The Lawkeeper of Samara (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 2) (27 page)

Gilan decided to be polite. It was possible that this man was one like the captain of the Red Fox. “I am sorry to trouble you, Trader Pelorus, but I have some questions concerning a blade that you sold to a man from Samara.”

“I see,” Pelorus said. “Well, you’d better come inside.”

They followed him into the house. It was soothingly cool inside. Everything Gilan saw was stone-floored and white-painted. They passed through a richly furnished room and came at last to a north-facing terrace. They sat down on soft chairs among potted plants and almost as soon as they sat a woman brought a tray of glasses and a jug. Pelorus himself poured four measures and offered them to his guests.

“It’s a sort of tea,” he said, seeing Gilan’s questioning look. “We serve it chilled and flavoured with sugar and mint.”

Gilan sipped the drink and found it delightful, refreshing without being cloyingly sweet.

“The blade,” he said.

“Yes. I assume it was something unusual?”

“Aye, from before the Faer Karan,” Gilan told him. “A white steel blade decorated with lilies.”

“Ah, that one.” Pelorus paused to take a sip of his cold tea. Gilan waited. “I collect blades,” the trader said at last. “I have collected blades for many years. I’m not a great bladesman myself, but they are among the most durable objects of beauty from ancient times, from before this world was torn apart by the Faer Karan. They speak to me of lost skills, of fallen towers and dead kings. Some of these blades have qualities that we cannot understand. They do not rust, some cannot be broken, others… others have qualities best not understood. I do not part with these rare blades willingly.”

“But you sold the lily blade,” Gilan prompted.

“I did.” He sipped his tea again.

“Who did you sell it to?”

Pelorus seemed not to hear the question. “Some blades have personalities,” he said. “Some are bold, others protective, but the lily blade was an uneasy thing.” He laughed at himself. “We are used to the brutal magic of the Faer Karan, but there are more subtle things. The lily blade was haunted.”

“Haunted?” Gilan could not keep the scepticism from his voice.

Pelorus laughed again. “It sounds foolish, does it not? Yet I’ll swear that this house was uneasy with that thing in it. Sleep was difficult. We had bad dreams. I argued with my daughter.” He shook his head. “I knew it was the blade. I couldn’t say how, but I knew. So I sold it.”

“And the man who bought it?” Gilan pressed.

“He paid sixty gold,” Pelorus said. “It was a high price.”

“His name?” Gilan was beginning to lose patience.

“You will forgive my caution, lawkeeper,” Pelorus said. “But traders trade on trust and trust is a thing hard won with us. Will you tell me the crime that you seek to punish and how the owner of the blade relates to it?”

Gilan sat back. How many times would he have to tell this tale? Perhaps the bare facts would suffice. “The crime is the torture and murder of children,” he said. “The owner of this blade had a device made that could only have been used in their ordeal and eventual death. He is a killer.”

“Children?” Pelorus looked shocked.

“Many children,” Gilan said.

Pelorus covered his mouth with a hand. He closed his eyes. “I thought I was a better judge of men,” he said. “Amal Godino was his name, or the name that he used. He was Blayish by the way he spoke, but he said he had a home in Samara.”

At last he had a name. It was what he had come here for. All the trouble with the ship, Ifan’s death, the battle with the pirates, the killing of the captain of the Red Fox – all of it had been for this.

“Thank you, Trader Pelorus,” Gilan said. He drained his cold tea. “Can you describe him for us?”

“Of course. He was a tall man – taller than you by a finger, I’d say. But thin. He had fair hair, blue eyes, pale skin. I would have said his features were a little pinched, a narrow nose, a small mouth. He was very well dressed – to the point of being showy. He did not seem an especially passionate man.” He shrugged. “That’s about all I can tell you.”

“That will do very well,” Gilan said. Indeed he felt that he might recognise the man if he passed him in the street.

“If our business is done can I offer you something to eat? It is an hour yet to midday, but I am accustomed to an early meal.”

Gilan glanced at Diara. She shrugged. Gilan had no particular desire to see the city, which seemed to be their only other option. “We’d be glad of it,” he said.

So they stayed. Another servant was summoned, and lunch was brought to them on the terrace. It was not at all like a Samaran lunch, but mostly consisted of small savouries designed to be eaten with the fingers, and served with a sweet white wine.

