The Lawkeeper of Samara (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 2) (10 page)

“I wanted him alive,” he said.

“Him or me, Chief,” Gadilari said. “He was too good.”

“At least we got the bastard,” Gilan said.

Sam stepped past the wounded man and looked down at the body of the watcher. His heart sank. This was a young man, his fair hair cut short, a pleasant face now stilled and pale. His clothes were moderately expensive, and he wore a gold armband just above the elbow. The cloak he had been wearing was lying on the ground some yards away.

Gadilari’s blade had taken him in the heart, a perfect thrust. He was stone dead.

“Did you really have to kill him?”

Gadilari displayed a cut to his own shirt beneath the arm where the watcher’s blade had torn the cloth. It would have drawn blood an inch further to the right.

“Him or me,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. We got him.”

“How old does he seem to you, Gadilari?”

Gadilari looked at the body. “Twenty-five? Maybe less.”

“And the murders have been going on for twenty years and more, so unless he started very young, this is not our man.”

“But he fell into the trap,” Gadilari protested. “He drew on Gilan when Gilan challenged him.”

Sam looked down at the body again. The clothes suggested that this was no Gulltown drifter. The dead man was somebody. There would be questions.

“What did you say to him, Gilan?” he asked. “How did you challenge him?”

“I told him I was a lawkeeper, and that he should stand to be questioned.”

“The words – the exact words.”

“Blood and fire, Chief, the man just stabbed me. I can’t remember the exact words.”

“Try.”

Gilan swore under his breath. “‘Lawkeepers, stand and be held’, I think, and then he drew, and I said ‘put it away, boy, we want to question you’. Then he tried to kill me.”

“You all heard it,” Sam said. “A fair challenge and the other drew first.” He saw nods around the circle of men and women. “Now let’s take this mess back to the law house.”

It was Talis the archer, one of Arla’s, who went to fetch the wagon, and Sam was left to reflect on a morning that had brought him less than he’d hoped. Still, he had the body, and if he’d learned one thing, it was that a dead man could still tell tales.

It was mid morning when Calaine went to see her father. She did not live in the Great House, despite the probability that she would one day inherit the building as her home. She disliked it. The Citadel was a more honest building, to her mind, and she preferred the company of soldiers to that of lackeys.

She walked the short distance unescorted, as was her custom. The soldiers on the door bowed and opened it at once. She knew they would have sent a man ahead to alert her father, but that was expected. She walked within and made her way directly to his chambers.

The men on those doors bowed as well. She knew them both.

“Zillen, is my father well?” she asked.

“In good health, do Regana,” Zillen replied. “Half expecting you, I think.”

She went into the room. It didn’t look much like a king’s room should look. The furnishings were sparse, there was one rug – a gift from Tarlyn Saine, Ella’s father, and a notable lack of tapestries. Her father was sitting at the table surrounded by papers and a glass of wine stood by his hand. At this time of day that was a bad sign.

“Father.”

“Calaine.” He looked up and smiled. He always smiled for Calaine. “You’re here about Fasthand.”

“I spoke to her.”

Tarnell didn’t reply. He refilled his wine glass instead. He was half way to being drunk, Calaine suspected. He took most of the glass in a single gulp.

“You should let her go,” Calaine said.

“She killed your brother, Calaine.”

This was no time to be gentle. “Arla Crail is fourth in line for Petron’s death. He was betrayed by Fram, the same Fram that tried to kill Ella, tried to rape and kill me, and was put to death by you. You remember Fram?”

“I remember,” the king said, and he remembered his anger, too.

“Petron lies second. He rushed an Ocean’s Gate patrol with a drawn sword. He wasn’t stupid, father. He could see the archers.”

“Petron did not kill himself,” the king said.

“Third. You.”

“Me?” Tarnell stood, lifted from his seat by Calaine’s assertion.

“I know it,” she said. “Your legacy was a bitter one, and it poisoned Petron. His inheritance was an endless war with an enemy he could not defeat, the hatred of the people he was born to rule, and the prospect of bringing a son up to the same bitter burden. I felt the same bitterness when he died. I understood. These happier times are the gift of the Mage Lord.”

“Petron did not kill himself.”

“Do you know anything about Arla Crail?”

“I know what I need to know.”

“You know who saved me from Fram?”

“Bren Portina, King of Blaye,” the king said.

“Captain Portina of the Ocean’s Gate guard, and he had a squad with him. Arla Crail was part of that squad. I didn’t know it until I saw her, but I knew her face.”

“So she plays on your gratitude.”

“She did not mention it, although I cannot think she has forgotten.”

“It means nothing,” Tarnell said.

