The Tower of Fear (31 page)

Bruda came to Aaron. “This is your home? Your family?”

“Yes sir.” His voice quavered.

Bruda took hold of his chin, made him turn his face right and left. “You look like hell but you’re not too badly hurt, are you?”

“No sir.”

“Anyone badly hurt? They try to do anything besides take your son?”

“The old woman. My mother-in-law. They kicked her in the stomach. Something’s wrong inside. My wife thinks she’s dying.”

“I see.” Bruda moved to Raheb, glancing at Mish and Yoseh. “You’re lucky these Dartars were around. You resisted. They might have killed you for that.” He squatted opposite Laella, looked at the old woman for a moment, met Laella’s eye. “No improvement?”

Laella shook her head.

Bruda rose and strode to the door, barked something in rapid Herodian. Aaron recognized only the words for “sergeant” and “two men.” He looked at Nogah. Nogah shrugged helplessly.

Bruda spoke to his sergeant a moment, then came back to Aaron. “Did they try to take the younger boy, too, or just the one?”

“Just Arif.” Aaron began to shake.

“Try to hang on and bear with us. What’s your name?”

“Aaron. Aaron Habid.”

“Aramite? That sounds Aramite.”

“Yes.”

“Not to worry, Aaron. I don’t care about your religion. I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? Where would that have been?”

“The shipyard. A few years ago.”

“Of course. Master carpenter. Right?”

“Yes sir.”

“What did you do during the war, Aaron? Engineers?”

“Yes sir. The Seven Towers.”

A flicker of something stirred behind Bruda’s eyes.

The sergeant and two soldiers came inside with a stretcher rigged from two spears and several cloaks. Bruda indicated Raheb, spoke in rapid Herodian, then told Aaron, “We’re all going up to Government House where we can give everyone proper medical attention and maybe put our heads together to unravel this.”

Aaron’s fear betrayed itself.

Bruda smiled. “No, you don’t have to worry about the rack and thumbscrews. I think you’ll help me because I’m going to help you. If I can. Is there a neighbor you can have watch your place while you’re gone? Or shall I leave a couple of soldiers?”

Aaron had become flustered. He could think of no one to ask to watch his home. But he did not want Herodians hanging around attracting attention, either.

Bruda read him. “I’ll have them stay inside.”

The soldiers had Raheb on their stretcher and were awaiting orders. Bruda spoke to his sergeant. The man ordered two more soldiers inside. The place had become painfully crowded. The stretcher bearers worked toward the doorway. Laella took Stafa from Aaron before she followed. He was grateful. The boy had become a load.

Mish followed her sister, not trying to hide her fright. Aaron followed her. The Dartars came after him. Aaron noted that Bruda had only a few, the brothers and two more. The rest must have scurried back into Tosh Alley.

The fog had climbed the hill. It was as thick as ever Aaron had seen it. Drizzle fell through it. The air was cold for the time of year. He could not stop shaking.

He glanced back at his home, wondered if he would see it again. He moved closer to Laella.

*   *   *

General Cado was waiting when Colonel Bruda brought in his catch. Five Dartars. A Qushmarrahan family. One prisoner. Two of his own men the Dartars had mistaken for kidnappers. And a lot of bodies. “Is this the lot?”

“Not all the Dartars. I have their leader, though.”

“Good. Release those soldiers so they can get to their ship.” Cado had his own guards on hand.

“I left two guarding the house. They’ll need to be relieved.”

“We’ll take care of it. I’ve sent for Fa’tad, Sullo and his witch, and Colonel bel-Abek. Anyone else you need?”

“A physician. And Rose. Rose was watching the child-stealing gang. They split up when they set out to do tonight’s job. My men followed members of the gang when they lost Rose, figuring they would find him again. They walked into the action and got mistaken for gang members. Luckily only one got killed.”

Cado scanned the disparate collection of corpses and frightened people, summoned an aide, rattled orders, then returned to Colonel Bruda. “Have you learned anything useful?”

“My man Taglio has command of both the Qushmarrahan and Dartar dialects. From what he saw and heard the family thinks the Living did the kidnapping. The Dartars think we did.”

“
Us?
Why?”

Bruda shrugged. “They aren’t talking.”

