he was no local.
***
“Why so gloomy this evening, Addenfarrow? Nothing can be as bad as all that. Except this wretched weather, I suppose.”
Herok beamed up from the scrolls and maps that were spread across his desk and pinioned with a variety of lamps, ink pots and cold candles. He was leaning hunched over the table. Several more charts were rolled up on his chair, making it impossible to sit without grave insult to the royally-appointed cartographers. The maps depicted several areas of the city and included the plans for a new plaza to be built in Quarterbend, its completion to coincide with commemorations for the tenth anniversary of Duke Vormura's rule. He was at this moment compiling a long list – not excluding its vast cost and unadulterated gaudiness – of reasons why the city should decline the dubious opportunity to approve its construction.
“You're still here?” Addenfarrow's lost expression bore the weight of his sleepless nights. He shuffled into Herok's musty office, bumping his head against a tarnished brass lamp with absent disregard. “Well I suppose I should not complain. I'm grateful that you're here to keep affairs in order.”
Herok shivered the feathered end of his quill at the Seneschal and blew out a dismissive puff of his cheeks. “We must all of us take up slack in a crisis, my lord. If my services can be of use to you, then it is my duty to set them at your disposal.”
Addenfarrow rubbed at tired eyes. “Your loyalty will not be forgotten, Herok.”
“Perish the thought, my lord Seneschal.” Herok dropped his eyes in what would be taken as sincere deference, though in fact it was a precaution against Addenfarrow's noticing the glint of mockery. For all of his competence, Herok sometimes found it difficult to overcome his own sense of mischief. He felt a fatalistic sense of certainty that it would be the death of him one of these days. “Was there something in particular that keeps you from your bed?”
“I've lost count of my reasons for avoiding my pillow, Herok. My companion snores, for one. But tell me, have you learned any more about our assassin?”
Herok affected a great show of regret, saying, “I had thought to permit you a decent night's sleep and present it to you in the morning, my lord. But seeing that you are here -” He presented Addenfarrow with a folded sheaf of documents, all forged with meticulous care and plausible detail three days earlier. “If I may address the key points, my lord Addenfarrow, I am afraid there is little of any value. Neither of the men have been identified, nor are their descriptions consistent with any known enemy agents. Though of course that does leave unknown enemy agents. I have conferred with Staff Sergeant Kilritch, who speculates that the conspirators, having failed in their objective to murder Duke Vormura, executed the would-be assassin and then took their own lives in a death pact.”
Addenfarrow scanned the papers with random attention. His frustration was plain. “What about the woman herself?”
“She is a tantalising mystery, to be sure. The name Hethezhen is an obvious pseudonym. As you know, among her possessions, which include what I am assured is an excellent collection of monographs on the migratory habits of swellets, gyrebeaks and shrikes, were papers for three additional identities, all matching her description. A thorough search of the apartment turned up several items clearly intended to corroborate said guises. However there is nothing to indicate either her true name or nationality. Her landlady could provide little of use to us, only that from time to time she entertained gentlemen of suspiciously foreign and unsuspiciously academic carriage, for whom she allegedly edits manuscripts and transcribes lecture notes. I called upon several such fellows at the University, all of whom disavow all knowledge of her, and I venture to say that it was likely a convenient lie to reassure her hostess. She's had the room for three years, no other regular callers, very little mail.” Apologetic, he added, “Complete dead end, I fear.”
Almost every word was a lie. In fact the woman's name had been Hethezhen , she was genuinely a student of natural lore, and was born and bred a native Murb. She was also one of Sir Kowan Dart's most accomplished agents, a ruthless and dedicated counterspy who for some months now had been increasingly of the conclusion that a foreign agent had infiltrated to the heart of Fellport's ducal administration. She had assembled a considerable body of evidence to support her suspicions, which had shaken Herok to the core, when he had finally deciphered enough of it to appreciate its meticulous accuracy. He had now reached the alarming deduction that had she not been exposed by sheer chance, she would certainly have discovered him within the month. As it was, she was given away only by the death of her clandestine associate Tansy Nackridge, whose incompletely-encoded report addressed to Hethezhen was interrupted by her manslaughter at the hands of Holthock.
