‘If they arrived by boat,’ Nanda put in.
‘If. But I think they did. Who travels overland through the Bone Forest in the dead of winter? And besides, I think both of them came from Kayesir. Water is by far the most efficient way to make that journey, and also the safest.’
Nanda nodded agreement, and got up from her chair with a creditable display of energy. She downed her cup of tea in one swallow, stuffed two biscuits into her mouth, and donned her coat. Unable to speak around her overlarge mouthful of confectionery, she jerked her head at the door.
‘Coming,’ sighed Konrad. His egress from his own armchair was considerably less energetic, and embarrassingly graceless.
‘There is one more thing about Albina,’ said Nuritov, which brought both Konrad and Nanda to an abrupt halt.
‘Oh?’
‘She was very sick. Dying. Probably she had only a few months left, at most.’
Ahhh. ‘She knew it?’ said Konrad.
‘Oh, yes. She had been receiving regular medical care.’
‘That might explain her attitude to her own death. Perhaps she had been in a lot of pain.’
‘I believe she was.’
‘Poor woman,’ said Nanda.
‘Mercies arrive in the strangest of ways,’ murmured Nuritov, with an emotion which took Konrad aback. He wanted to enquire as to its source, but hesitated. The question seemed intrusive.
The moment passed. ‘We go,’ said Nanda. Grabbing Konrad’s arm, she hauled him bodily towards the door.
‘I’ll be… here,’ said Nuritov. ‘Tasha, please go with them.’
Tasha did not even complain, which spoke eloquently of how much fun she had enjoyed at Parel’s Bridge. And, probably, how much she had partaken of the bright, happy energies of those around her. ‘Yes Mister Boss, sir,’ she said, with only minimal cheek, and fell in step behind Konrad.
Konrad’s motive in returning to the docks was actually twofold. His reasons were as he had told Nanda, in part: if there was evidence to support his hunch about Kayesir, he wanted to dig it up.
There was also the matter of Ivorak. The murdered man had tracked him to the Volkov Library, and it was probably also Ivorak who had followed him to Kristina Vasily’s house. What he wanted with Konrad remained unclear, but he seemed to prefer to approach in dark, deserted places.
Well, Konrad was happy to oblige him there.
Some part of him hesitated over taking Nanda along, when he half expected trouble. But Nan had long since proved herself to be far from helpless, and he would not anger her by behaving as though she needed his protection. And the presence of Tasha soothed him. Young she might be, but she was lamaeni, and had wandered the streets of Ekamet for years. He suspected she was both more powerful and more ruthless than she appeared.
Considering that his purpose was to attract the notice of Ivorak, if he lingered near, Konrad did not trouble to employ a great deal of stealth as they approached the docks. He did not expect to encounter any other trouble, or certainly nothing they could not deal with.
‘You’re going the wrong way,’ said Tasha, with withering disgust. ‘Immigration office is this way.’
Oh. Konrad allowed himself to be led, smothering faint feelings of embarrassment.
‘It’s all right,’ said Nanda soothingly, with another of her flashes of insight. ‘No one would expect Mr. Konrad Savast to be familiar with the docks. What business do the gentry have down here?’
He could not decide whether she was being genuinely sympathetic or subtly mocking, and so vouchsafed no reply.
The office’s nightly defences yielded as easily to Konrad’s touch as those at the Volkov Library, and all three ventured inside. The records of passenger arrivals for the past two weeks were not difficult to find, and Konrad and Nanda fell to perusing them as quickly as possible.
‘Keep watch please, Tasha,’ he instructed. You too, serpents.
None of the three were delighted with the assignment, but none argued. Tasha slouched away to stand at the door, and the serpents trailed miserably outside.
Ivorak Nasak.
The name leapt out at Konrad, and his heart quickened with excitement. He’d been right! ‘He’s here,’ he said to Nanda. ‘Arrived almost two weeks ago, from Alakash, Kayesir.’
‘I think you’re onto something,’ she murmured. ‘Good work.’
