Ghost in the Flames (13 page)

“Rasadda does seem mismanaged,” said Caina. “I am only a woman, of course, and know little of governance, but I have never seen so many beggars and vagrants.” 

Romarion seemed to reach a decision. “My lady, may we be candid with each other?”

“Of course,” said Caina. “I certainly don’t wish for you to lie to me, after all.”

“The real reason your father sent you on this tour was to find a wealthy husband, was it not?” said Romarion. “I am not so innocent of the world.”

“It was,” admitted Caina. “I confess that my prospects were less than desirable in Malarae itself. I do not have enough money to attract of a husband of high birth, and our title is not venerable enough to interest a wealthy nobleman of less ancestry.” 

“I see,” said Romarion. “My lady, I would make you a worthy husband.”

“Would you?” said Caina. “So direct, master merchant. You shan’t try to flatter my vanity, first? Perhaps praise my beauty, or write a poem about my eyes?”

“You do not seem, Countess, to be a woman who would appreciate flattery,” said Romarion.

“No,” admitted Caina, annoyed at his observation. Caina cared nothing for flattery. Countess Marianna Nereide was supposed to enjoy it. Romarion should not have seen that. 

“Then I will be honest, though you are very lovely,” said Romarion. “And clearly a woman of uncommon resolve, too. You have been attacked, what, twice since you came to Rasadda? And yet you have not fled the city.” 

“That is more my captain of guard’s doing than mine,” said Caina, glancing at Ark. 

“But, still,” said Romarion. “I know I am not of high birth, but I have money, and know how to make more. I can bring great wealth to your house, and with a noble title, I could stand for Imperial office.” He hesitated. “I…am not a bad man, Countess. I am not cruel. I know some husbands enjoy lording over their wives, but I am not such a man.” He spread his hands. “We could go on to great things, you and I, as husband and wife. Permit me to travel with you when you return to the Imperial capital, so that I might meet your lord father.”

Caina could not decide to be amused or annoyed at his presumption. “Master merchant, if you wish to pay court to me, you may do so. Though any final decision, of course, will come from my lord father.” 

“Of course,” said Romarion, smiling. “But I think you’ll find that I can be very persuasive.” 

And he spent the rest of the evening trying to persuade her.

###

Later Romarion walked Caina to the coach and made her promise to return soon. She settled into the seat, Ark opposite her, as the coach rattled into motion. Caina fiddled with one of her bracelets, lost in thought. 

She felt an odd pang. Romarion had indeed been very charming. That counted for little, of course; Caina had met men who smiled and whistled as they cut out an enemy’s heart. And she doubted that Septimus Romarion had amassed his fortune entirely by fair means. Yet Caina wondered what it would be like to take a husband, to have children. 

But that was something she would never know, and that awareness put her into a black mood.

“Countess?” 

Caina blinked, looked up. “Yes?”

“I was surprised,” said Ark.

“Surprised by what?”

Ark hesitated. 

“Oh, just come out and say it,” said Caina. 

“I am surprised you didn’t go to bed with him,” said Ark. “You probably could have gotten him to tell you everything.”

“No doubt,” said Caina. “But I didn’t. Why does that surprise you?” 

Ark shrugged. “I thought you would do it.” His tone hardened. “You…seem like the sort of woman who would use sex as a weapon.” 

Caina glared at him, but could summon no real anger. Ever since she had met him, she had been pretending to be someone else. She could see how he might have drawn that conclusion. 

“I did do it that way, once,” said Caina, her voice quiet as she remembered Alastair Corus, her first and only lover, a man who had died because of her decisions. “My first assignment for Halfdan. It…didn’t go well.” She shook her head. “It was wrong, and I shouldn’t have done it. I won’t do it again.” 

“I see,” said Ark. “So this entire evening was a waste of time?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” said Caina. “I learned two things, both of them valuable.”

She waited.

Ark sighed. “And what two things are those?” 

“For one thing, why is Romarion so eager to get out of Rasadda?”

Ark frowned. “He said business had turned sour…”

“Did you see that mansion?” said Caina. “That big pile of marble and glass? And all those statues? It must have cost a fortune, maybe several fortunes. It’s not the kind of thing you can pack up and take with you. And if he moves to Nighmar he’ll incur huge losses in his business. The established merchants in Malarae won’t exactly step aside for him.” 

“So?” said Ark.

“So,” said Caina, “something has him so badly frightened that he’s willing to flee the city at once. The fact that he’s so charmed by my beauty that he wants to follow me is simply a convenient excuse.” 

