Burn Me Deadly elm-2

by Alex Bledsoe

  Sharky caught the coin on its next flip. “Bunch of weirdos from deep in the Black River Hills. They all look the same because they’ve been inbreeding for generations.”

  “What’s with the scarves?”

  “Religious symbol. Dragon worshippers.”

  My eyebrows went up, but only slightly. Had to appear a little surprised. “Dragons?”

  “Yeah. These guys believe dragons were real, and that they’ll come back one day and burn up everyone who ain’t part of their church.”

  “Why did they buy a whorehouse?” Usually these strange little cults enforced strict, ascetic behavior that certainly didn’t encourage promiscuity.

  “Don’t know, but Joan Diter had to skedaddle in the middle of the night. I saw her load onto a boat and head downstream with barely more than she could carry. And she was no wilting flower, that woman.”

  The pattern was forming. Marantz certainly had the muscle to run off anyone he wanted, and his thugs had the same red scarves as these backwoods lacktooths and wore dragon emblems. I couldn’t imagine Marantz had suddenly found religion, though. Why bring these guys to town, buy a whorehouse and then close it? Why send his men into the hills to look for something by coating rocks with lamp oil? And why torture Laura Lesperitt to death? “Thanks,” I said, and patted Sharky’s arm.

  As I climbed the hill from the riverbank, Minnow rushed to intercept me. She had on a dry dress, but her hair was still wet. “Mr. LaCrosse! Can I talk to you? You know Mother Bennings, don’t you?”

  “She patched me up, but we’re not best friends.”

  She looked up at me, eager and breathless. “Would you put in a word for me? I really want to learn from her.”

  “Why? It’s not an easy life. There are places where moon priestesses are arrested on sight and turned into prostitutes.”

  “Really?” She blinked in surprise. “Around here?”

  “No. But they do it in Menasha. And in Brule their tongues are cut out if they speak in public.” That was a slight exaggeration, since all women were forbidden to speak in Brule, but in my experience moon priestesses were harder than most to shut up.

  Minnow turned as pale as her dress. “Wow. You’re not lying to me just to help my dad, are you? Because he’s afraid if I join-”

  I put my hand on her shoulder. “Minnow, I’m telling you things I’ve seen with my own eyes. Your dad probably doesn’t know about them, and if he did, he’d keep it to himself just to spare you. He loves you.”

  I could see her mind working behind her big dark eyes. “Wow,” she said again. “Thanks, Mr. LaCrosse.” She turned and went back inside much more slowly, lost in thought.

  I sighed. One more dream destroyed. Way to go.

  THE barber, his hands still smelling of blood from a tooth extraction performed that morning, cut my hair shorter than it had been since I’d graduated to long pants. He was careful around the scab on the back of my head, but it still made my eyes water a couple of times. He also shaved my beard from my chin, leaving my mustache and side-whiskers. He trimmed them down to a fine, spidery line.

  One reason I kept my hair long and my beard shaggy was so, in a pinch like this, I could quickly and drastically alter my appearance. I learned the trick a while back, during a particularly awful job on the island of Grand Bruan. When he held up the polished silver plate for me to check myself in, I saw someone I could barely identify; I doubted anyone who’d casually seen me around Neceda would recognize me elsewhere, especially with my new horse. I paid the barber extra, an unspoken agreement for his silence. It would hold, I knew, until someone offered him more.

  I turned up Ditch Street on my way out of town and stopped in front of the old Lizard’s Kiss building.

  It was two stories, slightly larger than Mrs. Talbot’s rooming house. The bottom floor was broader than the top, allowing room for a narrow walkway around the entire upper half. During festivals, the girls would hang over the rails to entice new customers. In the back was a walled-in garden, hidden from the street and the neighboring buildings. Upstairs were four rooms, while downstairs held four more, plus the large sitting room where guests could meet the ladies. The decor, on the outside at least, was drab and nondescript. I’d never personally seen the inside, and only knew as much as I did from piecing together stories told at Angelina’s.

