Brian McCLELLAN: Promise of Blood

The Lourent family had hired him to look into the checkered past of their youngest daughter’s suitor. The whole affair had ended badly when he was forced to expose the man as a fraud.

“No, not the Lourent case. Bigger than that.” Adamat turned at soft footfalls in the hall. “Astrit,” he said softly. His youngest daughter held a frayed, stuffed dog under one arm. She wore her nightgown and an old pair of Faye’s slippers that were several sizes too big, and in the dim light she looked like a miniature version of her mother. She tilted her head quizzically. Adamat said, “Go get your travel coat, darling. You’re going on a trip.”

“Do I have to wear a dress?” she asked.

Adamat forced a smile. “No, love, just a travel coat over your nightgown. You’re leaving very soon. Don’t forget your shoes.”

She smiled at him and turned, skipping down the hallway, the old stuffed dog dangling from one hand. Her older siblings gave her odd looks as they began to emerge from their rooms.

“Josep,” Adamat said to his oldest son. “Get your brothers and sisters ready to go. Quickly. Get them all to pack a bag for a few weeks.”

The boy was a serious youth, just past his sixteenth year and on holiday from school. He rubbed nervously at the ring on his finger; it had been a gift from Adamat’s father before the old man passed, and the boy was seldom without it. Josep waited a moment for an explanation. When none was forthcoming, he nodded before herding his siblings back to their rooms.

Good lad. Adamat turned back to Faye, who was now sitting up in bed. She ran a hand through her hair, pulling at tangles.

“You’d better have a good explanation,” she said. “What has happened? Is there danger to the children? To you? Is this about some new job you’ve taken? I told you to stop snooping after noblemen’s wives and going on about other people’s business.”

Adamat closed his eyes. “I’m an investigator, my dear. Other people’s business is my business. There will be riots. I want you and the children out of the city within the hour. Just a precaution, of course.”

“Why will there be riots?”

Damned woman. What he’d give for an obedient wife. “There has been a coup. Manhouch will face the guillotine at noon.”

He had the brief satisfaction of watching her jaw drop. Then she was on her feet, headed toward the closet. Adamat watched her for a moment. Her body was more angular than it had once been; sharp elbows and wrinkled skin in place of soft curves and a gentle, lovely plumpness. The years since his retirement from the force had taken their toll on her, and she was not as beautiful as in her youth. Adamat pictured himself. He was no one to judge. Short, balding, his round face grown leaner over the years, his mustache and beard thinner. He wasn’t exactly as young as he used to be. Still… he bit his lower lip as he watched Faye, entertaining actions that would need to wait some time.

She turned, saw him watching her. “You’re coming with us, aren’t you?” she said.

“No.”

She paused. “Why not?”

He should lie. Tell her he had previous commitments. “I’ve become… involved.”

“Oh no. Adamat, what the pit did you do?”

He stifled a smile. He loved it when she swore. “Not like that. No. Tonight’s summons. Field Marshal Tamas has a task for me.”

She scowled. “Only he’d have the rocks to pull down a king. Well, stop grinning and summon a carriage and help the children with their shoes.” She made a brushing motion with her hand. “Go on!”

Twenty minutes later, Adamat watched as his family piled into a pair of carriages. He paid the drivers and stood for a moment with his wife. “If the riots seem to be moving toward you, don’t hesitate to take the children to Deliv. I’ll come find you when things have settled down.”

Faye’s face – usually harsh, firmly disapproving – was suddenly soft. She was young again in his eyes, a worried girl waiting for her lover to walk the midnight roads. She leaned forward and kissed him tenderly on the lips. “What should I tell the children?”

“Don’t lie to them,” Adamat said. “They’re old enough.”

“They’ll worry. Especially Astrit.”

“Of course,” Adamat said.

Faye sniffed. “I haven’t been to Offendale since we went on holiday after Astrit was born. Is the house there in good order?”

“It’ll be small,” Adamat said. “Cozy. But safe. Do you remember our code phrases? The post office is in the next town. I’ll send a letter to Saddie asking her to bring you the mail.”

“Is all that necessary?” Faye asked. “I thought it was just riots.”

“Field Marshal Tamas is a dangerous man,” Adamat said. “I don’t…” He paused. “Just as a precaution. Humor me.”

Faye said, “Of course. Take care of yourself.” Adamat returned his wife’s kiss, then leaned in the window of each carriage in turn, giving every one of the nine children a kiss, two for each of the twins. He stopped at Astrit and knelt down on the floor of the carriage to look her in the eye. “You’ll be away for a couple of weeks. The city is going to be a bit rough.”

“Why aren’t you coming?” she asked.

“I’ve got to help make it safer.” He thought of Kresimir’s Broken Promise. The words made him shiver.

“Are you cold?” Astrit asked.

He brushed a finger across her cheek. “Yes,” he said. “It’s very chilly. I’d better go in before I catch cold. Have a safe trip!”

He closed the carriage door and stood in the street, watching them trundle off until they turned a corner. He would miss Faye for many reasons. When it came to his investigations, she was more than a wife to him. She was a partner. She had a vast network of friends and acquaintances and knew how to coerce gossip to find out information that even he could not turn up.

He headed back to the house, stopping for a moment only as he saw a movement in a doorway across the street. A young man in a long, stiff coat emerged from the shadows and headed off in the opposite direction from the carriages. He spared one glance for Adamat and doubled his step.

Adamat watched the young man go, making sure the stranger felt his gaze. One of Palagyi’s goons, no doubt. Adamat would hear from him shortly. Adamat returned to the house, locking the door behind him, and went immediately to the study. He dug through his desk drawers until he found a stack of stationery.

The sun had finally touched his study window, looking in over the houses and the distant mountains, when Adamat finished addressing letters. His hand ached from writing, and his candle had burned to a nub. He yawned, letting his mind wander for a moment, when the faint scratching sound of metal on metal caught his ear.

Adamat pushed the whole stack of letters into a desk drawer and locked it. He picked up his cane and twisted until it clicked, then walked through the house, listening for the sound. He reached a rear door, small and old, that led to an overgrown trellis in what amounted to their garden between their house and the one behind it. The garden could be reached from the house itself or from a small corridor that ran between two houses, which contained a locked gate.

Adamat jerked the door open, cane in hand. Three men stared back at him. Two of them wore the faded coats and simple brimmed hats of street workers. The one’s knees and shirtsleeves were stained black – likely from shoveling coal into a furnace – and the second, the lockpick, wore clothes much too big for him, the common practice of a street thief who wanted to secret a number of things about his person. The third man was richly dressed, a gray overcoat over a sharp black waistcoat, and had shoes shined well enough that one could check one’s teeth in them.