Windsinger

by A. F. E. Smith

  If Caraway had taken it seriously – if he’d tried to find her that afternoon – then maybe he’d have prevented one murder as well as solving another. Instead, he’d decided it could wait until she was back … and that very same night, she’d been killed.

  Of course, it could be a tragic coincidence. Yet when he’d first heard of the ambassador’s death, he’d thought to himself that when it came to dead men, there was no such thing as coincidence – and that went for dead women, too. He couldn’t recall another time that a servant from Darkhaven had been killed, either during his time in the Helm under Captain Travers or in the past six years since he’d taken on the captaincy. In fact, setting aside the rash of fatal shootings, murder wasn’t all that common in Arkannen generally. Injuries of all kinds, certainly – people didn’t seem happy unless they were racing or brawling or blowing themselves up with unstable machinery. But not death.

  Surely it wasn’t paranoia to surmise that these two murders, a Kardise ambassador and a Darkhaven maid, were connected.

  And in that case, he needed to find out what Hana had known that was so significant, so incriminating, that it had required her death. Uncover that, and maybe it would lead him to the longed-for proof that Ayla wasn’t guilty.

  He also needed to find out why no-one had told him Hana was missing.

  When he got back to the tower, he went straight in search of Diann Rawleigh. He found her in her living room, making entries in the ledger that held the household accounts, but she rose to her feet as soon as she saw him and gave the very tiny curtsey that she reserved for him and Ayla alone. Caraway suspected she considered herself to be the third most important person in Darkhaven – and she was probably right, at that. As a Helmsman, he had known very little of the day-to-day running of the tower, and cared even less; but as Ayla’s husband, he was fully aware of how much work it took to put food on multiple tables multiple times a day, launder clothing and bedsheets, and keep every room in the rambling maze that was Darkhaven clean, warm and illuminated. It was a logistical problem no less complex than waging a war, only it never came to an end. And the men of Darkhaven – the Helm, the physician, the handful of clerks and officials – very rarely noticed it. To them, the people who served their meals, washed their linen and cleaned their floors were barely more than invisible.

  It wasn’t just the men. Ayla didn’t see them either.

  Before I admitted Ree to the Helm, you told me it was lonely not having any other women in Darkhaven, he’d said to her once. But there have always been women here. The maids. The kitchen staff. The housekeeper.

  She’d given him a blank look. They’re servants, Tomas.

  It was the first time she’d ever said something that made him genuinely angry. He had to swallow several heated responses before managing to say, quite mildly, If it comes to that, so am I.

  You’re my husband.

  I was your employee first.

  Perhaps hearing some of his imperfectly suppressed emotion in his voice, she studied his face for a long, silent moment before replying.

  After my mother died, there was a girl … Lily, her name was, like the flower. She was my maid. She spoke to me kindly a few times, when I’d been crying and couldn’t hide it. We became … not exactly friends, I suppose, but close enough to hold a proper conversation. Sometimes she’d come to my room when she’d finished her daily duties and I’d finished my lessons, and we’d talk … A half-smile touched Ayla’s face, then faded again. When my father found out, he sent her away. Just like that. She had nowhere to go, no other job to take, and he had her thrown out of Darkhaven with no more than the clothes she was wearing.

  Ayla –

  I argued with him, of course. I told him it wasn’t her fault, she was just doing as I asked her. I told him I’d needed a friend. He said, ‘We don’t have friends, Ayla. We have subjects. And the sooner you accept that, the happier you’ll be.’

  Caraway nodded. I understand.

  I’m not sure you do, Tomas. She took his hand in tacit apology for the contradiction. I’m doing the best I can to be a good person and a good overlord, but those two things aren’t always the same. I can’t be friendly with the servants. A little more so with the Helm, but even there I have to keep my distance.

  But –

  I was brought up to set myself apart. To believe I was better than everyone else. Her laugh had a jagged edge to it. Not as good as my father or Myrren, of course – not as good as a pure-blood – but still a Nightshade. And whether I believe it or not, I have to behave that way. Because that’s what everyone expects of me! I have to be separate, and I have to be feared. Otherwise people will stop believing in my right to rule them, and that’s as sure a way to end the Nightshade line as any.

