The Bird of the River (25 page)

"Are you all right in there?" called Mr. Riveter.

"Fine, thanks." Krelan's voice echoed hollowly. "I see the blockage. It's a cushion." A moment later the rotted mass vanished back inside the hull, and muddy water streamed out.

"Any, er, bones?"

"Not that I can find, sir."

Mr. Riveter grinned, and a couple of the cablemen raised their fists in triumphant gestures. Dead men were bad luck, and worse: they tended to complicate salvage rights.

"What
is
in there?"

"Nothing much. Bedding. Looks like some clothes. She was scuttled." Krelan's voice was thoughtful. "You can see the chisel marks all around the hole. Here's the chisel, in fact."

"So they looted her, scuttled her, and set fire to her," said Mr. Riveter. "It was pirates, all right." He patted the side of the
Fire-Swift.
"Stupid
pirates. Look at all that fancy brightwork! That'll bring a good price."

"I suppose. I'm coming out," said Krelan shortly.

Eliss heard more skidding and staggering, and then Krelan reappeared above the
Fire-Swift's
rail. He tossed out a sodden mass of stuff, which hit the deck with a slap, and climbed down.

"You may resume hosing her out," he said, and stalked aft to Eliss.

"Oh, I may, may I?" grumbled Mr. Riveter, but he waved his hand and gave the order.

Krelan sat down on the deck and watched the river while Eliss handed off their babies to Mrs. Crucible and Mrs. Firedrake, both of whom complimented Eliss on the baby pen. When they had gone, and Eliss was taking down the sunshade, he got up to help her.

"It wasn't pirates," he said.

"How do you know?"

"They left too much." Krelan was still pale, but with anger now. "Anything valuable and loose seems to have been taken, but real pirates would have taken everything. All the ornamental brass and the stained glass window. The bedding was fine stuff before it rotted. They left a chair that belonged to old Lord Diamondcut, a beautifully carved antique. Ruined now, of course, but the rest of the salvage is going to make the
Bird
a handsome profit, I can tell you."

"So somebody wanted to make it look as though pirates had done it," said Eliss. "But they didn't do a very good job. They just wanted to get rid of the
Fire-Swift."

"I think so, yes."

"Maybe your lord wasn't even killed here. Maybe it happened up-river and they sank the boat here." Eliss looked upriver and down as she folded up the tarpaulin. "We're nowhere near a town. Nobody would have seen."

"That's a possibility."

"And the dead servant wasn't on board, was he?"

"He wasn't."

"Have you thought that it really might have been the servant who killed your lord, after all?"

Krelan was silent a moment, stacking the sacks of rice. "I suppose I'll have to entertain that possibility," he said at last. "Give me a hand getting these back below?"

DESPITE THE FACT that Mr. Riveter was itching to take the
Fire-Swift
apart, they had to wait for submitting a formal report, and she had to be inspected by an officer of the law. So she sat on the
Bird's
deck for two days, while the
Bird
fought her way upriver to the next town.

They pulled into Latacari at nightfall on the second day. Latacari was a mining town, with a huge open pit beyond the city walls. Her smelters glowed red through the night, with patient lines of priests working the bellows, and iron ingots were piled before the city's temple for anyone to help himself to the holy metal.

"STAND STILL," MRS. RIVETER SCOLDED. "It's caught on your ear." She adjusted Mr. Riveter's chain of office. He stood before her in his best clothes, wringing his hands.

"I should comb my beard."

"You don't need to comb your beard. It looks fine. Eliss, may I have the sash?"

Eliss handed it to her, as Mr. Riveter fretted.

"Mr. Crucible! Organize a loading detail. They've got wheat for us on the dock. After that's loaded on we need iron. Two barrows' worth."

"Working on it, Mr. Riveter!"

"And I've still got to get the captain's drink," Mr. Riveter murmured, half to himself, as Mrs. Riveter tied his sash.

"Send someone else to do that," she told him, standing back to survey the overall effect of his official splendor.

"I suppose I could. You! Mr. Stone!" Krelan, who had been trudging aft with the grease bucket, turned.

"Sir?"

"Here's money." Mr. Riveter fumbled in his pouch. "Go ashore and get a keg of the best whiskey that'll buy, and bring it back for Captain Glass."

