Текст книги "Brown River Queen"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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“Any of them coming after us?”

Stitches was silent for a long time while the driver exhorted his ponies to make haste.

No. They seem more interested in the ruin of the house. I gather the lower levels housed a few items of particularinterest to certain esoteric tastes.

“Lucky for us,” I said.

A tiny voice above my head mimicked my words, though I believe it exaggerated the breathlessness thereof.

Evis laughed. “Looky, looky. Markhat picked up another stray. What’s the Missus going to say, old friend? You can’t tie a ribbon around that and call it a kitten.”

I felt a scampering on my hat, and then tiny claws climbed carefully down my ear before settling on my shoulder. I felt its tail drape itself loosely around my neck, and it chittered something brief and harsh.

“I don’t think he likes you, Mr. Prestley,” I said. “You don’t, do you, Mr. Simmons?”

“Mr. Simmons,” it chanted. “Mr. Simmons Mr. Simmons Mr. Simmons!”

I shall send it back whence it came, finder.

The imp shrieked and clung to my neck.

“Is it dangerous? Venomous? Does it drink blood, eat flesh, anything of that sort?”

It is a construct, formed from a malleable elemental substance which resides in a convenient parallel-

“Public school, remember? Dumb it down, please.”

It is probably harmless.

“Then forget it. Get us out of here instead. Mr. Simmons can stay as long as he behaves himself. You get that, Mr. Simmons?”

The imp snapped to faux attention and threw me a salute.

Evis chuckled and reached into his pocket for more cigars. Stitches mumbled spells behind her sewn, bloody lips.

Mr. Simmons reached out and lit our cigars with a flame he conjured at the tip of his barbed red tail.

All in all, it was an interesting night.

We rolled up in front of Avalante just after midnight, despite having fled the fall of the Corpsemaster’s home well after that hour. Which may be why common folk avoid the sorcerer’s district in droves. You never know what tricks Time is going to play once you cross Portend Street.

Stitches had been slumped over, uncommunicative and bleeding from eyes and lips since we left the magic part of town. I’d wanted to check for a pulse. Evis had suggested that even touching a wounded, friendly wand-waver was a good way to wind up being forever known as Markhat One Hand.

She’d lolled and hung like a rag doll when a half-dozen Avalante halfdead gently eased her out of the carriage and into a fancy copper box that whirred and clanked and exhaled gouts of steam once the lid was closed.

“Hell if I know,” replied Evis to the question I hadn’t spoken. “Let’s go have a beer.”

And so we did.

“Who was Mr. Simmons?”

We were seated in the dark confines of Evis’s sprawling office. The usual trinkets glowed and moved in the glass-covered display cases behind his desk.

I took a long drink of his good dark beer before answering.

“He was the landlord when I was a kid. Mom called him ‘that old devil.’ We used to draw pictures of him with horns and slip the paper under his door.” I chuckled at the memory of the old man bursting out into the hall, broom held high, cursing and swatting at us as we kids scattered.

He’d never managed to land a blow. Thinking back, I realized he’d never meant to.

The smaller, redder Mr. Simmons had leaped from my hat and vanished into the night the instant we’d reached the safety of Avalante’s curb. He’d not even waved goodbye.

“I don’t think we’ll be seeing the Corpsemaster again.” I emptied my glass and Evis refilled it. “Looks like she’d have put in an appearance, if she could-what with her House being looted and falling.”

“Looks like.” Evis pondered the shadows over my right shoulder. “Quite a blow for Avalante.”

“You’ll soon have the Regent in your pocket. That ought to more than make up for the loss.”

“I hope so. Speaking of which, Gertriss is making the trip to Bel Loit too.”

I’d suspected as much. Evis toyed with his glass and didn’t elaborate.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were nervous, Mr. Prestley. Worried I might raise some sort of objection to your choice of female company?”

He shrugged. “More worried you’d have something to say about her taste in men.”

Aha,I said to myself. Confirmation at last.

“For what it’s worth, Evis, I think she’s got excellent taste. You have my blessing. I shall, of course, expect a sizable dowry.”

