The Black Bouquet

by Richard Lee Byers

  “Hold on,” Sefris interrupted. A sudden suspicion took hold of her. It was ridiculous, of course. The world was full of archers, and even if it wasn’t, no one but a magician or highly trained monk could have survived the fall from the top story of Aeron’s tower. Still, she had to ask. “This woman. Was she a good shot?”

  The blonde cocked her head as if puzzled by the question, but answered willingly enough, “She never missed.”

  “Describe her.”

  “Tall and slim, with curly brown hair chopped off short. She had on leather armor, and when she went into the shed, and the lamplight caught her, I saw it was dyed green.”

  Sefris felt astonished. She’d never been more certain of a kill, yet she had no doubt it was Miri the thrall had seen. Somehow, the guide was still alive and had joined forces with Aeron. If Sefris had examined the Red Axe corpses and recognized the arrow punctures for what they were, she might have suspected sooner.

  Yet what sense did it make? She assumed Aeron’s goal was to put so much pressure on Kesk that the tanarukk would be willing to undertake a fair exchange of Nicos for The Black Bouquet in order to put an end to the harassment. Miri presumably still wanted to deliver the formulary to whoever had bought it from Lord Quwen. How, then, could they possibly work together?

  When the answer came to Sefris, she couldn’t help smiling a fleeting but genuine smile, because it solved her problem. She didn’t need to scour the city looking for Aeron. She knew where he’d turn up sooner or later.

  Her companion cringed from the momentary change in her expression.

  “What is it?” whimpered the thrall.

  “It’s fine.” Sefris rose. “You told me what I needed to hear.”

  “Are you leaving?” asked the blonde. “You said you’d help me. Please, take pity on me.”

  “No,” Sefris said. “Shar teaches that nothing in the world deserves our pity, neither others nor ourselves.”

  Still, what she was about to do would be mercy, the only true mercy any being ever received. It was the thrall’s good fortune that her deliverer didn’t want her repeating their conversation to the Red Axes.

  All it took was a simple front snap kick. The ball of Sefris’s foot slammed into the blonde’s delicate chin, breaking her neck. She was dead before her yellow-haired head touched the floor.

  Despite the ease with which she’d managed it, Sefris found the kill particularly satisfying. She wasn’t sure why.

  Aeron peered at the crack between the wide double doors, then lightly pressed one of them with his palm.

  “Can you open it?” Miri whispered.

  She looked odd, and it wasn’t the olive pigment they’d both smeared on their skin to make themselves resemble half-orcs. He couldn’t see the color amid the darkness of the narrow cul-de-sac. Rather, it was the absence of a bow, quiver, and her distinctively dyed armor, which had seemed as much a part of her as her hands and feet.

  “No,” he said. “It doesn’t have a lock for me to pick, just a bar on the other side. However, the place does have a skylight.”

  He prowled along the warehouse wall, looking at a spot where the brick was cracked and pitted enough to provide some decent handholds. When he found it, he swarmed upward onto the slanted roof, where a night breeze wafted. The cool air felt strange on his newly shaved chin.

  It was easy to work a knife between the skylight and frame and pop the latch. The hard part would come after he slipped through. It was a thirty-foot drop to the floor. He’d had good luck lately surviving long falls relatively unscathed—it was about the only good fortune he’d enjoyed—but it would be mad to risk another unnecessarily.

  In other circumstances, he would have lowered a rope, but even if he’d had one, he wouldn’t have been able to leave it hanging down for someone to discover. So he gripped the protruding underside of a rafter. Clinging by the sheer strength of his fingers, Aeron inched along it until he could swing himself over the railing onto the loft that ran around the walls.

  He found the long hooked pole used to manipulate the skylight and swung it closed then skulked down the stairs. The warehouse was more empty than otherwise, a testimony to Imrys Skaltahar’s ability to move stolen goods quickly, but stacks of crates sat here and there, providing places to hide.

  Aeron unbarred the door, and resecured it once Miri slipped inside.

