A Gathering of Fools (Vensille Saga Book 1)

by James Evans

  Paltiel, evidently unused to having wanted men present themselves at her desk, gestured vaguely toward the chair.

  “Thank you.” Marrinek moved to sit demurely on the indicated chair but stopped just short.

  “Oh, my word! Captain, someone has been bleeding on your stone flags. I’ll just move the chair a little...” He lifted the chair and carried it a foot closer to the door, placing it carefully back on the floor away from the small pool of drying blood. He took out a handkerchief and made a fuss of wiping down the arms and seat of the chair, then he sat down and looked at the Captain.

  “Captain Paltiel. I am here on painful business, I fear you will not welcome my news.”

  Paltiel finally stirred and closed her mouth.

  “Painful? I don’t follow.”

  “Just last night I found one of your men, Sergeant Snitz I believe he was called, attempting to extort money from a close friend of mine. I very much fear that we exchanged harsh words during our thankfully brief meeting.”

  “‘Attempting to extort’? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I believe it’s a practice known as ‘racketeering’. You are familiar with the term? It is, I understand, a most distasteful activity and one I am sure you will wish to stamp out amongst your fine body of officers.”

  “Protection money? That’s it? That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Why yes, Captain,” said Marrinek, allowing his face to show surprise at her reaction, “that was all. Well, and to apologise, of course, for speaking harshly to your man. I am afraid I was forced to raise my voice to Sergeant Snitz before he agreed to leave. I very much regret that that was necessary, you understand, but he seemed committed to his course of action and was initially unwilling to deviate.”

  He paused, face radiating innocent concern.

  “I’m sorry, Captain, were you expecting something more?”

  “What about five dead men at the Snarling Goat, eh? What about the man you left dead in the common room after crushing his skull with that?” She pointed at Bone Dancer.

  “Five dead men?” Marrinek looked shocked and contrived to sound shocked as well. “I am terribly sorry, Captain, but I think you must have me confused with someone else.”

  “So you weren’t in the Snarling Goat the day before yesterday? You didn’t strike down one man in cold blood then return later in the evening to kill the pub’s owner and his bodyguard and two other men? You didn’t throw someone off the roof of the Goat into the street forty feet below?”

  “No, Captain, I did none of those things. I will admit to enjoying several drinks in one of the booths at the Snarling Goat. I must say I found it to be a fine establishment, a little rowdy at times, but generally most invigorating.” He paused again to straighten his shirt. He stroked his beard absentmindedly.

  “Tell me honestly, Captain. Do I strike you as the sort of person who could kill one man, let alone five? I abhor violence in all its forms. I am a poet, an aesthete, an artist.”

  “And the staff? Is that an aesthetic accessory or do you use it to write your poetry?”

  Marrinek gave a weak laugh.

  “Aha ha, very droll, Captain, very droll.”

  Paltiel leaned forward and focussed power into her charm, pushing it toward Marrinek as she had done with Old Ned. She probed towards Marrinek with her power and then opened her mouth to ask another question.

  “Oh no, Captain, I’m afraid that won’t work at all.”

  Marrinek smiled and leaned forward a little, as if he were about to tell a secret.

  “Where I come from the Watch does not extort money from innocent businessmen, respectable gentlemen are not accused of murder and nobody tries to coerce their guests, especially with charms so feeble that they are little more than children’s toys. I am, quite frankly, insulted. I shall raise this matter with the Duke at our next meeting.”

  Palatial looked at him in surprise, unsure of just what had gone wrong.

  Marrinek flashed another quick smile then stood up and made to leave.

  “Can I assume that you will deal with Sergeant Snitz and put an end to his racketeering? I would hate to think that this was something else I needed to discuss with his Grace.”

  Paltiel said nothing, still rattled by her failed attempt at coercion, and Marrinek took this to indicate assent.

  “Good. Then our business here is concluded and I wish you a fine day. It has been a pleasure.”