“I wasn’t joking, Markhat.”

I downed my beer. “Neither was I. If you just have to find something to worry about, there’s always Mama and her plainspoken country mouth. But not me. Never me.”

He let the breath he’d been holding escape. He might have spoken, but someone knocked, and a soft voice reminded him of a meeting in five minutes.

“You can stay,” said Evis, motioning toward the box of cigars on his right.

I stood. “I’m a married man now. Best be getting home. Darla will be worried.”

Evis stood and extended his bare hand to shake. He never does that.

“Thank you,” he said.

Yes. His hand was cold. Cold as a corpse. And maybe he has a mouthful of fangs, and maybe his eyes look like dirty marbles.

If Mama couldn’t see any further than that, then maybe she needed to put away her fortune cards and take up knitting.

Avalante supplied my ride home. The clocks might have pointed toward midnight, but by my own estimation we’d left just after Curfew, and we’d spent at least six hours getting into and out of the Corpsemaster’s doomed house. I spent a good two minutes pondering the philosophical and metaphysical ramifications of the lost time before nodding off to sleep myself.

I was awakened when my borrowed carriage rolled to an abrupt halt. Still groggy, I pushed up my hat and put my hand on the latch when I heard the driver shout and my door swung open on its own.

“You’re Markhat,” said a towering slab of a man, who leaned in and dared shove a lantern in my face. “Get out.”

Clever devil that I am, I nodded, put my hand on the door latch behind me, and sprang ass-first through it, away from the large man and his favorite lantern.

I whirled.

“Smart one,” said the man with the lantern, who rounded the rear of the carriage. The yellow lamp lit his face and rendered his grin demonic. “Knew you’d try that.”

The four stalwart Watchmen who ringed me in muttered and nodded, truncheons at the ready.

A fifth held an old Army issue Mauser crossbow on my driver, who sat wide-eyed and deadly still.

“You take that crossbow off my driver, bluecap, or I’m going to shove it so far up your ass you can use the bolt for a toothpick.”

“No need for that, Moris.” The big man spoke. Moris lowered the crossbow with the air of a man who was disappointed at being told he couldn’t shoot a law-abiding stranger.

“Let’s try this again,” said the giant, after giving Moris a good glare. “You’re Markhat. The finder from Cambrit. That right?”

“Nope. My name is Flocart. Of Flocart, Simmons, and Vault, attorneys at law. Which you’ll need, if pointing crossbows at innocent carriage drivers is becoming a habit.”

His face reddened a bit in the lamplight.

“I know who you are.”

“So why ask? You’re doing this all wrong. The Watch doesn’t ask. They accuse. So tell me, Watchman, what is it I’m accused of?”

“My name is Captain Holder. Watch Captain Holder.” He emphasized the Watch.

“What a coincidence. I’m a Captain too. Captain Markhat, they call me, hero of the Battle of Rannit. Still, you should probably salute me, because-”

I never got a chance to finish. Watch Captain Holder nodded to the four blue-capped Watchmen surrounding me, and I was hustled into a plain, none-too-clean Watch tallbox and whisked downtown while my velvet-covered Avalante carriage and furious driver were shooed away into the night.

Chapter Five

By the time my new friend at the Watch was done with me, the morning sun was peeping through the trees, the sidewalks were filling with yawning pedestrians, and my porch was occupied by worried wives.

Darla watched me haul my weary bones out of the cab. Her arms were crossed tight over her chest. She was dressed and ready for work and I wondered if she’d slept at all.

I was opening the gate in our white picket fence before I noticed Buttercup. She was standing on our roof right above Darla, her tiny little banshee arms crossed over her chest and her right foot tapping in perfect imitation of my betrothed.

“Good morning, ladies,” I said, doffing my hat and hoping none of the neighbors was watching my roof. “Sorry I’m late.”

Darla catches on fast. “Shoo,” she said with a glance at the ceiling. “Run along home, honey. Before Mama comes looking.”

