by Brian Keller
That evening he didn’t have the library to himself. Kolrem, Dillon and Sid were already there. Each young man had a stack of papers in front of him and the silence in the room made it feel like a sanctuary. Rather than violate that sense of peace, Cooper just gave each of them a nod and a short wave. He’d brought a lantern but the room was bright enough that he waited until he was seated before lighting it. By the time he’d sorted through a few of the papers that he’d set aside after his earlier studies, he knew he’d need to look for other information in other sections of the library. He rolled all the papers together and took them along as he walked over to the placard to figure out where he needed to look next. As he stood, Kolrem quietly called his name and waved him over. As Cooper approached, Kolrem waved him closer, whisper close. In a hushed voice Kolrem asked, “You’ve done this kind of thing before, right?” In answer to his nod, Kolrem asked, “Anything I should know?” Cooper leaned in, “It’s simple enough. You need to figure out how to get close enough to your target, and depending on whether or not your assignment has certain stipulations, you might have to make adjustments.” Kolrem was nodding as if Cooper was divulging some deeply-held secrets. Cooper couldn’t resist the jibe, “The trick is planning how you’ll get away afterward. Like Mister Skran once told us, ‘The sounds of jingling armor and dozens of clomping, booted running feet is never so disturbing as when you realize they’re coming for you’, wouldn’t you agree?” Kolrem almost went a little pale, “You know, I never felt that statement applied to me until just now. Thanks for that.” The sarcasm wasn’t wasted and Cooper chuckled, “We’ve read about all those grand, historic battles that changed the course of nations. The thing is, when you’re close enough to hear your opponent breathing and smell the scent of spilled blood, huge armies or not you’re still fighting for your life. Our kind of battles don’t usually end up in history books except as footnotes, but we can still affect the course of nations.” Kolrem’s face was grim, “That may be so, but if our names ever appear in those books then we either failed and we’re dead, or else we’re the ones that wrote the stories.”
Cooper sat down beside his friend, “The assignments have to be done solo, but I don’t think we’re forbidden from helping each other plan. The Guild has invested a lot of time in us. I can’t imagine they’d want us to fail, or be caught and killed.” Kolrem turned one of his papers so Cooper could read it, “The Assistant Harbormaster? Who’s the client?” Kolrem frowned, “We are. Apparently he was taking coin to let slaver ships come in and tie themselves to the docks.” This was a guy that Cooper would very much like to talk to, but he was sure that would violate the terms of Kolrem’s assignment. Cooper gave it some thought, “It should be simple enough unless there are special circumstances. Most people have a schedule. Figuring out his schedule will probably tell you when and where is best to kill him. Would you like some help with some surveillance?” Kolrem’s eyebrows were pulled together, “You said something about special circumstances. What’s that?” Cooper shrugged, “Specific instructions. Like the client requiring the killing be done a certain way, or that it has to happen in a particular place, that kind of thing.” Kolrem shook his head, “Y’know, that’s kinda messed up. It’s bad enough that we’re killing someone for no reason other than money, it seems almost insulting that we’d be required to do it a certain way. Doesn’t that increase our risk, too?” Cooper thought for a moment before he replied. He knew from Master Worthan’s class that being able to rationalize the assignment was important to Kolrem. He formed his reply carefully, “I figure the Guild charges extra for that kind of thing. Besides, you’re not killing this target just for money. You’re killing him because he’s assisting a traitor, and he played a role in bringing in slaves. Keep that in mind.” Kolrem took a deep breath and returned to studying the information, “You’re right… you’re absolutely right.” Cooper stood, giving the table a soft rap with his knuckles, “The offer to help with your surveillance still stands. Just let me know.” Cooper walked over to the placard and began reading through the categories. He stopped when he read, “Commerce – by product”, and “Commerce – by owner”. He said to himself, “Commerce it is, then.” If the disarray he discovered on the last set of shelves was any indication, this was going to take a while. He should’ve brought a mug and a bottle of cider.
*****
Yoren read the message that Jarell had deposited at one of their designated signal sites. Initially, Yoren had decided to ignore the request, “There’s nothing further to be gained by maintaining that relationship. That peasant thug has already served his purpose adequately. If he still had direct access to the Guild that might be a different story, but as things stand now….well, any leverage he had has become meaningless.” As he turned his attention to other matters of import to him, his thoughts snapped back to Jarell, “He’s of no importance except for the fact that they’d cooperated…and the whispers of a drug being introduced around the Waterfront.” Jarell had sworn that he’d had no intentions of introducing drugs as part of his plan. After all, bringing in a drug trade conflicted with both of their goals. His mind began sifting through ideas and suspicions, “Perhaps it might be best to have someone attend that meeting after all.”