  He offered her an elegant bow of the sort used in public between high-ranking equals of the Imperial Court. Then he swept out of the office, leaving the door open as he walked unhurriedly down the corridor, back toward the yard, staff tapping gently on the floor as he went.

  Paltiel sat for a few minutes after ‘Lord Bay’ had left, replaying the interview in her mind. No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t make sense of what had happened. Then she shook her head and stood up. She walked quickly down the corridor and grabbed the first constable she found.

  “Get down to the Jewel of Vensille, you know it?” she asked. The constable nodded.

  “Find Sergeant Snitz and tell him that his man has gone and that he is to get his squad back here as quickly as possible. Got that?”

  “Yes, Captain,” said the constable, still nodding.

  “Then go! Run!”

  The constable ran through the watch house and disappeared while Paltiel went back to her office and sat down at her desk. For a few minutes, she sat with her head in her hands then she realised she was letting ‘Lord Bay’ get under her skin and she stood up, kicking the desk in her frustration.

  She stamped around the watch house in a foul mood, waiting for Snitz and his squad to return from their aborted attempt to apprehend ‘Lord Bay’. Was he a lord? She certainly didn’t buy all that ‘Knight Commander of his Majesty’s third territorial infantry’ rubbish. Whatever he was, he was bad news, and she wanted to know why he was in her city, when he would be leaving and what he planned to do in the meantime.

  She stopped for a few minutes to watch another squad preparing for their patrol around the inner city, then found she was gripping the iron railings so hard her fingers were hurting. She released her grip, stretched her fingers and took a deep breath, trying to calm her thoughts.

  Where the hell was Snitz? She had almost decided to go looking for him when he stamped back into the courtyard, leading his squad back in through the gate. He saw her, waiting for him, and came straight over, following her silently back to the Captains’ office.

  “What the hell is going on, Snitz?” she asked, as soon as the door was closed.

  “Not sure what you mean, Captain,” said Snitz, looking confused.

  “Not five minutes after you’d left to pick up the suspect, he bloody turned up here, bold as brass. Sat in that chair and told me he was a poet, or some such rubbish, and didn’t know anything about five deaths at the Snarling Goat.”

  “He came here? But why would he do that? He must have known we would be looking for him.”

  Paltiel sighed and some of her anger drained away.

  “Apparently he came to complain about you extorting money from his friend. Madame Duval?”

  Snitz nodded, slowly.

  “That was the first time I met him. She would have paid if he hadn’t been there.”

  “And when you met him, did he strike you as a sensitive soul, an artist or poet who might be troubled by a little blood on the floor?”

  “No, Captain,” said Snitz, shaking his head, “I thought he was a thug of some sort, a heavy that Madame Duval had hired to scare us off.”

  “Hired to scare us off? We’re the fucking Watch! Did she think one man would stand in our way?”

  Snitz thought back to the fight in the alleyway, playing it over in his mind. How had the man dodged that first blow? It should have laid him out, nice and neat, ready to be dragged to the cells. And then there was the staff. He’d pointed it at them and knocked them all over, but how? Sni
tz cleared his throat.

  “I think he has a magic staff.” He sounded embarrassed, as if admitting the existence of such a thing might damage his image as a tough man of the streets.

  “That great long stick he carries? Dark green wood, about six feet long, sharpened to a point at one end?”

  Snitz nodded.

  “It’s a charm, a damn big one, so yes, he has a magic staff. But until he does anything with it nobody’s going to object, right? It just looks like a normal staff.”

  Snitz shuffled his feet and grimaced, uncomfortably aware that the Captain was not going to be pleased.

  “What? Do you know something else? Come on, Sergeant, spit it out.”

  “Well, Captain, it’s just that we had a bit of a run-in with Bay and his staff in an alley when we first tried to arrest him. He sort of pointed it at us and knocked us all over.”

  Paltiel stared at him.

  “He assaulted you with a charmed weapon and you didn’t think to mention it?”

  Snitz, not normally a man to hide from confrontation, leant back as Paltiel stood up from her seat, fists resting on the desk in front of her.

