The Fifth Ward--First Watch

by Dale Lucas

  Joss, meanwhile, had regained some composure after the initial shock of hitting the cold water. With long, smooth strokes, he swam for the open entrance to the boathouse. No doubt, he thought if he could swim out into the open water and cut across the harbor, he might be able to drag himself back on shore and escape his captors.

  But the sharks were, alas, too swift. There were two of them and they slid through the waters off Joss’s left. One of them hove out in front, rolled, and let its maw gape wide. Joss had time for a single, terrified scream, then the shark’s jaws closed on his rib cage and under he went. His hands and feet thrashed above the surface in short bursts, but in moments, there was no more than a swirling mass of pink foam floating on a crimson glut of blood.

  The worst part, Rem realized, was how quiet it had all been; how silently those two sea monsters slid through the water and claimed their prey.

  Frennis turned to Torval. “Oh dear,” he said. “We seem to have lost him.”

  Torval lunged at the prefect, but once more, Frennis’s size and strength gave him an advantage. He snatched Torval up in his fists, then heaved him bodily back away from the edge of the dock. Torval hit a stack of barrels and sent them all toppling with a great, thunderous crash. Though it occurred to Rem that he should, perhaps, come to his partner’s aid—or at the very least, try to avenge his mistreatment—the simple fact was that Rem knew Frennis had every advantage: he was bigger, stronger, meaner, and most importantly, had no scruples regarding right and wrong. He was a petty but terrifying despot of a very small urban kingdom, and he ruled that domain with a smirk and steel fists.

  So Rem simply retreated to Torval’s side, and helped the dwarf back to his feet. Torval, once he regained his feet, slapped Rem’s supporting hands away and lunged toward Frennis again, like a dog let off its leash. Rem threw himself bodily onto his diminutive partner and struggled mightily to keep him from once more engaging the red-haired prefect.

  “You fat fool!” Torval growled, straining against Rem’s embrace. “He was our best lead! Our only lead!”

  “Rules, you belligerent pickmonkey,” Frennis answered, still haughty and composed. “This isn’t your ward, so if you transact business here—any business—you come to me first. Being my ward, under my watch, I’ll decide which witnesses are material to which crimes and which are simply … fish food.”

  “Regulations have nothing to do with this,” Torval snarled. “You just killed a man to prove a bloody point that had nothing to do with his crimes or his guilt! I’ll take this all the way to Black Mal and have your signet, you woolly bastard, I swear—”

  Frennis looked to Rem now. “I suggest you see your partner out of my sight, boy, before I lose my temper and toss you both in the drink.”

  Rem decided it was time to intervene. “Torval,” he said quietly, still using all his strength to keep the dwarf immobilized, “we should go.”

  The dwarf relented. With barely a shrug, he threw off Rem’s iron-clad lock on his short, broad body, turned and marched away in sullen silence. Rem, a good distance from Frennis and well out of his reach, decided he couldn’t leave without a word of his own.

  “You made your point,” he said, as calmly as he could. “And now we have nothing.”

  “It would appear so,” Frennis said, as though he were teaching a lesson to a slow child. “Perhaps in the future, you’ll think twice about snaring your prey in my woods.”

  The bodyguards, having been fascinated during this entire exchange with the still-tumbling sharks in the waters below and the roiling, spreading cloud of blood that engulfed them, finally seemed to snap out of their reverie and realize their leader was facing his enemies alone. One of them—the more muscled of the two—stepped forward. The other drew the sword sheathed at his side.

  Rem slowly backed away from Frennis and his hired swords. When he was far enough away to feel safe, he turned his back on them and walked speedily after Torval, who was just disappearing through the door into the main warehouse. Behind Rem, there was a strange gloop-gloop sound from the water, the slap of a wet tail. He quickened his pace behind Torval, eager to be out of Frennis’s lair and far away from the dark waters of the bay.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  They were hours late for their shift when they finally arrived at the watchkeep. Torval assured Rem that Ondego would understand, what with the attempt on their lives and all, but that gave Rem little comfort. He was new to his position and he wanted to prove himself trustworthy. Showing up late for one’s shift without a by-your-leave was a quick and easy way to get on the prefect’s cross side. And who knew what sort of trouble Frennis would make for Ondego, after having to threaten his men and chase them out of his ward?

