Wellspring of Chaos (5 page)

When Kharl hurried down to the cooperage after his breakfast, he found that Jenevra had turned so that she was sitting with her back against the wall. She was dressed, and wearing her boots once more, although her face was still pale.

“You’re going to have to move today—” Kharl began.

“Charee told me when she brought me breakfast and my clothes. She repaired them. She’s very good with a needle.“ Jenevra smiled wanly for a moment before the expression faded. ”I’m much better. Your consort does not like my being here.“

Kharl didn’t reply.

“It is clear. She thinks I will hurt your business. If I stayed, I probably would. No one likes having blackstaffers around. They told us that, but I did not believe it then.”

“In a few moments,” Kharl finally said, unable to refute her words, “we’re going to take you out to Father Jorum’s—”

“One of the one-god priests? He will not be that pleased.”

“They preach kindness to all—”

“Except to those from Recluce.”

“I have never heard him say anything against Recluce,” Kharl protested, although he seldom accompanied Charee to the end-day services.

“What is not said—”

Both Jenevra and Kharl looked up at the sharp cracking sound, followed by the tinkling clank of glass falling on stone. His eyes darted toward the front window of his shop, but all the leaded glass panes were in place.

He frowned.

A muffled low boom rumbled past him, shaking the walls. One of the shooks left on the workbench fell to the floor with a flat, slapping sound.

Jenevra started to rise, then put her hand down to steady herself. Her face paled even more, until it was sheet-white.

“Stay put!” commanded Kharl. “You’re still weak.”

“Fire! Fire at the scrivener’s!”

“Fire!” The second voice was that of Tyrbel.

Kharl looked at Jenevra. “You just stay there, unless the fire spreads here, and then you get out as fast as you can.”

“Yes, master cooper.”

Kharl didn’t argue that he wasn’t a master cooper, because he’d never had enough golds to pay the Crafters’ Guild. He didn’t have time to explain as he rushed out of the cooperage. Outside and to the west a line of men had formed up, passing buckets from the fire barrel some forty cubits farther west from the door of Tyrbel’s scriptorium. Kharl could see that there weren’t enough buckets, not to stop the fierce flames darting from the broken glass of Tyrbel’s display window. From the jagged-edged hole in the display window, along with the flames, came lines of thick black smoke, oily-smelling smoke.

A tall man—Gharan—threw the first bucket of water on the flames, and was rewarded with a hissing—and very little diminution of flame.

Kharl looked for the nearest sand barrel, before belatedly realizing that it was at the front of his own cooperage, except on the east side, next to Derdan’s. He dashed for it and pulled off the cover, fumbling for the scoop bucket inside. As quickly as he could, he filled the bucket with the damp sand, then ran back toward the display window of the scriptorium.

Gharan was about to throw another bucket of water, and Kharl waited, then followed with the sand. This time, the flames from the bottom of the display area, where the books were burning fiercely, actually subsided. Kharl hurried back to the sand barrel.

Between the flames and the men running to and fro, and the urgency of combating the fire, Kharl didn’t know how many trips he had made before the display area was merely scorched and blackened wood, with water and sand oozing everywhere. Most of the leaded-glass panes in Tyrbel’s display window had been broken, and shards of glass littered the stones of the narrow sidewalk. The volumes that had been on display were charred scraps.

The odor of charcoal and soot was strong, but Kharl could still smell, if faintly, another acrid scent. He just stood for a moment, breathing hard, his eyes watering as he looked at the ruined front of the scriptorium.

Gharan looked at the cooper. “Good thinking with the sand.”

“Had to try something. Water wasn’t working very well.” The weaver nodded. Behind him so did Hamyl the potter.

Tyrbel moved toward Kharl. His face was ashen. “Someone set it. They broke the glass.” The scrivener shook his head slowly. “Ten golds’ worth of work… gone. You know, I was going to give the one—The Book of Godly Prayer—I was going to give it to Father Jorum. I’d promised it to him.”

“I know,” Kharl replied. “You told me.” He paused. “It… the fire… smelled like oils. That’s why I went for the sand.”

“Why would anyone… why?” Tyrbel sounded both puzzled and defeated. “I’m just a scrivener. I don’t understand…”

“Give way for the Watch! Way for the Watch!” The call came from farther down Crafters’ Lane, toward the harbor.