  “He knocked you down in the street and walked away and you didn’t think I’d want to know?”

  Snitz squirmed but there was no way round it.

  “Sorry, Captain, didn’t want to trouble you,” he said quietly. He was staring straight ahead now, using the blank expression of an experienced sergeant talking to his commissioned officer.

  Palatial stood stock still for a few more seconds then lowered herself slowly back into her seat. If she had known this earlier would it have made any real difference? She sighed.

  “Right. So, he plays the tough guy on the streets and in front of his ‘friends’, he’s familiar with violence and might have been a soldier, he has a charmed weapon that he isn’t afraid to use and he can convincingly,” she almost spat the word, “impersonate an Imperial nobleman when he wants to toy with the locals. We’ve been played, Snitz. I think he knows more about the deaths at the Snarling Goat than he’s telling but we’ll get nothing from him by going direct.”

  She paused to consider the next move.

  “Get back out on the street, Snitz. Find out where ‘Lord Bay’ lives, where he eats, who he meets, where he gets his beard trimmed. I want him watched all day, every day, for as long as it takes. Make the arrangements and report to me each morning.”

  Snitz nodded.

  “Yes, Captain. And should we arrest him?”

  Paltiel paused again.

  “If he steps out of line, yes. Otherwise, no, just let him run. And when we’ve got what we need we’ll arrange a short trip to the execution yard for our ‘Lord Bay’.”

  Snitz nodded again, smiling.

  “Yes, Captain, and what about the payments we’ve missed? Should I visit Duval again?”

  “No, we’ll let him think he’s won that one, for now. We’ll take it all back, with interest, once we’ve dealt with ‘Lord Bay’.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  WHILE MARRINEK SHOPPED, Fangfoss was having an entirely different meeting with his remaining lieutenants. They were in the room at the top of Trike’s, sitting around a table set with beer and bread and beef. Marrinek and his demands were, of course, the major topic of conversation.

  “Look, there’s no way round it,” said Fangfoss, “we either dance to Bay’s tune or we get out of the game. He killed Hitton and Tam and three others without picking up a scratch and,” Fangfoss paused and held up a hand to forestall the argument he could see Hines was about to make, “yes, I know, we’ve dealt with some mean bastards in the past but so fucking what? He’s talented, right? He’s,” Fangfoss paused again, uncertain of how to continue before settling on, “very strong indeed.”

  “So that’s it?” said Hines, in a disgusted tone, “We just give up and roll over, let him take what he wants and walk all over us?”

  There was grumbling from around the table. Nobody liked the course that Fangfoss was setting or the reasons for the change of direction.

  “We’ve done well, these last few years. We’ve all got a bit put away, somewhere safe, right?” said Fangfoss. There was a general nodding of heads. They’d seen a lot of coin over the last few years, it was true, and all of them, even Chickie, had salted away a tidy sum, insurance against an uncertain future.

  “But now things have changed and we’ve got to work at it a bit more. Frankly, I don’t see an alternative, unless you want to take a stab at Bay directly. What would you say to that idea, Chickie?”

  He looked at Chickie, lounging at the far end of the table, picking at his fingernails and occasionally eating pieces of bread smeared with beef dripping. Chickie looked around the table, the marks from his previous encounter with Marrinek showing on his bruised and battered face.

  “I might pay to see it done,” he said in a high pitched, almost comical voice, poking gingerly at his chin, “but only if I was damn sure it would get done and it wasn’t going to be me that had to face him.”

  “But he’s just one man! Why are we so scared of him? It makes no sense, no sense at all!” raged Hines, waving his plate-like hands in the air to emphasise his disgust.

  “It makes perfect sense, dammit,” said Fangfoss, slamming his fist on the table and making the plates jump and rattle. “Bay’s fast and well-trained and talented. He’s damn quick with that stick of his and he’s bloody dangerous without it,” Chickie nodded, rubbing his bruises again, “and he’s got some sort of powered weapon that I haven’t seen before. He used it on Hitton, drilled a neat hole right through his head, if you haven’t forgotten.”