  From the street it looked abandoned: the doors were closed, and all the windows boarded up. The comfortable chairs that once lined the street-level porch had been removed. Still, the dirt had been trampled recently by a lot of feet, and footprints led up the steps to the door.

  I added mine to them. I put my ear to the wood and listened. I heard faint hammering sounds and indistinct voices.

  Then I felt the porch shift under new weight. Without acknowledging it, I slid my hand toward my sword hilt. I was ready when the voice said, “It’s closed.”

  I turned. One of the red-scarfed men, his clothes streaked with dirt, stood behind me. He had hands the size of skillets that looked like he could twist off a mule’s head. His eyes were small and dark. The top of his head came up to my shoulder.

  “Sounds like they’re renovating,” I said genially. “When will it open back up? There used to be a curly-headed redhead here who could swallow-”

  “It’s closed for good,” he said in his guttural backwoods accent. “There’s other whorehouses in town.”

  “Yeah, but this is the Lizard’s Kiss. It’s a legend.”

  “It’s a closed legend.”

  I sighed with all the weariness of a disappointed traveler. “Aren’t they all? Okay, thanks.”

  He stepped aside as I went back to my horse, but he kept watching me until I disappeared around the corner. Sharky had them pegged, all right. But why were they here? And what did they have to do with Marantz?

  MY route to Walpaca took me past the hospital, and Minnow’s questions reminded me that Hank had mentioned Mother Bennings. I detoured up the path to the building, where several of the young apprentices gathered outside the main door. As I got closer I heard some of them sobbing. I dismounted, threw the reins around the post and approached. I realized all of them were sobbing. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  A girl with straight black hair and splotchy cheeks turned to me. “Someone killed Mother Bennings!” she wailed.

  My stomach clenched. It had been doing that a lot lately. “What happened?” I asked. But the girl resumed blubbering on her friend’s shoulder. None of the others looked like they were in any shape to answer questions, either, so I pushed past them into the building.

  I followed the line of crying girls into one of the big consulting rooms. Here the adult staff, all women with gray hair and serious expressions, stood around a table on which a body lay under a sheet. A few had wet cheeks and red eyes, but none were hysterical. I was about to say something when Argoset appeared from a side room, his hand on a matronly healer’s shoulder.

  He was in uniform again, every hair in place and all his buttons shiny. The woman sniffled and nodded along with whatever he was saying. He stopped dead when he saw me, and it took him a moment to place me; guess the new haircut and shave worked. “Mr. LaCrosse. I’m surprised to see you up and around after last night. And freshly shorn at that.”

  “I’m spry for my age.”

  “Indeed. Marion’s still recuperating; I’ll have to tease him about that.” He excused himself from the matron and pulled me aside. “What brings you here?”

  “Follow-up visit with Mother Bennings.” It wasn’t technically a lie, and it sounded reasonable.

  “I see. Well, as you’ve no doubt heard, Mother Bennings is no longer available.” He gestured at the body on the table.

  I lifted the sheet. Argoset said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  I didn’t flinch. I’d seen more gory death than he’d had wet dreams, although this one was certainly disturbing. The gentle-spirited priestess had been slit from navel to chin in a single clean slice, cutting through
ribs and muscle. A lot of her insides were now draped outside. I looked at her face only long enough to assure myself of her identity. “What happened?” I said.

  “We’re not sure. Some of your town’s leading citizens stumbled over her body just after dawn this morning. Seems they’d been celebrating the demise of the livery stable and found her in an alley.”

  My mouth went dry, but I kept my face neutral. Liz, Gary and I had passed a body in the alley ourselves last night; had it been kindly, strong-willed Mother Bennings? At least, judging from the wound, I wouldn’t be tormented by the thought that we could’ve helped her. “What did Gary say about it?”

  “Like Marion, Magistrate Bunson is suffering the effects of the smoke, so I decided to conduct the preliminary investigation myself. We all work for the same king, after all. So far, I’d have to say it looks like somebody with medical knowledge did it.” He gestured around us. “No shortage of suspects for that. Except that it would also take considerable physical strength.”