“Crail knows Bren Portina. You know how the guard are. They stick together, even disbanded they stick together. You hope that I will marry Portina and unite the cities. How do you think he will react when you kill his old comrade?”

“We are going to have a trial,” the king said.

“What?”

“Hekman was here. He threatened to disband the lawkeepers if I didn’t give her a trial. So I will.”

Calaine turned away for a moment. She knew Hekman better than her father. There was no subterfuge in this, but there might as well be. A trial would be a farce. The law named the council as judges, and neither Ella Saine nor Hagar Del would convict Arla Crail. Nor would she, Calaine realised.

“She will go free. The council will not convict her.”

“The council will not judge,” the king said. “They are my proxy, and in this case I will judge the case personally.”

This was worse than she had imagined. If the king held a public trial and convicted Arla in the face of the evidence, then it would be even worse than just killing her out of hand. It could be seen as nothing other than simple revenge. Even if Hekman did not disband the lawmakers the city might rise, so slender was their tolerance for the Tarnell line. How had her father become such a fool?

“Father…”

“No,” he said. “Say no more. I have summoned Ella and Kane. Then I shall have the advice I need. Now we shall speak of something else.”

Calaine did not disobey her father. She knew that Ella would offer him sensible advice. So they talked of other council business, of trade, which the king struggled to understand, and of the doings of the king’s soldiers in the citadel.

Ella arrived quite soon after. A soldier opened the door and announced her, and she stepped in with Kane in tow, her unlikely shadow.

“Lord King.” She bowed to him, and clearly intended to speak, but Tarnell held up his hand to hush her.

“No, Ella, it is not you that I wish to hear. It is Kane.”

Kane? Calaine was as surprised as Ella, from the look on Ella’s face. The grizzled warrior, however displayed no emotion, but he stared at Tarnell.

“My advice?” he asked.

“Yes. On the Fasthand matter. I will hold a trial. I will judge her guilty. She will die. Repercussions?”

“And I speak freely?”

“Free and honest.”

“You’d be a fool to touch her.” Kane said. Tarnell’s face whitened.

“Explain.”

“Simple enough. There’s a lot of guards in Samara. More than four hundred, less than a thousand. You kill Crail and you’re saying the war’s not over. You thought you had trouble with the folk, you’ll have double for this. Civil war. The people will back the guards if they move. You heard what Serhan said on Samara Plain. If the king’s the problem the problem can be solved. Kill Crail and in a year you’ll be dead yourself and the Tarnell line will be ended.”

Calaine had been there, too. It was the only time she’d heard the Mage Lord threaten anyone, and it had been no more than a cold promise. The king ruled only as long as the Mage Lord willed it, and the Mage Lord wanted a peaceful and prosperous Samara. If there was civil war Serhan would not stand idly by. He would intervene. Kane was right.

Ella had listened to this, and now she stepped forwards. “May I speak?”

The king glared at her, but he nodded.

“If you do this you will set a legal precedent,” she said. “Arla did no more than any of your own men, any of the guards. If she is guilty then so are you, Calaine, all your men and the guards who fought against you before the Faer Karan fell.”

“Not so,” Tarnell said. “They fought against their rightful king.”

“So you would seize and execute all the guardsmen in Samara?”

“Just one,” Tarnell replied.

“Don’t you see that it cannot be just one?” Ella asked.

“If you set aside the law once, even once, it will be a broken thing,” Calaine assured him. “Hekman is right. Kane is right. You… We will lose everything.”

The king reached for his wine glass and found it empty. He filled it again, but did not drink. He set it carefully on the table. “I loved my son,” he said. “He was… like me. We were a pair. There needs to be a price, an accounting for his death.”

“Lord King,” Calaine said. She put a hand on his arm. “It will tear the city apart. You must forgo this poor vengeance for the good of the city.”

The weight of opposition finally told on Tarnell. He seemed to deflate, slumping back into his chair. He reached for the wine and took another mouthful.

“Do what you want, then,” he said to Calaine. “I’ll send word. She will be freed.”

Calaine took her father’s hand. “Thank you,” she said. “But I will go myself. I think there is something unfinished between us.”

There were two horses at the rail outside the law house when they got back from Gulltown. Sam recognised one of them. An unkind man might have called it a carthorse, and it was certainly a couple of hands higher than its companion. It had the build, too, the huge girth and the feathered fetlocks.

It was Hagar Del’s horse.

Sam jumped down from the wagon and bid Talis drive it round the back. She seemed capable enough at the reins. He told her to send for the physic and the death man both. He could only think that Del was here about Arla. He walked through the front door and found Ulric alone.

