StarCrossed. Part 40

I crossed the city on foot, trotting up Bargewater Street toward the First Circle, the district mostly taken up by Hanivard Palace and the Celystra. The Keep stood just on the edge of First, where the Big Silver river circled the royal palace. When I got to the harborside landing, a few other people milled around, waiting to cross over to see their loved ones detained at His Majesty's convenience. I studied my companions in the crowd, a handful of people dressed like servants, here for masters or family? A wildly overdressed young n.o.b couple, the girl sobbing hysterically into her lad's velvet shoulder. A fat gentleman dressed in the gray robes of a lawyer and doing a poor job balancing a doc.u.ment case, a mug of beer, and a meat pie. He'd have a pa.s.s for sure. I was just aiming myself for a carefully timed collision with the fellow so I could knock his papers from his hands, when I heard a cough from behind me.

I turned slowly - and found myself a scarce inch from a Greenman.

I lost all my breath. I couldn't help it. He was facing away from me, but the gra.s.s-bright livery of his uniform loomed before me, tunic and hood and nightstick. And the gleaming golden tree, silhouetted against the full moon of Celys. I edged aside carefully, trying to look anonymous, invisible, nonexistent. I was n.o.body, just a servant in a crowd, waiting to visit somebody in the gaol.

The Greenman turned and saw me. "Sweetling! Fancy meeting you here. Come to visit our boy?" Raffin Taradyce, Acolyte Guardsman, took two easy steps toward me, everyone else melting out of his way from habit, and lifted me bodily from the street.

"Put me down, you oaf!" I struggled in his grip, then surveyed his uniform. "That suits you, I guess." His fair coloring and easy height made him look like one of the G.o.ddess's own.

"I think there's an insult in there somewhere," he said cheerfully.

"Not at all," I said. "I have nothing but respect for the Guard." And Tiboran praised liars. "Drag any old ladies from their beds lately?"

He gave a shrug and looked over my head. "It's a living."

Raffin hadn't answered my question, but every once in a while I knew when to leave well enough alone. "What about Durrel, then? What have you heard?"

He looked grim. "Not much more than you, I'll wager. He's in a bad way, though. The Ceid don't care he's n.o.ble; they'll shove this thing through the courts like a merchant's son with a two-mark hus -" He caught my eye and gave a cough. "Right. And thanks to his father being so d.a.m.ned neutral, the Decath can't rely on support from Court or Council. He's on his own in there." That was more or less what Durrel had told me. His family was famous for not taking sides during any political conflict. In peacetime, it made everyone their friends. But now?

"Durrel said his father won't see him, thinks he's guilty."

That drew a pause. "You'd have to ask them about that. Did you meet the family?"

It took me a moment to catch up. "You mean the Ceid? Just the two children, Barris and Koya."

"Entertaining, aren't they?"

"That's one way of putting it." I looked up at him, s.h.i.+elding my eyes with my hand. "What's the story with Durrel and Koya?"

A slow grin spread over his face. "Our boy caught himself a bodice full of trouble this time, I'll tell you that."

"If there's a point, you'd better get to it. They're about to open the gates." Across the landing, a bell was clanging, heralding the lowering of the drawbridge. And the lawyer was long gone now. I'd missed my best chance for nicking a pa.s.s. A pox on Greenmen.

"Listen, peach, I'm going to be late for muster," Raffin was saying. "Wouldn't want them to take away my baton, now, would I?" He bent low, as if to kiss me on the cheek, and whispered, "We're not to touch you, you know. Lord High's orders."

"What?" I pulled back to stare at him. "Why?"

"I don't know. But word came down that you are not to be disturbed by the Acolyte Guard, at least until His Wors.h.i.+p decides what he wants to do about you. Looks like you have a free pa.s.s in this city, greensleeves."

A hands-off order from the Lord High Inquisitor? What was my brother up to? "Not from everyone," I said. "I was arrested the other night."

