Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) (8 page)

She sat alone at a table by the fireplace. It was afternoon, so there was no fire and with her cloak on and hood pulled up she was sure no one could see her face. That was important.

She watched for two turns. The Fool was nowhere near the most expensive tavern in the city, but it was known for food that was ‘sufficient’ in taste and portions, the number of people it could seat, and its friendly atmosphere. No fights, no drunkards, no thieves, no nobs. Artisans and craftsmen ate and talked here.  Families.

It approached an hour of her at the table nursing an ale she didn’t want. She counted the number of tables again, figured how many patrons they could serve. Watched the barkeep, the maids. Saw how they communicated, how they served the patrons. How they got paid. What people ordered. How long it took. Watched the barkeep, watched how payment worked. She figured it all over and over. She had to rely on her memory. She wished she could write it all down, but that wasn’t possible. Not yet, at least. She smiled at that. Soon.

Coming in had been difficult. She was afraid of the confrontation and afraid she didn’t know what she was doing. She just assumed she could figure it all out, but standing outside the door she’d gone all clammy with fear that it would never work. That she’d not understand anything. That she wasn’t smart enough.

Once seated, that fear evaporated. It wasn’t that complex. She laughed to herself. Couldn’t be that complex, Lian did it. She started to feel giddy. She could do it. She could really do it. Lots of people did it. It wasn’t hard.

She watched Lian serve and take orders. There were three maids working the tables. All girls, all about the same age. Customers liked being served by pretty girls, that was obvious. She smiled again. Pretty girls could be arranged. Pretty girls were no problem.

The bartender had been watching her not drink for a few moments. She knew he’d do something about her sooner or later and it looked like her time was almost up. She’d planned on going to two or three inns and taverns, but now she was excited to get started.

The bartender barked at Lian and nodded toward the table by the fireplace. Lian, tall, with long brown hair almost down to her ass, frowned and tucked her serving plate under her arm. She walked reluctantly to the table by the fireplace.

“You want anything else?” she said, sighing as she did so.

“How many people work in the kitchen?”

Lian curled one lip up as though she smelled something offensive. “What?” Her voice was nasal and sounded like a whine.

With a flick of her wrist and a shake of her head, the stranger at the table snapped back the hood.

“Vanora!” Lian cried. Then she put her hand over her mouth and looked around to see if anyone heard her. No one seemed to, or if they did, they didn’t seem to care.

“Hey Lian,” Vanora said, smiling sweetly. “Sit down.”

“What are you doing here?!” Lian asked, whispering.

“Sit down,” Vanora said again. The smile dropped. “How many people work in the kitchen?”

“You’re gonna get me in trouble!” Lian hissed, looking to see if anyone was watching.

Vanora half laughed, half frowned. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Lian looked at the bartender. He seemed to think a little girl wasn’t much threat and maybe they knew each other, and was content with that.

“What if father finds out?” Lian whined, but she sat down.

Vanora looked at her quizzically. It was such an incongruous statement to make. But slowly, light dawned. Lian was not the brightest and their father was…difficult. Even though Lian was 19, a woman by anyone’s judgment, she was still instinctively afraid of their father.

Vanora’s eyes unfocused for a moment and she stared at nothing. Lian had the life Vanora always wanted. Or thought she wanted. Their father’s favorite, a real working life, earning her own keep. And now with one statement Vanora realized that whatever else had happened, she no longer lived in fear. She was afraid of the count, she was afraid she’d have another attack, but these were real. Lots of people were afraid of the count. Her father was just a man. And not much of one at that.

She watched her older sister fret. “How is he going to know? Unless you tell him.”

Lian looked confused. She didn’t know how their father would find out, but she had a hard time imagining him not finding out. “I don’t know,” she sulked.

Vanora shook her head. “You’re so stupid, Lian, I swear by the black brothers.”

Lian flared hotly at this. “I am
not
stupid! Don’t you say that to me you
whore
.” She gasped and her hands flew to her mouth.

Vanora sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yes, Li. We both know what I…,” she stopped. She found it difficult to say. She waved her hand dismissively, the way she’d seen Miss Elowen do. But she’d never found it difficult to say before. “But I’m not here for that right now.”

Lian looked at Vanora’s blue dress. “Why are you dressed like that?”