  He spoke too softly for the other women to hear us. I nodded, thinking of the way Hank Pinster had also been killed by someone stronger than normal. “Well. Guess I’ll need to get a new doctor.”

  “Yes. Oh, and just to be thorough, since you did know the doctor

  … where did you go after the fire?”

  “To Angelina’s tavern, then home.”

  “And your wife will corroborate that?”

  “Yes. But if you call her my wife to her face, she might neuter you.”

  “Do you mind if I see your sword?”

  I drew it slowly and presented it to him, hilt in my right hand with the blade across my left palm. He looked at it closely, checking for traces of blood. There were none. “I see you don’t carry a dagger.”

  I did, but it was hidden in my boot and he didn’t need to know that. “I try not to let anyone get that close.”

  He nodded again. “I’m sorry. I like to eliminate as many dangling threads as possible. Makes it easier to see the pattern of the blanket.”

  “Nice metaphor,” I said as I sheathed the weapon.

  He shrugged modestly. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of distraught women to question.”

  I nodded, turned and left. The morning had certainly started off on a grim, bloody note, and I hadn’t even found Gordon Marantz yet.

  TWELVE

  I read once that if you wait long enough, everything eventually comes to you. I’m not sure I believe it as a universal maxim, but it definitely applied on that day. At mid-afternoon, on my way to Walpaca to find him, I ran smack into Gordon Marantz on his way to Neceda.

  I was glad it hadn’t happened earlier, because after leaving the hospital I was so furious I might have picked a fight I couldn’t possibly win. Counting Laura Lesperitt, Mother Bennings was the third person killed since I’d been ambushed, and although I had no hard evidence the deaths were related, I knew they were. Bennings told Hank that she wanted to see me, and now both of them were dead. What had she wanted to tell me that could’ve been so important that it was worth two lives? Why not just kill me instead? On top of that was the agonizing knowledge that, for whatever reason, Liz had lied to me. Was I so blinded by love and lust that I just never noticed she had a treacherous, nefarious side?

  And why had shack-trash dragon worshippers moved into an old whorehouse?

  And who the hell was “Lumina”?

  Pondering these questions helped calm me down and get focused back on the job. Which was good, considering how quickly I found what I sought. I barely had time to get off the road and out of sight.

  Marantz wasn’t alone; guys like him never are. Half a dozen tough-looking men rode around him as bodyguards and lookouts. Behind them walked another batch of the red-scarved folk, although these were far more cosmopolitan than the ones back in town. They seemed to come from all over, lacking the hill people’s disconcerting physical similarity.

  In the midst of them rode an old man, the only red-scarf not on foot. He was clean shaven, with a leathery complexion set in a permanent scowl of disapproval. His scarf was longer, trailing past his skeletal shoulders almost to his waist. Whoever he was, he looked both important and unpleasant.

  Behind this bunch came a wagon packed with what looked like women, all covered from head to ankle with red hooded robes. Only their bare, dirty feet showed. I looked for signs of shackles or manacles, but saw none. Two more of Marantz’s thugs brought up the rear.

  The caravan passed without seeing me, or at least without caring that I saw them. They moved at the pace set by those on foot, and at least one of the hired swords wasn’t happy about it.

  “Boss, I know he’s your friend, but he’s getting on everyone’s nerves with that ‘flame’ crap,” a thug with short black hair said as he rode past.

  “He’s not talking to you; he’s talking to them,” Marantz said, nodding back at the red-scarf brigade. “Just ignore him.”

  “I’m trying, but he gives me the creeps.”

  “Me, too,” another man added,

  “You big fucking babies,” Marantz said with a disparaging grin. “One old man’s got you pissing your pants. Maybe I should hire grown men next time.”

  They passed out of earshot before I could catch any reply, but by then the old man’s voice drowned them out anyway. He spoke without looking at anyone, a monologue that could’ve been a prayer, part of a story or just senility. I sensed he’d been going on like this for most of the trip and would not stop anytime soon.

