Thieves' Quarry (The Thieftaker Chronicles) (10 page)

“See what?” Brower asked.

Senhouse stopped amid the soldiers and waved a hand. “These men. They’re…” He narrowed his eyes again, looking from one corpse to the next. A frown had settled on his homely face. “Now that’s damned peculiar. I don’t see it anymore.” He turned to look back at Brower and Ethan. “Did you…?”

The question died on his lips when he saw Geoffrey’s blank expression.

For a long time, neither man spoke. The lieutenant regarded the corpses again. Brower eyed Ethan, a sour look on his face.

“Mister Kaille, I’d like to know what you were doing down here,” Senhouse said. “And I’d like to have an answer to the question I asked you earlier. Why you were so interested to know whether these men died last night or this morning?”

“Sir, I—”

Senhouse raised a hand, silencing him. He turned and looked Ethan in the eye. Despite the dim lighting in the hold, Ethan could see that the lieutenant’s face had gone white save for a bright red spot high on each cheek. There was a hard look in his eyes. Ethan saw fear there as well, but the man was a British naval officer, and for the moment at least he seemed to have mastered his fright.

“There are nearly a hundred men on this ship,” he said quietly, “and every one of them is dead. I see no blood, no bruises or cuts or injuries of any sort. I see no evidence that they took ill. They are dead, for no reason that I can see. I’m at a loss to comprehend what might have happened here. Yet I sense that you’re not. You look and act and sound as though this is nothing new to you. You don’t seem to find it at all unsettling.”

“I assure you, Lieutenant, that’s not the case.”

Senhouse shook his head, his expression pained. “Forgive me. I intended no offense, nor did I mean to imply that you aren’t troubled by what you see here. All but the foulest of demons would be. What I meant was, you don’t seem … surprised that something like this could happen.”

Ethan didn’t like to tell anyone of his ability to conjure. The people who knew held his life in their hands. One word whispered to the wrong person, one loose remark uttered in casual conversation, one opening for Sephira Pryce or another enemy intent on doing him harm, and Ethan could be summarily tried and executed as a witch. But he sensed that Senhouse already knew, that he had reasoned it out for himself. He was waiting for Ethan to put words to his suspicions.

“I’m constantly surprised by the evil I see in my work,” Ethan said, looking around the hold. “This is…” He shook his head. “Like you, I have trouble comprehending why someone would kill so many men, seemingly without cause.” He took a breath. “But you’re not asking me why, so much as how. And that I do understand.”

“Perhaps we should go back above,” Geoffrey said, his voice shaking.

“It’s all right,” Senhouse said. “Go on, Mister Kaille.”

“What do you know of spellmaking, sir?”

He thought the man might laugh or scoff or even grow angry and accuse Ethan of mocking him. But Senhouse merely pondered the question before saying, “Very little, to be honest. I have heard of men and women being hanged or burned as witches. I’ve listened to preachers rail against those who would embrace Satan and his dark arts. But I’ve never encountered witchery myself, at least not that I know.”

“I believe you have now, sir,” Ethan said. “I’ve seen others who were killed by spells, and they look very much as these men do. They bear no wounds, they show no sign that anything ailed them before they died. To those who know nothing of conjuring it seems that one moment they were fine, and the next they were dead.”

Again, Senhouse surprised Ethan with his equanimity. “That is an extraordinary theory,” he said, his voice even. “A spell.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is there any way to prove this? It’s remarkable, of course, that so many should die in such a mysterious way. But can you offer me more than simply the lack of evidence for any other cause?”

Ethan wet his lips, knowing that their conversation was headed just where he didn’t wish it to go. “There are ways to prove that a spell was used. But all of those methods would themselves require conjurings.”

“I see,” the lieutenant said. Ethan heard a note of skepticism in his voice, but at least the man hadn’t yet rejected Ethan’s suggestion out of hand. “You sound as though you know quite a bit about these matters. Why is that?”

“I’ve been a thieftaker for many years now,” Ethan told him, refusing to flinch from the man’s gaze. “I’ve seen many odd and disturbing things in the streets of Boston.”

A small smile flitted across Senhouse’s face and was gone. “Strangely, that’s the first thing you’ve said to me that sounded like a half-truth.”