Cado looked at the cluster of Dartars, all young and tattered, all scared and defiant. “You feel it, too, Bruda? That there’s something very dark slithering around just out of sight?”

“Assuming Rose told the truth, I have to keep wondering who killed General bel-Karba. Somebody that daring has to be somebody convinced he can handle any reprisals. Anyone that strong, belonging neither to them nor to us, is someone we have to worry about. We have troubles enough without adding another complication.”

Cado’s staff physician came in and went to the injured woman without having to be told.

“Did you send men to look for bel-Karba’s body?”

“Yes. We should hear from them in the morning.”

“What about the child? His parents look ordinary. Anything unusual about him?”

“No. I talked to the father extensively. He didn’t want to speak up because he’s afraid of the Living, but he did let slip a few things. He was in the same unit as Colonel bel-Abek during the war.”

“Significant connection?”

“I don’t think so. I get the impression he has no use for bel-Abek. The connection between them is their wives. They’ve been friends since childhood. I can’t see any reason why anyone would want to twist the arms of either parent of tonight’s victim. He’s a carpenter. Her relatives are all sisters married to nobodies. And that old woman who’s trying to die from a kick in the stomach.”

Sullo and his witch arrived. The civil governor was irked at having his repose disturbed yet was pleased that his political enemy felt the need to include him in what was afoot. Cado wondered if he would behave like a spoiled child if he learned that he had been summoned only because the military governor wanted to use his witch.

He had Bruda explain to them, then explain again when Colonel bel-Abek and his wife arrived, guarded by a dozen soldiers. He watched the interplay, or lack thereof, between the bereaved mothers. Bel-Abek’s wife, a drab thing he’d never before seen, seemed to be melting from shame. The other woman ignored her existence.

Colonel bel-Abek asked, “Can I talk to Taglio?” He seemed excited.

“Are you on to something?”

“I think the kidnapping may have interrupted a meeting of the ruling council of the Living. The man who headed the movement lived right there on Char Street. I learned that just today.”

A man came in to report his inability to make contact with Rose. He had left a message. Cado thanked him and dismissed him. “Go on, Colonel.”

Puffing up, bel-Abek said. “He was murdered last night. Whoever he was.”

“Hanno bel-Karba,” Bruda said.

“Sir?”

“General Hanno bel-Karba was the mastermind of the Living. We knew who had been killed, but not where or when.”

Cado saw Fa’tad, alone, looking like a great black crow, standing in a shadowed doorway, listening, studying everyone. Cado listened with only half an ear as bel-Abek reported what he had learned about the leading men of the Living. Fa’tad would be interesting tonight. He’d always held a grudge against Herod because of the assassination of Hanno bel-Karba.

He saw he had been noticed. He came across the room like he was some great lord and they his house servants. He stopped in front of Cado. “I’m here,” he said in Herodian without a trace of accent.

“Did you overhear enough to understand the situation? Or should Colonel Bruda brief you?”

“I’d better hear it all.”

While Bruda told it yet again Cado visited Sullo and asked if he would have his witch see what she could do for the old woman. The physician looked like he did not have much hope.

He stepped back to Bruda and Fa’tad as Bruda finished. Bruda said, “I want to send a squad to that house. They’ll be too late to catch anybody but they might find something useful.”

“Go ahead. Fa’tad, why would your men think these child-stealings a Herodian scheme?”

Fa’tad looked him in the eye for five seconds, then said, “Yoseh, come here,” in the Dartar dialect.

*   *   *

Yoseh was sitting two feet from Tamisa, not looking at her, she not looking at him, yet he felt they were somehow in closer communion than ever they had been on Char Street. He was frightened. So was she. All that gobbling in Herodian did not help.

Then Fa’tad came and he was three times as frightened as before.

Fa’tad chattered with Cado awhile. Then, like a hammer blow to the heart, he said, “Yoseh, come here.”

Panicky, he looked at Nogah and Medjhah. No help there. They just nodded.

He rose stiffly, went to stand at Fa’tad’s left hand. He looked down at the shine atop Cado’s head and wondered that these hairless runts had been able to conquer everyone who stood against them.

Fa’tad said, “Yoseh, tell the General everything you know about the man you caught in the alley the other day.”