"Yes, sir." Krelan slipped the coins in his own pouch and looked inquiringly at Eliss. She nodded, eager to go ashore.

Mr. Riveter was seen off for his visit to the Temple of the Law, clutching Pentra's finished drawing of the wreck of the
Fire-Swift.
The wreck still sat, securely lashed down, on the
Bird's
deck, though two of the polemen had had to be posted on more or less permanent guard to prevent children from climbing on it.

"I've got the afternoon off," Krelan told Eliss as he hurried up the companionway. "And a lot to do. Do you mind if we take care of a few things first?"

"No." Eliss threw her shawl around her shoulders. "I thought we might go to the temple too."

"Why not?" Krelan took her arm. "Come along then, Mrs. Stone."

Eliss smiled as they went down the gangplank together. "Who's Mrs. Stone?"

"Mrs. Stone is the beautiful young wife of the miserable kitchen lackey Mr. Stone," said Krelan. "Or, as his master Pitspike is forever correcting him,
galley
lackey. Mr. Stone is a wretched feeble thing with absolutely no wealthy connections whatsoever, and completely unlikely to draw the hostile attentions of anybody intent on carrying out a vendetta."

"How did he get a beautiful wife, then?"

"He has no idea, but is desperately grateful." Krelan looked around through the pink smoky light. "Where's a map board?"

They found the location of the nearest runners' house and went into the Sending office. Eliss waited patiently while Krelan wrote a letter and slipped it into a tablet case. He carried it to the window, where a bored-looking clerk inspected the label.

"You need it sealed?"

"Please." Krelan fished a signet ring from the depths of his hood while the clerk melted wax for him. She poured it into the lock and he sealed the tablet. Eliss, watching, saw that the signet emblem was a dagger.

I shouldn't he surprised,
she thought.
I shouldn't forget what his family does for a living.

"Special rate for speed and she needs to wait for a reply. Reply to be forwarded to Karkateen," said Krelan as the clerk rang for a runner. She looked at the address label and raised her eyebrows.

"Two gold crowns, then," the clerk said.

Krelan paid without so much as a wince and they walked out together. "There we are," he said. "I've reported about the
Fire-Swift
and you'll be pleased to know that I've asked about the manservant."

"I just think it's important," said Eliss. "Have you got any more money?"

Now Krelan winced. "A lady never asks
that,
you know."

"I'll never be a lady. I was going to say that if you do have more money, you ought to buy yourself some nicer clothes. I mean, here we are in a city."

Krelan looked around in distaste at the sooty shop fronts. "Here? I don't think I can find any tailor-made custom-dye-lot rough silk ensembles such as I'm accustomed to wearing."

"Buy something off the shelf, then! It's bound to be better than what you've got on." Eliss looked down at Krelan's tunic, which was showing its age and also a great deal of kitchen grease he had been unable to scrub out. He sighed.

"Undeniably true."

They found a shop that sold perfectly serviceable formal wear, even if it wasn't anything the wealthy lords of Mount Flame would care to be seen in, and Krelan managed to find something in his size. As he was paying the shop owner, he asked casually: "Could you tell me the name of the best hotel in town?"

"That would be the Garnet," said the shop owner, counting out his change. "Next to the temple. Expensive, though."

"I'll risk it," said Krelan stiffly.

They walked on down the street. "You're going to ask whether your lord stayed there?" Eliss inquired.

"That was the plan." Krelan's footsteps slowed as they came to Garnet House. He looked up at its porphyry columns, looked down at his shabby tunic. "Hmmm. I ought to have changed in the clothier's.

"Do you want me to do it? I'm dressed a little better." Eliss gestured at her shawl. Krelan looked startled at the idea, but intrigued.

"Let's see how you do," he said, and passed her the little portrait of Encilian. She looked at it closely for the first time.
This is the man who killed Mama,
she thought, and then scolded herself for being morbid. Still, Encilian looked like the sort of person who wouldn't have cared if his death had brought about the accidental death of someone else. Handsome, but the portrait's painter had caught the nasty expression in his eyes. He wore sky-blue silk, with the gold serpent armlet of the Diamondcuts bunching up the silk on his upper arm.