“Del?” he asked.

“In your office.”

Sam hurried there and found Hagar Del and another man seated in an office that was barely adequate to hold them. Del was a huge man, broad, tall, naturally gifted with massive strength. Other men looked like children beside him. He added to the effect with a thick, dark beard. A lot of people in Gulltown had made the mistake of equating strength with stupidity, but Del wasn’t stupid. He was one of the shrewdest men Sam knew.

“Sam,” Del stood up and loomed like a cliff.

“Hagar, how is council?” Sam eased past him to the seat by the desk. He made a quick survey of the other man. He was unremarkable in appearance, quite well dressed, about the same age as Sam.

“We have a problem,” Del said. “Your sort of problem.”

“Oh?” Sam wasn’t sure he wanted another problem just now. His tiny force of lawkeepers was stretched with the one crime, and there was no end in sight.

“This is Tolus Green,” Del said, indicating the other man. “He is the city treasurer, the man responsible to the council for the city’s coin. He will explain the matter.”

Sam looked at Green. The man leaned forwards and tapped a finger on Sam’s desk. “Money,” he said. “Money is what keeps the city alive. It is the blood that flows through the body civic, and when it is poisoned that body may sicken and die.”

Sam stared. He had no idea what the man was talking about. Green pulled two gold coins out and laid them on the desk side by side.

“You see the difference,” he said. It was not a question, and it didn’t need to be. The difference was immediately obvious. One coin was smaller than the other. Side by side it was easy to tell, but given a coin in the street?

“Someone is cutting down the coins,” Sam said.

“Yes!” Green was delighted. “It is perfidious. Treasonous. They trim the edge from the coin, from many coins, and when they have enough they cast new coins. It is theft of the most injurious kind, theft from the city, and so from the king, the council, and all the people. If the knowledge of this becomes widespread people may loose their faith in Samara’s coin, and then where would we be?”

Sam didn’t know. He supposed it would be a bad thing.

“You want me to stop it?” he asked, pointlessly. Of course they did.

“You must!” Green said. “The financial wellbeing of the city depends on it.”

“Do you have any idea of who it might be?”

Green shook his head. “That is for you to discover,” he said. “And as soon as possible.”

It would be easier if people just weighed the coins, he thought, but then they would probably start adulterating the gold with lead.

“I will do what I can,” Sam said. “But you have given me very little to work with.”

Green looked unhappy, and Del shook his head.

“This is important, Sam,” he said. “I know you have something else on your plate, but you need to put someone good on this.”

“My best investigator is currently in a cell in the citadel,” Sam said. He judged it a good time to insert that particular lever. Del looked down at the desk.

“Someone else,” Del said.

“I have people who can wield swords and shoot bows, but nobody else I would trust to investigate something,” Sam said.

“Do it yourself.”

“I will do what I can, Hagar,” Sam repeated. “This is not an easy time.”

Green looked dissatisfied, but Del smiled. “That’s good enough for me,” he said. Sam guessed he was backing off because he couldn’t help with Arla, and that was a disappointment. But Sam had promised to do something about it, and he would. He just didn’t know what. Del stood and held out his hand. Sam gingerly offered his own, and true to form got it back thoroughly compressed. Del had a grip that could squeeze milk from granite.

“Leave the coins,” Sam said. Green looked at Del and Del nodded. Green put the two gold coins on Sam’s desk.

When they had left, Sam put the coins into the box by his desk and went to the back of the law house. He found Talis there alone, unhitching the horse from the wagon. The other horses were tied to a rail.

“The body?” he asked.

“In the back room. It’s where Gilan said you put them.”

How strange, Sam thought, to have a place where one usually put dead bodies.

“Are they going to kill Arla?” Talis asked.

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “I don’t think so. I hope not.”

The rest of them would have gone back to the big room. He had to think of a better name for it. ‘Big room’ sounded inadequate. Sam went back in and found his way to the room where the body lay. Ulric had apparently found a suitable table and the body lay on its back, the eyes closed. Sam examined the clothes. They were quite fine, as he’d first thought. The man they’d killed was no pauper, and while his actions suggested that he was in some way involved in these crimes, he was clearly too young to have been the original perpetrator.

The cause of death was obvious. The bloody rent in the man’s shirt above the heart left no doubt. Sam pulled the shirt open and looked at the wound. It didn’t look nearly as grievous as he expected, and Sam had seen a lot of dead men in Gulltown during the troubles. It looked as though it had closed up. He’d have to ask the death man about that. It might be normal.

