There was nothing Asti wanted more than a simple quiet life of boring predictability. Tonight at Kimber’s, the menu was the same as it was every Lemes in the summertime: roast ham with a honey glaze and Jaconvale mustard, roast potatoes and other root vegetables, bread, cheese, and fresh butter. Asti found her consistency to be very comforting. If you knew the day of the week and the season, you knew what Kimber was serving.
That consistency was the anchor Asti needed in his life, which was why he had decided to pay a month’s rent for his room at her pub, and actually stay there. He needed a place that was actually his. Saints knew that Verci and Raych didn’t need him underfoot all the time.
Kimber watched with a warm regard. It was a quiet afternoon in the taproom—the front window still just patched with a wooden board. Asti told her he would help her fix it.
“It’s a little unnerving, you watching me eat.”
“I didn’t think you were easily unnerved.”
“Rather easily,” Asti said. “I just hide it well.”
“Doc Gelson wanted me to ask you about that boy from the other night. He made arrangements for a proper interment in the field by Saint Bridget’s.”
“He’s paying for it?” Asti asked.
She nodded. “I’m helping as well. I thought, maybe . . .”
“Absolutely, I’ll help,” Asti said. That boy was killed on his watch. Paying for a decent headstone was the absolute least he could do. “Whatever he needs.”
“We don’t know what the marker should say.”
“Jede,” Asti said. He had no idea about a family name. He thought about what ought to be added, what he would put if it was Verci. “Beloved brother.”
Verci came in and sat down with him, now having gotten quite skilled with moving on his crutches. No special brace or cane now. Asti wondered if that was a message.
“You hungry?” Kimber asked.
“Just a beer,” Verci said.
She went off to fetch it.
“So how are things panning out?” Asti asked.
“So far, Grieson’s promises are holding. We were delivered the new papers of debt, with a new payment schedule. And the debt is to a Keller Cove firm. Nothing with Colevar and Associates.”
“Which means they might be free to do what they want with the land,” Asti said. “Making Almer the only holdout on the alley.”
“Almer said he got a letter of reappointment from the Guild. Vellun and Pilsen are doing well, their deals are rolling in.”
“And Pilsen?”
Verci shrugged. “Vellun says he’s better, but I wouldn’t put it past either of them to play some sort of long game, even with each other.”
Helene and Mila came in and joined them next.
“The strangest thing just happened,” Helene said.
“You mean, besides opening a cheese shop on Kenner?”
“No. You know that Lieutenant Covrane?”
Verci nodded cautiously.
“Just bumped into him, and he asked if he could call on me later this week.”
“Is this what being legitimate feels like?” Mila asked.
“Get used to it,” Verci said.
Asti sighed. “Yeah, about that. We’re here for a reason.”
Verci narrowed his eyes. “We’re not going to do—”
“Not do, no.” He nodded over to the door. “But we’ve got some business to finish. So we got called to a parlay.”
“By who?” Mila asked.
The door opened, and Enanger Lesk strolled in, oozing confidence, carrying a satchel, with a familiar-looking young man at his side. They came right over, and Lesk put the satchel on the ground and signaled Kimber for a beer.
“Thought you were in Quarrygate,” Helene said flatly.
“Served my time,” Lesk said. “Came out to a very different situation here. You kids are thinking you’re big dogs, did some serious scratch.”
“What are we talking to him for?” Verci said.
“Who even is this guy?” Mila asked, her attention on the boy he was with.
“Enanger Lesk,” Helene said. “He’s the one—”
“Who led Poller and the rest, right,” Mila said. Gears were turning in her head, clearly. “So why are you with him, Conor?” Now Asti placed the kid, one of her Bessie’s Boys.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Conor sneered. “Where were you?”
“I was dealing with things.”
“Getting Jede killed, the rest of us in Gorminhut. Tarvis told us.”
“Where’s Tarvis?”
“He’s alive, if you cared.”
“Settle, lad,” Lesk said. “Him and the rest of the boys are all just fine, miss. Don’t you worry.”
“Want to tell us what this is about?” Asti asked.
Nange pushed the satchel over with his foot. “That is from the Old Lady.”
