Rogue's Home

by Hilari Bell

  “Books can be a good investment; they sell for almost as much used as new.”

  “I suppose. But it made no difference. He took odd jobs again, mostly tutoring other men’s university-bound sons. He could have taught in any of the guild schools, but he said he needed the time to work on his thesis.”

  “Was his next thesis rejected too?”

  “He never finished it. He didn’t want to finish it, Master Sevenson—he was afraid to. He’d change a paragraph, throw out a chapter, find a new line of reasoning, get another source. It went on and on. Mama kept it for years after he died, hoping to get it published, but when she died…”

  “What?”

  “Nonny burned it.” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper, and her eyes held the memory of those flames. I was about to ask why, but she shook herself and went on. “Mama didn’t care that we weren’t rich; she loved Papa. We all did. He worked enough to keep us, and Mama took in a bit of sewing. Fine embroidery, like a noblewoman, for that was a skill her family had passed down. We used to help with the plain stitching when she had a big job, and we were happy. But then, when Lissy was six, Papa died.”

  Her expression held both sorrow and amusement.

  “He was reading a book at a market stall and it started to rain. He moved the book into the shelter of the building’s eaves and went right on reading, with the rain running down his back. He caught a chill and it went to his lungs and killed him—just like that. Nonny and Judith were devastated, and Mama…”

  She took a deep breath, her eyes shimmering in the glowing light. “She pulled herself together after a while. She had to. She turned her embroidery into a business, taking in mending as well, and even laundry. Non—Fisk and I helped sew. He was nine then, and I was thirteen, with Judith a year younger than me. Judith tried to help, but she’s a terrible needle-woman, so she kept house and looked after Lissy instead. Lissy threaded needles for us, and Fisk ran errands for shopkeepers, too, and did any job they’d pay him for. But he couldn’t pay an apprentice fee, so he couldn’t make much no matter how hard he worked. It was strange, to be sewing without Papa reading to us. Then, a year later, the influenza came to Ruesport.”

  My breath caught, but she went on without prompting. “It was terrible. Hundreds of people sickened, and there was barely enough ordinary medicine, much less magica. The prices soared. When Mama got sick…” She wiped her eyes impatiently. “This is silly. It was years ago. You’d think I could talk about it now, but it was…I had my hands full, nursing her. Judith took off for Coverton, hitching rides, walking. She had to sneak past the road guards, for they’d quarantined the town, but she did it. She went to our uncle to ask for help, but he wouldn’t even let her in for fear of the sickness. He said Mama went against his advice marrying Papa, and if the influenza came to Coverton, they’d need every copper for themselves. I’m afraid none of us have ever forgiven him, though it wouldn’t have mattered even if he’d given Judith all the money we needed. Mama was dead by the time she got home. Nonny and I…” Her voice shook and she took another deep breath.

  “Nonny did everything he could to make money, but it wasn’t enough. So one night, when she was very ill, he broke into an herbalist’s shop to steal magica medicine. And he got caught, though not by the law. Some burglar had realized that herbalists were making a lot of money these days. He blacked Nonny’s eye for trying to cut into his territory. But when Nonny tried to fight back, when he explained why he needed it, the burglar let Nonny stay and even helped him look for magica medicines. But it was all for nothing. They found a waiting list, and learned that the herbalists were all out of magica—they were making it up fresh as soon as the herbs were found and taking it straight to the next customer on the list. He couldn’t steal it, for it wasn’t there. Mama died two days later.”

  This time I let the silence stretch, though the light was fading now.

  “After she was buried, Judith, Nonny, and I piled all the money we had left on the kitchen table and counted it. There wasn’t enough for next month’s rent on the house, so we moved to some rooms in the Oldtown that were cheaper. A lot cheaper.

