Company of Strangers, #1

by Melissa McShane

  “We’re not hungry,” Dianthe said.

  “I’m hungry,” Alaric said.

  “Fine. Our friend isn’t eating with us, so don’t worry about him.” Dianthe sat at the head of the scarred trestle table and gestured for the others to join her. “All right,” she said. “Sienne was attacked by this stranger and outran him. When she returned to this house, the man disappeared. A few hours later, Kalanath was attacked by what seems to be the same man. I think that’s cause for alarm.”

  “He saw past my confusion spell,” Sienne said. “Or…that’s not quite right. He passed me the first time. It was almost as if he was tracking some quality of mine that the confusion didn’t disguise.”

  “He followed me for some minutes before attacking,” Kalanath said. “I tried to trick him and failed. It is not a thing I am bad at, either. He was too good at following.”

  Alaric leaned back as Leofus put a large bowl of thick mutton stew in front of him, with a hunk of bread beside it. “What could do that? If he really was following something unique about you—both of you—is there wizardry for that?”

  “No,” Sienne said, accepting her own bowl and bread. The smell rising from it was divine, but when she took a small bite, she discovered it was too hot. She stirred it and added, “There’s no spell language that can encompass finding things. You’d need a priest for that. So either he was a priest, or he had some kind of blessing that let him follow us.”

  “Priest,” Dianthe said. “Perrin could be in danger.”

  Alaric took an enormous mouthful of stew, apparently unconcerned about how hot it was. “Then why didn’t he come after the two of us?”

  “We haven’t been off alone since coming back to Fioretti.” Dianthe broke off a piece of bread and absently dipped it in the stew without eating it. “And I honestly don’t feel like heading out into the growing dark on my own to test the theory.”

  Alaric took another bite. “Eat up, and we’ll go find Perrin,” he said.

  Dianthe slugged his arm. “We don’t have time to eat! Perrin’s no fighter. If that man catches him alone—”

  Alaric sighed and picked up the bread. “All right. We go now. But I bet we find him safely inside a bar, drinking himself under a table.”

  The crowds had dispersed in the few minutes since they’d arrived back at Master Tersus’s house. Sienne reflected on her uneaten stew and envied them, safe and cozy in their homes, eating their dinners. Then she remembered the man who’d come after her, how frightened she’d been, and her appetite dwindled. She hoped Alaric was right, and Perrin was safe somewhere, completely unconscious of the danger his former companions had faced.

  The tavern Perrin had mentioned, Pasotti’s, was near the docks and was a good deal more reputable than the one they’d first met him in. It was a low single-story building with plank siding that, while in need of fresh paint, had no gaps or shattered boards anywhere. Warm, ruddy light gleamed behind its many windows despite there still being an hour until sunset. A water barrel positioned under the corner of the roof brimmed with rainwater, its meniscus catching the last of the sunlight like a soap bubble near to bursting. Men and a few women dressed in the rough clothing of dock laborers passed in and out of its doors, and the merry music of a fife and tambour escaped the doors whenever someone opened them.

  No one paid them any attention when they entered, which surprised Sienne. By now she was used to either Alaric or Kalanath or both drawing stares. But this was the harbor, and sailors of all nationalities came and went regularly, so even a giant Ansorjan was likely no rarity. Alaric led the way to the bar and addressed the middle-aged woman standing there, drawing off a pint for a patron. “We’re looking for Perrin Delucco,” he said. “He said to ask after him here.”

  The woman kept her attention on her pint. When it was full, she slid it neatly down the bar to its owner. Wiping her hands on her apron, she said, “Perrin’s not here.”

  “We’re friends,” Dianthe said, which told Sienne she’d had the same impression, that the barkeep might be protecting Perrin’s privacy. “We have some money we owe him.”

  Now the barkeep looked up and took in Alaric’s height and breadth for the first time. “Ah. He said a mountain of an Ansorjan might come looking for him. He’s just stepped out for a moment. Have a seat.”

  “Stepped out?” Sienne said.