“You’re with the Old Lady now?” Asti asked.
“Yeah. Like I said, a lot has happened. Poller tried to run things on his own, and got tied up with that Treggin character, who apparently vanished after his boys cracked some skulls around town. And you all cracked some skulls back. Now, we don’t want there to be a war here, since everything’s settled. So that there, that’s four thousand crowns.”
Verci was on target about Josie. Waited a few days, now the offer. The only real surprise was Lesk and the kid as the messengers. But that was probably part of her message.
“Four?” Helene almost shouted. She glanced over at Kimber, who was hanging back from the table. The last time Nange was in here, he was threatening her, and Asti thoroughly thrashed him for it. Helene lowered her voice. “She took over a hundred from us, and she’s thinking four is a peace offering?”
“I don’t know about that. I just know, she wants to bring back some order to the streets of this neighborhood.”
Asti gave Helene a signal to let it lie for the moment, which she took begrudgingly. He pressed on Nange. “So let me guess the rest. Now you and yours—including the Scratch Cats and the Crease Knockers—you’ll run the streets of North Seleth under Josie?”
“Under her. Let’s be clear about that. We’ve been brought to heel. And if you all are going to stay out of things, all the better.”
“And what’s North Seleth under Josie going to look like now?” Verci asked.
“Same as it used to. The neighborhood how it was. Ain’t nobody gonna make any more plays on it.” Nange was talking real calm and sensible. He hadn’t even used one insult yet. Josie had certainly gotten to him. “And nothing like that fire will happen again. She’s made deals with the Street Barons, even Mister Gemmen. No one’s going to dare now.”
So that explained where the money went. Lining the pockets of the north side crime lords. Bending her knee to them so they’d give her the queendom down here.
“So all we need to do is just take this and stay out of it,” Asti said.
“Didn’t you want to?” Nange asked. “All of you?”
“Sure,” Asti said. “No war from us.” He knew Verci would agree, and gave Helene and Mila a glance to follow along.
Nange offered his hand, which no one took. He seemed to accept that, and got up from the table.
“Always a pleasure, Rynax,” he said with a mock salute. He walked away, and Conor took a moment to spit on the floor at Mila’s feet. They both left the pub. Once they were out the door, Kimber let out a heavy breath and brought drinks over to the table. “Tell me that isn’t going to be a regular thing,” she said.
“It’s not,” Asti said. “Don’t worry about him.”
Kimber nodded and left.
Mila grabbed Verci’s beer and drank deeply from it. “I didn’t deserve that.”
“Let it lie,” Helene said. “Those boys didn’t deserve you.”
“So, is that it?” Verci asked, taking his drink back from Mila. “A little extra cash, a clean deal?”
“Yeah,” Asti said. “If that’s what you want.”
“We said we’d live clean. Honest. Give Corsi a chance.”
Helene nodded, and Asti wanted to do the same. He wanted it to be that easy. He knew it wasn’t going to be, and he could see on Mila’s face that she was thinking the same thing.
“I kind of did something,” Mila said.
“What did you do?” Verci asked.
“I dressed up like a clerk, went to the city records office, and asked some questions. Dug through some files.”
“Why the saints did you do that?” Verci asked.
Asti knew. He and Mila had already gone through the papers they had stolen from Henterman and Treggin, even if no one else cared. Whatever Andrendon was, it was buried in a mess of bureaucracy and legalities. Someone very clever had made sure that Henterman had no idea what he was supposed to be funding. Neither did Treggin.
“What did you learn?” Asti asked.
“Nothing more about Andrendon. But that new house on Holver Alley? That’s a Mage Circle’s chapterhouse.”
“That reporter suggested something like that,” Verci said.
“And you know whose house it is? Firewings.”
Helene gasped. “Treggin was a Firewing, right?”
“Exactly. So I did some scouting.”
“Mila,” Verci chided. “We said we were going to—”
“I watched the blasted house,” Mila said firmly. “And you know who I saw going in and out? That guy. Lesk.”
“That doesn’t—” Verci started.
“A lot.” She said it with finality. Whatever choice he made, or whatever Verci did, her arrow had already been fired. She would do it all alone if she had to.
