Dead Letter (15 page)

Kettna
felt she had lost control of the interview. First, with Lanuille
ranting off on disgruntled tangents, and now this kitchen hand
blabbing personal affairs for all to hear. “This is not who I
described to you … in confidence, I might add.”

“
You know each other?” asked Herder Kleith,
perplexed.

“
All the joy is ours,” said Lanuille with a sneer.

“
They’re staying at the Cog and Wheel,” beamed Elrin, despite
Lanuille’s sarcasm.

Not
wanting to discuss personal business in front of everyone, Kettna
steered the conversation back to the investigation. “I won’t keep
you both from your duties, but I must ask where the body was found.
There is much to investigate.”

“
I found him in an alley east of High Street. It runs beside
the old wall parallel to Willnoc Terrace.”

Kettna
had no idea where that was and her face must have shown
it.

“
I know the place you mean,” said Elrin. “I can take
them.”

“
A fine idea. The good members of the Order would pay you well
to escort them.”

“
I’m sure we can find our own way, without the help of common
labour,” said Lanuille curtly.

“
Have some sympathy for his circumstance,” berated the Herder.
“He has a mother to support and the lack of a guild name is no
fault of his own.”

Elrin
flushed with embarrassment. “There is no need for payment. I’ll
take them while I run your errands, Kleith.”

“
Very well,” said the Herder, fishing a collection of messages
from a pocket in his grey robes. He passed them to Elrin along with
a list. “You may as well go now. See to it you deliver the message
to the Guildmaster before you start on the other
errands.”

“
I will, and the summary?”

“
Yes, yes. I’ll read through your notes over lunch and we can
discuss it this evening. Now, make haste. Show our guests
out.”

“
We’ve taken far too much of your time, Herder,” said Kettna
with a formal bow. “I apologise for my colleague.”

Lanuille
scoffed and left the chamber, robes flowing like an angry
spectre.

“
Take care her burdens do not become your own, Inspector,”
said Herder Kleith. “Ensure that you return and let me know what
you discover; if this man has a family they will need to
mourn.”

CHAPTER NINE

Slumper
Alley

Outside the Hall of the Dead, daylight struck the novice like
a brand. She squinted and shielded her eyes, looking for Lanuille
on the street. The glare was like a flame to her frustration at
Lanuille’s behaviour earlier. “What was that about?” she
asked.

Lanuille
leant on the wall beside the entrance. “I was just trying to break
the spell that thief had over you. Don’t you want to get the rest
of the evidence?”

“
He’s no thief!” defended Elrin. “Kleith is the Hand of
Nathis.”

Lanuille
scoffed at Elrin. “One collector is the same as the
next.”

“
Enough, Lanuille! Whatever your personal gripe with the
Herders is, it has no place in my investigation. I need all the
evidence I can gather and the Hand of Nathis has been more than
helpful.”

“
All Merchant Guillan wants are his personal items returned. I
wager, everything he lost is in the Herders’ collection
room.”

“
Even if that were so, what of the murder? There is more going
on here, and the murder is the greater crime. If that man was
killed elsewhere and planted with the chain of office, this is not
just a theft and not just a murder.”

“
If,” replied Lanuille.

“
Exactly! If. That’s why I must investigate all the evidence.
Your suggestion of Herder Kleith’s involvement is noted. But your
petulant accusations without any evidence only serve to ruin our
chances of getting to the truth of the matter. If the Herder did as
you charge, your outburst has already allowed him to cover his
tracks.”

“
On my honour, I know he would never rob the dead,” said
Elrin.

“
Your honour carries no value!” Lanuille turned on the young
man, sweeping her arm with a blast of hot air. The angry gust
knocked Elrin into an old woman passing by. They both tumbled to
the ground with Elrin’s messages flying from his hand and the old
lady’s basket spilling brightly dyed balls of yarn in all
directions.

“
Lanuille!” cried Kettna, rushing to collect the messages
before the wind carried them further away.

Lanuille
hastened to comfort the old lady. “Are you hurt?” she asked,
scowling at Elrin, as if he had created the problem.

The old
crone creaked to her feet, leaning heavily on Lanuille’s arm. “What
would I have done if you weren’t passing by?”

Elrin
gathered the crone’s scattered yarn and returned her cane with a
solemn bow of apology. The old crone snatched the cane back and
battered him with a fuss of blows. “You vagabonds careen through
the streets like hurricanes. There’s no respect!”

Kettna
stepped between the vengeful crone and Elrin. “Calm down,” she
pleaded, taking a few cracks of the cane on her wrist. “Please, it
was an accident. Lanuille, settle this now!”

Lanuille
stilled the old woman’s fury, catching her eye with a palmful of
silver tabs. “Accept my apology for this reckless act. A vagrant’s
compensation is naught and nameless virtue is unreliable. Take this
and return home to rest.”

The
insults hit Elrin harder than any blow from the old crone’s cane,
turning him red with undeserved shame. Kettna struggled with
Lanuille’s temperament. Was she helping the old lady because she
was sorry and blaming Elrin to escape her own shame? Or was she
using the old lady to vindictively tear more strips from Elrin
because he had defended the Hand of Nathis?

Either
way, the crone was delighted with the outcome. The silver
disappeared into her purse faster than a rabbit down a hole.
“Apology accepted,” she said. “You do the Order proud.” The old
lady hurried off with a spry gait that belied any injury from the
fall, humming a happy tune for her good fortune.

Kettna
returned the collection of fallen messages to Elrin. “I’m sorry
Lanuille is being so rude.”

“
You needn’t be sorry,” whispered Elrin, mindful that the
volatile sorceress not hear him. “Her scars on the inside must run
just as deep as those on the outside.”

