The Lawkeeper of Samara (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 2) (12 page)

Sam’s routine was invariable. He generally worked until the sun set and then left the law house, heading through the old city, taking Temple Road up towards Morningside and then turning south along Hecate Street, a somewhat less salubrious thoroughfare. This took him down hill again until he came to a junction of mean little alleys and a well. He didn’t like to use the well, it smelled bad, but there was a small tavern here that served a bland selection of meals and innocuous ales. It was called the Hammer and Hand, but nobody seemed to know why. It carried a sign above the door depicting someone’s concept of the name. It was poorly painted and flaking badly, so that it was almost impossible to make out after dark. It looked more like a stick stuck in a basket.

He always stopped at the Hammer and ate his evening meal, and so he did tonight. He let the door bang closed behind him and a few of the grubby patrons looked up, but he didn’t rate more than a passing glance in here. He was one of them. They knew him.

The barkeep spared him a thin smile.

“Meat stew,” he said. “And bread.”

Sam nodded his head in the direction of his customary table. He sat, wedging himself with his back to the wall. He could see both the door and the bar from here. No surprises.

But Sam was not himself tonight.

If he had been this would have been a quick meal followed by a weary tramp to his room down one of the nameless alleys that met at the well, and then as much sleep as he could manage before he felt the urge and left for the law house again, usually in darkness.

The barkeep thumped a bowl of stew in front of him and put a jug of ale by his hand. Sam threw a few coppers on the table and the man scrabbled them up and retreated. He sipped the ale.

Tonight he ate slowly, his eyes on the door. In a short while he was going to go out of the door and meet someone. He could have tried to resist, but the impulse was strong, and he was growing tired. He had no idea what might happen if he slept. If he relaxed his will he might never get it back. He had arranged to meet Arla later, and he told himself that it was because he wanted someone to be alert if he couldn’t make that appointment. He didn’t want to lie in the street all night if things went badly.

He didn’t think they would. Sam had a plan.

He had thought about destroying the crystal, just taking a hammer to it, but the thought had made him afraid. Something very bad would happen if he did that. It may just have been a lie, a conviction planted in his mind to protect the thing, but he didn’t think so. If he smashed the crystal then what was trapped within it would be released, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want that. There was something in the crystal that should never be released.

He swallowed a mouthful of ale, felt the slightly bitter, cool liquid course down into his stomach. He was very aware of the smell of the meat, the slightly burnt scent of the bread. It was all exaggerated, and he seemed to be wading through time tonight, as though he was forging upstream. It might have been the enchantment that had gripped him, but perhaps it was only an expectation of death.

He ate every scrap of his stew, licked his finger to pick up every crumb of bread. It seemed important.

When he had finished he stared at his empty plate. The truth was that he had no idea if he was in control of his own body any more. He did not doubt his mind, but whatever mechanism conveyed his wishes to his arms and legs, his mouth and tongue, seemed unreliable. He could challenge it now, sitting here. He could sit here for a minute, for ten, for an hour, but what would that prove? Only that his adversary was patient.

Sam stood up and nodded to the barkeep. He stepped out into the street.

The decision was easy, in the end. He allowed his feet to be guided, and he walked past the well, down an alley that he hardly knew. He felt the rounded cobbles through the soles of his boots, smelled the corruption of the gutters. He walked slowly, steadily, step following step, but Sam did not choose the path.

He noted the streets he traversed with care, in case it might be important. He looked up from time to time, and in the darker streets he could see stars in the sky above the canyon of houses.

Sam had never left Samara. The furthest he had ever been from its noisome streets had been the White Rock camp on Samara Plain, and now he regretted it. It would have been good to see something of the world, the magical places of the north, the old places of the Faer Karan, the other cities, Blaye, Pek, Sarata. It had never seemed important before.

He shook off the melancholy mood. Whatever happened tonight he must be in the here and now. He must remember the killings, the killers, the duty that he owed to the city and his friends.

He walked further, and there was no sense to it. He was doubling back, crossing junctions he had crossed a few minutes earlier. It was as though the mind that directed his feet was testing its control, walking him in circles and squares. Sam didn’t mind. It gave him time to think, time to prepare. He allowed it to continue.

