The Seat of Magic

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  “I don’t understand,” Joaquim inserted. “How does that pertain to this case?”

  “Some healers are stronger than others,” Gaspar said. “Like any other gift, there are gradations. Few healers, however, have the strength to contain the energies stolen from another person inside them. It essentially overheats them, although it temporarily allows them greater abilities, to heal things a normal healer couldn’t. They can even knit bones or clear infections or . . . make a heart beat again. Or not. As Miss Vladimirova is empty of life, stealing someone’s life wouldn’t overwhelm her. No one would know the difference.”

  “You would have seen it,” the Lady pointed out.

  “Only if I’d seen her before it dissipated,” Gaspar allowed. He turned back to Joaquim. “In any case, Inspector Tavares, leave the hunting of this killer to me. I’m immune to a healer’s touch, so what would kill you won’t hurt me.”

  Duilio had known that witchcraft didn’t work on Gaspar, nor had he seemed susceptible to Oriana’s call, but he hadn’t realized the man was unaffected by natural witches as well. “So a healer can’t heal you?”

  Gaspar’s head tilted. “No. I have to rely on doctors if I’m hurt.”

  The Lady shook her head as if exasperated.

  Joaquim’s hands clenched into fists. “You want me to drop this?”

  Gaspar sighed, looking guilty. “I am aware there’s no one more likely to find this killer than you, Inspector. But she can do to you exactly what was done to that girl,” he said, pointing to the covered body on the table, “with only a touch. I’m trying to save your life.”

  Joaquim didn’t look too happy at that pronouncement, no matter the reason.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Duilio and Joaquim walked back along Santo Ildefonso Street toward their more regular haunts.

  “I thought you and Gaspar were getting along,” Duilio said after they’d walked in silence for some way. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Joaquim said, shoving his hands in his coat pockets.

  Duilio recognized that pose, the one Joaquim adopted when he didn’t want to talk about something. He wasn’t going to get an answer out of him. When Joaquim didn’t want to talk about something, he didn’t. Ever. He’d grown up with Joaquim, so he knew.

  A second cousin, Joaquim’s father had been mate on one of Duilio’s father’s ships. While the elder Tavares was at sea, his wife had died giving birth to Joaquim’s younger brother, Cristiano. Duilio’s mother insisted that the two boys should live with the Ferreira family until their father returned, and that fostering had carried on for the next eight years. Joaquim had become Duilio’s closest friend, more like a brother than a cousin, closer than either Alessio or Erdano. He and Joaquim simply had more in common.

  When Joaquim’s father left the sea for good to take up boatbuilding, Joaquim decided to enter seminary to study for the priesthood, not having any interest in boats—or building them, at least. It hadn’t surprised Duilio too much, though, when Joaquim left seminary to join the police force—no more than Joaquim had been surprised when Duilio left the university. Neither of them was well suited for a life of reflection or legal bickering. They both preferred to be doing instead. So Duilio understood why Joaquim found the order not to pursue this killer irritating. But he could offer Joaquim an alternative.

  “I have a case you can help me with,” Duilio said. “I’m hunting a lost girl.” He described the girl missing from Erdano’s harem.

  “And that’s it?” Joaquim’s eyes held doubt. “Small, fair-skinned, brown hair? That could be anyone.”

  “Well, the girl might have a scarred left foot,” Duilio added. Tigana had come up with the information that the girl’s left hind flipper was split—the unfortunate result of a past meeting with a shark. It made Gita lame as a human, which gave Duilio the most useful lead he had so far. “Split was the word used. She limped, noticeably so. And she probably would have been nude when she showed up on the quays.”

  “The quays?” Joaquim rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. “Is this the sort of pursuit I would be ordered to abandon if my superiors heard about it?”

  Trust Joaquim to see through to what I’m not saying. The fact that Gita wasn’t human meant that the police weren’t supposed to render aid. They were supposed to refer nonhuman cases to the Special Police, whose mandate from the prince was more concerned with capturing and executing nonhumans than helping them. “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

  Joaquim puffed out his cheeks. “I’m going to lose my job.”

