Weapon of Blood

by Chris A. Jackson

  “It is indeed. Best investment I ever made was to marry my barmaid Josie. She added womanly touches, like these comfortable seats for lounging by the fire.” He patted the arm of his chair as if it was a pet, then gestured to the young man at the door. “And her nephews, Ponce and Tika, are like a couple of dervishes! Took to the business like ducks to water.”

  “I noticed. Congratulations on your marriage.”

  “Thank you, Captain.” Forbish nodded gratefully, though his smile remained strained. “But you didn’t come here just to look in on my business, I’ll wager.”

  “You’re right on that account.” Norwood glanced around. Two tables of patrons were within hearing, so he kept the subject ambiguous for now. No need to start rumors flying by mentioning a murder where others could hear. “I need to speak with both you and your daughter, in a private room if you have one available. A matter has come up that might be linked to that other affair she was involved with.”

  Forbish’s eyes went wide for a moment, then he gestured to his guests. “We’re very busy, Captain.”

  “It won’t take long.” Norwood kept his voice light, remembering how Forbish balked at a heavy hand. The last thing he wanted was for the man to clam up. “Only a few questions.”

  “I’d just as soon not bring Wiggen into this, Captain. We’ve put those happenings behind us and moved on. She’s married now and has a little daughter of her own, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know. Congratulations again.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  “But I’m afraid I must insist that I speak with her.” He edged his words with a bit more steel. “It won’t take a moment, and I’ll be happy to compensate you for your time.”

  Forbish bit his lip and finally nodded. “Very well, Captain.” He stood and waved Tika over. The young man arrived with an eager grin on his face. “Show Captain Norwood to the small private room. I’ll get Wiggen and join you shortly, Captain.”

  “I’ll just bring along your blackbrew and biscuits, milord. It’d be a sin not to finish such delicious fare.” Tika picked up the tray with all the aplomb of a high-class waiter and gestured toward a hall off the back of the common room. “Just this way if you please.”

  “Thank you, Forbish,” Norwood said as he moved to follow the young man.

  “You can thank me by not upsetting my daughter overmuch if you can avoid it, Captain.” Forbish wrung his hands on his apron. “As I said, we’ve all moved on from those horrible times.”

  “I’ll be as gentle as I can be, I assure you.” He honestly didn’t want to upset the girl, but he was going to get what he came for.

  *

  “What does he want?” Wiggen hitched Lissa up on her hip and continued stirring the huge pot of soup. The babe was fussy today, and every time Wiggen put her down, she rattled the dishes with her cries.

  “He’s just got a few questions for you, Wiggen.”

  Wiggen looked to her father and, despite the heat of the stove, felt a shiver of apprehension up her spine. She had hoped never to see Captain Norwood again.

  “He said something’s come up that might be related to that business with Lad a few years ago. Nothing to do with us, or so he says.” As Forbish leaned past her to move the pot to the back of the stove, she noticed a slight tremble in his hands. He was nervous. “The soup’ll be fine for a few minutes.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him, Father.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “What if he asks about Lad?”

  “As far as he knows, Lad’s dead.” He pulled gently on her arm. “Come on. I’ve already told him you’d give him a word. Putting it off will only make him mad.”

  “Oh, I’ll give him a few choice words!” She didn’t mean to snap at her father, but dealing with a fussy baby while attending to her work already had her nerves pinched so tight she felt like a bowstring ready to snap.

  “Wiggen, try not to make him angry.”

  “I won’t make him angry if he doesn’t make me angry, Father.”

  “Fine, but keep in mind that if he makes you angry, you can’t lock him up in a dungeon. He can, and has.”

  She scowled, but acknowledged his point. She had vivid memories of the dungeon beneath the headquarters of the Royal Guard. Reluctantly, she followed her father to the private room.

  Captain Norwood sat close to the small stove, sipping a cup of blackbrew and munching on an almond cookie. At first glance, he looked unintimidating, merely a middle-aged man with a slight paunch and a receding hairline. His Royal Guard uniform and the long blade at his hip shattered that image.