Chapter 18
A couple of hours later, Kolrem got up to leave. He gathered a few documents and rolled them up, tucking them under one arm as he walked to the table where Cooper was seated. He leaned in and whispered, “You know how much I enjoy breakfast but I’ll be making arrangements with the cooks to make a sandwich to take with me before breakfast in the morning. If you’re willing to come along, I’ll ask them to make another one for you and wake you when it’s time to go.” Cooper was surprised but passed up a chance to make a joke and simply gave Kolrem a nod.
Cooper studied late into the night. Master Brais had already excused him from his nightly classes for the duration of his assignment. He assumed it was the same for the others who’d received their assignments as well. On a few of the documents about Lord Talmet’s business dealings Cooper added the names of the businesses he knew that delivered supplies to his household. While he acknowledged that these might change in the event of the man’s death, he figured it was more likely that they’d probably remain the same. He wasn’t sure what time it was when he went to bed, but he certainly didn’t meet anyone else in the hallways. When he got back to the bay, even Evan was in bed asleep.
Kolrem woke him far too soon, “Cooper. Cooper! Wake up. We need to leave in a few minutes. I’ll wait while you go to the privy.” He paused as Cooper sat up, looked around and wiped his eyes. Kolrem insisted, “C’mon! He should be making his rounds in an hour and we still have to get over to the Waterfront!” That announcement brought Cooper around. He thought, “That’s right! If I help Kolrem with this guy, I should find out who he meets with and I can start keeping track of those people without interfering with Kolrem’s assignment.” He shifted in his bed to let his legs hang over the side, yawned, then looked over at his friend and winked, “Do I have time to stretch?” Kolrem’s only reply was a groan of impatience and exasperation as he turned towards the door. Cooper rose quickly, “Alright, alright. I’ll just be a minute.”
The boys ate their sandwiches as they walked north through the Trade Quarter. By the time they reached the river, they had finished them and they tossed the paper wrappers in a bin near the end of the bridge. Kolrem patted his stomach in a satisfied way, bringing a brief chuckle from Cooper.
Kolrem took the lead and pointed at a shack near the end of the first pier, “That’s the office. I don’t know where the guy lives yet, but he should be arriving here in fifteen minutes or so.” Cooper was thinking, “If the guy shows on time, at least that shows he’s dedicated. Not even the fishermen are out here yet.” He gave Kolrem a nudge and whispered, “I’m gonna go curl up in that pile of netting over there. I’ll try to make it look like I slept there all night. I should have a decent view of the office.” Kolrem gave him a nod
and walked over to sit in front of one of the warehouses, looking as if he was waiting for someone to open the doors.
Twenty minutes later, a man arrived, unlocked the doors to the office and went inside. Cooper was relieved since that meant he would soon be crawling out from under the pile of netting. The odor was powerful. He could only hope that the stench would come out with a good laundering. Either way, he was thinking that his hiding place might have been poorly selected. The view was just fine, but following someone might be difficult considering how likely it was that he was now detectable from a fair distance if the wind was right.
After ten minutes the Assistant Harbormaster came out of the office with a collection of papers and turned to walk down the pier. It looked like he was checking a list to confirm what ships were docked and making sure everything was in order. He was even inspecting the ropes used to secure the ships. Once he’d passed the first ship, Cooper crawled out from under the netting. After he’d moved several steps away he risked a few deep breaths, worried that his stomach might convulse causing him to offer his breakfast sandwich to the fish that used the piers as a place to hide from larger fish.
As he and Kolrem moved to the end of the pier to observe the man, Kolrem wrinkled his nose at Cooper, “Um, thanks for coming to help, but do you suppose you could watch from somewhere over there?” He pointed to a few spots that were at least twenty feet away. Cooper responded with a grin, “You wouldn’t happen to have a change of clothes stashed somewhere nearby, would you?” Kolrem chuckled as he took a few steps down the dock toward his target, “Even if I did, they wouldn’t fit you.” Cooper gestured further north, “I’ll find a spot near the next pier and watch from there. Once he passes me, I’ll follow him for a while and you can drop back. That way he won’t see you every time he looks over his shoulder.” Kolrem gave him a nod as he continued walking down the pier.
