D. Jackson: Thieftaker

A pretty young servant opened the door and led Ethan into a small sitting room before going in search of her master. He surveyed the room: wooden floors, simple furnishings, an empty hearth in the center of the south wall. The subtle aroma of roasted fowl and fresh bread blended with the bitter scent of spermaceti candles. There were finer houses in town-mostly on Beacon Street and in the North End-but it was obvious the Corbett family didn’t want for much.

Ethan strolled around the room, looking at the paintings of Corbett’s wife and his two daughters. After several moments, a door opened at the far end of the chamber. Mr. Corbett stepped in and closed the door quietly behind him. Facing Ethan and eyeing his clothes, he faltered, a frown on his homely face. Belatedly it occurred to Ethan that he must look a mess. His breeches were filthy from his struggles with Folter on the wharf, and there probably were bloodstains on his waistcoat and shirt.

“Mister Kaille,” the merchant said grimly. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Is there a problem?”

He was a short, round man whose clothes didn’t fit him quite right. They were too long in the sleeves and legs and too tight around the middle. He was bald except for tufts of steel gray hair that poked out from behind his ears, and he wore spectacles on the end of his nose.

“There’s no problem, sir,” Ethan said, producing the necklaces and laying them on a small table beside the hearth. “I’ve come to return your wife’s jewels.”

Corbett’s entire bearing changed. His eyes widened, and as he crossed to the table he actually broke into a smile. “You’ve found them already! Well done, Mister Kaille!”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And the thief?” Corbett asked, examining each necklace by the light of an oil lamp.

“Daniel Folter.”

The merchant looked at him. “Daniel? You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir. You know him?”

Corbett hesitated. “He did some work for me a year or so ago. He even expressed interest in courting my older daughter, though I didn’t encourage him in that regard.” He shook his head. “Still, I’m surprised. I never figured the man for a thief.”

“No, sir.”

Corbett studied the necklaces a moment longer before facing Ethan again. “Well, these look to be none the worse for their adventure. I take it Daniel has been dealt with?”

“He won’t trouble you again, sir,” Ethan said, holding the man’s gaze.

“Very well. I owe you another ten shillings, don’t I?”

Ethan bit down on his tongue to keep from laughing. He had dealt with merchants before. “Actually, I believe you owe me fifteen.”

Corbett raised an eyebrow. “Fifteen is it?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Hmmm, I suppose that’s right.” The merchant dug into a small pocket on his vest and pulled out a coin purse. He poured its contents onto his desk and began to count out Ethan’s payment. “An acquaintance of mine said I shouldn’t hire you,” he said as he piled the coins.

Ethan tensed. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” the merchant said, not meeting Ethan’s gaze, lamplight reflecting off his glasses so that the lenses looked opaque. “He said I would have been better off hiring someone… safer.”

Ethan didn’t know whether to laugh or yank out his own hair. There was only one other thieftaker in Boston; Corbett’s friend thought Sephira Pryce would be a safer choice than Ethan.

Corbett went on. “I think he was concerned about your past.”

“Of course,” Ethan said.

“I bring this up because I wanted you to know that people still speak of it, those who remember anyway.”

He knew this already, of course. Nearly twenty years had passed since the Ruby Blade mutiny, but few who were old enough to have heard of the incident when it happened would have forgotten. Mutinies were scandalous enough; add to that whispers of witchcraft and the result was enough to cause quite a stir.

“Thank you, sir,” Ethan said stiffly.

The merchant finished counting out the money and returned the coin purse to his pocket. “I intend to tell my friend that he was wrong about you,” he said.

I don’t give a damn, Ethan wanted to say. Instead, he thanked him once more.

“Here you are,” Corbett said, handing Ethan the stack of coins. “Well earned, Mister Kaille. I hope that I won’t require your services again, but should I have further need of a thieftaker, I’ll be certain to call on you.”

“Thank you, sir. For your sake, and that of your family, I hope that won’t be necessary.”

Corbett smiled and led him back to the front door. “My wife will be most pleased,” he said, pulling the door open.

“I hope so, sir.”

The smell of smoke had grown stronger. Corbett wrinkled his nose and frowned. “More trouble,” he said sourly. “I don’t hold with lawlessness, Mister Kaille. And I don’t choose to associate with those who do. Do you take my meaning?”

Ethan was about to answer, but in that moment he felt the pulse of a spell, the air around him thrumming like a bowstring. Ethan’s first impulse was to ward himself, and his hand flew to the hilt of his blade.

“Mister Kaille?”

An instant later, Ethan realized that the spell had not been intended for him, that it hadn’t even been cast in this part of the city. Which meant that it must have been a powerful conjuring. He stared into the night, trying to locate the conjurer, wondering who could have cast such a spell.

“Mister Kaille! I asked you a question!”

“Yes, sir,” Ethan said, far more interested in the spell he had felt than in whatever Corbett had said. “I beg your pardon. What did you ask?”

“I said that I don’t hold with those who would flout the law in pursuit of political aims, and I asked if you took my meaning.”

“I do, sir.” He wanted to go. Right now. He wanted to find the conjurer who had cast that spell. But Corbett had paid him, and might well hire him again. Kannice would tell him that he should give the man his undivided attention.

The merchant gazed out into the night. “Do you support them?” he asked. “These agitators?”

In recent days, Ethan had heard arguments on both sides of this issue. There was nowhere a man could go in the city without overhearing discussions of Grenville’s Stamp Act. Like much of Boston, all the people he knew were beginning to align themselves according to whether they supported or opposed Parliament’s latest attempt to raise revenue. Corbett had made his position clear, and Ethan thought it best to give the safest response he could, even if it didn’t exactly answer the man’s question.

“I’m a subject of the British Crown, sir,” he said. “I recognize the authority of Parliament in all matters pertaining to the colonies.”

Corbett nodded. “That’s most wise of you. This sort of villainy and licentiousness will be the ruin of Britain.”

“Yes, sir,” Ethan said. “Good night.”

“And to you, Mister Kaille.”

Ethan stepped out of the house, followed the path back to Long Lane, and turned northward. As he walked, he wondered if Corbett and his acquaintances knew only of the mutiny and Ethan’s time in forced labor, or if they knew as well the role that conjurings played in all that happened aboard the Ruby Blade. Just how many people in Boston knew that he was a conjurer? Three or four months might pass without anyone speaking to him of his spellmaking abilities. And then he could have days like this one, when it seemed that everyone knew.

He had his share of enemies in the city, and none of them would hesitate to use his secret against him if they thought themselves safe from his retribution. But fear of conjuring ran deep, even among the wealthy, even among the likes of Sephira Pryce.