  He stood as they entered, brushing crumbs from his jacket with a sheepish smile. “Excuse me. I rarely eat sweets, and these are very good. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me, Wiggen.”

  “I’m glad you like the cookies, Captain.” Wiggen nodded in acknowledgement instead of curtseying as she should to a man of Norwood’s stature. Forbish shot a strained look at her, but she ignored him.

  “And this must be the daughter I’ve heard about. She’s adorable.”

  Wiggen softened for a moment, as she did whenever someone admired her baby, but then stiffened her resolve. He was just buttering her up with kind words, using Lissa to get her cooperation. She refused to rise to the bait. Instead, she bounced the baby on her hip, and brushed a hand over the silken little head as if to comfort the child.

  “Yes, she’s adorable, except when she’s fussing and insists that I carry her around on my hip all day while we’re dreadfully busy with a room full of guests, soup to stir, and biscuits still to be made for this evening.” She sharpened her words with annoyance. She didn’t want to anger him so much that he arrested her again, but she wasn’t going to be intimidated.

  His smile faded a trifle. “Yes, Forbish said you were busy, so I’ll get right to the point. There’s been a murder north of the river, a wizard named Vonlith.”

  He paused as if expecting some reaction or comment from her. She raised an eyebrow, wondering what this had to do with her. “I don’t generally kill wizards, Captain, but I might make an exception if they interrupt me in the middle of work and taking care of a fussy baby.”

  He smiled tightly. “I wasn’t suggesting that you had killed him, but I thought you might know the name.”

  “No, Captain. I’ve never heard the name before.”

  Norwood pulled a small book from the inside pocket of his jacket and flipped through the pages. “I’m asking you because we have evidence linking Vonlith to Saliez. That is a name I’m sure you remember.”

  Wiggen nodded and hitched Lissa farther up onto her hip. “Yes, I remember, Captain. But he’s dead. Why should you care if this Vonlish had anything to do with him?”

  “It’s Vonlith, not Vonlish,” he said with another tight-lipped smile. “A relationship with Saliez would suggest that he was working for the Assassins Guild, which might give us a hint why he was murdered. At the time, we thought that Saliez might have contracted a wizard to put the binding magic back on the boy you told us about”—he looked at his notebook—“Lad. Unfortunately, the wizard was gone when we raided Saliz’s estate. We just found out that the wagon in Saliez’s courtyard belonged to Master Vonlith.”

  Wiggen looked the captain straight in the eye, summoning the strength to steady her shaking knees at the mention of Lad. He had never told her the name of the wizard who had inked the neat row of runes down his chest. “So you already know that this Vonlith was involved with Saliez. Why ask me about it?”

  “To determine if you knew why Saliez contracted the wizard.”

  “You just told me you already know that, too, Captain. I never heard the name Vonlith until you asked me. Frankly, if he worked for the Assassins Guild, it’s no wonder he was killed.”

  “But our assumption came from what you told me about Lad.” He flipped through pages in his notebook. “That a wizard put magic on him to make him kill those nobles.”

  “Yes, I did tell you that, Captain, but the only
wizard Lad ever mentioned to me was the one who gave him the magic when he was a boy, and that wizard was apparently killed before Lad even arrived in Twailin.”

  “Yes, that is in my notes here.”

  “Then it should also be in your notes that I told you Lad was dead, and that I didn’t mention a wizard named Vonlith.” Wiggen took a deep breath, fighting to stay calm. “I’m sorry Captain, but I really can’t help you. Forgive me if I’m upset. I’ve tried very hard to forget what happened back then, and you’ve just dredged it all up again.”

  “Now, Wiggen. Don’t be like that.” Forbish put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “He’s just trying to solve a murder. He’s not accusing you of anything.”

  “I’m sorry.” Norwood at least had the decency to look chagrined as he tucked his notebook into a pocket. “Your father’s right, I’m not accusing anyone here of anything. If you know nothing of Vonlith, I won’t waste any more of your time. Thank you for your hospitality.” He gulped a final swallow of his blackbrew, and plucked the last cookie from the plate as he reached into a pocket and pulled out a silver crown.