Ark frowned. “He said he thought the Saddai would revolt against Nicephorus.”

“In which case he is unusually far-sighted,” said Caina. “The coming revolt is plain, yet neither Nicephorus nor his cronies are able to see it. No, something else has terrified Romarion. I’d rather like to know what that is.”

“And what second thing did you learn?” said Ark.

“The interior layout of his mansion,” said Caina. “It was most helpful of him to take me on that tour.” She smiled. “The knowledge will come in handy very soon.”

That seemed to puzzle Ark, but Caina said no more. 

A short time later they returned to the Inn, and went to the sitting room. Ark yawned, rubbed his face, and reached for the carafe of wine sitting upon the table. Caina glanced into the maids’ room, made sure they were asleep.

“Don’t get comfortable,” said Caina.

Ark took a quick drink of the wine. “Why not?”

“We’re going back to Romarion’s mansion.” 

“What?”

Caina shrugged. “He did invite me back, didn’t he?”  

Chapter 13 - Box of Blades

“This is a bad idea,” muttered Ark.

They waited in the shadows of an alley across the street from Romarion’s splendid mansion. Caina stood wrapped in her shadow cloak, steel at her belt and strapped to her arms. Ark had hidden the gleam of his mail coat beneath a jerkin, his face likewise hidden beneath a hood and mask. 

“It will work,” said Caina.

“You didn’t need me to stand lookout before,” said Ark. 

“This much more dangerous,” said Caina. “The militia is lax. Valgorix’s heart is in the right place, but he’s not terribly competent. Romarion’s not stupid, whatever else he might be, and I think his guards might actually know their business. So I need backup.” 

“What are you looking for?” 

“I’ll know it when I find it.” Caina wanted a good look at Romarion’s ledgers. She suspected she might find all sorts of interesting things there. 

“How will I know if you need help?” said Ark.

“Trust me, you’ll know,” said Caina, checking her weapons and tools one last time. “Use your judgment. You did yesterday, after all.”

Ark stepped back in sudden alarm, and Caina did the same. A troop of mounted militia rode past, torches in hand, and Caina waited until they had passed. She counted to twenty, took a deep breath, and stepped into the street.

She saw no one. 

“If I’m not back by midnight,” said Caina, “return to the Inn.”

Ark nodded and vanished into the alley. Caina hurried across the street and plunged into the shadow of Romarion’s mansion, her cloak blending with the darkness. A low ornamental wall surrounded the mansion and its grounds, and Caina hopped onto the corner, wrapped her cloak around her, and waited. 

She did not wait long. A guard strolled through the mansion’s well-kept grounds. He wore a studded leather jerkin, sword and dagger at his belt, and carried a crossbow ready in his arms. All his weapons were in good condition, and he looked as if he knew how to use them. Caina remained motionless, watching the guard.

When he vanished around the corner, Caina moved. She raced across the grounds, grapnel and thin rope spinning in her right hand. She flung the grapnel, felt it catch on the red tiles of the mansion’s roof. After a few cautionary tugs, Caina scrambled up the line, her boots scrabbling against the smooth marble walls. The guard came around the corner again, and Caina swung into a darkened window frame, huddling into her cloak.

The guard did not see her. People never looked up. Caina waited until he had passed, and resumed her climb. She stopped at a high window just below the roof. Caina swung into the frame, pulled down the rope, and returned it to her belt. She scrutinized the shutters for a moment, then slipped a knife into the gap and popped the latch. They swung open, and Caina jumped inside, pulling them closed behind her.

She found herself in a bedroom, perhaps a guest room. Her boots sank into a thick carpet, and polished furniture gleamed in the faint light leaking through the shutters. The bed was empty. Caina listened for a moment, but heard nothing. She crossed the room and opened the doorway.

A high-ceilinged hallway stretched the length of the upper floor. Nighmarian and Saddai statues stood in alcoves, while unlit iron chandeliers hung from chains. If Caina remembered right, Romarion kept his offices on the east side. Still listening, she started down the corridor. 

She had gone no more than six steps when she heard the voices approaching. Caina looked back and forth. The door was too far away, but a massive statue of an Emperor in antique armor stood to her left, and one of the iron chandeliers hung right over her head. Caina scrambled up the statue, perched on the dead Emperor’s shoulders, and jumped to the chandelier. It rocked a little, but the massive chains held it in place, and with the candles extinguished she cast no shadow. She settled into place, like a spider in an iron web, and waited. 

