Master of Plagues: A Nicolas Lenoir Novel (21 page)

Kody grunted. The inspector had a point.
What, then?

“It doesn’t matter,” Lenoir said into his thoughts. “We did our duty—or attempted to, at any rate—but we are here for another purpose.”

“Yeah, about that . . .” Kody withdrew a tattered sheet of paper from his other pocket—what was left of the sketch. The saltwater had not been kind. Torn, smeared, and creased, the drawing no longer resembled anything human. Unless their suspect had been run over by a wagon recently, no one was going to recognize him. “Sorry, Inspector.”

Lenoir sighed. “There is nothing to be done about it now. We will have to get another one done as soon as we can. In the meantime, let us move on to the next name on our list. We might not have a likeness, but at least we can ask about the plague in Darangosai. First, however, we should pay a brief visit to your flat.” The wry look returned, stopping just short of a smile. “You are somewhat less intimidating sopping wet.”

*   *   *

Watching from a safe distance, Ritter blew out a long, relieved breath as the hounds withdrew.
That was too close.
He couldn’t be sure how much the hounds had got out of his shipmate at the
Duchess,
but hopefully he’d managed to interrupt them before they’d shown off their sketch. The gunshot had worked its magic, and Marty had done his job, leading them on a merry chase. Ritter hadn’t counted on having to fire a second time to cover Marty’s escape, and that had very nearly landed him in irons. Luckily, though, a man in his position knew the docks like he knew his own cabin.

The hounds would be back, he supposed, but at least he’d managed to buy himself some time. As for what to do with that time . . . He’d have to get word to Nash. The hounds were becoming more than a nuisance now.

Ritter pulled the letter out of his pocket, the one he’d planned for Marty to give to Nash. Scanning it, he found the sentence he was looking for:
I might need you to deal with the hounds soon.
Ritter took out his pencil and crossed out the word “might.” Then he scrawled out a similar note to Sukhan:
Time to deal with Marty.
This one Ritter would deliver himself, by way of a knot in the wall of Warehouse 57, but there was no hurry. Sukhan wouldn’t come looking for it until nightfall anyway. And then the last loose end would be tied off, and it would be free sailing.

Ritter jammed the notes back into his pocket and headed off down the pier, whistling.

“A
w, don’t look at me like that, little pup.” Cracked knuckles pushed a cracked flagon across the table. “It’s nothing personal.”

Zach scowled. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“A man takes comfort where he can,” Bevin said, and took a swig. “You should try the ale. It’s the best on the docks.”

“It’s the only ale on the docks, and I still don’t call it the best.” Zach hadn’t even tried it, but he was feeling contrary.

Bevin, though, was in his usual lighthearted mood, and he greeted the remark with a gusty laugh. “I’ll have to remember that one! You’re a clever little cuss, and no mistake.” He saluted Zach with his flagon.

Zach grabbed his, saluted back—wryly—and took a long draft. It tasted like rotten nuts, and he felt his face scrunch up in disgust.
Thought so.
But what else could you expect in a place like this? His gaze took in the cramped space, with its stained rushes, sooty hearth, and cobwebbed rafters. He’d thought the common room of the Port was shabby, but it was practically a palace compared with this part of the inn. He hadn’t even known this back room existed, and from the looks of it, no one
else did either. Zach wasn’t exactly finicky, but when you could make a game of counting the spiders living in the cracks of your table, it was time for a bit of a sweep.
What would Sister Nellis say if she saw this place?
The nun kept her orphanage spotless, and she was forever clucking over Zach’s supposedly untidy bunk.
An offense to the Lord,
she called it. If a few creases and crumbs were an offense to the Lord, this place must have been enough to call down the wrath of the Holy Host itself. Zach pictured Durian astride his glowing steed, golden sword raised to the heavens, eyes blazing with righteousness.
Tremble, ye spiders! God’s General is coming for you!
He snickered into his flagon.

“You don’t seem that worried.” Bevin sounded half puzzled, half admiring. “Either you’re very brave, or you don’t really understand your situation.”

Zach shrugged. “What’s to understand? You’re holding me captive; I guess so Hairy can have a go at me.”

“Captive? Now that’s a bit dramatic. I’m just asking you to spend a few hours here with me.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Wouldn’t do you much good.”

“Sure sounds like captivity to me.”

“Similar, I’ll grant you.” Bevin cocked his head. “But it doesn’t seem to bother you none.”

Zach almost rolled his eyes. Bevin had a ripe dockside accent, just like Zach, which meant he should know better. “I’m an orphan from the poor district,” Zach reminded him, since it seemed he needed reminding. “If I had a copper for every time someone’s kept me someplace I didn’t want to be, I’d have a mansion in Primrose Park, wouldn’t I?”

Bevin smirked. “Just because it’s not the first time doesn’t mean it won’t go badly. For all you know, this could be the worst fix you’ve ever been in.”

“No,” Zach said solemnly, “it couldn’t.” The scar on his wrist seemed to tingle when he said that.

The big man grunted, considering Zach with a newly appraising look. “Be that as it may, you’re wrong—I’m not keeping you for Hairy. Not exactly, anyway.”