Buttercup lifted both hands to her mouth in mock terror before twirling and vanishing.

I reached the three steps that led up to our porch and collapsed on my butt. Darla sat beside me. She smelled of soap and perfume and a fancy new shampoo.

“How bad was it?”

I took off my hat and laid it beside me.

“Bad enough. No sign of you know who. The whole place fell in as we left.”

Darla was silent.

“That’s not even the worst part.”

“What could be worse than-well. That?”

“The Watch. I got picked up on the way home. New man, named Holder. Kept on and on about the woman who tried to stick me.”

Darla bristled.

“They took you downtown?”

“To the Old Ruth, no less. I think Holder was trying to shake me up.”

“You show him your Avalante pin?”

“He wasn’t impressed. That worries me. Need to talk to Evis.”

“You need a couple of hours of sleep, husband of mine. You can barely keep your eyes open.” She kissed me on my cheek and smoothed back my hair. “You look exhausted. I’ll leave breakfast in the oven. Scoot or I’ll have Buttercup fetch Mama and that black tea she calls her restorative.”

I groaned and found my feet. “Anything but that.”

She laughed and hugged me, brief but fierce. She walked across the porch and into our house, leaving our door open behind her.

I made it to the bedroom and wound up sleeping in my coat. I dreamed of riding in a carriage pulled by little red imps while phantasmal Watchmen shouted down rude questions from the trees.

Like any hard-working entrepreneur, I rose at the crack of noon. I gobbled down the breakfast Darla left, and was well on my way toward leaving my bathtub and perhaps selecting a dressing gown when a familiar knock sounded at my door.

“Boy, you in there?”

I cussed and scrambled out of the tub and sent soapy water sloshing all over Darla’s new floor tiles.

“Hold on, Mama, I’m coming.” I wasn’t sure she heard so I charged into the hall, dripping on everything, and shouted it again.

Mama heard and replied with something unintelligible. I watched her short fat shadow seat itself in one of our three rocking chairs, and I hurried back to the bathroom to get dried, combed, and dressed.

“It’s about damned time,” said Mama when I finally stuck my well-coiffed head out my door. She rose from the chair, scowling. “I don’t know what to think of folks sleepin’ away half the day when they got a fancy new house to pay for.”

“Good to see you too, Mama.”

She snorted and trundled inside.

Our house isn’t fancy, despite what certain busybody soothsayers claim. In the front room, there is a brown couch and a pair of comfy tan chairs, all aimed at the fireplace. There’s a low table situated so people have a place to put teacups or books. There’s a bookcase beneath the south window that opens to the porch, and doors to the kitchen and the hall on the east and north walls, respectively. The floors are dark-stained oak and a big red Balptist prayer-circle rug-a wedding present from a former client-keeps bare feet toasty warm in the winter.

Mama stopped just inside my doorway and took it all in. Then her hand darted in her battered black lace handbag and when it darted out again she held a woeful dried barn owl.

“Peace and contentment within these walls,” said Mama. “Let those who would enter and do mischief meet swift misfortune.”

Her owl shed dust and feathers but she hid it away again before I could voice a complaint.

“Brung you something, boy,” she said. Again, she fumbled in her bag.

“If it’s a mummified crow we’ve already got one.”

“Hush.” A shiny new horseshoe appeared in her hand. “I hexed it. Hexed it good. You set it right there on yonder mantel, open end up, you hear?”

She thrust it toward me. I shrugged, glad it wasn’t a ring of sun-dried snakes or some other homespun backwoods monstrosity, and placed it as she bade.

Mama nodded in approval before allowing herself a gap-toothed smile. “Well, are you goin’ to offer me a seat and some coffee or not, boy?”

I made a sweeping motion toward my many seating options. “Make yourself at home, Mama. I’ll go start the coffee.”

Mama sat, folded her hands in her lap, and promptly began to snore.

“I reckon you and the missus have got a right nice home,” said Mama after noisily draining her third cup of my coffee.

“Thank you.” I refilled her cup with the last of the pot. “Darla will be glad you came.”

