The Black Bouquet r-2

by Richard Lee Byers

  She knew what he meant. Out in the wild, she would have been more circumspect. She'd once reveled with a tribe of centaurs for three days and nights, satisfying all their elaborate rituals of hospitality, before so much as mentioning the reason for her visit to their camp. But Oeble, and her current dilemma, made her twitchy.

  "I haven't much time," she said, "or at least I fear I haven't."

  "I understand," he said. "For all you know, the precious saddlebag has already left town."

  Miri glared at him and said, "You knew who I was from the start."

  Melder shrugged. "I didn't know your name, but people are naturally talking about a robbery inside the Paeraddyn and the ranger tramping around town trying to trace the surviving thief. What was in the pouch, anyway?"

  "I don't know, myself."

  He grinned, his teeth a flash of white in his swarthy face. A tiny green dragon settled on his shoulder for a moment, almost as if whispering in his ear, then flew away.

  "You're a bad liar," he said, "probably because you haven't learned to enjoy it. If I knew what you're looking for, perhaps I could help you find it."

  And maybe, she thought, you'd covet it for yourself.

  Miri asked, "Are you willing to help me?"

  "Well, it all depends. I make a tolerable living from the Door, and as you can imagine, my guests don't rest their heads here because I have a reputation for tattling. Still, it's conceivable you could persuade me to be of some assistance, comely as you are. Grubby from the road, of course, but a bath would fix that."

  She made a spitting sound then said, "Apparently you haven't known many rangers, at least not of my guild. We don't pay for anything that way."

  "A pity. If you exploited them properly, like a sensible lass, your charms could be a mightier weapon than that bow."

  "Forget it. I am willing to pay a hundred Sembian nobles if you furnish information that leads me to what I seek."

  "Perhaps some gold up front would serve to jog my memory or sharpen my wits."

  "Ever since I started poking around," said Miri, "folk have been hinting they can help me, then they ask for coin in advance. Had I heeded them, my purse would be empty already. I'll pay you when I recover what was in the saddlebag, not before."

  "And how, sweet Miri, do I know that I can trust you?"

  "Because I swear it by Our Lady of the Forest."

  He laughed and said, "Your vow. Delightful."

  She glowered at him then asked, "Can you help me or not?"

  "I assume you took a good look at the three thieves who died."

  "Yes."

  "Describe them."

  She did, and based on his expression asked, "You recognize them?"

  "I believe so, though I didn't know them well. Their names were Gavath, Kerridi, and Dal."

  She felt a thrill of excitement.

  "What gang did they belong to?" she asked.

  Melder shook his head and answered, "None. They were petty operators, really, gleaning what the gangs don't bother to take."

  "I don't see how four such little fish, working strictly by themselves, could have conceived an elaborate plan to steal the saddlebag as soon as it reached Oeble. They wouldn't even have known it was coming. Somebody must have hired them to seize it."

  "That would be my guess," Melder said. "Have you any notion who that person might have been?"

  Someone with a spy in place, Miri thought, either here or in Ormath, to report on what was supposed to have been a secret transaction.

  Beyond that, she couldn't say. She spread her hands.

  "Whoever it was," Melder said, "he has plenty of coin, or at least convinced the thieves he did. He wouldn't have tried to rob the Paer without a substantial fee in the offing."

  "Did the dead outlaws have a particular comrade with whom they often worked? Someone thin, bearded, and around my age, green-eyed and skilled with a knife?"

  "I fear I can't tell you. As I said, I didn't know them personally, and we have so many ne'er-do-wells skulking about Oeble-new ones every day. The river barges float them in, and the Dead Cart rolls them out."

  "Well, presumably somebody knew them," Miri replied. "At least you've given me a place to start, and I thank you."

  She gulped down the rest of her beer, laid a silver coin on the table, rose, and headed for the door.

  Melder sat and watched the scout stride away. He generally liked his women with a little more meat on their bones and considerably more concerned with presenting a well-groomed and feminine appearance. But even clad in her dirty woods-runner's armor, breeches, and boots, she was a pleasant sight.