  “Selling the furniture kept us for a while, but we couldn’t handle the sewing business without Mama. Judith took in washing, Nonny went back to running errands, and I got a job serving in a tavern—a decent place near the guildhalls, where the council clerks went. We scraped by for a year. Then one of the customers wanted to bed me—tried, in fact. When the tapster found us scuffling in the back alley, the man said I’d lured him out there, and I was fired. The next tavern wasn’t as nice, and it didn’t pay as well, either. That was when Nonny went and found the burglar who’d caught him in the herb shop. He talked the man into taking him on as an apprentice. Burglarly’s the one profession where no fee is required, and this man often trained boys. He made a bit more, and we managed for almost two years, but we were barely getting by among the three of us. Winter was coming, and food prices always rise then. Sometimes the tavern customers would make me offers, and I was beginning to think I’d have to say yes. Nonny and Judith both said not to, that we’d work something out, but I knew they were lying, and I think they knew it too. Then Max came.”

  A serene smile lit her face. “He’d seen me working in the first tavern, and when I was fired, he followed me to the second. He hadn’t said anything before, because I was only seventeen and he was almost twenty years older. But he said he loved me and wanted to marry me, even though he knew I didn’t love him. And he said he’d take in Judith and Lissy and give them dowries. But he was a judicar, and Nonny…He hadn’t been caught, but the deputies knew about him. It was only a matter of time, Max said. But he’d give him the money to leave and start fresh somewhere else.”

  She met my eyes now, despite the discomfort I read in them, and I understood why Maxwell loved her. ’Tis rare to find a woman so courageous.

  “We talked about it, Nonny and I, almost all night. He didn’t want me to marry Max. I didn’t want him to leave. But we both knew what the alternative was, for me, Judith, and someday Lissy, too. Nonny was only thirteen, but he’d seen a lot in the last few years. More than a boy should. So he left. And Max kept his word. He’s an honorable man, Master Sevenson. Kind. Good.”

  “So is Fisk,” I said, “when given the chance.”

  Color flooded her cheeks, but she had no answer.

  CHAPTER 6

  Fisk

  A damp wind was blowing in from the sea, so the warm fug of the Irony Tavern was very welcome, though I blinked at the flaming banks of candles that adorned the sconces, shelves, and rough timber wheels that hung from the rafters.

  I’d taken a nap after lunch, and then spent the late afternoon helping Judith, Lissy, and the children make juniper garlands and speculating about why Michael and Anna had come in late, actually looking comfortable in each other’s presence. Max had promised to hang the garlands and put out torch brackets tomorrow, so the house would make a respectable show for the neighbors.

  Calling Night was only four nights off and the Irony hadn’t put out any greenery at all, but the blaze of candlelight was more in keeping with the holiday night than the cozy dimness I remembered in the old days. I strolled over to the counter and said, “Hello, Ham. What are you trying to do? Call the sun back early?”

  The tapster looked me up and down, and a grin split his doughy face. “Well, well, if it’s not the teacher’s boy. I’d heard you was back, and a bold lad, too, bringing bad company with you so open like.”

  “I see the sheriff’s office still leaks like a sieve. Honestly, it’s a wonder they ever catch anybody. Michael is my…guard.” I could have said he was my great-grandfather, my rich lover, or the High Liege and been equally disbelieved. I gestured around. “What’s with the candles?”

  “Ah, I was told keepin’ the place all dark made it look like a robbers’ lair, like my customers had something to hide. And I have to say, the lights do cut down on the riffraff.”

  Riffraff
was the kindest term that might be applied to most of the Irony’s patrons, and we both grinned.

  “Actually,” I went on, “I’m looking for Jonas Bish. Does he still come here?”

  Ham chewed his lower lip. “Maybe, maybe not.” He’d have said the same if Jonas was two years buried, but I knew how the system worked, so I ordered an ale and chatted with Ham until another customer pulled him away.

  Moving from the bar to a sit in a corner that used to be dim, I watched the ebb and flow of the tavern’s life and mentally timed the progress of the kitchen boy who was making his way to Jonas’s lodging at the moment. If he was there and wanted to see me, he’d be here shortly. If he was working tonight, he might come late, or not at all.

  It was about three hours later that I saw him coming through the crowd toward me. He stopped at my table, gazing down at me like a fond uncle. “Fisk, lad! You look downright prosperous. I may have to pay you a visit some night.”

