StarCrossed. Part 38

The boat finally pulled up alongside the Bargewater Street landing, and Rat helped me up to the street in front of his aunt's bakery. The hot, yeasty scent wafting from the ovens was sour with the acrid tinge of old smoke.

"Another burning?"

Rat nodded toward the alley, his face grim. "That family with the twins. n.o.body's seen them in about a week, and last night the Guard came and emptied their house into the street."

Down the side street a blackened heap still smoldered on the cobbles. "Was anyone -?"

"No," he said quickly. "It's just their belongings. What was left of them, anyway. Crockery, bedding. Books. Apparently they were running quite a trade in seditious literature. We're lucky they didn't burn the whole block. Bardolph must be feeling lenient these days."

I breathed through my mouth to quench the smoke smell, but couldn't draw my eyes away from the dying bonfire. Just last week I'd seen those twin boys tussling in the street. It had taken me a shocked moment to realize they were playing at Sarists. One boy raised his hands against his brother, who clutched at his chest and cried out, "Magic, magic!" before falling dramatically to the cobbles. Their mother, a small, tired-looking woman with nervous eyes, had been swift to round them up and usher them back inside - but someone must have seen them anyway.

"Are we sure they got away?"

Rat just looked at me, silence the only possible answer.

The bakery was busy at this hour of the morning, packed with its typical Seventh Circle trade of harried fishwives, out-of-work dockhands, and night girls fetching supper before sashaying off to their beds. Rat, sensing my desire to avoid their company, steered me down the alley and through the bakery's kitchen door. He grabbed a hot loaf from the counter and gave me a gentle shove toward the stairs. An orange tabby descended from the landing, tail erect, scolding us loudly.

"Talk to her," Rat told it. "She's the one who was gone all night."

Upstairs, I found a bottle of wine and leaned against the table. There was a stool, but I was too tired to move the cat. Rat fished a bowl from the shelf and tore the bread into chunks, pouring wine over them. "Milk would be better, but I know you worshippers of Tiboran."

"Not even you can find milk these days," I said. As a flatmate, I liked Rat just fine. His room, the top floor of an old bakery in the Seventh Circle, was big enough for two, out of the way, and always warm. The window dropped onto a clay roof with quick access to the buildings next door, so it was easy enough to go to work and, usually, come back again unnoticed. I couldn't complain.

Especially because lodgings hadn't been that quick to come by when I got back to the city. Strangely enough, saving a n.o.b family from the Inquisition doesn't endear you to many Seventh Circle underground types. When Rat took me in - in return for my a.s.sistance in a little sc.r.a.pe involving him, two Temple Street boys, and a cartload of imported Vareni tobacco of debatable ownership - I was just grateful for the walls and roof. Our arrangement was simple: I paid my share of the rent on time, he provided the food, and we didn't ask each other too many questions.

"I recognize that look," Rat said. "You're planning something."

I stirred the sodden bread with my spoon. "They're going to execute Durrel." Rat was silent. "He didn't do it."

"I hate to quibble, but I'm not sure the evidence agrees with you, and the Ceid certainly don't share your faith in him."

"Lots of unhappily married people don't kill their wives. And why would he need money? Wouldn't it be easier to stay married to his rich wife than kill her and have the cash flow dry up?" Even to my ears, that sounded weak.

"What are you going to do?"

I looked up, rubbing the back of my neck. "How do I get in to see the Ceid?"

"You don't," Rat said. "They're untouchable. It would be like walking up to the Celystra and demanding to see the Matriarch. Fair enough, bad example." He leaned against the table, looking thoughtful. "Well, I suppose you might try the daughter; she's just odd enough to grant you an audience. But why in the world would you want to?"

I made a noncommittal grunt, and Rat pulled my bowl away. "Look at yourself," he said. "You ignore the curfew, come home bloodied and battered from a night in jail, and you're still looking for ways to get into trouble."