  Forbish raised a hand to forestall the payment. “There’s no need, Captain.”

  Norwood flipped the coin onto the tray anyway. “For your trouble, then.”

  Wiggen felt like screaming by the time her father ushered the captain out of the room. She dropped into the chair as her knees gave out, and hugged Lissa to her breast. They had thought themselves safe from the Royal Guard. If Norwood ever realized that Lad was alive, he wouldn’t rest until they hanged him for the deaths of all those nobles. Fear for him, of losing him again, felt like a crushing weight on her chest. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to take deep breaths, to still her mind as Lad had taught her. Eventually, her heart slowed and her muddled thoughts cleared.

  Once she was sure that her legs would support her, she stood, hitched her daughter up on her hip, and picked up the blackbrew tray with a practiced motion. “Well, we’ve certainly got something to tell your daddy tonight, don’t we, Lissa?”

  Lissa looked up at her mother with wide uncomprehending eyes, her father’s eyes, and smiled. Wiggen kissed her cheek, wishing she could share the babe’s blissful ignorance.

  Hensen propped his feet upon the hearth, upon the very same stones where Captain Norwood’s boots had rested only hours before. The master thief had been more than startled when his long-standing nemesis walked into the Tap and Kettle’s common room, but Puc, the God of luck, must have been smiling on him. The captain had barely spared him a glance before talking with Forbish, and then withdrew into a back room with the innkeeper and his scar-faced daughter. Hensen had been unable to overhear their conversation, but that was all right; his spies in the Royal Guard would let him know what the good captain was currently investigating. But that would come later.

  Relaxing into the cushions, perversely pleased to be sitting where Norwood sat, Hensen basked in the warmth of the dying bed of coals. It felt good to be out of his house for a change, away from the damned account books, schedules, work assignments and contracts that took up all of his time and sapped his zeal for life. It had been years since he’d done any honest—dishonest, really—field work. Unable to resist the opportunity to stretch his legs and shake the dust off of his long-disused skills, he had slipped into all his old habits as easily as slipping into a pair of comfortable old shoes. He and Kiesha had checked into the inn that morning, a wealthy merchant in town for a few days with his young wife. Thanks to his subtle disguise, neither Forbish nor Norwood had shown a hint of recognition.

  Now he sat alone in the common room—all the guests, and even the staff, had long since retired for the night—an old book of poems in his lap illuminated by the lamp beside his chair. Next to the lamp sat a glass of red wine, but he had not sipped it in hours. In fact, his whole posture was feigned; he wasn’t reading, drinking, sleeping, or lost in thought.

  Hensen was waiting for someone.

  Just past midnight, when his spirits began to flag with the notion that his hunch might have been wrong, the kitchen door opened. Hensen’s eyes flicked up even as he maintained his scholarly pose, his head bent over his book as if rapt in the verse.

  A young man entered the common room wrapped in a robe. He strode across the floor, his movements as fluid as water on a sheet of glass, his steps utterly silent. If not for the creak of the door opening, Hensen might have missed his passage entirely.

  It was him. The weapon.

  A thrill of fear raced up Hensen’s spine, an occurrence so unusual that it nearly broke his feigned composure. All his life, the thief had trod carefully around the Assassins Guild, reluctant to stir the ire of its cruel master. Yet this young man, or so the rumor ran according to Sereth, had managed to kill Saliez. The master thief would need all of his skills if he wanted to leave this chair alive.

  Hensen flipped a page of his book and reached out to pick up his glass of wine, pretending not to notice the weapon’s silent appearance. The wine didn’t ripple in the glass, his false calm intact. Draining the small amount of liquid left, he looked up to set the glass aside, feigning surprise at the sight of his visitor. Hensen stifled a start of unease at the faintly luminous eyes, like a cat’s, staring at him.

  “Good evening.” Hensen raised his glass in toast and smiled. Calm, smooth, easy, he thought.

  “Sir.” The young man nodded politely and stepped closer, so that the light from Hensen’s lamp illuminated his face. The luminosity of his eyes faded. It must have been a reflection from the lamp.

  Not quite the same as the portrait, but undeniably the same young man.

