“Oh, most certainly. Rumor has it I was both conceived and born on the same crate of pickles. How can one deny such a legend? Even if it isn’t true, I think it should be.”
Crawling out of the labyrinth, they emerged onto a wider avenue. They had gained height, and Hadrian could see the pier and the masts of the ship he arrived on below. A good-sized crowd was still gathered-people looking for a place to stay or searching for belongings. Hadrian remembered the bag that had rolled into the harbor. How many others would find themselves stranded in a new city with little to nothing?
The bark of a dog caused Hadrian to turn. Looking down the narrow street, he thought he caught movement but couldn’t be sure. The twisted length of the alley had but one lantern. Moonlight illuminated the rest, casting patches of blue-gray. A square here, a rectangle there, not nearly enough to see by and barely enough to judge distance. Had it been another rat? Seemed bigger. He waited, staring. Nothing moved.
When he looked back, Pickles had crossed most of the plaza to the far side where, to Hadrian’s delight, there was another dock. This one sat on the mouth of the great Bernum River, which in the night appeared as a wide expanse of darkness. He cast one last look backward toward the narrow streets. Still nothing moved. Ghosts. That’s all-his past stalking him.
Hadrian reeked of death. It wasn’t the sort of stench others could smell or that water could wash, but it lingered on him like sweat-saturated pores after a long night of drinking. Only this odor didn’t come from alcohol; it came from blood. Not from drinking it-although Hadrian knew some who had. His stink came from wallowing in it. But all that was over now, or so he told himself with the certainty of the recently sober. That had been a different Hadrian, a younger version who he’d left on the other side of the world and who he was still running from.
Realizing Pickles still had his bag, Hadrian ran to close the distance. Before he caught up, Pickles was in trouble again.
“It is his!” Pickles cried, pointing at Hadrian. “I was helping him reach the barge before it left.”
The boy was surrounded by six soldiers. Most wore chain and held square shields. The one in the middle, with a fancy plume on his helmet, wore layered plate on his shoulders and chest as well as a studded leather skirt. He was the one Pickles was speaking to while two others restrained the boy. They all looked over as Hadrian approached.
“This your bag?” the officer asked.
“It is, and he’s telling the truth.” Hadrian pointed. “He is escorting me to that barge over there.”
“In a hurry to leave our fair city, are you?” The officer’s tone was suspicious, and his eyes scanned Hadrian as he talked.
“No offense to Vernes, but yes. I have business up north.”
The officer moved a step closer. “What’s your name?”
“Hadrian Blackwater.”
“Where you from?”
“Hintindar originally.”
“Originally?” The skepticism in his voice rose along with his eyebrows.
Hadrian nodded. “I’ve been in Calis for several years. Just returned from Dagastan on that ship down there.”
The officer glanced at the dock, then at Hadrian’s knee-length thawb, loose cotton pants, and keffiyeh headdress. He leaned in, sniffed, and grimaced. “You’ve definitely been on a ship, and that outfit is certainly Calian.” He sighed, then turned to Pickles. “But this one hasn’t been on any ship. He says he’s going with you. Is that right?”
Hadrian glanced at Pickles and saw the hope in the boy’s eyes. “Yeah. I’ve hired him to be my … ah … my … servant.”
“Whose idea was that? His or yours?”
“His, but he’s been very helpful. I wouldn’t have found this barge without him.”
“You just got off one ship,” the officer said. “Seems odd you’re so eager to get on another.”
“Well, actually I’m not, but Pickles says the barge is about to leave and there won’t be another for days. Is that true?”
“Yes,” the officer said, “and awfully convenient too.”
“Can I ask what the problem is? Is there a law against hiring a guide and paying for him to travel with you?”
“No, but we’ve had some nasty business here in town-real nasty business. So naturally we’re interested in anyone eager to leave, at least anyone who’s been around during the last few days.” He looked squarely at Pickles.
“I haven’t done anything,” Pickles said.