"That's not it," I said. "I just want to help him, if I can. Maybe I can find out what really happened."

"And if you find out he really killed her?" Rat's voice was gentle. "Never mind. How are you planning to do it?"

I sighed. "I have no idea."

He gave me a little grin and patted me on the arm. "Well, that's never stopped you yet." He plucked my spoon from the bowl and licked it clean. "I'm off to the baths."

As Rat strolled to the door, I glanced over his blue satin doublet and matching breeches. Topaz-pale, they set off his fair hair and bright eyes. "Are you seeing Hobin tonight?"

"And tomorrow, if things go right." He blew me a kiss. "Don't wait up."

"You never bring your friends home," I said. "It's me, isn't it? I embarra.s.s you." I struck a defiant pose, sticking out my b.l.o.o.d.y chin.

"Careful. I am this close to getting milord to spring for a new apartment. Don't make it so tempting."

"See if he has any word about the war, will you?"

Rat paused, his hand on the doork.n.o.b. "Word about the war. Right."

"Don't start."

He came a few steps back into the room. "You should have joined up, Digger. Why are you hanging around the city, when it's so obvious there's somewhere else you want to be?"

"And there's such a big call in the prince's army for short, ugly young women with missing fingers and a limp." I pulled away from the table. "I'm no camp follower."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Rat said. "The limp is barely noticeable."

After that, I fell into bed and slept all the way through till night, waking cramped and knotted in more places than I could even identify. I pushed open the shutters. The night air still smelled of smoke, and the moons of Zet and Sar shined down through the haze. Royalty and magic, a good omen for Prince Wierolf's campaign. I curled into the corner of the window, wondering where they were now. I'd had one sweet letter from Meri, now a mage in the prince's army, before the fighting started, and then nothing. News came in s.n.a.t.c.hes, and we clutched at it: The prince had found unexpected allies in the north, where distance - both physical and ideological - had bred less devotion to the king, and several n.o.ble houses had either capitulated without struggle or pledged outright support. The fighting was now concentrated on the plains of Gelnir, where wealthier houses with more to lose by a change in regime had made treaties with Astilan's forces and now stood in defense of the routes toward Gerse and the throne.

The only thing I knew for certain was that Wierolf still lived; any report of his orange banner falling would make swift course to Gerse. But of the Nemair I had heard nothing, of Wierolf's infamous army of wizards only rumors; that they rode before him like an unseen apocalypse, laying waste to the countryside and bewitching innocents in their homes. Those were Royalist claims, to strike terror into Bardolph's subjects and drive us harder to the king's side.

I'd come back to Gerse ready and eager, I thought, to do - something. Storm through the streets leading a battalion of my underworld cronies on secret Sarist missions to undermine the king and the Inquisition? Well, not that exactly, maybe. But something.

Instead I'd returned to a city I could barely recognize, and I couldn't find my place again. I'd tried, gone poking around in likely places, looking for Sarists. I'd thought they'd be easy to find for someone like me; I could see their magic, track them to their hidden lairs, offer my services as thief-for-hire. But it hadn't happened. The problem with the likely places was that Bardolph's men had gotten there already, long since cleaned them out and burned them to the ground, and the stale smoke and ashes left such a bitter taste in my mouth that eventually I'd stopped looking.

Below me, the city was silent. It was past suppertime, and the streets should have been noisy with traffic, people gathered at fountain and tavern, children playing along the river. Thieves lurking in the shadows. A lot had changed while I'd been gone. And not just me. Everything changed, when Tegen died.

I should have expected what happened. I was Tegen's - Tegen's girl, Tegen's partner, Tegen's - whatever - and with Tegen gone, his work went with him. Though I saw plenty of sympathy in the eyes of the old friends who'd seen me back, I knew what they were thinking. I was bad luck. My partner had died on a job with me, and n.o.body wanted that kind of fortune rubbing off on them.

