Casket of Souls (48 page)

Thero rubbed a hand wearily across his eyes. “I don’t like this, especially now that they appear to be killing each other off.”

“There’s been another death?”

“Yes. Countess Alarhichia.”

“Her name hasn’t come up,” said Alec.

“No, but she’s a known friend of Duke Reltheus, and another member of the court. Considering the suddenness of her death, I think we should at least consider it another act of retribution. In the meantime, various nobles are retreating to their country estates.”

“Any of our conspirators?” asked Seregil.

“Marquise Lania and Earl Stenmir.”

“Do you think Korathan will send Elani away?” asked Alec.

“Not yet. I’m sure he knows that would start a full-blown panic. You
must
hurry.”

“I know, Thero, but we can’t abandon Eirual and Myrhichia, either, and we won’t,” said Seregil. “We’ll manage. Neither side seems to be doing anything very dangerous at the moment, anyway. I wonder if Korathan sending General Sarien away has had a chilling effect?”

“Possibly.” Thero seemed to be about to say something as they rose to go, but instead just shook his head. “Get hold of one of those traded items and bring it to me. I’ll see if I can make out anything from it.”

“Thank you,” said Seregil. “We mean to do just that.”

“What now?” Alec asked as they made their way down through the atrium.

“We’d better go see Eirual. Then we’ve got to catch a raven and see if we can make it talk.”

It was eerie to see the pink lanterns over the door of Eirual’s brothel dark, and no warm light spilling from the windows. She’d given out word that they had summer fever in the house, and Valerius had convinced Korathan not to raise the alarm yet, on the condition that the house remained closed to trade.

“How is she, Manius?” Seregil asked as the man led them through the empty salon to the stairs.

“Myrhichia is just the same, and the other girls are frightened,” the servant replied, lighting a candle for them. “We’re all frightened for Lady Eirual, too. She hasn’t left Myrhichia’s side for a moment, sleeps in the same bed with her, and hardly eats a thing.”

“Send up a tray of cold food. I’ll see what I can do.”

It had only been a few days since they’d seen Eirual, but the change in her was startling. Dressed in a plain dark gown, she sat curled in a chair by the bedside with a book open but ignored on her lap. Her dark curls were loose around her shoulders and her violet eyes had a sunken, bruised look. It had been years since Seregil had seen her without her face made up, and it saddened him to see the little telltale signs of
age around her eyes and mouth. The look of hope in her eyes as they entered broke his heart.

“Anything?” she asked.

“No cure yet, I’m sorry. We just came to see how you both are.”

She gave a listless shrug. “As you see. I’m going to lose her, aren’t I?”

“Don’t say that!” Alec urged, kneeling beside her chair. “We think we may know what’s causing this sickness.”

She stroked his cheek. “Then where is the healer?”

“We hope to have proof for him by tomorrow,” Seregil said, bending over Myrhichia. She looked in better health than her mistress. There was still some color in her cheeks, her carefully braided hair shone, and her expression was peaceful.

“She takes a little broth,” Eirual told him.

Seregil took the bowl and spoon from the night table and trickled a few drops of cold broth between Myrhichia’s lips. After a moment she swallowed reflexively, but there was no other sign of life beyond the slight rise and fall of her chest.

Impotent rage rose in Seregil’s heart but he was careful not to show it.

“Can you stay until morning?” Eirual whispered.

“Of course. Come, lie down and try to sleep, love.”

Seregil settled Eirual in bed beside Myrhichia, then stretched out beside her, nodding for Alec to lie beside Myrhichia on the other side, as if surrounding the girl with their shared warmth and hope would be enough to save her. They lay like that all night, Alec and Eirual holding Myrhichia, and Seregil holding Eirual. Alec drifted off, but Seregil remained awake, watching the waxing moon sail past the window and the stars follow. The fifth day would soon dawn.

Brader waited until the others had gone up to bed, then cornered Atre in the front room.