  As it turned out, Ondego seemed pleased to see them. “Here they are, my wayward sons!” he exclaimed, crossing the administrative chamber with a very strange smile on his face and a stranger light in his eyes. Rem and Torval, embarrassed by this show of interest and sure that it must be some plot to publicly chastise them, stood stock-still in the doorway to the great chamber and tried to keep from turning red as all eyes followed Ondego on his long walk to greet them. Across the chamber, by Ondego’s office, Hirk stood sentinel, his stony face an unreadable mask.

  Ondego reached them. “Are you quite safe and sound, lads? Any trouble to report?”

  “Someone tried to kill Torval,” Rem said.

  “Probably would’ve tried to kill you too,” Torval said. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Kill you?” Ondego asked, brows rising. “Whatever for? Two such brave and resolute watchwardens as yourselves? Never errant? Always vigilant? Never three fucking hours late for their appointed shifts on the watch!”

  There it was at last: the fury. Ondego’s face was bright red. A pair of thick, ropy veins bulged at his temples. His eyes looked like two hot ovens, stoked and ablaze.

  “Steady on,” Torval countered. “You just heard our excuse.”

  “It took them three hours to try to kill you?” Ondego asked. “Please tell me they kidnapped you first and rode you out to the countryside …”

  “Well, after slipping the assassin,” Rem offered, “we had a lead we wanted to follow up on.”

  “A lead!” Ondego exclaimed. “Bless me, that’s good news. Who was this lead, and pray, what did you learn from them?”

  “It was the Nightjar,” Torval said. “And in truth, we didn’t learn a bloody thing from him.”

  “The Nightjar?” Ondego said, crossing his arms and nodding his head deferentially. “Well, then, that makes everything all right. Questioning the Nightjar would require the two of you getting official leave to operate in another ward, after all, and since you never came to me for any such leave, I can only assume you realized that pursuing your investigation in this manner was folly indeed, so you hurried here, to get the proper clearances and explain your gods-damned tardiness.”

  “All right, all right,” Torval grumbled. “You’ve made your point.”

  “Have I, in fact?” Ondego said. “I’m still waiting for the stunning climax of your story. Spill it.”

  “We went to the Nightjar’s and ran across that sneak thief again,” Rem said. “The fellow we found in Freygaf’s chambers. Ginger Joss.”

  “Well,” Ondego said, planting his hands on his hips, “Just what did Joss have to say?”

  “Nothing,” Torval spat.

  “Aye,” Rem said. “Nothing. Once Frennis tossed him in with the sharks—”

  “Frennis?” Ondego asked.

  Torval raised his eyes, only briefly. “Aye.”

  Ondego studied them both. Rem saw that his jaw was clenched and his eyes were vibrating with a terrible, shuttered rage. Behind their prefect, Hirk simply hung his head, shook it, and retreated into the prefect’s office.

  “Frennis,” Ondego said again, not a question this time.

  “Aye, Frennis, you heard us!” Torval said, sounding rather annoyed. “Are you going deaf now, sir?”


  “Secure that,” Ondego shouted, and the entire room froze. “You’re lucky I don’t strip the both of you of your signets here and now and throw you in the stocks! Do you have any idea, either of you, the unholy rump-rutting I’m going to be liable for because the two of you tromped on someone else’s turf? Transacted business in someone else’s ward?”

  “Aye, sir,” the dwarf spat back.

  “And Frennis’s ward, no less! Bonny Prince, you’re ignorant as an inbred mule in this, being new—but by all that’s sacred and profane, Torval, you know better. You know that Frennis is a despot and a cunning toad and a cold-blooded killer. Why, why, why, knowing all of that, would you put yourself and your partner and my ward in danger by stepping on the toes of that rabid, slavering mastiff on his own turf?”