As the trays were set down a child joined them – Pelorus’ daughter. Gilan quickly perceived that she was blind, but sweet natured and outgoing despite her affliction. Gilan guessed that she was no more than ten years, perhaps younger. Seeing the affection between father and daughter put to rest any suspicions that he might have retained that this man was a child killer. The child, Helena, questioned the lawkeepers most rigorously, about Samara first, then their jobs, their lives, their journey, and when she discovered they had come to Pek with the mage lord her curiosity knew no bounds. Her father smiled and listened with the tolerance of one who had become accustomed to the child’s precocity, but eventually even he seemed to weary of it.

“Helena,” he said. “The lawkeepers are our guests, you must let them eat.”

Gilan was thankful for the respite.

As the meal drew to a close the child left them again, somewhat reluctantly, Gilan thought, but without argument.

“I apologise for the inquisition,” Pelorus said. “Helena does not leave the house a great deal unless it is with me, and she wants to know the world. You have been kind to answer her questions.”

“It was nothing,” Gilan said. “She is a charming girl, and bright.” Pelorus smiled and nodded. There was sadness there, Gilan could see. It must be difficult to raise a child so blighted by fate.

Pelorus himself escorted them to the street. “Anything I can do to help,” he said. “Ask me and it’s yours.”

“I shall remember,” Gilan said. “And that you were a friend to the law in Samara.”

So they parted on friendly terms, and the mayor, Finn Candros, led them back through the sunny streets of Pek to the great park by the sea just on the stroke of midday.

Sam Hekman was himself again, and he revelled in it. Yet for all that there was something else in him now. The crystal had left him with a gift. He did not know if it was a gift that he could trust, but he did not doubt its presence. He could think in jumps. Before this he had been a creature of steps, methodical, patient. Now he saw the end of the chain before he had counted the links, his conclusions preceded his reasoning.

Sam sat in his office and watched the remains of the black door dissipate. Serhan had gone. He had simply emptied the bowl he had been staring at, tucked it away inside his jacket and opened a black door.

“I’ll be back before sunset,” he said. Then he had stepped into the darkness.

Sam didn’t leave his office at once. Instead he sat and thought. He allowed his new gift free rein, let it roam unhindered through the forest of facts that he had gathered. The men he hunted were rich. But they were, he suspected, rich by virtue of long life, and not cleverness. Yet there must be one of them, at least one, who had a mind fit to control the others. It certainly had not been the man he had killed at the dark end of the strand. That one had been a fool.

There were five others – the one on the ship with Gilan and four more here in Samara.

The conclusion jumped out at him before he was even aware of it, and seeing it, he saw also that it was inescapable.

He stood and made his way down to the commissary. Ella was still there, and he was glad of that. She was sitting with Ulric and Arla and Ulric was eating, as usual. He stood in the doorway for a moment, considering each of them in turn – how he had come to know them, their history. He had known of Arla Crail a long time before she appeared in his office. Her history at Ocean’s Gate was an open book. He could find a dozen people who had known her since adolescence in the Faer Karani fortress. Ella, too, was an open book. The king himself had known her as a child, and Sam had spoken briefly to her father, her brother. Any one of the trader community in Samara could vouch for her childhood.

Ulric was a different matter. He knew nothing about the man apart from what he had been told, and Ulric was clever. He trusted Ulric as much as he trusted himself, but just a few hours ago that would have been not at all.

He walked over and sat with them.

“The mage lord has gone,” he said.

“Gone?” It was Ella that asked.

“Aye, I think he found what he was looking for – a ship. He said he would be back before evening.”

“Did he say if Gilan and the others were all right?” Arla asked.

“No. He just left – made one of those black doors and stepped through.”

“And you’re… all right?” Ulric asked.

Sam smiled. “Cured,” he said. “And we have work to do. Ulric, can you keep the door? We’re still in danger from without.”

“Aye, chief” the fat man said. He stood and left them, but Sam saw him pause in the doorway before going back to his post. Ulric, as Sam had thought, was clever. He knew that he was being excluded.

Sam lowered his voice. There was nobody else here but the cook, but the cook was another he could not be certain of.

“They have ears in the law house,” he said.