"Were you? And yet here you stand. Might as well enjoy it. You know how His Grace is, sun one day, shadow the next. But if anything changes, I'll warn you."

I was suspicious. "Why? What do you want in return?"

He edged a little closer than was comfortable. "Just take care of our boy. Something's off about this whole affair. Do the job you've been engaged for."

"Wait - what? What do you know?" I asked, my voice cold. "Did you have anything to do with this, with getting me pinched?"

"My, my, such self-absorption!" he cried. "As it happens, I've been far too busy dragging old women from their beds."

"You're hilarious."

"And you're not listening." Raffin pulled me closer, and his grip on my arm was exactly what I remembered of Greenmen. "Something is going on here, and Durrel is trapped in the middle of it. You are in a unique position among all his acquaintances to look into it."

"That's ridiculous. You're a Greenman; that has to be more useful than some petty street thief. Why don't you look into it?"

"I am trying," he said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. "But I'm just two months on this job, and my father paid twenty thousand crowns for my commission. There is no way I can go poking around asking questions, particularly of other guards."

The pieces were starting to click together, with Raffin Taradyce holding the purse strings to this whole situation. "Whoever paid to have me arrested also put up my bond. Fifty marks."

That wolfish grin again. "Extraordinary! Be flattered, peach. I don't normally sh.e.l.l out nearly that much money on a woman. You can pay me back later." He finished the kiss he'd started and, still bent close to my cheek, whispered, "Help him. You know he's innocent."

And he pa.s.sed me something before he ducked away, whistling and swinging his nightstick, and clearing crowds as he went.

It was a rolled-up parchment, thickly inked, with a royal seal stamped in its center, right above the words Admit the named bearer, CELYN CONTRARE, into the presence of His Majesty's gaolers at Bryn Tsairn Prison. Good for three months from the date of issuance, and Signed by the Left Hand of His Exalted Majesty, Bardolph the Pious.

A visitor's pa.s.s. Made out to me. I glanced up to see Raffin across the landing, still watching me, a blot of green against the brown sunlit docks. He gave me a brisk salute before turning away into the morning.

CHAPTER SIX.

It was only a little different visiting the Keep as a free woman with a pa.s.s. I looked considerably more respectable than I had on my last visit, but the guards on duty still sneered at me, grabbed my basket and pawed through it, and made lewd comments as I pushed my way past them. I flinched from the stench and the roar of the other prisoners, banging on their bars or wooden doors as I climbed up through the prison's ranked tiers to Queen's Level, where Durrel's cell was located. The royal prisons were divided into three levels of worsening conditions, having nothing to do with the severity of the prisoners' crimes, and everything to do with their ability to pay for their lodging at His Majesty's convenience. The cells on the highest floors were reserved for n.o.bs and gentry with wealthy friends who could bring them bribe money. Accommodations were said to be relatively pleasant - emphasis on relative - a private cell with a window, furniture, books and wine if you could afford them. Folk with more modest means were kept down a level on the Mongery, three or four to a cell, with meat once or twice a week and maybe a clean chamber pot, if someone paid for it. And deeper still was the Rathole, little more than sewers where Queen's and Mongery prisoners were dumped once they'd exhausted their funds, left to rot in the sunless dungeon and kill each other over crumbs. How long a prisoner lasted on each level depended directly on his ability to keep up the bribes.

Queen's Level seemed curiously empty today, as if the weekly bribes had come due and the other prisoners had fallen short of their rents. At that thought, my belly tightened and I hastened down the narrow corridor, toward the cell I remembered. Trotting down the row of cells, darting glances from barred door to barred door, I spied a pocked, pale face against the tiny, grilled window of the cell across from Durrel's. Bony fingers curled around the bars, and a muddy brown eye tracked me down the hall.

"Milord's got a visitor, he does!" cried out a shrill voice from the cell. "She looks good enough to share!" I turned and made a rude gesture at him. A mistake; something foul flew toward me and splatted into my sleeve. I jumped, swearing, but it seemed to be rotten vegetables, and not . . . something worse. He was lucky I was in a good mood today.