  Torval lost his patience. “Because I’m trying to find out who killed my dead partner, sir, and in pursuit of that justice I will fear no man and step over any boundary that impedes my efforts. Is that clear enough for you?”

  “Oh, well that’s a relief,” Ondego carried on. “That means that you dragged the Bonny Prince down there knowing full well what a fuck-all of hellfire and brimstone you were stirring up for me, since I could have sworn all my watchmen are expressly forbidden from operating in other wards without my clear permission!”

  “It couldn’t wait!” Torval protested.

  “Everything can wait!” Ondego roared. “Someone else’s ward, someone else’s problem. Do you have any idea what kind of tributes we might have to pay if Frennis complains?”

  “Well, I’m bloody well tired of repeating myself!” Torval shouted back. “We told you why we’re late, but now we’re here. Kindly step aside and let us get about our business—sir!”

  Ondego looked like he was about to pick Torval up in his arms and tear him limb from limb. His whole body shook, the corded muscles of his arms were taut, and veins stood out on his throat and forehead. Then, just as suddenly as the storm arose, it dissipated. Ondego threw up his hands, shrugged, and waved off the two of them like they were a pack of annoying flies.

  “Fine,” he said. “Just get going.”

  “Get going where?” Torval asked.

  Ondego looked puzzled for a moment, then seemed to remember something briefly forgotten. “Oh, that’s it. I forgot to tell you, since you were so gods-damned late for work and I was put out about it and all. You two sodden bastards have been summoned to the home of our most eminent citizen, Kethren Dall. It seems that he learned you were the two who found his little girl in that dross pile and he wants to thank you personally for seeing her returned to the family.”

  “You’re joking,” Torval said.

  Ondego raised one eyebrow. “Do I look like I’m joking, Torval?”

  “Tonight?” Rem asked. “It’s late and—”

  “The family is keeping a vigil through the night and accepting mourners. It was made clear to me that no matter the time, the two of you should be sent to Citizen Dall’s manse as soon as was possible. So, now that you’ve finally deigned to show yourselves hereabouts, what say you make my life easier and go see the man? Express the right obsequies and he might even offer a gift of some sort to the Fifth. So, remember, you’re not just representing yourselves—you’re representing all of us.”

  “We can’t go into that man’s home, with his daughter lying in state,” Torval said. “You said it yourself, sir—all we did was answer a call and found the poor lass lying under the rubbish. Even Hirk and Eriadus were the ones responsible for seeing her cleaned and prepared—”

  “Nonetheless,” Ondego said, “Citizen Dall asked for the two men who found her, and the two men who found her are you and the Bonny Prince here. So, on your way.”

  “Must we?” Rem asked, horrified at the thought of facing the poor girl’s grieving family with no leads, no indicators that they were any closer to seeing justice done on her behalf.

  “Yes, you bloody well fucking must!” Ondego shouted.

  The Dall manse, like many of the city’s finer homes, was on the southeast side of the harbor, in the Second Ward, in a fine, well-heeled neighborhood of walled villas and gardens that climbed up the gentle slope of one of the city’s three hills. Rem couldn’t speak for Torval, but he felt strangely out of place the moment they entered the Second Ward and their surroundings became noticeably posh. Rem thought this a strange sort of irony, since he was from nobility himself, but it seemed that his month away from home, moving and living among the lower sorts, had truly changed him. The ostentation on display in the high walls, manicured gardens, and embossed front gates to all the estates they passed really did leave him a little sick to his stomach … especially since he now knew how simply the bulk of the city’s people really lived.

  Still, it was an order, and they would follow it, no matter how uncomfortable it made them.

  “I hate this sort of thing,” Torval confessed as they climbed the last rising street toward the Dall home.

  “He just wants to say thank you,” Rem offered, not sure if that meant anything.

  “Perhaps,” Torval said. “But honestly, what’s he thanking us for? His daughter’s dead and we just found what was left of her. For that we deserve thanks?”

