Blood in the Water (25 page)

Tathrin didn’t recall them mentioning this other man before. He just knew this new scheme meant more traipsing along the flagstoned roads and muddy alleys. His legs were already aching viciously. Sitting outside Carluse Town’s gates might have been boring but it hadn’t been nearly so hard on his feet.

He sighed and followed the two Mountain Men. He had no idea where they were going now. Despite criss-crossing the city from the docks that opened onto the Gulf of Lescar back to the wharves that served the River Rel, Tathrin still had little idea of its overall layout.

After a little while, though, he noted the streets were getting wider. The air was sweeter as the open gutters ran with water to sluice the refuse away. He could smell cooking and hear voices hinting at normal life behind the blank walls lining the street. The Relshazri didn’t seem to favour windows looking outwards. Soon clean paving underfoot lifted his spirits further, as did fresh whitewash on the plastered brick houses. Then he realised their dirt and dishevelment were attracting ominous looks from the porters at the doors of the increasingly opulent dwellings.

“How much further?” he asked quietly.

“Not far.” Sorgrad met a door-ward’s glower with a cheery grin.

They turned down a cobbled lane where fruit trees overhung garden walls. Gren stopped by a gate and gave a bell pull a swift tug. Somewhere over the white wall, Tathrin heard a chime.

They stood waiting for a few moments. There was no sound within, no opening door, no steps coming to open the gate. Gren rang the bell a second time. There was still no response. Frowning, Sorgrad looked around. Satisfied no one else was in the lane, he tried the gate’s iron handle. It turned and the gate swung inwards.

Gren drew his sword. “Downy Scardin doesn’t leave his gate unbolted.”

“Quick.” Sorgrad shoved Tathrin’s shoulder.

Gren bolted the gate as soon as they were in the garden. It was smaller than Tathrin expected, the patterned paving overshadowed by the thrusting fronds of plants he didn’t recognise.

Seeing Sorgrad ready his blade, he drew his own. “What now?”

Gren was looking at a half-open door with coloured glass panes. “Downy?”

Sorgrad took a silent step towards the house. “It’s Maspin, from Ambafost.”

There was no reply. More crucially, Tathrin couldn’t hear a sound to hint at anyone within, hiding or lying in wait.

“Downy Scardin?” Gren moved closer to the door, stooping, tense as a hunting cat. Then he stood up, his sword hanging loose. “We’re really behind the fair today.”

“What is it?” Sorgrad slipped past him to pull the glass-panelled door fully open.

Tathrin saw a fat man in a silk tunic and trews sprawled across a cushioned daybed. He had copper-coloured skin, long black hair and a beard plaited with gold chains. A dark stain spread from under his beard all over the breast of his ochre tunic.

“Watch that gate.” Leaving Tathrin on the steps, Sorgrad went for a closer look. “Has he been robbed?”

“Hard to say.” Gren was by a desk piled high with letters, sealed and unsealed, ledgers and papers of all descriptions. He tugged at a drawer and found it locked. So was the one beneath.

“He’s been dead since early this morning, I’d guess.” Sorgrad was leaning over the corpse, prodding at the bloodstain with the tip of his dagger and sniffing. “Throat cut by someone who knew exactly how.”

Gren contemplated the locked desk. “If you kill a man for some secret he won’t hand over, why don’t you search for it afterwards?”

“Maybe they just found it easily?” As soon as Tathrin spoke up, he regretted it.

“Anything worth killing for, Downy would have it secure.” Sorgrad studied the dead man. “And I can’t think of any secret he wouldn’t sell, not for the right price.”

Now Gren was looking at the desk with keener interest. “What kind of price do you think we’d be talking?”

“Maybe his killer didn’t want to pay?” Tathrin hazarded.

“We haven’t got time to go into all his business.” Sorgrad gestured at the littered desk. “Downy had his fingers on threads stretching all the way to Selerima and Col, looping through every town between here and there.”

“Charoleia would know what’s worth our time,” Gren persisted.

“She’s not here.” Sorgrad’s tone made it clear the discussion was over.

