— Chapter 37 —
The Hunt, Interrupted

STEALING away to the inn, Seregil, Alec, and Micum prepared their disguises and headed for the slums near the Temple Precinct, where Kepi had heard of new outbreaks of the sleeping death.

“We’re not likely to hear about too many sick ones, the way people feel about the quarantine,” Seregil noted as they set off.

The Lower City and the Ring had been relatively simple to cordon off; the sprawling open neighborhoods of the Upper City were impossible, so the sick were all being moved into the Ring to be overseen by drysians. Even though Korathan had ordered that one of the pastoral sections be used, no one wanted their loved ones taken inside and the protests continued.

Seregil and Alec dressed as beggar women again, since they’d managed to pass easily in that guise. Micum wore a stained tunic and breeches he kept there for just such purposes, and Seregil’s battered hat. He hadn’t shaved since he arrived in Rhíminee and had a good start on a grey-sprinkled scruff. They attracted little attention as they walked along the Street of the Sheaf to the slums east of the Sea Market and made their way slowly through the squalid lanes and sagging tenements.

They worked all morning, and into the afternoon. Although it was safer here than in the Ring, it wasn’t necessarily safe. Micum, posing as their protector, cast a baleful eye at any who seemed overly interested in his “women.”

This area had absorbed more of the Mycenians who’d fled the war, and people in country garb sat on doorsteps and leaned out of windows.

The Dalnan temple in Wayfarer’s Street was better maintained than the one in the Lower City, but not by much. A priestess greeted them and listened with concern to Seregil’s tale of a missing child.

“It’s not like her to run off, being just a little one,” Seregil told her tearfully. “I seen her with a beggar the other day, and now I fear she’d fallen with the sleeping death somewhere, and no one to care for her. Is she here, sister?”

“We’ve only had two of the sleepers: a man and a boy,” the priestess told him. “But the bluecoats came and took them.”

Seregil clung to Micum’s arm as they made their way out and down the street. When they were well out of sight of the temple he straightened up and carefully patted his face dry with a corner of his shawl, so as not to disturb the cosmetics of his disguise.

“Just as you thought,” Alec said softly. “Now what?”

“We keep hunting,” Seregil murmured back, slipping his arm through Micum’s like a wife out with her husband.

They continued on, wandering down squalid side streets edged with offal and full of dirty children playing with whatever they could find. One had found a rusty barrel hoop and was rolling it down the street with a stick. Micum caught it as it rolled by.

“Hey, give it!” the boy cried, seizing up a stone from the muddy street and cocking his arm to throw.

Micum grinned. “Just want to ask you a question, boy. The answer’s worth a penny and your hoop back.”

The boy sidled closer, as did several of his playmates. They all had rocks.

“We’re lookin’ for raven folk,” Micum told him.

“What you want with ’em?” the boy demanded.

“What do you care? Or don’t you want my money?”

The boy lowered his arm. “Yeah, we seen ’em around. I traded one for a yellow stone, but I lost it.”

Just as well, thought Seregil, wondering if that might save the child. “Who did you trade with, dearie?”

“Yellow-headed fellow on a crutch.”

“Where was this?”

“Over near the Ring wall, end of Barrow Lane.”

“Have you seen any others?” asked Alec, pulling off a reasonably feminine voice.

The boy shrugged. “There’s an old woman, and a blond-headed young feller. Seen ’em around here and there.”

“When did you last see one of them?” asked Micum.

The boy consulted with his comrades.

“I seen the woman yesterday,” one of the taller boys replied.

“And I seen the woman, over by the nail maker’s stall,” a ragged young girl put in.

“Me too, me too!” several others clamored, and Seregil guessed that most of them were lying in hopes of a penny.

Micum handed out coins all around and gave the boy back his hoop. The children darted away like a flock of dingy swallows.

“Think it was money well spent?” asked Alec as they walked on.

Seregil smiled. “At least a few of them were telling the truth. We know about the old man and old woman. And I’ve heard rumors of younger ones.”

“If your wizard woman was right, then shouldn’t the ravens be Zengati?” asked Micum. “A ‘blond-headed feller’ doesn’t sound right. And chances are at least some of the children would have seen a Zengati trader or two to know the difference.”

“You probably don’t have to be Zengati to practice Zengati magic, though,” said Alec. “So, where to first?”

“Let’s split up for a while,” Seregil replied. “I’ll go over by the Ring wall. Micum, you check out the nail maker. Alec, try the marketplace a few streets over.” He glanced up at the sinking sun. “If you find one, just follow them. I’ll meet you back here when the sun touches the rooftops. If you don’t come back, I’ll find you.”