Mama nodded. “Well, to tell truth, this ain’t the first time I been here. Just ain’t knocked before on account of the hour.”

“Do tell.”

Mama sighed. “Buttercup. She took to sneakin’ out at night when she thinks I’m sleepin’. Ain’t that something? She ain’t even human, but acts like a strong-headed child all the same.”

I groaned.

“Buttercup is coming here after Curfew?”

“Not every night, boy. Every other, maybe. Has been for ‘bout two weeks. I tried keepin’ her in, boy, you know I tried. But it don’t do no good to nail doors shut when the little devil can magic herself right through ‘em.”

I hadn’t heard a thing. No telltale pitter-patter of little bare banshee feet on the roof. I’d not seen so much as a shadow pass my window.

Oh, I knew she followed Darla home at lunch if Mama was napping, but her daytime jaunts were rare and getting less frequent. In daylight she could pass for just another child. But after dark on empty streets?

“This isn’t good.”

“I know it ain’t, boy. I ain’t so much worried about Buttercup herself. I reckon even half a dozen vampires couldn’t catch her, much less put a mark on her. But it won’t do to get stories started about her. ‘Specially not stories that leads to you, what with that high-and-mighty wand-waver friend o’ yours dead and gone.”

“You’ve heard that too?”

Mama scowled. “I reckon I damn well has. I took my jars down, boy, I didn’t plug my ears. I hear the whispers. I listen real hard when people whisper, boy.” She shook a finger at me. “You ought to do the same.”

“I pay your niece to do all my listening for me, Mama. These days I just sleep late and let unpaid bills pile up on the floor.”

“I see you ain’t lost that smart mouth to sloth yet.” Mama rose. “I thank you for the coffee and the hospitality.”

I stood too. “You’re always welcome here, Mama. Late hour or not. You knock anytime, you hear?”

“I hear.”

“Darla’s going to get her feelings hurt if you don’t come back for a visit when she’s home.”

“I reckon I’ll be passing this way around suppertime tomorrow, if’n that suits.”

“It suits.”

Mama turned and started for the door.

“She ain’t playin’ when she comes here at night,” said Mama, not turning. “She floats. Shines a bit too, like a half-moon.”

I’d seen Buttercup do that once, back when I’d first laid eyes on her deep in the woods south of Rannit. The memory of it ran icicles down my spine.

“Maybe it don’t mean nothin’, boy. Maybe she’s just seein’ where you went.” Mama put her hand on my doorknob and turned it. “But she is what she is. So you be extra careful, you hear? Extra careful.”

And then she stomped across my threshold and off my porch and down the three steps to the walk and was gone. I peeked through the window and watched her march away down the sidewalk, her heavy boots clomp-clomping steadily toward home.

I scribbled Darla a note letting her know Mama paid us a visit and was planning another for the following evening. Darla would insist on providing a feast, which was fine by me. I’m not ashamed to say I’d missed the old charlatan since moving out of my office on Cambrit.

I spent another few moments secreting various small instruments of mayhem on my well-dressed person. Then I ventured out in Mama’s wake, humming a happy tune between spates of yawning.

I wandered on foot for a bit just to see if the inquisitive Captain Holder was wasting the Regent’s coin by hiding Watchmen in my shrubs. He wasn’t, or if he was, he was too good to spot. So after a half-dozen blocks of ambling, I hailed a cab and settled in for the short ride west to Cambrit.

On a whim, I’d told the cabbie to drop me at the barbershop a block from my place. When I saw the tall, grim-faced man idling in the shade of old Mr. Bull’s meager stoop, I was glad I added that block. The idling man wasn’t wearing Watch blues. No, he had on a grey topcoat and a newish grey hat and black pants that more or less fit. He’d have been hard to spot in a crowd, but standing there on Cambrit all by himself in his scuffed, black Watch brogans he might as well have been in uniform.

I got out at the barbershop and ambled in and left by the back door after a nod to Curtis the barber. From there I made my way to the back door of my neighbors the Arwheat brothers, and after a short visit with them I headed to a middling fancy eatery downtown called the Brickworks.

