Antiagon fire, p.14
Antiagon Fire, page 14
“That doesn’t surprise me, unfortunately.” He was likely either part of the plot or dead, if not both. But which plot? It was more than clear to Quaeryt that there had been more than one set of plotters. “We’d better go now.”
“I did take the liberty of having your mare saddled, in the event you wished to inspect the dwelling.”
Quaeryt couldn’t help but smile at that. “Thank you, Zhelan. That will save some time.” He couldn’t help but wonder if that was a harbinger of things to come.
Both the squad and Quaeryt’s mare were waiting in the courtyard just beyond the north porch to the inn, as was Zhelan’s mount. Quaeryt mounted quickly, although he fumbled slightly when he took the reins in his left hand because the two lower fingers still didn’t respond. Will they ever heal fully? He had the sense that they wouldn’t, but he could hope.
Early as it was on Solayi morning, the main street heading north from the Canal Inn was largely deserted, and all the shops remained shuttered. The eastern sky held a silvery haze that had begun to fade into thin off-white shreds of clouds. In the quiet of the early morning, the clopping of the horses’ hooves echoed off the fronts of the shops, but faded as the riders moved northward, where the small houses were set farther back from the street. After they had ridden not quite a mille, they passed two stone pillars, signifying the edge of the town proper. On the right were cots with small plots, and on the left, an open expanse of overgrazed pasture.
“The factor’s place is up on the left, sir, behind that wall,” Zhelan said quietly.
Quaeryt looked farther north. After what Zhelan had told him about the contents of the canal boat, Quaeryt had expected a large dwelling. He had not expected one that was the size of a High Holder’s hold house, if one of the smaller hold houses. The wall was of the dull red brick, close to three yards high, without any openings, except for the heavy black iron gates, through which Quaeryt, Zhelan, and the squad rode, after the troopers on duty had swung the gates open.
The three-story dwelling was also of brick, but the window ledges, cornices, and the tops of the low walls at the edge of the porches that surrounded the three-story dwelling were of gray stone. The roof tiles were of a light gray slate, and the wide windows had shutters painted a dark green. The dwelling itself ran nearly a hundred yards from end to end. The roof of the receiving portico on the south side of the three-story dwelling extended over the area where carriages would halt to discharge their passengers. In addition to the stable, there were two other blocklike buildings set farther behind the mansion, behind a large walled garden.
“Rather impressive for a factor,” observed Quaeryt dryly.
“I thought so myself, sir.”
Quaeryt dismounted under the portico, as did Zhelan, and the two walked up the gray stone steps to where two troopers stood stationed beside the door from the portico into the mansion. The brasswork on the door gleamed, and light shone through the narrow stained-glass windows flanking the wide single door.
Quaeryt lifted the brass knocker and let it fall.
The door opened, and a narrow-faced man in dark green livery peered out. “What do—” He stopped when he saw the uniforms, then swallowed, and said, “Yes?”
“We’re going to need to look through the house, since it appears that Factor Aelsam is not here,” said Quaeryt pleasantly.
“Sir … that is … most unusual.”
“The times and circumstances are most unusual. You are?”
“Dallaen, sir. The steward.”
“Excellent,” said Quaeryt cheerfully. “You can show us through the dwelling.”
The steward opened the door, reluctantly, and stepped back to allow the two officers to enter, his head slightly down. His eyes took in Quaeryt’s ungloved hands and flickered, widening as he got a better look. Then he swallowed.
The side entry hall was a square five yards on a side with an off-white plaster ceiling a good yard above Quaeryt’s head. The walls were finished in a pale green silklike paper that stretched from dark floor moldings to the crown moldings framing the green tinted off-white ceiling. Immediately beyond the entry along the wide corridor that ran the length of the house were a pair of studies, a lady’s study on the right and across from it a much larger library and study. Both were furnished with various pieces of polished goldenwork in a spare style that was far more to Quaeryt’s taste than the ornate furnishings in the hold house of the late Paitrak.
A lady’s study? For a widower? Or is it for a mistress? Quaeryt said nothing, but let Dallaen show them the rest of the main floor, which held a large dining chamber with a long goldenwood table and matching chairs, the adjoining salon, and a pair of parlors, or perhaps a parlor and a morning room off the smaller front entry to the mansion. Then came a breakfast room, and opposite it a music room with a clavecin and several settees and chairs upholstered in a pale green silk. Beyond the music room was another study, small and dark paneled, with but a small writing desk and a table … and a green hanging in the middle of the side wall.
Quaeryt walked over to the hanging and drew it aside to reveal a heavy brassbound door with a brass-plated keyhole for a built-in lock. He looked to Dallaen. “Please open the door.”
“I can’t, sir. Only the master and the young master have keys.”
“Are you certain?”
“Oh, yes, sir. They never let anyone have the keys to either this door or the outside door to the lower level.”
“Have you ever been down there, Dallaen?” asked Quaeryt.
“Only in the lower study, sir, the chamber at the bottom of the steps.”
“What else is down there?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir. There’s another locked door that leads to the rest of the lower level. That was what the master said.”