  Caraway had turned the subject, then, and let that particular conversation die. The truth was, he understood better than she thought. He was, after all, married to her. Their relationship might be one of equality in private, but in public he deferred to her as her Captain of the Helm should. He was well aware of both the difficulty and the importance of maintaining appearances. Yet he couldn’t help but feel that there was a difference between keeping a proper distance and treating people as if they were no more than furniture. No … that wasn’t quite fair. Ayla was polite to her staff. If they had problems or grievances, she listened to them and treated them fairly. But she didn’t care about them, not in the way she cared about Bryan and Miles and some of the younger Helmsmen.

  He couldn’t fault her for it, really, on a practical level. She had a whole country to protect. But his responsibility was limited to Darkhaven, and as such, he couldn’t help but care.

  For that reason, he got Rawleigh to sit down before breaking the news, as gently as he could, of Hana’s death. He had seen her react to various disasters before with a remarkable degree of calmness, so he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t cry or even make a sound. What he hadn’t expected, though, was the averted gaze and the flush of colour staining her cheeks. She was upset, yes, but she also felt guilty.

  He didn’t press her on it, merely talked through the details and whether anyone might need to be notified. It was only as the conversation drew to a close that Rawleigh’s lips pressed together briefly, as if she had made up her mind to an unpleasant task, and she said, ‘Captain Caraway? There is something I need to tell you.’

  He gave her an encouraging smile, and waited.

  ‘Two days ago, it was Hana’s day off. She should have returned to the tower that evening, ready for work the next day, but as I understand it she … ah, she didn’t. Another of the maids, Sia, came to me yesterday morning and told me that Hana hadn’t returned. I told her to wait a little longer – it happens from time to time, that a servant disappears on us, and usually it’s because they’ve fallen ill or enjoyed their time off rather more than they should have. Nothing more serious than that.

  ‘Anyway, Sia came back at the end of the day. Hana still hadn’t showed up. Sia was worried, so I told her I’d take it up with you or with Lady Ayla …’ The housekeeper hesitated for only a fraction of a moment before concluding, ‘But I didn’t. My apologies, Captain Caraway.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ he asked, and the hint of discomfort in her face became more prominent.

  ‘I … Captain Travers never wanted to be bothered with that kind of thing. It wasn’t Nightshade business, so it wasn’t his concern. And I didn’t judge it appropriate to approach Lady Ayla with such a trivial matter.’

  ‘Not trivial,’ Caraway said, with more steel than he’d intended. ‘A girl is dead.’

  Her spine stiffened. ‘I wasn’t to know that.’

  He let her stew in it a moment before conceding the point. ‘No. And though it was for the wrong reasons, I think you were right not to take it to Ayla. But for my part …’ Seeing how offended she still looked, he softened his tone. ‘Please keep me informed of anything like that in the future, Rawleigh. Please. If someone is missing from Darkhaven, I need to kn
ow about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Was it really such an odd request that she needed to ask? Caraway frowned at her. ‘Because that way, if someone is in trouble, I have the best chance of doing something about it. Why else?’

  She gave him a level stare, but said nothing.

  ‘I couldn’t have done anything for Hana, as it happens,’ he added. ‘She was killed before Sia even knew she was missing. But on another occasion, things might be different.’

  The housekeeper looked at him a moment longer. Then she said calmly, ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Captain Caraway?’

  By the time he left her, she had unbent towards him more than she ever had before, and it was clear that his request had borne completely unexpected fruit: Diann Rawleigh had given him her approval. It was something he hadn’t even realised he was missing, until it was bestowed upon him. Perhaps that should have pleased him, but instead it left him itching with unease. Six years he’d been in Darkhaven, now, and yet the housekeeper had misjudged him enough to believe a missing maid would be beneath his notice. Had his predecessor left him other legacies that were yet to be discovered? Struggles and concealments that had been the way of life under Owen Travers, never coming to Caraway’s notice because he simply didn’t know they existed?