“Asti,” Verci said firmly, probably because he knew exactly what Asti was thinking. “We need to be done with this. This whole deal is a rabbit warren we can’t get lost in.”
“You’re right about that,” Asti said.
“What are you suggesting?” Helene asked, though her face told him she was already with him.
“I mean, we go on like we talked about. Clean, honest lives.”
“Good,” Verci said.
“But with our blasted eyes and ears open,” Asti said. “Because there’s a whole spiderweb between Andrendon, the Firewings, Lesk, and saints know what else. Maybe even the Old Lady now. We’re going to untangle that web, however long it takes. But we won’t put a toe off the line. We want them to think we’ve let it go.”
Verci looked both relieved and nervous. “And then what?”
“And then, when we’re ready—when we know what’s what—that’s when we make them all pay.”
APPENDIX
A Brief History of Druth Influence in the Napolic Islands
It is unclear exactly when civilization first came to the Napolic Islands—the chain of tropical islands halfway across the Tesolic Ocean—though it is believed that refugees and exiles from the Futralian Empire (ancient Acserians) fled to the largest island (Napoli) when their reign fell to invading Kierans in 850 BFE. Over the centuries, the Kierans, Acserians, and eventually the Druth would come to “the edge of the world”, establishing trading outposts and influencing the local islanders with colonies or missions. However, their influence rarely expanded past the large island.
The first major change of Druth involvement came in 852 FE after the fall of the Acorian Republic (in northeastern Druthal, what would later become the Archduchy of Acora). Thousands of Acorians, including their ruling elite, fled in ships through the Gulf of Waisholm and down the western coast of Druthal, making landfall on the northern part of the big island, in the territory of the Hakohi people. The Acorians made a peaceful agreement with the Hakohi, and founded the city of New Acoria. New Acoria became a thriving community that stood as the pinnacle of peace and advancement in Napoli.
Over the centuries, trade routes were established between New Acoria and the Druth kingdoms, as well as it being a favored stop for ships from the Near East and Tyzanian nations.
In the late eleventh century Druthal had been reunited and had begun a campaign of significant investment in the Napolic Islands, establishing colonies in the other islands, and claiming sovereignty over the local people. By 1150 they had claimed five small islands in the northwestern region of the island chain, naming them Halitar, Falsham, Fendrick, Bintral, and Santral. Cities like New Maradaine, New Lacanja, and New Marikar were all founded.
At the same time Poasia had taken an interest in the Napolic Islands, coming from the Far West and staging personnel and resources on southwestern islands. In 1150 they began a war with the Druth Colonies by brutally attacking the outpost of New Fencal on Santral: thousands of Poasian troops against a few hundred civilians protected by a mere twenty pikemen and archers*. Only a handful of people escaped to warn the other colonies.
For the next fifty years the war between Druthal and Poasia raged on, with the Napolic Islands as the main battleground. Rarely did the war touch the mainland of either nation*; instead the main cost was to the lands and people native to the islands. It wasn’t until 1199, when Druth morale and Poasian resources had been strained to the breaking point, that both parties agreed to meet for an accord mediated by the Tsouljans and Lyranans. The final agreement gave three islands each to Druthal and Poasia, Poasia taking the islands that had been Bintral and Santral.
The Druth people who had remained on those two islands fled, some of them taking native spouses and children with them back to the other colonies or Druthal itself.
The colonies of Halitar, Falsham, and Fendrick remain intact in 1215, now militarized city-states ruled by Viceroy-Commanders, under the sovereignty of the Druth Throne and Parliament. While they mostly function as watchposts for Poasian treachery, they are also vibrant communities with well-established trade routes with the Druth mainland and the rest of the modern world.
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* Despite their defeat, the last stand of these soldiers became romantic legend and a rallying cry to the Druth people, immortalized in works like the song “Twenty Druth Men” and the opera Sand and Blood.
* Druth forces occupied the Poasian city of Khol Taia for three years, from 1158 to 1161, and in the 1190s the Poasians razed the city of Corvia, and had a handful of minor incursions along the Maradinic and Sauriyan coasts.
Lady Henterman's Wardrobe Page 37