But either all the children had been lying, or the ravens had already moved on again, for Seregil found the other two waiting for him at the appointed time, equally empty-handed.

* * *

They set off again early the following day, picking up a few hopeful reports of sightings and trades over the course of the morning, but not finding their quarry.

At noon they stopped to rest in the shade and eat their meager meal of sausage and bread. They were nearly finished when Seregil halted mid-bite, looking intent as a hound who’d gotten a scent. A tall, dark-haired swordsman was crossing the street near the end of the block.

“That’s him!” Seregil murmured. “He got a good look at me in this getup, though. You two take the lead and I’ll keep out of sight until you need me.”

As they started off to track the tall swordsman, Micum gave Alec his arm as he had Seregil, so as to attract less attention. Strolling along, they mingled in the afternoon crowd and stayed just close enough to keep their mark in sight. Presently the man paused at a small knot of people, children mostly, all clamoring around a stooped old woman with a long nose and stringy grey hair. She wore a shapeless tunic over a striped skirt, and a belt from which hung the sort of things Kepi and the Mycenian woman had noted.

“That’s got to be her,” whispered Alec, looking around for the swordsman. He stood a little way off, seemingly paying no attention to the commotion.

As they watched, the old woman smiled and laughed with the children, and made her odd trades for valueless things. Among her wares were a few of the yellow stones like the one Alec had seen before, and something she claimed were dragon’s milk teeth. As much as he wanted to get a closer look, he knew better than to make a trade, given Thero’s concerns about such items.

So instead he and Micum waited until she was done and toddled off, then continued to follow her at a distance. There was no sign of the tall man now, and Alec inwardly berated himself for not keeping a closer eye on him.

“Did you see which way he went?” he whispered to Micum.

“No. The bastard slipped off when I wasn’t looking. Do you think he spotted us?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Seregil is trailing him.”

Just then the old woman turned down a side street. Micum and Alec hurried to the corner in time to see her disappear down another side street. The crowd was thinner here, and they had to hang back a bit more. By the time they reached the second turning, there was no sign of her or the man in the nearly empty street. Tenements leaned over them, any one of which the woman could have entered.

An old man sat across the unpaved street smoking a pipe.

“Did you see an old woman come by here?” asked Micum. “My mother has wandered off again.”

“The mad woman with the things on her belt?” the old fellow asked.

“Yes, that’s her.”

The man pointed the stem of his pipe across the street at a two-story tenement. “That one there, with the blue door. I seen her here before, you know.”

“She’s a slippery one,” Micum said with a laugh. “At least now I know where she gets off to. Many thanks, old father. Come along, Sana.”

He gave Alec a wink and they went to the house in question and tried the latch. It was not locked, and opened into a small entrance area with a stairway leading up to the rooms. On the second floor they found most of the doors open—the occupants tried to encourage a sea breeze to dissipate the stale funk of the place. There was no sign of their woman, so they hurried up to the next floor, where things were much the same.

A one-eyed young tough with a bandage covering half his face and hair that might have been the same color as Alec’s if it were ever washed lounged in a doorway at the end of the corridor. “What’s the hurry, friends?”

“I’m looking for an old woman who just came in,” Micum told him. “Grey hair, bits and bobs hanging from her belt.”

“I know who you mean. The old raven woman, right?”

Alec hid his excitement as he asked, “Does she live here?”

The man gave him a measuring look and a slanted grin. “What’s it worth to you, missy?”

Alec reached into the little purse at his belt and took out a copper.

“That the best you can do?” the tough asked derisively.

Micum handed him another. “We’re poor folk. Please, won’t you help us?”

The man pocketed the money. “She lives below, third door on the left.”

“Much obliged,” Micum said, and followed Alec back downstairs.

Atre breathed a sigh of relief as Alec and his companion disappeared down the stairs. Brader stepped out from the empty room he’d hidden in.

“Now, that was very interesting,” Atre murmured, scratching under the bandage.

“How so?”

“Unless I’m very much mistaken, that was young Lord Alec under that kerchief and dirt and that forced falsetto. Seems he’s more of an actor than he let on.”

“Did he recognize you?”

“No, of course not.”

“I’ve never seen the big fellow with them.”

Atre gave him a thin smile. “I have. He was at Lord Alec’s party.”

The door in question was one of the few that was closed. Micum knocked, but there was no answer. With a quick look around to see if anyone was watching, he tried the latch, but it was locked.

