The Black Bouquet r-2 Read online

  She cursed under her breath. She wasn't fond of cities in general with their crowds, dirt, and stink, and crumbling Oeble seemed a particularly obnoxious one.

  By the Hornblade, she thought, the spires look as if they might collapse at any second.

  Every other person on the street seemed either to slink furtively or to affect a bravo's strut and sneer. Indeed, every third passerby was a pig-faced, olive-skinned orc or some sort of goblin-kin. She would have had no trouble believing the town was as foul a nest of villains as rumor maintained even if she hadn't suffered an overt demonstration of its lawlessness.

  She wheeled the mare and cantered back to the Paeraddyn, where someone had already found a couple healers to tend the injured warriors. It didn't look as if the outlaws had actually killed more than a couple of her warriors. She supposed that was good, though in her present humor, she was half inclined to cut down a few of them herself. Stupid, incompetent-

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, controlling the anger, or at least redirecting it toward the proper target. She had no business scorning the mercenaries for failing to protect the treasure. Ultimately, it had been her responsibility and, maddeningly, her failure, just a few scant minutes before she might have divested herself of her charge.

  Hostegym Longstride hobbled up to her with a faltering gait that belied his surname. Not seeing any blood on the burly, azure-cloaked mercenary, Miri surmised that one of the thieves had scored on him with a shrewd kick to the knee, a stamp to the foot, or some such.

  "Most of our lads should survive," he rumbled. "Most of the inn's guards, too, if you care."

  "How about the three thieves who didn't get away?" she replied, swinging herself down off her horse. The motion made the top of her head throb where the fraudulent beggar had kicked her.

  "All dead," the mercenary captain said. "The arrows and crossbow bolts killed the men outright, and it looks like the big wench broke her neck bouncing down the steps."

  "Piss and dung," Miri swore. She'd hoped to question one of them.

  A hostler, a pimply, gangling youth, scurried up to her.

  "Madame… m-madame ranger?" he stammered, as if uncertain of the proper way to address her, or else simply afraid she might take out her frustrations on him. "A gentleman inside the inn wants to talk to you."

  "I'm sure he does. Take care of my mount." She handed the boy the reins, then glanced at Hostegym and added, "You might as well come along, too."

  They headed into the common room of the inn. Judging by the babble, the dozen or so voices shouting for the taverner's or a serving maid's attention, the excitement of the robbery and brawl had engendered quite a thirst in those who'd simply stood and watched the show. A white, soft-looking hand beckoned through a curtain of yellow glass beads. The scout and mercenary passed through the glittering strands and down a little passage lined with private chambers. The door to the last one on the left was ajar. They stepped through and seated themselves on the opposite side of a scarred, rectangular table from the man they'd come to meet. The small window was closed and shuttered, and the dim, confined space was stuffy with the trapped heat of a warm autumn afternoon.

  Catching a first glimpse of that clean, well-tended hand, Miri had immediately guessed it had never performed any task more strenuous than guiding a quill across a piece of parchment. Seeing its owner up close reinforced the impression. Plump, clad in an unpretentious yet well-tailored tunic and breeches, dove gray with brown accents, he had the look of a chief clerk or steward, a highly placed functionary who spent his days assigning work to other people. Yet the set of his fleshy jaw bespoke a certain resolution, and his brown eyes, a wry intelligence, that persuaded her to defer the contempt she generally felt for such citified parasites.

  "So," he said.

  "You are…?" Miri prompted.

  "The man you were supposed to meet," he said. "The fellow who would have examined the item, then gone and fetched the coin and letters of credit if everything was in order. We don't need to throw names around. Certainly not now."

  "I thought this Paeraddyn place was supposed to be safe," Hostegym grumbled.

  "My master's house is safe," the Oeble man replied, a thin edge of anger in his mild, reasonable baritone voice, "but your employer insisted we make the exchange on neutral ground, no doubt so I'd have difficulty simply seizing the item and refusing to pay the balance due."

  "The folk of Oeble," Miri said, "even the more reputable ones, enjoy a certain notoriety."

  "And sometimes," the pudgy man said, "a man spends so much effort looking over his shoulder for dragons that he walks right up on a bear. But I suppose it will do no good to debate what we ought to have done."

  "I assume," Miri said, "that even Oeble has some sort of watch, or constables."

  The man across the table nodded and said, "The Gray Blades, and I daresay they'll make a genuine effort to find a robber who committed an outrage in the Paer. Indeed, my patron can take measures to encourage them to do their utmost. But let's not tell them what the rogue stole."

  "Surely if they knew how valuable it-"

  "Within a day, every scoundrel in town would know it, too, and that might be less than helpful. We can still reclaim our property if and when the Gray Blades actually recover it."

  Miri scowled and said, "You don't seem confident they will."

  "They're competent, some are even halfway honest, but they only number about thirty. Oeble is a big place and, I must concede, a rogue's haven, where every day dozens of new crimes compete for the law's attention. We'll just have to hope for the best."

  "That's not good enough," Miri said. The warm, stale air was oppressive, and made her head pound. She irritably tugged at her green leather armor, pulling it away from her neck to help her breathe. "We'll find the wretch ourselves."

  Hostegym grunted and said, "I wonder if that's a practical idea."

