A Fistful of Elven Gold

by Alex Stewart

  “I’m sorry, doctor.” Raegan reined in his temper with a visible effort, resorting to flattery to mollify the mage. “It’s just that every time we seem to be getting somewhere with this case, our leads turn up dead. And here, like this, is just bloody embarrassing!”

  “Yes, I’m sure it is,” Vethik said, unhelpfully.

  “Can you tell us how he died?” Drago asked.

  Vethik glanced in the gnome’s direction, apparently noticing him for the first time, before returning his attention immediately to Raegan. “Judging by the pattern of bruising, and the fibers under his fingernails, I’d say the blanket did it.”

  Raegan took a very deep breath, released it slowly, and repeated the operation several times. “All by itself, I suppose.”

  “No, it had a bit of help.” The corpulent mage stooped, peering at the floor, then gestured to Drago. “You’re a lot lower down than I am, make yourself useful. Take a look under the bed.”

  Biting back the stinging retort he was sure was just about to occur to him, Drago stooped and took a cursory glance beneath the narrow padded bench. On the verge of standing again, he spotted something small, lying in the shadows, up against the wall. Swearing under his breath, he got down on his stomach, wriggled his head and shoulders under the bed, and reached out for it.

  “Is that what you’re looking for?” he asked, regaining his feet, and holding out the object he’d discovered. To his complete lack of surprise it was a stone, scored with intricate markings which made his eyes hurt if he looked at them too hard, and surprisingly heavy for its size. Almost identical, in other words, to the talisman the now-dead assassin had used in an attempt to kill him.

  Vethik nodded, with an air of self-satisfaction which would have done credit to an elf. “Exactly what I would have expected to find,” he said. “They waited until he’d fallen asleep, then lobbed that in through the window.”

  “Who did?” Waggoner interrupted, looking as though he didn’t care particularly so long as it was someone he could hit.

  “Whoever wanted him dead, of course,” Vethik said, the unhelpfulness of his answer at least being mitigated by some accuracy this time.

  “Another of Gorash’s mob,” Raegan said. “Making sure he kept his mouth shut.” He glanced at Drago. “Maybe you leaving town for a while isn’t such a bad idea.”

  “It couldn’t be much more dangerous,” Drago agreed. He still wasn’t sure if he could go through with actually assassinating someone, if he even managed to find the bandit chief, but at the moment taking out Gorash was beginning to look less like cold-blooded murder and more like self-defense. If they’d turn on their own like this, his people were even more ruthless than he’d anticipated, and there was no telling how many more of them there were at large in the city. If he wasn’t going to be looking over his shoulder for the foreseeable future, he was going to have to take the fight to their boss, and that was all there was to it.

  “Unless you feel like being the bait again,” Waggoner chipped in hopefully. “That’d make it a lot easier to find them.”

  “Think I’ll pass,” Drago said, as insouciantly as he could. “I’m off to talk to an elf about some linen.”

  “And I’m off to talk to one about this.” Raegan hefted the recovered talisman, his face grimmer than Drago could recall having seen it in a long time. “And if the flatulent little scrote doesn’t deliver, he’s on his way to Her Ladyship’s so fast his feet won’t touch.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I’ll so miss our little chats.”

  To everyone’s relief, however, Swiftwind turned out to have enough sense to admit that the talisman had been his handiwork as soon as Raegan confronted him with it. Rather less welcome was his admission that it, and the one used to attack Drago, had been part of an order for half a dozen, leaving another four still unaccounted for somewhere in the city: unless a few of them had already been used on other victims, who hadn’t come to light yet. This in turn had prompted Vethik to take another look at Torvin’s body; now he had reason to suspect thaumaturgy might have played a part in his excessively violent demise, but he wasn’t prepared to speculate before completing his tests.

  Drago left the watch house just after the mage had grumbled off to begin work in his private sanctum; he had no desire to witness a long overdue autopsy, however much amusement he’d derive from Vethik’s annoyance at his presence, and Raegan had already promised to let him know the results if they seemed interesting.

