Thieves' Quarry (The Thieftaker Chronicles) (8 page)

A sign over Henry’s door read “Dall’s Barrels and Crates,” and a second on the worn oak door said simply, “Open Entr.” Ethan heard hammering as he approached the shop, and so knew before entering that the old cooper was all right. He sheathed his knife and stepped inside.

When he saw Ethan, Henry raised a hand in greeting, gave the hoop he was fitting over a barrel one last whack, and laid his cloth-covered hammer down on the workbench.

“Well met, Ethan!” the man said, his grin revealing a great gap where his front teeth should have been. Like his cooperage, Henry was small, but solid. His head barely came up to Ethan’s chin, but his arms were thick and corded with muscle. His bald head shone with sweat and his grizzled face was ruddy with the exertions of his labor. He removed the leather apron that had been draped over his work shirt and sat down on a low stool, flexing his right hand, which had been injured long ago, and which still grew stiff on cold days. “Buthy today,” he said with his usual lisp. He sounded weary.

“Busy is good, right?”

“I suppose. I could use a couple of days without busy.”

Ethan grinned. “Well, I’ll leave you alone. I just wanted to wish you a good morning.”

“You had a visitor,” Henry said, before Ethan could let himself out again.

Ethan felt the hairs on his arms and neck stand on end, and he had to resist the urge to reach for his blade. “When,” he asked, his voice tight.

“Just a little while ago.”

“One person, or several?”

“One. He went upstairs, stayed there for a minute or two, and then came back down. I saw him leave,” the cooper added, anticipating Ethan’s next question.

A few years ago, Sephira and her men had lain in wait for Ethan in his room, and Nigel and his friends had beaten Ethan to a bloody mess. Henry was in the shop at the time, and failed to notice their arrival. He had felt guilty about it ever since, and had gone out of his way to keep a closer eye on Ethan’s room.

“Big guy?” Ethan asked.

The cooper bobbed his head.

Some of the tension drained out of Ethan’s back and shoulders. At least it hadn’t been Spectacles.

“All right. Thank you, Henry.”

“You’re welcome. Take care of yourself.”

Ethan smiled and let himself out of the shop. He whistled for Shelly, who emerged from the shadows along the side of Henry’s shop and trotted over to him, her tail wagging and her tongue lolling from her mouth.

“Come on, Shelly,” he said. He drew his knife and walked around to the back of the shop.

The dog loped ahead of him, stopping at the base of the stairway and looking back at Ethan expectantly. She was hungry—no surprise there—but otherwise she gave no indication that she was alarmed. Ethan put the knife away again. If there had been someone in his room, Shelly would have known it.

“All right,” he said, patting her head. “How about a piece of cheese?”

She licked his hand.

Ethan climbed the stairs, slowing as he turned at the small landing halfway up and saw his door. A folded scrap of paper had been affixed to the doorframe with a small blade that jutted from the wood. He climbed the rest of the way, pried the knife out, and unfolded the paper.

The note, written in Sephira’s neat hand, read, “Don’t sleep. Don’t even blink. —S.”

Ethan exhaled slowly. It was a familiar warning, one that she had given him before. Unfortunately, Sephira’s threats seldom turned out to be idle.

He let himself into the room, retrieved a small piece of hard cheese, and went back out onto the landing at the top of the wooden stairway.

“Here you go, Shelly,” he said, and tossed the cheese down to her.

It landed on the cobblestones, bounced twice, and came to rest a couple of yards from where she stood. She bounded forward, sniffed the cheese, and was about to eat it when she suddenly stopped and looked back. She bared her teeth, her hackles rising, and turned, a deep growl rumbling in her throat.

Ethan grabbed his knife and pushed his sleeve up so that he could cut his forearm for a conjuring. But to his surprise, it wasn’t Sephira or Nigel or even Mariz who had come for him. Instead, he saw Geoffrey Brower in his green silk suit, and with him a young man Ethan didn’t recognize. This second man wore the dark blue and white uniform of a British naval officer.

“Ethan,” Geoffrey said, eyeing Shelly and even taking a step back. “Call off the dog! Please! We require a word with you!”

Chapter

F
IVE

“It’s all right, Shelly,” Ethan called, although he wasn’t at all certain that he wanted anything to do with Geoffrey or his companion.

Shelly looked up at Ethan and gave a tentative wag of her tail. But then she eyed the two men and growled again. Her hackles were down though.