Konrad smiled, basking in the glow of Nanda’s approval. ‘Iyakim, Iyakim,’ he murmured, leafing through page after page. ‘There has to be someone of that name here…’
But he found nothing, no passengers of that name arriving in months. ‘Maybe they travel under different names,’ he hazarded, without much conviction.
‘Why would they do that?’
‘Rivalry with Vasily, travelling incognito. I don’t know.’
Nanda’s look told him clearly enough how unconvinced she was; she did not need to speak. ‘Ah well,’ he sighed, and returned the books. ‘It was worth a try.’
His other purpose in coming appeared to be useless, too, for there had been no sign either of intrusion or pursuit. Neither the serpents nor Tasha had spotted anything untoward.
Konrad decided to push his luck. As he and Nanda left the immigration office, he called loudly to the night air: ‘Ivorak! Ivorak Nasak! If you are here, show yourself.’
His words echoed in the silence, but no response came.
‘Ivorak!’ Konrad tried, one last time.
Nothing. Wherever Ivorak was, he had no further interest in tailing Konrad.
He looked at Nanda and shrugged. ‘Worth a try.’
‘We’d better leave, though,’ she said coolly. ‘You might not have attracted Ivorak’s attention, but you certainly announced our presence to anybody else who might be loitering.’
‘And loiterers are, by definition, suspect,’ Konrad agreed.
‘Certainly those who loiter around darkened dock areas past three in the morning.’
‘At Solstice.’
‘At Solstice.’ Konrad collected up Tasha and his serpents, and they departed with haste.
Chapter Seven
Nanda and Tasha were bound for Nuritov’s, to report the minimal successes of the venture to the docks. Konrad, however, excused himself, for he had another errand in mind.
‘I cannot take you with me,’ he told the two ladies firmly.
‘Why not?’ Nanda spoke the words, but Tasha’s belligerent posture and angry glare eloquently expressed her opposition to being left behind.
‘Will it be dangerous?’ said Tasha, the words dripping sarcasm.
‘Not in the slightest. I go to visit a lady, without an invitation.’
That silenced them both. ‘Oh,’ said Nanda finally.
‘And if it is rude to call upon a lady uninvited at nearly four in the morning on Solstice Eve, it must be considerably more so to bring along two other, equally uninvited guests.’
Nanda’s eyes narrowed. ‘What might you be doing, calling upon said lady at such an hour?’
‘Asking questions.’
‘And alone,’ added Nanda, as if her words had not been enough in themselves to convey the direction of her thoughts.
‘Asking questions,’ Konrad repeated.
‘I do not see why her identity must remain a secret, if all you intend to do is ask questions.’
‘I want to borrow a book, too.’
Nanda’s glare deepened.
‘I shouldn’t share everyone else’s secrets as well as my — oh, forget it. It’s Mrs. Halim.’
‘Kavara Halim?’
‘Yes, that one.’
‘The Jewelled Lady?’
‘The… the what?’
Nanda grinned, swift and satisfied. ‘That’s what they call her, outside of the gentry circles. We all know her. Very well indeed.’
Konrad folded his arms, matching her stubborn posture. ‘All right, why do you non-gentry folk know Kavara Halim so well?’
‘She collects secrets. Where do you think she ge
ts most of her information?’
Interesting. ‘Why The Jewelled Lady?’
Nanda shrugged. ‘No idea. Probably because both she and her house are so covered with coloured shinies. It is the most easily memorable thing about her, and one that everybody who talks with her tends to recall.’
‘Very well. If you will excuse me, I go to talk with the Jewelled Lady. I hope she may have some useful information for us.’
‘I wish you luck in your endeavours.’ Nanda made him a grave curtsey, all exaggerated formality.
Konrad returned the gesture with a bow equally as mocking, and kissed Nanda’s hand. ‘Thank you. I wish you the safest of travels back to Nuritov House. Do convey my warmest regards to Lord Nuritov.’
‘I shall invite him to take tea with us next week.’
‘Pray enquire how he enjoyed the snuff that I sent him. It is my finest mixture.’
‘Of course. And the snuff box! Could anything be finer. But did it have to be diamonds, Lord Savast? And so many? Such a display could be termed vulgar, you know.’