“So you say, but even if you haven’t, maybe you know something about it. Either way you might feel the need to disappear, and latching on to someone above suspicion would be a good way to get clear of trouble, wouldn’t it?”
“But I don’t know anything about the killings.”
The officer turned to Hadrian. “You’re free to go your way, and you’d best be quick. They’ve already called for boarders.”
“What about Pickles?”
He shook his head. “I can’t let him go with you. Unlikely he’s guilty of murder, but he might know who is. Street orphans see a lot that they don’t like to talk about if they think they can avoid it.”
“But I’m telling you, I don’t know anything. I haven’t even been on the hill.”
“Then you’ve nothing to worry about.”
“But-” Pickles looked as if he might cry. “He was going to take me out of here. We were going to go north. We were going to go to a university.”
“Hoy! Hoy! Last call for passengers! Barge to Colnora! Last call!” a voice bellowed.
“Listen”-Hadrian opened his purse-“you did me a service, and that’s worth payment. Now, after you finish with their questions, if you still want to work for me, you can use this money to meet me in Sheridan. Catch the next barge or buckboard north, whatever. I’ll be there for a month maybe, a couple of weeks at least.” Hadrian pressed a coin into the boy’s hand. “If you come, ask for Professor Arcadius. He’s the one I’m meeting with, and he should be able to tell you how to find me. Okay?”
Pickles nodded and looked a bit better. Glancing down at the coin, his eyes widened, and the old giant smile of his returned. “Yes, sir! I will be there straightaway. You can most certainly count on me. Now you must run before the barge leaves.”
Hadrian gave him a nod, picked up his bag, and jogged to the dock where a man waited at the gangway of a long flat boat.
CHAPTER 2
GWEN
Gwen knew she would be too late the moment the screams began on the second floor. The ceiling shook, casting dirt into the drinks of those huddled at the bar. Overhead, the pounding sounded like he was taking a club to Avon’s head.
No, not a club. He’s hammering her head against the floor.
“Avon!” Gwen yelled, charging the stairs.
Unwilling to slow for the turn, she slammed her shoulder into the wall at the top of the flight, knocking loose a little mirror that fell and shattered. Gwen sprinted down the hall. The screams sounded inhuman, like something from a slaughterhouse-the futile cries of the doomed.
Stane is killing her.
Gwen clawed at the latch and pushed, but the inside bolt had been thrown. The door refused to budge. She threw herself against it, but the wood ignored her slight weight. Inside, the pounding softened, turning mushy. No longer a muffled thump, it had become a wet smack. The screams faded to whispered moans.
Gwen wrenched open the door across the hall where Mae had been entertaining a redheaded man from East March. Mae screamed in fear. Whatever business they had been engaged in had stopped with Avon’s shrieks. Gwen kicked at the loose post of the bed’s footboard. The carpenter had constructed the frame from solid stumps of maple, but he’d done a lousy job fitting the pieces together. Two more kicks and the leg toppled, collapsing the mattress to the floor along with Mae and the redhead from East March.
Running like a jousting knight, Gwen drove the post into Avon’s door. The impact threw the ram from her hands but left a sizable dent in its surface and splinte
red the frame. Scrambling, she grabbed it once more just as Raynor Grue appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Damn it, ya stupid bitch! Stop!”
With every ounce of her strength, Gwen rammed the door again, aiming for the same spot and hitting it, more or less. The frame shattered, and the door burst open. The momentum carried her through, and she landed on the floor in a pool of blood.
“Great Maribor’s beard!” Grue cursed, standing in the doorway.
Stane was on top of Avon, his hands still around her neck. “She wouldn’t stop screaming.”
Avon’s eyes were open but not seeing, her blond hair stained crimson.
“Get outta here!” Grue said, grabbing Gwen and dragging her into the corridor. “Go downstairs! Ya owe me for a new bloody door and a bed.”
“Is she dead?” Stane asked, still straddling her with his naked legs, his skin slick with sweat, his chest splattered with blood.
Grue nudged Avon’s head with his boot. “Yeah, ya killed her.”
“You bastard!” Gwen launched herself at Stane.
