The Broken Bell (23 page)

The first thing I meant to do was stash the bulk of the evidence somewhere safe. I planned to take a single signed letter with me when confronting Lethway. That would be enough to establish the existence of the rest without risking the whole batch to a grab. I figured stashing the ledgers at Avalante would put them well beyond the reach of even a Lethway, so that word was on my lips when I stepped into the street to hail a cab.

I was in such a hurry to get to Avalante I didn’t pay nearly enough attention to the people on the street. Oh, I had eyes for the pair who’d fled the bakery, all right, but no one nearby fit the requirements of a pair of murderous musclemen. No, it was nannies out walking with kids and bankers out for a bit of air and ladies in hats out walking to be seen.

But at the moment, they weren’t walking. Instead, they were clustering around a barker, who was in turn passing out handfuls of handbills. People were taking them and then walking into each other as they backed away, their eyes on the paper they held.

A lady walked past, her skirts whipping, such was her hurry. I planted myself in her path and gave her my warmest, most winning smile.

She frowned and tried to dart around me. I sidestepped, still smiling, and she thrust a handbill at me.

“Take it, I have two.”

And then she was away.

WAR, the handbill read. WAR COMES TO RANNIT.

I cussed and stuffed the awful thing deep in a pocket and stopped the next cab I saw.

No one, not even the Regent and the Corpsemaster and the Army, can keep a secret forever.

Especially not when half of the secret is heading south toward you with mayhem on its mind and the other half is being built at night all around the city walls. The handbill had lots of it wrong, but it had enough right to convince me the proverbial cat was out of the metaphorical bag.

The Watch would go after the barker and the handbill printer, of course. I doubted they’d catch either. But even if they did, the word was spreading, and I figured by tomorrow even the weedheads would know the peace was broken.

NINE CITIES ALLY AGAINST RANNIT, cried the handbill. ARMY OF A HUNDRED THOUSANDS ON THE MARCH AGAINST US NOW!

Wrong on both counts. But the numbers weren’t going to matter. Not with the cannons in the mix.

I hope Evis and his—well, our, I suppose—plan to render the Brown impassable to barge traffic hadn’t been tossed aside by his superiors in the House. I had little faith the scheme would actually accomplish more than making a lot of noise and ruining some good timber, but already I was not only grasping at straws but throwing the weight of my hope upon them.

That’s what war does to people. Makes them cling to any hope, no matter how empty it may be in the harsh bright light of day.

I slept most of the way to Avalante, despite having gulped down coffee all afternoon. My dreams were troubled and brief. I didn’t even awake, claimed the cabbie, when a bridge clown reached inside and tweaked by nose.

Jerle, the day man, let me in and took my coat. The old boy insisted on peeking inside the cover at the ledgers, just to make sure I wasn’t trying to smuggle in a trio of Troll assassins, but he was quick and professional about it and he even offered me a seat while he looked.

I didn’t think I’d catch Evis awake at such an unvampirish hour, but Jerle told me he’d been left word to show me right in if I happened to stop by. So I made my way to Evis with barely a yawn or stumble.

The first thing I heard when I drew near to Evis’s door was female laughter. I stopped dead in my tracks, wishing for the first time that a suave halfdead was gliding silently at my side, so he could knock at the door and make sure Evis wasn’t occupied before I barged in.

But I was alone, and Evis had left word, so I walked right to the door to knock.

The woman laughed again before I could lift my hand. I heard Evis speak, his words not quite clear, and the lady laughed again, and there was a tinkle of glass on glass and a slosh of liquor.

I knocked. If Evis was pitching woo he could always tell me to go away.

“Come on in, Markhat,” called Evis. “We were just talking about you.”

The door swung inward, meaning Evis had touched something behind his desk.

I stepped inside.

Gertriss was seated across from Evis, trying to decide whether to hide her cigar or take a puff. She’d already managed to put her glass of brandy down on the corner of Evis’s desk. I knew she’d done that in a hurry because she’d missed the cork coaster and even sloshed a bit of brandy on the polished wood.

Something squealed and caught me across my knees. I tousled Buttercup’s hair, and she greeted me by leaping up and wrapping her arms around my neck before sliding around to ride on my back.

“Boss,” said Gertriss. Her cigar trailed up a damning swirl of smoke. “I was just waiting for you.”