The door directly across the corridor was closed, as well, and no one in the rooms on either side seemed to be paying any attention. Micum shielded Alec as best he could while he pulled a pick from under his kerchief and jiggered the simple lock. No sooner had he touched the latch, however, than the door was jerked violently open and Micum jumped back just in time to miss being brained by an iron poker. As it was it caught him a glancing blow across the left shoulder, the barb on the end of the poker tearing his shirt but missing the skin below.

He thrust Alec out of the way and blocked the next swing with his stout cudgel.

“Thieves!” the man cried, trying to drive Micum back but hampered somewhat by the door frame. “Housebreakers!”

Micum knocked the poker from his hands and gave the fellow a light thump in the belly with the end of the cudgel, just enough to set him back on his ass. A woman screamed. Alec looked around nervously. They were attracting far too much attention.

“Where’s my mother!” Micum bellowed. “I know she’s here!”

The man blinked up at him. “Mother? What in Bilairy’s name makes you think I’ve got your damn mother here?”

“I have it on good authority that she was brought to this place,” Micum growled, apparently using aggression in place of making any sense. Giving the man a shove in the chest with his foot, he stepped into the room and the woman screamed again.

“Help!” the man shouted.

“What’s going on ’ere?” a very large man with a stout, spiked club demanded from down the hall.

Micum backed quickly from the room and faced him down. “My own mother has been carried off, and I was told this man had her.”

“Nakis? What would he be doing with your poxy mother?” The man started down the corridor after them, club at the ready. “Get out of here, the pair of you, before you get your heads stove in!”

Other men were emerging from other rooms, some of them armed. Micum and Alec beat an ignominious retreat back to the street, but with the knowledge that the old woman had eluded them.

“Go on, git!” the man shouted down from his room, shaking his fist. “I’ll have the bluecoats on you!”

“Damnation!” Micum muttered as they hurried off the way they’d come. “Seregil isn’t going to like this.”

As they rounded the corner behind the house they very nearly collided with the man himself, who was carrying a basket containing a few bruised pears and pippins.

Seregil noted their expressions and Micum’s torn garment. “I take it things didn’t go well.”

“I doubt she was in there in the first place,” Alec growled. The man with the pipe who’d given them directions was nowhere in sight.

“Did you see a blond man with a bandaged head, by any chance?” Seregil asked.

“Yes. He told us—” Alec gave him a rueful look. “Blond hair! Damn, do you think he was a raven?”

“He was someone who didn’t want to linger,” Seregil told him. “I was at the back of the building, trying to find my man, who’d slipped down this direction, and saw One Eye climbing out of an upstairs window and up the back stair to the roof like a scalded cat. By the time I got up there he’d disappeared among the chimney pots and gables. I cast around but couldn’t find any sign of him.”

“And the masked swordsman?” asked Micum.

“My guess is he’s not only the guardian, but the lookout. It’s no wonder they scarper off so quickly. They’re certainly good at evading the quarantines here, too.”

“What about the old woman?” Alec asked impatiently. “If she didn’t crawl out a window, where did she go?”

“She’s most likely still in there.” Seregil hefted his basket on one hip.

“And where did you get those?” asked Alec.

“I made a street seller very happy. Stay here. I’ll go take a look. You keep an eye on the back of the house.” With that, Seregil sauntered off around the corner, calling out his wares.

He was gone a long time, but when he returned Alec knew at a glance that he’d been as unsuccessful as they’d been at anything but selling fruit. He had a smudge of dirt beside his nose and a few cobwebs caught on his hat brim.

“Well?” Micum asked.

Seregil sighed and tossed the basket away. “I’ve had the life story of half the tenants, but no word of the woman and no one will own up to knowing anything about the ravens. I even managed to sneak up in the attic and down into the cellar, but there’s no sign of her.”

“Damn!” Alec growled. “Could she have gotten out the back without you seeing her?”

“I don’t think so. This is a blind alley, so I’d have met her coming out. Unless she went over the roof, too. Pretty spry for an old girl. And cunning. I’m developing a certain grudging admiration for these people. They’re tricky, these ravens, and they’re smart.”

They wandered among the tenements and markets for the rest of the afternoon, and returned to the Stag and Otter in defeat.

“We don’t even know how many of them there are,” Micum said from the bedroom as he washed his face and changed clothes.

Still in his woman’s kit, Seregil sat in one of the hearth armchairs, tapping one foot restlessly against the ash shovel. “We’ve heard of a young, one-legged man, seen a blond beggar, and seen the old man and woman. She interests me the most, with all those things on her belt.”

“I still feel like a fool for being taken in,” Alec said glumly. “And we paid the bastard to gull us, too.”

Micum ruffled Alec’s hair as he joined them in the sitting room. “Worth it, to have another of them to recognize. And this is the closest we’ve gotten to them so far.”