There was a mark on the man’s chest, just below the right nipple, a tattoo by the look of it. Sam studied it. At first he thought it was a symbol like the ones in Ella’s book, like the ones Arla had seen in the room under the warehouse, but it was more complex than that. It consisted of seven vertical bars, the first, sixth and seventh being broken in the middle so that they looked to be two short vertical bars set one above the other.

He quickly searched the man, but found nothing in his clothes. There was no purse, no key, no paper that might give a clue to his identity.

He left the corpse and walked back through the law house to the big room. On the way he met the physic, who passed him with a nod and went up the stairs. Sam guessed that was where they’d put Gilan, on one of the beds up there. The big room was busy. The lawkeepers were all talking about the morning’s events, and Gadilari seemed to be the centre of attention. They quietened when Sam walked in.

“Did you send for the death man?” he asked.

“Yes,” Gadilari said. “But he was not in his shop. Laying out someone else, his wife said. He’ll come along as soon as he can.”

Sam nodded. “You did well this morning, all of you,” he said, though in truth they could have done better. A dubious suspect dead and one of their own injured - it was not a day he would wish to repeat.

There was food on the table, and he picked at it while the tide of conversation rose around him. He heard Arla’s name mentioned several times. It was odd, he thought, almost as though Arla’s people, Talis and Gadilari, were her family. The others deferred to them, expressed sympathy.

He hoped he had done enough, that this would not all turn to bitterness.

There was a noise outside in the street loud enough to carry through the walls and a moment later Ulric bustled into the room, out of breath from his urgent progress.

“What is it, Ulric?” Sam asked.

“King’s men,” the fat man puffed, but Ulric was smiling. “Forty or fifty of them.”

“And?”

“It’s the Do-Regana, Chief, the princess Calaine. She’s brought Arla home.”

Sam went out into the street, keenly aware that every lawkeeper in the building followed behind him. He saw Arla at once. She was talking with Calaine, trying to make a point, and the princess was listening, but with a fixed expression that suggested her mind was already made up. Sam approached them and Arla looked up.

“Chief.”

“Good to see you back,” he said. “What’s this?” He gestured at the soldiers standing in neat ranks in the street.

Calaine answered him.

“We’re going to visit the house of Tarquin,” she said. “They have to understand that they cannot defy the law.”

Sam nodded. He understood, and in the circumstances he wasn’t going to speak against it, but he thought that there should be a better way of doing this. It was wrong that a lawkeeper should be able to push his way into any house. There should be a good reason and some way to validate that reason.

“Take Talis and Gadilari,” he said. “They’ll do the searching if there’s any to be done.” But to what effect? If there was anything to find in the house of Tarquin it was probably moved, hidden or destroyed after the first visit. But there might be something still, so this had to be done.

He watched them leave, tramping off up the street like an army on the march, and turned to go back inside the law house. He was surprised to see the death man standing beside him.

“Bilan,” he said.

“Your man said you had a body,” Conir said.

“Yes. It’s in the same room.”

The death man shook his head. “There’s no body,” he said.

“On the table,” Sam said. “I saw it there myself less than an hour ago.”

“I saw the table,” Bilan Conir said. “But there’s no body.”

Sam ran back into the law house, pushing Ulric aside as he went through the front door. He ran all the way through to the room at the back where the body had been placed. When he got there he stared.

The body was gone. All that remained on the table was the bloody shirt it had been wearing, screwed up and thrown aside.

“Ulric!”

The fat man was only a few paces behind him.

“Chief?” Ulric looked at the table and his jaw dropped. “Where…?”

“Where indeed. You haven’t moved it then?”

“No, Chief…”

Sam stepped out the back door into the yard. The empty wagon was there, and a line of horses patiently eating the hay laid out for them. The death man’s cart was by the wagon. Sam ran out into the street again and looked both ways. There was nothing there. One way he could see a woman sweeping the steps of her house, a couple of men sitting at a table playing a two handed game of castle in the sun, the cards snapping down at regular intervals. The other way the street was empty, leading down to the river.

“Bilan.” The death man was there again, having followed him through from the front. “Did you see anyone in the street when you came in – someone without a shirt?”

“Without a shirt? No.”

“Ulric, I want the law house searched – every room – and get someone to speak to those people.” He pointed to the card players. “Find out if they saw anything.”

“Yes, Chief.”

Three possibilities. Someone could have moved the body somewhere else in the law house, a prank or a mistake. Someone could have stolen the body and taken it out the back while they were all busy at the front with Calaine’s soldiers, or…

Sam hated magic.

How could you keep the law when dead bodies stood up and walked away? And that’s what it was. He could feel it.

For the first time since taking this job Sam felt a tickle of fear at the back of his neck.