Grue caught her and shoved her backward, causing Gwen to stumble and fall. “Shut up!” he yelled.
“I’m sorry, Grue,” Stane offered.
Grue grimaced and shook his head, surveying the blood spreading across the wooden floor. Gwen could tell from the way he stood and the downward curl of his mouth that he wasn’t seeing Avon as a beautiful young girl gone before her time but merely as a mess to be cleaned up.
Grue sighed. “I don’t want no apology, Stane. You’re gonna have to pay for this. Avon was popular.”
“How much?”
Grue thought a moment the way he always did, chewing on a toothpick and sucking on his teeth. “Eighty-five silver tenents.”
“Silver? Eighty-five? She only cost six coppers!”
“Ya done killed her, ya stupid son of a bitch! I’m out everything she would have made in the future. I should charge ya gold!”
“I ain’t got that much.”
“You’ll have to get it.”
Stane nodded. “I’ll get it.”
“Tonight.”
Stane hesitated, then agreed. “Okay, tonight.”
“Gwen, get a bucket and clean this up. You, too, Mae. Red, you’re done for the night. Go on and get outta here, and send Willard up on your way out. I’ll need help getting her body down the stairs.”
“You can’t let him get away with this,” Gwen said through clenched teeth as she got to her feet. The tears hadn’t started yet, and she wondered why. Maybe she was still too angry. The smashing of the door had gotten her blood up, and she hadn’t calmed down yet.
“He’s paying for the damages, just like you will.”
“In that case, I’m not done damaging.” Gwen picked up the bedpost and charged at Stane’s head. She might have made it, but Grue caught her arm. He spun her, striking her cheek hard with the flat of his hand. She fell backward again. The bedpost hit what was left of the doorframe and rolled harmlessly down the hall.
“Get your ass downstairs! Mae, get in here with that bucket, and where’s Willard? Willard!”
Gwen sat, dazed. If he had used his fist, she would’ve been down awhile, maybe spitting teeth. But Grue knew how to handle his girls, and he avoided marking them if he could. With the heat still on her cheek and the jaw-rattling pain reaching around her face, Gwen got up and ran downstairs. Everyone in the bar got out of her way as she barreled through the front door of The Hideous Head Tavern and Alehouse, heading straight for the sheriff’s office.
The night was cold with the blow of an autumn wind, but she barely noticed as she ran through the cracked-mud streets of Medford. No one was out-all the decent folk were asleep.
She didn’t knock, just shoved the door open.
Ethan was asleep in a chair, his head nestled in his arms on the table. Gwen kicked the table’s leg, and he popped up like a flushed quail.
“What the-” He sounded angry.
Good.
She wanted him furious. She wanted him seething.
“Stane just murdered Avon at The Hideous Head,” she yelled, making Ethan flinch. “The bastard hammered her head against the floor until he split her skull. I told Grue he’d do it. I told him not to let Stane back in, but he didn’t listen. Now get over there!”
“All right, all right.” Ethan grabbed his sword belt off the chair and buckled it as he followed her out.
“He blackened Jollin’s eye just three days back,” she told him as they walked down Wayward Street. Ethan wasn’t moving fast enough to suit her. Not that time was essential. Avon wouldn’t be getting any better, and Stane wouldn’t be getting any smarter. Still, she wanted to see justice done, done right and done fast. Stane didn’t deserve to live any longer than Avon, and every breath he took was a crime in Gwen’s eyes. “And he broke Abby’s arm a little more than a month ago. Grue was a fool to force Avon to go with him. She knew, and she was scared, but that’s how Stane likes us. Fear excites him, and the more excited he gets, the more damage he does. And Avon-Maribor love her-she was absolutely terrified. Grue should have known better.”
The door to the tavern was still open, casting a long slant of light across the porch and into the rutted road. Maybe she had broken that one too; she hoped so. The drunks had left, likely chased out. Grue and Willard were bringing Avon down, wrapped in the blanket from the bed. One end was dripping a dark line down the steps.