Vanora looked at her dress and frowned. She liked the simple blue dress Heden gave her. It reminded her of her mother.

“What’s wrong with it?” Vanora asked, fingering the material.

“Normally you’re dressed like a nob.”

Vanora sighed. Now she understood.

“I thought you were at the Rose Petal.”

“I was,” Vanora explained patiently. “But I’m not right now. Right now I’m here in the Fool talking to you.”

Lian gave up and slumped in her chair, waiting for Vanora to tell her what to do.

“Now,” Vanora said, and she smiled wickedly at the thought of what she was about to do. “Do you want the man behind the bar there to know you invited your sister, who is a trull, to visit you at work?” She nodded at the bartender and watched as Lian’s face dropped. Lian had no way of knowing it was a bluff. Vanora would never get her sister in trouble and the bar keep wouldn’t have any way of knowing what Vanora did anyway.

Lian looked at her hands, folded in her lap. “No.”

Vanora sat back in her chair, triumphant. “No you don’t. Good girl.” Lian sniffed derisively at that.

“I want to know what goes on behind that door,” Vanora said, nodding to the kitchen door.

Lian screwed up her face. “Why?”

“Never you mind,” Vanora said. She decided something. “Actually, you’ll show me.” She stood up. Lian followed suit, her pretty face crinkled with worries. Even though Lian was three years older and fully a head taller, and prettier, and her father’s favorite, she was always looking for someone to tell her what to do.

“I don’t understand,” Lian said, avoiding the gaze of the bar keep as they navigated the space around the tables to the kitchen door.

Vanora giggled to herself. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to get you in trouble. If anyone asks, tell them I’ve come for a job.”

She pushed open the door to the kitchen, revealing the hot, thick air and noise beyond. “You have to tell me what everyone does,” Vanora said, holding the door open for her sister. “It’ll be easy. Oh, and something else.”

Lian walked into the kitchen and turned around, waiting for Vanora. Her younger sister was already counting the people in the kitchen, and noting what utensils they used. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like Heden had all the equipment they had here. She came back to the moment and looked with real fondness at her worried sister.

“How do they figure out what to charge for the food?” Vanora asked.

“Never been in here before,” Fandrick said. “Nice.” He looked at the floor. “’cept for the blood and…,” he gestured at the corpses, “all this.”

The Hammer & Tongs was closed. Given that it was an hour after midday, Aiden guessed the inn never opened. There was no one in the place, for one thing. No owner. No staff. He walked around the bodies. The blood on the floor was tacky and pulled at his boots as he walked.

“Someone going to clean all this up?” he asked of no one in particular.

“Who runs this place?” Rayk asked the regular watchman who brought them here.

Teagan shifted the sword on his belt. “Priest named Heden,” he said.

“Don’t look like no one’s been in here for a while,” Fandrick went on, walking around the common room, staying away from the bodies and the blood, keeping his boots clean. He admired the large bookcase that took up the far wall of the room.

“He never opens it up,” Teagan said. The tall, lanky watchman leaned against the serving bar, his long legs crossed at the ankles. His half-smile seemed a response to a joke only he understood. Aiden could tell the man considered all this a nuisance, and why not Fandrick and Rayk were unlikely to get anything from him they couldn’t get in a dozen other places.

“Why not?” Fandrick asked.

Teagan shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “Don’t know the man. He’s friends with my boss.”

“And your boss is…,” Rayk asked.

Teagan looked at the ceiling and sighed. “Domnal. Watch captain over on Salter.”

Rayk nodded.

“Priest of who?” Aiden asked.

Teagan shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Llewellyn.” That didn’t mean anything, they knew. If you were a priest in Celkirk everyone assumed you were a priest of St. Llewellyn.

“We’ll talk to your captain, see what he knows,” Rayk said. “You know where this priest is?”

“Nope,” Teagan said.

“But you know him,” Rayk said, cocking her head as she watched Teagan’s reaction. “You know his name, you know he keeps the place closed, but you don’t know where he is or when he’ll be back.”

“Just a simple copper, me,” Teagan said.

“Uh-huh,” Rayk said. “So what were you doing here?” Rayk asked.

Teagan sighed.