  Rem nodded. He understood what Torval meant. He didn’t feel like he deserved thanks, especially considering that they had found Telura Dall almost by accident, while they were busy with a separate investigation. But Rem also knew—from personal experience—that the rich and powerful were keenly aware of how their capacity for largesse and gratitude could be later used to their advantage by cultivating their associations and calling in favors when special aid was required. Even if Kethren Dall’s desire to show the two of them some gratitude was, for Dall himself, entirely genuine, there was probably some deeper, covert impulse in his character that quietly suggested that having a couple of good, reliable men on the city watch could, in the fullness of time, come in very handy.

  Patronage. Favors for favors. Loans and obligations. These were the foundational relationships of the rich and powerful. Rem knew the game well, and had grown so weary of it that he had come all the way to Yenara to escape it.

  But he offered none of that to Torval. He simply kept walking, mouth shut.

  In time, a line of mourners appeared, some walking, some borne on servant-carried litters, all climbing the cobbled street toward the manse at the summit. Rem and Torval fell in with the many mingling parties and kept an even pace, eager to neither fall behind nor pull ahead.

  As they stood in the long, snaking line of guests, Rem found his wandering gaze drawn to the servants that bore the finely chased litters bearing the richer acquaintances of the Dall family. All seemed foreign, their skin tones ranging from deep ebony to dusky olive, all of them had their hair cropped close to their heads, and all wore iron collars, as thick as a man’s finger, that seemed to have neither joint nor latch chain. At first, Rem assumed it must be some bizarre fashion accessory, but as he started to note the prevalence of the strange collar among all the shorn-headed men bearing those colorfully lacquered litters, Rem began to suspect there was another explanation.

  He bent toward Torval. “Are those slaves carrying the litters?” he whispered.

  Torval drew up on his toes and rocked back and forth, trying to see around the press of bodies surrounding him. Finally, he nodded. “Aye.”

  “I thought,” Rem said, “that slavery was proscribed in the west?”

  Torval shrugged. “For the most part. Your countrymen, in the north, never had many to begin with—though the Kostermen used to keep them, in bygone days. The kingdoms and courts farther south let the Panoply and the Temple of Aemon talk them out of the practice. Most of the free cities, like Yenara, forbid the taking and trading of slaves, and make it clear that every citizen born within their borders is free—but these sorts, the rich, they’re not forbidden from traveling east, to slaving cities, buying servants there, and bringing them back to Yenara with them. So long as they license
their chattel and pay the proper taxes—”

  Rem nodded, frowning. “The Yenaran way: it’s perfectly legal if the right authorities are paid.”

  Torval shrugged. “Just so. There certainly aren’t many of them. It’s only the poshest of the posh that keep them, like some ugly trophy of their wealth and privilege.”

  Rem realized his stomach was churning. The realization that he stood in a crowd with human beings that other human beings claimed to own, as property, had caused his body to react with visceral horror. Suddenly, the smug courtly life that he’d soured on and left behind did not seem quite so repugnant anymore.

  “I wonder how they’d like it,” he muttered, “if foreign armies swept into their cities and villages and dragged their women and children away, to have their spirits broken and their bodies sold like farmstock on an auction block?”

  “Give it time,” Torval said. “The wheel always turns, doesn’t it?”

  Rem nodded. How very true.

  As the mourners arrived at the main villa gate, their cavalcade slowed and the crowd gradually bunched up around them. Rem heard murmurs of sadness and reproach all around—rich families discussing how broken up poor Kethren Dall must be, how they couldn’t imagine what a terrible shock it must have been … and in some cases, how they were simply glad it was a disaster that befell him and not them. Rem understood that sort of talk, but that didn’t make hearing it any easier.

  Torval seemed quite uncomfortable and far out of his element. There were no other dwarves on hand, for one thing, so even in his small stature, he stuck out like a sown-on thumb. He was not simply other than human, he was also a tradesman by training and humble by birth. Rem thought to try to put him at ease, but one glance at Torval’s squared, tense shoulder and his downcast eyes told him that nothing was likely to make the dwarf feel better about his present surroundings. Thus, Rem let it rest, and the two carried on in the slow line as it drifted toward the gate to the Dall home and, little by little, the mourners trickled into the main house as other earlier arrivals trickled back out.