Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

“You can scale the outside wall of the Hotel,” said Little Hugh, leaning close to the window and pointing off to the left. “There are stretchers and dog’s-teeth in the masonry. Then—see there?—you can jump from that ledge over onto the roof of that storage building and shinny down the rain pipe.”

Méarana shot him a glance to see if he was joking, but with the Ghost of Ardow it was hard to tell. He could get into and out of the most unlikely places. “We’ll take the easy way,” she said.

Hugh exchanged a glance with Greystroke. “Sometimes that is the easy way.”

“Enough said of that,” the Hound cautioned him. He turned to the harper. “I don’t know what you expect to find here that Gwillgi failed to find. According to the Hotel’s records and the Toll-for-One, Bridget ban stayed here only two days. She never even entered East Cape.”

Donovan grunted. “Makes you wonder why she came down at all.”

Hugh glanced at him. “We’ve all worried at that. If we knew why she came down… Thank you, Billy.” The khitmutgar had found the suite’s bar and had assembled a tray of drinks. As any good servant might, he had, on the flight from Harpaloon, identified everyone’s preference. They moved toward the center of the room. “If we knew why she paused here, we might know where she went afterward. But if this was just a stopover…”

“Why come planet-side for a mere rest stop,” said Méarana.

Hugh pursed his lips. “Sometimes you just need to get outside of a ship.”

“Maybe she was expecting to meet someone,” Donovan suggested. He had remained at the window, where he gazed down at the roof of the storage shed.

“Gwillgi thought so,” said Hugh, “but she met no one of whom the hotel staff was aware.” Both Donovan and Greystroke snorted. “Right,” Hugh added. “But Gwillgi checked into everyone staying in the hotel and…”

Donovan turned from the window. “Everyone?”

Hugh nodded. “Staff and guests. Gwillgi may not be as persistent as Grimpen, but he does dot all his t’s.”

“So, you may be right,” said Greystroke, who had materialized by Donovan’s side and nodded toward the perilous route into East Cape. “There’s only one flaw: no trace of her anywhere in Pròwenshwai.”

There’s always a trace , murmured the Sleuth.

“Greystroke,” Donovan said in a low voice, and moved the Hound a little apart from Hugh and Méarana, who were sampling a plate of hors d’oeuvres that Billy had prepared. “You and I both know that the jawharry at Côndefer Park…”

“…was killed by a Confederate courier. Elementary. Who else combines stealth and cruelty in such exquisite balance? Has it convinced her?”

“To give up the search? Not yet.”

“It might have been a coincidence, but…”

“It wasn’t.”

“Agreed. And you can’t go forward assuming it was. The question is: What is the courier’s mission? Is he hunting what Bridget ban was hunting? Or is he hunting you?”

“Me!” Donovan could not stop Inner Child from looking around in alarm. “No,” he said, turning back in time to glimpse Greystroke’s pity. “No,” he said again. “If he was hunting me, why torture the jawharry?”

“‘Following the hare,’” Greystroke quoted, “‘the hunter starts a deer.’ Sometimes one path crosses another. That’s all chance is, you know. The Friendly Ones weave causal threads. Sometimes they cross, and we call that chance. Once you crossed the courier’s line of vision, he may have wondered what you were up to.”

“You suppose he recognized me.”

Greystroke nodded. His eyes rose toward Donovan’s scalp. “You bear certain distinguishing marks.”

But Donovan shook his head. “No. I’ve haunted the Bar on Jehovah for a great many years. If They had wanted to find me…”

“They may have wanted only to find you there . As long as you stayed in place, swilling whiskey, what did They care? Donovan-the-sot is no threat to them. Donovan-on-the-roads may be a different matter.”

The scarred man said nothing. He looked out over the whittled city.

“If you went back to Jehovah,” Greystroke said, “they’d likely lose interest again.”

Donovan felt turmoil within. «Safe!» said Inner Child. But , said the Silky Voice. The odds are better there , said the Sleuth.

“Méarana,” whispered the Fudir.

“She’d be safer with us,” said Greystroke.

Méarana, talking with Billy and Little Hugh on the other side of the room, laughed. Donovan and Greystroke both watched her silently for a while and, perhaps attracted by their gaze, she turned and smiled at them, waving to them to join the others. And so they did, and they chatted of inconsequential matters before proceeding to dinner in the hotel’s restaurant. But Donovan could see worry behind the eyes of all of them—except Billy Chins, who, having delivered himself utterly into the hands of another, had not a worry in all the known worlds.

Sometimes, the drink worked, and sometimes it did not. There were shards in the ruin of his mind; and sometimes drink floated them to the surface, if not to the service, of his consciousness. The barroom of the Roaming Qaysar stood in the under-cellar of the building in a series of rooms made up to look like caves. It was called a Vine-stoop, and served a kind of wine called a hoyrigen, which referred to that morning’s press. It was not yet aged; it was not yet fully mature. It had not the quick numbing of the uiscebaugh, which stunned like a ball-peen hammer. It was more like drowning.

After dinner, the scarred man took himself down to the stoop where he could sit in dim light and be as much alone as a man like him could ever be. Around him, inside and out, swirled whispers and comfortable laughter, and the occasional clink of stolid Hansard toasts. They sought contentment, the Vrouwenfolk did. The beedermayer, they called it; the gemoot’. But always there was the main chance looked for, the edge sought; and so contentment was an elusive thing, enjoyed only by the sliders and touristas who just adored the quaint customs of the cutthroat merchants of the Greater Hanse.

The tables were rough-polished ironwood, with no adornment save a short candle that floated in a red-glass bowl. The flame took nothing from the darkness, but he blew it out anyway; and when later the gellrin , the waitress, tried to re-light it, he sent her scuttling with a well-aimed growl.

Watch the one in the corner , he heard the whispers. He’s surly when drunk .

How little they knew him here! He needed no drink for that.

“She will be safer if she goes with Greystroke,” he assured himself.

The courier didn’t kill the jawharry in the Kasper, the Pedant pointed out. Nor any of the others.

“No, Greystroke would have told us had there been others.”

Would he?

“Yes,” said Donovan. “He means to scare us off. For that, an abundance of bodies is more persuasive than one.”

«One was enough. Oh, it was.»

Silience, Child.

You know what it means , said the Sleuth.

Nah, but you’re gonna tell us, aren’t ya, smart-ass?

It means that, even if it was Donovan who crossed the courier’s path, it is Méarana that he’s interested in .

Inner Child trembled, and the scarred man spilled some of his day-wine.

You don’t know that .

So, she’s not safe, even with Greystroke and Hugh .

“I said she’d be ‘safer,’” Donovan pointed out. “I didn’t say she’d be ‘safe.’”