After a while he came to the sea. The docks were quiet at this time of night, the loading and unloading all set aside until morning. There were people here, though. Men stood about the strand, taking the air, and the Shining Wake was alive with light and noise. He walked past it. He walked past the ships and the docks, past everything until at last he came to the end of the road and found himself at the foot of the rough path that led up the coast towards the east. It was not a path that many used. Carts could not navigate it, and the great road leading north across the plain was a better way out of the city. This track was used mostly by folk who lived nearby, and it was a rocky, narrow, twisted thing.

He stopped. The compulsion to move forwards left him and he stood and stared into the darkness. The lights of the strand were behind him, and they showed him dark shadows beyond where he stood. There was no light out there.

Time passed.

Sam became aware that he was being watched. Something – someone – out in the darkness was watching him, maybe watching to see what he did, or if he had been followed here. But Sam had made sure that his appearance was not threatening in the least. He carried no sword, no bow, and his diminutive physical stature was no threat to anyone bigger than a child.

“I am here,” he said.

For a moment he thought that the watcher would not answer, but he heard a slight movement, a small stone dislodged on the path perhaps.

“So I see.”

There was no more than that. Silence fell again and Sam waited. The waiting was interesting. It demonstrated caution, perhaps even fear. Whoever it was that watched him from the darkness was uncertain that he was truly in control, and Sam suspected that it was the man that Gadilari had stabbed. There would be nothing like a blade through the chest to teach caution if you lived through it.

Sam wanted to say something, to increase that uncertainty, but he realised that it would not be wise. He wished this killer of children to think that he was in control, that Sam was his obedient pawn. Doubt was Sam’s enemy, so he waited silently, patiently, for the watcher to speak again.

He could hear the sea. It was only a few steps away to his right. It was a calm night, and the slap and hiss of waves breaking and retreating was almost soothing. There were crickets, too, this being a summer night, and somewhere out in the darkness an owl called mournfully. He wished for a moon. Moonlight would have shown him everything, but the stars alone did not have the power to reveal.

It wasn’t comfortable, standing like this. Standing troubled him since his brief stay in a Gulltown dungeon during the troubles. They had beaten his legs with sticks, and the echo of that pain sometimes returned.

“You came here because I wished it,” the watcher said.

“Yes.”

“You will do what I tell you.”

“I have no choice.” He regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. A simple yes would have sufficed and he had shown a flash of will in his reply. Better to seem wholly weak.

“No choice,” the watcher echoed. “And what would you do if you had a choice?”

“There would be a hundred king’s men at your back,” Sam said. He had decided that once his will had been revealed it should be shown to be firm, yet impotent. He heard a shifting as though the watcher had turned around to look up the path behind him. Uncertainty.

“But they are not there,” the watcher went on. “You have no choice but to yield to my will.”

“Yes.”

There was another pause. Sam could feel his muscles tightening and had to make a conscious effort to relax. He deepened his breathing. If the watcher simply turned around and left he knew that he was lost, but the killer was here for a reason and it was not long before he spoke again.

“You must stop pursuing us,” the voice said from the darkness. “You must abandon your chase.”

“I can do this, but the others will not,” Sam said.

“You are the chief lawkeeper. They will obey you.”

“These killings are known throughout the city,” Sam told him. “Even the chief lawkeeper answers to others. The council will insist on justice.” He paused. “Or the appearance of justice.”

“You want a scapegoat? That can be arranged.”

“Then it is possible.”

“You will do as I say?”

“I have no choice.”

“The others, the lawkeepers, the council, they will be convinced?”

“That will depend on how it is done,” Sam replied.

There was a movement, a shadow on a shadow, and when the voice spoke again it was closer.

“You will tell us how to do this,” it said. Sam could make out the speaker now. His eyes had grown accustomed to starlight and the killer had moved closer. There were only a few steps between them, and the pale patch he could see was almost certainly the man’s face. It seemed odd. At this distance, even by starlight alone, he would have expected to see more. He supposed that it was magic again, or some trick of the light.

“Who do you have in mind?” Sam asked.

