L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

“Doesn’t belong to anyone here. Brigands left it. Happens sometimes.” Kesal glanced into the cart bed. “It’s clean. Peddler.”

Cerryl walked to the other side of the cart, where he found a blackened patch just below the seat and a gouge in the wood. The two brass rivets had been ripped out of the wood.

“They use a long iron bar, ser,” Kesal said. “Rip off the medallion. That way we can’t tell who it belonged to, not unless someone comes to us, and if it’s a trader who travels around…could be a season or more.”

“There’s no flux or chaos in the horse. Looks like they just flogged it until it foundered and died.”

“A waste…had to be city brigands,” suggested Kesal.

Cerryl looked at the dead horse. Was that salt and sweat on its coat? Why would anyone push a horse that hard? Especially given what horses were worth? And how…within the confines of Fairhaven? After a moment, as the early-morning sunlight spilled into the alleyway, he let his senses range over the cart, trying to see if he could feel anything.

Something? The faintest sliver of order? Under the rear of the cart seat was a small fragment of cloth, not even so large as his thumbnail, that he eased from where it had lodged in a small split in the wood. Or had it been placed there? He studied the fragment, not just cloth-silksheen from Naclos. He’d only seen scarves of silksheen once, but they cost as much as a blade or a mount, some did.

“Silksheen,” he murmured, letting Kesal see the fragment before slipping it into his belt wallet.

Kesal nodded sadly. “If that was what the cart carried, a duke’s ransom or more, we’ll be finding the body in the last sewer pond drained. They know which one will be last.”

“They?”

“Whoever killed him.”

Cerryl wanted to frown. That sort of peacebreaking wasn’t supposed to happen in peaceful Fairhaven. Not at all, and Kesal acted as if it were common-or, at least, not uncommon. He tried to think. “Who would buy silksheen? Who could afford it?”

“No one in the southeast section.” Kesal laughed ironically.

“How many bodies will there be in the settling ponds?”

“Hard to say, ser. Might not be any. Usually they find one or two, though.”

Myral hadn’t mentioned bodies in the ponds when Cerryl had learned all about the sewers from the older mage…just that Cerryl should look into any that he found in the sewers. Was that because entering the sewers meant breaking through chaos locks?

“No owner’s marks on the horse, ser,” Bleren announced.

“Unhitch the cart.” Kesal turned to Pikek. “Once it’s clear, you go to the main Patrol building and tell them to collect the cart. Then come back and find us.” The lead patroller looked at Cerryl. “Someone will buy it at the auction.”

Cerryl waited until the two patrollers had wrestled the cart and harness away from the dead horse. Pikek glanced at Kesal, getting a nod, and then turned and walked quickly westward and toward the Avenue.

“What be going on?” A man in brown peered out a door looking into the alley.

“Is this your cart?” asked Kesal.

“No, ser. Never saw it before.” The man’s eyes darted from Kesal to Cerryl and then to the cart before going back to Cerryl.

“Good. It was stolen.”

“Ser, I never saw a purple cart like that-except ones in the Market Square.” The man in brown closed the door with a thud .

“Ser, if you wouldn’t mind…” Kesal glanced toward the dead horse.

“There’s nothing else we can find out from the horse?”

“A ten-year-old chestnut, I’d guess. No markings, no ear notches-could be scores around Fairhaven. Unless someone reports the theft, we’ll never find out.”

Cerryl nodded, then studied the dead animal. After a moment, he gathered chaos around him, then released it.

Whhsttt! The dead horse vanished with the burst of chaos fire, and white ashes sifted across the worn paving stones of the alley.

“Bleren, you wait for the collectors,” ordered Kesal.

“Yes, ser.” The patroller brushed back his wispy strawberry blonde hair and offered another gap-toothed smile.

“We’ll be going east on the Tanners’ Way then coming back on the Way of the Masons.”

Bleren nodded.

As Cerryl and Kesal walked out of the alley and back to the street, Cerryl asked, “How often does this happen?”

“With the body missing? A couple of times a year. Usually, we find the body with the cart.” Kesal laughed harshly. “Most times we still don’t know who it is.”

“Might not have even been silksheen in the cart,” Cerryl hazarded.

“It probably was, or something just as costly. The cart bed was clean.”

The two paused before crossing to the next block as a narrow wagon creaked by. The white-haired driver barely looked at the four patrollers. After the wagon turned westward on the Way of the Tanners, toward the Avenue, Chulk crossed back to the north side of the street.

Kesal took a deep breath, then shook his head, squinting into the low eastern sun. “Tannery row…could do without the smell.”

Cerryl nodded, his eyes going to the familiar sign in the block ahead: ARKOS-TANNER. The iron grate was swung back from the ancient oak door, and the door stood ajar. Flanking the door were two iron-grated windows. The Patrol mage sniffed at the acrid odors drifting into the street from the vats concealed behind the recently whitewashed plaster walls, an acrid scent that mixed with the smell of greasy meat being fried somewhere nearby. How many times had he run from Tellis’s shop down to Arkos’s to fetch parchment or vellum for some book or another? It almost seemed like another life. Then…it had been.

“You know the place?” asked Kesal.

“Yes. I used to fetch vellum for Master Tellis. Scriveners’ apprentices get to know tanners.”

“Maybe we should say ‘good day’ to him,” suggested Kesal.

“He probably won’t recognize me.” Cerryl glanced at Kesal. “You think he’s doing something to break the peace?”

“I don’t know. He is from Spidlar, and too many strangers visit here. That’s what Fystl told me, and I’ve seen a few myself over the past eight-day.”

Was the patroller reflecting the Guild’s growing dislike of Spidlar? Or was it just the bad reputation of Spidlarians? Or was Arkos indeed involved in some hidden form of peacebreaking? “Could he be smuggling?”

“He gets a lot of hides in wagons,” reflected Kesal. “I don’t worry about the hides, but you can put oils and things in leather containers, and most gate mages can’t sense them. Unless the stuff is metal,” he added.

“He’s one of the better tanners,” said Cerryl. “Why would he risk smuggling?”

“Why does anyone risk breaking the peace?” asked the wiry and bearded patrol leader, his voice dry.

“So you think it wouldn’t hurt for Arkos to know that the Patrol is interested?”

“It never hurts to show interest. Specially before someone draws bare steel or bronze.”

“And especially when you have a Patrol mage with you?”

Kesal grinned, then shrugged. “Well…ser.” He turned to the swarthy Olbel. “We’re going into the tanner’s.”

“I’ll be out here.” Olbel grinned, teeth white against his dusky skin.

The hatchet-faced Arkos seemed to shiver behind the worktable as Kesal and Cerryl entered the small front room. His eyes widened as they flicked from the patroller to the mage, and he bowed quickly. He did not look at Cerryl, but at Kesal.

The odor of frying meat was heavy, almost rancid, within the tanner’s room, and Cerryl swallowed quietly.

“Ser Arkos,” said the lead patroller jovially, “I just thought you’d like to meet one of the section Patrol mages. Mage Cerryl here is new to the southeast section.”