Quaeryt had his doubts about the accuracy of Dallaen’s words, but let that pass. “Then, I guess we’ll have to let ourselves in.”
“The door is iron-backed, sir. I would hope that you would not create great destruction.”
Quaeryt smiled. “So do I.” He looked at the door and concentrated on imaging away a thin section from the top to the bottom on the side facing the lock. Then he tried the lever handle. It depressed and the door opened.
Dallaen’s mouth opened and shut silently.
“Shall we see what lies below, Major? Please follow me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Holding full shields, Quaeryt stepped down on the first step—and found himself hurled backward into the iron doorjamb. Frig! You should have thought about traps. He straightened, ignoring the soreness in his shoulder, and looked at the still-vibrating and massive morning star that had swung down out of a concealed recess in the staircase ceiling.
He stepped back into the rear hallway and looked at Dallaen.
All the color had drained from the functionary’s face.
“I think you should precede us down the stairs,” Quaeryt said quietly.
“Sir … I beg you … please … I knew nothing.”
“Down the steps.”
Dallaen glanced from Quaeryt to the morning star and back to Quaeryt, then shuffled to the steps and began to descend, turning his body to pass the suspended weapon. Quaeryt followed, with Zhelan behind him.
The windowless and stone-walled chamber at the bottom of the steps contained a single writing desk with one side against the wall, two wooden chairs, one set behind the desk, and a bronze lamp in a wall sconce above the side of the desk, all barely illuminated by the light from the room at the top of the stairs. Quaeryt imaged the lamp into light, surveying the room as he turned up the wick for more illumination. As Dallaen had said, there was another door, ironbound and secured by both a heavy padlock running through iron hoops and another in-door lock.
“You have no idea what lies behind this door?” Quaeryt’s voice was soft.
“I’ve heard voices, at times, sir. Women’s voices,” Dallaen admitted in a resigned tone.
“And you’ve sent down food?”
“Yes, sir. But only to one of the factor’s guards. Usually, it’s Wharfyl.”
“Where is Wharfyl now?”
“He left with the master.”
I’ll wager he did. Quaeryt saw no point in questioning the steward more at the moment since he already had a good idea what he faced. Instead, he stepped to the door and imaged away the padlock hasp and the iron-edged part of the door where the lock bolt had to be. Then he opened the door. A sour odor assaulted him when he stepped through the door, only to see a second door less than a yard beyond the first. The second door had no locks, only a heavy latch, but when he pushed open that door, the odor became far stronger. There was no light in the second room, except that seeping through from behind him, but that was enough for him to make out the four women—scarcely more than girls, he thought, chained to iron rings set in the stone walls. All were naked, and all were cringing back against the stone, their faces averted.
“… Namer-frigged bastard…” muttered Zhelan from behind Quaeryt.
“… please … no more…”
“… do anything…”
The pleading murmurs from the girls were desultory, the tone of faded desperation.
Quaeryt spied the single wall lamp and image-lit it. As the faint light filled the chamber, he saw that there were five unused rings set in the wall. He also saw that each girl wore a harness with a lock in the back that connected the chain from the wall ring to the harness.
One of the girls squinted at Quaeryt. “Sir … please!”
“We’ll have you free in a moment.”
“… just another trick…” That murmur was so low Quaeryt couldn’t tell which of the four had uttered it.
“Zhelan … escort the steward upstairs and have him provide blankets for the girls. We’ll worry about garments after I get them out of here. If he shows the slightest inclination to be less than cooperative, run him through.”
“Sir … I didn’t know…” protested the steward.
“Sowshit!” snapped Quaeryt. “I don’t want to hear another word. Get those blankets.”
“Yes, sir.”
Quaeryt’s head was aching faintly by the time he’d imaged away the harness locks and guided the trembling girls up the steps into the study, where Zhelan immediately wrapped a blanket around each girl.
Leaving the four stunned and trembling girls in the main floor study, Quaeryt drew Zhelan out into the corridor.
Zhelan was silent until Quaeryt closed the door to the study. “The fellow is more than…” The major seemed unable to come up with a word adequate to describe the missing factor. “He just left them to starve … to die.”
“He might not have. He might have thought that we’d move on and he could return.”
“He had to know that might not happen.”
Quaeryt nodded. “That’s possible. I need to leave all this in your hands. Get them fed, washed up and clothed … and keep them safe.”
“Yes, sir. What about the house staff?”
Quaeryt shook his head. “For now, keep them all here. Except Dallaen. Tie him up. He, of any of them, should have known. I need to think about this.”
“Sir?”
“We’re not justicers.” Not anymore. “But I don’t trust the locals to handle it, either.”
The major nodded sadly.
Quaeryt left Zhelan at the mansion, as well as all but two troopers of the squad that had accompanied him, to deal with the factor’s mansion staff and former captives. As he rode south along the road that led back to the Canal Inn, he thought about what he’d just discovered. There weren’t any laws that he knew of that prohibited girls from becoming pleasure women, and even in Tilbor parents could sell their daughters—or sons—into indenture for up to five years.