“You do not need to know this,” the watcher said. “Just tell me what evidence will convince and we will provide it.”

“Quoyne,” Sam said.

“Ah, you are wise to our deception,” the watcher said. “It is good that you will not challenge it.”

“It is crude,” Sam said. “Others will discover it.”

“Then you will show us how to make it better.” The killer moved closer still, and there was a hint of peevishness in the voice. Now Sam could see the face clearly, the dark sockets of the eyes, the line that was the mouth. It was still shapes of shadow, and the clothes appeared to be black.

“My skill is in seeing through deception,” he said. “Not in crafting it.”

“It is all the same. You will try, and you will ensure that the council believes.”

“Did you know that the death men of the city have a name for you?” Sam asked. The question had the desired effect. The killer moved a step closer, drawn in by curiosity.

“No,” he said. “I did not know. What is it that they call me?”

Sam turned, taking half a step forwards, closing the gap just enough. He allowed the knife that he had secreted up his right sleeve to slide into his hand. He felt the blade slide through his fingers, felt them close around the grip.

Now.

Now he would find out if he had sufficient will remaining.

“The Shrike,” he said. He saw the smile, the amusement on the shadowed face and the head tilted back. The killer chuckled.

Sam drove his knife up as hard and fast as he could.

Arla knew that there was something wrong. Hekman had never been so distant, so disinterested. She had expected him to seize upon her news, but he had been oddly quiet. It didn’t matter. She trusted him, and if he needed her help he would ask for it. Instead he had told her to take charge of the investigation.

She sent a message to Ella Saine asking if they could meet to discuss further symbols that related to the killings, and then she had taken Talis and Gadilari and begun to question the dozens of smiths scattered throughout the city. She should have made a list first. There were a lot of forges in the old town, no small number in Gulltown, and Arla was not especially familiar with the city. She should have asked Ulric. He would have produced a list and probably ordered it for her in some sensible way.

It was a tedious job.

At the first forge she went in and looked around. It was hot and not especially well lit. A man was bent over an anvil swinging a hammer, another puffing away with a set of bellows to keep the coals buttercup yellow. The smith thrust the iron he was working back into the fire and Arla took advantage of the momentary lull.

“Lawkeepers,” she said, showing her badge. “I have questions for you.”

The man with the hammer turned and inspected her, taking in Talis and Gadilari. He spoke a word to the man with the bellows, put down his hammer and pointed to the door. He picked up a cloth and wiped his hands and brow as he followed her outside.

“Questions?” he asked. He was not a particularly tall man, but he was broad shouldered and thick bodied. He was stripped to the waist and she could see that there wasn’t much fat on him.

Arla had made a sketch of the cage that Hekman had retrieved from the mud, and she showed it to the smith.

“Did you ever make anything like this?” she asked.

“What is it? A bird cage?”

“Bigger,” she said. “About four feet end to end.”

The smith raised an eyebrow. “What would you use that for?”

Arla ignored the question. She didn’t think she should be explaining herself to the smith. “Did you ever make anything like it?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Ever heard of anyone making something like this?”

The smith frowned. “Not that I recall,” he said. “And I think I might if I had. This is a pretty odd piece. No maker’s mark?”

“None.”

“If you let me look at it I might be able to recognise the work,” he said.

“I don’t have it with me.”

“I could come down to the law house.”

It made sense, she supposed. He might know another’s work and it was worth pursuing, but not now. If she escorted every smith who offered she would be a year doing this job. “Tomorrow,” she said. “If you come down tomorrow first thing I’ll show it to you.”

He nodded, but didn’t go back inside.

“Your man’s buying horses,” he said.

“My man?” She was momentarily confused.

“The fat man,” the smith said. Ulric. He was talking about Ulric.

“So?”

“You got someone to shoe ‘em?” the smith asked. “Only I’m close, and it wouldn’t be no trouble.”

Arla couldn’t believe it. The man was touting for business.

“Not my department,” she said. “Talk to Ulric.”

He nodded, but seemed disappointed. “But you could put a word in,” he said. “Seeing as I’ve been helpful.”

