Closer to the Heart

by Mercedes Lackey

  Today, one of the local lads who came by the shop to peddle what he’d learned had told Mags that a man who sent packets of letters concealed inside bars of soap to Hardorn was named Ethan Dalliger, and he had a shop on Gooseneck Lane.

  So Mags was going to pay him a little visit and make sure he was what that clever lad Provo thought he was. In the guise of Harkon, of course, who was himself a seller of information.

  His directions took him into the aforementioned Gooseneck Lane, a quiet little side street in a middling part of town. It was not bad, certainly nothing like the slum where the pawn shop was, but it was not the sort of place where someone like, say, Tiercel Rolmer would feel at home. These were mostly small shops with living quarters above them; plastered walls whitewashed rather than painted, but in excellent repair. Most of the upper stories boasted flowerboxes at the windows, but most of those flowerboxes were full of thrifty herbs, not flowers. These were small merchants, making a small living. Good craftsmen, but not brilliant, getting by. No one here was in want, but no one here had much in the way of luxuries either. The fellow he had come to see was a seller of soap, candles, and oils. As he opened the door to the shop, he noticed something immediately; the only scent was of beeswax and the native, clean scent of plain soap. No floral or woody, spicy or green scents. And no colors, either. It was clear that these goods were utilitarian, candles ranging from plain tallow-dips to simple beeswax pillars, soap from the harsh grade used to clean floors and clothing to a finer grade used for bathing. All of it was neatly arranged around the shop; the cheaper goods were in barrels around the walls—tallow-dips in bundles of five and ten, cheap cleaning soap in large blocks so that chunks could be carved off and weighed. The more expensive candles were arrayed on shelves divided up into square partitions, with candles or bars of soap stacked inside.

  The man behind the counter looked up expectantly as Mags entered. Mags spoke first, as “Harkon” would, with a tone of assurance. Harkon, after all, was a bold fellow, and felt that his time was valuable. In this case, he wasn’t going to beat around the bush very much. “Little bird tells me thet ye does buyin’ along’a sellin’.”

  The shop had very good glass windows, and the light flooded the room. This actually put the chandler at a disadvantage. He could not see Mags’ face, but Mags could see his, very clearly. The man allowed an expression of puzzlement to creep over his face, but his surface thoughts told Mags that he wasn’t puzzled at all; he just wanted to wait until he knew if what Mags knew was worth having or not before showing his cards. “I am a craftsman. I buy such things as I need for my craft—” He spread his hands to indicate his wares. “Wax, rendered fat, lye. I do buy ash as well, but you don’t strike me as an ash-seller.”

  “I meant somethin’ less substantial,” Mags said, leaning back against the doorjamb with his arms crossed. The last thing he was going to do was give up the advantage of having his face in shadow. “Like, f’r instance . . . I were t’know somethin’ ’bout a lady lives up on Hill, say? Like, I were t’know thet she goes t’see a gemmun who ain’t her husband ever’ three days or so at th’ Rose’n’Crown?”

  Ethan’s gaze sharpened. “A lady, you say? Who lives up on the Hill? Gentry?”

  “Or a man. Say, a man what’s been playin’ a bit fast’n’loose wi’ the trut’, an wi’ ’is partner’s siller, down over t’ Tailor’s Court, iffen yer taste is more t’ever’day doin’s. I mebbe don’ look like much, but I got ears all over.” Mags touched his index finger to his ears and crossed his arms again. “All over. I heerd ye was most innerested in what goes on up the Hill. I don’ get a lotta thet, but I gets some.”

  “And you would be . . . ?” the chandler said cautiously.

  “Harkon. M’Nuncle’s Willy th’ Weasel. We got a pawn shop.” He paused expectantly.

  The man’s eyes showed his sudden recognition. Probably because his predecessor had done quite a bit of business with Willy the Weasel, and without a doubt, had informed the one who was to take his place. “Ah yes! Yes, of course. I am glad to make your acquaintance, Harkon. I presume your example of the lady in question was merely a hypothetical example, rather than something you wish to sell me at this moment?”

