D. Jackson - Thieves' Quarry

“Captain Gell sent me,” he said, his voice thick with an Irish burr. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me why, Doctor.”

“I’d suggest you look around you, Captain,” Rickman answered, his tone icy. “These men are the reason why.”

The officer’s mouth twitched. “I can see that. But what is it you require of me?”

“Captain Preston, this is Ethan Kaille,” the doctor said. “He is a thieftaker here in Boston, and is conducting an inquiry into the deaths of these men. All of them are from your regiment and one of them is missing. We need to match faces to names and see if we can determine which man escaped the fate of his comrades.”

To this point, Preston had ignored Ethan, but he fixed his eyes upon him now, a faint smile on his lips. “A thieftaker?” he said. “You think these men were robbed?”

Ethan stared back at him. “Yes. Of their lives, at the very least.”

The smile faded from the captain’s face. “All right. Let’s get started, then. I want to get back to my soldiers. The rest of them…” he amended after a brief, awkward pause.

“By all means,” Rickman muttered, just loud enough for Ethan to hear. “We wouldn’t want to inconvenience the man.”

Captain Preston’s manner might have been gruff, but he worked with swift efficiency, as did the young corporal he had brought with him. They moved down the line of dead soldiers, peering at their faces and, after a bit of deliberation, assigning a name to each one. Dr. Rickman held the manifest and checked off names as the officers worked. Ethan trailed behind them, feeling that with the bodies arrayed in the vaults his work here was complete.

Watching the other men, though, Ethan had an idea. He would have been best off waiting until he was alone with the dead soldiers, but he couldn’t be certain that such an opportunity would present itself.

“ Veni ad me, ” he whispered as quietly as he could. Come to me.

His conjuring sang in the stone walls and the ground beneath his feet, and Uncle Reg winked into view at his side, his russet glow almost bloodlike in the dim space.

Preston glanced Ethan’s way. “What did you say?” he asked. He gave no indication that he could see Reg or that he had felt Ethan’s conjuring.

“It was … a prayer,” Ethan said.

Reg grinned. The captain went back to examining the dead, but Rickman eyed Ethan for another moment. As soon as the doctor turned his attention to the manifest once more, Ethan looked toward the glowing ghost.

I need to know if any of these men were conjurers, he said within his mind. Do you understand me?

Reg nodded and began to drift back along the corridor past the bodies that had already been identified. A short distance from the stairway, he halted, hovering beside the body of a regular. He stared back at Ethan, his eyes gleaming in the shadows. Ethan could hardly believe that the ghost had found someone. He had thought this a lark.

You’re sure? he asked in his mind, as he approached the dead soldier.

Reg nodded to him and drifted off once more.

Stopping by the soldier Reg had indicated, Ethan looked down at the man. He was a large, young man with a broad fleshy face and long black hair.

“Can you tell me this man’s name?” Ethan asked, still looking down at him.

“We’ve got him already,” Preston said.

“Yes, I know. What was his name?”

The captain glowered at Ethan. Finally he shook his head in disgust. “Go,” the captain told his corporal, his voice flat. “See who he’s talking about.”

The young officer joined Ethan by the dead soldier and looked down at the man. “That’s Jonathan Sharpe,” he said. “He was from York originally, but he fought over here against the French, and remained in Halifax with the regiment.” The young man turned to Ethan. “Why? Is there something wrong?”

“No,” Ethan said. “I thought I’d seen him before. Sorry to have troubled you.” The lie came easily to him, though once again he caught the doctor eyeing him. He wondered if Senhouse or even Geoffrey had revealed to Rickman that Ethan was a speller.

Looking past the doctor, Ethan saw that Uncle Reg hadn’t vanished again, as he thought the ghost might. Rather, he had positioned himself by the dead soldiers whom Preston and his aide had yet to identify. As before, the ghost’s glowing eyes were locked on Ethan’s. Deliberately, he turned to gaze down upon one of the men and then looked up at Ethan again.

“Can I go back to the captain, sir?” the corporal asked.

Ethan barely heard him. “Another one?” he whispered.

Uncle Reg nodded.

“I’m sorry?” the corporal asked.

With a sharp shake of his head, Ethan looked away from the ghost.

“Aye, of course,” Ethan told the man. “I’m sorry to have pulled you away from what you were doing.”

The man edged away from him and rejoined Preston. Ethan followed him, forcing himself not to hurry, though his pulse was racing. Could there have been two conjurers among these men? The odds against such a thing were staggering. There were maybe fifteen conjurers among all of Boston’s fifteen thousand residents, and yet it seemed that there had been two among these seventy-two soldiers.

He slipped past Rickman, Preston, and the corporal, walking until he reached Uncle Reg and the second conjurer the ghost had found. Ethan leaned back against the wall of the vault, and waited for the other men to reach this man.

You’re certain? he asked Reg.

The ghost nodded.

Are there more, or just these two?

Reg held up two glowing fingers.

And you’re really sure about both of them?

This time Reg scowled at him.

Right. Sorry.

Ethan watched Preston and his corporal. Seeing that they remained engrossed in what they were doing, Ethan turned his attention to the man Reg had indicated. He appeared to be somewhat older than the other soldiers; there were lines around his mouth and eyes, and his brown hair was flecked with silver. But he had a boyish face, with round cheeks and a smooth brow. Ethan guessed that he would have had a pleasant smile.

Before long, Rickman and the others reached the man.

“Do you know this one, Corporal?” Preston asked.

“Not well, sir, no. I think his last name might be Osborne.” The young man looked back at the doctor. “Is there an Osborne on the manifest?”

Rickman searched the list. “Here he is. Caleb Osborne.”

The corporal’s expression brightened. “That’s it! Caleb. Another who came to fight the French and stayed in these parts.”

Ethan caught the ghost’s eye and held Reg’s gaze. Caleb Osborne and Jonathan Sharpe. He would learn what he could of them, as well as the man who turned out to be missing.

They reached the last of the dead a short time later, and once the corporal had identified this last man, Rickman thumbed through the pages of the manifest.

“That’s most of them,” he said, sounding weary. “But there are still nine who neither of you knew.” He turned to Ethan. “I’m afraid we won’t have a name for you tonight.”

“The officers who spent the most time with these men died with them,” Preston said. “They would have been able to identify all of them, obviously. But I’ll go back to my ship. Maybe one of my sergeants will be able to help with these last few.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Ethan said.

“You didn’t answer me before,” Preston said. “At least not really. What is it you think the missing man did?”

Ethan shrugged, making an effort not to look at Uncle Reg. “I don’t know. He might simply have deserted. Or he might have had something to do with the deaths of these others.”