Arla looked at him. “Of course,” she said. Maybe she would, and maybe she wouldn’t. She didn’t know the first thing about shoeing horses apart from knowing when it was properly done when she was riding one.

The smith seemed satisfied with that. He smiled and went back inside. A few moments later the sound of a hammer on iron resumed.

The seventh forge was a somewhat larger affair. Walking inside was like walking into a cavern, filled with the echoes of hammer blows and the shouts of men. The high roof kept the place tolerably cool, but inside there were four separate fires and ten men labouring about them, hammering, working the bellows, fetching and carrying. All of them were stripped to the waist, and it was hot enough to bring sweat to Arla’s brow. She managed to catch the eye of one of the men, and he came over to the door.

“Lawkeepers,” she shouted. “Who is master here?”

The man pointed to another. The master of this forge was a huge man, not as big as Hagar Del, but tall and broad. He was hammering, surrounded by three others who deftly leant their assistance when he wished it.

“I must speak with him,” Arla shouted. The man shook his head.

“A minute yet,” he shouted back. “He cannot be interrupted in this.”

From the doorway Arla couldn’t see exactly what the man was doing, but he appeared to be using a surprisingly small hammer, and striking just a few blows before the steel went back into the fire, then a few more. He turned the metal constantly. It took longer than a minute for him to finish, but she waited patiently. She had often enjoyed watching the smith work at Ocean’s Gate. There was a satisfying rhythm to the work.

When he set his hammer aside and stepped back, the lackey that Arla had spoken to approached him. She saw him speak into the master’s ear and point in her direction. He looked at her and waved her into the forge. His gesture said follow me, and he walked out the back of the forge into a yard where he sat on an upturned bucket and doused his head in cool water. He wiped his face with a cloth.

“Lawkeeper,” he said. “How may I help?”

Arla handed him the sketch. He wiped his hands before he took it.

“You want to know if I made this?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “No. You didn’t find a mark?”

“There was no mark,” Arla said.

The master smith raised an eyebrow. “Unusual on such a piece.” He handed the sketch back. “I suppose our price was too high,” he said.

“Your price?”

“Aye. We were asked to price such a thing, but it wasn’t a pretty job, so we priced high. We didn’t need the work.”

Arla’s mouth was suddenly dry. “You were asked to build this?”

“That’s what I said.” The smith drank a cup of water. He stood. “I have to get back. The steel won’t forge itself.”

“Can you tell me who asked you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t recall the name. He was a well dressed man, fair hair, slim, carried a sword. I didn’t like him. He smiled too much for an honest man.”

It wasn’t much of a description. It could be a thousand men in Samara.

“Anything else about him that stood out?”

“Not really,” the smith frowned.

“Think,” Arla said. “Try. It’s important.”

The smith shook his head. “No,” he said. “But perhaps Geldan will know. He took the specification.” He walked over to the door and gestured. A few moments later a younger man hurried out. “Geldan, look at the paper,” he said.

Geldan was a similar build to the master smith, could almost have been his son. He looked seriously at Arla’s sketch and nodded.

“The cage,” he said. “Yes, I remember.”

“Who wanted it?” the smith asked.

Geldan frowned. “Pitalk, Pitshalk. Yes, Pitshalk – Gerin Pitshalk. Dressed like someone out of Morningside, but his accent was foreign – Pek, maybe.”

“You don’t know where he lived?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know who did the job, I suppose?”

“No, sorry, but it was probably someone nearby. He was on foot. You’d expect a man like that to ride a horse, but he was walking.”

Arla filed that away, too. She was getting a picture of the man. “Anything else about him?” she asked.

“Shorter than me,” Geldan said. “Fair, well dressed, and that sword must have been worth thirty gold – an old blade. They don’t make them like that any more. It had an emerald on the pommel. I admired it and he showed me the blade. It was etched. Lilies. I’ve never seen a blade etched with flowers before.”

Trust a smith to notice a blade. It sounded distinctive – an emerald on the pommel, a flower etched blade. There couldn’t be that many like it in the city. It was probably unique.

“Thank you,” she said. “That’s helpful.”