  Vlint appeared at his elbow and gave a disapproving snort, a mode of expression admirably suited to his bulbous blue nose, though incongruously prissy for a hobgoblin. Melder sighed and turned his head to meet the hulking, shaggy bravo's sallow eyes.

  "I take it you were eavesdropping," the human said, "and think me too garrulous."

  "It's not for me to say," said Vlint, in a tone that conveyed his opinion with utter clarity. None of the Door's other guards would have expressed disapproval, but he'd been in his master's employ for a long while, ever since the days when Melder had been a thief in his own right instead of a quasi-respectable innkeeper, and was thus inclined to take liberties.

  "I didn't give up any of our patrons," he said.

  Something tickled Melder's wrist, and forked tongue flickering, a gray, wedge-shaped head slid out from under the cuff of his long, floppy sleeve. He caressed the restless viper with his fingertip, then coaxed it to slither back where it belonged.

  "Come to that," Melder added, "I didn't even give up anyone alive."

  "Still," said the bouncer and ruffian-for-hire, "it wasn't the kind of thing you generally do."

  "Most thief takers aren't as pretty as that one, and it should serve to keep her wandering around here below."

  Vlint scratched at his thick, flea-bitten neck and said, "You think that so long as she's nearby, she might decide to warm your bed after all?"

  "Alas, no. The ranger's guilds shouldn't admit women. You let a wench worship a goddess who takes the form of a unicorn, and she's bound to place an exaggerated value on her chastity."

  "Then you want to make a play for the saddlebag yourself."

  "No. Those days are behind us. Though if it simply fell into my lap…What I think is that as pretty Miri blunders about, someone will decide to make some coin from her, and likely sooner rather than later. Put the word out to the slavers that if anybody catches her, I might be interested in buying. Or at least renting for a day or two."

  As befitted his status as chieftain of the Red Axes, Kesk Turnskull lived with a certain style, in an expansive, albeit decaying, house on the river. In better times, the place had likely belonged to a prosperous merchant, who'd built both street entrances and a water gate to facilitate the passage of goods in and out. More recently, diggers had connected the cellars to the Underways.

  Thus, Aeron thought, surveying the structure from the Arch of Gargoyles, centermost of the three bridges, he had his choice of ways in. The problem was making sure of a way out. Because it was one thing to resolve to gouge a higher payment out of Kesk and his pack of ruffians, and something else actually to accomplish it. He had to manage the discussion in a manner that would preclude the tanarukk's simply taking him prisoner and torturing him until he divulged the current location of the strongbox.

  He pondered the problem for a time, while the reflections of Selune and her Tears sparkled on the black water rippling below the bridge, and the stone imps squatting atop the piles seemed to brood along with him. At length, when he decided on his approach, he trotted back toward shore. New though they were, the planks bounced and shifted under his feet. The folk of Oeble replaced them every year, but not with any extraordinary care or craftsmanship. Why should they, when the Scelptar was destined to devour them in any case?

  Keeping an eye on the sprawling mansion ahead, field-stone on the ground level
and timber above, Aeron skulked along the docks where, in one of his occasional flirtations with honest toil, he'd loaded and unloaded galleys and flatboats. Nobody called out to him. He would have been chagrined if anyone had. Unlike some thieves of his acquaintance, he had no use for flowing cloaks and masklike cowls of midnight black. Those posturing fools who did might as well have worn placards proclaiming themselves nefarious outlaws. But his inconspicuous clothes of dark gray and brown permitted him to blend into the dark with equal facility.

  He stepped out onto a deserted pier, considered removing his tunic and boots, and decided against it. Even if he could be sure of returning to that very spot, somebody was likely to walk away with them before he did, Oeble being what it was. He sat down on the edge of the dock, then lowered himself into the water.

  Oeblaun fishermen liked to swap stories of pike and freshwater eels huge enough to gobble a man with a single snap of their jaws, but the creatures, if in fact they existed, were evidently either sated just then or hunting elsewhere. He wasn't an exceptionally good swimmer, but the water was still reasonably warm, the current gentle, and he had little difficulty stroking and kicking his way to the sprawling house's river gate.