Once he’d found a spot and hunkered down, he glanced around the area. He still wasn’t hearing any sounds indicating that the Waterfront might be waking up, but he knew from experience that it wouldn’t be long now. As he looked at his surroundings he noticed that a few new pylons had been placed in a row a few hundred feet away but parallel to the first pier. Cooper had heard that once or twice every twenty years of so, a merchant or cooperative of merchants, would attempt to build a new pier. The bay was deep, but near the shore the bottom was sand. This resisted most pier building efforts. According to the stories that the old sea hands would tell, the first piers were placed hundreds of years past, but they’d all rotted long ago. It was over those collapsed piers that the Wharf City had formed. This city on the water was formed by hundreds of boats and ships that been lashed together. From what Cooper had been told, it was possible to walk from one side of the Wharf City to the other and never get wet. Over the years, a tight-knit community had formed. They paid taxes to the Prince but refused to pay mooring charges stating that, “The pier’s under water. We’re moored to each other, not to the Prince’s docks.” Those that lived in the Wharf City would conduct some trade directly off the incoming ships before they docked. Incoming vessels wouldn’t have to pay any tariffs on those goods since they hadn’t yet made landfall. Likewise for the residents of the city on the water. This created something of a sore point with the City Council since taxes could not be levied on these exchanges. According to what he’d learned from his studies, the City Council presented this matter to the Prince every year and every year he ignored it and directed the discussion to other matters.
Seeing the Assistant Harbormaster approach brought Cooper out of his reverie. Kolrem stepped off to one side and Cooper let the man check out the moorings on two ships before he got up to follow him. As Cooper moved down the pier, he couldn’t help wondering why Kolrem couldn’t just stab his target when he reached the end of the pier and just let the body fall into the water. As Cooper looked around, there didn’t appear to be any witnesses. That was certainly something he’d need to mention once he met back up with his friend.
As the man approached the end of the pier, Cooper moved to a nearby gangplank and positioned himself as if he were coming off the ship. He then ducked his head slightly against the breeze coming off the water and headed back towards the shore. As he neared the end of the pier, he considered it might be just as easy to simply wait for the man in the office. If he always arrived alone at the same time then he could simply be killed inside the office, unseen even in the unlikely event of an early riser on the Waterfront. It all came down to whether it mattered or not for the body to be discovered. Several options began forming in Cooper’s mind. He had plenty to discuss with Kolrem but first, now that the Waterfront was starting to come to life, he wanted to see just who this man stopped to do business with.
The Assistant Harbormaster spoke with only a few people during the next couple of hours and no one for any length. During that time, Cooper developed six solid methods to suggest to Kolrem about how he might satisfy his assignment. Cooper caught his friend’s attention and gave him a brief wave. They’d discussed earlier that Cooper would stay for only a few hours and then move on to his own project. Kolrem replied with a nod.
Cooper returned to the Guildhouse, bathed and changed clothes. He needed to make himself presentable for the next steps in his plan. He had a few businesses to visit and then likely would be returning to the Waterfront.
Cooper stopped at a farmer’s cooperative called Palmer and Sons. It was fairly common for businesses to establish contracts with farmers to purchase their entire crop at a discounted price. This allowed the farmer to get a fair but slightly discounted price for the entirety of his product but then he was able to immediately return to his land. The cooperative then handled the customers and distribution. It was a profitable arrangement for all concerned. Cooper stopped to apply for a job as a porter. When he stated his intentions to one of the stockmen, he was pointed in the direction of the foreman. The foreman informed him, “We got more porters than we have deliveries. Sorry, lad.” Cooper took a look around the storeroom. Several workers were rearranging bags and boxes, trying to make sense of what they had in stock. Cooper turned to the foreman, “I can read, write and figure. Do you need a clerk?” The foreman’s eyes grew wide, then his expression turned to one of appraisal, “Truly!? If that’s so, I can put you to work right now! I’ll pay a silver and a half a day.” He swept his hand across the bags and boxes, “And I’ll pay you a half silver bonus if you can get this sorted out today.” Cooper asked, “Where do you keep your tally sheets?” The foreman chuckled, “As far as I know, there’s no such thing; but I can get you some parchment, quill and ink. How’s that?” Cooper nodded, “It will have to do.” He was thinking, “It doesn’t really matter, anyway. I’m only here long enough to hijack the delivery going to Lord Talmet’s.”