“What ya doing here, Ethan?” The cords of Grue’s neck stood out from the strain. He wasn’t yelling, just angry, which meant he was back to normal.
“What do you mean? Your girl came and got me.”
“I didn’t send her.”
“Well, she woke me out of a dead sleep, so here I am. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Grue said.
“Don’t look like nothing. Is that Avon in the blanket?”
“What’s it to you?”
“It’s my job to make sure justice is done. Stane upstairs?”
“Yep.”
“Well, get him down here.”
Grue frowned, hesitated, then set his end of the burden down. “Go get him, Willard.”
As angry as Gwen was at Stane and Grue, she couldn’t help feeling she was also to blame. More than anyone, she had known what would happen. She should have done something-gotten Avon out of there-only she couldn’t even get herself out. But maybe she could have done something, anything. She didn’t. Now Avon was dead.
Gwen stared at the little puddle forming around the end of the blanket and wondered how she was still standing. Guilt tore at her insides, pulling her apart. How is it possible to remain upright after being gutted?
Stane came downstairs buttoning his pants, finger streaks of blood smeared across his sun-bleached shirt. There was more on his face where he’d wiped his nose.
“You kill this girl?” Ethan asked.
Stane didn’t speak. He just nodded and sniffled.
“That’s a serious crime. You understand that, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
Gwen spotted Grue glaring at her. She’d pay later, but it was worth a beating to see Stane suffer the same punishment as Avon. It wouldn’t be the same, of course. Ethan wouldn’t bash his head against the floor over and over. They would just hang him. It would be public, though. He’d suffer humiliation before he died. At least that would be something.
Ethan brushed the hair from his face, letting his hand rub the back of his neck. He chewed his lower lip while staring at the blanket-wrapped body. Finally, he took a breath and addressed Stane. “You’re gonna need to make restitution.”
“What’s that?” Stane asked nervously.
“You need to compensate Grue for damages. Pay him for his loss.”
“We done settled that already,” Grue said. “He’s gonna pay me eighty-five.”
“Silver … right?” Ethan asked, nodding. “Seems fair. Any other damages?”
“A busted door, mirror, a
nd bed, but that was her doing.” Grue pointed at Gwen. “She’s gonna pay for them.”
“She bust up the place trying to get that one out?” Ethan gestured at the blanket.
“I suppose so.”
“Seems to me she wouldn’t have done all that if he wasn’t beating on Avon, so Stane is gonna take care of those too. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
The sheriff nodded. “Okay, then.”
Ethan took a step back, and Gwen saw him start to turn. “That’s all? That’s not right. He needs to pay.”
“He is. Eighty-five and-”
“A woman is dead! He killed her and needs to die.”
“A whore,” Grue corrected.
Gwen glared.
“A whore is dead, and that’s not the same thing. No one is gonna execute a working man for getting a little carried away.”
“She’s dead!”
“And I’m the injured party. If I say the settlement is fair, then that’s the end of it. This never was any of your concern. Now shut up.”
“You can’t do this,” Gwen said to Ethan.
“She got any family?” he asked.
Gwen shook her head. “If any of us had family, do you think we’d be here?”
“Then that makes him responsible for her. He’s satisfied, so this affair is done.” He turned back to Grue. “Make sure you get the body out of the city walls before noon, or the constable will have my ass, and I’ll be after yours to replace it. Understand?”
Grue nodded and Ethan left.
The two men hoisted the bundle again and headed for the front door. As they passed Gwen, Grue said, “Guess who’s getting a beating when I get back?”
Grue and Willard headed out, leaving Gwen staring across at Mae and Jollin. Between them stood Stane.
He gave her a smile and a wink. “I’m gonna enjoy having you.” Lowering his voice, he added, “As soon as I get me another eighty-five saved up.” He took a step toward her.
“He won’t ever let you in here again.”
“Grue?” He laughed. “Avon ain’t the first. There was another girl in Roe. If I can pay, they’ll wrap you in a bow.” He looked at Mae and then Jollin. “Don’t worry. I won’t forget you two neither.”
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