I really don’t think he’d have tried to swim, said Des. Dolphin-haunted or not.
Agreed.
Oh. There was one place Pen hadn’t examined; the harbor shore near the hospice, apart from the bits along the route between the hospice and Iserne’s house. Because it had already been searched in that first hour by Linatas and Tebi—looking for a madman and a fuss. Could the bedemoned Ree instead have hidden himself from their view in the marine clutter? Easily. Pen would have spotted him regardless, but ordinary eyes might not.
Pen swore aloud in Wealdean at this potential miss.
Though if Merin had been seized by some late inspiration of a new place to look for his lost cabinmate, why hadn’t he brought the thought to Penric? Pen was liking this less and less. He walked on into the darkness that wasn’t dark to him, somewhat vengefully consuming Merin’s meat stick. And, in the twenty minutes it took him to backtrack through the stone and water maze to the harbor, Chio’s as well, though mainly to free his hand. Her penalty for running off without telling him.
Trying to be systematic, always a challenge in Lodi, Pen angled through to the shoreline on the far side of the hospice and worked his way back up toward the state shipyard. There were a surprising number of souls about in the after-midnight darkness, and not just celebrants staggering home. Sailors slept out on their moored ships. Others denned up in various cubbies and shacks. Pen passed a pair of night watchmen, more looking for fires than criminals though prepared to sound an alarm for either.
One lifted his lantern and frowned at Pen, glimmering gold-white in the pool of light. Seeing a divine’s coat and braids, and of the fifth god’s Order on His night, he bobbed his head in nervous respect. “Learned sir. You’re out late.”
“Unfortunately yes. I’m looking for a, uh, sick man who might have come through here. Also for a young couple…” Pen described his missing trio, leaving out the lengthy explanation. Which made it all rather mysterious; the watchmen regarded him with misgiving. But they had not seen any of the people Pen was looking for since they’d come on duty at nightfall. Pen left them with a parting blessing anyway, which they accepted with scarcely less worry.
He searched as far as the mouth of the Wealdmen’s Canal without luck, then had to circle up it for the bridge. This brought him back down Iserne’s street and past her steps. He did not stop in; Des’s Sight told him that Ree had not returned here. Lamplight leaked through third-story shutters from the wakeful woman waiting.
Needless delay would be cruelty… He would run, if he’d known what way.
Back to the harborside. The next stretch was mainly devoted to the use of Lodi fishermen like the ones who’d first trawled up Madboy. Tackle, festoons of nets drying, crates, fish-traps, and boats small enough to be pulled ashore for the night made a maddening obstacle course through damp sand. A few craft were upside down, waiting repairs or maintenance on their hulls. If Pen hadn’t been looking with Des’s Sight, he would never have spotted the man tucked beneath one. Not Madboy, not Merin. Fisherman? Vagabond? No… What’s wrong with him?
Quite a lot, said Des uneasily, but not our affair, surely…?
Pen knelt and peered into what would be black shadow to anyone else. The fellow breathing in stertorous gasps was neither sleeping nor drunk. He’d taken a plank to the head. Crawled under there himself, or been rolled in? Robbed?
Comprehensively, murmured Des.
He was wearing nothing but his drawers. He might be in his twenties, sailor or merchant or anything, but he didn’t look starveling so probably not a street beggar. Pen didn’t wonder Who would rob a beggar? since the answer was Anyone with fewer possessions and more desperation. Wanting clothes, in this case. And a purse? Pen set his teeth, got a grip on clammy ankles, and dragged the fellow out from under the downturned oarboat.
His dark hair was clotted with blood, mostly dry. So, the injury suffered about two hours ago? The profusely bleeding scalp wound had been superficial, the concussion less so. His skull was not fractured, though, and the bleeding seemed to be confined to the outside, fortunately.
Pen could afford a strong dose of general uphill magic against the shock, brain bruising, and blood loss at no more cost than the life of one of the harbor rats, which were ready to hand, skulking in the shadows. It was a wonder none had taken a nibble of the fellow so far. Pen drew breath and called up this most-practiced basic healing skill, trying hard not to think of all the grievous times it had failed him. He wasn’t doing this anymore, so why was he doing this…?
Des made her silence a dry-enough comment.
Pen quelled the shiver of raw mortal memories as order passed out through his hands into the hurting body, trading for slightly greater disorder flowing up into him.
His… patient, foundling, emitted a groan. Pen searched around for a splinter of wood, stuck it upright in the sand, and set it alight with a touch. This makeshift candle wouldn’t last long, but it didn’t need to. When the fellow pried open his sticky eyelids, he would be able to see more than a threatening silhouette looming over him.
He stretched his jaw, raised a hand to his head; a gleam of dark eyes at last shone up. They widened at Pen. “Am I dead?” the man croaked.
He might have been by morning, if the rats had found him. “Happily not.”
“…thought you might be the white god come to collect me. Wondered what I’d done wrong.”
“No, just his errand boy.”
“Good. M’ mother wouldn’t have liked that…” Fingers poked gingerly through matted, crusty hair.
“You took a bad knock, though,” said Pen. “Any idea who gave it to you?” He was getting an unsettling notion about that.
The fellow was momentarily distracted as his wandering hands discovered his near-naked state. He swore. “My good doublet!” Bony feet felt each other. “My good boots! You ’spect to lose your purse, but who steals a man’s breeches?” A moment later: “Gods, I feel sick…” He spasmed; Pen helped him roll over to vomit. There had been a wine party earlier, evidently. “Ohh, Mother of Summer help me…”
“I’ll bring you to the Gift of the Sea hospice shortly,” Pen promised. “As soon as you think you can walk.”
A whuff, possibly grateful.
“Did you see who robbed you?” Pen asked again.
“Only f’ a moment. ’S coming home up the harbor street about an hour before midnight—what time s’it now?”
“About an hour after, I make it.” Not the worst swoon, though such were never good.
“Barefoot young man by himself. Mumbling. Thought he was too drunk to be a danger, didn’t pay much mind at he went by. Then I saw stars. The next thing, you.” He pushed himself up on one elbow and looked around, wincing and blinking, then sank back with another groan. “Not far from here.”
“What did he look like?”
“About my height and size, I guess. A bit younger? Pretty ragged, so it was hard to tell. Not much light.”
“Hair?”
“Dark, tangled.”
Pen repeated the somewhat useless physical description of Ree Richelon.
The stripped fellow shook his head, then clutched it. “Ow. I… maybe?”