“She’ll leave you alone,” Ethan said. “You’re free to come up.” With that he stepped back into his room. He left the door open.

Moments later, he heard the two men ascending the stairs. He sat at the small table beside his bed, leaving a single chair for his visitors. Geoffrey and the other man soon reached the top of the stairway, but Geoffrey faltered at the door.

“Come in,” Ethan said. “There isn’t much room, but I don’t imagine you’ll be staying long.”

The two men exchanged a quick look. Geoffrey appeared to brace himself, as he might when preparing to step into rank waters. Then he entered the room. The naval officer followed. Brower looked paler than usual; his overlarge forehead was furrowed. He looked like he had spent the entire day frowning.

The officer was about as tall as Geoffrey, but he stood with his shoulders hunched. He was blandly handsome, with a square face and wide-set blue eyes, but he had a weak chin and had fixed an even weaker smile on his lips. He wore a powdered wig though he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five or thirty years old. The wig was long and accentuated the length of his face. It also seemed that his uniform didn’t fit him quite right, although Ethan couldn’t have said if it looked too small or too big. It was overly tight across the man’s middle, but it appeared too loose in the shoulders and chest.

“This is William Senhouse,” Geoffrey said, breaking a brief silence. “He is third lieutenant aboard the
Launceston
, the lead frigate of the fleet currently anchored in the harbor.” He indicated Ethan with an open hand, seeming to cringe at what he was about to say. “Lieutenant Senhouse, this is Ethan Kaille, my wife’s brother, and a thieftaker of some renown here in Boston.”

It might have been the nicest description of Ethan ever to pass Geoffrey’s lips.

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Kaille,” said Senhouse, stepping forward and proffering his hand.

Ethan half rose from his chair, shook the man’s hand, and sat back down.

Geoffrey, noticeably uncomfortable, glanced around the room. “Ethan was in the royal navy for a time,” he said, answering a question no one had asked. His gaze came to rest on Ethan again. “Weren’t you?”

Ethan shifted in his seat. “That’s right,” he told Senhouse. “I served under Thomas Cooper at Toulon.”

“Ah!” Senhouse said, nodding. “On the
Stirling Castle.
Very good. A bit before my time, but a fine ship.”

Ethan said nothing. An awkward silence settled over the room once more.

“Forgive me for being rude, gentlemen,” Ethan said. “But I’ve already had a long day. What brings you here?”

The men again exchanged glances.

“We need your help,” Geoffrey finally said with another grimace.

Bett, Ethan’s sister, had turned her back on spellmaking long ago, although she still possessed the ability to conjure. Like so many in New England she equated conjuring with witchcraft and believed that those who cast spells were servants of Satan. Preachers in New England’s finest churches still railed against magicking and the dark arts in their sermons, and rather than admit that she came from a family of conjurers, Bett counted herself among the virtuous who fought such devilry.

Years ago, she had made it clear to Ethan that she wanted nothing to do with him or his spellmaking. Her marriage to Geoffrey had given her everything to which she had ever aspired. She lived in a large comfortable house, enjoying the society of Boston’s finest Tory families, and she pretended that she had never been born a Kaille. For his part, Geoffrey seemed to share Bett’s aversion to conjuring and her desire to pretend that she and Ethan were not related. As a customs official, he had much to lose from any association with Ethan and his scandalous past. Ethan could hardly imagine how difficult it had been for him to come here, much less ask Ethan for aid.

He sobered at the thought. It would have taken a true crisis to bring Geoffrey to his door.

“What’s happened?” he asked.

To Ethan’s surprise, Geoffrey deferred to Senhouse.

“I think it would be wisest if we were to show you,” the officer said, his voice crisp.

Ethan narrowed his eyes, looking from Senhouse to Geoffrey. “Show me?”

“It would be easier that way,” Geoffrey told him. “I … I don’t want to speak of it here.”

Still Ethan hesitated.

“I assure you, Mister Kaille,” Senhouse said, “no harm will come to you. I give you my word as an officer in His Majesty’s navy.”

Ethan stood, eyeing both men again. “All right.” He indicated the door with an open hand. “After you.”

Geoffrey stepped out onto the landing, with Senhouse close behind. Ethan locked his door and followed them down the stairs.

“Tell me,” he said, thinking once more of the scene he had witnessed at Long Wharf. “Does this have anything to do with one of the ships in your fleet? A sloop-of-war perhaps?”

