The Lawkeeper of Samara (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 2) (3 page)

Sam needed men badly. The other two he talked to that day were useless. One was fat like Ulric, but lacked his other talents, or indeed any talents at all as far as Sam could tell. The other man had been close to seventy.

He was buoyed up the next day by fat Ulric. The man had arrived early enough to be there when Sam arrived and had displaced Gilan from his customary seat in the hallway, having placed a table there.

“Good morning, Chief,” he said.

“Ulric.” He eyed the fat man warily. “You’re here, then.”

“Yes, Chief. Busy day today. You’ve got nine recruits to see, and the groom I mentioned.”

“Nine? I thought it was six. Gilan said…”

“Nine, Chief. I found three more last night.”

“You found them?”

“First one’s waiting outside your office,” Ulric said.

Sam decided not to press the man any further but wound his way through the maze to where his office lay. As he approached he saw that a seat had been placed outside the door and there was someone sitting on it. It was a woman. He could see at once that she was a guard. It was the way she sat, upright and rigid, eyes ahead, and the way she dressed – simple and practical. He walked past her into his office and sat down.

“Come in,” he said. “Sit.”

She stepped through the door and sat in the chair.

“You’re ex guard,” Sam said. “What’s your name, rank and domain?”

“Arla Crail, sergeant, Ocean’s Gate,” she replied.

He studied her face. She had grey eyes that seemed a little too light for her tanned skin. Her hair was cropped untidily and her nose and chin were a little too large for her to be pretty. She looked strong.

Sam knew the name, though. A lot of people in Samara knew the name, even if they didn’t know the face.

“Fasthand,” he said.

Her eyes flickered. She clearly didn’t like the nickname. “Some call me that,” she replied.

“Three times fasthand champion of Ocean’s Gate,” Sam went on. “One time overall archery champion.”

She met his eyes. “Yes.”

Fasthand was a guard discipline, a competition where archers shot as many arrows into a target as possible in a minute. Sam couldn’t remember the distance, but it didn’t matter. Arla Crail was an exceptional archer. That wasn’t why he knew her.

“You killed the king’s son,” he said.

“Yes.” Her eyes didn’t waver. She stared back into Sam’s face without a flicker.

“You want to be a lawkeeper and work for me? You know that I work for the city council and that the council is headed by Calaine, the sister of the man you killed?”

“I know that.”

“You don’t think that things might get… difficult?”

“Why should it? I acted in self defence. If any drunk attacked me with a sword I’d do the same thing, king’s son or no.” Her gaze still didn’t falter. She meant it, but it was foolish, all the same.

“You’d be safer at Ocean’s Gate,” Sam said.

“I’d be safer in Gulltown.”

It was true. There was no particular love for the king on the west side of the river. Hagar Del had been proof enough of that, but even in Gulltown someone like Arla Fasthand would be a provocation to some.

“Why do you want to be a lawkeeper?”

“Wars are over,” she said. “Ocean’s Gate is cutting back, letting people go. I should have been a lieutenant by now. If I stay there I’ll be a sergeant for ever.” She let her gaze drop for the first time. “I’m not a fool, Lawkeeper. I know things will be difficult, but I need to move on, and I don’t think I’d be any safer as a merchant’s guard, and this has more prospects.”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “I could use someone with your skills, but it could make problems for me, too. For all of us.”

Arla stared at him again. “I know this is important work,” she said. “I think I might be good at it.”

“Why?”

“I have difficulty minding my own business,” she said. “And I’m honest.”

Sam had to smile at that. She seemed to be exactly what he needed, and he could always let her go again if it all became too much. What he didn’t want was to have to try to find out who’d killed her two months down the line.

“A month,” he said. “I’ll give you a month and then we’ll see.”

Arla didn’t smile. She nodded. “I’ve got the job then?”

“For now, yes.”

“So what do you want me to do, Chief?”

Her as well? Well, he had to admit that Ulric was thorough. But she had a point. He had two lawkeepers now, and a murder that he wanted to solve. He took her back to the hallway and found Gilan. Ulric was talking to two men by the front door, and one of them was measuring things, but he ignored them.

Gilan was sitting in one of the larger rooms towards the front of the house. A desk had appeared in there and he was writing on a piece of paper.

“Job for you,” he said.

He explained to both of them what the death man had explained to him. He could see that both of them were intrigued by it.

“I don’t know why the boy was killed,” he said. “But this is no ordinary killing, and it’s happened more than once, so it may happen again. I want you to go over to Gulltown and look around, ask questions. Concentrate on the area where the body was found.”

“Aye,” Gilan said. “But who commands?”

It wasn’t the first question Sam expected. “There are only two of you,” he said. “Work together.”

He watched them leave. Arla had a bow over one shoulder, a recurve that could be shot from horseback, and a short sword. Gilan wore a long blade. As they rode away he wondered if Ulric had been right about the uniforms.

