L. E.Modesitt - Imager’s Intrigue

At that point, Seliora and I just grinned and listened.

After I walked them to the door at NordEste Design, still holding my shields, and then walked back to the duty coach, I scanned the newsheets on the ride to the station, but there was nothing new, except for a report that the Ferrans were sending more land-cruisers to the border with Jariola.

I wasn’t looking forward to duty, not at all, but I would be able to start circulating a description of Haerasyn and the stolen jewelry, both to Third District patrollers and to all the other districts. The Third District patrollers were more likely to keep an eye out for him, but it was always possible patrollers in other districts might see him. If Haerasyn happened to be smart about it, he’d stay well away from Third District. But then, stealing from a relative of a Civic Patrol officer wasn’t the brightest of acts.

Delanyn smiled as I walked into the station. “Good morning, Captain.”

“Good morning. Quiet so far?”

“Yes, sir.”

I hadn’t expected anything else. Very little happened early on Samedi, except for the business of making sure that the offenders brought in on Vendrei evening were secure for the weekend, since they stayed at the station until Lundi morning, when they’d be sent to headquarters for charging, or quietly released if their only offense had been being too rowdy.

I stood at the duty desk reading the log and round reports. There had been three more elver deaths since I’d left the station on Vendrei, one in the taudis and two in other areas. A tinsmith’s apprentice had been found dead in the alley behind the shop, at Sudroad and the Avenue D’Artisans, and the body of a well-dressed young woman had been found seated on a bench in the gardens behind the Anomen D’Este.

The second case seemed odd, and I went over Freasyn’s report. There was absolutely nothing that would identify the woman, who was reported as being in her early twenties, but Freasyn had noted that her wrists appeared bruised, and that she barely smelled of elveweed, although a smoked pipe had been found just beyond her hand, and the remnants of elveweed had been the greener and stronger variety.

I looked to the duty patroller. “Delanyn…has the body wagon been here yet?”

“No, sir. Should be any moment, though.”

I turned and headed toward the rear of the station. “I’m going to look at the woman elver.”

“Yes, sir.”

The body room was the last chamber in the station, with thick walls, and in fall and winter the barred windows were opened to keep it cool. I opened the door, ready for anything, but the day was early and cool, and the only smells were that of faint decay and stale elveweed. Three bodies lay on the long tables, uncovered. There wasn’t any sense in covering them. I moved to the body in the gray woolen suit on the second table.

The woman hadn’t been all that much older than my sister Khethila, but she’d been attractive, possibly beautiful when animated by that spirit we call life, with lustrous shoulder-length blonde hair. From the piercings in her earlobes, she’d been wearing earrings, but they were missing. I studied her hair, and there was something like lint in it. A red woolen scarf with a weave pattern I didn’t recognize was arranged around her neck. A scarf, and it was still largely in place? I eased it away from her neck, revealing an abrasion on the left side, as if a chain or necklace had been roughly removed. There were ring marks on her fingers, but not where a wedding band would have rested.

Most important, every elver I’d ever run across, dead or alive, had reeked of the weed. This one didn’t. Oh, there was a faint odor, but nothing like the overpowering stench that emanated from them. There was another odor, even fainter, that I recognized from my training with Master Dichartyn. That was pitricin-a poison that also sent a victim into convulsions if administered orally. That explained the bruises on her wrists. She’d been restrained forcibly, probably with a towel across her clothes, while someone had squirted the poison down her throat. But why would anyone do it that way? Pitricin could easily be added to wine or other liquids that would mask its taste…at least for long enough that the victim wouldn’t be able to do much about it.

I could see trying to cover a murder with the idea of elveweed excess, but there was something else about it…

I studied the body again. She’d been wearing a long skirt, but I didn’t see any shoes or boots. Then I looked at her feet. They were cut and bruised in places. I checked the skirt. The seams near the bottom had been strained and stretched. She’d been running, barefoot.

For all that, there was still something I was missing. Even if I couldn’t figure it all out, I had an idea who might be able to help.

I eased the woolen jacket and the scarf off the body and draped them loosely over my arm, then walked from the chill of the body room, closing the heavy door behind me, back to the duty desk.

Delanyn looked up as I stopped in front of the high counter.

“We’re going to hold the woman elver’s body until tomorrow.”

“Sir…?”

“She’s not that far gone, and it was cold last night. I need to check on something. Put it down in the logs as my orders.”

“Yes, sir.” He shifted his weight on the tall stool and looked inquiringly at me.

“She was murdered. Most likely pitricin poisoning. I’m going to see someone who might be able to tell me about her…or at least where she might be from.”

My words got a nod and a “Yes, sir.”

As I headed out to hail a hack, I had no doubt that at least a few patrollers would hear about what I’d said. I’d have preferred not to explain, even as much as I had, but Patrol Captains who did strange things without explanations created rumors more destructive than the disclosure of information could ever be. That had been what I’d observed.

It took me half a glass to get a hack and to travel to Alusine Wool. There were only two carriages waiting outside. I stepped out of the hack, alert and shields held firmly, as they always were from the time I woke until the time I went to sleep.

The factorage remained the same old one-story yellow-brick structure I’d always known, a long building stretching close to eighty yards and fronting West River Road. Khethila had nagged Father to enlarge the covered entry in the middle of the building to make it more impressive, and he’d finally given in, just before he’d agreed to let her take over the factorage in Kherseilles. I still wasn’t certain how much of her pressure for improvements had come from a desire to improve the image and the clientele and how much had been part of her stratagem to pressure Father to let her take over running the Kherseilles factorage. Still, even Father had admitted the improvements in the entrance and the more open space just inside the doors seemed to have improved business.

The loading docks were out of sight in the rear, as they always had been. As I hurried up the three steps to the double oak doors, I noted that it was about time to re-varnish them and repaint the dark green casement trim, but I wasn’t about to suggest that at the moment. Once inside, I crossed the open space to the racks that held the swathes of various wools. To the left were the racks with the lighter fabrics-muslin, cotton, linen. Despite the factorage’s name, Father had always carried a considerable range of fabrics.

“Master Rhennthyl, what a surprise!” Eilthyr was now totally bald, but his smile was welcoming and genuine. After ten years, he remained in charge of the day-to-day work on the floor.

“I was looking for Father.” The raised platform at the back, from where Father could sit at his desk and survey everything, was empty.