  “Can I get you anything before I retire?”

  “How kind of you to offer.” The thief raised his glass. “Another spot of the grape would not go amiss. My insomnia is acting up, and wine, I’m afraid, is the only means I have to get to sleep.”

  “Of course.” He vanished into the kitchen and returned with a chilled carafe of wine. “Here you are.”

  “You’re a godsend, my boy.” The young man—the weapon, Hensen reminded himself— leaned down to fill his glass, his motions smooth and sure. Hensen watched intently, memorizing every curve, every dimple and scar. He knew the weapon could kill him in an instant, yet still the wine in his glass did not ripple. His nerves tingled with the exhilaration of the danger. He felt more alive than he had in years. Hensen sipped, trying not to stare at the grace and beauty of the weapon as he placed the carafe on the table. “You must be Master Forbish’s son-in-law.”

  “Yes.” The weapon smiled, which was nearly as disturbing as his uncanny perfection. “My work keeps me out late, but it pays too well for me to quit.”

  “Difficult for a young father to be away from his bride and daughter, no doubt.” Hensen sipped his wine again, examining the subtle changes from the illustration he’d kept all these years.

  “It is hard, but I have little choice.” The weapon—he has a name, Hensen remembered. Lad—smiled again and nodded. “We all do what we must. Goodnight, sir.”

  “Goodnight.” Hensen watched him go, relishing that last glimpse of supple grace, and wondering if Lad’s uncanny eyes had pierced his disguise. If they had, he could very well be dead by morning. He leaned back in the chair and closed his book. He had put himself in unwarranted danger here, and for what? To get a closer look at something far beyond his ken. Well, after tonight, he would consider his own safety above his curiosity. I’ve operatives for this kind of thing, for the Gods’ sake! He would station them to watch over Lad, fulfilling the terms of the contract without risking his life again.

  I should leave first thing in the morning, before he can see me again. But then Hensen remembered the look of Lad’s light hazel eyes in the lamplight, so clear, so beautiful that they took his breath away. Perhaps leaving too early would draw attention. We’ll leave immediately after breakfast, he decided, feeling sure that Lad would make an appearance. Kiesha must see him as well, he rationalized, sipping his wine
and staring into the dying embers at his feet.

  “Such a lovely young man…”

  Chapter X

  Good morning, sleepyhead.” Lad handed Wiggen the cup of steaming blackbrew he had just poured. He had heard her shuffling across the common room before she entered the kitchen, and thought it best to greet her properly.

  The sun had not yet risen outside the kitchen window, so it wasn’t really morning yet, but the glow of the kitchen lamps seemed dimmer with the lightening sky. Lad had suggested they let Wiggen sleep an extra half hour, since he knew she’d been up twice feeding Lissa since he came home. Lissa gurgled and reached out for her mother, but Lad murmured sweet nothings into her ear to calm her down. Wiggen took the cup and rubbed her eyes, looking more tired than usual.

  “What’s good about it?” Wiggen sipped the strong brew and closed her eyes. “Ahh, that’s good. I may just survive.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Lad bounced the sleepy babe on his hip as he steered Wiggen to a stool. “Forbish said you had a visit from Captain Norwood yesterday.”

  “Yes.” She sat down and took another sip of blackbrew, looking to her father. “Did you tell him everything?”

  “No, I thought you should.” Forbish shrugged and continued mixing dough for scones. “You were the one he wanted to talk to.”

  Lad sat quietly and waited for her to speak, hiding his impatience. Forbish’s nervous demeanor had him worried. He had been incredibly tight-lipped about the guard captain’s visit, deferring to Wiggen. In fact, the Royal Guard showing up at the inn at all had Lad worried. He’d have to talk with Mya about keeping up her part of their deal. Wiggen seemed less nervous than her father, but she was also still half asleep.

  “Norwood was investigating a murder. It wasn’t anything to do with us. Not directly, anyway. I nearly died when he mentioned you by name, but—”

  “He mentioned me?” Lad clenched his fist, but she put a calming hand on his arm.

  “Only in passing. He thought the murder might have had something to do with the Assassins Guild.”