When he had stumbled across the letter in the guise of looking into a crime the background circumstances of which he was fully aware, Herok had wasted no time in tracking its intended reader. The Corphenite assassin's plea for assistance had come at just the right time to inspire him to deal with two problems at once, securing his own position and cooling the hot coals under his pet Raker. The killing itself was not easy – Hethezhen had secreted bodyguards in her apartment, somehow undetected by her landlady – but the immense satisfaction of explaining to her how close she had come to unearthing her quarry as her throttled her with his bare hands had been worth the effort. All that remained was to arrange the bodies in a suitably cryptic diorama and concoct some diversionary explanations leading to mistaken conclusions.
It was, he allowed himself, a masterful fabrication, one that even Addenfarrow at the height of his wits would never unravel. Though to be certain, his confidence was largely assured by the regular doses of befuddling poisons with which Herok daily spiced Addenfarrow's tea. The light at the moment was not all that it could be, but he fancied that he could perceive a slight looseness to his victim's posture and eye movements that underlined the efficacy of the dosage.
“Really, Herok, you've learned nothing? Did I not understand that you had all your resources urgently devoted to this case? You've a small army at your disposal, you smug, officious little arse! Why don't you know who is trying to kill – ?”
The amusing escalation in distress and paranoia was not a known side-effect of the drugs. It was all Addenfarrow's own work. Herok simpered “My lord?” with stiff deference, like a loyal cur thoughtlessly kicked.
“Him,” stuttered the Seneschal, collecting his dismounted dignity as best he could. “Him, the Duke, I meant.” He tugged a kerchief from his sleeve and dabbed it at his eyes. “Forgive my anxiety. I have not slept well these past few days.”
Herok held his floorward stare just long enough to be awkward. At last he said “I do perhaps have some good news.” Taking a moment to bask in Addenfarrow's fleeting look of pathetic expectancy, he said, “About a week ago, there was an incident in Icewater Avenue. A fire, you may recall.”
“Yes, yes, that horrible publisher fellow Fenchrow. Spilled chemicals everywhere and burned himself to death, I heard.”
“Well, I am quite certain that he had much to repent, but it seems that his rather ghastly demise may have been somewhat less voluntary than rumour would have it. A young Sentryman was at the scene, turns out he saw the whole thing. Fenchrow was stabbed to death before the fire started.”
“Really? A witness? And a guardsman, no less. So why didn't he catch the villain?”
“A junior guardsman, my lord. He was attacked and wounded, presumably by an accomplice of the murderer. He has been in and out of consciousness since the attack.”
Addenfarrow rumbled discontentedly. “Come now Herok, I'm not one of Fenchrow's admirers. I've no use for salacious crime stories. What is there in this that interests us? He could have made any number of enemies. He was likely done in by a libeled reader, I expect.”
“Just this, my lord: the witness named a particular man who has of late become interesting to us. A Corphenite entrepreneur named Casimir Meldaran.” He held up a hand to forestall questions. “Before you ask, no, there is no reason you should know the name. Meldaran has been in Fellport for less than a month. But he is wasting no time in making an impression. In the past ten days, he has set the criminal underworld of this town on its head. He started by all but decimating a significant rival. Now he seems to be moving on to bigger and better things. He's sculpting out a very pretty little empire for himself, without any apparent support or patronage. He owes no allegiances, he pays no tithes. His men love him because they get to keep most of what they take.”
“You mean that he is not part of the Accord?” “It's quite possible he doesn't even know about it. If I were one of his lieutenants, I would accept my larger than usual cut of the takings, squirrel as much as I can in the deepest hole I can find and keep my tongue well back from my teeth. When His Lordship takes action, they'll turn on him in a heartbeat and swear their black hearts that they thought it was all square with the Accord. Meldaran will be made an example of, quite publicly I shouldn't wonder, and things will get back to how they've always been.”
Addenfarrow looked eager. “Certainly there must be something in this that we can turn to our purpose. You have a plan?”