Geoffrey spun around so abruptly he came within a hairsbreadth of tumbling down the stairway. The lieutenant regarded him as well, though with more grace.

“How did you know that?” Geoffrey asked in a whisper.

“I didn’t know it for certain. I saw you at Long Wharf earlier today, Geoffrey. You were with several men who I assumed were also customs men. And then you rowed out toward the sloop.”

“What were you doing at the wharf?” the lieutenant asked.

“I had business there,” Ethan told him. “A matter that has nothing to do with the British fleet.”

“I see,” Senhouse said, though Ethan sensed that he wasn’t entirely satisfied with this answer.

“So, is this about the sloop?”

All the color had drained from Geoffrey’s cheeks, and a bead of sweat stood out on his upper lip. He nodded, his eyes wide, haunted. “Yes,” he said. “I won’t say more. Not here.”

“Fair enough,” Ethan said. “Lead on.”

They walked the short distance from the cooperage to Long Wharf in silence. The people they passed in the road stared hard at Senhouse, some appearing impressed, others regarding the man with open hostility, and still others looking frightened. It wasn’t every day that a British naval officer in full battle dress walked the streets of Boston, and with the royal fleet menacing the city’s shores, Senhouse’s presence seemed to draw even more notice than it might have under other circumstances.

Upon reaching the wharf, Geoffrey and the lieutenant escorted Ethan more than halfway out the length of the pier, past the warehouses to a small T-wharf that extended into the harbor. A pinnace waited for them there. Two regulars, clad in bright red coats and white breeches, stood on the wharf, and nine navy men—the cockswain and his oarsmen—waited in the boat. As Ethan and the others approached, the men in the boat stood, and all of the uniformed men saluted Senhouse. Several of them cast quick, wary looks Ethan’s way, but they said nothing.

Senhouse paused at the end of the T-wharf and gestured toward the boat. “In you go, Mister Kaille.”

Ethan stepped into the pinnace, taking care to keep his weight centered, and took a seat at the prow. Geoffrey joined him there; Senhouse and the two regulars took positions at the stern. The lieutenant spoke in low tones to the cockswain, who in turn barked a command at his men. Soon they were gliding away from the wharf. Ethan sat listening to the cockswain’s rhythmic calls and the splash of the oars as they cut through the water. He watched Geoffrey out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the other man to explain what it was they needed Ethan to do, but Brower steadfastly avoided looking Ethan’s way.

“Geoffrey—”

“Not yet,” Brower said in a harsh whisper. “When we reach the ship.” He glanced pointedly at the nearest of the navy men.

Ethan nodded once, and Geoffrey turned away again to stare out over the water. Ethan did the same.

As the pinnace skimmed past the
Launceston
, Ethan couldn’t help but admire the ship. It wasn’t as large as the
Stirling Castle
, the seventy-gun ship of the line on which Ethan had served during what was known to colonists as King George’s War, and to the rest of the world as the War of the Austrian Succession. But it nevertheless was an impressive vessel. He could see regulars on its decks; some marked the progress of the pinnace as it went by. And as he regarded the vessel, her cannons, the graceful curve of her hull, he couldn’t help but think back to the days of his service in the British navy.

It had been years since Ethan last put to sea, but for a time he had been as comfortable on the deck of a ship as on dry land. Some of his earliest memories were of sailing jaunts taken with his father, who had been an officer in the British navy. As a boy he worked the wharves in his native Bristol and later, when he was old enough, Ethan followed his father’s path into the navy.

His naval career didn’t last long. The Battle of Toulon went so poorly for the British that the fleet commander, Admiral Thomas Matthews, was court-martialed along with most of his captains, including the captain of the
Stirling Castle.
Thomas Cooper, the vessel’s captain, had done nothing wrong so far as Ethan was concerned. Ethan deeply resented the man’s court-martial. Cooper was soon reinstated, but Ethan wanted nothing more to do with the navy. With his father’s help Ethan was able to leave the service. He returned to Bristol and sailed for America aboard the first ship on which he could book passage. Once in Boston, he tried to make a living on land. But working the wharves was a poor substitute for sailing the seas. More to the point, within a month of his arrival in the New World, Ethan met and fell in love with Marielle Taylor, the daughter of one of Boston’s wealthiest shipbuilders. Soon they were betrothed and Ethan put to sea again, looking to make his fortune as second mate aboard a privateering vessel: the
Ruby Blade.