  In the months after he’d married Ayla, he had met some resistance from Darkhaven’s staff. The Helm took it in their stride; they had come together as a fully coherent unit under his captaincy by then, and it made little difference to them whether he was their overlord’s lover or her husband. But the rest of the community, particularly those who had been there since Florentyn was overlord and Travers was captain … to them, apparently, there was a big difference. It was by no means unknown for a Nightshade overlord to take a common lover, but exceedingly rare for the affair to end in marriage. Of course, there was the recent precedent of Ayla’s mother Kati, but she had one very important factor in her favour: she hadn’t worked in Darkhaven before she married Florentyn. Whereas Caraway, who had started out as a mere Helmsman … they saw him as an upstart. His marriage to Ayla crossed that invisible line between the Nightshades and their subjects, in a way they couldn’t approve or comprehend. There had been whispers about his sudden rise: came from less than nothing to be Captain of the Helm, the gossip ran, and now this?

  They had expected him to be untrustworthy. To bully them. To push Ayla aside and take control – as if, he thought with a smile, anyone could push Ayla aside unless she wanted to be pushed. But that was what Owen Travers would have tried to do. For the good of the Nightshade line; no doubt that’s what he would have told himself, while he pursued his own desire for power. And Darkhaven’s staff had no reason to believe any better of Caraway. He might have helped Ayla against Travers, but who was to say it was for acceptable reasons? One ambitious, ruthless man was much like another.

  Caraway would have protested he was neither ambitious nor ruthless … except he’d killed Travers, hadn’t he? That was ruthless enough. And if loving Ayla Nightshade could be classed as ambitious simply by virtue of who she was, he was that as well. Besides, denying a rumour only ever gave it more credence. So he’d dealt with it by ignoring the mutters and the sidelong looks, and offering every single member of Darkhaven his trust. Sometimes, to convince people to trust you, you had to trust them first. He’d thought it was working, too … but maybe it hadn’t worked as well as he’d hoped.

  If he had done more, would Hana still be alive?

  It was a stupid thought. Her death had occurred while everyone had still believed her to be enjoying her day off. And though he might wonder if it was linked to the ambassador’s murder, he didn’t know that for sure, or have any reason to believe she would have confided in him even if she’d known him better. But he let himself feel the guilt anyway, because if there was one thing he’d found about guilt, it was that it drove him to improve things.

  All the same, it burned in him as he found Hana’s friend, Sia, in the kitchens and took her aside to give her the news. He’d never seen such instant devastation on anyone’s face before. She wrapped her arms around herself, shoulders shaking, tears rolling down her cheeks, while he stood there in silence – wishing he could help her, but knowing it was the kind of pain that had no cure.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said finally. Caraway shook his head.

  ‘No need to be. It’s a horrible thing to have happened.’

  She looked up, scrubbing the tears from her eyes with the back of one wrist in a gesture that made her seem very young. ‘Did they catch him?’

  ‘Not yet.’ He saw no point in repeating Larson’s pessimism to her, so he simply added, ‘They’re doing everything they can.’

  ‘Bastard,’ she said fiercely. ‘I hope he rots.’ Colour flooding her cheeks, she turned her gaze down to the floor. ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘No need,’ Caraway said again. ‘I feel the same way.’

  He let her cry a little longer, before asking, ‘Sia … you say he and him. Was there someone Hana was close to? Someone you think might have …’

  Leaving the suggestion open-ended had the desired effect; the maid frowned at her shoes before saying slowly, ‘I’m not sure.’ She shot a quick, nervous glance up at him. ‘I didn’t tell them before. The lady Helmsman, and the man you sent. I didn’t want to get Hana in trouble.’

  She still seemed to be hesitating over it, so Caraway said gently, ‘Whatever it is, it can’t hurt her now. And it might help us find her killer.’