“Word has it that he's on most unfriendly personal terms with Berber Trigosi. I propose that for the moment we do absolutely nothing but sit back and enjoy the spectacle.” He pouted. “It is, however, rather a pity nobody has been enterprising enough to sell tickets.”
***
The rate of Jedlow's recovery would have come as a surprise to his doctor, had he paid any attention to it. Since arriving at his initial prognosis, his infirmary had begun to become flooded with an ever-increasing tide of complaints, mainly contusions and fractures. The Sentry had been taken off guard by the surge of violence in recent days; it was doubly the case for its extremely limited medical facilities. Along with two unqualified assistants, the physician – a practised surgeon and otherwise the distributor of a wide range of placebos - was run ragged with the demand. As a consequence, he was too distracted to follow Jedlow's progress.
Ductio's visit had left the young guardsman in despair. Given the mildness of his upbringing as a dairy worker, in Jedlow's life he had encountered few authority figures quite as striking as the Magistrate. Coming from his mouth, accented with the now-familiar profanity, the news of the extent of his injury sounded like a sentence of death. He had contemplated the prospect that he might never rise from this bed, might never stand on his own feet or walk or kick or dance. He mulled ruefully on the dismal knowledge that he had never done all that much dancing as it was, but that now the possibility that he might one day learn seemed to have been taken away forever. He sank into a black daze, torturing himself with a daydream of a slow embracing waltz with a beautiful girl; the musicians were smiling as they drew out the tune, others there applauded with warmth, and the song and the embrace went on and on.
It took him two days to realise two things; that the woman he was daydreaming about was the minstrel from Corphena, and that he really only had someone else's word for it that he wouldn't ever walk. And so, fighting back screaming pain in his back and legs and a blinding ache that felt like the noon sun had risen behind his eyes, he had dragged away his sheets and swung himself off the bed.
Of course his legs had instantly collapsed under him. He struck his head and passed out, lying there beside the bed for a day before one of the assistants had spotted him, made an examination that tested the limits of his rudimentary knowledge of medicine, found him still to be breathing and hefted him back onto his cot.
Another day passed before Jedlow regained consciousness and tried again. This time he managed to stand for a few seconds. The next time he took a step. The next time after that he was unable to stand, but even he was able to diagnose that his incapacity now had more to do with the ankle he had twisted badly on his third attempt. And over the next few days, he clawed his strength back, a piece at a time.
When they remembered him, the assistants brought him food and drink and took away his bedpan. Other than that, he was left to his own devices, alone except for the snoring of the two assistants in the next room, and the occasional yelp of pain as alcohol was administered to an open wound in the surgery down the hall. Once he thought he heard screaming, but it had stopped before he awoke.
Ductio did not visit again.
Somewhere between nine and ten days after he fell onto the cobbles of Icewater Avenue, Jedlow rose from his bed, drew on his coat, pulled up his boots and strapped on his hat, and went to the mess hall for breakfast. Some of his fellow trainees had apparently given him up as dead; they made the sign of warding with their fingers. He ate alone, though when his colleagues recovered their wits he acknowledged their congratulatory welcomes with something approaching his former cheerful ease.
Staff Sergeant Kilritch was just as surprised as anyone to see him standing, but he took it in stride. “You're back?” he said. “Good. You can patrol in Ladderstand with Reynart. His partner just got his throat opened with a broken glass.”
Jedlow didn't show his affront, though he could not keep some of the cold out of his voice. “I was assigned to Magistrate Ductio, Sergeant. I thought I was going to resume my duties -”
“Your duties are what I tell you they are, guardsman,” snapped Kilritch. “You're on patrol, and Magistrate Ductio is – well, nobody knows what that sinister old prick is up to, but I'm not wasting another bloody warm body on it.”
“You mean nobody's seen him?”
“Not for a week or more. Rotten old whoremonger's probably shacked up with some tart, banging himself to death while the whole bloody town falls down around his ears.”
“He could be hurt!” Even Jedlow was startled by the sound of his own raised voice. “I – that is, Sergeant, somebody should be looking for him. He was looking for the assassin and -” Kilritch said through tight lips, “It's not your concern, guardsman. Get out of my office, report to Reynart and get some exercise into your legs. Right now.”