Geoffrey cleared his throat, but Ethan remained intent on the lieutenant.

“Are you a witch yourself?” Senhouse asked him. “Is that why you understand all of this so well?” When Ethan didn’t answer right away, he added, pointing to the dead soldiers lying around them, “I thought I saw a strange light on these men. A glow—deep yellow, or perhaps orange. Was that your doing?”

Ethan hesitated, searching for some way to steer their conversation in another direction. At last, seeing none, he sighed and said, “I’m a conjurer. That’s what we call ourselves. For obvious reasons, most of us don’t wish to be known as witches. I can cast spells myself, and sometimes I can sense when others have conjured. I felt a spell this morning. It woke me, in fact. It was as powerful a conjuring as I’ve ever felt. And I think that spell is what killed all the men on this ship.”

“You felt it?” Senhouse said. “And you said nothing?”

“Until I boarded this ship, I had no idea what the spell I felt had done. When I sense a conjuring, I can’t tell what kind of power is being used, or who is wielding it. Sometimes, if I’m close to the conjurer, I can tell where it has been cast, but in this case I didn’t even know that much. Had you told me immediately what had happened, I might have hazarded a guess before we reached this ship, but as it was I had no idea.”

Senhouse turned to Geoffrey. “This is why you suggested that we bring him here. Not because he’s a thieftaker, but because he’s a … a conjurer.”

“Yes,” Brower said. “I suspected witchcraft right off.” His gaze slid toward Ethan. “To be perfectly honest, my first thought was that he might have done this.”

Ethan gaped at him. “Thank you, Geoffrey,” he said, with all the sarcasm he could muster.

“I no longer believe you’re responsible. Truly, I don’t,” he added, clearly for Senhouse’s benefit.

“What more can you tell me about this spell?” Senhouse asked, seeming to ignore Brower. “And what was that glow I saw earlier?”

“The glow came from a spell I cast,” Ethan told him. “I wished to determine whether a conjuring had in fact killed these men. And my spell confirmed that this was the case.”

“How?”

Ethan faltered. Explaining conjurings and the workings of power to people with no experience with them was a bit like trying to describe color to someone who had been born blind.

“The spell I cast reveals the residue of other conjurings. If there was none—if no other spell had been cast on these soldiers—nothing would have happened.”

“But something did happen,” Senhouse said.

“Yes. My spell revealed the orange glow that you saw. That is the color of the power wielded by whoever killed these men.”

“The color?”

Ethan exhaled. “Every conjurer’s castings have a distinct color.”

“I see. And yours, I take it, isn’t orange.”

He had expected this. “No, Lieutenant, it’s not. Let me show you.”

Ethan pulled out his knife again and cut his arm. He felt self-conscious placing blood on the soldier in front of the other men, but he did not look away from the dead man, and he chose not to respond to the small whimpering sound Geoffrey made. Once more he spoke the reveal conjuring spell he had used earlier, taking care this time to control the flow of power. Uncle Reg appeared beside him, and his spell sang in the wood of the ship, but neither Senhouse nor Geoffrey gave any indication that they had noticed. As before, the orange glow of the killing spell spread from the man’s chest over the rest of his body. But then the russet hue of Ethan’s conjuring spread over the orange.

“Did you see that?” Ethan asked.

Senhouse nodded, staring at the corpse as if in a trance. “Yes, I did,” he said, his voice hushed.

“The orange power is what killed him. That second color—the rust—is the residue of the first revealing spell I cast.”

“I know nothing of this,” Senhouse said, still sounding awed, still staring at the glowing corpse of the regular. “You could be misleading me, using a witch’s tricks to dull my mind.”

“Perhaps I could. But I’m not.” He looked at Geoffrey, his expression hardening. “Mister Brower’s suspicions notwithstanding, I have no reason to lie to you, and no reason to murder all these men. I’m a British subject, the son of a naval officer and once a sailor in His Majesty’s fleet.”

“As I understand it, you’re also a convicted mutineer.”

Ethan bristled. “Yes, sir, I am. And if you think that means I can’t be trusted, take me back to the city, and I’ll leave you to find on your own the conjurer who killed these men.”

Senhouse rubbed his forehead, his eyes closed. “I apologize. That was a foolish thing for me to say.” He looked Ethan in the eye. “We need your help. I’m sure I speak for Mister Brower when I say that without your … your expertise in this area, we’re unlikely to find the person who did this.”

