The giggles ended with an abrupt "Yipe!"
"I hope I broke his skull," Morley growled. "What're we going to do now?"
"Go back to the inn and eat. Check on the triplets. Guzzle some beer. Think. Spend the afternoon trying to turn something up in parish or civil records."
"Like what?"
"Like who she married if she was married here. She was a good Orthodox girl. She would have wanted the whole fancy, formal show. It might be easier to trace her through her husband if we knew his name."
"I don't want to be negative, Garrett, but I have a feeling the girl you knew and are looking for isn't the woman we're going to find."
I had the same sad feeling.
23
"Where the hell are they?" Morley roared at the innkeeper.
"How the hell should I know?" the man roared right back, obviously used to rough trade. "You said don't give them anything to drink. You didn't say nothing about nursemaiding them or keeping them off the streets. If you ask me, they looked like they was growed up enough to go out and play by themselves."
"He's right, Morley. Calm down." I didn't want him getting so stirred up he'd need to run ten miles to work it off. I had a feeling it would be smart if we stuck together as much as we could. Assuming the Old Witch knew what she was yakking about, somewhere there was a killer who might get unnerved by our poking around.
I repeated myself. "Calm down and think about it. You know them. What are they likely to be doing?"
"Anything," he grumbled. "That's why I'm not calm." But he took my advice and sprawled in a chair across the table. "I've got to find some decent food. Or something female. You see what's happening to me."
I didn't get a chance to put in my farthing's worth. Dojango came ambling in looking like a rooster on parade. He had his hands shoved into his pockets, his shoulders thrown back, and he was strutting.
"Calmly," I cautioned Morley.
Doris and Marsha each had a hide with the look of old, scuffed shoes, but they were grinning too. Strutting was too much for them. The ceiling was only twelve feet high.
Morley did very well. He asked, "What's up, Dojango?"
"We went out and got in a fight with about twenty sailors. Cleaned up the streets with them."
"Calmly," I told Morley, hanging on to his shoulder.
From the looks of Dojango, compared to his brothers, his part in the fight must have been mostly supervisory.
Morley suggested, "Maybe you'd better tell it from the beginning. Like start with what made you go out there in the first place."
"Oh. We were going down to watch the harbor in case anybody interesting came in. Like the guys on that striped-sail ship or the ones that snatched Garrett's girlfriends, or even the girls themselves."
Morley had the good grace to look abashed. "And?"
"We were headed back here when we ran into the sailors."
Doris—or maybe Marsha—rumbled something. Morley translated. "He says they called them bad names." He kept a straight face. "So. Besides making the streets safe from marauding, name-calling sailors, did you accomplish anything?"
"We saw the striped-sail ship come in. One guy—the one Marsha threw in the drink in Leifmold—got off. He hired a ricksha. We figured we would be too obvious if we tried to follow him, so we didn't try. But we did get close enough to hear him tell the ricksha man to take him to the civil city hall."
Full Harbor has two competing administrations, one civil, one military. Their feuding helps keep city life interesting.
"Good work," Morley grouched.
"Worth a beer?" Dojango asked.
Morley looked at me. I shrugged. They were his problem. He said, "All right."
"How about two?"
"What is this? A damned auction?"
Morley and I mounted the rig. He asked, "Where to now, peerless investigator?"
"I figured on hitting the civil city hall next, but Dojango changed my mind. I don't want to run into that guy again if I can help it."
"Your caution is commendable if a bit out of character. Keep an eye peeled for a decent place to eat."
"Get up," I told the horses. "Keep an eye out for a pasture where Morley can graze."
I don't understand it. We went into the church and there was nothing going on. Every day seems like a holy day of obligation for the Orthodox from what I've seen.
A priest in his twenties with a face that did not yet need shaving asked us, "How may I help you gentlemen?" He was unsettled. We weren't ten feet inside the door, but already we had betrayed ourselves as heathen. We had overlooked some genuflection or something.
Earlier I'd decided to deal straight with the church—without telling everything, of course. I told the priest I was trying to locate the former Kayean Kronk, of his parish, because she had a very large legacy pending in TunFaire. "I thought somebody who works here, or your records, might help me trace her. Can we talk to your boss?"
He winced before he said, "I'll tell him you're here and why. I'll ask if he'll see you."
Morley barely waited until the kid was out of earshot. "If you want to get along with these people, you should at least try to fake the cant."
"How do you do that when you don't have the foggiest what it is?"
"I thought you said you and the gal used to come here for services."
"I'm not a religious guy. I slept through them most of the time. The Venageti must not have made it this far during the invasion."
"Why do you say that?"
"Look at all the gold and silver. There aren't any Orthodox among the Venageti. They would have stripped the place and sent the plunder out on the first courier boat."
The priest came hustling back. "Sair Lojda will give you five minutes to argue your case." As we followed him, he added, "The Sair is accustomed to dealing with unbelievers, but even from them he expects the honor and deference due his rank."
"I'll be sure not to slap him on the back and ask if he wants a beer," I said.
The Sair was the first to ask for my credentials. I made my pitch while he examined them. He did not give us the full five minutes allotted. He interrupted me. "You will have to see Father Rhyne. He was the Kronk family confessor and spiritual adviser. Mike, take these gentlemen to Father Rhyne."
"What are you grinning about?" I asked Morley as soon as we were out of the presence.
"When was the last time you had a priest take less than three hours even to tell you to have a nice day?"
"Oh."
"He was a dried-up little peckerwood, wasn't he?"
"Watch your tongue, Morley."
He was right. The Sair's face had reminded me of a half-spoiled peach that had dried in the desert for six months.
Father Rhyne was a bit remarkable, too. He was about five feet tall, almost as wide, bald as a buzzard's egg, but had enough hair from the ears down to reforest fifty desert craniums. He was naked to the waist and appeared to be doing exercises. I have never seen anyone with so much brush on his face and body.
"Couple of minutes more, men," he said. He went on, sweating puddles.
"All right. Throw me a towel, Mike. Trying to shed a few stone," he told us. "What can I do for you?"
I sang my song again, complete with all the choruses. I wondered if I would run out of bottles of beer on the wall before I picked up Kayean's trail.
He thought for a minute, then said, "Mike, would you get the gentlemen some refreshments? Beer will do for me."
"Me too," I chirped.
"Ah. Another connoisseur. A gentleman after my own heart."
Morley grumbled something about brewing being an unconscionable waste of grains that could be stone-ground and baked into high-fiber breads that would give thousands the bulk they desperately needed in their diets.
Father Mike and Father Rhyne both looked at him like he was mad. I didn't contradict their suppositions. I told Father Mike, "See if you can't track down a rutabaga. If it doesn't put up too fierce a fight, squeeze it for a pint of blood and bring that to him."