Plus I'd come back with the taint of n.o.bs all over me, like a scent the others could pick up from blocks away. It was one thing to sneak into their bedrooms and lift a necklace or a letter or a bottle of wine you could never afford to buy. It was quite another to move in, cozy up to their children, and play their pet. n.o.body knew who I was anymore. And I didn't blame them. I wasn't exactly sure myself.

Although apparently I'd landed another job saving n.o.blemen. It seemed I just couldn't keep from sticking my fingers into their business. What had really happened to Durrel's wife? Was he just an unlucky suspect, or was he being framed? Besides the question of who wanted me involved, which I could hardly ignore, there was Durrel himself. He wouldn't kill anybody. I had nothing to support that but a core of certainty in my gut, but I felt it, somehow. I knew it. I didn't care what the evidence said; somebody was lying, somebody was wrong. That lost, anguished face hadn't hidden the cold iron of a killer. And he was more than just a n.o.b who'd been nice to me; he was Meri's kin. I hadn't had a lot of people to turn to in my life, and I knew what it was like to be in danger and have somebody step up out of nowhere and say, You'll be safe now; I won't let anything happen to you. I was bound to help him, if I could.

The Keep was a far cry from the Inquisitor's dungeons where Tegen had died, lost and alone, and there was nothing of Tegen in Durrel, but my stinging heart couldn't help drawing the connection. I wasn't going to leave a man I cared about behind in prison, ever again.

I peeled myself from the window. Nursing misery by moonslight wasn't remotely productive; I'd be in a puddle of it by morning if I didn't get out and do something. Since it seemed I had plenty of room in my taxing schedule of fomenting rebellion, I gave my abused limbs a creaky stretch and set out into the evening to hunt up what I could about Durrel's dead wife.

Grea - Rat's aunt, the baker, and our landlady - caught me the instant I stepped off the stairs. "You're not off again?" She planted herself between me and the door. "You're barely in." She was a tall, wiry woman with arms like a stevedore; there was no way I was getting past her by force or stealth.

"Just to look for a healer for my eye," I hazarded, hoping Grea wasn't hiding an apothecary in the kitchen. The common room was nearly empty, just one of the regulars, an old soldier sent back from the front, drinking sleepily by the cold fireplace. "I'll be home by curfew." Grea was legally liable for her tenants; if I was caught - again - she could be fined. Or worse.

She gave me a narrow-eyed stare, then stepped aside. "If you come back without st.i.tches, there will be h.e.l.ls to pay."

Nodding, I waved her off, silently vowing to help roll out dough when I got back. My hip was still sore, so I hired a boat, and by the time we slipped into the moonslit water, I was almost cheerful. Movement soothed me. A locked door and a bottle marked poison were practically a holiday. Nosing around a murder might turn out to be entertaining.

It beat the h.e.l.ls out of what I'd been doing the last couple of months, at least.

Durrel and his wife had lived far across the city, at an ugly old lump of stone called Bal Ma.r.s.e, and I wanted a look at the place - the murder scene - before I decided my next move. I took the boat as far as I could, then took to the streets by foot, easily finding my way by Bal Ma.r.s.e's watchtower, which loomed over the rest of the neighborhood. I clung to the shadows, but couldn't help glancing over my shoulder at every imagined sound behind me. I had a knife and my lock picks this time, and I wasn't taking any chances, but I was still skittish from last night.

Bal Ma.r.s.e meant "well defended," and that wasn't a euphemism. Clearly the Ceid thought it was more important to look powerful than beautiful. Kings had once garrisoned soldiers there, and the tower looked straight at the royal residence. A flag of alarm over Hanivard Palace would be clearly seen, armies quickly dispatched. The house itself was a plain-faced, blocky affair, long and low with few windows, the square watchtower like a striking snake protecting the estate. But the windows were dark, the torches in the courtyard cold and unlit. Was the property abandoned? A high wall edged an empty alleyway, only the blank backside of a warehouse for a neighbor. I flexed my hands and shook out my neck. Scaling that wall should have been as easy as trotting up a flight of stairs, but my sore hip screamed at me with every step.