Eliss took a deep breath. "Let's go." Adjusting her scarf, she walked in through the big double doors of the Garnet. Krelan skulked after her.

She saw at once that, however splendid its porphyry columns were on the outside, inside the Garnet was nothing like the white hotel at Silver Trout Landing. The lobby was full of prosperous families who had come on pilgrimage and business travelers, just a little shabby at the edges. Somewhat less intimidated, Eliss made her way to the front desk and smiled at the clerk.

"I'm wondering if you can help me, sir," she said, trying to speak with Pentra's precise diction. The clerk raised his eyebrows in inquiry, and Eliss held up the little portrait. "This is Lord Encilian Diamondcut. My brother's his manservant and I'm trying to find him. I think his lordship stayed here, a few months ago. Would it be possible for you to look in your books and tell me when?"

"Oh! We did have one of the Diamondcuts here, I remember." The clerk dove under the counter and brought up a ledger. "Yes. Just a moment ... here. Two weeks before Spring Equinox. Yes. Here's the entry. 'Lord Encilian and manservant.' He only stayed one night, as I recall. Not happy with our accommodations."

"And this is such a nice hotel!" Eliss exclaimed. "But then, my brother told me his lordship was," she lowered her voice, "a bit difficult to please."

The clerk rolled his eyes in agreement.
"'The higher the birth, the thicker the mattress he requires,'"
he quoted softly.

"Actually my brother wasn't sure whether he'd remain with his lordship or not. I wonder if the man with him was my brother after all. Does your book give the servant's name?"

"Oh, no, miss. Just says 'manservant.'"

"Oh, dear."

"I remember the man, though. Handsome. Looked a bit like his master."

"Yes, that sounds like my brother. My brother's handsome."

"I thought to myself, 'Hmmm, his family must have worked for his master's family a long time,' if you know what I mean."

"So he was still with him here. Thank you so much, sir. My mother was a bit worried," said Eliss, aware that beside her Krelan had stiffened. As they went out to the pavement again she saw that he looked angry.

"What's the matter?"

"That insolent bastard!"

"But he was nice!"

"He insulted the Family."

"What, just by saying your lord was picky? You've said worse about him."

"It's different when I say it. I have privilege. Who in the nine hells is
he,
a miserable desk clerk, to imply things about the Family?"

"'Imply things'?"

"Specifically all that about the servant's family having worked for the Diamondcuts a long time, nudge nudge,>
if you know what I mean,"
said Krelan, still fuming.

"No, I don't know what you mean."

"He was suggesting the servant was a Diamondcut bastard. Which was why he looked like Encilian."

Eliss looked askance at Krelan. "So ... you're saying rich men never go to bed with their servant girls and get them in trouble."

"No." Krelan kicked at a pebble. "Just that a common clerk has no business talking about the affairs of his betters."

"They do, though. All the time. And now
you
know that your lord was here and so was the servant, and you even know what the servant looked like. Which you didn't know this morning. So there's no point being so angry." Eliss looked up at the temple. "Here! Let's go in. You can pray for help."

Grumbling, Krelan let her drag him inside. "You were very good in there, by the way," he added in a whisper, as they stood in the gloom letting their eyes adjust. Eliss made a sarcastic half-curtsy and, spotting the Father Smith's chapel, made her way in and found a seat. Krelan sidled in after her.

Eliss closed her eyes and breathed in deep, letting her irritation evaporate.
Father, this is your child Eliss. I know I told you I was trying to take care of my brother, Alder, but things have changed and ... he's gone. I tried hard, but he needed to go with the Yendri. Even so, he's one of your children too, whether he thinks he is or not, so please watch over him and keep him safe, because I can't anymore.

And please let Mama sleep all right in the Fire Garden. Or... wherever she went, like maybe off with my father under the sea. Like in Salpin's song.

And ... I can't ask you to help my friend Krelan with what he's doing, because he has to kill somebody, and I know you don't like things like that. But can you please keep him safe too? Except for what his family does, he's nice. And funny. And smart. And handsomer than he thinks he is. Except that mustache looks really awful on him.

And ... that just leaves me, Father. But I'm all right. I don't need anything. I'm working hard.