  But he didn’t refuse to help. Joaquim had a very egalitarian view of justice. In truth, many of the police officers Duilio knew fell on that side of the prince’s law.

  “I thought to search out her trail tonight if I can,” Duilio said as they passed the Church of Santo Ildefonso. “I expect she followed Erdano to The Lusty Siren.” Duilio mentally cringed. He would be willing to bet a great deal that Oriana found that stereotype offensive.

  “I know the place.”

  “I could use your help. I don’t know that part of the city all that well.” Joaquim lived on the edge of that parish and knew it far better.

  “After hours, right?” Joaquim peered up at the skies where clouds were scudding in. “Very well. I’ll tag along.”

  * * *

  Duilio knew this part of the riverside well. His own boats—a yacht, a twenty-seven-foot sailboat, and the paddleboat—were moored not far from the quay near the treelined Alameda de Massarelos. The few miles to the mouth of the river had been dredged to reduce the silting of the river’s channel, and several marinas were tucked along the old quays past the Ribeira where the river turned and widened. This side of the river housed mostly private boats and those belonging to smaller businesses, while the winemakers used the opposite shore over at Vila Nova de Gaia.

  Duilio’s family had rented this particular space near the quay for three generations, back to the time when the family had smuggled French goods. Now the Ferreira boats were nestled between the yacht owned by Mr. Cezar Tome Guilherme, and on the other side the Ramires Fishing Company, a family interest with a dozen moderately sized boats, each lashed to the next parallel to the quay. Even after nightfall, that business had men coming and going. Lanterns lit the masts of the boats and the windows of their office next to the stone slip that led down to the moored boats. As they had always been good neighbors, Duilio didn’t mind the lingering odor of fish. Guilherme supposedly complained about it every time he visited his yacht.

  Dressed now in the same seal-smelling garments he’d worn to visit Erdano that morning, Duilio waited as Joaquim cajoled one of the fishermen dozing on his deck into bestirring his tired memory. As it turned out, the fisherman had seen the girl on Saturday night. It was evidently difficult to miss a girl climbing naked onto the quay. One of the other fishermen had hurriedly given her a blanket, thinking she’d fallen into the river.

  It was, as Duilio suspected, not far down from where his own boats were moored. Erdano kept a few changes of clothing in the yacht, which also provided him a relatively safe spot to leave his pelt while in the city. But a search of the yacht didn’t reveal the girl’s pelt.

  João, the young boatman who maintained the family’s boats, had an apartment just off the quay and came down to ask if he could help. Since they’d finished searching the boats, Duilio settled for asking the young man to keep an ear out for any word of the missing pelt. As João’s lover, Aga, was a selkie, the young man understood the importance of the missing item.

  “The fisherman didn’t say anything about her carrying a pelt around,” Joaquim noted once João had gone back home. “How big would that be?”

  Since Gita’s must be smaller, Duilio extrapolated down from the size of his mother’s pelt bundled tightly, and gestured with his hands. “About this big.”

  “So she hid it somewhere. On one o
f the Ramires boats? Or Mr. Guilherme’s?”

  They didn’t have time to search all those boats. “She wouldn’t know which ones were mine, so she might have picked any of them. I can look again later, but this is the one Erdano always uses.”

  Joaquim nodded. “Where did he go from here?”

  “To the Lusty Siren, I believe,” Duilio said. “There’s a girl there named Zenaide that he favors.”

  Joaquim peered up at the clouds coming in from the sea. “Where is there a girl he doesn’t favor?”

  Duilio climbed up from the sailboat’s deck and then jumped over to the stone slip. Joaquim didn’t approve of Erdano’s excesses when it came to women. He didn’t approve of Duilio’s past connections with women either, despite the far smaller number of women involved. It amused Duilio that Joaquim had grown up so straitlaced—particularly when compared to Alessio and Erdano. He’d never figured out how that happened. “It’s selkie charm,” he said. “Erdano can’t help it.”