Ella looked shocked. Arla stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “It makes sense,” she said. “They seem to know everything that we do, and Delantic buying that ship and being on it when Gilan sailed hardly seemed like a coincidence.”

“And Zumaran,” Sam said. “How did they know we’d talked to him? And the smith that Gadilari found.”

“But you trust us,” Ella said. She glanced at the door.

“I trust every lawkeeper,” Sam said. “But some I am certain of. Those of you that came from Ocean’s Gate all knew each other, and lived together for years. That’s surety enough for me.”

“They could have been following us,” Arla said.

“No, they knew too much too quickly.”

“So what do you want to do?”

That was Arla, always looking for the next step, the next action. “We have to plan,” Sam said. “We have to take the game away from them.”

“How?”

“That may take some thought,” Sam said. In truth he had no idea how to turn the tables. Their trump card, the mage lord, was off on a ship somewhere in the ocean, and they had no idea what he would return with. They would have to wait. “I want you to pick three lawkeepers – ones that you knew from Ocean’s Gate – the best you can find. Put them on duty here in the law house.”

“I’ll do it at once,” she said.

Sam waved her back down. “No hurry. You still have the blue crystal?”

“Locked away,” Arla replied.

“I’d like you to go and check that it’s still where you put it.”

Arla jumped up again, and this time Sam didn’t stop her. She hurried from the room.

“You think it’s been taken,” Ella said.

“Wait and see,” Sam said.

Arla was only gone a minute. She came back with a box in her hand. It was open, and clearly empty.

“Gone,” she said. “You knew.”

“I guessed.”

“But why now? It’s been there for days.”

“It’s Serhan,” Sam said. “I don’t know the truth of it, but I’ve heard tales that he can see magic, that he can unravel a spell’s casting. If so he could learn a lot from the crystal – perhaps even who made it. I’ll wager our traitor has heard the same tales.”

“The theft proves your point,” Ella said.

“You’re certain Serhan will come back?” Arla asked.

“He said as much, and I’ve no reason to doubt his word. Why?”

“The ship’s captain – Delantic – we went to his house and searched it.”

“And?”

“We found an empty room.” It meant nothing to Sam.

“Empty?”

“Yes. I know it sounds foolish, but his servant tried to kill me to stop me from entering, and the room felt… wrong.”

“Magic.”

“It’s what I thought.”

“Something hidden there, perhaps, like that room at the house of Tarquin.” A lot of things could be hidden by people like Delantic. Sam was not exactly short of ideas. It could be anything from the site of the man’s crimes to equipment – even victims. “The servant – did you kill him?”

“No,” Arla said. “He’s a prisoner. We put him in one of the cells.”

“Cells?”

“Aye. Ulric had cells built in the basement.”

The fat man certainly got things done, Sam reflected. As little as he liked the idea of being a jailer he had to admit the cells would be useful. It didn’t really serve them to hold everyone they needed to hold at the citadel. There would be times, like this, when a convenient cell would come in handy.

“Is he guarded?”

“One man,” Arla said. “He’s old – not very threatening.”  Then she saw Sam’s point. She slapped the table. “Damn.” She jumped up again.

“We’ll go down together,” Sam said. “I’d like to speak to him, if he’s still with us.”

All three of them walked down the steps to the cellar. It was gloomy down here. Only a few lamps burned dimly to preserve the balance between illumination and a breathable atmosphere. Arla led the way and in a short time they came to a row of newly planked doors and a man sitting on a seat facing them. He stood up when he saw them approach.

“Chief,” he said.

“The prisoner,” Arla asked. “How is he?”

The turnkey smiled. “He complains a lot,” he said. “Even when we feed him. Apparently he’s used to better.”

“The chief wants to talk to him,” she said.

The turnkey unlocked the door with a shiny brass key. It swung open into the cell and Sam followed it in. The room was small, but not offensively so. A single lamp showed him the layout. There was a bed of sorts with a straw pallet. It reminded Sam a lot of the place he’d been kept in the Saine house.

The prisoner, Arla had said he was called Hummel, was staring at the door as they entered. He sat on the bed, feet tucked up under his buttocks, arms around his knees. There was hatred in his eyes, and Sam had no news that would diminish it.

“Hummel,” he said. “I think you’re going to have to find a new job.”