“The child-stealer? Everything?”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“But I don’t have any Herodian.”

“He’ll understand you.”

Yoseh closed his eyes, took a deep breath, told it all, right up to the moment the man had gotten away from him and Aaron with Arif. When he finished and opened his eyes he saw that the General’s sidekick had returned. The two Herodians exchanged glances. Cado said, “Rose.”

“Has to be Rose,” the other said, in Dartar dialect. “That explains why he’s been such a mystery. He isn’t our man at all. But whose is he?”

“We talked of an unknown dark force earlier,” Cado said.

“That will be all, Yoseh,” Fa’tad said. “Thank you. You did well.”

Yoseh retreated hastily.

*   *   *

Cado watched the Dartar boy go. He was angry with himself. Plainly, Rose had been using and manipulating him all along. Possibly he had been doing the same with the Living. He had made no secret of the fact that he was a member. The massacre of the Moretians almost certainly was his fault. The alacrity with which the Living had moved meant he had access to people in the movement at the same level as he had had here in Government House.

“Colonel Bruda, send men to that place where we make contact with Rose. Have them arrest everyone they find there.”

“Yes sir.”

Cado told Fa’tad, “This man Rose has played me for a fool, as he played others for me in my service.” Who
did
Rose serve? Neither Sullo nor Fa’tad, for sure. The Living seemed just remotely possible, though no one in the movement would have authorized him to give up some of the information he had turned over.

A free agent? Absurd. It offended any sense of the natural order. No one man could have the arrogance to believe he could step between Herod and the Living and play them against one another for his own purposes.

Speaking of which. What might they be? On the information available Rose’s purposes were completely shadowed. The man could not be after wealth. He’d never taken much in the way of pay. Just enough for a man to get by. The power to stand in the middle and exasperate everyone? That did not seem sufficiently sinister.

Bruda was back.

“Are they off?”

Bruda nodded.

“Then let’s see how our guests can help us. Let’s all drag chairs or cushions over and chat. Colonel bel-Abek, would you translate for Governor Sullo? We’ll do this in Qushmarrahan. Informally.”

People moved into position. The “guests” looked troubled. Cado spoke directly to the Qushmarrahan family when he shifted to their language. “Our purpose here is to unravel this child-stealing business. I hope we can come up with some valuable clues by pooling what we know. Your motive for participating will be the restoration of your son. Likewise, Colonel bel-Abek. Then, too, you might find you’re grateful for the help given the old woman.”

Sullo’s witch had worked some sort of quiet miracle. The pain lines had fled Raheb’s face and she was sleeping peacefully.

“We from Government House will begin. I’ll go first. Colonel Bruda will follow, then Colonel bel-Abek. I’ll then ask our Dartar friends to reiterate what they know, then we’ll pass on to you. Some little detail somewhere, hopefully, will give us the beginning we need to make before we can take the first step toward understanding what’s going on. If we know that, we’ll probably know what we have to do about it. Colonel Bruda, would you ask Taliga to send in food and drink? We’re going to be here a long time. Tell him to have those corpses removed and searched, too. They’re a distraction.”

Cado waited a moment, then started. He held nothing back, even when it had no apparent bearing on the subject at hand.

*   *   *

Despite what was being discussed Aaron could not concentrate. His mind kept straying to what to say when it came his turn to talk. Or he worried about maybe missing work tomorrow. His employers were not understanding about absences.

He was trying to hide the unbearable now behind fear of the future.

Even so, what the Herodians said was interesting. And so open you could not help wondering what they would do with him after they had divulged so many secrets in his presence.

The Dartars talked, too, even including Fa’tad al-Akla, who did not have much to contribute except the name of a child-stealer who had been killed in the Astan.

“A Dartar outcast?” General Cado asked.

“Yes. A man of no honor, disavowed by his own father.”

“And the one tonight was Qushmarrahan?” General Cado spoke to Colonel Bruda, who was receiving reports from his agents as things went along.

“Yes. A known villain. Reasonably competent. Independent. Very quiet the past six months, apparently. Till this. He was identified by the prisoner, who also told us where he lived. A search turned up a cache of antique gold and nothing else. There was nothing useful on the body. The prisoner knows nothing else. He was hired for the one job.”