  The gate resembled the mouth of a half-flooded tunnel protected by a portcullis, which, unfortunately, was down. Aeron dived beneath the surface. There, the white light of the moon, and the tail of sparkling motes that people called her Tears, failed him, and he had to grope his way along the steel grille, seeking a breach. He didn't find one.

  When he could stay submerged no longer, he came up and sucked in a breath. He knew he couldn't keep diving and searching for long, or one of the sentries would spot him. As best he could judge, that left him only one recourse.

  The portcullis would keep out any boat. The spacing of certain of the bars, however, might permit a swimmer to wriggle through, if he was thin and had studied the art of squeezing through tight places. Aeron had. It was a valuable knack to possess if you dabbled in housebreaking.

  He slipped beneath the surface, located one of the larger holes in the grillwork, and started to squirm through headfirst.

  Shadows of Mask, it was close!

  Closer than it had seemed when he was simply gauging its width with his hands. Close enough to scrape patches of his skin raw. So close that down there, in the wet and the black, it seemed to clench around his chest like a clutching fist.

  Aeron had gotten stuck before, in windows and chimneys, but never underwater, where if he couldn't free himself within a minute or so, he'd drown. He felt a surge of panic and struggled to quash it. Without a clear head, he had no hope whatsoever of liberating himself.

  He gripped a bar to either side of him and tried to haul himself clear. No good. He drew one of his knives and sawed at his shirt and overtunic, trying to strip away the layers of cloth between his flesh and the metal that held him fast. He managed to yank some tatters out, but was still trapped.

  He wondered suddenly, with a fresh shock of terror, if the portcullis was magical. The trader who'd originally built the mansion had obviously been wealthy enough to commission an enchanted defense. So was Kesk, as far as that was concerned. Maybe the cursed thing really was squeezing Aeron like a crayfish's pincers.

  No. It wasn't. That was just the fear talking, and he wouldn't listen. He strained to drag himself backward rather than forward, only to find retreat as impossible as advancing. Meanwhile, his chest began to ache with the urge to take a fresh breath. Soon his air would run out.

  His air. If he emptied his lungs, his chest would be narrower, wouldn't it? Maybe narrow enough to allow him to writhe his way free.

  Even though he knew it was his only chance, it took an effort of will to exhale. He forced himself, and the air was gone beyond recall.

  He made what would surely be his final effort to pull himself forward. At first, nothing happened, then his chest popped clear like a cork from a bottle of that sweet white sparkling Saelmurian wine poor Kerridi had so enjoyed. He surged forward, only to jerk to a halt an instant later.

  He told himself the grillwork hadn't really clamped shut around his ankles. His feet had simply caught on a crossbar. Resisting panic, the impulse to flail wildly, crazily, he tried to untangle himself from the obstruction, and succeeded. He struggled upward.

  Desperate for air as he was, it was only at the last second that he remembered he couldn't surface amid a great splashing and floundering, or else one of the Red Axes would notice him. He took care to complete his ascent circumspectly, then breaststroked his way into the shadowy, shielded space between two moored boats.

  Clutching at the side of a vessel for support, he sucked in air. It took all the strength he had left simply to make himself inhale and exhale quietly, and he knew that if anyone spotted him before he caught his breath, he'd be helpless to defend himself. Luckily, no one did, and when he recovered, he took a stealthy look around.

  The river gate terminated in a stone platform at the far end, where an arched door led farther into the mansion. A walkway ran along either wall. Half a dozen boats floated in the water, tied up until someone should want them. Four were commonplace vessels for transporting passengers and cargo, the fifth a sleek galley equipped with a small ballista in the bow as well as other features useful to river pirates, and the sixth a gilded and ornately carved pleasure barge, aboard which Kesk sometimes chose to pursue his less unsavory amusements.

  Two guards slouched on camp stools near the doorway, playing a game of cards for low stakes. The muscular bugbear with its hairy yellow hide was smirking, exposing stained, crooked fangs, and had most of the copper pennies heaped in front of it. The human wore a peeved expression that seemed at home on his pinched and sour face.

