Shadowcloaks

by Benjamin Hewett

  I won’t tell you about the fury of the river. I won’t tell you about the thousands of pounds of pressure scouring us free and spreading us to the four winds along both river banks. Rose says she woke up like the others, coughing and spitting on a muddy sand bar, but I swear I had a vision of her pulling Ragus away from me in the torrent, pulling him kicking and screaming downstream and so far into the open ocean I could barely feel her anymore. I also took a bucketful of water into my lungs, so I could be wrong. I’m having trouble piecing it all back together as I lie in this strange bed with a soft pillow, familiar smells, and strange sheets.

  Rose insists she never left Ector.

  Hmm.

  Rose says a lot of things that don’t add up.

  For one thing, Tax Watch men scouring the city for us claim she didn’t wake up at all. Not at first. Santé’s men, the lucky survivors, admit they found her on a sandbar near Carmen, but unconscious, grey, and fragile, an unbreathing statue of clay. They say pieces of her hair broke off and turned to dust when they tried to wake her. After that, the Tax Watch says, Carmen wouldn’t let them touch her sister.

  They say, when Rose did wake up a few hours later with some color in her cheeks, that both sisters refused to answer any questions, and Rose just held out her hands to be taken. Or so I’m told.

  None of that explains why they committed her into Cobalt’s supervision.

  “Tell me again why you’re here and not in the clink-house,” I croak. My voice sounds hoarse and weak, almost ghostly.

  Rose ignores me. She sits next to Cobalt, atop the pile of rugs on the floor where he’s been sleeping, watching him as he rips off one of his bandages. He claims he’s better off without the bandages. She watches him wincing as he tries to stand, and as my favorite apothecary, Madame Weaselroot, gently pushes him back down onto the makeshift bed.

  “Another few hours in my care, Master Cobalt. Just another few hours,” Madame Weaselroot insists.

  “Where’s Lucinda?” I whisper.

  Madame Weaselroot doesn’t ignore me. “Upstairs, Teamus,” Weaselroot says. “Just sleep.”

  Never mind that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two days. I have a strong suspicion Madame Weaselroot has been drugging me. Foggy and groggy is how she likes her patients.

  I don’t ask her about Grippy. I can see his vest hanging on a nail by the door. A safe door. A door I’ve passed through many times before, in search of black pomegranate, litmi, or other poison remedies.

  I don’t ask about Carmen, either. I can feel the pressure of her body on the mattress next to me, one arm draped across my chest as she sleeps, breath hot on my cheek. I lean back on the bed, content that she is there. There is no magic in her touch, except the ordinary sort of friends and lovers, the only kind I have ever wanted. I work my arm around her, pulling her sleeping form closer. I smile and drift back to sleep, with only the slightest twinge in my left arm and the contentedness of a man who knows his home is safe.

  For the time being.

  TWENTY-TWO

  When I next wake up, the city roars with the rumors that Tamara must have started spreading last night, rumors of fireballs, an of nine lives, and of the skull-crushing hands of the Nightshade Slayer. The rumors speak of winged mules and a howling, churning river. They rave about the collapse of the Selwin Manor, the oldest house in Ector. They joke of a dark Paladin and his Nightshade lover. They talk about a barmaid who can strip down an armored corpse in minutes or heal your wounds when she's angry. They whisper about Ector’s ghost of storms who will attack the city if you speak ill words at the bottom of a moon-lit well.

  I hear these half-truths when Madame Weaselroot lets us out for our first short walk. People keep their distance from Carmen and me, but I can still hear them talk, and better than I should be able to.

  Not that anyone’s being quiet about it. Our escort detail is especially loud and boisterous. They love repeating to each other the most outrageous versions they’ve heard. These are a squad of Santé’s finest, no doubt, bedecked in the shiniest gear money can’t buy, but (tax)men can extort. Yellow-toothed Grimms is among them, though I’m not sure how he’s still alive. He winks and says he stuck to Santé like glue after leaving us with the Captain.

  Grimms says they’ve won some kind of service award for helping the ‘Shade Slayer kill the King of the Nightshades. I start to correct him, to tell him that Ragus Ragus isn’t dead, but Carmen gives my arm a little tug. Let them have their moment of triumph.