“Have you gone completely mad?” he whispered, furious. “A noble here and there, the old ones, drew no attention, but for the love of Soru,
three
in less than a month?”

“What makes you think it was me?” Atre protested.

“Of course it was you. You think I don’t know the signs by now? Important people dropping dead for no reason, and you looking like you do? Even Merina is taking notice. She may not know what it all means, but it’s not like she hasn’t seen it before.”

“First of all, I didn’t kill Alarhichia. That was probably someone from Kyrin’s group, or natural. As for the others? I’m sure the two cabals are convinced they’re killing each other out of revenge.”

Brader took a steadying breath, resisting the urge to pummel his cousin. “Each side knows whether
they’ve
killed anyone or not.”

“Relax, Brader. No one suspects us. This city is too huge to notice what we’re up to. That’s the beauty of it! The vicegerent will quarantine another area of the sleeping death, and the cabals will kill each other off faster than I can. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

Atre smiled. “Trust me.”

I
T
was drizzling when Seregil and Alec entered the Ring again that morning, dressed this time as dirty beggar women. Swords weren’t part of the disguise, but they had knives hidden under their ragged cloaks. Both wore large faded kerchiefs that covered their hair and partially obscured their faces.

It wasn’t Alec’s favorite form of disguise; he felt uneasy with his legs hampered by long skirts, and although Seregil had gone to great pains to teach him how to make his voice lighter and more feminine, Alec always felt a bit silly speaking that way. For this job, however, even he had to admit it was a good choice. They attracted much less attention than they had yesterday.

“Let’s see if we can avoid any more fights,” Seregil murmured, keeping a sharp eye out for danger as they wended their way into a section of the slum they hadn’t been in before.

They did manage to stay out of trouble, but had little luck until it was nearly dark. They were on their way back to the gate, not wanting to get caught here after dark, when Seregil glanced down a side path and saw a stoop-shouldered, bowlegged old man speaking with a young boy and holding something out to him. The man must have been tall in his day, and had a head of wild grey hair that hung to his shoulders, a bulbous nose, and a patch over one eye. His unruly grey beard was stained with something dark at the corners of his mouth.

Seregil caught Alec by the arm and nodded in their direction, whispering, “The one-eyed old man.”

As they watched, the boy took whatever it was and handed the old fellow something back. The man patted him on the head, then stumped away deeper into the shantytown.

“There’s a bit of luck!” Seregil exclaimed softly.

“He doesn’t have anything hanging from his belt.”

“But he made a trade, all the same. You take the boy. I’ll see where the old fellow is headed. If you don’t catch up, I’ll meet you by the fountain in the Sea Market in an hour’s time.”

Leaving Alec to his work, Seregil set off after the old man.

The boy was walking away, looking at something in his hand.

Alec sidled up behind him. “What you got there?” he asked, doing his best to speak with a woman’s voice.

The child whirled around and drew a short dagger. He had a thin, ugly face and a wen on his cheek the size of a sparrow’s egg. “What’s that to you?”

Alec held up his hands, showing that he meant no harm. “Nothin’, except I been looking for one of those raven people and I thought that might have been one you was talkin’ to.”

The boy regarded him shrewdly for a moment, still wary, then said, “What do you want with ’em?”

“I hear they make trades. I was lookin’ to make one myself, maybe. So, was that old man one of ’em?”

The boy’s mouth slanted in a taunting grin. “What’s it worth to you to know?”

Alec pretended to hesitate, then turned away and fished a couple of copper pennies from the small pouch around his neck under his tattered gown. “Will that do?”

“Yeah, he was raven folk,” the boy said as he reached to snatch the coins from Alec’s outstretched hand.

But Alec held them back. “For this, I ’spect more of an answer than that. What’d you two trade?”

The boy opened his left hand and showed Alec a yellow rock crystal. “I give him my hog tooth necklace. Easy enough to come by another. Ain’t seen nothing like this, though.”

