When I remember that not only has Makri forced me into using my legal powers, thereby practically ensuring that I’ll be run out of town at the earliest opportunity, as well as placing bets on how many corpses I’m liable to run into in the next few days, but she’s also received an invitation to Lisutaris’s smart party, I start to seethe. Damn the woman. How can I be expected to get along in this city when I have to act as nursemaid to a pointy-eared ex-gladiator who doesn’t know how to behave in a civilised society? It wasn’t too long ago that she was terrifying the honest citizens of Twelve Seas by talking publicly about her menstruation problems, and if it’s not that, it’s killing a dwa dealer and bringing the Brotherhood down on my neck, or getting so drunk when we went to the Elvish Isles that she actually threw up over the Crown Prince’s sandals. Much more of this and I’ll be taking a fast horse southwards.
By the time I reach the library—another room containing an indecent amount of books and scrolls—I’m in a thoroughly bad mood. I demand to see Rabaxos and, ignoring the multitude of requests for me to keep my voice down, I keep on demanding till eventually a student leads me behind a book stack to a small table where a puny-looking individual with his hair tied back with a cheap piece of ribbon has his nose firmly in a scroll written in the common Elvish tongue. I speak Elvish myself, though I don’t go around studying it in libraries.
“I’m here investigating the theft of your money.”
He shrinks back in his chair.
“And if you don’t tell me exactly what happened, I’ll make sure you end up on a prison ship. It’ll be a long time before you get to study an Elvish scroll again.”
[Contents]
Chapter Six
On my way back to the Avenging Axe, I call in at the local Messengers Guild station, sending a note to Lisutaris letting her know what’s happened. I suggest she try to locate the jewel again and also suggest she uses her considerable powers of sorcery to find out what the hell is going on. Seven dead bodies is a lot for one pendant that no one is supposed to know about.
The sun is directly overhead and the streets are intolerably hot and dusty. There’s little activity save for a bunch of ragged children splashing around in an old fountain that feeds off the local aqueduct. A few more days like this and the water supply is likely to dry up, which will probably lead to a riot. The mood I’m in, I wouldn’t mind doing some rioting. I have the grimmest foreboding about what’s going to happen now I’ve used my Tribune’s powers. I’ll have to send a report to an official at the Senate, and once that’s made public, there’s no telling what the result will be.
It’s clear to me that there was no proper inquiry at the Guild College. According to the young student Rabaxos he’d left the money in his locker for only a few minutes while he went to hand in a paper to one of his tutors. When he returned, the door had been forced open and the money was gone. I checked the lockers. They’re little more than wooden boxes with a clasp. Anyone could have forced it in less than a minute. No one saw the theft, but Makri was observed by several students entering and leaving the locker room around the time of the incident. Apart from that, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence against her. This doesn’t mean the staff at the College were outraged by her expulsion. Nor were the students. They’re all pretty much of the same opinion as Professor Toarius: that it was only a matter of time before Makri’s Orcish blood came to the fore and she started stealing.
Normally I’d be inclined to agree. Orcs are thieves, cheats and liars. You can’t trust an Orc for a second. Even a small amount of Orcish blood makes a person unreliable. Everyone in Turai knows that. Unfortunately, I also know that Makri didn’t steal the money, which means I have to find out who did. It’s going to be a lot of work over a measly five gurans, and a lot of work for which I’m not going to be paid. I shake my head. As a general rule, I never investigate for free. It creates the wrong impression.
As for Lisutaris’s jewel, that case went bad as soon as it started. If the pendant is really the last reliable way of warning Turai against imminent Orcish invasion, it might be time to consider leaving the city. No matter what Lisutaris believes, someone else obviously knew all about the pendant, probably before it was stolen. You don’t get multiple deaths and a burning tavern over any old piece of jewellery.
The fountain’s centrepiece is a small statue of St. Quatinius talking to a whale, modelled on one of the numerous exploits of our city’s patron. According to the story, the whale was full of religious knowledge. Perhaps signifying this, water pours from the beast’s mouth. I shove a few children out the way and take a drink. I eye St. Quatinius.
“You want to help me sort this out?” I ask. He doesn’t reply. To the best of my knowledge St. Quatinius has never come to my aid, though as I’m a man who frequently misses prayers, even though the regular saying of prayers is a legal requirement in Turai, I suppose I can’t complain.
Back at the Avenging Axe, I grumble to Tanrose about the undignified outbreak of gambling on matters which are not suitable for gambling, namely Thraxas-related deaths. I’m expecting a sympathetic ear from our kindly cook. Unfortunately Tanrose is in a bad mood and brushes aside my complaints. It’s very rare for Tanrose to be in a bad mood. Apparently she’s been arguing with Gurd over payments for food deliveries. Gurd is at the far end of the bar, looking the other way, but when I take a beer and a plate of stew over to the far corner of the room he abandons his post at the bar and joins me. He’s not happy either.
“Never accuse a cook of paying too much for her eggs and flour,” I advise him. “It’ll always lead to trouble. Makes them think you don’t value their cooking.”
“It was an argument about nothing,” protests Gurd. “Tanrose just yelled at me for no reason. It must be the heat.”
There’s an awkward moment of silence. We both know that the usual reason for the rare moments of friction between them is Gurd’s inability to express his emotions. He was a fine man with a sword or an axe—no one better—but when it comes to telling his cook he’s sweet on her he just can’t do it.
“You’re going to have to say something sometime,” I say, uncomfortable as always about this type of conversation. “It’s no good just hanging round looking as miserable as a Niojan whore all day then complaining about her bookkeeping when you can’t think of anything else to say.”
Gurd shakes his head. In the tremendous heat his long grey hair is matted round his shoulders.
“It’s not so easy,” he mutters, and falls silent.
“Women, they’re all crazy,” says Parax the shoemaker, a very unwelcome intruder into the conversation.
I tell him to go away.
“And don’t start asking for the latest body count.”
“We already heard about the last three,” says Parax. “Seven so far. Makes my bet on twenty look pretty good.”
“Bexanos the ropemaker put a lot of money on twenty to twenty-five,” muses Gurd. “You think it might get that high?”
“Gurd, what’s got into you? How could you place bets on how many deaths there are going to be?”
“Why not?” says Gurd. “A bet is a bet.”