“Coming off shift from number seventeen, off Salter like I said. I live on Rab Lane, come past here every night. I turn the corner, I can see down the street something’s happening inside. Someone’s causing an…,” he couldn’t remember. “An affront?”

“An affray,” Rayk said. “You sure you’re a watchman?”

“I’m new,” Teagan said. “I run down, door’s open, I come in, I see this. Whatever happened, it was over. I searched the place, no one here. I see all this, I figure this is not someone doing a little snatch and grab, so I come get you lot.”

Rayk nodded. “And between the time you see whatever’s going on, and run down the street, the whole thing is over.”

Teagan shrugged. The girl was safe, whatever happened was over, and he was not inclined to help the castellan’s men if they were going to be asses.

“Found something,” Fandrick said. He’d gone behind the bar and was rooting around in the cupboards and drawers.

Aiden and Rayk went to him. Tegan remained leaning against the post, showing no real interest in what they did.

Fandrick pulled four pieces of brown-stained cloth out of a drawer, and laid them out on the bar.

Aiden didn’t understand what he was looking at. Bloodstained scarves, so what.

Fandrick and Rayk shared a look.

“The Black,” Rayk said.

“Boils on Cyrvis’ balls,” Fandrick said. “The Black.”

This got Teagan’s attention and he walked over. Inspected one of the scarves. “That’s interesting,” he said.

“The black what?” Aiden asked.

Fandrick and Rayk continued their silent communion. Teagan spoke up.

“The Guild of Blackened Silk,” he said. “Their agents wear these scarves, sign of station. Red, green blue. Black. But they coat them in soot so we can’t tell which is which.”

“Until it’s too late,” Rayk sneered.

Aiden nodded. “Bad guys.”

“Worse than most,” Teagan agreed. “Not as bad as the Darkened Moon, maybe.”

“Boy,” Fandrick barked.

“Uh huh,” Aiden said absently. Not eager to reinforce Fandrick’s attitudes.

“You sure it’s the same here as the gallows?”

“Yeah,” Aiden said. “Same black goop. Mixed in the blood. I’d guess we clean these bodies up, get ‘em back to the slab,” he said meaning the operating table where the castellan’s physicians and priests divined dead bodies, “we’d find they’d be clawed at with man-like fingernails and limbs ripped apart with unnatural strength. Ghouls. Or something very like.”

Fandrick nodded.

“This doesn’t make any damned sense,” Rayk insisted, mostly to Fandrick.

“The fuck are the Black doing here?”

“Are these their corpses?” Rayk asked, walking around to the ripped apart bodies littering the floor.

“And why are they fighting ghouls? Who summoned the ghouls? Why? Why attack the count here?” Fandrick asked. There were so many question, he gave up.

“The count?” Aiden asked Teagan, the most forthcoming of the three. He held his hand out, and Teagan gave him a scarf to inspect.

“Runs the guild. Hereditary title. Mostly the guild does what he wants, but he’s sort of…there’s an agreement between him and the senior members of the guild. The guild does what the count wants, as long as the count wants to do what the senior thieves want.”

“I think I get it,” Aiden said, pulling the blood-stained scarf through his hand. “He doesn’t have absolute power.”

“No one does,” Teagan said absently.

“Castellan’s going to lose his shit,” Fandrick said.

“Completely mental,” Rayk agreed.

“And we’re the ones have to chase it all down, which means we’re the ones the count’s gonna string up by their balls.”

“So to speak,” Rayk said.

“Count goes after the castellan’s men,” Teagan said, “then it’s a war with the ragman.” He seemed a little concerned. Why were the specials talking like the regulars?

“Well that’s some comfort,” Fandrick sneered. “When my wife’s crying over my dead body wondering where her next meal’s comin’ from!”

“Your wife never cried over anything in her life, ‘cept maybe a missed meal,” Rayk said.

Fandrick pointed at her. “That’s a filthy lie and you take it back.”

“Shant,” Rayk said, and sniffed.

“I’ve got a question,” Aiden said, holding one scarf up, trying to make sense of the runes stained into it.

Everyone looked at him.

“If the priest who owns this place isn’t here, hasn’t been seen, and never opens this place…,” Aiden put the scarf down and looked at the three watchmen.

“Who put these scarves away?”