I trotted a half-circle around the room while Buttercup giggled and squealed.

“I see. Did Buttercup decline to smoke, or has she finished hers already?”

“Oh, knock it off, Markhat. The banshee is older than all of us put together, and you know it. It’s not like she’s never seen people have a smoke or a drink before.” Evis leaned back in his chair and blew a smoke ring. “Anyway, your junior partner here is helping me celebrate. We got the go ahead from the House. We’re going to blow the bluffs.”

Gertriss cringed. I disengaged Buttercup and sat her on the floor. I wasn’t happy with Uncle Evis, but when vampires babysit banshees, I suppose hoping for nursery rhymes and games of dolls and houses is a bit too much.

Evis reached behind him and groped for a moment amid the sorcerous knick-knacks he keeps in those huge glass cases of his. When he withdrew his hand, he held a glowing orb that trailed twisting wakes of dancing light.

“Here you go, kid. Play with this.”

He tossed it to Buttercup, who snatched it out of the air and began to coo and mutter over it, engrossed.

I pulled a chair beside Gertriss. “What’s that thing you just gave her?”

“Damned if I know. We’ve had it for a couple hundred years. Maybe she can figure it out. Did you hear what I said? We’re heading up the river. Going to stop the War before it starts. We’ll be heroes. Probably have a parade. Brass statues, for sure.”

I tried to take the luminous sphere away from Buttercup, but she did a little banshee hop-step and appeared all the way across the room.

“Oh, calm down, finder. Trolls could blast the House down around us, and we both know the banshee wouldn’t suffer a hair out of place.”

Gertriss handed me a cigar, and a flame appeared in her hand.

“Boss. It’s all right. Tell us what you’ve been up to. And what’s that you’re holding?”

I sucked in a long draw of very expensive tobacco.

“This is the stuff of Lethway’s nightmares. Evis, I’d like to keep this here. But before we get into that, tell me about the celebration.”

“The House agrees that blowing up the bluffs is cheaper than fighting a new war. In fact, they’re pulling out all the stops.” He leaned forward, his dead eyes almost gleaming. “We might actually make this work. I was hoping for grudging support, at best. I had no idea they’d hand me the keys to the treasury.”

“Good way to get on the Regent’s Yule list, keeping his city nice and intact. If it works, you’re heroes of the realm. If it fails, oh well, money will be the least of everyone’s problems, won’t it?”

Evis laughed. “Money is never the least of any problem. But look here, Markhat. Remember when I said it would take us a week to get the wagons and the gunpowder up the Brown?”

“I remember.”

“They’ve a got steamboat,” said Gertriss. Her eyes were wide, and I wondered how many of those tumblers of brandy Evis had offered her. “It’s amazing, boss. You have to see it.”

“A steam what?”

“Another line of research the House pursued during the War,” said Evis. “It’s a shallow-keeled, flat-bottomed boat. Burning wood heats water. The hot water turns to steam. The steam drives an engine. The engine—”

“Oh bloody hell,” snapped Gertriss. She grabbed my arm. “Boss, the thing can go upriver. No sails. No oars. No pulling it with chains and donkeys. You just point it north and feed it logs and it goes. Fast.”

“How many of those drinks have you finished, young lady?”

She shook her head violently. “Three. But I’m not drunk, boss. Evis, how fast did you say it could go?”

“Eight knots. Ten if she’s pushed, and she will be.”

“For how long?”

“The whole way. With luck. The steam engine is not without its problems. But our engineers say she’s ready. The House has issued its blessing. We set sail in two days, finder—steamboat and barges and gunpowder and all.”

I finished my brandy in one quick gulp. It burned all the way down.

“You’re serious.”

“Dead serious. Pardon the pun. We have a navy, finder. Hurrah for Encorla’s Irregulars. We fight on land and sea.” He lifted his glass. Gertriss did the same, and they clinked together, and vampire and partner drained their glasses.

“And this steamboat of yours can do ten knots, day and night. That’ll put it at the bluffs in, say, two days.”

“Less. But say two.”

“Hauling enough gunpowder to level a few thousand tons of solid rock.”

“We’ll be towing that on a barge well behind us, but yes.”

“Just how big is this thing, Evis?”

“Huge,” said Gertriss.