The prisoner didn’t answer, but spat on the floor. Sam could see a bruise on the side of his face.

“The mage lord came to Samara,” he told the man. “Less than an hour ago he located your master’s ship and went there.”

Hummel seemed to tighten his grip on his knees, but didn’t speak.

“What’s in the empty room?” Sam asked.

Hummel turned his head and looked at the wall, but there was a weakness in the gesture. Sam chose another lever to pry at him.

“I admire loyalty,” he said. “Any man who’s loyal must have some good in him, but your master is dead or captured, and the mage lord will have his secrets. It’s time to think of yourself, Hummel.”

Hummel turned back to look at Sam. There was real loss in his face. This strange old man, for whatever reason, had really loved his master.

“Kill me now, then,” he said. “I’ll not speak.”

Sam knew he wouldn’t. The line had been drawn.

“At least tell us your true name, Hummel, for the records.” Anything would be useful, or might be. Every word that the servant spoke was another piece of the puzzle. For a moment Sam thought that even this tiny concession would be refused, but after a moment Hummel nodded.

“Hummel Delantic,” he said.

Delantic’s father? Well, that would explain the loyalty, but… it hit him like a brick. The blue crystal’s gift kicked in and he knew that Hummel wasn’t Delantic’s father. It was more likely that the old man was the killer’s son, or even grandson. There was a story behind this that Sam didn’t think he wanted to know. This old man had been born into Delantic’s household and watched his father, grandfather, whatever Delantic was, stay ever young while Hummel grew up, aged and withered. What would that do to a man? And Hummel must have known, at some point, what Delantic was doing to stay young. Surely he must have known.

Sam left the cell and watched as the turnkey locked it again.

“I think I want to see Delantic’s house,” he said.

Arla led the way. Ella followed. Sam knew the streets weren’t entirely safe, but at this point he didn’t care. He wanted to see this empty room. They walked up towards Morningside through streets that had somehow become aware of trouble. They passed few people, and those that they did see were in a hurry and spared them only sidelong glances. Most doors were closed, windows shuttered.

Delantic’s house wasn’t as grand as he’d expected. It was a modest, lower slopes house – pretty enough, but nothing special. There were two men outside the door.

“Two more inside,” Arla said as they approached.

The men on the door saluted Sam, which he wasn’t used to, and opened the door. Sam stepped through it into a different world. If the house was modest on the outside, it was certainly different within. Everything was of the finest quality. He noted the white marble floor, a broken statuette, its pieces scattered, a broad staircase, a number of white doors. It was the height of luxury, but it looked sterile and cold to Sam.

Ella picked up some bits of the broken figurine.

“This is exquisite,” she said. “And old.”

“And broken,” Arla added. “Hummel tried to brain me with it.”

“It would have cost twenty gold,” Ella said. “Probably more.”

Her father probably had one just like it, Sam thought. “The room?” he asked.

“Here.” Arla pushed open a door and Sam saw that the lock was broken. He stepped inside. The room was just as Arla had described it – empty. The floor in here was wooden, which made him think of hidden doors, but Arla had searched and he trusted her to be thorough. He walked to the windows and looked out. The room faced the back of the house and a modest garden. There was a pond, fruit trees, flowers. It seemed strange that a man like Delantic, being what he was, doing what he did, should have a pretty garden.

“Did you search out there?” he asked.

“We did,” Arla replied. “Nothing.”

Sam turned back and looked around the room. Arla was right. There was something wrong with it. The longer he stood in it the more he felt uneasy. It was as though the room didn’t want him here. That suggested to him that he should stay.

He went out into the hallway and picked up a chair. He carried it back into the room and placed it in the middle of the floor. He sat down.

“I’m going to stay here a while,” he said.

Arla raised an eyebrow. “Chief?”

“The room wants me to go away. It has something to hide. Perhaps if I’m here a while it’ll have trouble hiding it.”

Arla looked at the floor. “Are you sure the mage lord fixed you up?” she asked.

Sam grinned. “Aye, but I might be fixed better than I was before,” he said.

“Now you can do magic?”

“No, but I can feel it. So did you.”

“I’ll take Councillor Saine up to look at Delantic’s papers,” Arla said. “We looked at them, but she might make more sense of the trader mumbo jumbo.”