  “How in Fury’s Heart does this Skaltahar scoundrel get in and out?” she asked, peering warily around the interior of the building.

  “I imagine he has a private tunnel connecting the warehouse to the Hungry Haunting.”

  She considered a pile of boxes shrouded with a drop cloth, then gave him an inquiring glance. He nodded, and they crouched down behind it. After that, they had nothing to do but wait.

  It wore on his nerves, and maybe on hers as well, because eventually she whispered, “Nothing’s happening.”

  “It will. Here in Oeble, thieves move loot through the Underways whenever possible, but some things are just too big and heavy to drag around below ground. They have to go through the streets, and the Red Axes make a delivery to Imrys around this time every fifth day.”

  “How do you know?”

  Aeron just grinned.

  “All right,” she said, “but are you certain they won’t postpone it? After all, they’re looking for you, and trying to protect all their various enterprises, too. If the halflings are raiding them as promised, they should be feeling all the more inclined to pull in and stay safe.”

  “You’d think. But a gang chieftain like Kesk has to keep his operation running and the coin flowing, if only because otherwise it would make him look weak. He can’t afford that. He’s got rival organizations, the Gray Blades, and ambitious underlings all eager to strike at him if they think they see an opening.”

  “That makes sense, I suppose.” She was silent for a time then said, “Was I completely foolish, hoping Ombert would help us just because it’s the right thing to do? He said you rogues have a code.”

  “It’s not the same kind your guild evidently holds to. It doesn’t say you have to put your own hand on the chopping block to help out somebody else. It just says outlaws are supposed to deal fairly with one another.” He smiled ruefully and added, “Even so, we break the rules when it suits us.”

  “I’d be ashamed to tell people my name if I were content to live like that.”

  He wasn’t sure she’d aimed the barb specifically at him, but even so, it stung.

  “You’re so sure you know right from wrong,” he said, “but you work for this Lord Quwen, and according to Ombert, the bastard loves war. Maybe he’s going to use the gold he makes off the Bouquet to launch another campaign against his neighbors.”

  “He’s not! He told me himself, it’s to provide food and shelter for folk in need, just as, here in Oeble, the book will give a good many laborers a chance to live both comfortably and honestly.”

  He grinned and asked, “Do you believe everything people tell you?”

  She glared, but before she could retort, a hitherto concealed trapdoor in the plank floor swung upward, and she had the good sense to fall absolutely silent.

  A lantern in one hand and a scimitar hanging at his hip, Imrys Skaltahar climbed into view and closed the hatch. Oeble’s preeminent receiver of stolen goods was a square-built man with dark, watchful eyes. Time had stolen much of his hair, etched lines in his face, and begun to tug the flesh under his jaw into dewlaps, but he still had the lithe tread of the young bravo he’d started out as. He was simply but well dressed in an indigo buffin tunic and leather breeches.

  Imrys started drifting about, idly contemplating this heap of plunder or that, pulling the lid off a crate to look at the ivory tusks inside. Aeron’s mouth went dry. Somehow, when he’d conceived the plan, it hadn’t occurred to him that the fence might simply wander through the warehouse until he inevitably stumbled upon the intruders.

  Aeron assumed that together, he and Miri could overpower Imrys, but tha
t wasn’t the point. Any confrontation would ruin the plan, and even if matters were otherwise, he had no desire to raise his hand to a man who’d always treated him relatively well.

  Fortunately, before it could come to that, someone rapped on the door. Imrys unbarred it, and a wagon, drawn by a white horse and a black one, rolled inside. Tharag the bugbear held the reins, and an orc cradling a crossbow served as guard.

  Imrys shut the door behind them. After the three exchanged a few words, the Red Axes hopped down and unloaded some barrels from the back of the cart. From the ease with which they accomplished the task, it was plain the kegs were empty.

  They had to shift them, however, to more easily raise a hidden hatch of their own. The wagon bed was hollow, deeper than it looked, and held the actual shipment: cloth bundles that clanked or clattered when they lifted them out and set them on the floor.

