Player's Ruse

by Hilari Bell

  “Exactly,” murmured Fisk.

  “I think I should warn you, I’m about three seconds from swearing loud enough to wake the whole camp.”

  “Don’t do that. You’ve almost got it.”

  “The whole camp, Fisk. One—”

  “All right.” He let the flap fall, turning to face me in the dimness. “What you didn’t see was the gown Callista was working on. It was red, too. Very noticeable.”

  I frowned, trying to summon up a memory of Callista’s wagon, of a red dress thrown carelessly over the seat or onto the ground. “I don’t remember it,” I admitted.

  “That’s because you didn’t see it,” said Fisk. “She put it away.” He pushed the tent flap aside and crawled out. I followed, fighting my seething impatience. ’Twould serve him right if I did wake the camp.

  The Creature Moon was down but the Green Moon was near full tonight, laying sharp-edged shadows across the grass. The charred corpse of the prop wagon stood off to one side. No one else seemed to be stirring, but I was surprised when Fisk walked right across the clearing, stopping at the remains of the fire to light a small twig.

  I wasn’t surprised to see him go to Callista’s wagon and enter as if he owned the place. Indeed, at this point I was so filled with frustrated curiosity that I followed him right up the steps and closed the door behind us.

  The tiny flame shed enough light to show Callista’s bed, with a number of shadowy boxes stacked beneath it. On the other side hung the long row of costumes, which were Callista’s charge—everything from beggar’s rags to a queen’s glittering finery. A crate beneath the shirts held a jumble of shoes and boots.

  “What do you mean she put it away?” I demanded softly. Sound didn’t carry as well through the wagon’s wooden sides, but even a small flame would show through the windows. I was taken utterly aback when Fisk lit the lamp and turned it up.

  “Don’t worry. If anyone sees the light, they’ll assume Callista couldn’t sleep. And she won’t be back for at least an hour—probably more.”

  “No one takes the time to put away their mending when they’re running to fight a fire.” Yet a chill crept over my skin as I spoke. I remembered the red velvet spread over Callista’s lap—the flash of glass, even in the wagon’s shade. But when we came back, she went to help Edgar Barker. He picked up the heavy horse collar, and she gathered up the oil flask and rags and put them away in the tack chest.

  “That’s right,” said Fisk. “No one would take the time to tuck their mending out of sight—unless they had a compelling reason to hide it.” He sorted through the rack and pulled out a red velvet gown. Ruby sparks flickered at collar and cuffs.

  “You’re not serious,” I said, as Fisk held one of the larger gems close to the lamp. “Makejoye’s people have never been in this town before. And no one trying to hide stolen jewels would stitch them onto a costume, to wear on stage in front of hundreds of people.”

  “But they’re not performing in this town anymore,” said Fisk. “Can you think of anything a deputy would be less likely to inspect than an actor’s costume, hanging in plain sight? Assuming they bothered to search the troupe’s wagons at all. As far as I know, they’re only checking the outbound ships.”

  “You think Callista hasn’t got a lover?” I demanded. “That she’s been meeting . . .”

  I remembered the men who’d chased me in the moonlight, the hiss of a crossbow bolt past my ear, and fell silent.

  “Her contact with the wreckers,” said Fisk. “Maybe her boss, depending on whether she works for the wreckers or their fence. If these are glass, it’s good glass, but I can’t be certain in this light. Maybe not even by daylight, without a magnifying lens.”

  “But we have to know!” I said. “If Callista is carrying away the wreckers’ loot—”

  “It explains why someone might encourage Makejoye to move on, doesn’t it?” Fisk hung the gown back in the exact place it had come from. “I bet the wreckers were dealing with someone in that other troupe—Red Mask?—that used to come here regularly. I remember Makejoye talking about how they’d changed their route. How inconvenient for Master Burke. Although . . .”

  “What?” I was already searching Callista’s boxes. “Everything you’ve said makes perfect sense, so far.”