Along the way I made another stop in an alley I won’t name. I counted a certain number of bricks up and a certain number across, and I pulled out the loose one and left a note behind it.

Gertriss and I have ways of keeping in touch, you see.

That done, I dined. I made sure to take a table in the middle of the place, I called my waiter by name, and surprised him with a generous tip. Same for the wine steward, the maitre d', the busboy, and the doorman. In a fit of purely spontaneous generosity, I also bought a round of drinks for the bar and thus made a few new friends in the banking and haberdashery industries.

It was mid-afternoon by the time I made my way back to Cambrit. Mr. Bull’s stoop was empty aside from old Mr. Bull himself, who was worrying a wet section of sidewalk with his ancient, nearly strawless broom.

He responded to my wave and cheery “hello” with a bout of cackling. I unlocked my fancy new door and ushered a petulant Three-leg Cat inside. Then I waited for callers.

I didn’t wait long. Evis showed in a half-hour, swathed in black silk, his dead eyes shielded from the daylight by thick black spectacles. I got little more than grunts from him while he settled into a chair he’d pushed to the back, out of the light.

We smoked cigars in silence while traffic rattled past outside. By the time an iron-wheeled Watch tallboy rattled to the curb, we’d filled my office with enough thick grey smoke to actually make seeing out the door’s peep window impossible.

A meaty fist struck my door. “Open for the Watch!” shouted my new friend Captain Holder. “Open or we’ll break it down.”

Evis stubbed out his cigar and folded back into the shadows. I rose and unlocked my door, then opened it wide before stepping back out of yanking distance.

Captain Holder marched in, hand on his sword hilt, face beet red around eyes already going teary from the cigar smoke.

“What brings you here, Captain?” Carelessly, I puffed smoke directly into his face. “Care for a Lowland Sweet?”

That’s when Captain Holder, an officer of the law and a high-ranking Watchman, dared lay hands on me-a law-abiding citizen who did nothing but exhibit a generous nature concerning his excellent tobacco.

Evis moved, a silent shadow leaving brief wakes in the smoke.

Slam went my door, plunging my office into darkness.

Snick went the Captain’s Watch-issue shortsword as it was snatched from its scabbard.

Thunk went the blade as Evis buried the tip of it in my desk before returning to his seat and once again wrapping himself in silk and shadow.

The Captain gaped, his sword hand closing on air.

“I have half a dozen men right outside.”

“Only half a dozen?” I sniffed and looked down my nose. “I’d have thought a desperate criminal such as myself would have demanded a full dozen, at least.”

He wasn’t listening. Instead, he backed toward my door, his eyes on Evis, and then he yanked it open and bellowed through it.

“Your men were called to attend pressing matters elsewhere, Captain Holder,” said Evis from the dark. “Close the door. You are in no danger. But we do need to have a chat.”

I would have bet even money on the Captain bolting. But after a moment of staring out into the empty street, he straightened, uttered a single brief curse word, turned to face us, and closed the door.

“You’ve had a bad morning, Captain,” I said. I strolled around my desk and pointed to the empty client’s chair. “But it doesn’t need to get any worse. Have a seat. Let’s talk this out like gentlemen.”

He glared but yanked the chair back and sat.

“You dumped a bucket of shit on a Watchman,” he said, his voice still rough with rage. “I know all about you, Markhat. You’ve been running roughshod over the Watch for years. I’m here to tell you you’ve gone too far this time. I’m charging you with assault on an officer of the law.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Charging me? With assault? Good thing my legal counsel is present, then. Captain Holder, meet Mr. Evis Prestley, of House Avalante. I believe you’ve heard the name.”

“I know it.”

I leaned back and laced my fingers together behind my head. “Assault, you say? Mr. Prestley. Have I, to your knowledge, assaulted any Watchmen recently?”

“Why no, Mr. Markhat, I don’t believe you have.”