  “Aye, although ’twas good four moons ago, ’tis stale now.” Mags allowed one corner of his mouth to quirk up. “That there’s the problem wi’ bread an’ doin’s. Don’t git to ’em quick, they goes stale, an nobody wants ’em.”

  Ethan nodded. “Quite so. I assume you will be the corridor through which your uncle’s insubstantial merchandise flows?”

  Mags shrugged. “Useta was, Nuncle did the peddlin’ hisself, but these days he don’t get out much. Gettin’ old, likes t’sit in shop or stay home. ’Less ye feel like comin’ ter us, reckon I’ll come ter ye.”

  The man smiled thinly. “And I suppose that will cost me a little extra? Well worth it. Never let it be said I do not pay full value for what is offered me.” Mags stiffened a little as his hand moved under the counter, but when it came up, it had a few silver pieces in it. “Since you have saved me the trouble of seeking you out, allow me to offer you a little token of gratitude, in anticipation of further business.”

  Mags unfolded his arms and approached the man, taking the money and swiftly slipping it into a hidden pocket. “Thenkee kindly.” He allowed himself a thin smile. “I’m mortal glad when a feller is reasonable t’work wit’.” He touched two fingers to his temple. “Iffen I has Hill-doin’s, I’ll come ter ye. Ye need ter talk ter me, ye go to Rising Sun tavern over in Tinker district. Ye tell any on them lads as is runners yer wants ter see me. No charge iffen it ain’t thet ye needs ter see me right then. Penny fer the lad iffen ye do. Iffen it be thet needful, penny, an’ ye goes in fer a drink. I’ll be there afore ye finish it. But I don’ reckon thet’s likely t’happen, ’lessen ye needs somethin’ . . . fixed quick. An’ ye strike me as the kinda feller thet kin fix ’is own.”

  It was a bit strange, talking to someone about matters so . . . dirty . . . in a shop that sold the means for making dirty things clean.

  The man nodded. “An admirable system. I assume the boys are yours?”

  “Aye.” Mags nodded. “They runs fer me all over ’Aven. An they keeps their liddle ears open. It’s fair ’mazin’ whut people’ll say ’round a wee lad, thet they’d never let drop ’round a man.”

  “That, good sir, is a truth that I will keep in the forefront of my thoughts from now on.” The man bowed a little to him.

  “An’ I’ll be on me way. Pleasure doin’ business wi’ ye,” Mags gave him a little salute with two fingers, and let himself out, altogether pleased with how smoothly that had gone.

  But that ended his tasks down here. Time to go back up the Hill and be a Herald again.

  Right now he was rather weary of this version of Harkon. Peddling compromising information to foreign agents made him feel a bit dirty. It would be good to get back to being Mags.

  • • •

  They were all meeting in the sitting room of Mags and Amily’s suite of rooms at Healer’s Collegium. It was the quietest, most comfortable, least obtrusive, and most secure place they could meet, without causing anyone to wonder if something was going on. For one thing, their suite held one of the few sitting rooms that would hold six without everyone sitting elbow-to-elbow, and for another, Heralds came into Healer’s Collegium all the time, spent a lot of time in there, and emerged with whatever had been wrong with them taken care of—or whatever business they had with patients there disposed of. There would be nothing suspicious about Prince Sedric, Herald Yvan (the Seneschal’s Herald,) and Herald Gerd (the Lord Martial’s Herald) dropping into Healer’s Collegium in the course of the day, and once they were inside Healer’s, there was no way of knowing where, exactly, they were heading. Mags and Amily lived there, of course, and Lady Dia could come in through the exterior door openly, since she was the one orchestrating the wedding and pre
sumably would be consulting with them. Or ordering them about!

  Gerd and Yvan were as alike as two brothers, both very dark of hair and eye, and both about thirty years of age. Both even had similar square faces, and heavy eyebrows.

  Amily had kept all the lanterns in the otherwise dark sitting room out, and it was a nice enough spring day that no fire was needed. Anyone peering in through the greenhouse would see nothing in the darkened room beyond the door left open for air. No one would need to get anything from the greenhouse that was not already growing in the herb garden, and all the dried stock had long since been transferred to a new stillroom so Mags and Amily were not disturbed by someone hunting for something. This was as private as they could get.

