D. Jackson - Thieves' Quarry

She said much the same thing whenever he came to her tavern. In fairness, she had a point. He rarely bought anything from her; he sought her counsel when he had questions about spells, because no one in the city knew more about conjuring than she did. The truth was, Ethan might well have been as close a friend as Janna had in Boston. He chose to believe that she greeted him this way because she liked him. Others she simply would have ignored.

“Nice to see you, too, Janna.”

The scowl deepened. “What d’you want, anyway?”

He crossed to where she sat and pulled up a chair next to hers. The fire in her hearth threw off a lot of heat, but still she had a shawl wrapped around her bony shoulders and a threadbare woolen blanket covering her legs. She often complained of the cold, even on the mildest days of spring and fall. For all the years she had lived in the city, it seemed to Ethan that she had never adjusted to leaving the islands.

“You’re up early today,” he said. “Earlier than usual.”

She shrugged, her gaze sliding away. “Why would you care about when I sleep and when I don’t?”

“You felt it too, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Look me in the eye, Janna.”

Grudgingly, she faced him again.

“Did you feel something this morning?” he asked. “Did you feel a pulse of power? It came just after dawn, and it would have been strong enough to make it feel like the Spider was going to come down on top of you.”

Janna glared back at him. “Yeah,” she said at last. “I felt it.”

Ethan sat back in his chair, feeling both relieved and alarmed. He hadn’t imagined it. But then who could have cast such a spell?

“You weren’t certain,” Janna said.

He shook his head. “It woke me from a dream, and I didn’t know if it was real or not.”

She gave a low chuckle. “Oh, it was real. Like you said, I thought this old buildin’ was gonna crumble it started shakin’ so.”

“Do you know what kind of spell it was?” Ethan asked.

“No,” Janna said. “But it was dark, and strong as can be. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a killin’ spell. But I couldn’t tell what the magick was supposed to do.”

“Neither could I. Do you know where it came from?”

“Somewhere in the city. But you knew that.”

“There aren’t too many of us who can conjure like that,” Ethan said.

She shook her head. “You, me, Ole Black. We’re the only ones I can think of.” Her expression turned sly. “To be honest, Kaille, I figured it was you.”

“It wasn’t. And I don’t think it was Gavin, either.” He raised his eyebrows. “I assume it wasn’t you.”

“Woke me from a deep sleep,” she said.

“So I figured, seeing as you’re awake before noon.” He smiled; she frowned. “I encountered a new conjurer last night, a friend of Sephira’s, I believe. But I don’t think he’s powerful enough to have cast the spell we felt.”

Janna’s frown deepened. “You sure? A dark spell from a friend of Sephira sounds just about right to me.”

“Most times I’d be inclined to agree. And maybe you’re right. I intend to keep an eye on him. But right now, as far as I can tell, he’s not strong enough.”

“If you say so,” Janna said, not sounding convinced.

“Is there anyone else new in town, Janna? Anyone who could cast a spell like this?”

“No one I can think of.”

He had expected her to say as much. “All right,” he said, standing. “My thanks.” He crossed back to the tavern door and pulled it open. “If you hear anything about a new speller in Boston, someone capable of this kind of conjuring, you’ll let me know, right?”

“There any gold in it?”

“I’m not working for anyone. I’m doing this for me.”

“Yeah,” she said, the scowl returning. “I thought so.”

He smiled, stepped out onto the street, and started to pull the door closed.

“Kaille.”

He poked his head back in the tavern.

“You were the first person I thought of; other minds might work the same way. You watch yourself.”

Would she have given such a warning to someone she didn’t like, at least a little? “I will. Again, thank you, Janna.”

After leaving the Fat Spider, Ethan followed Orange Street back north as far as Essex Street, and turned east toward the harbor, making his way past the wharves and stillhouses west of Windmill Point. The sun was higher overhead, warming the air a little, but not enough to drive off the autumn chill. Hundreds of gulls circled over the shoreline, ghostly white against the deep blue sky, their cries echoing through the city streets. A line of cormorants, black as pitch, glided just above the surface of the water.

Ethan could see a few merchant ships on the harbor. Two or three white sails billowed in the distance, and several ships closer to port were already on sweeps. But the fourteen British naval vessels positioned near Castle William, the fortification on Castle Island at the south end of the harbor, dominated the waterways. Even at a distance, Ethan could see red-uniformed soldiers on their decks, and the black iron mouths of the ships’ cannons gaping in the gun ports. Merchant ships piloted by captains less bold than those who had passed the naval vessels on their way to port might already have sailed to Newport or one of the smaller ports in Newbury or Salem. If the Crown’s show of force was intended to choke off the flow of commerce into the city, it appeared to be having the desired effect.

Ethan considered himself a loyalist. He had little patience with those who rioted in the streets, destroying property as a sign of their dissatisfaction with British colonial rule. Boston had seen too much of this in recent years. Three summers before, when Parliament first announced its intent to impose a stamp duty on all official documents, a mob ransacked the residence of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, as well as the houses of several other Crown officials. And this past June, when customs officers seized a ship belonging to John Hancock and accused the merchant of smuggling, agitators in the city again took to the streets, this time threatening physical violence against Crown representatives.

Yet he knew as well that the king’s men were far from blameless. The seizure of Hancock’s ship had been a vast overreaction to the merchant’s failure to submit proper papers for a shipment of Madeira wine, and it had given Samuel Adams and his mischief-makers just the excuse they needed to riot. Throughout the summer, Governor Bernard had threatened-unnecessarily, to Ethan’s mind-to post British army troops throughout the city, and as tension between loyalists and some of Boston’s more outspoken Whigs rose, and rumors of the impending occupation spread, prominent men such as James Otis and Adams spoke with ever-increasing frequency of a looming confrontation.

As a loyal subject of His Majesty King George III, Ethan never had cause to fear any British soldier, at least not before this summer and fall. He had served in the British navy, fought in the Crimean War. He had more in common with the men on those ships than he did with the Adamses, Warrens, and Otises of the world. But he knew better than to think that the hundreds of soldiers waiting out on the harbor had come merely as a demonstration of the Crown’s resolve. Boston was on the verge of becoming an occupied city, and Ethan couldn’t help thinking that the landing of regulars at Boston’s waterfront would lead to problems far worse than those that had brought loyalists and Whigs to this point.

Nevertheless, the city bustled as it would on any day other than the Sabbath. Though it was early still, both Essex Street and Purchase Street, which followed the South End shoreline northward toward the South Battery, were choked with people and carriages. Wharfmen and sailors made their way from warehouse to warehouse looking for a day’s wage. Merchants in silk suits and peddlers in rags jostled one another, trying to find bargains before off-loaded goods reached the markets of Faneuil Hall.