Konrad was betrayed into a grin, and he swept Nanda another bow, this one sincere. ‘I will see you soon,’ he promised.
Tasha witnessed this exchange in silence, her glower gradually giving way to confusion. ‘What was all that about?’
‘Nothing,’ said Nanda lightly. ‘A little savage mockery between friends, that is all.’
‘A vital component of any relationship,’ Konrad added.
Tasha eyed them both, and then pointedly turned her back.
‘Scorn!’ said Nanda. ‘And exasperation. Why, Konrad. She fits in perfectly.’
Tasha muttered something inaudible.
‘What was that?’ Konrad enquired.
‘Nothing.’
Kavara Halim had been an acquaintance of Konrad’s ever since her arrival in Ekamet, three years before. He had felt drawn to her at once, for she shared the gypsy heritage that had given the brown colour to his skin, the deep black to his hair and eyes. Such colouring was unusual in Assevan, and particularly so among the gentry. Mrs. Halim, with her grey-threaded black hair and velvet-black eyes, appeared to him as something of a kindred spirit. She was about the age his mother would have been, had she lived. Rather than suppressing her cultural roots in favour of the fashions of Ekamet high society, as many would have done in her position, Mrs. Halim had woven the two together. Konrad always enjoyed visiting her house, though he did not always approve of the company he found there. The bright silks and coloured jewels she favoured in both her dress and her decorating spoke to him, on some level he rarely communicated with.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Halim herself had proved more difficult to deal with than he had hoped. She was, indeed, a secret-keeper, as Nanda had said. Her every waking minute was devoted to collecting information, and in speaking to her, Konrad always felt wrong-footed and uncomfortably exposed. She had a way of looking at a man as though she could read all the secrets of his heart with a glance; and considering Konrad’s acquaintance with such as Irinanda Falenia, he could not even discount the possibility. She might be a Reader, for all he knew. He had taken care not to let her touch him, just in case.
She had also proved to be a ghostspeaker — one who could commune with departed spirits, and even control them, to a certain extent. Another similarity with Konrad, but in this, her talents were not profound, and the use she made of her limited abilities often chilled him.
His feelings about Kavara Halim were mixed, all told, and he did not relish hazarding a visit to her under such unusual circumstances. She knew nothing of his secret duties, or so he hoped; to her, he was merely Mr. Savast of Bakar House, an idle gentleman of society. How he would explain his presence at such an hour he did not know, and the question occupied his mind all the way to her house.
Konrad still had not come up with anything by the time he arrived. He stood for a little while outside her front door, thinking, but was at last obliged to abandon the effort.
He had two choices. He could walk away, seek the information he needed somewhere else, and hazard nothing. Or he could take a risk, and… hope.
He was no more talented at hopeful optimism than Mrs. Halim was at communing with ghosts, but time pressed. All might have been quiet across the city for a few hours now, but the spate of brutal murders troubled him in ways that most such cases did not. His instincts told him to hurry. The same sensation affected Nuritov and Nanda, he supposed, for neither had advanced any suggestion that the case be postponed until the morning, in favour of sleep.
It would have to be risk, then.
The house was shrouded in darkness, as he had expected, and he hesitated to ring the bell. She must be asleep. But as he lingered on the doorstep, doubting, a flicker of golden light caught his eye from the storey above.
He looked again. There: the faintest glimmer, shining from in between a crack in the curtains. Someone was awake.
Serpents, see for me. Is that Kavara Halim?
They wafted through the walls like smoke, and their voices chimed in his mind a moment later. It is she. She sits in a chair with a book, though she does not read. She stares.
Eschewing the clamour of the bell, Konrad made use of the door knocker. Tap tap, tap. The sound was more than loud enough, in the deep silence of the night.
He waited.
So many minutes passed that he began to give up hope. Either she could not hear the door knocker, or she had chosen to ignore it. Should he tap again?
She is coming, whispered Ootapi.
Konrad waited, trying to ignore the nervous flutter of his heart. When the door opened, Mrs. Kavara Halim was revealed, wearing an amethyst-coloured gown and a loosely draped shawl. Her hair was unbound; of course, she had expected no further visitors tonight.