  “It’s nothing.” Fisk’s shrug looked more like a shiver in the dim light. “I just—”

  “Here it is.” I pulled out the chest that held the jewelry-making kit that Fisk had found so admirably complete. The tools were wrapped in the neatly stitched felt pouches Fisk had borrowed to keep them from clanking.

  “Does everyone keep their tools wrapped for burglary?” I asked.

  “Jewelers do,” said Fisk. “To keep them from damaging any stones that might come loose.” He pulled out a small kid bag and poured a pile of sparkling gems into his palm.

  “Glass?” I asked. They were appallingly valuable if they weren’t.

  “I don’t know,” Fisk admitted. “If they’re not, they’d be a very distinctive cargo.”

  “And one you’d be reluctant to dump into the bay,” I agreed. “Especially if you had a way to smuggle them out of town. If only you could force the troupe to defy Lord Fabian and go. Fisk, these people are in danger.”

  “Now there you’re wrong.” Fisk spread his fingers, measuring the outside of the box with his hand. “The last thing the wreckers want is a murder investigation focused on Makejoye’s troupe. . . .” He laid his outstretched hand inside the box—it was at least two inches shallower.

  Even knowing what we were looking for, it took several attempts to find the catch that released the false bottom. The compartment beneath it was padded, and fit tightly enough to keep the dismembered settings of several necklaces, half a dozen rings, and a handful of earrings and bracelets from rattling. Several smooth gold ovals showed that some of the settings had already been melted down, but a few bracelets and earrings still held their gems. Callista wasn’t quite ready to leave, but she would be by the time the prop wagon could travel.

  “Here’s our connection,” said Fisk, eyeing the flaring stones. “You think this”—he held up a sapphire earring—“will get the sheriff’s attention?”

  “I think it will get Callista’s if she sees it’s missing,” I said. “And there’s still nothing to connect her to Burke.”

  “Who do you think she’s reporting to right now? She doesn’t strike me as the type to sacrifice herself to avoid incriminating her accomplices.”

  “No, but suppose she only met Burke’s field commander?” I countered. “Look how carefully he distanced himself from the note—do you think he’s dealing with Callista in person?”

  Fisk eyed me with extreme misgivings. “Why don’t I like the sound of this?”

  “You never like any of my plans,” I complained. “Get a gem off that dress, Fisk. Someplace she probably won’t notice. I hate to disturb anything, but we have to get the sheriff’s cooperation somehow.”

  “We could take him the whole chest,” said Fisk. “And turn this over to the people who are supposed—no, the people who are paid to handle it.” But he extracted a small pair of pliers and rose to pull the red dress from its hanger.

  “We’ll be paid,” I said mischievously. “When we get the reward. Don’t moan like that—you’ll wake someone. Besides, I really do have a plan.”

  Chapter 11

  Fisk

  Michael got his revenge for my previous silence by refusing to tell me anything about his plan—he said he’d rather sleep than argue all night, a statement that didn’t reassure me. Especially given the way he’d been acting since he got his “clue” to the wreckers’ identity. A clue that seemed pretty shaky to me, but that lit up his face like a lamp, because . . .?

  He did sleep, curse him, while I lay awake and tried to devise some plan for getting him out of camp before one look at his open face sent Callista flying to her cohorts. Whoever they were, the wreckers killed.

  Ordinarily I have li
ttle faith in the law, but I’d far rather have them handling this than Michael, and especially me. It was their job, curse it, and anyone else would have left it to them. Anyone but a self-appointed knight errant.

  Not for the first time, I wondered how I’d gotten myself into this—but I knew the answer. Jack Bannister would have disowned me for being so foolish, if he could have stopped laughing long enough. Caring about people will get you killed faster than anything I know, he’d said, slapping my shoulder so briskly, the glass in my hand had spilled. I was trying to recover, in the time-honored way, from losing Lucy—a sentimental weakness Jack had no patience with. You’re sharp enough, Fisk, but you’ve got to do something about that soft streak of yours. Jack had taken care of my soft streak himself, so effectively I’d thought it wholly eradicated until Michael came along.