Sam Hekman’s directions had been thorough. They crossed the bridge into Gulltown and turned left, following the road that followed the river back towards the sea. They rode in silence. Gilan clearly didn’t want to talk, and Arla wasn’t going to start anything. From what the man had said he clearly thought that he should be in charge. She understood why. He’d been recruited first, he’d been an officer. She had to agree that from Hekman’s point of view he was the obvious choice.

But Hekman hadn’t chosen.

Ulric had approached her in the Golden Sun the previous night. He’d sought her out and suggested that she apply to be a lawkeeper. She’d known Ulric for years, though she wouldn’t have named him a friend. But he was one of the few people in Samara who always knew where to find her, and so far he’d been discreet with that information.

“It’s the safest place you can be,” he’d told her.

“What do you care?”

“You did the city a favour, Arla. Some of us are grateful.”

“What about Hekman?”

“He’s different.”

“Different good or different bad?”

“That depends on who you are.”

He’d been persuasive in the end, so Arla had come to the law house, and now she had a job, a regular wage. It had been hard trying to find work after Ocean’s Gate. She still didn’t know what to make of Hekman, but Ulric had been right, he was different.

They stopped on the dock. This was the place. Arla took their horses and looped the reins over a rail while Gilan went and looked down at the mud. There was nothing to see there, Arla knew. The tide had come and gone a couple of times since the body had been found, but she went and looked anyway, standing silently beside Gilan.

There was water under the dock. The tide was in.

“Nothing here,” Gilan said.

“They must have kept the boy somewhere,” Arla said. “Somewhere close.”

“Aye, even at night they wouldn’t want to carry a body far through the streets – even in Gulltown.”

They looked at the building behind the dock. Almost everything offered itself as a possibility. This dock hadn’t been used for years.

“Start with the warehouse,” Gilan said.

“Which one?”

Gilan pointed. They walked over to the doors. They were designed to be dragged apart, but whatever had supported them had long since given up the job. With both of them pushing they couldn’t force them open. Arla went right and Gilan left. She walked down the narrow alley between buildings and found nothing but darkness and rubbish. The warehouse backed onto a wall, so there was no way around the back. She retraced her steps and followed Gilan down the other side.

He wasn’t there.

She drew her short blade and went down the side of the warehouse. Half way down there was a door, or there used to be. She guessed that Gilan had opened it in traditional guard fashion, with a boot. She followed him inside.

It was dark, but not so dark she couldn’t see. The roof had succumbed to the sun and rain, and dripped light onto the warehouse floor. Gilan was standing in the middle of the floor looking about. He hadn’t pulled his blade.

“Nothing,” he said.

She had to agree. The warehouse was empty. She didn’t know what you might expect to find in a place like this, but there were no boxes, no goods of any kind apart from a pile of old blankets towards the back. Arla walked over to the pile and kicked at the edge of it. Nothing could be hidden here.

“Let’s try the shop,” Gilan suggested.

The door to the shop was nailed shut, but Gilan wrenched it open at the first try. The interior was darker than the warehouse, the roof better preserved. Arla wedged the door open so they had some light and they poked around for a while.

“We should have brought a lamp,” she said.

The floor was cluttered with coils of rotten rope. There was a shop counter with the top ripped off it. The place smelled of decay.

“This is a waste of time,” Gilan said. “Nobody’s been in here for years.”

Arla stood up in the dark. She looked at the bright oblong of the doorway.

“Was the warehouse locked?” she asked.

“Of course,” Gilan said.

“I mean was it locked – with a lock?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Gilan didn’t say anything for a while, but he’d stopped moving around.

“It didn’t smell that bad in there, either,” Arla said.

“All right,” Gilan said. “We’ll have another look.”

The door slammed shut. One moment they were in a kind of dim twilight, and the next night fell so completely that Arla froze. She was afraid that if she moved she’d forget where the door was.

“Was that you?” she asked.

“Don’t be stupid.”

Gilan stamped about for a while. He tripped, fell, and cursed.

“If you wait a moment your eyes will adjust,” Arla said. She still hadn’t moved, and now she could see the outline of the door beginning to emerge as a thin glowing line. She took careful steps across the floor, pushing the rubbish aside with her foot each time. She could hear Gilan breathing heavily, struggling to get to his feet again.

She reached the door and felt for the edge. She pushed. It didn’t open. She drew back a step and tried to force it open with her shoulder. The door opened an inch at the top and then sprang back. There was a flash of sunshine, like lightning.

“I’m at the door,” she told him. “It’s been wedged shut.”

“Keep talking,” Gilan said. “I’ll follow your voice.”

She counted. She got to twenty-three before she felt his hand grab her arm. He positioned himself in front of the door.

“Out of the way,” he said.

Arla took two careful steps back. Just in time. Gilan connected with the door like a battering ram. The wood was just too old to hold him back. It shattered, and Gilan sprawled out onto the dock.