Finally I got lucky. Someone had left a gate unlocked. I said my thanks to Tiboran, and braced myself for a dog or four to come barreling at me from around the house, but the yard had a lonely, empty feel, like n.o.body alive was anywhere nearby. Even without its mistress and master, a grand house like Bal Ma.r.s.e should still be occupied with servants and staff and other family members. Hadn't Durrel told me Talth had four children? Where was everyone?

I looked over the flat stone walls, down across the dusty courtyard, along the perimeter wall. Talth's maid had seen somebody leaving her mistress's rooms in the small hours of the night, and Durrel swore it wasn't him. Could it have been an intruder? The more I looked at the building, the more unlikely that seemed. Even if security was a little stiffer when the house was occupied, there were no windows big enough to climb through on the first two stories, and it would take even a skilled climber a good effort to scale one of those smooth stone walls. So maybe Talth's murderer had been welcome here, known to the household. A visitor, if not a member of the family or staff.

Whoever had left the gate unlocked was just as careless with the kitchen door, which swung easily on well-oiled hinges. Why would anyone leave a well-defended house open to the elements and intruders?

It didn't take long to see. The house was empty, just a stone sh.e.l.l with no furnishings to speak of, as if thieves or debt collectors had swept through and taken away anything that wasn't bolted down. In fact, it was so picked over it was hard to tell what some of the rooms had been used for. At the center of the ground floor was a huge, round court, pillars soaring to a colonnaded gallery. Whether it had once been a reception or dining hall, or something else entirely, I couldn't decide. The only decoration was the family seal, a sigil of intertwining initials set into the stone floor.

It was eerie walking through the crust of a building where someone had been murdered. I shook off a shiver and found a set of stairs leading to the private s.p.a.ces upstairs. Without furniture to guide me, I thought it would be hard to find Talth's bedrooms, but one entire wing of the second story had been converted to apartments, and though all the hangings and case goods and rugs had vanished, the way the rooms unfolded into one another, plus the new fireplace with its ma.s.sive carvings of Mend-kaal in the stonework, plainly announced that someone important had called these rooms home.

I wandered through them, but only the outermost chamber had windows, and the rest of the rooms barely received any of the filtered moonslight. It didn't matter; it was obvious that any evidence that might have been in this room was long gone. Whoever had stripped these rooms had done away with any clues as well. I wondered which chamber Talth had died in, lying in her sweat and horror, waiting for Marau to finally stop the beating of her heart. A stain on the floor to give up her position, maybe? A shaft of moonslight to show me the cold flagstones? But there was nothing. She could have died here two weeks ago, or twenty years, and it wouldn't have made a difference. With a grim sigh, I went back downstairs.

Yet as I crossed back through the empty court, something that wasn't moonslight flashed in the corner of my vision. Swearing silently, I spun slowly back around, my eyes squeezed closed until the last moment. I hadn't imagined it. There, by an arched doorway, in a streak like the mark left on the floor from heavy furniture, was the faintest trace of something that should not have been there. I knelt on the floor beside the mark and cautiously dipped my fingers toward the flagstones, tapping the floor just lightly enough that a stream of silvery mist spread out from my touch like the radiating arms of a star, flooding the floor with glittering light.

There was magic at Bal Ma.r.s.e.

Of course there was.

CHAPTER FOUR.

I scowled at the ceiling. "I'm sure you find this amusing," I said, addressing the G.o.ds directly, Sar and Tiboran in particular. All over the country, the Inquisitor and his Confessors were desperate to expose magic - real or imagined - wherever it lurked, and they had devised the most cruel and elaborate methods for seeking it out. And here I, the Inquisitor's wayward, gutter-rat sister, could see magic, plain as moonslight, could wake it up with a touch - and I'd developed the most ridiculous knack for stumbling over it everywhere I went.