  I stayed awake worrying so long that I overslept—which wrecked my plan to bundle Michael out of camp on one of his hunting trips before Callista could see him. But my scheming and worrying proved unnecessary, for morning brought its own distraction in the form of a visit from the Skydancers—indeed, it was the rattle of their wagon pulling into camp that woke me.

  Michael’s bed was empty, so whatever catastrophe was going to happen probably already had. That didn’t stop me from rolling forward to look through the tent flap before I’d even gotten my eyes properly open.

  “We heard about your fire.” Out of his paint, Master Skydancer had a lined face, and his voice was as deep and rich as molasses. “We’ve just put some money into new stage sets—that’s why I was so glad when this contract popped up. But it leaves us with a number of bits and pieces cluttering up our wagons.”

  The wagon whose arrival had awakened me was disgorging players and an astonishing number of items, including a near life-size statue that looked for all the world like marble, but couldn’t weigh more than ten pounds by the way Gloria lifted it.

  Michael, like the rest of Makejoye’s troupe, had abandoned breakfast to help unload and exclaim over the treasures. Callista’s well-schooled face was alight with pleasure as she pulled out numerous kegs of paint—partly used, by the spills down the sides, but very helpful for creating new flats. If Michael had given away our suspicions, nothing in her manner showed it.

  I ducked back into the tent and dressed hastily, but in the bustle of unloading and heartfelt thanks, Michael’s dealings with Callista were casual enough. The Skydancers didn’t have enough spare canvas to replace more than a few of the damaged flats, but . . .

  “. . . but not all sets have to be two stories high,” Makejoye pronounced. “We shall manage, indeed we shall.”

  Our escape was absurdly easy—Michael simply offered to go into town and tell the sheriff that Makejoye planned to leave soon. “ ’Twas Fisk and me he wanted to keep as witnesses, so it makes sense for us to talk to him.”

  Makejoye, caught up in replanning his plays around a smaller set and new props, was quite happy to foist the errand off on us.

  As we turned Chant and Tipple onto the Wide Road that led into town, Michael commented, “That worked out well.”

  He looked content—happier, in fact, than he had since Rosamund had announced she was in love. What was going on in that twisted, honorable mind?

  “Easy for you to say,” I grumbled. “You got breakfast.”

  “I told you to take some biscuits before we left. If you didn’t, that’s—”

  “Forget breakfast,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t remember that I’d brought it up. “Michael, what are you going to do?”

  “Go to the sheriff, just as I said.” Michael’s smile was smug in the clear sunlight. It was already getting hot, but there was a breeze blowing off the sea for the first time in days. “It ill becomes a knight errant to lie.”

  “You did pretty well with Callista,” I admitted. “I’m impressed.”

  Michael grinned. “It must be the company I keep.” Then his grin faded—he turned and looked over his shoulder, searching the road behind us.

  “Is someone following us?” I turned to look, too, and saw nothing but the dusty road and rustling trees. I wished I could dismiss it as nerves, but there was something pricking in the back of my mind, a sense of something running beneath the surface.

  “I doubt ’tis anything,” Michael murmured. “Who could be following us?”

  “Every murderous thug in the fief, most likely. What are you up to, Noble Sir?”

  “I’m going to report a crime to the local authorities,” said Michael. “Which is the duty of any honest man.”

  And that made him look cheerful for the first time in days? But nothing we’d found had implicated Rudy . . .

  “Nothing we found implicates Rudy in anything,” I said.

  “I’m not seeking to implicate Rudy,” said Michael sharply. “You should know me better than that.”

  “I do,” I said. “That’s why I’m so worried. As your squire, don’t I have a right to know what you’re planning? Before you drag me into it?”

  “Hmm.” Lunatic logic always appeals to Michael. “I suppose you do.” So he told me. I was glad I hadn’t eaten breakfast.

  “Where did you get this?”

  The ruby I’d taken from the red gown glinted in Sheriff Todd’s hand—and judging by his expression, it was neither glass nor irrelevant to the wreckers. Sometimes I hate being right.