The master nodded. “Is this about those killings?” he asked. “The children?”

She knew that the news would travel. They had not tried to damp down rumour, so it wasn’t really surprising that the smith had heard the story.

“Yes,” she said.

“Well, if you need any more help, if there’s anything we can do, you just ask. Understand?”

Arla nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll remember that.” She suddenly had a premonition about who was going to get the contract for shoeing the lawkeepers’ horses, if he wanted the business. She walked back through the forge and rejoined Talis and Gadilari who had been waiting by the front. This was not the place. The cage hadn’t been built here, but they had a name now. Arla didn’t think it would be the man’s real name, but he could have used it elsewhere, and that would be another thread they could follow. It was progress.

They spent the next two hours going from forge to forge. Arla had no idea there could be so much variety in smithies. Some consisted of one man and one fire tucked inside a shed while others were cavernous and crowded. They covered most of the forges in the old town, and found nothing. It was important to know that they had used a smith, and Arla was sure that sooner or later they would find which one.

It was still an hour shy of sunset when they got back to the law house, and Arla’s feet ached from the walking. It was the cobbles, she told herself. As a guard she had been able to march all day on the road, but the cobbled streets were hard on the feet and calves. She was looking forward to sitting down, and she was hungry.

“Message for you,” Ulric said as she stepped through the door. “If you’re back before sunset, and you are, make your way over to Morningside – the Saine house. Ella Saine is waiting for you.” He gave her a slip of paper with the address.

She looked at Talis and Gadilari. “You two stay here, rest your feet. I’ll go alone.”

She didn’t know the way, but she knew that the Saine house was at the top of Morningside, the best address in the city. She climbed the hill slowly, taking her time. She left the old town behind and the houses became grander, the streets wider, and the higher she climbed the harder the houses were to see. They retreated behind walls and gardens, and finally they acquired guards who stood in pairs outside the doors.

She checked the paper Ulric had given her.

This was it.

The house stood between neighbours that almost visibly deferred to it. It was vast, more a palace than a house. It lived inside a walled compound that must have been at least an acre. Arla walked up to the door. The guards looked at her.

“Arla Crail?” one of them asked.

“Yes.”

“Follow me.”

The man led her through a postern in the gate – it was large enough to have one – and into a garden. But Arla realised it wasn’t a garden, despite the fountains and flowers. This was a training yard, a stable yard, a functional space. There were cutting dummies set up, and archery butts set against a wall, only the butts were framed with vines and the men cutting the dummies, had there been any, would be able to stop and drink from ornamental fountains. There was a stable, too, with a half moon of gravel before it so that the horses’ hooves would not cut the immaculate lawn.

They walked along a gravel path and into the house. The house was not as ostentatious as she expected. From the outside it looked pretty. It was large, but the terracotta roof was shallow and the white walls were shrouded in climbing plants, concealed behind small trees.

Inside it was cool. The walls were white, the ceilings high, and the floors were tiled in something that echoed the roof. They went down a corridor and turned up a broad flight of stairs. At the top there was another corridor that overlooked the flowered yard they had just crossed, and led into a room that exceeded anything she had so far glimpsed. It was twenty paces long, fifteen wide, and open to the air on one side. It was lavishly furnished with soft chairs and a large table that bore signs of a recent meal. The floor was invisible beneath expensive rugs and the walls were decorated with tapestries and pictures – actual painted pictures. Arla had only ever seen one painted picture before.

“Wait here,” her guide said. “I will let mistress Saine know that you have arrived.”

Arla waited. She was drawn to the open side of the room, and stepped out into the open air. This was what it was to be rich. The view was stunning. She could see over the tops of houses all the way down to the river and beyond, to Gulltown, to the plains beyond. Turning to look north she could see a good deal of Samara Plain, and southwards the sea stretched away, a restless glittering blanket taking on the colours of the sunset.

“Have you eaten, Arla?”

She turned. Ella Saine was standing a few steps behind her, and taken by surprise Arla shook her head. “No.”

Ella turned and nodded, and Arla saw a servant step out of the room. The carpets made their feet silent, she realised. She could not hear them walk. This was like a house of ghosts.