Romarion and another man walked down the hallway, speaking to one another in low voices, four guards trailing after them. Caina tensed, but they didn’t notice her. People simply never looked up. She settled down to listen.

“It could just be a coincidence,” said one of the men. To judge from his dress, Caina supposed he was Romarion’s steward.

“No,” said Romarion. “It’s not a coincidence.” He clutched a letter in one hand. 

Caina blinked in surprise. Romarion had always had spoken High Nighmarian with a cultured, elegant accent. Now he spoke Caerish, his accent rough and harsh. He sounded like a lifelong sailor. 

“They got all the others,” said Romarion. He sounded angry, or frightened, or perhaps both. “They’ve been turning up dead one by one in their beds. I never thought to die in bed, you know. I always thought I would drown, or hang, but to die like that…no, gods, no.”

“I still think…” said the steward.

“No!” said Romarion. “All the others are dead, and then we receive word that Vanio is dead in Mors Crisius?”

Caina blinked in surprise. 

“It could have been an accident,” said the steward. “The letter didn’t say.”

“No,” said Romarion, shaking his head. “It’s not an accident. I’ll wager the poor bastard was found burned to death in his bed, just like the others. First he came for the others. Then he got Vanio. And he’s going to come after me next, I know it.” 

They stood in silence for a moment.

“What are you going to do?” said the steward.

“Get out of Rasadda as soon as it’s feasible,” said Romarion. “Hell, I ought to get out of the Saddai province entirely. Vanio was in Mors Crisius, and he got to him anyway. As soon as I can convert enough of my solid assets to ready money, I will leave. If I can convince that charming young countess to marry me, all the better. It’ll make it easier to land on my feet.” He shrugged. “But if not…I am leaving before the month is out. I can always rebuild my fortune. I can’t bring myself back from the dead.” 

“Very true,” said the steward. “But you may not have a month.”

“Perhaps,” said Romarion. “But I don’t think he suspects that I know anything. If I sail steady and calm, I can get away before the storm comes. And if not…well, I’ve got a few hiding places around the city.” He clapped the steward on the shoulder. “You can always loot the mansion after I flee.”

“That was always the plan, sir.”

Romarion laughed. “Enterprising man, I like that.” They kept walking, and Caina soon heard the sound of them going downstairs. She counted to a hundred, but no one else appeared, and she dropped from the chandelier, cloak pooling around her legs. 

Interesting. Caina wished that Romarion had mentioned more names. But clearly he feared falling victim to this unknown pyromancer, just like all the others. Caina wondered who the “others” might have been. 

Time to find out.

She crept down the hallway and reached the door to Romarion’s study. He had left it locked, and Caina knelt before the door, pulled the appropriate tools from her belt, and set to work. She soon realized that Romarion had not scrimped on security. The lock was damnably good, so good that Caina almost decided to go out the window and crawl along the ledge. But at last the lock released with a click, and the door swung open.

Unlike the rest of the mansion, Romarion’s study was simple, almost austere. A pair of cutlasses, the blades notched with use, hung on the wall, alongside a shark’s jawbone. Bits of coral and exotic shells sat on the writing desk. Relics from Romarion’s days at sea, Caina supposed. 

She walked around the desk, intending to read the papers covering its surface, and stopped. A huge iron box sat below the window, massive enough that it would take five or six strong men to move. Dark, solemn designs covered its sides, along with dozens of ominous black slits. Three different keyholes adorned the massive lock.

Caina whispered a curse. 

A Strigosti trapbox. 

This was very bad. The Strigosti were a reclusive, unfriendly people, but none could match their skill with machinery and intricate mechanical devices. They specialized in siege engines, locks, and cunning traps of ghastly lethality. Romarion must have paid dear for the iron chest, but thieves who tried to break into a Strigosti trapbox without the proper keys almost always wound up dead. 

Caina had disarmed Strigosti trapboxes twice before, but it had almost killed her both times. She ought to just find the keys, but Romarion no doubt kept them on his person. If she stole them, Romarion might panic and flee the city before Caina could learn anything useful from him. She was sure Romarion kept things in this chest that he wanted kept secret, which meant that Caina wanted to know them. 

She had to try. Caina closed and locked the study door and took a moment to clear her head. Then she unpacked her tools, knelt before the iron box, and set to work. 

Of the three keyholes, Caina guessed that the first two disarmed the traps, while the third would undo the lock. Turning the keys in the wrong order would undoubtedly trigger all the traps at once. Caina had no way of knowing the correct sequence, so she had to try other methods. 