I brushed my fingers against Durrel's cell door as his neighbor's taunts continued. "Milord," I called softly. "Are you still in there?"

I had to stand on tiptoe to see inside. Someone had cleared away the filthy rushes, but the smell of a chamber pot that had needed changing days ago made me gag, even from outside the cell. Durrel was folded up on the bed, staring at the ceiling, but at the sound of my voice, he propelled himself from the bed to the door.

"Celyn!" His voice, cracked and thin, was filled with so much hope and fear it hurt, like an ache in my throat. His fingers reached through the little window. I hesitated, but found my hand gripped in his. He held on so tightly I used the force of his grasp to pull myself closer to him.

"You look like h.e.l.ls," slipped out of my mouth. There were dark smudges under his eyes, and his scraggly beard showed up every contour of his boyish face. In the daylight now, I could see how much weight he'd lost.

"You shouldn't be here," he said. "It's too dangerous."

"Oh, but I have a pa.s.s." I flashed it at him.

"Do I want to know where you got that?" he said.

"I should be offended," I said, forcing cheer into my voice. "It's completely legitimate!" As if anything from the hands of a Greenman could really be called legitimate. "It answers one question, though. I think we can credit Lord Raffin for our little rendezvous the other night."

"d.a.m.n. I'm sorry, Celyn. I had no idea. What the h.e.l.ls is he thinking?"

"He's thinking his friend is in trouble and n.o.body seems to be helping!" Durrel didn't answer, and I didn't know what else to say, so we stood there, with the door between us, a long, stupid moment. Durrel finally broke the silence, moving back to where I could see him. "I see you've met my neighbor, Temus," he said, gesturing at the stain on my arm.

"He has good aim. He should talk to the guards about being released for the wars."

Durrel smiled faintly. "What's that?" He nodded toward my basket, where I had the s.h.i.+rt I'd bought from Grillig.

"Oh. It's - here." I handed it up, and watched as he shook out the now-wrinkled linen, took in the mended patch in the sleeve and the slightly worn hemline.

"I was going to bring you one of Rat's, but he only has nice things," I said. "This one, well, I thought it would be less of a shame if it got -"

"Befouled?"

"Something like that."

Without hesitation, Durrel stripped off his own filthy s.h.i.+rt and shook the clean one over his head. I could see the lines of his ribs, the points of his narrow shoulders, a taut belly that barely held his trunk hose on - he looked like he'd been a prisoner here longer than a fortnight. Weren't they feeding him at all? Or was it life with Talth that had wasted him?

"Who's Rat?" he said, coming up for air. The new s.h.i.+rt was far too large; I had guessed him at a bigger man.

"My, uh, roommate," I said, and, for something to say, so I didn't keep staring at his too-thin body, I explained about Rat's skills at acquiring the exotic and rare.

"Sounds like a useful fellow," he said. His voice was warming up, a cheerfulness creeping into it now that seemed all wrong, somehow. He leaned his head back and took in a deep breath of stagnant, stinking air, as if it were fresh and breezy as a spring meadow. "You're a miracle," he said. "You have no idea how good it feels to get into something clean."

And why was I the one bringing it, and not his father? "I should have brought you a razor," I said instead.

He gave a mirthless laugh, so harsh and quick it startled me. "I'm supposed to have a beard, aren't I?" he said, his voice bitter. "I'm mourning my dead wife." He dropped his hands and turned from me, pacing away from the door.

"I went to Bal Ma.r.s.e," I said, and he halted, turning back.

"Bal Ma.r.s.e! But why?"

"I want to help you. I thought I might find something."

His drawn face turned curious. "And did you?"

"It's been stripped bare." I explained about the missing furniture, the empty rooms, the open gates and door. "The place is abandoned."

"I don't understand," he said. "Why -"

"Barris said the property came to you on Talth's death. Is that true?"