  “You’ve still got Quickfart’s contact to follow up on,” Drago consoled him as they parted, but Raegan shook his head ruefully.

  “She’s the one who tried to shoot you. I got him to take a look at the bodies.” He sighed. “I almost felt sorry for the insanitary little scrote. I thought he was going to cry.”

  “He’d have felt a lot worse if you handed him over to the council’s enforcers,” Drago said, and Raegan nodded.

  “There is that, I suppose. If Her Ladyship tries to poach him I’ll tell her he’s better off where he is, under observation, in case another of Gorash’s goons decides they need some magical backup.”

  “I wouldn’t hold your breath,” Drago advised. “They’re bound to know he’s been compromised. They’ll go somewhere else.”

  “Unless they decide he’s a potential liability,” Raegan said. He shrugged. “And if you won’t be the bait again . . .”

  “Good luck with that,” Drago said. Personally, he couldn’t see any point in trying to take out Swiftwind, who’d already told the watch everything he knew and a good deal he could only guess at, but the murky world of covert political action was new territory for him. He was used to taking down scofflaws like Fallowfield, who were easy to find and relatively easy to handle, with a guaranteed payday at the end of it.

  “You’re the one needing the luck,” Raegan said, with more confidence than he probably felt.

  “I’m happy to share it,” Drago said. “I take it you’ve got eyes on Greenleaf, as he’s the only other bugger we know in either faction?” If so, he’d have to move even more carefully in approaching the elf; Greenleaf was no fool, and if he caught sight of a lurking watchman in the vicinity of their meeting, he’d be bound to assume Drago was working with the city authorities now. Which, now he came to think of it, wasn’t far from the truth. Shame he wasn’t getting paid for it.

  “I wish.” Raegan shook his head. “Her Ladyship says to keep him at arm’s length. Either the council have their own people on it, or she doesn’t want him to know you’ve been talking to us.”

  “Probably both,” Drago said, trying to sound unconcerned. “Be seeing you.”

  “Try not to end up in the river,” Raegan said, actually sounding as though he meant it.

  The Haberdasher’s Guild was in the mercantile quarter, a couple of islands farther upstream, and on the opposite bank of the river. Drago took his time on the journey, leaving the Wharfside district over the main bridge to the North, dodging a steady stream of carts and sweating stevedores moving in both directions as he crossed the carriageway, and pausing to watch the skiffs and cargo barges passing underneath along the almost equally crowded canal. He loitered a number of times after that, purchasing a sausage in a bun from a street vendor, browsing a few market stalls which appeared to catch his interest, and ducking once into a convenient alley to relieve himself. Every time he paused in his journey he glanced around with apparent casualness, but if he was being followed or observed, he could see no sign of it.

  Which didn’t mean no one was there, of course. He’d trailed enough people himself to be aware of how easy it was to blend into the crowds along the main thoroughfares. Nevertheless, sooner or later he’d have to take a chance. Moving as casually as he could, he took to one of the narrow gaps between buildings none of the larger races could conveniently traverse. Now, if someone was after him, they’d have to tip their hand by attempting to follow, and he was confident he could outpace a goblin, elf or human easily in these cramped con
ditions.

  Unless they knew this part of the city better than he did, which was quite likely so far from his home turf, and were able to cut him off . . .

  He dismissed the thought; there was nothing to be gained by spooking himself, and he’d either be safe or he wouldn’t. A couple more twists and turns, and he found himself back on the streets, a narrow lane running alongside one of the minor canals this time. There were fewer people about here, and a couple of heads turned, registering the presence of a stranger, but no one seemed concerned enough to challenge him. Good. If he stood out, so would anyone following him, and he’d get a clear heads-up from the body language of the locals.

  A couple of dozen yards ahead, a ramshackle wooden staircase descended toward the water. As he approached it, a pair of humans trotted up from the landing stage at the bottom, making the timbers shake, linked arms, and ambled off in the opposite direction, their attention so clearly on one another that they probably wouldn’t have noticed the approaching gnome unless they tripped over him.