“So, you’re hiring me?”

“We’re asking you to help us,” Geoffrey answered. “And in return, I’ve been authorized to offer you ten pounds. Consider it a bounty on the head of the killer. Find him, and the money is yours.”

Ten pounds was a considerable sum. Even Sephira Pryce might have killed for less.

“All right,” Ethan said. He surveyed the ship once more, the bodies strewn about the hold. Aside from the color of the conjurer’s power, he had little information with which to start. Except, of course, for the conversations he had overheard. Spectacles and Sephira were looking for someone who they believed was on one of the British ships. So, Ethan would look for this man as well.

“To start,” he said, turning back to Senhouse, “I’ll need the name of every man on this ship.”

Chapter

S
IX

For several seconds, neither Senhouse nor Geoffrey said a word.

The lieutenant narrowed his eyes, his brow creasing. “Whatever for, Mister Kaille? Surely you can’t think that one of these men is responsible?”

Ethan wasn’t about to voice his suspicions about Spectacles. Not yet, knowing so little. Sephira Pryce had too many friends among those who served the Crown. If she learned that Ethan suspected her associate of a crime of this magnitude, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.

“Forgive me, Lieutenant,” he said, “but you’ve asked me to inquire into the deaths of these men, and now you need to let me conduct my investigation.”

Senhouse blinked once, obviously taken aback. To his credit, though, he recovered quickly. “Yes, of course. You’re quite right. This way.”

He led Ethan and Brower back to the ladder and up onto the ship’s deck. After the darkness of the hold, the sunlight was blinding, and Ethan had to shield his eyes with an open hand. But he welcomed the cool touch of the autumn breeze and the clean, briny scent of the harbor air.

Senhouse strode to the stern and into the captain’s quarters. Ethan followed the lieutenant back as far as the doorway to the quarters, but faltered there. It had been more than twenty years since last he served on a ship, but still the old habits of a sailor remained deeply ingrained. A common seaman didn’t simply walk uninvited into a captain’s quarters.

Geoffrey, who as far as Ethan knew had never served in the navy, had no such reservations, and walked into Ethan from behind.

“Pardon me,” Brower said, flustered.

Senhouse looked back at them and waved Ethan into the cabin. “It’s all right, Mister Kaille,” he said, with an understanding nod.

Ethan entered, though doing so still felt odd. The air was sour in here as it had been below, the faint hint of stale sweat and rancid food lingering beneath the bitter smell of spermaceti candles.

The man lying on the bed in the far corner of the cabin looked to be no older than Ethan. He had long brown hair that he wore in a plait. A powdered wig sat on a small writing desk bolted to the wall just beside the bed. Because the
Graystone
was too small to be a rated ship, her commander had not been a captain, but rather a lower-ranked naval officer—perhaps another lieutenant. Senhouse might well have been friends with the man.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Ethan said, his voice sounding loud in the small space. “Who was he?”

Senhouse stared at the body. “His name was Jacob Waite. He was also a lieutenant. He received this posting only last month. You would have thought they had named him fleet commander, he was so pleased.” After a few seconds more, he looked away and seemed to force himself into motion. Crossing to the desk he said, “The manifest should be in here somewhere.”

He began to search the papers on the commander’s desk. When he found nothing there, he knelt down to open the sea chest beside it. Finally he stood again, looking puzzled.

“That’s strange,” he said. “There should be a manifest here.”

“Maybe the purser had it,” Ethan suggested.

“Yes, maybe he did.”

They left the captain’s cabin and went back below to the wardroom, where the ship’s other officers slept. The wardroom was somewhat larger than the captain’s cabin, but more cramped. Six hammocks lined the walls, with small chests beneath each. Four of the hammocks held the bodies of dead sailors.

“That’s Amos Porter,” Senhouse said, pointing to one of the men. “He was first mate. Another lieutenant.” Another friend. Senhouse didn’t have to say this; Ethan heard it in his tone.

“And this was the purser,” Senhouse said, turning to the hammock just to the left of the wardroom door. “Peter Logan.” Senhouse stooped and picked up a sheaf of paper off the floor. “Here it is,” he said.