Tathrin looked around the room. Everything else appeared undisturbed: the lacquered table and wooden chairs, the vase of rich red blooms, the framed portraits on the wall. The desk was cluttered with paper but the piles were neat enough. “Wouldn’t things be all over the floor if someone had been searching?”

“True enough.” Sorgrad sheathed his blades. “Well, there’s nothing for us. Let’s go and see Egil the Toad again.”

“I wonder if anyone’s cut his throat,” Gren mused on his way to the door.

“There are enough folk who’d like to.” Following, Sorgrad grimaced. “Maybe Downy just fell foul of the wrong man.”

Tathrin looked at the corpse. “What are we going to do about him?”

Gren chuckled, amused. “He’s not our problem, long lad.”

Sorgrad was heading for the gate. As he lifted the latch, a burly man shoved it from the other side, barging through. He launched himself at Sorgrad, intent on wrestling him to the ground. The Mountain Man stepped deftly aside and drove his assailant off with a punch to the short ribs.

Before Tathrin could take a relieved breath, more men forced their way through the gate.

“Boots and fists and a knife if you must,” Gren warned, “but slice, don’t stab.”

Tathrin saw one of their would-be attackers settle brass knuckles across his fist. That punch could stun him, if it didn’t kill him outright. How were they supposed to win this fight without their swords?

“Leave one of them conscious.” Sorgrad retreated to stand beside him. “We want answers.”

Tathrin saw such confidence didn’t deter the dirty and ragged men. He frowned. They looked like bargemen from that foul tavern, the Sea Serpent.

Whoever they were, they made the first move. One rushed forwards, his eyes glittering with more than liquor. He punched at Gren. Dodging the blow, Gren seized the man’s fist in his own crushing grip, swiftly using his free hand to punch his assailant’s shoulder. That deadened the second blow the man launched. Before he could recover, Gren hooked a boot behind his knee. As the man fell back into a stand of ferns, Gren kicked him in the face.

Another bargeman came straight for Tathrin, his arm swinging up and around. Instinctively raising his forearm, Tathrin felt agony and numbness shooting down to his fingers. The bargeman was using a lead-weighted cosh.

Tathrin threw all his weight behind a punch to the man’s jaw. The pain in his knuckles was worth it as the man stumbled back into the green-stained wall. But the bargeman quickly pushed himself off the plaster, swinging his cosh at Tathrin’s head. Tathrin remembered Sorgrad’s lessons in avoiding a knife. Stepping forwards, he blocked the man’s forearm this time so the cosh only struck empty air. He smashed his fist backhanded into the man’s nose. The bargeman’s answering blow glanced off Tathrin’s cheekbone.

As his assailant staggered backwards, blood streaming from his nose, Tathrin saw Sorgrad had already knocked one bargeman onto his hands and knees. The man whined, spitting teeth onto the patterned paving.

Then he saw the dull sheen of a blade. Another man had recovered from whatever blow had sent him reeling, ready to stab Sorgrad’s unarmoured back. “Behind you!”

Sorgrad whirled around and knocked the knifeman’s arm sideways. Before the attacker could react, Sorgrad kicked him hard in his groin. The man doubled up, retching. Sorgrad stamped on his knife-hand, the crack of bone audible.

Whatever Gren had done to the fifth attacker, it left him huddled on the ground, his bloodied face twisted. The man with the cosh took to his heels. Fleeing through the gate, he left only a bloody handprint on the plastered wall.

“Let’s get out of here.” Sorgrad kicked the knife under a trailing vine.

Gren was rubbing his grazed knuckles. “So who were they?”

As they went out into the lane, he fell silent.

“Keep your hands where they can see them.” Sorgrad displayed his empty palms.

“Who do you suppose called the Magistrates’ Watch?” Gren followed his brother’s example. “Now’s a good time to look big and foolish, long lad.”

Tathrin wasn’t sure what he looked like. He could feel his cheek swelling where he’d been punched. His arm ached horribly where the cosh had struck it.

The men carried halberds but any resemblance to Lescar’s militias ended there. Their polearms weren’t tipped with plain cleaving blades but bristled with spikes and curved hooks. They all wore the finest chain mail that Tathrin had ever seen, each steel ring so small the hauberks hung like cloth.