  Drago descended a little more cautiously, the treads of the stairway flexing beneath his feet. As he’d expected, a couple of skiffs were tied up there, wallowing gently in the wash of the larger vessels being poled down the narrow waterway by their crews, or propelled with rather more splashing and profanity by rear-mounted paddle wheels turned by trudging convicts.

  “Where to, guvnor?” The nearest boatman unfastened his painter at the first sight of a potential customer. The other shrugged, content to go on munching his docky while he flirted with a deckhand on a passing barge.

  “Woolen Wharf,” Drago said, stepping aboard, and adjusting his balance instinctively as the boat rocked. Pretty much anyone native to Fairhaven had that particular knack.

  “No problem.” The boatman pushed off from the landing stage with practiced ease, and began pulling away with smooth strokes of the oars. “Shouldn’t take long. Tide’s coming in.”

  “Good.” Drago kept an eye on the receding shoreline. No one seemed remotely interested in his departure, but he didn’t feel entirely at ease until the little boat was well out into the main channel, the mast and sail had been raised, and they were scudding across the water toward the far bank.

  The docks in the mercantile quarter were occupied almost entirely by riverboats, all but the smallest seagoing vessels having too deep a draught to navigate this far upriver, but the traffic was constant, and the skiff bearing Drago across the water had to weave and tack several times to avoid a collision. As well as the riverboats, and innumerable small craft like his own, this portion of the Geltwash was crowded with barges, transferring cargoes between the riverboat staithes and the ocean-going wharves downstream. Nevertheless, the boatman managed to bring the little skiff alongside a landing stage almost identical to the one they’d set out from without mishap.

  “Mind how you go,” he said cheerfully, pocketing the coins Drago had given him, and already extending a welcoming smile to a prosperous-looking merchant and her amanuensis descending the steps toward them. The most superfluous advice Drago had received in a long time, but he nodded affably in response, and began climbing the treads toward the street. As usual, they’d been spaced for a human stride, but he climbed them quickly, springing from one step to another as easily as ascending the stairs to his room at Mrs. Cravatt’s.

  Finding the Clothiers’ Guildhall turned out to be simple enough, despite his relative unfamiliarity with this part of the city. As its name implied, the Woolen Wharf was where the vast majority of fleeces and fabrics arrived in Fairhaven from farther upstream, and the Clothiers had built their guildhall where they could inspect the incoming cargoes and haggle over their worth with the minimum of delay and inconvenience. Though the building was no taller than the warehouses which surrounded it, and perhaps a little more modest in the amount of space it took up, no expense had been spared on its ornamentation: eloquent testimony to the wealth of the guild and its members, and therefore their importance in the eyes of the city. Not to mention themselves, which was probably the real point.

  Drago refused to be impressed by anything other than good food and fighting skill, so he plodded up to the doors without a glance in the direction of the ornately carved figures of various races apparently propping the place up, other than to note that they all seemed surprisingly underdressed considering the commodity being bought and sold there.

  “That’s far enough, shortarse.” A big human, in a garish livery which made him resemble nothing so much as an overstuffed sofa, stuck out an officious hand to bar his progress through the open door. Well-dressed gentlemen and ladies of several species were filing in and out, including a couple of gnomes who glanced at Drago with barely concealed contempt, all ignoring the doorman as though he was little more than another superfluous embellishment to the fabric of the building. Perhaps, to them, he was. “The likes of you go round the back.”

  “The likes of me go wherever they damn well please,” Drago said evenly. “Now go and find Master Greenleaf of the Sylvan Marches, and tell him Drago Appleroot would like a word.” He shifted his weight in a seemingly casual manner, which wasn’t lost on his suddenly far less confident interlocutor. Doing this just so happened to leave his hand resting lightly on his scabbard, where it could pull backwards away from the blade if he needed to draw his sword quickly. Taking the sheath back as he drew the weapon forward would drastically cut the time needed to ready the weapon. Not that he would; the man barring his way was all bluster, clearly recognized a seasoned fighter when he saw one, and instantly became more deferential.

