Марк Ньютон - Drakenfeld

After another cup of wine, which we drank in a pleasant, companionable silence, Veron bid me farewell and left me with his list of names. With a good amount of alcohol inside him, he shambled back through the evening streets a relatively happy man. I headed indoors, whereupon Bellona handed me a scroll of messages and another tube, apologizing for not handing them to me earlier.

When Bellona left for her sleeping quarters, I headed into the study and opened up the scroll. Bellona had written the note and I marvelled at how neat and precise her handwriting was. It was heartening to know she had received a good education and I wondered if my father had helped her in any way, perhaps to give her more of a chance, or to aid him in matters of administration. In that moment it occurred to me how little I knew about the woman.

The messages largely consisted of more people asking for help. The owner of a local gem store claimed he had been robbed and wondered if it was possible for me, instead of the cohorts, to investigate the matter.

A priest had tried to speak with me, apparently for the second time. He said he would visit me again. What could a holy man want with me? Since it could have been a matter of a spiritual nature, I made sure to inform Bellona to take a full message from him should he call again, lest the gods get angry with me.

A clerk’s daughter had gone missing late last night and not come home in the morning; and three youths had been spotted harassing a senator and the official in question wondered if I might be able to do something about it.

I shook my head despairingly. Any other month and I would perhaps be in a position to try to help these people, but these were rather trivial matters and I could not afford to lend my time to them. These were issues for the cohorts.

Finally I inspected the tube, which was sealed in wax and stamped with the emblem of the Sun Chamber. I opened it up with a knife and was relieved to see a letter in response to mine. The roads around Detrata were in a good state and a reliable messenger could travel for dozens of miles in a day without much trouble. My initial correspondence had been with the Sun Chamber station at the Three Nations border post, situated where the territories of Detrata, Theran to the east and Maristan to the south all meet, and which is at the other end of the country from Tryum.

The reply had come from a senior official, who acknowledged the importance of my case, approved of my summary and my intentions, and asked whether or not I would like military assistance to be brought closer to the borders, given that the case dealt with the senatorial classes. I exhaled deeply and stared into the distance, contemplating my options.

In no mind to answer such matters, I decided to lay down my head and get some much-needed rest.

I woke with the sun, having enjoyed a pleasant night’s sleep, and spent my first moments thinking entirely of Titiana.

The way she had moved on that platform seemed to have left an echo in my mind, a sight that simply would not shift easily. I began, as always, to over-analyse her gestures and her second glances, weighing up the meaning behind what may well have been utterly without purpose. Long ago I’d realized that I did not expect answers from such mental anguish, but it was good to exercise such old emotional muscles once again.

The clarity of daytime did little to assuage my concerns of her having chosen this lifestyle. There was no shame in what she was doing – dancing was a celebration of the body, after all – but I had seen many times just how badly people could be treated in that profession, and I worried for her safety.

Even though I had absolutely no right to do so.

After consuming a light breakfast I set to work, first examining the list of senators’ names that Veron had provided for me, and later combing through the witness statements again. Leana joined me and confirmed that she had made the payment via the gang leader, who had given her no trouble. In fact, they were too pleasant; they wanted her to stay longer, to buy her drinks, but she wisely decided not to hang around too long and instead absorbed the sights and sounds of the city.

‘Did you have a good night?’ she asked.

I wanted to tell her about Titiana, who I had once mentioned to Leana when we were out working on a case in Venyn. At the time the conversation was purely to take our minds off the gruesome task of cleaning up after a smuggling crackdown had gone wrong, to open up to Leana and show her I was not an emotionless soul. Not that she particularly cared either way.

‘I bumped into Senator Veron,’ I said, ‘who was his usual lively self. We now have a list of senators with whom Lacanta was involved – and possibly intimately so.’

‘This is good,’ Leana replied. ‘But I do not understand him. He seems too friendly, no?’

‘I wouldn’t worry,’ I said. ‘He’s just a politician, hoping to discover gossip or to bank a favour for future usage, but he’s opening doors for us to expand the investigation.’

‘It could be that he is guilty – he comes to find you on the night of the murder to put you off the scent.’

‘I’ve thought about that, but he has witnesses that can vouch for his presence before the incident. A good few people within these statements talk about how he was causing a great deal of fuss because he didn’t like the wine.’

‘Hmm. Will today be as busy as yesterday?’ Leana asked.

‘I hope not. First I’d like to visit the money temples. We need to book an armed escort to accompany the large payment of cash to Veldrum Hecater, and I also need to cash in the remains of my credit note from Venyn – all of it, in fact. Then I will have finally cleared my father’s debts, which should then guarantee we don’t receive further attacks.’

‘Good. That is one less thing to worry about.’ Leana grabbed an apple from the table and bit into it.

‘And after that,’ I continued, ‘it’s straight to Optryx, where—’

There was a banging at the door. Bellona came shuffling through the hallway, wide-eyed, but seemed hesitant to open it to such a vicious pounding. Leana strode over to see what the matter was and, with Bellona, they both unbolted and drew back the heavy door.

I stood up, hearing voices in loud discussion. Presently, three men marched into the room, two of whom were hefty-looking fellows carrying a large trunk; another, much older man followed and he promptly began to order them about.

‘Place it down there, lads,’ he said, gesturing to the middle of the room with his polished walking cane. He was taller than me, at least two decades older, with long grey hair, thin lips and sunken eyes, and he walked with a slight limp that he tried to disguise with his cloak.

‘What’s going on?’ I demanded. ‘And what in Polla’s name is that?’

‘You’re the Drakenfeld boy?’ he snapped.

‘My name is Lucan Drakenfeld, and I haven’t been called a boy in over fifteen years.’

‘Means nothing to me, boy.’ He tapped the trunk with his cane. ‘You can keep your father’s shit here.’

The trunk was similar to the one from the rented office, which I had not yet had the opportunity to revisit. ‘We were legal tenants—’

‘Who have not kept up repayments. I don’t care what deeds you have, or whatever legal terms you folk like to throw around, you’re no longer welcome in my property. Everything that was in those offices is in this trunk – books, papers, and other bits and pieces – the lot.’