Jedlow nodded and tapped his cap with insolent precision. “Yes, Sergeant.”
As he turned and marched out, Kilritch muttered, “It's a miracle cure. Boy's grown a spine.”
***
Lynnis almost didn't notice, as the days passed and with them the pain of her numerous wounds, the Moistened Cardinal was becoming home. That is to say, it was becoming familiar and even comfortable; she was coming to know its rhythms, from the first boisterous morning calls in the kitchens to the clatter of chairs one hour and ten minutes before noon, from the chilled snorts of the grocer's horses to the shrill squeals of Nana's inevitable delight (never commencing more than ten minutes after the players' final chord of the evening). She had a name for every face and knew the story of quite a few. She had fathomed secrets. A handful of them were innocent, like Jerolle the percussionist's unrequited crush on Felippa the waitress, but some of them were ill-fortuned indeed, like Fowart's clumsy embezzlement and Gardenio's bitter drinking. She observed with a precise eye, cataloguing every nuance. Like a cuckoo, she knew every twig of the Cardinals' nest and she camouflaged herself at its centre.
Life among the Cardinals was far from easy-going; the tireless work ethic of this small army produced a constant bustle of activity. That was only to be expected of a group who, under Beyda Chur's custodianship, were in the near-unique position of benefiting from a little-observed Murb law which delivered a sliver of the profits to them; in most cases this allocation, commonly called the Tin Whistle's Pea for obscure reasons, was reserved by owners for the payment of bribes and the attraction of new talent. It might have added no more than two simoleons a year to the pocket of the primary recipient (Fowart, the table captain, although in his case rather more than that was finding its way to his strongbox) but it was appreciated nonetheless and inspired heights of loyal effort not seen in years.
For all their remarkable energy and dedication, though, few of them could have kept up with Lynnis' punishing training regimen, and so she was careful to divide herself between different parts of the saloon during the day to avoid drawing too much attention. Before daybreak each morning, she drew the curtains on the stage and underwent two hours of hard martial calisthenics, her feet and hands wrapped in bandages to deaden the noise of leaps, throws and flips. Slipping back to her quarters, she would appear to rise an hour after dawn, indulging in the part of the pampered artist. She stole pastries from beneath the noses of the smitten kitchen hands (she never ate them), flirted with Sir Beyda's new bodyguards, she dared to discuss politics with the opinionated patrons of a nearby teahouse, though only with apparent colossal naivety. While she prattled outwardly, in her head she composed new sonnets or poems or practised enciphering short messages in case she needed to contact her Fellport connection in a hurry. Before she staged an apparently impromptu performance in one of the three dining rooms at noon, she practised three different instruments in three separate locations, from the players' gallery to the stagehands' common room to the sitting room outside Sir Beyda's office. On afternoons, she rehearsed light dance routines which only an expert eye could have guessed were strenuous to the point of severe pain. For an hour before each show, she stretched and warmed and sang lightly with the other performers. She never performed for less than an hour, and on nights when the crowd drank well and the waitress' smiles told her that the tips were generous, she might carry on for nearly three. And at the end of the night, after an hour's sleep, she slipped out of the Moistened Cardinal and breezed through the streets like a shadow, watching the city's nocturnals as they emerged from shelter. No more than once a week did she allow herself more than four hours of sleep.
Lynnis was not quite certain what she was waiting for. No instructions had been relayed back to her from her contact, save that she stay put. She suffered through the painstaking healing process with undisguised impatience, guessing with disgust that a mild twinge in the pivot of her hip might never go away. She burned with unfettered shame at her failure to execute the pestilent Blue Duke, her fury doubling and redoubling with each passing day. She had not meant for the girl to die. She tried to permit herself to feel no more than a small part of the responsibility for her death. The rapacious Vormura, whose degenerate tastes seemed to run to little girls, was truly at fault. Were it not for his cowardice, Lynnis would never have caused -
More than once, she caught herself thinking about the dead girl.