  “Do you have an appointment?” the man asked, trying to back away without seeming to, and failing dismally.

  “I wasn’t aware I needed one,” Drago said, masking a smile. “But I’m sure he’ll see me.” He allowed a peremptory edge to creep into his voice. “And I don’t have all day.”

  “Of course not.” The doorman didn’t quite call him sir, but the impulse was undoubtedly there.

  “Good.” Drago strode past him into the cool shadows of the entrance hall. Wood-paneled walls, an ornate staircase, even more encrusted with carvings than the exterior of the building, and a series of closed doors met his eyes, along with curious glances from the dozen or so people passing through it on business of their own. He dug a copper coin from his purse, of a denomination just the right side of insultingly low, and lobbed it at the liveried functionary, who caught it by reflex. “Then get moving.”

  The doorman did, leaving Drago to muse on just how easy it was to get people to do what you wanted by acting as if they didn’t really have a choice.

  “This is an unexpected surprise.” Greenleaf descended the stairs a moment or two later with a welcoming smile, the doorman hovering a couple of paces behind until they reached the floor, whereupon he bolted for his place by the entrance, leaving the elf to talk to Drago alone. If he was curious about what business so ill-matched a pair might have together he gave no sign of it, but Greenleaf ushered the bounty hunter into a comfortably furnished side room and closed the door before saying anything else nevertheless. “May I ask what you’re doing here?”

  “I sent you a message,” Drago said, wondering for a moment if his faith in Mrs. Cravatt’s ability to disburse funds on his behalf had been a little on the optimistic side. But Greenleaf nodded, settling himself comfortably in a well-padded chair, before favoring Drago with a quizzical tilt of his head. The gnome remained standing; all the seats he could see would have required clambering into, and were so thickly upholstered that he would have had to fight his way out again. Not at all a good place to be, if things turned out badly.

  “So you did. You’re reconsidering my proposition.” The tone was light, but the eyes fixed on him were hard and calculating. “May I ask why?”

  “Because Gorash’s rabble keep trying to kill me,” Drago said. “And if I am going to die because they think I’m working for you, I might as well spend as much of your money as I can in the meantime.”
<
br />   The elf permitted himself a slight chuckle, which sounded genuinely amused. “Not quite the answer I was expecting, to be honest. But I can see why you might think that.”

  “Then what were you expecting?” Drago asked.

  Greenleaf shrugged. “Honestly? Lies and evasions, intended to obscure your real objective.”

  “Which would be?” Drago wondered why no one connected with this business could ever say what they meant. Whatever you might think about Clement Wethers, and plenty of people thought a great deal, there was never any of this dancing around the point with him. It was just “That little toe rag’s getting too cocky by half. Go and give him a slap,” followed swiftly by the agreement of a fee.

  “I’m sure the city authorities are well aware by now that my people are looking for someone like you to do the job we discussed, and that our previous choices have been prevented from completing their commissions,” Greenleaf said. “In their place, I’d want someone reporting back to me about their activities. Who better than a local bounty hunter I’d already approached, having a sudden change of mind after an initial refusal?”

  “Pretty much anyone?” Drago countered. He locked eyes with the elf for a moment, knowing Greenleaf would be the first to blink. Having eyes adapted to low light levels was a big help in that regard. “The only reason I’m doing this is because it’s Gorash or me now, and it’s not going to be me if I can help it. Blame his own people for not letting it drop after I turned you down.”

  “Of course. And Lady Selina suggesting you change your mind never even entered into it.” The elf’s smile was open, friendly, and about as trustworthy as a come-on from a lamia.

  “Who?” Drago asked, being careful not to overplay his hand. Greenleaf was just guessing, he was certain of that, and if he wasn’t, there was nothing he could do about it anyway. He’d heard enough lies and excuses in his line of work to know that the more you say, the less convincing it sounds.