  They sat in a circle, white uniforms and Lady Dia’s pale gown making them look like ghosts in the darkened room. There was only one window, and Amily had drawn the heavy curtains over it. And, of course, there were five Heralds here, three of whom had powerful enough Mindspeech that they would likely pick up anyone lurking about just by the presence of their surface thoughts.

  “Have you heard anything from Nikolas?” asked Gerd, once they had all settled into their seats.

  Amily nodded. “I already told the King. This morning we got a message relayed up that he had uncovered something very peculiar at the third armory he checked. The Armorer started to send him away, as the others had, telling him that every weapon they had made had gone to the Guard. But then he called Father back. He said that something was bothering him. That his Armory had filled a second, unexpected order for the Guard a few months ago. He was told at the time that there had been a flood and the weapons stored at a particular post were unsalvageable. And the officer who had brought the order had all the right paperwork, with all the right seals and signatures. But instead of paying in Crown Scrip . . . he paid in silver and gold.”

  Gerd nodded tensely. “That sounds like what Mags read from that mine-owner, now, doesn’t it? A fellow saying all the right things, with all the right paperwork. A fellow that looked proper for what he was supposed to be. Everything normal. Except, this time, for how it was being paid for.”

  “Father said he looked into the Armorer’s thoughts with the man’s permission, but the fellow who made the order, paid, and took the weapons away didn’t look anything like the drawing we sent him, and the Armorer didn’t recognize the man in our drawing. So . . . this might be the second piece of the puzzle, but we’re not much closer to solving it,” Amily told them with a sigh. “Father’s gone silent again, and Rolan says he’s too far to reach, even for him.”

  They all sat in silence for a while, as they thought through this. “Signatures really are not that difficult to forge unless the person you are trying to fool is someone who gets a great deal of correspondence from the people in question,” Yvan pointed out. “It’s the seals that trouble me. It would have to be someone very highly placed to have access to similar documents in order to copy the seal, or steal the seal itself.”

  But Gerd had other ideas. “Not necessarily highly placed,” Gerd pointed out. “Any clerk in the right place—or for that matter, in the right archives—could get his hands on the seals. Archives would be best; no one ever checks to see if seals are intact when they’re looking things up; they are far too focused on what is in the documents, not on the verifying seals.”

  Sedric’s eyes lit up as he thought of something. “Besides, those things fall off over time all the time,” said Sedric. “When I was researching old Guard requisition reports a couple years ago, half of them had lost their seals. They’d all fallen into the bottom of the records box, and I certainly didn’t take the time to make sure that they were all there and matched the documents. It just never occurred to me. You could probably snitch all the seals you needed from archive boxes and reattach them to another document. Father’s seal hasn’t changed in twenty-five years, and neither have any of the other officials.”

  “So . . . we don’t have the time at the moment to go checking up on every clerk that has access to the Guard archives!” Yvan protested. “The Guard doesn’t send their copies here to store until they run out of room at the local outposts!”

  Glum silence, which Mags finally interrupted. “I’m thinkin’ Nikolas has got, or is lookin’ fer an artist of his own t’make up a picture of the feller that paid in money,” Mags put in. “That’s what I’d do.”

  That seemed to lighten the atmosphere a trifle. “That’s what Jorthun would do,” Dia agreed. “He’ll most likely look among the Healers. There’s always someone in a House of Healing that draws, and it will be easier for him to communicate the face to someone who has Empathy or a touch of Mindspeech himself.”

  Silence fell again. Mags could tell that Gerd and Yvan were feeling the same frustration at not being able to do anything, while at the same time, the time was inexorably slipping away. . . .

  “This has me very troubled,” Gerd said, finally breaking the silence. “And I need to voice it. The man had proper Guard paperwork. I presume he was wearing a Guard uniform, and I think the Armorer would have noticed if he turned up to take the weapons away in common carts. All this implies he must be associated with the Guard. Taken together with this ‘General Thallan,’ who also had all the needful paperwork to gull at least one mine-owner out of some very valuable gems, I am beginning to suspect a conspiracy in the Guard. . . .”