  Imrys crouched to unwrap one, and a pungent scent of oil filled the air. Inside were gleaming sword blades. Evidently nobody had sharpened them yet, for he had no difficulty flexing one without cutting his hand. Poking with his index finger and muttering under his breath, he counted them, then turned his attention to the next bale, which proved to contain spear shafts.

  Tharag and the orc looked on as Imrys conducted his inspection, responding, as best they were able, to the fence’s shrewd observations regarding short counts and deficiencies in workmanship. Aeron was grateful to the older man for keeping the Red Axes occupied. It was the only reason his plan, which, since the moment had come to try it, looked harebrained even to Aeron, had even the slightest chance of working.

  He gave Miri a nod, and they glided forward, keeping low, using every available bit of cover. He was glad she moved as silently as any burglar he’d ever known. He supposed rangers had to master stealth to stalk game and goblin-kin through the woods.

  Imrys liked to cook for the patrons of his tavern, and was renowned for his tangy stews. Aeron’s path led him nearly within arm’s reach of the fence, so close that the scent of spice clinging to Imrys’s hands and clothes tickled his nose, and for a moment, he was afraid he was going to sneeze. He didn’t, though, and he and Miri reached the wagon without anyone looking up. Nor did the draught horses, stolid beasts of burden that they were, do anything to give them away.

  Aeron managed to crawl into the cramped interior of the wagon bed without making noise. Miri did almost as well, though once, when she’d squirmed most of the way in, the tip of her scabbard softly thumped the wood. Aeron winced, but Imrys and the Axes didn’t react.

  Aeron and Miri lay in the claustrophobic space like corpses in a coffin built for two, and he wondered how they could defend themselves if discovered. He’d just about concluded it would be impossible when Imrys completed his inventory and declared exactly how much he was willing to pay.

  Tharag objected in a desultory fashion, even invoked the threat of Kesk’s displeasure, but then accepted the offer. The fact was, even the Red Axes found Imrys too useful to risk alienating him over an everyday sort of transaction.

  And to a thief operating outside the gangs, the fence’s good will was all but indispensable. If Imrys ever found out Aeron had used him as an unwitting tool in a quarrel with Kesk, the consequences could be severe. Yet with his father’s life in jeopardy, and schemes for rescuing him in short supply, he hadn’t seen another choice.

  Tharag laboriously counted Imrys’s coin, and the orc slammed the hatch shut without looking inside. The boards above Aeron’s face groaned a little as the Red Axes reloaded the empty casks. Then, axles creaking, the wagon began to roll. The wood was hard against the thief’s back, and felt harder still when the cart’s progress bounced him up and down.

  Miri’s voice murmured from the darkness, softly enough that the Red Axes wouldn’t hear it over the noise made by their horses and conveyance, “Suppose they don’t bother to unload the barrels when they get back to the mansion. How are we supposed to climb out of here without jostling them around and making a lot of noise?”

  “I don’t know,” Aeron answered. “I knew about the trick wagon, but I kind of forgot about the kegs.”

  “How clever of you.”

  “We’ll manage, all right? If you don’t like this idea, what was your cunning plan?”

  She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. Barrels or no, this is a better scheme than any I was able to devise, and I shouldn’t find fault.”

  “Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to attempt it alone, and glad you know how to creep. You have the makings of an able cutpurse or housebreaker.”

  She snorted and said, “Thanks so much. I imagine someone could make a passable woodsman of you. If you were willing to stop depending on all those little knives and invest the time and effort to learn to use real weapons.”

  “I guess if I learned to draw a bow, I could kill people from a long way off, when they had no way of fighting back.”

  “I told you, I took no joy in shooting your friends.”

  “I know,” he said with a sigh. “You were only doing your job, and they knew the risks. I just miss them, is all.”

  “I understand. I’ve lost my share of comrades.”

  “Who knows, maybe I’ve already lost my father, too. He’s frail. If Kesk tortured him the way he said, he may have killed him without even meaning to.”

  Groping in the blackness, Miri found his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

  “Don’t dwell on such thoughts,” she said. “Focus on practical matters: how to accomplish the task at hand, and what to do after.”