  “To relieve himself,” Alaric muttered. Sienne blushed. Sometimes she was forcibly reminded of how ignorant she was of the world outside her father’s estate.

  They found an unoccupied table big enough to fit all of them and waited. Sienne looked around without bothering to disguise her interest. The fife and tambour players occupied a corner far from the door and had quite an audience of toe-tapping, knee-slapping listeners. One of them stood and shouted, “Let’s hear ‘Oak and Ashes,’ all right, boys?”

  A mighty cheer went up from the crowd as the fife player struck up a new tune. Sienne found her own toe tapping to the rhythm, even though she didn’t know the song. Apparently, neither did the listeners. Sienne heard at least three different sets of lyrics, each shouted at top volume as if it were a contest to see whose favorite would come out the winner.

  “They do this every night,” Perrin shouted, drawing her attention away from the singers. “I fear no one has been able to stop them, nor would they, as they all spend a great deal of money to become extremely drunk afterward.” He looked unsteady on his feet himself, his smile relaxed and his eyes glassy. He clapped Dianthe on the shoulder and half-fell into the chair next to her. “I did not think I would see you all so soon. Let me buy the next round. I feel I am not drunk enough yet.”

  “You might want to reconsider that,” Alaric said. “Has anything strange happened to you this afternoon? Seen anyone unusual?”

  Perrin’s smile wavered. “No one unusual,” he said, with a strange emphasis on the final word. “More to the point, they did not see me, as is my sad fate.” Sienne opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but he overrode her with, “I take it I should have done?”

  “Maybe,” Alaric said. “Sienne and Kalanath were both accosted by the same strange man. We thought he might have gone after you as well.”

  “But if you were here—were you here all afternoon?” Dianthe asked.

  “I was not. I went for a walk in the gardens until the rains fell, then I came here and set about drinking myself senseless. For a priest of Averran, that is a difficult proposition.” Perrin’s hand, resting on the table, closed into a tight fist. He looked as if he wanted someone to fight. Then he smiled that lazy, relaxed smile again. “At any rate, I have not seen your fellow.”

  “When the rains fell, he was after Sienne,” Dianthe said. “By the time we chased him away, Perrin was probably here. So he’d have been safe.”

  “Why are you so certain this man would have come after me? I admit it strains credulity that a single man might choose to attack at random two people who know one another, but surely stranger coincidences than this have happened.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence,” Alaric said.

  The barkeep approached with a double handful of mugs. “I’m sure you were going to order something,” she said with a sweet archness that embarrassed Sienne, as if they’d come to Pasotti’s under false pretenses. She accepted her mug and took a long drink. It was good, if darker than she usually liked.

  Perrin drank off most of his in a single draught. “Then if it is not coincidence, Alaric, what is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Alaric took a drink and stared into the contents of his mug as if he expected to find the answer there. “But this person went after two of us and was capable of following them beyond reason. I don’t like it.”

  “So what do Sienne and Kalanath have in common?” Dianthe said.

  “We were both on the same job,” Sienne said. “We both handled the artifacts. But neither of us had one on us.”

  Kalanath said, “And the attacker did not simply follow anyone leaving
Master Tersus’s house, because I did not go there until after I was attacked.”

  Alaric’s brow was furrowed in thought. Then he dug in his belt pouch and slapped down a few coins. “Let’s go pay a visit to Master Fontanna.”

  The volume rose over his last words as the song, if one could call it that, came to an end. “Did you say Master Fontanna?” Sienne asked.

  Alaric nodded and pushed back his chair. Sienne held back any further comments until they were outside, where the noise became a distant hum. The sun kissed the horizon, sending old, tired light slanting across the harbor and turning the waves gold. The sea salt odor of the breezes tickled Sienne’s nose into a sneeze, which she stifled.

  “That artifact we brought back, the distance-viewer,” Alaric said, “was valuable enough for the Giordas to try to take it from us.”

  “Yes, but they were opportunists. They couldn’t possibly have known what we were after,” Dianthe said.