She was past him in a moment, an arrow on the string of her bow even as she hurdled the wreckage, looking for movement. There was nothing. Whoever had wedged the door closed was gone.

“Gone,” she said.

Gilan stood up and dusted himself off. He drew his blade again. “He can’t have got far,” he said.

Arla shook her head. “Which way? It could have been children playing a prank. No harm done.”

Gilan looked pointedly at the shattered door. Then he looked up, his gaze over Arla’s shoulder, and his eyes widened. “The warehouse!”

She turned, expecting something to shoot at, but all she saw was smoke, a column of black smoke rising from the far side of the building. Arla ran round the alley where she’d first searched, and it was as bad as it looked. A sheet of flame was climbing the warehouse wall, peeling the rotten wood away, the hot air flapping the loose boards of the roof. In a few minutes the whole building would be gone. There was something inside that someone didn’t want them to see.

She ran back out of the alley. Gilan was standing on the dock, staring at the smoke. She ran past him and down the other side, between the warehouse and the shop. There was no fire here and the door was still gaping. She went inside.

It was just as it had been. The warehouse was empty apart from the pile of blankets. The space was large, but it was already beginning to fill with smoke. Fortunately it was filling from the top. She pulled at the blankets, scattering them across the floor, and a moment later Gilan was there helping her.

Under the blankets there was a door, a trap set in the boards. It was about four foot square with two rings set into it.

A flare of red light and a splintering sound – hot air blew across them. The roof was beginning to collapse. Arla coughed. “Open it,” she said.

“There’s no time,” Gilan said.

She seized one ring and pulled, and Gilan pulled the other. The door lifted and they pushed it away so that it fell back onto the floor. There was a room down there, and Arla didn’t hesitate. She jumped.

It was too dark. There were shapes in the darkness, but nothing she could describe. She reached out with her hands, trying to feel what was there and found metal, like a cage. It moved when she touched it, then swung back and nudged her shoulder.

“Arla!”

She ignored Gilan. There was something here, something important, but she just couldn’t see. She crouched down, trying to look up, to see a silhouette against the faint light above her, but it was no good. All she could see were a few straight lines, a fragment of the cage her hands had found.

Another loud crash announced more falling roof beams, and suddenly there was light. Burning wood fell down into the room with Arla, one beam knocking her down. She was stunned for a moment, surrounded by flames. The heat on her skin became pain. She scrambled to her feet, but she’d lost her bearings when she went down. There was a ladder out of this somewhere, but all she could see was fire.

Something grabbed the collar of her tunic and her feet left the ground. The next thing she knew Gilan was half pushing her, half carrying her across the warehouse floor, and then they were outside and the flames were gone. There was cool air to breathe and the healthy light of day.

Arla was on her hands and knees. Her eyes were almost blind with smoke and her lungs heaved between bouts of coughing. It was hard to get enough air.

“Get on your horse,” Gilan said. By the sound of his voice he’d taken in a lot of smoke, too.

“A minute,” she said, and hacked again. She spat some burnt warehouse out on the dock.

“Damn it, Arla, this dock is made of wood. The whole cursed thing is going to go.”

He was right. They had to go. She could feel the burning warehouse behind her like an evil presence, pressing on her back. She got her feet underneath her and stood. Gilan’s hand was on her arm again, which was good because she could barely see. Her eyes were still streaming. He put her hand on the pommel of her saddle and she found a stirrup and heaved herself up, feeling the nervousness of the horse beneath her. She kicked its flanks, trusting that it would have the sense to follow Gilan’s mount.

“Stupid,” Gilan was muttering to himself as the horses walked off the dock. “Stupid.” His voice rose. “What did you do that for? Jump in a hole in a burning building? Stupid.”

She was too busy trying to breathe to reply.

The horses stopped. She could still hear the fire, but it was distant now, and apart from the occasional collapse it merged with the distant whisper of the sea.

“Get down.” Gilan’s hand was on her arm again, and she dismounted. “Here, lean back, I’m going to pour water in your eyes. Keep them open if you can.” She tilted her head back and felt the sudden rush of cold as the water hit her face. She struggled not to blink and some of it went up her nose. She coughed.

“You nearly got us both killed,” Gilan said. “What did you think you were doing down there?”

Arla wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her tunic, and when she looked up again she could see, more or less.

“Thank you,” she said, and her voice sounded raw. “I acknowledge the debt.”

“Damn the debt.”

She coughed again and blinked. It had been close. If Gilan hadn’t pulled her out…

“There was something down in that room that someone really didn’t want us to see. Something important. Something to do with the boy who was killed.”

Gilan was quickly alert.

“You saw something. What did you see?”

“I can’t really describe it,” she said. “There was a cage, and something on the floor. When we get back to the law house I’ll draw it.”

“Right. Get back on the horse. And Arla…?”

“What”

“Don’t do that again.”