  I laughed and clasped his hand without reservation, for Jonas was a decent man, despite his preference for having boys take the risks for him. As he used to say, they never hang children. Almost never.

  He seated himself and I signaled Ham to bring a cup of tea, for Jonas has one of those stomachs that can’t tolerate alcohol. We chatted about the last few years, in careful euphemisms that avoided any confession of crime, but it wasn’t long before he smiled and asked, “So, lad, why have you come looking for old Jonas on your second night in town?”

  “I’m trying to help Max,” I said. I wouldn’t have been so frank with most, but when it didn’t concern himself or his trade brothers, Jonas was a civic-minded sort. For a burglar.

  “Good luck to you,” he said sincerely. “Those lads he hanged were a nasty lot. I was glad they were respectable tanners and not criminals. But then…You really think Merciful Max didn’t do it? The evidence against him was pretty strong—that fire left him scraping. Though he wasn’t the only one,” he added glumly.

  “You had shares in that cargo, too?” I wasn’t surprised, for I knew Jonas invested when he could.

  He snorted. “Every man in Ruesport with a roundel to spare lost out when those ships burned. It was a sweet venture, likely to return twenty-two percent by my figuring, though they were touting it at thirty or higher. But at least the town got pumps out of it.”

  “Pumps?”

  “You haven’t seen them? Well, you might not have noticed, but when you see what looks like a boarded-over wagon in a square or alley, that’s one of the new fire pumps. There’s pipes beneath ’em that run into a river or a nearby well, and they haul up more water than four bucket lines. Tears up the street something awful when they lay the pipes.” Jonas shook his head. “But after that fire no one complained. You can tell which guild has the most pull with the council just by seeing where the next pump goes in.”

  “Do you think Max did it?”

  Jonas looked thoughtful. “Hard to say. The evidence was strong, but circumstantial for the most part. And it’s hard to believe that Merciful Max would hang innocent men for any price. Now Loves-the-Rope Thrope, it’s right in his style. But if it wasn’t Maxwell, it’s a cursed nice frame, I’ll give ’em that.”

  “So who could have done it? Or would have done it? Any ideas?”

  “Ah, that’s what you wanted old Jonas for. Well, if it’ll get Thrope off the justice scaffold, I’m all for it. Let’s see.” He sipped his tea and I waited. “Yes, there’s a few who hate Maxwell that much. Not so many as you’d think, for he erred on the soft side, but there’s a few. George Little hates him enough to do most anything, though I’m not sure he’s…not so much not smart enough, but he’s not subtle enough to rig a frame like this.”

  “George Little?”

  “He was a blacksmith whose brother was a craft brother of ours—though I hate to call that one brother in any way. A cutpurse, with a nasty habit of beating his marks. A couple of ’em died, later. George had nothing to do with the beatings, but he melted and recast the loot, so when they were caught, Max had the cutpurse hanged and the smith flogged. Little swore vengeance with every cut of the whip, till he started screaming. Yes. He hates Maxwell enough.” Jonas sipped his tea.

  I made a mental note of the name. “Who else?”

  “Well, this ’un had less cause, but I’ve heard a bit about Nate and he’s not…he’s not crazy, but he doesn’t think like other folks. Nate Jobber. He was a forger.”

  If I could have pricked my ears like Tipple, I would have. I was looking for forgers.

  “A good one, too, but he didn’t think of himself that way. He thought he was an artist, who’d someday paint pictures to hang in all the great lords’ palaces.”

  “Was he that good?” Jonas would know—a burglar has to know about art.

  “Nah, just a dabbler. But he didn’t see it that way, so…But I’m getting ahead of myself. Nate forged some documents for an embezzlement scam, and his comrades got greedy and bankrupted their mark. The man’s wife left him, too, though I don’t know if that was because of losing all the money or other things. But the long and the short of it is, the mark killed himself.”

  A chill ran through my flesh. One of the things a man whose name wasn’t Jack Bannister had taught me was never to take so much that your mark might become desperate. Death is a debt that can’t be repaid in coin.