She couldn't think about the dead girl yet. Soon Vormura would open himself up to a new opportunity for murder. Remorse wasn't a tool she could use. She discarded it behind a curtain of brutal, self-inflicted discipline.
And the Moistened Cardinal fell in love with her smile.
***
However comfortably he convinced himself he had settled, Bey was an outsider. Every day taught him a new lesson – a custom he couldn't fake, a figure of speech that left him baffled or another that cracked the rhythm of a conversation when he employed it. And of course there was still his remarkable (going on implausible) appointment as administrator, which remained the popular subject for speculative tongues. While it seemed to him that he still fell short of arousing actual suspicion – his Deremaric 'heritage' was a convenient explanation that satisfied most curiosity – the reminders that he was not wholly a part of the extended family that populated the saloon were constant and acute.
Like any small community, the Moistened Cardinal had its secrets. Bey found that the social isolation from his fellow Cardinals' more intimate discussions excluded him as well from perceiving the less widely shared confidences. For the most part that did not bother him. He had made mistakes where intimacy was concerned in the past and would not trip up on the same slippery ground this time around. Secret affairs, petty grievances, spiteful jealousy; suppressing the human urge to gossip, he remained aloof.
But like all small communities, some of the secrets obscured from sight promised less trivial consequences than a broken heart here or a flared temper there. Bey knew better than most that what he didn't know could most certainly find a way to kill him. And when he felt threatened, he acted.
His first problem was the thief. Bey had a natural affinity for numbers, and while he lacked a formal mathematical education, he more than knew his way around a ledger. Something about the saloon's cash flows was not what it should have been. Someone was skimming the saloon's takings, he was in no doubt about it. With a dozen different tributaries feeding the Moistened Cardinal's revenue stream, from drinks and meals to private shows and the rent from a handful of unused apartments on her eastern wing, the thief could be almost any employee. Short of hiring a clutch of spies to monitor the stickiness of his staff's fingers, which would be more expensive than the missing sums in question, he formed no specific suspicions. In any case he was less concerned about the amount stolen than about putting a stop to the pilfering before it was discovered by anyone else. The damage to morale would be singular enough without the angry vigilantism that would likely follow.
For two days he tried to pin down the source of the leakage, watching random Cardinals as they went about their daily duties, without success. Despite his eagle attention, the petty skimming continued. For all his vigilance, he saw nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, much less pinpointed the culprit.
So be it. Deciding that urgency outweighed discretion, he was faced with little choice. He called his senior staff together for a meeting - shooing Lynnis Chalcer and both of her harps from his sitting room - to explain his suspicions.
“Calm down, calm down please!” he said to their expected outcry. “I assure you that I make no accusations and have drawn no conclusions beyond the certain fact that our coffers are short of their mark.”
Nana was the most shocked. “No, no, this cannot 'appen,” she insisted. “We are all a 'appy family, no? 'oo would steal from a sister or brother? None but the cockroach under your feet, that is 'oo! It cannot be!”
“I'm certain that our cockroach lives under this roof,” Bey said, “or works here at least. I want each of you to watch your staff for suspicious behaviour, particularly those handling any cash. Report anything unusual to me.”
Fowart said “If I find out who it is, you'll know them from the bandages, my lord!” Despite the deferential honorific, his declaration drew assertions of concurrence from Gardenio and Milkson, the head bartender.
With a firm glare Bey said “I want no action taken, is that understood? The thief may not be working alone. I will settle for nothing less than solid proof, which means my own two eyes. You're to report any suspicions to me directly and this conversation is not to sound the slightest echo outside this room. Am I understood?”
At first nothing came of his heightened attention to the comings and going of the Cardinals, though it did lead to his inadvertent discovery of one of those elusive secrets. Or rather, Bey ascribed his find to his state of vigilant alertness, rather than any more basic, less proper, entirely unwelcome motives. He was sure it had come upon him much too suddenly to be anything but a breakthrough of inspired proportions.
Lynnis Chalcer, he now concluded, was a bit unusual.