“Trust the Watch to show up after honest men have already put out the fire,” groused Gharan from behind the cooper and the scrivener “Where were they when the fire started? Why bother now?”

“It didn’t just start,” Tyrbel repeated himself. “Someone set it, but why? Who would do such a terrible thing?”

“Someone who didn’t like the documents you were copying for trials before the justicers?” suggested Kharl.

“But… why would anyone… that’s not personal. Lord West likes my work, old as he’s getting. Any scrivener would do the same for whoever-

“Way for the Watch!”

Kharl glanced toward the approaching armsmen, eight of them, with a young-faced captain, scarcely more than a boy, or so he looked to Kharl. They were less than thirty cubits away. The cooper wondered why there were so many for a fire, and how the officer had gathered that number so quickly.

“No!” screamed a woman.

Kharl looked away from the oncoming Watch. He recognized the voice, if belatedly. It was Charee’s voice.

Charee came running out of the cooperage, blood smeared across her blouse. “She’s dead. She’s dead!” Her voice broke with the words.

“Who’s dead?” blurted Gharan from behind Kharl and Tyrbel.

“She is… the blackstaffer… someone cut her throat.”

“Jenevra? She’d dead?” Kharl said stupidly. “But she was fine.”

“She’s dead,” Charee said. “Her throat’s cut.” She looked at Kharl. “I told you she’d be trouble. I told you. I told you.”

“She was barely more than a girl. She hadn’t done anything,” Kharl protested. “Why… how…?”

“I knew. But no… you had to do things the way you always do.”

“Silence!”

Kharl turned from Charee to see that the armsmen of the Watch were but a few cubits from the group in front of the cooperage and scriptorium. After several moments, the words and murmurs died away.

“You! In the gray!”

Kharl could feel his stomach tightening as he saw the young captain of the Watch—the same young swell who had been pawing Sanyle—and possibly one of those who had attacked and beaten Jenevra. The captain jabbed his finger at Kharl. “You!”

“Yes, ser?”

“You own this cooperage?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Take him away. He killed the girl inside.” Behind the captain’s voice was a hint of something, something almost like satisfaction, Kharl thought.

Three armsmen moved out from behind the captain and toward Kharl, each with a long truncheon at the ready.

“No! I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill anyone.” Kharl stepped back.

“That’s what they all say.” The captain made a motion.

Kharl took another step backward. “You’ve got the wrong person. I was out here fighting the fire. Everyone here knows that.”

“A convenient diversion, no doubt.” The young captain smiled. “You and all your friends down here need to learn some respect for the law, and for those who rule Brysta.”

“I didn’t do it,” Kharl protested.

“Take him,” snapped the captain, still smiling.

Kharl wondered if he should try to run.

Then a searing blow struck him from behind. He tried to turn, and he was struck again.

“No!” screamed someone.

That was the last word Kharl heard before he toppled into blackness.

There was a low groan, then another. After a time, Kharl realized that he was the one groaning. He closed his mouth, and the sound stopped. Around him was darkness. Underneath him was something hard—very hard, slimy, and damp. His head was pounding. He levered one hand under him, then the other. His hand slipped, and he tried again. It took him more tries than he could count to get into a sitting position.

He put his hand to the back of his head, gently, wincing as his fingers touched the huge lump there. As he lowered his hand, in the dimness that was like night, he could barely make out the dark substance on his fingertips— blood.

His eyes took in the area around him. He was in a small, stonewalled chamber with a heavy door that had but the smallest peephole, through which a faint glow of light seeped, so little that he could not tell whether it was day or night.

“What you in here for?”

Kharl turned his head quickly, and more pain lanced through his skull. The words came from a figure sitting propped against the outside stone wall.

“They say I killed someone. I didn’t.”

“That’s what everyone says.” The shadowy figure cackled. “None of us did nothin‘, we didn’t, and some of us didn’t.”

Kharl started to respond, but then winced as pain stabbed through his skull.

“Don’t matter what you did. Justicer’s going to say you did, ‘less he finds someone else who did. That doesn’t happen much.”

Kharl eased himself across the damp and slimy stone floor to the other side of the cell, leaning back gingerly, careful not to bang his head against the rough wall stones.