“That is fine,” Alec replied. It was a pretty thing, and a far cry from anything the boy was likely to find here. But it was a far cry from a sweetmeat, too.

“Sell it to you.” The boy jutted his chin at the coins Alec still held.

Alec pretended to consider it, then nodded and took out two more coins. The boy tossed him the stone, and Alec handed over the price.

“We finished?” asked the boy, still gripping his knife. “I got nothin’ more to trade or sell.”

“That’s fine.” Tucking the stone away, Alec turned to take his leave, but alert to any sound of the boy coming to knife him. Glancing back, though, he was already gone.

Seregil kept his distance, blending in with the crowd of destitute and cutthroats coming out like bats as the light failed. He dogged the one-eyed man, hoping to see him do another trade, but the old codger seemed to have somewhere to go, for he went on without pausing anywhere, head down and limping a bit. Dressed no better or worse than those around him, he attracted no one else’s attention, and no one greeted him.

It took him a moment to notice the tall, dark-haired man trailing the old one. At first he thought it might be coincidence, but when the old man turned, so did the big man. Seregil frowned; the last thing he needed was for the old man to get murdered in front of him before he could talk to him.

Drifting along behind them, Seregil caught glimpses of the old man’s face when he turned down a byway, and then another. Though the bowed legs could have made him a horseman, a cripple, or just undernourished, he had the rolling gait of a sailor. Perhaps the raven folk did come from somewhere else, by ship, or from a seafaring people.

The taller man’s face was hidden by his cloak hood but Seregil guessed from his stride and those broad shoulders that he was more than a match for the old fellow, and could easily have overtaken him by now, if he’d wanted to. Perhaps Tall Fellow expected Old Fellow to lead him
somewhere? If so, Seregil suspected it might be of interest to him, as well.

Having to keep out of Tall Fellow’s way made Seregil hang back more than he liked, and he nearly lost them both when the old man turned aside and headed deeper into the shack town through a wide place in the path. There were more people here, bargaining with the sellers of bruised vegetables and questionable meat. Seregil had to look over heads and past shoulders to keep them in sight.

And then Old Fellow was gone, along with his tall shadow.

“Bilairy’s Balls,” Seregil muttered as he hurried up to where he’d last seen him and looked around. It was an intersection of sorts where two paths crossed amid a cluster of tumbledown shacks. Seregil checked both ways, but there was simply no sign of him, and no hope of tracking his footprints in the churned mud. The mist was turning to a downpour again and the damp was coming through his clothes.

“Lookin’ for someone, sweetness?” a scar-faced tough called to him from the open door of one of the sturdier-looking buildings. He was dressed in the remnants of worn cavalry leathers, with a long sword at his hip and a decidedly predatory look in his eye. A fat louse crawled out from under his stringy black hair onto his left cheek. He absently pinched it between thumbnail and finger and flicked it away.

“My father,” Seregil replied brusquely, pretending not to anticipate the man’s clear intention. “Old fellow with a patch and a limp?”

“Ain’t seen him,” the man drawled, leaving the doorway and coming a little closer. “You’re soaked through. Come on in and I’ll get you wetter.” He grabbed Seregil by the arm, trying to drag him into the hovel.

Seregil didn’t have time for this. Drawing his knife, he kneed the man in the balls, then took him by the hair as he fell to his knees and bent the man’s head sharply back as the would-be rapist groaned in pain. Pressing the edge of the blade to his throat just hard enough to break the skin, Seregil whispered, “I don’t need no wetting from you, you whoreson bastard.”

“Filthy bitch!” the man hissed. A trickle of blood crept
down his neck to stain the already dirty collar of the shirt he wore under his leather vest.

“Didn’t your ma teach you any manners?” Seregil asked, giving him a shake. “Come after me and I’ll cut your pox-ridden balls off and feed ’em to you. You hear me?”