  There’s a pair of magii in the detail too, telling jokes that nobody else can understand and fuzzing the world around them when they forget to behave, but the magic doesn’t pull at me like it used to, not now that I have Carmen back.

  On the third day of waking, the bells ring for an hour straight, all across the city. Lucinda says it’s the universal prayer call, whatever that means. Nobody else in Ector seems to know what that means either, so a lot of them go down to one of the city’s three churches to find out.

  I don’t. The only service I care about is the one going on at The Black Cat Tavern and Inn, and Carmen is of like mind. We hobble down there as soon as soon as Madame Weaselroot allows it.

  It’s still a smoking heap of rubble, but somehow Barkus is serving drinks. He’s got tables set up in the street and is telling everyone again and again, with great embellishment, about The Black Cat’s last stand, and how he personally pulled the chain to collapse the inn on top of the Nightshade King himself.

  That’s not how I remember it, but Carmen’s rubbing off on me. I let him tell it this way, and stare instead at the rubble. Somebody needs to sort through the smoldering rubble and fish a few oath-rings out of the basement. It can wait for a day or two, as long as we post guards on the pile. After all, the only thing still standing is the center post, the one I used to climb to get to the rafters. It’s blackened and scorched, but somehow it’s still as solid as an ironwood tree. The ash and debris have been cleared out around it, so it’s approachable, and several children are making a mess of their clothes trying to climb it. This makes me smile. There’s also a white horse tethered to it, stoically ignoring the kids, and this makes me smile even more. I know it’s Halifax, even though I can only see his neck and rear. That’s all I really ever saw of him anyways.

  “Does Lucinda know you have her horse?” I ask Cobalt when he joins us at our table.

  “Not yet,” he grins. “Let’s see how long it takes her.”

  I grin back, taking a sip from my mug.

  Cobalt glances back over his shoulder, and I follow his line of sight to Rose. She looks more fragile than before, and she avoids my eyes as she bustles about serving drinks, and it’s surprising how effective this is in concealing her identity. No one recognizes her except the occasional passing guard. She’s wearing one of Lucinda’s old serving outfits. It doesn’t suit her, and it’s too big, but she’s making do, and she’s as jumpy as a bag of cats.

  “She’s gonna run,” I say conversationally.

  “Maybe,” he shrugs. “But your face and my word are the only things keeping the city guard and the Tax Watch both from clapping her in irons. She knows it. She knows she can’t outrun them all.”

  To emphasize his point, he slaps a narrow, black ring on the table. It looks misty in the torchlight. “She’s not as fast as she used to be.”

  Carmen’s hand tightens on mine. She is still coming to grips with her heritage. “I never understood why he only visited at night, why he never let me see his face. I knew he was someone powerful, that he did terrible things with that power. I could hear him sobbing outside my door.”

  There are tears on Carmen’s cheek. “I didn’t know he died the night my shop burned down. He’d always kept me safe.”

  I will tell her the full story, as soon as I am able. She deserves to know all the pieces, and not just the ones that Rose has told her. I think Cobalt suspects they’re sisters, but he doesn’t know who their father is and I don’t care to enlighten him
. Cobalt’s never been too interested in enlightenment, anyways.

  We stare out across the rubble of The Black Cat, content to sit and talk about nothing. I can feel Tom nearby, and imagine him sitting in a rocking chair, a wispy hand of mist on his shoulder. He is frowning.

  I think that’s a good thing.

  Your work isn’t done yet, Mr. Steeps.

  I ignore the voice in my head.

  “Cobalt, have you met my wife?” I say, smiling at Carmen.

  #

  The evening rolls on. People come and go, wishing well and offering drinks, thanking me for good deeds I’ve never done. Carmen and I talk a little, but mostly we hold hands and watch our friends take care of business, and each other. Cobalt leaves for a few minutes and returns, this time with Rose in tow.

  “Where did you find Hali?” I ask before he can make his exit. “How’d you know we were still alive?”

  “That’s it, Tiptoes? No apology for leaving me snowbound in a mountain forest for four days? No thanks for riding off my bleeding buttocks to get to Ector before you?”

  “That was you?” I ask.