The good Captain repeated his curse word. “You dumped a bucket of shit on my man outside. I can’t hang you for that but I can damned well throw you in the Old Ruth for a week or three.” He made as if to rise.

Evis appeared by my side, his dead-pale face just touched by the sun.

“And you can prove my client was involved, can you, Captain?”

“It was him. You know it and I know it.”

Evis shook his head and made tsk-tsk noises. “At what time did this alleged assault by excrement occur, Captain? As you have noted the complainant is a Watchman, I assume he was able to provide such details in his official report?”

“Ten of noon,” growled the Captain, his beefy right hand clutching his Watch-issue handcuffs. “You’re wasting your time. He’s coming with me.”

“Ten of noon,” said Evis. “Well. I can produce no fewer than two dozen prominent citizens of Rannit who will gladly swear they were dining with Mr. Markhat at the Brickworks between eleven and half-past one, Captain Holder. Remind me of the names, Mr. Markhat.”

“Certainly. Tavis Green, of the Tavis Greens, was there. We enjoyed a bottle of Fitch together. Oh, and Markum Sate, and Corliss Poole, and that nephew of the Regent’s chief of staff, Malcom Slater.”

I trailed off and watched a vein in Holder’s forehead bulge and pulse.

“You spoke of a waste of time, Captain. Indeed, that is what incarcerating my client will yield you. Time and trouble. I assure you, Avalante will take an immediate and active interest in the matter.”

“Might as well put the bracelets away,” I said. “Maybe one day I’ll slip up and you can clap them on me. But that isn’t today, Captain, and you know it.”

Ten breaths. That’s what it took for Holder to work out the truth behind my words. But work it out he did, and the cuffs went back in his pocket.

“I won’t forget this,” he said after a time. “Nobody dumps chamber-pots on my Watch officers. Nobody.”

I shrugged. “Good for you. Now then. Being completely unaware you had a man watching my door, I find myself suddenly compelled to ask why you’d do such a thing. So. Why?”

“Because a woman is dead and you killed her, that’s why.”

Evis waggled a taloned finger at the Captain’s nose. “My client acted in self-defense during an unprovoked attack by a deranged stranger,” he said. “Even the Watch concurs.”

“I think your client knows exactly who the dead woman was and why she ended up cut in half by a beer-wagon.”

“If I knew who she was, Captain, I’d tell you. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because, as usual, you’re mixed up in something,” said the Captain. “Think you’re above the law, don’t you, Markhat?”

“We don’t see enough law in this part of town to think ourselves above it.” I put my hands on my desk and leaned close. The Captain needed a bath. “Look. I’m not lying. I don’t know who she was or why she came at me. There wasn’t time to ask. But why do you care? The dead wagons haul bodies out of alleys every morning. Nobody asks. What makes this woman so special the Watch is pestering me about her?”

“You’re telling me you don’t know her.”

“I’m telling you I don’t.”

“What happens if I stand up and try to walk out of here, Markhat? You going to turn your vampire loose on me?”

I stood. “Beat it,” I said. “Get out and stay out until you calm down enough to talk sense. Try and snag me again, and you can explain yourself to the Corpsemaster. That clear enough for you?”

“Corpsemaster is dead.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Why don’t you piss me off again and we’ll see?”

He stood. Evis watched but didn’t move.

“We’re not done here.”

“I beg to differ. Get out.”

He did, slamming my door behind him.

Evis glided back into the shadows, chuckling.

“Markhat. Did you really arrange for a Watchman to be bathed in excrement?”

“The Arwheats don’t much care for the Watch. I almost had to force their pay upon them.”

Evis shook his head. “They’ll not forget that. Not for a long time.”

“Good.” I put my hands back behind my head. “Something about that dead woman has the Watch nervous.”

“Indeed. Have you learned anything new about her?”

“Nothing. I was heading to the hotels downtown today to see if anyone fitting her description skipped a bill. Maybe she left something in her room with her name on it, along with a note detailing her dastardly plans.”

Evis nodded. “Still. A bucket of shit?” He shook his head. “As your attorney, I must admonish you against future use of night soil as a deterrent for loiterers.”