“We’ve none of us drawn a sword,” Sorgrad said calmly.

“Just defended ourselves.” Why did Gren’s virtuous statement sound so like a lie?

One man walked forwards. This must surely be the sergeant. He wore a long sword and, Tathrin noticed uneasily, had a barbed lash coiled in his belt.

“Defended yourselves?” He looked inside the garden gate. “That’s as may be.”

His tone was neutral. He drew Sorgrad’s sword a handspan out of its scabbard. It slid easily out and back in. With a friendly smile, Gren allowed the man to check his own blade.

The sergeant turned to Tathrin. “Your sword?”

“I never touched it.” Tathrin stood still as the man satisfied himself it hadn’t been thrust bloodied back in the sheath.

“You’re wearing armour.” The Watchman flicked the front of Tathrin’s jerkin, audibly striking the metal plates beneath the leather.

“That’s hardly forbidden,” Sorgrad said peaceably.

He and Gren had shed their hauberks though. Openly going armoured in Relshaz could be taken as proof they were looking for a fight, he’d told Tathrin.

The man shrugged. “You can explain yourselves to the Magistracy. Come on.”

Sorgrad meekly followed the sergeant, Tathrin at his side, Gren close behind. The Watchmen surrounded them, fore and aft and two deep to either side. They walked swiftly through the streets in silence.

Tathrin’s blood was running cold. Relshazri Magistrates were only concerned with the smooth operation of Relshaz’s trade. That’s what the merchants said, who passed through his father’s inn. Natural justice need not prevail, if it proved inconvenient. What else could you expect in a city where the wealthiest men got themselves elected to unquestioned authority by buying up the votes of the rest?

“Don’t fret, long lad,” Gren said cheerfully. “Relshazri Magistrates don’t hang, not even killers. You’ll just end up in the slave pens and be sold to some warlord’s wife with a taste for pale sausage.”

Tathrin wasn’t amused. He knew the Relshazri slave trade brought considerable wealth to the city but it had nothing to do with him. At least, it never had done before. What were they going to do now?

He tried to resist the obvious answer as they took a turn, another and then another. Eventually, he couldn’t help a sideways glance at Sorgrad. Just now, he’d gladly suffer the nauseating sensations of being carried away by magic.

Sorgrad’s eyes met his. The Mountain mage smiled, amused. “Cheer up. Every bone rolls one good rune. If we’re arrested in Relshaz and the Magistrates can swear to it, no one can accuse us of anything in Carluse.”

“What do you mean?” Sudden apprehension put all Tathrin’s current fears to flight. “They’re not going to do it, are they? Failla and Reher? But the captain-general forbade it!”

A sudden halt interrupted him.

“Ah.” Sorgrad’s expression lit with understanding. “I see.”

“Stopping for a break?” Gren asked brightly.

“Round the back.” The Watch sergeant headed for an alley.

Sorgrad followed, Gren at his side. Tathrin had no choice but to trail after them. The sergeant knocked on an iron-studded door and someone opened a peephole. As the door opened, Sorgrad went to step through.

The sergeant held him back. “She says we can trust you. If not, if she doesn’t kill you, I will.”

“Fair enough.” Sorgrad nodded, unperturbed.

Bemused, Tathrin watched the sergeant and his men depart.

“Come on,” Gren said impatiently. “The day’s finally looking up.”

Going inside, Tathrin blinked. It was a kitchen, of sorts. A marble bench against the back wall supported shallow charcoal braziers where young women were frying meat and fish. More girls sat around a well-scrubbed table eating bread and cheese and pickles. They were all young and pretty and their complexions ran from buttermilk to burnished ebony. None wore much by way of clothing.

Gren already had an arm around the waist of a willowy brunette. She wore a skirt of red ribbons hanging from a belt of brass links and a twist of the same silk wrapped around her breasts. The fabric was so sheer Tathrin could see the dark circles of her nipples.

Gren’s hand slid down to finger the ribbons on her hip. “Is there space on your dance card for me?”

She looked at him through sooty lashes. “Is it true what they say about an uplander’s stamina?”