  “Right. Once we get him out, he’ll probably need a healer. We can take him to Ilmater’s house, but I don’t think he or I should spend another night there. When someone’s after you, it’s often safer to keep moving around. I have one more person I trust. Her name is Naneetha Dalaeve, and—”

  “And she owns the Talondance,” finished Miri, in the tone of one reluctantly delivering bad news. “She gave up your name to Sefris. It was how we traced you to your garret.”

  “Shadows of Mask, why would she do that?”

  “It’s not important. What matters is that your friendship is no great secret, and if someone could make her betray you once, the same thing could happen again. If I were you, I’d find somewhere else to hide, or another way to be safe. Let me help you with that, too.”

  “You mean, you’ll ask the same rich bastard I robbed in the first place to protect me?”

  “By all accounts, he’s an honorable per—”

  “‘By all accounts,’” Aeron broke in. “You’ve never even met him, have you?”

  “Well, no, only his representatives, but …”

  “Thanks, anyway, but Father and I will take our chances on our own. You just keep your mouth shut about exactly who stole the Bouquet, or helped you recover it, for that matter.”

  After that, the conversation lagged, and Aeron felt a black mood coming on. Even sweet, unworldly Naneetha, who doted on tales of chivalrous heroes and pure damsels faithful unto death, had sold him out. It was even more of a shock than Burgell’s treachery.

  But Miri was right, it was not the time to brood about it. He struggled to shake off the hurt and concentrate on his immediate concerns, on how he and the scout would locate Nicos, then escape Kesk’s stronghold alive.

  The wagon accelerated and slowed, turned periodically. Aeron found it impossible to judge how much time had passed or how far the conveyance had traveled since the Red Axes drove it out of the warehouse. His discomfort and trepidation made it feel like hours. Finally, though, the cart rumbled to a stop. He listened as, judging from what he could hear, Tharag and the orc climbed down from their seat and unhitched the horses. After that, everything was quiet.

  “Now?” Miri breathed.

  “A little longer,” he replied.

  He counted off twenty heartbeats, then squirmed around until he could reach the catch that held the hidden panel down.

  Even working blind, it was chi
ld’s play to pop it open. When he raised the hatch, however, the barrels on top slid, toppled, and clunked hollowly together. He’d expected it, but scowled at the noise even so.

  He’d only raised the panel a few inches. Plainly, if he shoved it all the way back, the casks would fall and bang around even more.

  “Hold this,” he said.

  Aeron dragged himself out through the narrow gap. When he got his feet under him and looked around, he discovered he was in Kesk’s stable. Horses and mules eyed him from their stalls, but no Red Axes were in view. Evidently the kegs hadn’t made enough of a racket to attract attention.

  He held the hatch for Miri while she wriggled free. She pointed to a door that apparently led to the main body of the mansion. He gave her a nod.

  The interior of the sprawling house was gloomy. Only a few of the lamps were burning, and due to the mild autumn weather, most of the hearths were cold. Still, enough light shone for even human eyes to make out the dirt and other signs of neglect, and naturally, the dimness did nothing to cover up the smell of mildew.

  Neither Aeron nor his father was much of a housekeeper. That had been his mother’s province until she passed away unexpectedly in her sleep, worn out, perhaps, by worrying over her son’s embrace of the outlaw life and her husband’s infirmities. But then again, he’d never lived anywhere fancy, and his own slovenly habits notwithstanding, he still felt a twinge of disgust at Kesk for letting such a palace gradually crumble into ruin.

  But what mattered was that the mansion was quiet. Aeron knew it wasn’t deserted. The tanarukk wouldn’t have left his coffers of gold and stores of loot and contraband entirely unguarded. But from the sound of it, most of the Red Axes were off hunting Aeron, or standing watch over their various interests throughout the city, and that meant his scheme might actually work.

  “Which way?” Miri whispered.

  He shook his head and replied, “I’ve never been inside here before. They could be keeping my father anywhere. We’ll just have to look.”