She was friendly with everyone, on a first-name basis with people he had barely had time to recognise by face, yet seemed to have formed no close friendships. She was a polymath, with a staggering store of knowledge available at the drop of a straight line, yet seemed to have no particular interest in discussing any topic with more sincerity and attention than was required to flatter her interlocutor. The virulent spread of her reputation was the foremost reason for their sudden influx of profligate patrons, but she responded to her stardom with utter indifference. There was no significant performance art in which she was less than commanding. Her drive to exceed even her own remarkable standards was peerless. Yet as Bey watched her take her bows, with every passing night he became more convinced that she took no pleasure in either performance or accolades. The gratified smiles might have fooled an admiring audience, but Bey very much doubted their authenticity.
She possessed a dazzling capacity to charm even the most humourless soul. But for that quality, she might as well be alive for the sole purpose of honing herself into a more perfect entertainer. Her relentless – indeed, apparently tireless – pursuit of what he was gradually coming to recognise as a constant programme of training bordered on the inhuman.
Bey realised too late that he was fascinated by her.
“My lords and ladies, if there is a single person in this room that would stand before the Saints themselves and declare that they have ever been better served by an evening's entertainment, then I stand before you a man undone! Please accord your finest, most heartfelt acclaim to the one-woman Choir of Corphena, Mistress Lynnis Chalcer!”
Through the sustained roar of approval, accompanied here and there by the appreciative smashing of glassware and thumping of tables, Bey found that a sweat had broken through into the cool air. His knees were almost knocking as he circled the stage in a reverent orbit, proudly presenting her to her admirers like she was a nugget of solid silver.
Every night for a week he had found the urge growing within him, to spurn tradition, to have her forego the tantalising promise of an encore, to drag her offstage and have her all to himself. He would -
He would what? Woo her with his own unheralded charms? Flatter her with compliments she had somehow not heard a thousand times before? Beguile her with diabolical resolution into his bed?
As she departed the stage, all feathers, silk and beatific smiles, he blustered through his distraction, thanking the audience's kind indulgence and urging them to further merriment. No sooner had the players struck up an exhortation to dance and the hands struck the curtain than Bey stumbled for the wings to reclaim his drink.
“Where the hell did that come from?” he snapped. Nana, generously dispensing bosomy hugs of congratulations, was startled.
He could not recall the last time he had been smitten with such an unmitigated case of lust. It struck square at his dignity, not to mention his sense of self-control. He was embarrassed beyond chagrin, though a small pocket of insistent logic asserted that nobody else would possibly have noticed. He fought back the rampage of emotion with a rear-guard action of stern rationality, remonstrating with himself that it was out of the question on purely practical grounds – she's an impersonal machine with a good voice, remember? Not to mention the fact that any scenario bearing a resemblance to the Fiasco of Nella and Jessa was impossible. Intolerable. Absolutely fucking not.
He swigged his glass clean and made a transparent excuse to Nana. He had a firm urge to be anywhere else as soon as possible. Preferably in bed. Alone.
Up a permanent scaffold in the wings and through a doorway off the players' gallery was the shortest route to the main accommodation wing. Fowart intercepted him at the summit. “Sir Beyda, I must speak with you urgently.” He too was glistening with perspiration. He twitched with agitation if not outright distress.
Bey growled “Can it wait?” The impatience reflected his resignation that Fowart was not about to be deterred.
“It is a matter of great significance, sir,” Fowart declared importantly. His eyes rolled with conspiratorial fervour. “I have ascertained the identity of the thief. In accordance with your explicit instructions, I have taken no direct action.”
“I value your diligence, Master Fowart, and your discretion, but for all the world I would prefer to be abed, is it not so? Just tell me what you know.”
“I will do far more, my lord. I will show you!” Bey made to protest, but when he saw that Fowart would not be discouraged, he acquiesced with a nod. A headache began to press at his temples.
