The Emperor's Edge (a high fantasy mystery in an era of steam)
Page 52
* * * * *
They waited until night, when there would be fewer men on duty. Amaranthe ambled into the enforcer station with the hat slung low over her face and one hand tucked into her overalls. If she could have found a stalk of wheat to chew on, it would be dangling from her mouth. Alas, it was not the right season.
Face shadowed by his hat, Sicarius waited at her back. The lone corporal manning the desk gave her a bemused smile.
“Help you?”
Rows of steel-barred jail cells stretched beyond an open doorway behind him. Amaranthe hoped, in the aftermath of the emperor’s kidnapping, no one had found time to look up the new prisoners in the warrant book.
“Lost me a few runaways from my farm out yonder.” She pointed vaguely in the direction of the lake, beyond which agriculture still dominated the lowlands. “Heard they was here.”
“Describe them.”
“Four strapping fellows, well except for old Hoss. He’s a tall gangly one. Junior looks like he ought to be an officer in the army, ‘cept the women and the drink keeps him under the table ‘til noon if he ain’t watched good. Surly used t’ run with the gangs and looks it. Then there’s Scar. Name speaks for itself, I reckon.”
“Those aren’t the names they gave me,” the corporal said.
“Well, I figger not. Would you give up yer name if you was running from a work contract? I’ve got the doc’ments right here for ‘em.” She handed four bogus papers to the corporal. “They all signed on for two years in exchange for room and board and a share of the crops. I’d be in a right bind without them four hands. Planting season ain’t that far off, y’know.”
The corporal shrugged. “I’ll get the paperwork. It’s a hundred ranmyas apiece to free them.”
“A hundred apiece! What’d they do?”
“Obstructed a crime scene investigation and stole one of our steam trucks. Then they resisted arrest. They’ve resisted everything.”
“Idiots!” Amaranthe slammed a fist into her palm and did her best to look infuriated. “Why couldn’t they just run off and get drunk like you’d expect?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.” Amusement tugged at the corporal’s lips. “Do you have the money to pay the fine?”
“No,” she said glumly. “I reckon you’ll have to keep them.”
The corporal winced. She wondered just how troublesome her men were being.
“Don’t they have anyone else who could pay the fine?” he asked. “The big one—”
“Junior,” Amaranthe supplied.
“Er, Junior implied he had some family he might be able to get to come down.”
“His family’s all dead. Junior’s so used to lying he couldn’t tell the truth if his brandy supply hung on it.”
The corporal rubbed his chin. “He did seem quite reluctant to contact his kin.”
“What happens if no one can pay the fine?” Amaranthe asked as if she didn’t know perfectly well.
The corporal slumped. “They stay here. One hundred eighty days in a cell.”
“Well, I’m just a simple farmer, sir, and I’ll never have that much money to spare, but if you’d release them and let me put them back to work, I’d sure be grateful.”
“Can’t let them go without a fitting punishment.”
“Oh, they’ll be punished.” Amaranthe smiled and pointed at the heretofore silent Sicarius. “Pa here, he’s the farm dis-ci-pli-nar-i-an. He was a soldier and he knows how to lay into a man an’ make him wish he’d never thunk of running off. Ain’t that right, Pa?” She smiled up at Sicarius.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “Ma.”
Hm, she would have to remember not to put him into positions that required acting flair in the future.
“I don’t know, ma’am...” The corporal glanced over his shoulder toward the office. Wanting to get rid of the men but not sure his superiors would approve?
The enforcer that leaned through the doorway was not a superior though. He sported the rank of a raw recruit, and he had a swollen and likely broken nose.
“Want me to get those men for you, Corporal?” he asked in a nasal tone.
Amaranthe lifted her hand and pressed it to her lips to hide a smirk. How many enforcers had it taken to manhandle those four into cells?
“It makes sense,” she said. “If they was to stay here six months, all four of ‘em, that’s a lot of meals you’d have to be feeding them, and them doing no work in return, just lounging in them cells. I reckon that’d add up to a lot more than four hundred ranmyas over time. Seems like a better deal for the city if you let me take ‘em back to the farm.”
“I’m not the one paying for their meals,” the corporal muttered, but he glanced at his subordinate, who waited hopefully in the doorway. “All right, get them out.”
“That’s kind of you, sir.” Amaranthe smiled, and it was no act.
The corporal grumbled under his breath, disappeared into the office for a moment, and returned with paperwork. He laid the four sheets on the desk, stamped them closed, and scribbled something intentionally illegible in the box for recording the fine as paid. Illogically, the old enforcer in Amaranthe cringed at this ham-handed handling of the law.
Scuffles sounded beyond the doorway, and something crashed to the floor and broke.
“Rotten apples.” The corporal pointed at Amaranthe. “Can you help, or will they just get worse when they see you?”
Sicarius strode through the doorway. Amaranthe hustled after. She had to speak first, before the men blew her story.
She need not have worried, for they halted and stared when they saw her and Sicarius. It was not disbelief at their arrival, she realized, but amusement at the farmer outfits. Maldynado managed to open his mouth at the same time as he smirked.