  ‘It’s just … the day the ambassador came, she was dead excited. More than usual, I mean, and she always acted a glass over sober anyway …’ Sia sniffed back tears. ‘She was giggly all through us fetching the taransey, and even more when I came back to the kitchen after delivering it. She brushed it off when I asked her about it, but I figured she’d fallen in love with someone. She falls in love a lot.’ A pause, before the inevitable sad amendment. ‘Fell.’

  ‘So then …’

  ‘Well, next day we heard the ambassador had died. Hana was subdued, but so were we all – I mean, it was an awful thing, wasn’t it? Her reaction didn’t strike me as odd. But two days later, when we found out he’d been murdered … that was different. She was sad, withdrawn. Maybe even a bit scared. She couldn’t concentrate on her work at all. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she was trying to decide whether she should confess to something.’

  ‘Did you find out what?’

  Sia shook her head. ‘I tried to get it out of her, but all she said was, He told me it would help.’

  ‘He told me it would help,’ Caraway echoed. ‘Who do you think she meant?’

  Sia wiped her eyes again. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ he reassured her. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

  Shortly after that he left her, feeling more than a little perturbed. His instinct had been correct: Hana had been connected to the ambassador’s death in some way. It was proof, if he’d needed any, of Ayla’s innocence – though he knew the Kardise wouldn’t take it as such. Hana had known something, and now Hana too was dead.

  The trouble was, he had absolutely no way of finding out what.

  THIRTEEN

  Crouched in the alley between two warehouses, Sorrow dropped a pair of dice onto the cracked stone in front of her and glanced casually over her opponent’s shoulder as she did so. The warehouses on the other side of the street were identical to those that currently provided her cover, but she was only interested in one of them. Four men had walked through its front door not long ago, and they were yet to re-emerge.

  ‘Oi,’ her opponent said, wiping his nose on the back of one hand. She wasn’t sure of his age – probably twelve or thirteen – but the flick of his wrist as he spun the dice across the pavement suggested a long familiarity with games of chance. ‘You playin’ or what?’

  ‘Yes.’ Paying scant attention to the uppermost faces of the dice, she pushed a coin towards him. She’d followed the four
men from the docks, where they’d been part of a barge crew. The part most trusted by its owner, presumably. They’d waited until the shipment of fine fabrics was unloaded and the rest of the crew had gone before starting a second unloading process, this time from the hidden compartments in the base of the boat. Illegal firearms. They’d brought them to this warehouse, and taken them inside, and now she was trying to decide what to do next.

  ‘You’re bettin’ silver on a five?’ the boy said. ‘Must be pretty sure of yer luck.’

  ‘Hasn’t let me down so far.’ Sorrow turned her gaze back to the game in time to see him cast; each of the seven-sided dice showed a single pip. Two. She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Well?’

  He scowled. ‘Best of three?’

  ‘I’ve already won twice.’

  ‘Best of five, then?’

  ‘If you say so.’ She scooped up the dice, then raised her head sharply as a door opened on the other side of the street. Three men left the warehouse, one by one, the last of them locking it behind him. Sorrow studied the dice as each of them passed, apparently intent on her game to the exclusion of all else, but her mind was racing. Three men. What had happened to the last one?

  She was going to have to find out.

  Without another word, she pushed herself to her feet and jogged across the street towards the warehouse.

  ‘Hey!’ the boy called after her. ‘We got a game goin’ here, lady! What about yer stake?’

  She glanced back over her shoulder. ‘You can keep it. Now get lost.’

  He didn’t need telling twice. He scrabbled the assorted coins up from the ground and took to his heels as if a rabid dog were chasing him. Once he’d disappeared round the corner, Sorrow examined the warehouse. The door was locked, of course, and the windows tightly shuttered. There’d be another, larger door on the other side of the building – something big enough to admit a cart, for cargoes that were safe to show in public – but no doubt that was equally secure. However, like many of the larger warehouses, it probably had a loading hatch set into its flat roof, allowing small airships to unload their cargoes straight through it. And into the wall to one side of the door were set some crumbling rungs, presumably to provide a way out in case of fire. They looked narrow and treacherous, designed for emergency exit rather than entrance, but a determined enough person should be able to climb them.