“As you say, counselor.”

Evis chuckled and produced fresh cigars.

A Lowland Sweet later, I was heading downtown to mingle with the upper classes.

I was dressed for it, too. Darla’s new hat sat rakishly atop my well-combed head. My coat was pressed and I smelled of a subtle cologne and even my socks were fine, upstanding examples of quietly tasteful footwear.

In light of my recent brief acquaintance with a knife-wielding maniac, I carried several less refined implements upon my person. Toadsticker hung openly at my side. Being a Captain of the guard allowed me to flaunt all but the most stringent of Rannit’s open carry laws.

I took a cab right to the shadow of the High House and stood directly under the Brass Bell when it clanged out two of the clock.

By the time it rang out three, I’d visited four of Rannit’s finest hotels and had half a dozen quiet conversations with desk clerks and concierges. Only one, the concierge at the Bedlam Towers, had the audacity to raise objections to Toadsticker, and he’d quickly swallowed them when he recognized my name.

As I said, being a Captain, however unwilling, in the Corpsemaster’s private army does confer certain favors.

But even my lofty rank couldn’t pry any information concerning small-framed, black-haired women out of the Bedlam Towers or anywhere else. I’d also offered to cover the woman’s bill if she left one unpaid.

No one nibbled at the bait.

My next stop was a pre-War monstrosity of soot-blacked granite called simply Orlin’s Inn. Word has it that Orlin’s is one of Rannit’s most haunted structures, and even in the bright afternoon sun and under a brilliant blue sky, Orlin’s manages to look shadowed and mysterious.

I dodged carriages and pedestrians and clambered up the worn thirteen steps that stretch from the street to the wide, tall doors. The Ogres flanking the entryway dipped their eyes to me in greeting, and I doffed my hat in return.

A human doorman held the door for me.

“Welcome to the Orlin,” he said. He was fat and fifty and bald but his smile was wide and possibly genuine.

“Thanks,” I said. I took off my hat as I crossed the threshold. “Say, maybe you can help me. I’m looking for a woman.”

His smile didn’t waver. “Not that kind of place.”

“Ha. She’s not that kind of woman, either. Twenty, maybe twenty-five. Smallish. Curly black hair. Fancy black dress, last time I saw her. Good teeth. Blue eyes. Ring any bells?”

A coin found its way into my hand. This happy accident was witnessed by my friend, the smiling doorman.

“Quiet, she was. Never got a name. Arrived three days ago. Haven’t seen her since.”

My coin found a new home. I bade my friend farewell and headed for the front desk, lest our conversation be noted as anything but a polite change of pleasantries by the somewhat less jolly-looking desk clerk.

The lobby was everything the Orlin’s exterior wasn’t. The floors were white marble all the way to the desk. There were chairs and low tables scattered about, plants in urns, and even a burbling fountain in the center. Tall, old windows managed to let in just enough light to keep the room from being gloomy. A huge hearth-no fire today-took up one wall. Four long couches faced it, ready to warm street-weary feet come winter and Rannit’s fickle snows.

The desk was a curving thing of oak and stone that took up another wall. Behind it stood a single clerk, whose sharp little eyes bore into the depths of my soul as I smiled and sauntered up.

“Does sir have a reservation?”

I didn’t let my smile drop even a little.

“Sir does, but I’m not due until tomorrow. I’m here a day early on party business.”

I spoke the last in a whisper, accompanied by a furtive glance around the room.

The clerk’s glare softened a bit. He took in the brand of the hat I laid casually on the counter and the cut of my jacket and the enticing aroma of my five-crown after-shave, and his glare softened even more.

“Party business, sir?”

I made frantic shushing noises. “For Heaven’s sake, man, keep it down. The Duchess will be furious if anyone spoils the surprise.”

“The Duchess?”

“Shush, man!” I leaned in close and continued in a whisper. “I assumed you of all people had been told!”

He reddened.

“Well, surely you’re in on it? How could you not be-you, the man in charge?”