Cooper had all the goods inventoried by lunchtime and by the time he identified the shipment bound for Lord Talmet’s, he and the stockmen had most of it sorted as well. He boxed up the goods being shipped for the Talmet residence, loaded them onto a wheelbarrow and off he went. So one seemed to notice, or if they did, no one questioned him. After all, he’d fairly taken over stock room operations for most of the morning. As many porters in the city, he had a cloth wrapped around his head and the tail of it across his face and over his shoulder. Porters seemed to prefer this since it kept sweat out of their eyes and dust out of their mouth and nostrils. With both hands managing the load, they had no time to wipe faces and blow noses. Time was money. For Cooper, managing a wheelbarrow was a new challenge. Most of the weight of the load rested on the wheel, to be sure, but it still left a considerable percentage for the porter. Nevermind the fact that the wheel found every rut in the road and gap in the cobblestones. If not for the fact that he still had callouses from working metal at the forge, his hands would likely be raw and bleeding as well by the time he reached the Talmet residence. The guards at the gate gave him a cursory glance and waved him in. Once he reached the door and knocked, he was i
mmediately directed around the side of the house. He was told by the doorman, “The ladies in the kitchen will take to food. Just have one of them mark your ticket.” Cooper felt a moment of panic as he thought, “Ticket?! What ticket?!” He stopped and moved a few of the bags around and found a tag from Palmer and Sons with a number and the date. He recognized the number as the delivery number he’d seen earlier on the shipping docket. He breathed a sigh of relief. Even if Palmer and Sons might never see the ticket again, the ladies in the kitchen would be curious if he had nothing for them to sign.
He brought the wheelbarrow around the side, there were two doors but only one of them had a path worn by wagons pulling up to it. He heard an unintelligible shout from inside in response to his knock. He waited but heard nothing else and no one came to the door. He knocked again. He heard another shout from inside and moments later the door was swiftly pushed open. Cooper was glad that he’d stepped away. A red-faced, disheveled woman in an apron and bonnet was leaning through the door, glaring, “I said ‘the doors unlocked, come’- oh! You’re just a lad! And you’ve carted that load all the way here by hand?! Come in, come in.” She ushered him inside, “Sit down. Sit down over here.” She pulled a squat, three-legged stool up beside a table. “I’ll get you a cold drink. How about a nice glass of juice?” She was nodding at him and then called out over her shoulder, “Nellie! Bring in the produce from this boy’s wheelbarrow outside and then bring me the ticket!” The woman then turned back to Cooper and placed a glass of chilled fruit juice in front of him. She then hovered over him like a mother hen. He sipped his juice in silence, wishing he might find a chance to break away and wander around the house. It appeared that no such opportunity would present itself. He asked, “Is there a privy I could use, mum?” The woman pointed to a door that was right beside a deep, double sink along one wall. Cooper had hoped for something a little less nearby, but having asked he was now committed. Opening the door revealed a room about the size of a standard closet. The floor was a couple steps down, which made sense, being right next to the kitchen. Any accidents or overflows would stay collected here and not enter the kitchen. Cooper stood in the privy for a minute or two trying to convince himself that he had an actual need for the room but his bladder remained unconvinced. As he stepped out of the privy, closing the door behind him, the woman’s voice cut through the low buzz of chatter, “Now, before you take another step, you wash yer grubby little paws in that sink right there.” As he complied he overheard Nellie ask, “What are these, ma’am? And what’re we s’posed to do with ‘em?” The woman’s tone was only slightly patronizing but the conversation was particularly interesting to him, “Those’re leeks, missy. Her Ladyship insisted that we get them and fix ‘em up the way they done at Lord Galen’s. She didn’t give us a recipe, just described what was in the dish.” Nellie sounded frustrated, “Its bad enough that his Lordship feels he needs to out-do Lord Galen at every turn, now the Lady is in competition, too?” As Cooper was drying his hands he turned to watch them converse. The older woman was shaking her head, “I honestly wonder if this ongoing competition won’t bring the Lord to financial hardship. I s’pose those ships’a his bring in plenty of coin though. We shouldn’t hafta worry for him.” Cooper returned to his seat, “I couldn’t help overhearing, mum. Who’s Lord Galen?” The woman took a sharp tone, “Well! Who’re you ta listen in on conversations that aren’t yers?! Here’s yer ticket! Off with ye!” With that last sentence she shoved the ticket into his hands and shoo-ed him to the door.