“She’s a two hundred and ten feet from bow to stern. Forty-two feet wide. Her draft is only six feet, under a full load. We’ll be seeing four. She’s down at the docks now, getting prepped. The paddle-wheel is under wraps, but it won’t be a secret much longer.”

“No sails.”

“None at all.”

“Did you think to add a couple of cannon?”

Evis froze, face blank.

“Angels and devils, finder. No. No, we didn’t. But we will. We will.”

Buttercup squealed. She was rolling her ball across the floor, where it trailed a twisting nimbus of light.

It reached an empty spot on the floor, and then it stopped, wobbled around for a bit, and rolled back to the little banshee—on its own.

I held out my tumbler for a refill. Gertriss obliged, filling her own glass as well, and chuckling at some secret joke with Evis.

I stayed for quite a while, drinking and smoking and plotting. I laid out my day with Fields, my plan to loosen Lethway’s clenched jaw, my hope that Mama would put a stop to any further hexed visitors before one of them put a stop to me.

All the while, I watched Buttercup play a spirited game of roll the glowing magic ball with a playmate who wasn’t there while Gertriss made googly eyes at Evis and he taught her how to blow a passable smoke ring.

Some days are just strange that way.

I didn’t see the steamboat, that night. Evis offered to take me, but a couple of glasses of his aged brandy left the weight of my day dragging me quickly toward sleep.

He did convince me to spend the night under Avalante’s roof. I didn’t relish the thought of a strange bed, but for all I knew half a dozen irate Sprangs or a pair of Lethway’s bully boys were waiting by my door. I couldn’t have fought off an assault of determined laying hens, and I knew it, so in the end I allowed myself to be domiciled in a guest room slightly smaller than a city block.

They even had a fancy bath with hot and cold running water. I managed to clean myself without being scalded or drowned, and after that I slept the sleep of the truly weary.

Being surrounded on all sides by vampires troubled me not at all.

Morning in Avalante feels like midnight. The halfdead are bleary-eyed and grumpy, disheveled and weary in their tailored clothes. Even taciturn Jerle was jovial by comparison.

I shared a sparse breakfast with the day folk cleaning staff. Their talk was of the trouble heading Rannit’s way, and was mostly filled with wild speculation concerning the Regency’s plans to defend the city and whether or not they would accept Avalante’s offer to take in the human staff and their families, should war reach Rannit’s gates. Most were only too eager to seek refuge beneath Avalante’s walls. A few planned to ride it out close to the Brown and flee by boat, barge and bathtub should the Regent fail to win the day.

Afterward, I went to see Gertriss and knocked, but after a long while she threw a pillow at her door and told me in rather harsh terms to go away. I heard Buttercup giggle once, but she never did more than that.

Evis was long abed. I stopped by my borrowed room and sat on the feather bed and plotted out the day. I’d need to find Pratt, and set a time and a place to corner Lethway. I needed to swing back by my office and see if it was surrounded by hillbilly thugs. And I hoped I could pay Master Sergeant Burris another visit—I might not have Darla’s keen eye for accounting fraud, but I could certainly take her a fresh box of old records to inspect, if the Sergeant could be persuaded to let his precious files leave the Barracks.

I hauled myself off the feather bed and headed out, availing myself once more of a sleek Avalante carriage. I bade the driver to swing by the docks before we crossed the bridge. I wasn’t sure, but I guessed that Evis’s steamboat was being made ready on the Hill side of the River.

I was right. Finding such an odd craft wasn’t hard, and my carriage was waved on past a makeshift barricade after a scowling dockmaster checked my name against his list.

I can always count on Evis to pay attention to details.

I left the carriage right by one of the three wide gangplanks that spanned the sluggish waters of the Brown and led onto the deck of the steamboat herself.

Being a landlocked Rannite, my familiarity with watercraft is mostly limited to barges and fishing tubs. I’d probably know what a mast was, if I saw one. And I could likely pick out a mainsail from a bed sheet three times out of five.

So when I say Evis’s steamboat looked more like a wedding cake than a ship, please take that statement as the opinion of one wholly unfamiliar with either subject.

But there you have it. Her hull was simply a shallow, flat oblong with a slight bow at the front and an enormous cylinder lined with long rectangular paddles at the rear. Sprouting up from this shallow hull was two stories of white gingerbread festooned with windows and doors. A balcony ran the circumference of the upper decks. Chairs and benches were scattered about it, behind an ornate iron rail.