“
You see her scars?” asked Kettna.

“
Of course. I try not to stare. It must make her quite
uncomfortable.”

Kettna
looked at her protector, but only saw the beautiful illusion,
albeit a presently scowling beauty.

“
What are you both staring at?” growled Lanuille. “If you have
something to say, then say it.”

“
Elrin is being inconvenienced on our account,” replied
Kettna. “We should get moving. He has errands to run.“

“
Wait! I can’t find the message for the Guildmaster,” said
Elrin, shuffling through his letters to make certain. He anxiously
scanned the street for the wayward message. “You could use your
magic to find it.”

“
Or I could use my eyes,” replied Kettna, all too aware that
her mana was inadequate for the spell required. They searched the
nearby street for the missing missive. For a moment, Kettna
considered reaching in and tapping the mana frog hidden at the
bottom of her bag, not just because
Hesyp’s Minor Misplaced Miscellany
was a joy to cast, but because she craved the sweet flux of
the weave kissing her senses. For some, magic trumped the desires
of love. This had been so for Calim, the father of the Order.
Legends told of him leaving his lover, Tash, in pursuit of arcane
secrets promised by Daniakesh, the great silver dragon. Scholars
like Kettna knew that legend was a naive country cousin of truth,
but many a mage shunned social connections in favour of magical
ones. They rarely married for love if at all, preferring the arcane
union of the weave. Kettna wondered if a lineage of magic and love
had dashed her chances with both. Her parents had a lot to answer
for. “What does the blasted thing look like?” asked Kettna, losing
her temper, frustrated by the hinderance and the rising
heat.

Lanuille
laughed as she leaned against a building shaded by an eve. “You
should see yourselves. The four of you look like chickens searching
for seed.”

They
must have looked ridiculous to passers by; the twins were stooped
over searching for the message, just as Kettna and Elrin were.
Unfortunately, if the men found it, they wouldn’t say.

“
What do you mean, ‘the four of us’?” Elrin asked Lanuille,
standing with his back to Kettna.

While
Elrin’s intriguing question halted Kettna’s search, she spotted a
message peeking from his back trouser pocket. From all observable
or perhaps rightly, non-observable facts, Elrin saw through magical
illusions, but he couldn’t see what was right behind
him.

Kettna
plucked the message from his pocket. “Is this the one you’re
looking for?” It was nothing special; simple paper and a blank
black seal.

Elrin
reddened and snatched it from her examination, tucking it safely
inside his vest pocket.

Kettna
thought she had made an error, discovering a secret love letter
rather than a letter for the Guildmaster. A blank seal for a worker
without a guild; it was quite romantic.

Her
worry was not for long, as Elrin’s gratitude overtook his
embarrassment. “I feel like such a fool,” he said, giving her a
full formal bow. “Thank you, Inspector.”

“
Your direction to the alley Herder Kleith spoke of will be
thanks enough. Let’s be off.”

They
traversed through a thread of laneways and alleys that skipped up
the hill beside High Street. Elrin and Kettna kept in step while
Lanuille cooled her temper, walking with the twins.

“
I hope you find your courier friend. I know what it is like
to have a loved one go missing.”

“
Love? What makes you assume that?” Kettna wondered if it was
worth denying her feelings. It wouldn’t benefit her search for
Rix.

“
My father disappeared when I was a boy and the look in your
eyes when you spoke about Runner Rix is the same look that my
mother gets. I know it. It’s love broken but not
buried.”

A great
lump lodged in Kettna’s chest, her heart seized by a lance of
truth. She couldn’t speak for a moment, couldn’t even try to deny
it. She turned away, pretending to look at the passing architecture
as she cleared her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she directed the
conversation to Elrin’s loss so as to avoid the pain of her
own.

“
How did your father disappear?” she asked.

“
I don’t remember exactly. I was too young to understand. He
didn’t come home one night and Mother was distraught. The whole
city looked for him, the Guard and all the guilds helped, but they
never found him. He just disappeared.”

“
The whole city helped?” asked Kettna in disbelief. “Only the
Guildmaster could have ordered that.” Elrin’s mother must have
painted a pretty picture for her fatherless child.

“
Of course he did. But even if the Guildmaster didn’t, the
whole city would have helped. My father was a great
hero.”

Now
Kettna was interested. “A hero? Perhaps your mother embellished
your bedtime stories.”

“
He was one of the greatest — Arbajkha.”

“
The Last Sentinel? Daniakesh’s Sword?” At best, Kettna
guessed Elrin was a forgotten bastard, conceived through
extra-marital revelry with a pretty serving wench, as was known to
happen. At worst, Elrin was fed tales of hope by a heartbroken
mother who knew a father like Arbajkha, a hero, was just the lie a
bastard boy needed to rise from poverty. Only one question would
decide if he was the legitimate heir of the most famous romance
Calimska had known. “And your mother is?”

“
Penellonine, of course,” answered Elrin, as if it were as
obvious as the sun beating down above them.

“
So, you are telling me that you are the son of the former
Pride of the Bards Guild, Penellonine, and our hero, Sentinel
Arbajkha?”

“
It’s hard to believe for me too. It sounds grand, but the
high life is a long time passed for us. Without my father around to
support us, I couldn’t be presented to a guild and my mother …
well, she didn’t manage well.”

“
I thought Arbajkha died on some grand adventure over the
Great Dividing Range.” Some stories had it that he was taken
hostage by the Jandans and others claimed he joined them. Elrin
would have heard every rumour in between, so Kettna decided not to
pick at the wounds of conjecture.

“
Mother says none of that is true. He would have told her.
She’s not been the same since she was told he was dead, but I feel
it in my bones that he isn’t. It is hard to explain. I run these
streets and I feel him near me.”