  Mags’ heart sank. That was a possibility, although he could not at the moment think what an entire Guardpost could be offered that would make it worth starting a war with Menmellith—

  Except they prolly didn’t know it would. Prolly didn’t figger anyone would notice where the goods came from. An’ if they didn’t figger that, how’s it hurt Valdemar so far’s they know? Nawt. Some big sparklies that just sat in a room that didn’t cost no one nothin’ t’ give away, a couple fellers get t’feel big ’cause they helped out the Kingdom. Nobody’s hurt. Ev’body wins . . .

  “It could be something as simple as the fact that a handful of conspirators have relatives with or sympathy for the Menmellith rebels,” Sedric pointed out, although he sounded uncertain. “It doesn’t have to be that an entire Guard post is involved. . . .”

  “But it would simplify things for those conspirators if one was.” Yvan said solemnly. “Amily, I hope your father is being very careful indeed. All that is needed is for the wrong person to see that drawing—or drawings—and he would be in very grave danger.”

  “This is scarcely the first time that Nikolas has been in very grave danger,” Dia replied, sounding much more calm and sure than Mags was feeling. “And from what I know of him, he has already concocted a volume of possible explanations for this, including a conspiracy of not just one, but several Guard posts, none of which will indicate to him that he should do anything other than keep himself out of sight as much as possible, investigate via his Gifts without taking the chance of detection as much as possible, and take every precaution.”

  “My father has often told me, Just because you are seeing enemies everywhere, it doesn’t follow that they aren’t there,” Amily said evenly. “He may no longer have Rolan with him, but his Companion now is every bit father’s match in caution and cunning. In fact, I dare say she’s better at cunning and caution than Rolan is.”

  “Well, what kin we do if this’s some kinda Guard conspiracy?” Mags wanted to know, feeling even more helpless than before. Because if it was a conspiracy within the Guard, then it wasn’t just Nikolas who might be in danger. “This’s right outa anything Nikolas ever taught me.”

  Gerd and Yvan exchanged a look, and very probably, thoughts. “We have one priority. Make sure the Menmellith Ambassador is safe,” said Yvan, his voice betraying his anxiety. “We don’t know what this ‘conspiracy’ has as an ultimate goal, but if it actually is to involve Valdemar in Menmellith’s quarrel, the fastest way to accomplish that would be to kill the Ambassador in such a way that blam
e falls squarely on the Crown.”

  Gerd snorted. “Merely having him murdered would do that, without needing to have any indication that we did it. The Regency Council could declare that we did it, or colluded in it, and nothing we could say or do would make any difference to what they believed down there.”

  “Then we need someone checking his food, and we need a guard on him that cannot be bribed or lured away,” Yvan stated, slapping his knee for emphasis.

  “Dogs,” said Dia, before anyone else could speak.

  “I beg your pardon?” Yvan sounded as if he thought she had gone mad.

  “Dogs, I said,” she repeated. “I breed and train dogs, all sorts of dogs. Not just my little muff-dogs, but dogs for searching for lost children or escaped prisoners, dogs for protection, dogs for just about every purpose except hunting. Dogs have a very keen sense of smell. I’ve trained some of my hounds to detect poison. And I have guard dogs that will only obey their handlers. Dogs can’t be bribed, and mine are so well trained that they can’t be lured away.”

  “Aurebic is very fond of dogs,” Sedric put in, before anyone could raise any objections. “I think he’d prefer them to human guards.”

  “It’s settled then,” Dia said firmly. “I’ll bring one of my poison-hounds and a set of guard dogs and their handlers. If you think we’ve discussed as much as we can, I’ll have them here within the candlemark.” Her teeth shone faintly in the darkness as she smiled. “I’ll have it put about that they are all gifts from me to my dear friend Aurebic. It won’t even be a lie. He can even take them with him when he leaves, if he likes; I’ll make sure the handlers teach the dogs that he is a handler, too.”

  “Lady Dia, that is brilliant.” Sedric stood up. “I think anything more would be discussing this to death when we need to act.”

  Yvan and Gerd also stood up in unison. Yvan spoke for both of them. “We agree, Highness. There is very little we here can do to aid Nikolas, and there is quite a bit we can do along with Lady Dia to make sure Ambassador Aurebic is safe. Further discussion in the absence of firm information is going to waste time better spent elsewhere.”