  Joaquim rolled his eyes. They headed up from the docks toward the tavern. The Lusty Siren was located off the Largo do Mirante. The prevailing winds carried the smells of a fish seller’s wares along the street. Finer businesses had fled that area for cleaner and wealthier environs. Even so, according to Erdano, the women there were still as fine.

  “So you meet Erdano here?” Joaquim asked as they made their way through the dining area of the Lusty Siren. It was a crowded place with no more than a dozen small tables. But the sounds of the mournful singing of the black-shawled woman near the soot-stained stone hearth carried over the murmur of voices as patrons went about their business and ate their suppers.

  “I’ve been here a few times,” Duilio admitted. “His choice.”

  Joaquim snorted. “No, I didn’t think it was yours.”

  The lovely Zenaide didn’t prove any more helpful than the fisherman. The buxom young woman led them back into the cramped kitchen to keep out of her employer’s eye and turned her hand to drying glasses with her apron. “Yes, Erdano came to see me that night, but I didn’t see any girl.”

  Joaquim sniffed dubiously at a large pot of soup bubbling on the stove. It smelled of cabbage, but Duilio wasn’t going to investigate. “Is anyone else here who might have seen her?”

  Zenaide appeared to consider that as she loaded the glasses onto a tray. “You know, Old Timoteo was outside that night. He would have seen anyone who came in.”

  “The beggar who sits on the fountain?” Joaquim asked, proving he did know the area.

  Zenaide put her hands on her rounded hips. “Not a fine gentleman like you, sir,” she said, surveying Joaquim in a way that caused a dull flush to spread across his skin. “But he has sharp eyes. He remembers everyone who comes or goes. Keeps an eye on us girls, too.”

  Duilio shot Joaquim a dry look over the woman’s head. He pressed a couple of milreis into her hand. “Thank you. We’ll see if he saw anything. We appreciate your help.”

  She pocketed the coins and simpered at him. “A pleasure, Mr. Ferreira.”

  “Selkie charm,” Joaquim whispered under his breath.

  Duilio laughed as they walked out the back door of the tavern. “More a case of my regularly paying Erdano’s tab here.”

  The street on the far side of the tavern was dark, lit only by the faint glow of a streetlamp on the corner. And this side of the building reeked of urine, so Duilio watched where he set his feet. When they came out into the triangular area formed by the juncture of three streets, he could see the beggar perched on the edge of a half-circle fountain built onto the side of one of the buildings.

  Timoteo was a wizened old man, dressed in a ragtag assortment of clothes, but his eyes were indeed sharp. He clutched a glass of beer as they described their missing girl. “Two nights ago she came here, the poor girl.”

  “What do you mean, poor?” Joaquim asked.

  “Only had a blanket about her.” Timoteo took a swig of beer. “Thought she must be mad.”

  The blanket was a telling detail, matching the fisherman’s claim. “Did she go into the tavern?”

  “No,” Timoteo said. “Not the front door. Went into the backstreet like you did.”

  Which proved the old man had been watching them, as well. Sharp eyes, as Zenaide said. “Did she come back out again?”

  The man set down his glass and held out his hand. “Fine gentlemen like you two have enough to spare.”

  True, even if neither of them was dressed like a “fine gentleman” at the moment. “The price will be based on your answer, then.”

  The old man grinned, showing only a handful of teeth. “A man gagged her, carried her into a coach over there.” He pointed at the intersection through which they’d just walked. The square’s traffic appeared to be mainly pedestrian, folk out at night moving from tavern to tavern, so a coach would likely have drawn attention. “Thought it might be a family problem. A nice coach, not tatty, so richer folk, like you.”

  Duilio dug out his wallet and located another pair of milreis. He held them up for the man to see. “Tell us everything you can remember about this man and his coach.”

  Joaquim drew out a notebook and jotted down the man’s words. Unfortunately, he described a man almost as difficult to distinguish as Gita had been. He was very average—brown hair, fair complexion, shorter than Duilio or Joaquim and older, wearing a dark jacket and trousers. The coach was black with no arms on the side. Timoteo hadn’t seen the driver clearly, but he’d been stocky. Duilio pressed his lips together, frustrated.