  “Nevertheless, I think we should see if Master Fontanna has seen any unsavory types lurking around his manor this afternoon.” Alaric set off in the direction of the hill. “It’s unlikely, but I have a feeling there’s more going on than simple assault.”

  Sienne trudged along after Alaric and tried not to feel relieved that they were all together again. It was only temporary, but she couldn’t help imagining this was another job, one that demanded all their skills. You’re being stupid, she told herself, and willed away the excitement that threatened to bubble up inside her.

  Dusk had fallen by the time they reached Master Fontanna’s manor. The river seemed louder than it had been that afternoon, as if darkness freed it to be as noisy as it liked. Alaric pulled the bell chain and they waited. It was most of a minute before the door opened. “Yes?” the same servant said, looking them over. His voice was as placid as ever, but his face betrayed bewilderment at seeing them again.

  “Two of our companions were attacked by someone this afternoon,” Alaric said. “We believe it had something to do with the artifact we retrieved for Master Fontanna. Would you ask if we might have a moment of his time?”

  “Master Fontanna is entertaining guests,” the man said, his posture relaxing fractionally. Sienne thought it likely he was on more comfortable grounds when dealing with importunate hirelings at dinnertime. “You may call again in the morning, and I am certain he will see you.”

  “Wait,” Dianthe said. “Maybe you can help. Has anyone been lurking around the manor? Someone unsavory-looking, with long stringy hair?”

  The man looked at her as if she were an unsavory type. “No one of that description has approached the manor,” he said, “nor would they dare. Now, please return in the morning.”

  “Thanks,” Alaric said, but the door was already shut.

  “Now what?” said Kalanath.

  “It was unlikely your attacker would come here, if he didn’t try to go after Perrin in the tavern or the two of us in Master Tersus’s house,” Dianthe said, “but we had to try. I don’t know what to do next.”

  “Let’s move away from the manor. I don’t want to be rousted by the guard for loitering with intent,” Alaric said. “Whatever intent they think we have.”

  They walked down the gravel path to the bottom of the slope, then around the corner, where Alaric came to a stop. “Perrin,” he said, “if you wanted to locate a person, what would you do?”

  “I take it you do not mean in the traditional way, in which one inquires at the person’s usual haunts.” Perrin’s gaze turned inward. “When one asks Averran for a blessing that will allow one to find a person…well, Averran is somewhat erratic on the subject. Two times out of five, he will deny the request without explanation. When the blessing is granted, it is in the form of a glowing stone, perhaps thumbnail-sized. One swallows it, and it imparts a sort of tug that grows stronger as one comes closer to the desired individual. Or so I am told.”

  “So what exactly is it drawn to?” Sienne asked. “How does it know what person out of all the thousands of people in Fioretti to find?”

  “Ah, that depends on the nature of the blessing one requests,” Perrin said. “Since God knows each of us by name, Her avatars naturally have no difficulty in identifying one individual out of those thousands. But it is possible to make a more general request. The guard, for example, often ask the priests of Kitane, who are the most experienced at such blessings, to locate people based on their physical features, or their location at a given time, or even those in possession of a particular item. It is far more difficult, naturally, and I understand the guard cannot rely on such blessings to catch every criminal in Fioretti, as none of the avatars are consistent in granting them. But it can be done.”

  “So it’s possible this attacker used a blessing to locate Sienne and Kalanath based on something they have in common,” Dianthe said.

  “We don’t have that much in common,” Sienne pointed out. “We both traveled together. We both retrieved those artifacts. We both fought the splinterfolk. I guess we ate the same food for a while…” Her voice trailed off. Remembering what they had in common gave her a pang of envy that it wasn’t going to happen again.

  Alaric turned away and paced to the end of the street a few steps away, where an as yet unlit lantern hung, then returned to the rest of them. “Something in common,” he said. “You both handled the artifact. What else?”

  “I did not touch the lenses,” Kalanath said.

  “We both touched the pendant, though,” Sienne said. “We all did. I remember passing it around.”