“Then what am I doing here?”

“Like I said, it’s nothing personal. Just business.” Bevin shifted on the bench so that his back was propped up against the wall. He stretched, grabbed his flagon, and said, “You’re a commodity, lad. Do you know what a commodity is?”

“Something valuable.”

“That’s right. Something
tradable
.”

Zach took a noisy sip of his ale to cover his confusion. He was an orphan. A street rat with nothing to his name except what he managed to nick every now and then. How could he possibly be tradable? “You’re gonna sell me to Hairy, then?” It was all he could think of.

“Not quite.” Bevin smiled like a clever cat and took a pull of his ale. “You flatter yourself. Hairy might be chipped at you, but not enough to part with good coin. Besides, our Hairy is perpetually broke, isn’t he? How’s he gonna buy you? No, he’s got to have a real incentive, enough to make him raise the coin he needs to pay.”

Incentive.
Zach didn’t follow.

“Think about it.” Bevin gave him an encouraging nod. “What happens when you’ve been sitting back here with me long enough?”

So, Bevin liked the same sort of guessing games as Lenoir. He wanted Zach to figure it out on his own. What was it with adults leaving little trails of grain for him to follow, as if he were a chicken being led to the coop? Why couldn’t anyone just give a straight answer? “I don’t know,” Zach said sullenly.

Bevin clucked his tongue. “I’m disappointed in you, little pup. Here I thought you were
so clever
.”

That stung. Zach knew he was being goaded, but he couldn’t resist. “The hounds will come looking for me.” He could hear the pride in his voice, and the threat.

Bevin heard it too, but it didn’t have quite the effect Zach expected. The big man grinned, just as he had done back at the warehouse when Zach had mentioned the hounds. “Exactly.”

“You
want
the hounds to come looking for me?” Zach was baffled. “But when they find you, you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail. Have you ever been to Fort Hald?” Zach had, briefly, before Lenoir fetched him out. He still had nightmares about it. It was his visit to Fort Hald that had convinced Zach he needed to have
plans
. Street kids without plans ended up dead, or locked away in an iron dungeon full of crazies and hard-muscled men who looked at you like they thought you might make a decent meal.

“It’ll take them a while to find you,” Bevin said, waving vaguely at the filthy little den they were in. “Not too many people know about this place, and anyway, I doubt your inspector would bother to check the Port. It would be bloody stupid for Hairy to stash you in the one place they know he hangs around, now wouldn’t it?”

“Hairy?” Zach was even more baffled now. “What’s he got to do with it? You’re the one stashed me here.”

Bevin’s smile widened. “Ah, but your inspector doesn’t know that, does he? All he knows is that Hairy wanted to wring your neck. When he can’t find you, who’s the first person he’s gonna suspect?”

At last, Zach understood—sort of. “You’re trying to get Hairy in trouble.”

Bevin’s only response was a hitch of his flagon and a long, greedy pull.

“But why? I thought he was your friend.”

Bevin belched. “Sure he is, but like I told you, this is business. Our Hairy owes me fifty crowns.”

“Fifty crowns?”
Zach wouldn’t have guessed a bloke like Bevin came across fifty crowns in his whole life.

“Lot of money, isn’t it? More fool me for letting him get in that far over his head. What can I say?” Bevin
shrugged. “I like my cards, and so does Hairy. Only unlike our Hairy, I know how to play the game.”

“But how is keeping me here gonna help? Nobody’s gonna pay fifty crowns for me.”

“Sadly, no.” Bevin swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and swirled his flagon, gauging how much he had left. “But they might pay ten, and ten is better than none. I’ve been waiting years for Hairy to pay me back, but he just gets in deeper and deeper. Like I said, he needs an incentive. A little encouragement to take his responsibilities more seriously.”

Zach reckoned he was the incentive, but he couldn’t quite work out how. “So you figure if Inspector Lenoir comes after Hairy, looking for me, Hairy will . . . what?”

Bevin gestured at the walls. “Even Hairy doesn’t know about this place. Old Molly keeps that information tight. I can keep you back here as long as I want and no one will know.”

“I could scream.”

“You could, but you’d regret it.”

Zach scowled, but he knew Bevin was right. Screaming would be pointless—and painful.

“If Hairy knows you’re missing, he’ll know the hounds are coming for him. He’ll panic. I
have
been to Fort Hald, you see, and so has Hairy. He won’t want to go back. If he pays me, he won’t have to.”

Aha.
Bevin was holding Zach ransom, only instead of collecting the ransom from Lenoir—which would never work—he was getting it from Hairy. The hounds would blame Hairy for Zach’s disappearance. They’d come looking for him, and unless he paid Bevin off, he’d be in trouble.
There’s a word for that,
Zach thought. Lenoir had used it more than once in his hearing. It was called . . . “Extortion.”

“A clever cuss,” Bevin said, draining his flagon, “and no mistake.”

“Won’t that make things kind of awkward between you two?” Zach asked dryly.