“Junior,” Amaranthe blurted to beat him. “How could you leave the farm—leave my sister—like that? You plant your seed, then just run off to the city to get yourself wound up in antics that put you in jail. For six months! You expecting her to have the baby and care for it without no men-folk to help provide?”
Maldynado’s mouth did not shut; rather his jaw dropped lower and hung there.
Books slapped him on the shoulder. “Lout.”
“And the rest of you. There’s work to be done, even if there’s still snow on the ground. You forget your contracts? You forget your word what you gave me?”
Basilard appeared glad for his missing voice. An indignant expression lurched onto Akstyr’s face, and he started to say something, but Books elbowed him.
“It was a mistake, ma’am,” Books said. “We’re ready to come back to work.”
“Not soon enough.” Maldynado issued a disparaging glare at the corridor of cells behind him.
Amaranthe led them out of the station before anybody could say anything that might give away her story. Outside, snow squeaked under their boots and black ice glinted beneath the street lamps, but gusts of wind from the south promised warmer weather coming.
“Thanks for springing us,” Akstyr said.
“Indeed,” Books said.
Basilard nodded.
“Not that we couldn’t have gotten out on our own charms,” Maldynado said.
“I saw your charms on a couple of enforcers’ faces,” Amaranthe said. “I’d call them contusions, but it’s your story.”
Maldynado grinned. “So, what’s next, boss?”
“Since you asked...”
By the time they reached the icehouse, she had explained her plan.
“There’s just one thing I want to know,” Maldynado said at the end. He stabbed a finger at Amaranthe. “Is that the uniform?”
Smiling, she removed her straw farmer’s cap. She stood on her tiptoes and plopped it on Maldynado’s head.
“Only for you.”
Maldynado started to reach up to remove it but paused. He wriggled his eyebrows at Amaranthe. “Does it look good on me?”
“You look like an illiterate buffoon,” Books said.
&nb
sp; “But does it look good?”
* * * * *
Sespian eyeballed the bowl of lotion his new valet had dropped off. The honey-and-cinnamon scent left him wondering if it was edible. He smeared some on his cracked cheeks and forehead.
Trog hopped onto the desk and swished his cobweb-draped tail.
“Yes, I know I look silly.” Sespian smeared another glop on his burned skin, sat in the chair, and patted the cat. A couple of papers rested beneath Trog’s paws. “You’re just in time to help me with a decision.”
Trog sniffed Sespian’s chin, and the sandpaper tongue darted out to sample the lotion.
“I guess that answers the edible question,” Sespian murmured. “We’re here to decide something a little more momentous though.”
He slid the wanted posters for Amaranthe and Sicarius out from beneath the cat. He picked up a pencil and sighed at the fresh feline tooth marks decorating it.
“Money alone doesn’t seem to be enough of an incentive for someone to get rid of Sicarius.” Sespian tapped the pen against his chin and then added the promise of a title and land to the reward money.
Next he considered Amaranthe’s poster. Or at least he tried to. Trog flopped down and stretched out across it, inviting a belly rub.
“Don’t worry, boy. I’m not going to upgrade her bounty.” Sespian wished he remembered more of what happened in the smelter. The guards said Amaranthe had been there at the end, but he had no memory of anything after Sicarius demanding his head. No one had seen who killed Dunn. Sespian tapped the pencil thoughtfully. “I still have no idea what Lokdon has done and whether she’s been acting of her own volition.”
Trog meowed.
“Yes, yes, and I suppose there’s the hope that maybe she...” He finished with a silly shrug.
On her poster, he crossed out the line about her being a magic user and simply wrote: “Wanted Alive — 10,000 ranmyas.”
* * * * *
A young officer in the Imperial Intelligence Network intercepted the emperor’s revisions before they could go to Enforcer Headquarters. The officer left Sicarius’s poster alone, but he amended the one for Amaranthe Lokdon. “Wanted Dead — 10,000 ranmyas.” Those with knowledge of Forge could not be allowed to walk the streets or contact the emperor.
THE END
Afterword
Thank you for purchasing The Emperor’s Edge. If you’re ready for more adventures with Amaranthe, Sicarius, and the rest of the gang, the story continues with Dark Currents and Deadly Games. If you want to be notified when the author releases a new book, holds a contest, or gives away ebook coupons, please visit her “book news” page and sign up for the newsletter.
You can also say hello to Lindsay on Twitter, Facebook, or her blog.
Thanks for reading!
Also by the Author
THE EMPEROR’S EDGE UNIVERSE
NOVELS
THE EMPEROR’S EDGE
DARK CURRENTS
DEADLY GAMES
ENCRYPTED
SHORT STORIES
ICE CRACKER II (and other short stories)
THE ASSASSIN’S CURSE
THE FLASH GOLD CHRONICLES:
FLASH GOLD
HUNTED
PEACEMAKER (Spring 2012)
THE GOBLIN BROTHERS ADVENTURES