Why was she not asleep?
‘Mrs. Halim,’ he said softly, and bowed. ‘I apologise profusely for my rudeness in calling at such an hour. Can you forgive me, and consent to grant me a few minutes of your time? It is urgent, or I would not so presume—’
‘How did you know that I was awake?’ she said. She spoke as softly as he had done, but a thread of steel ran through the words.
‘I saw the light.’
She inclined her head and stepped back, opening the door wider to grant him entrance. Konrad followed her inside, and the door clicked softly shut behind him.
Her house was mostly in darkness. She carried a single lamp in her hand, the lantern casting a warm, flickering glow over the stairs as she led him up to her drawing-room. Konrad had been there more than once, but never at night, and never had he contrived to catch Mrs. Halim alone. The room seemed different at this hour, the bright colours muted, the shadows deeper and faintly menacing.
Konrad took the seat she indicated, and watched as she arranged herself once more in her own armchair. Her movements struck him as studied: her manner, her demeanour, was a performance. He wondered what the intended effect was supposed to be.
Kavara Halim did not speak, but merely watched him, and waited. Konrad knew she would not help him freely. He would have to offer her something, first. A secret.
Very well, then.
Eetapi, he called silently. Ootapi. Show yourselves.
They hesitated. Master, hissed Ootapi. Are you sure?
No, but needs must.
Gradually, Ootapi shimmered into view. He appeared directly before Mrs. Halim’s face, his sinuous body shimmering eerie ice-white in the gloom of the drawing-room.
Eetapi joined him, her own manifestation threaded with glinting green.
Mrs. Halim watched this display with impassive interest, her gaze flicking from one to the other.
‘Ghostspeaker,’ she said at last.
Konrad inclined his head.
That cat is here again, hissed Eetapi with deep disgust. The mad one.
Konrad did not need to be told, for the creature had flickered into view. Whether it had been prompted to appear by the twin manifestations of the serpents, or
whether its mistress had instructed it to do so, Konrad could not guess. It sat curled in Mrs. Halim’s lap, and Konrad eyed the spirit with distaste, for it made a fine display of its mistress’s ineptitude. The binding had been poor indeed, and the ghost was wretchedly decayed. Where his two serpents were bright, vibrant and radiating energy, the cat was a thin, feeble, pallid thing, vacant-eyed and barely visible.
Mrs. Halim’s hand moved, stroking over the cat’s incorporeal head as though she petted it. The cat purred, a strangely chilling sound.
‘You have seen Kish before,’ said Mrs. Halim.
‘I have not,’ Konrad replied. ‘But the serpents have.’
Mrs. Halim nodded. He recognised the nod as an acknowledgement; he had paid the asking price of her attention. ‘Why did you come to see me?’
‘Forgive me for the personal nature of this question,’ Konrad began. ‘But I think you are not a native of Assevan. Is that correct?’
‘It is not.’
‘Oh.’
She smiled faintly, the barest upturning of her lips. ‘But your instincts are not wholly misguided. I was born Assevi, but my grandfather was from Kayesir.’
Konrad leaned forward, encouraged. Now for the real reason he had come to see Mrs. Halim. Her interests were broad and varied, and they included a taste for old stories, for lost tales and myths and lore. He had lent her texts from his own library on occasion, on topics such as these. He took the charred spine of the ruined book from his pocket, and offered it to her. ‘I come to consult you about this book.’
Kavara Halim gingerly took the fragile leather, and turned it over in her fingers. ‘What of it?’
‘Do you perchance happen to recognise it?’ The question was not so far-fetched; burned though the book may be, its surviving leather was of a distinctive crimson tint, an unusual shade for a binding. And the fragment of the title may be clue enough…
Mrs. Halim was a woman who valued her heritage, and who loved stories in all their forms. If he was right — if the book was a collection of Kayesiri lore — then maybe she would know it. Maybe.
She scrutinised the book anew, paying more attention to the half-legible words than she had before. Konrad waited in hope.
The Spirit of Solstice Page 6