"Wait - you talked to Barris?" He sounded alarmed. "Celyn, hold on. What are you up to?" I looked at him impatiently, until he finally sighed. "Fine. Yes, technically I did inherit Talth's house in the city. But since I've been in here since she died, I really have no idea what's going on with it. Her family probably came in and took away anything that wasn't strapped down. That would be like them." He resumed pacing. The ceiling was so low in places he had to stoop. "And there was nothing there? No files, no ledgers or records?" When I shook my head, he continued. "I've been thinking maybe the murder had something to do with her business dealings, but that's probably just the captivity talking."

"No, it seems likely," I said. "What kind of business are we talking about?"

"Well, the Ceid s.h.i.+pping business, primarily, but Talth also owned some properties in the city. Houses to let, or something. I really wouldn't know. She wasn't that . . . receptive to the idea of my partic.i.p.ation in her work. She liked to say I was just -" He stopped abruptly, his face clouded. "Just the studhorse."

I winced. The implication was obvious; the Decath were famous for their horse farm, and the comment gave ugly credence to Koya's claim that her mother was interested only in the t.i.tle and heirs that marriage to Durrel would provide. "That's horrible," I said, but he just shrugged.

"Sometimes she'd have callers, late at night, and she'd entertain them downstairs, but she always sent me up to my rooms, like a naughty child."

"And you don't know what they might have been involved in?" Durrel shook his head, one curt flick that was barely noticeable. I wanted to press him for details, but it was obvious he didn't want to talk about his marriage.

"There's something else." I pulled myself closer to the door, and spoke as quietly as I could. "I found magic at Bal Ma.r.s.e. Do you know anything about that?"

"Magic? Are you certain? Of course you're certain." Durrel knew about my odd affinity for Sar's touch; it had been one of the reasons he'd saved me. I explained what I had seen at the Round Court at his house.

"Did Talth have magic?" I said.

"No. Definitely not. I'd have known about it." I believed him; Durrel had spent years living with a magical cousin, always keeping an eye out to make sure she was protected, her secret safely concealed. He didn't have my ability to spot the Breath of Sar on somebody, but he had a knack I trusted. "Do you think it has to do with her murder?"

"It might not." But I wouldn't put money on it.

Durrel was silent a long time. Finally he spoke up again. "Celyn, this is too dangerous. I'm sorry I got you involved. You should go home and forget about me."

Fat chance there. "You didn't get me involved, remember? And besides, I want to help. I owe you."

"Owe me?" He stood close to the window again, looking down, a curious expression on his scruffy face. "How do you mean?"

"You saved my life," I said. "Perhaps you've forgotten?"

"That wasn't the same thing," he said. "This is dangerous."

"You don't think what you did for me was dangerous?" I might have laughed, if the memory of that awful day we met, when Tegen died, didn't still make me sick with dread. "You smuggled a fugitive - a magical fugitive - out of the city, lied to Greenmen to do it, and harbored her in your family home. And then you armed her!" I added, recalling his gift of an expensive House of Decath dagger when we'd parted.

Durrel watched me evenly for a moment. "In my defense, I was drunk at the time," he finally said, and there was a note of mirth in his voice.

"You were sober enough," I said drily. "Durrel - milord - what are you so concerned about?" I watched him, suspicious. "You know something, don't you?"

He shook his head, but there was more evasion than denial in the gesture.

"Tell me! I have nothing to go on but a smear of magic in an empty house. If we can't find out who really killed your wife -" I stopped myself. Durrel knew the stakes, and my yelling wouldn't help. "Please, if you know something -"

"I don't know anything. Just that Talth did business with a lot of dangerous people."

"Like who? Inquisition?"

"I don't know," he said again. "Criminals, maybe."

"Well, that's all right," I said, trying to sound bright. "I'm good with criminals."

"Celyn -"

"Digger," I said.

"What? Oh, right. Sorry - I keep forgetting."