What Aelsam had done went far beyond that, but … in any justicing hearing, he would doubtless claim, and the locals would likely support that assertion, that he had only been disciplining girls who had refused to live up to the terms of their indenture. Quaeryt hadn’t seen any bruises or welts or cuts on the girls when he’d freed them, not that he’d looked closely, and he suspected that less obvious means had been used on the girls. Three of them had looked dazed, and he couldn’t help but wonder how much curamyn had been in their food. But, again, feeding them curamyn wasn’t against any law he knew. Despicable … but not against the law.
Even if he persuaded Bhayar to decree changes in the law, how long would it be before such changes were accepted by the factors and High Holders? And even if he were successful in setting up the imagers as a force, it would be years … if not longer … before they could make significant changes. It will be hard enough to get compliance with what laws there are now.
He was still thinking about what he might be able to do when he walked into the larger plaques room of the Canal Inn, where Vaelora and Skarpa waited.
“I was wondering, dearest, if you were going to return in time.”
“There was another … difficulty.” Quaeryt paused, then went on. “Zhelan sensed that there was something … unusual … about Factor Aelsam’s dwelling. He suggested an inspection might be in order. It was.” Quaeryt went on to describe what he had found.
“He had those girls chained up?” asked Vaelora.
“He did. Zhelan is arranging for them to be brought here to the inn. I don’t know what we’ll do, but I don’t think they want to go to the pleasure houses or wherever Aelsam had in mind for them.”
“Variana, I would imagine,” said Vaelora tartly.
“What I don’t understand is why the canal boat was left,” said Skarpa.
Quaeryt laughed. “The good factor Aelsam had two warehouses, one on each side of the locks. The one to the west of the locks likely held grain that he bought cheaply from growers whose shipments were held up when the lock was closed for repairs. The one on the east was for goods destined for Variana in times both good and bad—for either Rex Kharst’s pleasures or for the pleasure houses catering to a more wealthy clientele. But when Aelsam discovered an army was coming, everything was reversed, and he ran out of time, and he certainly couldn’t have escaped us heading east, especially since he would have had the only boat for more than twenty milles. I’d guess that one of his enemies hired the smith, for a goodly amount of golds, to forge-weld the canal lock just so that Aelsam couldn’t move his more luxurious goods back west. I also suspect that enemy was one of the factors on the council, most likely one of the two whom we didn’t pick up, because they knew who Zhelan was and that he could get word to the submarshal. The two we have in custody know that, but they haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone else.”
“And anyone else who could tell us is dead,” concluded Vaelora.
Quaeryt nodded. “But I’m certain that Aelsam is accompanied by a considerable amount of gold, and likely headed west.”
“Not downriver?” asked Skarpa, who immediately shook his head. “No, he’d have guessed that we’d have to take a large force south.”
“We can’t chase him west, but there may be some things we can do to make sure he can’t return to Laaryn,” said Quaeryt. “We’ll have to talk about those later.”
Vaelora gave Quaeryt a look that told him he would be explaining a great deal later.
The bells had not finished chiming ninth glass when Major Aernyt, an officer Quaeryt did not personally know, ushered the four remaining members of the factors’ council into the plaques room, led by the narrow-faced Coryt. The stout gray-bearded Barkudan was last, and that meant the two in the middle were Yudrow and Fuadan.
“You can just stand before the table,” said Quaeryt.
“It is most … untoward … to be summoned to a hearing on a Solayi morning,” the stout Barkudan said in a quietly aggrieved tone.
“It was most untoward for you to have a city councilor lie to a submarshal,” replied Quaeryt. “It was most untoward for you to attack me.”
“All of that was a grievous misunderstanding,” said the sallow brown-haired factor smoothly. “Had we but known…”
“You are?” asked Skarpa.
“Yudrow D’Factorius, Submarshal.” Yudrow inclined his head politely. “We received no word about the approach of your forces. Nor did we receive any instructions that our past practices were no longer to be sanctioned by Lord Bhayar. Had we but known—”
“We attempted to let you know,” said Skarpa dryly. “I would have thought that the approach of an army would have been sufficient to convey that matters had changed. Instead, you all immediately lied. Two of you tried to kill a Telaryn senior officer who had not even lifted arms against you. One of your number fled.”
“Now that we know, sir,” added the black-haired and green-eyed Fuadan, “we will certainly comply with all laws and rules you and Lord Bhayar specify.”
The implication there is that they shouldn’t have to comply until they are told. Quaeryt wanted to snort. Since when is shooting at authority allowed once the war is over?
Skarpa smiled. “Please explain why you lied to me and fired upon Commander Quaeryt.” His eyes fixed on Barkudan.
“Sir…”
Quaeryt image-projected the feeling that more dissembling might well lead to executions.
A sheen of perspiration began to appear on the stout factor’s forehead. Finally, he continued. “Sir … there … is no explanation save that we did not know what to expect. The fact that we could not even come up with a good explanation is proof enough of our confusion.”
“Would you have lied or fired upon Rex Kharst’s officers?” pressed Skarpa.
“I could not say, sir. In my entire life, I have never seen such.”
“You’ve never seen a Bovarian officer?”
“Not in Laaryn, sir. I have in Ephra and in Variana, but never here.”