  Cobalt snorts.

  “Thanks,” Carmen says. “Thank you, Mr. Cobalt for keeping an eye on my husband. He speaks very highly of you.”

  Cobalt is mollified by Carmen’s direct approach, and he takes the respectful silence as a cue, particularly when Carmen pours a drink for him from the bottle on the table.

  “Well, I didn’t find Halifax anyways,” he confesses. “Halifax found me. Led me straight to your campsite in the middle of a blizzard. I knew you weren’t dead because all I could find was a pile of icy entrails where somebody gutted a score of wolf carcasses. If you could do that in an evening, I figured you had more help than you knew what to do with.”

  Rose raises an eyebrow, and then again when he drinks his wine in one go. I guess she’s expecting the usual sort of Paladin, all sober and boring.

  “Woulda been nice to pitch camp with a bunch of roughnecks for once,” he says peevishly.

  “Roughnecks?” Carmen asks.

  “Trappers.”

  I fiddle with the loose threads of my shirt. “Try goblins. And we ate those wolves.”

  Cobalt suddenly looks a lot less envious. “Snow cave is comfy enough, I guess.”

  “Why did you come after us? You’re supposed to be in Fortrus.”

  Cobalt winks and stands up. “Blame Magnus. I’d have left you two to your own devices. But that’s a story for another day.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  In Ector, peace is an ephemeral achievement. It isn’t long before the usual market, mud, and spring fever return to the streets. There are arguments over laundry lines, over improperly pruned fruit trees, and over who actually won the previous night’s darts championship and ensuing brawl. In Ector, though, these are normal, happy sounds.

  I can hear the Tax Watch’s heavy-laden wagons rolling along Grand Avenue and on toward Doward, finally bearing the King’s Due to the northwest. There are severed heads hanging to dry inside the lead wagon, but not as many as the King might expect. It’s hard to recover heads from Nightshades who’ve been burned and buried under ash and rock. Not impossible, but expediency is more important than headcount. Santé’s accompanying city-sketch shows the aftermath beautifully. The sketch shows whole city blocks reduced to smoking rubble. Where Selwin’s Mansion once stood, the artist has rendered a giant conflagration, highlighted in blue-ink to emphasize the unnatural nature of the flames. There are sections of street that have collapsed into the sewers and tunnels beneath, all drawn in a crisp, architectural hand. The style is familiar, but I can’t put my finger on why.

  Nor does anybody seem bothered that there are no oath-rings on the wagons heading to Doward. I’m not bothered either, because I know where they are, and they are safe.

  As soon as the wagons clear Northgate, I get a summons from Over-Captain Santé Ormedos.

  I don’t open it immediately, preferring to read it in the privacy of our room at The Silver Visor. The large, comfortable room has plenty of light, and it suits Carmen and me, at least until we can get our affairs in order and head back to Fortrus, my kids, and the safety the seven-rivers distance gives us from Byzantus, City of Nightshades.

  “What’s this?” Carmen says as I bring the sealed summons back to our room. She puts down the dress she’s designing.

  “It’s nothing.” I try to hide it behind my back, but she catches my hand and steals a glance. It’s hard not to smile, even though her touch is just an excuse to read my mail. In fact, it’s the whole reason I pretend to hide things from her, and she knows it.

  “Another summons?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  She must hear the irritation in my voice because she grins. “Is the hero of Lower Ector still afraid of visiting the Tax Office?”

  “No,” I lie. “Not afraid. Just . . . uneasy.”

  “Teamus.”

  She waits for me to make eye contact with her. “It will be fine. I’ll even go with you.”

  Oddly, the innkeeper has the inn’s private coach hitched and ready for us when we come downstairs, even though our destination, Lord Bailey’s manor, isn’t far. He must have seen the note, must be trying to ingratiate himself with me.

  It’s sort of nice, I admit. The thought, not the actual ride. I’d much rather walk, even with an honor guard tagging along.

  I make one of them ride in the carriage with us so I can quiz him as the carriage clatters up the streets of Upper Ector toward Lord Bailey’s Manor. “And you say it’s tradition to turn a murdered lord’s property into a headquarters?”