Fowart led him down to the lower floor to the rooms most adjacent to the stage. These were mostly common rooms, occupied by three or four inhabitants, usually performers and stage crew. At the moment a contingent of new kitchen hands brought on to handle the increased workload were also garrisoned within. “I had my suspicions of course,” babbled Fowart, “but you made it perfectly plain that you expected to be presented with tangible evidence of wrongdoing. If I have any fault, as you must have noticed, my lord, it is that I am a perfectionist. I will settle for nothing less than incontrovertible proof, like yourself. And so I wait, and I watch, and I spring my trap!”
Bey's head was swimming, and not just with Fowart's delusional self-aggrandisement. He propped a hand on the waiter's shoulder to steady himself, which Fowart mistook for a congratulatory gesture. They stopped at the end of a hallways of doors. “My lord,” he said, producing a key from within his black silk apron, “I have not let you down.” With an unwarranted flourish that complicated the process, he unlocked a door and pushed it open for Bey's review. With a small click of his heels he stepped to one side to afford Bey a better view.
Feeling oddly as though he ought to offer a gratuity, Bey stepped forward. The small chamber was obviously used by a solitary Cardinal with a respected position. From the embroidered drapes swirling in multicoloured spirals above and around the large central bed and the plush garden of plump cushions arranged upon it, not to mention the spinning wheel, the incomplete seascape sewn in blue and green silks pressed into the tambour and the tiered shelves of threads, scissors, spools, chalks, bobbins and buttons, and the astonish variety of women's undergarments strewn about, there was no mistaking the room's occupant.
“When my suspicions became certainties, I obtained this key and investigated for myself,” said Fowart, oblivious in his triumph to admissions of ethical want. “First, I discovered – this!” He gestured towards a small chest of drawers beside the door, the top cabinet of which he slid open vigourously. Coins slid across one another and struck the wall of the drawer. It was filled nearly to capacity, several months' salary. Certainly much more cash than Bey himself had seen yet.
“I see -” said Bey, squinting through the gathering haze seeping from his forehead to his eyes.
“That's not all!” hastened Fowart, anxious to prolong his time in the spotlight. “It has been my observation that Mistress Devolier never misses a performance by Mistress Chalcer, therefore I took the opportunity during this evening's show to conduct a more thorough search of this chamber.” Now he reached beneath the stack of cushions and removed a folded leaf of paper.
“Really Fowart, you searched her bed? That goes too -”
“My discovery, Sir Beyda!” Fowart thrust the page at him as though it were on fire. Bey glared. His head and neck throbbed. “Read it for yourself, I plead!” With simmering reluctance, he took the note and unfolded it.
It was not addressed. It was a few short lines written in a crabbed, squarish style that resembled print. It assured the reader that their services would be well rewarded and praised them to more ambitious efforts. When the Moistened Cardinal was ruined by scandal and “the scurrilous upstart” clapped in stocks, it promised, there was a place of honour at the Chattering Casket for “persons of loyal character such as yourself”. At the foot of the page, in magnificent majuscule script, it was signed “UDO, LORD PROTECTOR HERRONVALE”.
In the silence that fell as he read and reread the unexpected treachery, Fowart trembling with pride before him, the seams in Bey's brain finally gave under the pressure. White light seethed from somewhere within. Noises seemed to come from everywhere at once. He clapped the page with both hands to his face and hissed. “Fowart, get -”
Soft hands slithered around his waist and locked him in a provocative hug. “Oh, Bey Bey, such a delight! You look at such pains, I go to your room to bring you soothing cheer, but nowhere are you to be seen!” The hands parted company and moved in opposite directions, one caressing his face and throat, the other slipping with unrestrained ease through any number of protective clothing layers. “An' where do I find you?”
Bey grabbed both hands before they could take further liberties. He roughly dragged Nan into the room and pushed her towards the bed. She stumbled against it and fell onto the cushions with a flop. For one insane second, Bey stepped toward her, he momentary intent obvious to them both, “Oho!” she giggled. “But then of course, you are the master!” Then for the first time she noticed Fowart standing beside her. “What is he doing -”
Bey said, “Your accent slips when you're taken off guard, did you know?” Crushing the letter in his hand, he said, “Pack your belongings. He'll help. In twenty minutes I want you out of the Moistened Cardinal. Don't come back.”