She examined the front of the chest until she found a slender seam in the carvings. After several minutes of prying with a dagger, a metal plate popped away, revealing an intricate maze of gears, springs, cogs, and wound springs. The logical course would have been to smash the intricate machinery. Logical, and suicidal; smashing the machinery would release all the traps at once. Instead she stared at the gears for a moment, thinking. It looked as if one trap would fling darts from the dark slits on the box’s sides. To judge from the small steel bottles Caina saw, the blades would have a coating of poison. The second trap would send dagger blades stabbing from hidden compartments, taking the fingers and eyes of any clumsy thieves. 

She selected a small prybar from her tools and set to work. Bit by bit she worked her way through the machinery. A spring loosened, a gear wound back here, and Caina began to feel more confident. 

Then something clicked. The gears began to spin, faster and faster, the cogs working up and down. Caina cursed and threw herself backwards, rolling over Romarion’s desk to land on its far side. A heartbeat later she heard another, louder click, followed by a silvery hiss. Her heart thudding, Caina peered around the desk. 

Foot-long steel blades had erupted from the Strigosti trapbox, making it look like a freakish metallic porcupine. Yellow grease coated the blades. A poison, no doubt. After a moment the clockwork innards began to spin again, pulling the blades back into the chest. Another click, and the trap reset itself. 

Caina took a moment to steady herself. When her heart had slowed and her hands stopped trembling, she took a deep breath and resumed work. This time she knew what gears and cogs to avoid. One by one, she disarmed the box’s traps. Then she stared on the chest’s lock. It was a masterpiece of the locksmith’s craft, and sweat began to drip down Caina’s face as she worked. She had been working for at least an hour, and very soon she would run out of time. Ark might take direct, and dangerous, action. 

The lock shuddered, releasing. Caina flung open the massive iron lid, and rolled backwards, half expecting a rain of razor blades to erupt from the iron chest. But nothing happened. Caina sighed, straightened up the desk, and started rifling through the box, taking care to memorize the arrangement. 

She found several leather pouches of precious gems and platinum coins, along with a few small jade statuettes. No doubt Romarion planned to take them when he fled. Caina left them alone, and turned her attention to the stacked ledgers. She lifted them free, opened them on the floor, and began flipping through the pages. 

The records only went back four years, but Romarion’s business interests included gold, silver, gems, ivory, ebony, marble, rare woods, fine wine, and other valuable luxuries. But it seemed that the foundation of his great wealth came from dealing artworks. He had sold dozens of rare Saddai statues for vast sums of money. A lot of Romarion’s statues had gone through Vanio in Mors Crisius. Caina’s mouth curled into a crooked smile. No wonder Romarion kept his records under lock and lethal trap. He smuggled his statues into Mors Crisius, avoiding the Imperial customs agents in Rasadda’s harbors. From there he shipped the statues overland to Rasadda, and then sold them through his partners. 

Caina blinked. She read over the list of partners again. 

Her breath hissed through her teeth.

The names of Romarion’s business partners, every last one of them, had been on Valgorix’s list of the burned dead. Caina’s eyes scanned the ledger’s pages, doing the math in her head. In fact, if she added it up, there had been only two groups of identified victims on Valgorix’s list of the slain. The Ghost circle of Rasadda, and Romarion’s business partners. And Caina would wager that the unidentified bodies on the list were connected to either the Ghosts or Romarion’s partners; spouses, perhaps, or servants who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Caina could almost see the sequence of events. Four years ago Romarion and his partners began dealing in ancient Saddai artwork. Then someone started to murder his partners using pyromantic sorcery. The Ghost circle under Ostros noticed and investigated, until this pyromancer killed them all lest they interfere. 

She stared at the ledger for a moment, thinking hard.

Romarion looted ruins for his artworks. He must have found something valuable, something priceless. But someone else must have learned of his discovery, and was willing to kill to claim it. What could possibly be worth such carnage? Some old statue? Caina didn’t know.

For a moment Caina considered breaking into Romarion’s bedroom and demanding the truth, or kidnapping him and taking him to a safe place for interrogation. No, too risky. Caina and Ark could not pull it off between them. And Romarion surrounded himself with armed guards. Too much could go wrong. 

Caina still needed more information, so she resumed flipping through the ledger. Two things caught her eye.

First, Romarion had been frantically converting his assets to coin, even selling numerous artworks below cost.