“Things are already awkward. Cutting down his debt to me can only improve the situation.” Zach couldn’t tell if Bevin was being sarcastic, but it seemed pretty clear that he didn’t care if Hairy was mad at him or not. Ten crowns were obviously worth more to him than a friend. “It’s a tough world,” Bevin said, almost apologetically. “Besides, Hairy doesn’t need to know that I’m the one who took you. I’ll just let on that I might, just might, know where you’re to be found, and if he makes it worth my while . . .” Bevin shrugged. “He’ll still be chipped, but it won’t look as if I’m the one who set him up. He’ll just think I’m taking advantage of the situation.”

“Still seems like a lot of trouble to go to. I mean, why not just bust him up a bit?” It was common enough; Zach had seen it done a dozen times.

“Call me sentimental, but I just don’t fancy getting rough with him. This way is easier on both of us.”

“Unless he can’t come up with the ten crowns. A broken arm is better than jail.”

“That it is. But Hairy won’t be going to jail—not on my account, at any rate.”

“So you’re bluffing.”

Bevin grinned. “Hairy never could tell. Part of why he’s so deep in debt.”

“What if he can tell this time? What happens to me?”

“If Hairy won’t pay, I got another buyer.”

Zach’s mouth dropped open. “
Another
buyer?”

Durian’s balls, how many enemies did he have?

“You remember our friend Augaud, don’t you?”

Zach winced; he remembered the Lerian all too well.

Bevin smiled that clever cat smile again. “I might’ve let slip that I knew where to find you, if he fancied a little payback.”

“Payback for what?” Zach folded his arms. “I didn’t even take his stupid purse.”

Bevin laughed. “Not for lack of trying.”

“Still, what’s he so sore about? Happens all the time, doesn’t it? It’s a tough world, like you said.” Even Lenoir didn’t hold Zach’s stealing against him—most of the time, anyway. How else was a street orphan supposed to survive?

“Your mistake wasn’t the stealing,” Bevin said. “It’s who you stole from. We sailors work hard for our coin. Life on the seas is bloody rough, and ship owners are stingy. We hoard every copper until we come back to port, when we spend it all in one glorious streak. Stealing from a sailor is foolish.” Zach had just opened his mouth to point out that Augaud wasn’t a sailor when Bevin added, “Stealing from a fur trader, though—that’s
suicide
.”

Zach clamped his mouth shut and squirmed in his seat. He remembered the look on the Lerian’s face. And the knife at the Lerian’s waist.

As though reading his thoughts, Bevin said, “A fur trader spends his life gutting creatures that can defend themselves a lot better than you, little pup.” He mimed a jab and a twist, slashing his imaginary knife up the middle of whatever furry creature he was butchering in his head. “He slashes ’em open, spills out a steaming pile of guts, and then he takes their skin, and he saws it off, inch by inch. When he’s done that, he scrapes off the little bits of meat—careful, meticulous, so he doesn’t damage the fur. Then he stretches the pelt out like this, and he nails it up to let it dry.” Bevin examined his fingernails. “Gets so much blood caked under there, he can’t ever get it out. The smell of it never leaves his nose. But that doesn’t bother him, not the fur trader. You ever seen a deer, lad?”

Swallowing, Zach shook his head.

Bevin closed his eyes wistfully. “Beautiful creature, that. Glossy coat. Big brown eyes. Dainty little hooves. Graceful as wind, they are.” He opened his eyes, and they glinted with cruel amusement. “Fur trader will rip ’em open without a blink. Now you, little pup—I don’t
know when was the last time you saw yourself in a looking glass, but you got more of the rat than the deer. What do you think your life means to a fur trader?”

He’s just trying to scare you,
Zach told himself. Trouble was, it was working. “It was just a stupid money purse.” The protest sounded meek and ridiculous, even to him.

“A man like Augaud spends four days out of five out in the woods, living rough, with not a soul to keep him company. He catches what he can, sells it for what he can get. He only makes it into town a few times a year, and when he does, he wants to spend his earnings on a bit of fun. Every coin in that purse represents a day of killing and a night spent shivering under the stars. And you want to steal from
him
?” Bevin shook his head. “Suicide.”

Zach could picture it all so vividly: Augaud squatting over a campfire, meat roasting on a spit. A bunch of carcasses strung up in the trees, pelts nailed to tree trunks. Zach had always been a little afraid of the woods, even the ones in the park, but Augaud wouldn’t be afraid. If anything so much as rustled a bush, the Lerian would whip around, knife glinting in the firelight, and slash its throat. Zach could almost feel the blood rushing hot over his hands. “You’re gonna sell me to a man like that?”

“Not unless he outbids Hairy.”

Zach took a long, slow drink of his ale so Bevin couldn’t see his lip tremble.

Bevin must have seen it anyway, though, because he laughed. “Relax, little pup. I’m just winding you up.”

Zach straightened a little. “So . . . you’re not gonna sell me to Augaud?”

“Not unless he offered so much that I just couldn’t refuse, but the odds are stacked in your favor. Hairy’s got more incentive than the Lerian. Chances are he’ll bid the highest. Fear is a much stronger motivator than anger.”