  “… the flames will consume the unbelievers, turning them to ashes and scattering their souls to wander in the winds. No one but the Lightkeepers will be safe, praise the flame. And then the world will belong to us, to be tended and guarded by the great Lumina and her consort, Solarian…”

  Well, hell. Even I recognized that as a clue. So Gramps knew about Lumina. I needed to talk to this guy.

  His followers dutifully echoed, “Praise the flame.” They were all young, with the pale look of wealth and privilege about them. They were also exclusively male. Each looked exhausted, and I wondered how long they’d been walking. Certainly none seemed suited to real physical exertion.

  I could see nothing of the women as the wagon rattled by. It wouldn’t be unusual for Marantz to be trafficking in girls brought from outside Muscodia, but normally they’d be on display for all to see, the better to drum up word of mouth. The hooded robes seemed to correspond to the red scarves as some sort of religious clothing. None of those I’d seen in Neceda were women, either; perhaps they were kept separate from the men. I listened for talking, whispers, even singing, but there was nothing. The women rode in silence.

  So. Marantz was taking a bunch of citified dragon worshippers to Neceda to join their backwoods brethren in an old whorehouse. That made no sense at all.

  I needed to find out what the hell they were doing, why they were involved with Marantz and who or what “Lumina” might be. I couldn’t just ask to join their caravan, and if I showed myself Marantz’s thugs were as likely to gut me as to chase me off.

  I had only one real chance: get to Neceda before they did, disguise myself as a dragon worshipper with that red scarf I’d taken from Frankie and hope both groups would assume I belonged to the other. That’s all. Simple. Except that they were on the only road between here and town, and in front of me at that. I’d have to go around them through the woods and cut back to the road ahead of them.

  Once they were out of earshot and crossbow range, I turned Pansy toward the woods. “Don’t mess with me,” I said to her; I always suspected that horses understood everything we said, no matter what other people thought. “This is important, and I need you to go fast. Understand?” I patted her neck, then nudged her firmly with my heels.

  She didn’t go fast. She was as annoying and balky as she’d been in the Black River Hills, but at least luck was with me. Marantz’s convoy traveled so slowly we still got ahead of them, worked our way back to the road and reached Neceda first
. It was nearly nightfall, so it was unlikely I’d be recognized as long as I avoided my usual haunts.

  My luck continued. Strangers from a recently docked passenger riverboat filled the streets, and with that many new faces in town, I’d blend right in. Unless, I thought wryly, I ran into Gary, Argoset, Marion, Sharky, Angelina or Liz. Maybe I had too many friends here.

  I tied my horse to a hitching post outside Long Billy’s, the tavern that was Angelina’s main competition on the opposite side of town, and headed for Ditch Street. The embers of the stable were still glowing, and a small crowd gathered around them, swapping gossip and innuendo. Some were tourists from the riverboat, getting the lowdown from the local wags. I gave them a wide berth in case someone recognized me, but stopped when I heard a voice ask, “So what can you tell me about the fire and how it started?”

  I stood at the back of the crowd, head down, well aware that every moment I spent here was one less moment to prepare for Marantz’s arrival. The voice made the hairs on my neck stand up, though, and I wanted to know why. Experience had taught me that I ignored such cosmic hints at my own peril.

  The man asking the questions was about my age, dark skinned and with the curly black hair of men from the tropics. He carried the distinctive gear of the Society of Scribes, those independent chroniclers of anything and everything. They served no king or queen, and their accounts of the world’s history were the only ones that preserved things like the long-ago massacre of Fechinians in Arentia or the poisoning of Lord Frank Fisher in Ulkper, which led to the Dandelion Skirmishes.

  They also didn’t waste time with trivial events. Why would one care that Hank’s stable burned down?

  He listened as a young woman described the previous night’s events. She got most of it right, although she included the common belief that Hank torched the place himself. When she finished he smiled paternally and said, “Thank you, young lady. Tell me, did you see anything unusual before the fire started?”