  Its existence got us an instant, and private, interview with the sheriff. Not that there was room for many deputies in this austere office—there was hardly room on the other side of his desk for the unpadded chairs in which Michael and I sat.

  “From Callista Boniface,” Michael replied. “Though she doesn’t know we have it.” He told the story of last night’s fire, and how we’d discovered the gems and traced the note, while I sat in gloomy silence. What were the odds that Todd would be sane enough to veto Michael’s plan? Not high. Whether Lord Fabian kept the town charter or the guilds succeeded in taking it from him, everyone wanted the wreckers caught. If Todd supported any plan that resulted in their capture, he’d keep his job no matter what happened to the town—and if we failed, it cost him nothing. But for Michael and me . . . This exceeded even his usual standard of suicidal insanity, and for what? Michael was the last person to care about the reward. I knew he wanted to stop the wreckers—so did I, though not enough to lay down my life for it—but this . . . He was too cheerful about it, too.

  “This explains everything that’s happened to the players,” Michael finished. “Burke, trying to force them to move on. But we’ve no proof of his involvement, except that ’twas his clerk who gave Master Sanders that note.”

  He’d also been too cheerful tracking down the note. More cheerful than he’d been since he’d acknowledged Rosamund’s choice.

  “And on that basis you believe Lionel Burke is behind the wreckers?” Todd didn’t sound as incredulous as I’d hoped. He’d regarded Michael throughout with the reserve any sheriff shows an unredeemed man, but the intensity of his gaze betrayed his interest, and Michael has learned to ignore being despised by respectable folk.

  “Who had better access to the ships’ manifests?” Michael demanded.

  “Any other banker who insured them,” I said, without much hope. “Anyone who gossiped with the clerk who filled out the forms. Or bribed a clerk for the information, or—”

  “But none of them would send Dawkins as his errand boy,” said Michael.

  “That’s assuming there’s a link between Dorn’s death and the wreckers, which we also haven’t prove—”

  “Dorn was acquainted with Master Quidge,” Todd put in quietly. His brows knit with concentration, tacking what we knew onto what he knew. “They were seen together by several witnesses. I think Ebb was the ‘old friend T’ Quidge mentioned in his journal.”

  “T?” Michael asked.

  “Ebb had a nickname,” said Todd. “He didn’t like it, so it wasn’t used much, but folk sometimes called him—”

  “Tippy,” I
said, suddenly remembering Potter’s comment. The memory of Dorn’s body, sprawled open-eyed on the steps, came with it, and my neck tingled as if brushed by a noose. Michael must be getting something out of this, but what? All he cared about was—

  “But if Quidge told Dorn that he recognized a criminal, someone who might be one of the wreckers, why didn’t Dorn come to you the moment he learned of Quidge’s death?” Michael asked

  “I don’t know,” said Todd. “But now that you’ve told me about Mistress Boniface, I may be able to find out. If you’ll excuse me?” He rose as he spoke, reaching for the sword belt hanging on the rack behind him.

  “Wait,” said Michael urgently. “You’re assuming she knows who it is. Think how careful these men have been to cover their tracks. What makes you think their leader would show himself to Callista, instead of sending an underling?”

  Todd’s hands didn’t even pause on the buckle he was fastening. “If she doesn’t know, I’ll trace the bastard back from whoever she dealt with. I assure you they’ll tell me—in exchange for a quick death, if nothing else.”

  His expression was grim enough to convince me he meant it. It might even convince Callista. Michael looked quite startled, as if the thought that the authorities could torture information out of criminals had never occurred to him. It’s rare enough, since there are legions of laws proscribing the judicial use of torture except in very extreme and unusual circumstances. But I’d bet the wreckers fit those circumstances. Good. Maybe Michael would leave it to—

  “The wreckers probably know that,” he said urgently.

  “I don’t care.” Todd walked around his desk toward the door, and Michael rose to his feet.

  “The moment you seize Callista, they’ll know you know,” he said. “And the men she can identify will die!”