  “Hmmm,” Alaric said. “It’s worth investigating.” He headed for the end of the street again. “Let’s see if Neoma is still open.”

  As the sun set, the lights of Fioretti came on, one flickering lantern, one magical light after another. Sienne stared in awe at the ruby and white lights of the palace that turned it into a confectioner’s dream. As they crossed the Vochus, the rushing water took the lights’ reflections and churned them into ribbons of white and red. Sienne slowed to look at them and had to run to catch up when Dianthe called her name.

  Fioretti by night was a different city, the men and women thronging the streets committed to pleasure. Every tavern had someone at the door calling a welcome to anyone who might enter. Sienne’s face grew hot when she received a proposition of another kind from a brightly-lit brothel. She stuck close to Perrin’s side, hoping the presence of her companions might fend off other advances. Perrin wasn’t walking nearly as unsteadily as she’d expected, but the smell of alcohol coming off his breath confirmed that he’d been drinking for a few hours.

  His behavior that evening puzzled her. It sounded as if he’d seen someone he didn’t like, or at least someone he didn’t want to think about, and had turned to beer to rid himself of the memories. Sienne didn’t know much about religion, but she was certain that wasn’t the kind of alcohol use Averran expected of his priests. She glanced at him, but his attention was on Alaric, striding along at the head of their procession like someone intent on getting his way. If they were real companions, she’d have felt comfortable asking Perrin about it. Just one more sign that they weren’t.

  The crowds were heavier on the street where Neoma’s shop was, and the air was full of wood smoke coming from somewhere up ahead. Sienne moved closer to the center of their group and let them sweep her along like a bit of fluff caught in a draft. It meant she couldn’t see much, so when Alaric came to an abrupt halt, she bumped into him. “Sorry,” she said.

  Alaric didn’t answer. Dianthe said, “By Kitane’s right arm, what happened?”

  Sienne ducked around Alaric and gasped. A gaping, burned-out hole lay where Neoma’s shop had been just hours before. Two guards stood sentry in front of it, though no one seemed interested in approaching too close. There might as well have been an invisible barrier keeping everyone at bay, the line of onlookers was that well defined. Sienne took a step forward and Alaric put a hand on her arm, restraining her.

  “Was this our destinat
ion?” Perrin said.

  “It used to be,” Alaric said. “I don’t see Neoma anywhere.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t here when the fire happened,” Sienne said.

  “Maybe,” Alaric said, looking grimmer than before. “But I have a very bad feeling about this.”

  17

  A couple more guards, one wearing the red knot of a lieutenant on his left shoulder, emerged from the hole, stepping high over what was left of the brick façade. Dianthe said, “Give me a minute.” She stepped forward and crossed the short distance to where the man and woman stood. The woman made a dismissing motion with both hands, but the lieutenant shook his head. They were too far away for Sienne to hear what he said, and automatically she pulled out her spellbook and opened it to sharpen.

  A heavy hand came down on hers. “Bad idea,” Alaric said. “With all the noise out here, the odds of you picking out one conversation are virtually nonexistent. You’ll just deafen yourself.”

  She gaped. “How did you know—”

  “Either you’re predictable, or I’m coming to understand how you think,” Alaric said with a grin. “Just wait. Dianthe will tell us what she learns.”

  The lieutenant had taken Dianthe to one side and they were having a conversation that, by the look of the gestures Dianthe was making, was rather intense. Sienne continued to watch Alaric, whose lips were moving soundlessly as if he were taking part in the conversation. Dianthe gestured at the shop, then made a motion with her hands Sienne couldn’t understand. Alaric grunted in comprehension. “What is it?” Sienne asked.

  Alaric made a quelling gesture with one hand. “Just wait.”

  Sienne was bad at waiting. She put her spellbook away and tried to read their lips, with no success. Finally, Dianthe gripped the lieutenant’s shoulder in a friendly way and said something that made him laugh. He leaned in and whispered in her ear something that made Dianthe blush, visible even in the low light. She nodded, and returned to Alaric’s side.