Seregil slid from his chair suddenly and rummaged under the couch until he found a large rolled city map tied up with a green ribbon. Blowing the dust off it, he carried it to the table and unrolled it, weighting the edges down with books already lying around on the table and chairs.

As the others watched he placed pennies on the Lower City, the southeast section of the Ring, the slums north of the Temple Precinct, the Street of Lights, and the warren of twisting streets behind the inn.

“See the pattern?” he asked. “They get pushed out of one area by the quarantine and just move to the next nearest hunting ground. They avoided the Temple Precinct, apparently, but they could have made their way through the Street of Lights on their way here.”

“And Myrhichia could have given something to one of them, thinking they were just a beggar,” Alec noted.

Seregil frowned down at the map, trapping his forefinger against his chin as he thought. “Except that there hadn’t been any report of them this far north in the city before she was stricken.”

“Someone could have picked her pocket,” Micum suggested.

“Thero thinks the item has to be freely given,” Alec explained. “That’s why they trade.”

Seregil threw himself down on the couch, glaring at the empty hearth. “Conjecture! That’s all we have until we catch one of the bastards.”

“That still doesn’t explain how one of them got to her,” said Micum, absently stroking his moustache as he looked down at the map.

“Never mind how, for now. The question is, why her? Why leap from the poorest of the poor to a wealthy courtesan with friends who care about her—powerful friends.”

“The opportunity must have presented itself,” Micum reasoned as he went to the sideboard and poured three cups of wine from the decanter there. “Maybe she was the first wealthy person they could get near?”

“Yes, but when?” Alec insisted.

No one had an answer for that.

Alec and Seregil were debating whether they should return to Wheel Street for the night when Thero’s face appeared in front of Seregil, startling all of them.

“I hate it when you do that!” Seregil exclaimed.

Thero frowned at him. “Archduchess Alaya is dead. Murder has not been ruled out.”

Seregil rested his face in his hands for a moment. “Bilairy’s Balls!”

“She was a harmless old woman,” Alec groaned.

“And she was one of the closest to the princess royal,”

Thero replied. “Elani is inconsolable and the prince is more furious than he was before.”

“Are you certain it was murder?” asked Seregil.

“I’m not, but the prince thinks so, in light of recent events, though none of the conspirators in the Tower seems to know anything about it. Alaya was dining with the royal family and he saw with his own eyes when she fell back in her chair, dead. Once again no poison was detected, or magic, but Valerius could find nothing physically amiss, either.”

“Poor Elani!” Alec exclaimed softly. “She loved Alaya like a grandmother. Do you think her death is related to the others?”

“At this point, nothing would surprise me. Perhaps we did miss some conspirators, and they’re still at large and carrying on.”

“So what are the chances that the two different cabals would use the same undetectable poison?” asked Micum.

“Tit for tat?” Seregil shrugged. “I don’t know. Something about this doesn’t make sense. They’ve spent all their energy killing each other off, rather than making another attempt on Klia, or on Elani. If someone could get close enough to poison Alaya, then why not Elani, too?”

“The same thought occurred to me,” said Thero.

“Does Elani know about the conspiracies?”

“Korathan explained it to her, apparently in an effort to get her to leave the city. She refuses to go.”

“That could be exactly what the assassins are hoping for,” said Seregil. “She’s more vulnerable than ever out on the road, even with an armed escort.”

“You’re probably right. For now, she remains in Rhíminee, but in her quarters under heavy guard and a ready supply of food tasters.”

“I was afraid of this,” Seregil said with a sigh. “If the arrests haven’t stopped the killing, then something or somebody important was missed.”

“If they were using professional assassins, and I daresay they were, then they may still be under orders,” Thero replied.

“My informers inside the guild say that only Kormarin and Nerian were contracted.”

“Tit for tat, indeed,” said the wizard. “So who’s killing the others, and how?”

“We’ll keep our ears open, Thero, but we haven’t made much of a job of it so far.”

“That’s all?”

“For now. In the meantime, we’re going to keep hunting the ravens.”

Thero began to sputter but Alec said firmly, “We still have Myrhichia to avenge.”

Atre lit the candle in his dank little workroom and pulled a silver ring from his pocket. A pretty little bauble, he thought with a thin smile, and one he hadn’t really considered using. In fact, he’d forgotten all about it in all the fun of toying with the nobles, killing them off here and there as it suited him and enjoying the rising panic, until he recognized Alec and that Micum Cavish fellow during that near miss at the tenement. Humming to himself, he pulled an empty phial from the rack and dropped the ring in.