I drew my finger in a wary arc against the stone floor, silvery dust sparkling in my wake. This certainly put the murder in a new light. Was Talth a Sarist? Was she magical? That would give almost anybody in our nervous city motive enough to kill her, although most people would just call down the Greenmen to do the G.o.ddess's dirty work. Unfortunately one sweep of glitter on Talth's Round Court floor couldn't tell me much. But it was more to go on than I'd had that morning. I crisscrossed the court, trying to see a pattern to the magic, but it was too confusing. There was a large sort of blot near a back entrance, like someone had spilled a bunch of it, and there was a wide swath sweeping along the floor. Here and there throughout the room were small random scratches, as if magical mice had been milling about, searching for crumbs.

From outside, I could hear the temple bells clanging the hour. Pox. I'd forgotten about the blasted curfew again. I hurried back toward the river. If I didn't get to a water landing soon, I was going to have to walk back to the bakery, and risk being picked up again. And that would try even Rat's patience.

I was awake late that night, my bruises throbbing and my mind b.u.mping uselessly against the mystery of Bal Ma.r.s.e's magical stains. I'd ask Durrel if he knew what it meant, but I'd hoped to collect some useful information for him before I went back to the Keep. Maybe I could learn more from someone else who was intimate with the inside of Talth Ceid's home. Rat had told me the Ceid were untouchable - but he'd also said I might convince Durrel's stepdaughter to speak to me. Besides, I was more than a little curious about this infamous woman who'd gotten Durrel Decath in so much trouble.

The next morning, Grea called to me as I sneaked through the bakery kitchens. It was late; I'd slept through the breakfast rush, and she was tidying up. "Don't hie away so fast," she said. "You've had another letter."

I turned back. "Anonymous?"

She looked affronted at the suggestion that she would read my mail, but she shook her head. "Not this one." I felt a flash of hope; maybe Meri had figured out a way to get another message through from the front. But Grea tugged a square of folded green parchment from her ap.r.o.n.

"Ah," I said. I plucked the note from her hands and dropped it, unopened, into one of the great bakery ovens as I went past, not even staying to watch it curl satisfactorily into cinders.

"La.s.s! Don't you want to know what it says, then?"

I halted at the common room door. "I know what it says," I said. "The same thing as all the others." Letters - four of them now - from Werne. My estranged brother, depending on the day you asked him, and the G.o.ddess's ordained High Inquisitor. I still didn't know how he'd found me; I'd moved three times since coming back to the city, and that was tracking that could put me to shame. But as long as he limited his contact to mawkish letters begging me to return to the bosom of Mother Church, I could handle it.

Although I hoped not to be questioned too closely as to the precise definition of "handling it."

Grea clucked disapprovingly as the letter went up in flames. I couldn't blame her; five months wasn't a terribly long time to get used to the idea of ignoring a letter from the Inquisitor, particularly when His Grace's men were burning your neighbors out of their homes. "You don't need my kind of trouble here," I said. "I should move on."

Grea leaned low on her elbows. "Now where would we be if everyone in this city moved house whenever the Bloodletter said 'boo'? Nay, I knew who you were when you took the room, and besides, you're the only tenant I've had who can put up with that nephew of mine. You stay put."

I nodded gratefully and left her to her flour-strewn work boards. Outside, I headed uptown toward the Third Circle, a more respectable neighborhood than mine. The hired boats gathered here were nicer, their boatmen less inclined to nick your purse when your back was turned. I wasn't exactly sure where I wanted to go, but I wagered one of these sailors could steer me in the right direction. I waved down a vessel.

"Take me to see Koya Ceid," I said in my best imperious lady-in-waiting voice. I almost looked the part today, in the nicer of my dresses, a gold brooch pinned to the bodice. I'd found it a couple months back, working the Spiral, and just hadn't gotten around to selling it yet.

The boatman looked confused. "Mistress Koyuz, you mean?"

Did I? I realized I didn't know anything about this Koya, except the scant rumors Rat had shared.