  Hines grumbled in his seat but didn’t say anything else. Hitton’s death hung over the meeting like a bad smell, tainting everything. It wasn’t just that Hitton had been popular or that he had made the Snarling Goat his own over several decades. It was that he had died in his own room where he should have been safe, killed by something none of them had seen before. The gentlemen’s agreement with the Flank Siders and the Watch meant that they were all, generally, fairly safe if they kept things sensible. Hitton’s death was the end of that agreement and they all knew it, even if nobody was talking about it.

  Fangfoss looked around the table. Hines was the only one without talent but what he lacked in power he made for with muscle, a short temper and a genuine skill in non-lethal punishing violence. That was a skill that Fangfoss had ruthlessly exploited to build and maintain their current business empire. Hines was an excellent enforcer, untroubled by empathy or morality, but he was a middle-aged thug nearing the end of his useful lifespan. In the present company, surrounded by people much older than him who were likely to live for decades, possibly centuries longer, he seemed impatient, almost child-like in his naivety.

  Trike, by contrast, was playing some sort of long-term game of his own that Fangfoss had never been able to understand. The bar was part of it but he had other holdings outside the city, just as Fangfoss did, and he would often spend several days or a week away from the city working on something that he wouldn’t tell anyone about. Fangfoss half suspected that Trike had a family in one of the outlying villages but he just couldn’t bring himself to believe it and Trike wasn’t one for small-talk. It was clear that he wasn’t pleased to be paying Bay but if it allowed them to escape the stultifying hand of the Watch he would follow the plan, especially as there wasn’t an alternative at the moment.

  Chickie, Fangfoss’s second, was by far the most dangerous of the three. Deadly with knives and sword, he lived in the moment, spending much of his time gambling and whoring. He didn’t so much plan for the future as charge headlong into it, screaming defiance and challenging it to disappoint. For all that, he was a realist and he could, on occasions, be patient if there was no other way. Giving up the gang’s profits to pacify Bay was very much not what he wanted but after taking one beating he was reluctant to tangle again with the tall Imperial.

  There was a lull in the conversation
as all four ate. For a few moments, the only sounds were of men chewing and drinking. Then Fangfoss set down his tankard.

  “Right. So we’re agreed. Nobody likes it but we have to pay Bay until either he gets bored and moves on or we work out a way of killing him that doesn’t put us all in the ground with him.”

  “Or we sell him to the Watch,” said Trike, “whatever he’s planning isn’t going to go down well with Astiland, is it, so maybe we set him up somewhere public, tip off the Watch and let them deal with the problem.”

  Fangfoss looked at Trike, surprised. Trike never suggested things like this, he was more of a details person rather than a big picture man. If Fangfoss had suggested something Trike could be relied upon to tweak the idea till it worked but suggest the plan in the first place? No, that was not something that Trike ever did. This business must have upset him more than Fangfoss had imagined.

  “It would need to be done with finesse. If it went wrong and he found out what we’d done…” Chickie didn’t finish the sentence. They could all work out the likely consequences of failure.

  Fangfoss thought about it for a moment before deciding against. Even if it was possible, he didn’t want to do anything before he had his hands on the shock cannon. Until then he would play along, biding his time.

  “Yes, well, we’ll see what opportunities come along. In the meantime, let’s just make sure we can cover our payments to him. As long as we give him enough to keep him happy we should still be able to make a decent living and with Hitton gone there are only the four of us dipping our fingers in the pot anyway. And if he can really sort out the Watch like he says he can…” he trailed off for a moment, thinking about a future where he didn’t have to make huge payments to the Watch.

  “Right, here’s what I want you to do. Trike, keep the Goat running and make sure nobody gets any smart ideas about taking over till I say. Keep the Watch sweet, if you can, but don’t pay them anything.”

  Trike nodded, although keeping the Watch sweet without giving them any money would be tough.