  “Wish I could tell you more,” the old man said.

  Duilio handed over the coins, and the old man secreted them inside his shirt. He winked up at them. “Hope you find her, fine gentlemen. She looked lost.”

  Lost, indeed. Duilio clapped Joaquim on the shoulder. “Let’s head back to the house.”

  Joaquim folded up his notebook, nodded to the old man, and followed.

  “Do you think he’s a good witness?” Duilio asked.

  “Actually, I know his name,” Joaquim said. “He’s been helpful to the police in the past, so I suspect he earned that money.”

  A hired cab took them through the crowded area around the hospital and down to the Street of Flowers. Once there, they settled in the library at the house, each with a glass of brandy. It’s nice to be somewhere quiet, Duilio thought, away from the crowds and the smells of nighttime revelry. He’d never been much of a reveler himself.

  Duilio sat at one of the chairs set around the polished table in the center of the library, cradling his brandy in his hands. “I feel like we asked all the right questions, but came away without answers.”

  “I hate this part,” Joaquim said. “I can ask discreetly if anyone has heard about such an incident that night, but don’t expect an answer, Duilio. It’s too vague.”

  “I know.” Duilio swirled the brandy in the glass, letting it take on the warmth of his hand. He rarely drank much; that had been one of Alessio’s excesses. “She’s dead, Joaquim.”

  Joaquim set his glass down and dragged one hand over his face wearily. “Why were we wasting our time, then? For heaven’s sake, Duilio.”

  “Erdano asked me to find the killer,” he admitted.

  “And you couldn’t tell him no. Why couldn’t you say no?”

  Duilio fixed him with a level gaze. “Could you?”

  Joaquim leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the polished wood table. “No.”

  Duilio swirled the brandy again. “Did you know Alessio knew the infante?”

  Joaquim cast him a glance that suggested he’d drunk too much. “Where would he have met the infante?”

  “No idea.” Duilio hadn’t told Joaquim about his Sunday visitor the day before, not in a venue like the restaurant where they’d eaten. Some things were too risky to say in public. But his own library was the safest pl
ace he knew, so he told Joaquim of his incognito visitor and their rambling conversation, which made Joaquim scowl.

  “I accused Alessio of going to Lisboa so often because he’d run out of aristocrats to bed here,” Joaquim said in a regretful tone. “Well . . . I didn’t use those words.”

  Joaquim and Alessio hadn’t gotten along well for the last few years Joaquim had lived in this house. Duilio never had known why. “You were on speaking terms then?”

  “I’d come by to report on my hunt for your mother’s pelt.”

  When his mother’s pelt had been stolen over three years before, his father and Alessio had chosen not to inform Duilio what was missing. Nor had they told Joaquim, despite the fact that his police ties would surely have helped in the search. Alessio had informed him a couple of years after the fact, and then had died less than a month later. It frustrated Duilio that they hadn’t gotten along better. But commenting further on the estrangement would only make Joaquim stop talking, so he dropped the subject.

  “Did you hear anything from Miss Paredes today?” Joaquim asked after a long silence.

  “No. I feel like I should be doing something, but . . . I don’t have any idea what needs doing.” Duilio slid down farther in his chair and rubbed his hands over his face. “I’ve got things to keep me busy. Finding Erdano’s girl. Taking care of Mother. I even went to the boxing salon for the first time in a month or so. But it all feels like I’m treading water, just waiting for her to come back. Like my life is . . . paused midstream.”

  Joaquim’s brows drew together. “You only met her three weeks ago, and two of those she’s been gone. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

  Duilio laughed softly. He was moderately certain Joaquim had never been in love; he was waiting for the perfect woman. “No, I don’t.”

  Joaquim raised one hand. “Hear me out, Duilio. Is it possible that she’s bewitched you? A sereia can do that with her voice.”

  “No.” Duilio smiled, grateful for Joaquim’s concern. “I have heard her sing, but I felt this way long before that.”