"Not too many ask for her by name," the boatman went on. "Most people just name the house over in n.o.b Circle."

That sounded promising, so I nodded and paid my fare. As the boat skimmed across the city, a buzz of mosquitoes in the humid air, I thought over what I knew of the Ceid. The family hailed from Tratua, their Gerse branch just an outflung arm, but they'd been fixtures in the city almost since its founding. Gerse was too much the royal capital for merchant-cla.s.s families to seize control of the city government the way they had in Tratua and Yeris Volbann, but wealthy gentry like the Ceid had made inroads in shipping, trade, and banking, ama.s.sing local fortunes, allies, and power along the way. It was hard to imagine Durrel tied up with a family like that, but I reminded myself that he was a n.o.b, every bit as used to wielding power as any clan of rich gentry.

I'd heard that in Tratua, the Ceid had so many guards and retainers that they amounted to a standing army, and though they weren't quite so powerful in Gerse, they were still people you didn't cross if you could help it. More than one rival - business, political, or personal - had disappeared over the years. And the Ceid made sure the world knew who was responsible, so no one would mistake the disappearances for the work of the Inquisition.

It occurred to me that perhaps I ought to have thought this errand through a little further.

We pulled up before a modest riverside teriza, all pink marble and cultivated topiary, white banners flying from the pillars and balconies. Belatedly I recalled that this would be a house in mourning; Koya had lost her mother only a fortnight or so ago. Would she even be receiving callers yet? Before I could give the bellpull a tug to find out, the terrace doors flew open, and three huge sighthounds burst through, followed by a tall young woman in blue velvet, cut low about her neck and shoulders.

"Pol! Fana! Kusht! Do not go near that water -" She saw me and broke off yelling. "I don't know you," she said, leaning forward to take me in. "Do I?"

"No," I said hastily, as the dogs snuffled hungrily around me. I pulled my arms in tight to my body. "I -" Pox. I hadn't even come up with a cover. "I'm Celyn Contrare. I've come to - pay my condolences."

"Oh." She looked oddly disappointed, but snapped her fingers, and the dogs fell back. "I suppose you can come inside." She turned in a swirl of blue train and cascading golden hair, and led me into a room with high ceilings and spindly, gilded furniture. "I'm Koya, and my brother Barris is skulking about here somewhere. Did you know my mother well?"

So this was the notorious Koya, for whom Durrel might have killed his wife. It now seemed altogether believable; there was something striking about her, the warm flush of her cheeks, the fair hair, the dogs - she looked like a statue of Zet, G.o.ddess of the hunt, come to life. She was watching me expectantly.

"No," I said without thinking, then added, "I'm a friend of her husband." Who might have killed her, and whose name was surely not welcome in this house these days. Brilliant.

"Lord Durrel? How marvelous!" Koya said, and I blinked at her. "Come in, come in. Such tales we hear these days. Apparently he's quite despicable. Oh, do I shock you?" She gave a gay laugh. "I shock everyone."

"Yes, she delights in it," said a dull voice. I turned my head to see a gentleman a few years older than Koya descend a curved staircase. "Have you forgotten that this is a house of mourning?"

"With you haunting about like a figure from a funeral masque? Hardly. Celyn Contrare, my brother Barris Ceid." He strode into the room to greet me. I saw that his neat, dark beard was just starting to fill in, and he wore white armbands on his pale gray doublet - the very picture of respectable mourning.

"You're acquainted with our stepfather?" His voice was cool, restrained.

"I - yes."

"And yet you felt it appropriate to come to this house. Why?"

I was spared the need to answer when Koya guessed it, somehow. "Oh! I remember who you are," she said. "Celyn! Of course. Lord Durrel spoke of you many times. Are you looking into my stepfather's case, then? Can you find out who did it?" There was a sudden urgency to her melodic voice. Who was this person? But her question was interesting: My stepfather's case. Not my mother's death.