  Neither one looked particularly alert. Evidently they trusted the portcullis to keep intruders out. Even so, it was going to be tricky.

  Aeron drew himself up onto the walkway behind the bugbear's back. He readied the sturdy oaken cudgel he'd brought with him, then skulked forward.

  He fancied that few people could have approached the sentries unheard, not clad in soaked garments that wanted to slap and squelch with every step. Fortunately, there was an art to moving silently under even the most adverse conditions, and he'd mastered that one, too.

  Yet soft footfalls could only protect a fellow up to a point. He was still a few paces away from the gamblers when the human threw down his creased, greasy hand of cards in disgust, lifted his head, and looked straight at him. The Red Axe's eyes opened wide.

  Aeron charged. The bugbear twisted around, and he clubbed at the hulking creature's square, brutish head. The blow cracked home, and the goblinoid jerked at the impact.

  By then the human guard was on his feet and had his dagger out. Aeron dodged a thrust, grabbed hold of the little folding camp table that held the game, and flipped it upward. Cards and coins flew everywhere, the coppers clinking on the platform. The tabletop bashed the Red Axe in his face, slamming him backward.

  Aeron whirled back around toward the bugbear. Its low forehead bleeding, the burly creature, taller than almost any human its attacker had ever seen, lurched to its feet, snatched its scimitar from its scabbard, and raised it high. Its sleeve slipped down its hairy forearm, revealing the ruddy axe brand Aeron had once declined to wear.

  Sidestepping out from under the threat of the curved sword, he lashed the bugbear across the ribs and kicked it in the knee. It stumbled, and that brought its head low enough for him to bash it a second time, and a third. The goblinoid collapsed unconscious.

  Aeron pounced atop the bugbear and poised an Arthyn fang at its throat. The human Red Axe, who was lunging forward, hesitated.

  "Stay back," Aeron panted, "or I'll kill it."

  The guard spat, "I never liked him anyway. I think he cheats."

  "If you're such a dunce that a bugbear can trick you," Aeron shot back, "you deserve to lose your coin. Now, you may not like the brute, but I'll bet your chief finds it useful. Useful enough that he
wouldn't appreciate you throwing away its life when it can be avoided."

  "Maybe. What do you want?"

  Aeron nodded toward the windlass and said, "First, raise the portcullis."

  He had no intention of squirming through the bars again when it was time to leave.

  The guard grumbled, "That's a two-man job."

  "The damn thing has a counterweight," Aeron said. "Just put your back into it."

  Grunting with effort, or the petulant pretense of it, the Red Axe managed to do as instructed. The chain clanked as it wound around the reel.

  "Now what?" the guard asked.

  "Now you go into the house and tell Kesk to come out alone for a private talk. Tell him that if he doesn't show himself in the next five minutes, the cardsharp here dies, and he can forget about ever taking possession of the saddlebag."

  The sentry stood and stared at him.

  "What are you waiting for? Go!"

  The Red Axe disappeared through the door, slamming it behind him, and after that, Aeron had nothing to do but listen for approaching footsteps, at least until the bugbear stirred. He pressed the keen edge of his knife against his captive's throat, drawing the goblin-kin's attention to it.

  "Don't move," he said, "or you're dead."

  "Don't matter," the bugbear said, its bestial voice slurred. Evidently it was still dazed from the beating it had taken.

  "You don't care if I kill you?"

  "Don't matter you didn't do… what you was told. You're still going to die."

  Still? What did that mean, precisely? Aeron would have asked, but at that moment, Kesk Turnskull stalked through the door.

  If ever a creature was born to rule a company of cutthroats, Kesk was surely the bully in question. Short and stooped as he was, his muscular body looked nearly as thick as it was tall. Patches of coarse hair bristled from his leathery gray hide, and with its truncated snout and jutting tusks, his face resembled that of a wild boar. Despite the oil lamp burning beside the door, the interior of the water gate was dark enough to reveal the faint luminescence of his scarlet eyes, which smoldered like coals beneath a low, ridged brow.