“You don’t look like an assassin or a docker,” offered the other man.

“I’m a cooper.” Kharl took a deeper breath and wished he had not. The air was rank with the odors of unwashed bodies, filth, and worse.

“Cooper, huh. You a good cooper?”

“I thought so.”

“Why’d you kill someone, risk losing all that?”

“I didn’t,” Kharl said tiredly. “My neighbor’s shop caught on fire. I was fighting the fire, and someone cut the throat of one of those black-staffers in my shop.”

“Ha! They’ll hang you quick as they can. Lord West, he don’t want to tell the black demons that the murderer got away. Don’t want them shelling Brysta. No, ser. That he don’t. Hang anyone he can to stop that.”

Kharl could see the truth in what the other had said. But what could he do? “They don’t let anyone see you here?”

“You jesting? Won’t see anyone till you go before the justicer. That’d be Reynol, ‘cause he hangs everyone, and that’s what they’ll want. Four sentences—that’s all they got. Flogging, time in the quarries, cut off a hand or foot or both, or hang you. You, they’ll hang. Don’t matter you did it or not.“

“You’re cheerful.” Kharl swallowed.

“Yep. Cheerful Kaj, that’s what they call me.”

“What about you? Why are you here?”

“Me? I called that pigswill Egen a bawdson.”

“For that, you’re in here?”

“Lucky to be alive. Egen’s Lord West’s youngest, captain in the Watch. Likes girls, young girls. Didn’t know he was watchin‘… said he wasn’t man enough to handle a real woman. Whole tavern laughed. Didn’t say nothing. When I came out later, his men were waitin’… and here I am.“

Kharl had the sinking feeling that Egen and the young swell who’d attacked Sanyle and Jenevra were the same man. There were too many coincidences… far too many.

He could feel himself beginning to sweat, and with the nausea he was feeling intermittently, he wondered if he could hold his guts in.

“Egen… real pissprick… and his daddy just looks the other way…”

That didn’t surprise Kharl.

A day passed, and then another. Kharl thought it might have been three days since the fire, and since someone had killed Jenevra. That was if he’d only been knocked out for less than a day. He walked back and forth, if taking three small steps between walls could be called walking. He stopped and coughed, then walked some more.

“That won’t do any good,” observed Kaj from the corner of the cell— the opposite outside corner from the slop bucket. “I know,” Kharl replied, “but I can’t just sit here.”

“Might as well. Not goin‘ anywhere. Except dancin’ on air.”

“If it’s so important to hang me,” Kharl said, “why hasn’t anyone done anything?”

“You in a hurry to get strung up?” asked Kaj.

“No.”

“Then don’t ask for it.”

“But, I’d think…”

“Simple. They brought you in on sixday. Justicers and lords like long end-days. Lord West is gettin‘ old. Needs the days off to keep his sons at bay. Today’s oneday, I figure. Takes a day for the scriveners to write up things formal like. Maybe longer. They don’t hurry once you’re locked away. They won’t come for you till tomorrow, earliest.”

“What about you?”

“Leave me here for another eightday. Drag me out and flog me, if I’m lucky… Egen’s still a pissprick.”

“Why doesn’t Lord West rein him in?”

“‘Cause he’s a smart pissprick. Never gets caught. Always brings you in law-like. Me, drunk too much. Claimed I was soused and disorderly. Was lucky. He’d been really put out, and he’d a planted a lady’s brooch or somethin’ on me. That’s what he did to Fliser. Twice. Second time, they hung him.”

“Lord West knows that?”

“Knows some of it. Doesn’t care, I’d say. Older son, Osten, he’s more like his father. Rotten, but not all the way through like Egen. What they say anyway…”

Kharl wanted to shake his head. He’d always suspected those sorts of things happened, but when he’d suggested it to Charee, she’d have nothing to do with his suggestions. For her, all that mattered was that the streets were orderly, no matter how Lord West and his justicers got the job done.

“Not so bad as Gorl, though…”

Kharl was certain that he didn’t want to hear about Gorl, but there was no way to stop the garrulous Kaj, and he supposed, no reason to. All Kharl could do was to walk a few steps and fret, or sit and stew. He tried not to breathe deeply as he walked back across the cell.