  “Now, Nate had no part in the scam beyond making up the documents, but his confederates had the sense to ship out to another fiefdom before it all came out, leaving Nate to face the judicars alone. Maxwell said Nate’s craft was a menace to honest folk and ordered the tendons in his hands cut. Had ’em healed, too—the doctors standing right there to do the cutting and stitching both, and used magica to get ’em to knit. But you know how a tendon is once it’s been severed. Nate’s hands are stiff now. He can do most jobs, but he can barely write, much less forge another man’s name. Course his victim no longer breathes, so some’d say he got off light. I don’t think it bothered him to give up forgery, but he can’t paint neither. Frankly, I’m not sure Nate wouldn’t rather have hanged. No spine to him, that one.”

  Jonas had finished his tea, so I signaled Ham for another cup and waited until he’d poured it and left. If Jobber was no longer an able forger, he was less interesting to me, but he might have friends who were still in the business.

  “This last one I’m not so sure about,” Jonas went on slowly. “I don’t know much of him. And if he ever said a word against Maxwell, I haven’t heard of it. But he struck me as a mean ’un, and I think he’s that kind, to smile and talk meek and plot revenge.

  “Erril Kline was a law clerk, on the side of the righteous and all, till one day he took a bribe to keep a man’s name out of some testimony he was taking down. Not a hanging offense, but the Judicary Guild took a dim view of it. It was the guild’s council who ordered him disrobed, but it was Maxwell who’d found out what he’d done and brought it to the guild’s attention. They rule their own with a tight hand, the judicary.”

  “That was all? He just got disrobed?”

  “There was no victim to be repaid,” said Jonas comfortably. “I know it’s not a lot, but talk to him. See what you think.”

  “I will, if you can tell me where to find him.”

  Jonas knew all three men’s whereabouts, or at least where they worked. I was wondering how I could get men who hated Max to talk to me when the tavern door banged open and a man thrust his head in. “Fire at Morna’s place!”

  Jonas and I rose to our feet, and I dropped half a dozen fracts on the table even as I asked, “Why isn’t the fire bell ringing?”

  “Give it a bit.” Jonas made for the door, along with every able-bodied man in the room. We’d barely turned into the maze of streets that led to Trullsgate Bridge when the fire bell began to ring, shrill enough to pierce the soundest sleep. I followed the crowd, since I’d no idea where or what “Morna’s place” was. As we passed though Sutter’s Gate, I saw a column of orange-tinted smoke
rising over the ramshackle roofs of the stews and swore. The elderly buildings there were pushed closer than in any other part of Ruesport, and the wells were fewer here. There couldn’t be a worse place for a fire to start.

  “I don’t suppose I’m going to see one of those new pumps in operation?”

  “Not a chance. It’s cursed shortsighted, but the brothel keepers don’t carry much weight with the council. It’s the bucket line for us, lad.”

  I grimaced, for like any townsman I’ve been on bucket lines before, and on a night this cold it’s an unpleasant experience.

  Jonas and I ended up part of a line that went down to the Yare. Young, healthy types like me always end up on the full-bucket side of the line. At first I tried to keep dry as pail after pail sloshed through my hands, but it wasn’t possible, and soon I was working too hard to feel the wet or the cold.

  Several twists of the narrow street obscured my view of the fire, though its light flickered on the roofs above my head and enough smoke blew down to make my eyes smart and set me coughing.

  Information passed up and down the line along with the buckets. The fire had started in an attic. One of the girls’ leaving a candle burning was the best guess as to cause, though there were other guesses, some surprisingly inventive. Everyone had gotten out in time.

  The local fire team pulled down the walls of the burning house as fast as they could, despite Morna’s protests, and enough water was splashing around that none of the neighboring buildings caught fire. Even so, it was over three hours before they declared the danger over and dissolved the lines. The muscles in my arms quivered with strain and my back was sore. But as I made my way back to Max’s, growing colder with every step, I felt a kind of contentment. It’d been a long time since I’d been sufficiently part of a town to go to its defense.

  I was surprised, when I reached the house, to see light in Max’s study window. The bell rouses everyone, but the east was beyond the area where citizens would be called to fight a fire in the stews. If Max was still up, there might be a fire in the fireplace—or was there a stove in that room?