  The guard isn’t accustomed to riding in fancy coaches or being questioned be the likes of me. He’s wearing the Grey Mule armband, but he isn’t one I recognize. “Not exactly, sir,” he says uncomfortably. “It’s tradition to establish a new headquarters in a place that reminds us of our duty and heritage.”

  I prompt him to keep him talking while Carmen grins at me. I can’t figure out why she’s grinning. She normally doesn’t smile like that unless she’s playing an enormous trick on me. “And since Selwin’s Manor is a pile of rubble. . .”

  “. . . Santé picked the south wing of Lord Bailey’s Manor,” the guard finishes uncomfortably.

  I don’t make him say the rest. The South Wing is where Lord Bailey’s family was slaughtered. Some of the carpets and rugs will be replaced, but Santé wants his men to remember. The TaxWatch doesn’t forgive, and it doesn’t forget.

  The carriage passes through the late Lord Bailey’s gates and comes to rest before the main house entrance. Carmen holds my hand a little tighter as we’re escorted through the large main hall, past several side passages, and into the late Lord Bailey’s study. The rugs have been removed here, but there are a few spots of discoloration on the stone that weren’t here on my previous uninvited visit.

  Santé engulfs the large credenza he’s sitting behind. He seems ignorant of our entrance, but then, I move quietly, and Carmen has natural grace.

  Lady Selwin is also present, sitting to the side of him. “Mister Steeps,” she says, motioning to a pair of chairs. “Mrs. Steeps.”

  Carmen takes her seat properly, but I’m suddenly feeling nervous and irritable, here in the heart of Upper Ector. I pace for a moment, then hop up onto the chair’s seatback.

  Santé continues to work. I follow the tick of his quill, the layers of old books behind him, and the steady rhythm he uses to put me at ease.

  Eventually he pushes two documents across the table. “You’re late on your taxes, again.”

  I suppress my instinct to jump out the window. If he’s called us here, it’s already too late. Suddenly the coach and the constant honor guard make a lot more sense. These men have dismantled an entire stable of Nightshades. Finishing me off will be like squashing a beetle. He’s probably even got his magii outside, waiting to pounce.

  “Santé, you know I paid my taxes. You said it yourself. You should b
e paying me taxes. Isn’t the King’s Due destined to ‘protect the citizenry and raise the views of the subject?’ All the properties I supposedly own are heaping piles of ash and rubble.”

  He rattles the papers in his hand, and the smile on his face is not unfriendly. “Relax. You can read, can’t you?”

  I glance at the inking and catch his meaning. More titles of ownership, and a letter. I ignore the titles and take the letter from him.

  I, Tom LeBlanc, being of sound mind and body . . .

  “Pan’s beard. He was never of sound mind and body.”

  “Of course not,” Santé says, “but he liked you, for some reason. You’ll be given an extension to get your affairs in order, of course, in light of recent services and property conditions at time of acquisition.”

  “How long?” I ask.

  “One year. Same as always.”

  “You bastards.”

  “Teacup!” Carmen says. Lady Selwin looks affronted.

  Santé takes it as I intended it. Truth. “You’re welcome,” he says.

  He pushes another, larger paper across the desk. This one has ribbons and seals from the capital houses of Eastmarch. The houses of Doward. The Houses of Aras, Anoelta, and Lower Royan. The houses of Haverhill, Milton, and Letchly.

  “What’s this?”

  “The Lordship of Ector.”

  Suddenly I understand why Lady Selwin is in the room. Traditionally, Ector has only ever maintained two major houses. With the murder of Lord Bailey’s entire family, House Selwin is bearing the burden of an entire city, and House Selwin just burned to the ground. Even without that hardship, Ector is too large to be governed by just one house.

  Selwin nods at me encouragingly.

  “Why me? Why not one of the lesser nobles? One of them would jump at this chance.”

  Santé shakes his head. “Ector needs strong leaders right now. The King needs these holdings profitable, and he wants someone that the people respect, with heirs or the likelihood of producing them. Most importantly, you’ve proved yourself loyal to Eastmarch. You’ve done more for restoring the rule of law in Ector than any other Ectorian. You’re the man he picked. The people respect House Selwin. They will roar for House Steeps. Together your two houses will save this city.”