  "I'm a scout," she said. "A tracker and hunter. It's what I do."

  "It's what you do out in the woods," the mercenary leader replied. "What makes you think you'll have the same kind of luck in a warren like this?"

  "Your friend may have a point," the functionary said. "I don't mean to discourage you. As I understand it, your employer has his own problems, and urgently needs the rest of his coin. To say the least, it's in everyone's best interests that we recover the item and complete our transaction. But it won't help anybody if you, Mistress Buckman, merely wind up getting tossed on the Dead Cart."

  Miri made a spitting sound and said, "You must be joking. It's only one man who got away."

  "If you truly mean to do this," the functionary said, "you'd better get that notion right out of your head. Oeble is full of knaves who'll resent strangers asking questions about one of their own, or about anything, really."

  "Fine, point taken. But surely they're no match for a band of trained warriors."

  The Oeble man arched an eyebrow.

  "All right," she said, "I admit, the four rogues made us look like idiots, but only because they had magic and luck on their side. The wizard's dead now, and the whoreson who jumped off the wall has surely run through all the good fortune the Lady Who Smiles was willing to grant him."

  "That's as may be," Hostegym said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair, "but I have to tell you, Miri, if you go ahead with this, you won't have that 'band of trained warriors' watching your back. The lads and me, we're done."

  "What?" she cried.

  "Now, don't glare like that. We signed on to get your mysterious saddlebag to Oeble, and we did. We fulfilled the letter of the contract."

  She laughed and replied, "Do you honestly expect me to see it that way, and meekly hand over the rest of your coin? I couldn't even if I were willing. I was supposed to pay you out of what our contact here was going to give me."

  The beefy warrior frowned.

  "Ouch," he said. "That's bad news."

  "So I take it we're still in this together?"

  Hostegym sat
pondering for a heartbeat or two, then finally shook his head and answered, "No, I don't think so. You know what the boys and I are good at. That's why you hired us. We understand fighting on horseback, watching for bandits and trolls in open country. We're not thief takers, and I don't think we'd fare well playing at it in a place as tricky as Oeble. Fortunately, caravans leave from here all the time, and I reckon the smart way for us to make more coin is to take another job as guards. Come with us if you like. We'd be glad to have you."

  She glared at him and said, "You miserable, treacherous coward…"

  "Call me all the names you like. It won't change anything. The fact is, the 'item' is lost because you made a mistake. When the thieves were on the steps, you could have shot the fellow with the saddlebag first, before your bowstring broke."

  He was right, of course. It had been the only sensible thing to do. Yet she hadn't, and didn't quite know why. Perhaps it was because she'd recognized that, a minute or two earlier, the bogus beggar could easily have killed her, yet had contented himself with knocking her down and kicking her. Thus, she'd felt obliged to give him one last chance to surrender.

  Seeing she had no answer, Hostegym heaved himself to his feet, wincing as his bad leg took his weight.

  "I guess we'll stay here at the inn until we land another job," he said. "If you see reason, come find us."

  He nodded to the plump man, then limped out the door.

  "Does this change your mind?" the functionary asked.

  "No," Miri said. "In my guildhouse, they teach us to honor our commitments. I'll recover the item by myself."

  "Do you have any idea how?"

  "Well, at least I got a look at the thief." The wretch had been lean and fit, with green eyes and keen, intelligent features. Given his agility, she assumed the sores on his legs were fake. Perhaps his goatee was, also. "But beyond that…"

  She shrugged.

  "Well, I know my master will want me to give you all the help I can," the functionary said. "Unfortunately, we don't have many contacts among the gangs and other outlaws. No matter what outsiders may believe, Oeble does have some citizens who don't work hand-in-glove with the robbers and smugglers. But at the very least, I can provide some general information."

  Miri nodded and said, "Tell me."

  CHAPTER 2

  Aeron skulked up the twisting stairs with the saddlebag tucked under one arm, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be lurking there. The risers, a number of which were soft with dry rot or broken outright, would have creaked and groaned beneath most people's feet, but were silent under his. He knew where and how to step.

  As usual, he reached his own door without incident. Considering that his father was a cripple, some might think it ridiculous that after all those years they still lived on the uppermost floor of a dilapidated tower. But it was marginally safer. The average housebreaker wouldn't climb so high just to break into such humble lodgings. And in any case, Nicos sar Randal refused to move. He liked the view.

  In fact, once Aeron stepped inside the small, sparsely furnished room, locking and barring the door behind himself with reflexive caution, he saw that his father was enjoying the vista even then. The older man sprawled in a chair on the sagging balcony with its broken railing, looking out over the River Scelptar. The sunset stained the water red and burnished the three bridges arching over the flow. The floods carried the spans away every spring, and Oeble rebuilt them every summer. At the moment, they were likely the only spanking new structures in all the ancient city.

  Nicos was gaunt, and no longer young, but younger than his frailty made him appear. His scars, the creases on his face and skinny limbs and the noose-mark around his neck, looked as purple as plums in the failing light

  "Come watch the sun go down," he rasped.

  Once upon a time, he'd possessed a voice as rich as a bard's, but the rope had taken it.

  "In a minute," Aeron replied.

  Glum as he felt, he would have preferred solitude, but didn't have the heart to say so. He peeled off his beggar's rags, tossed them on the floor, poured water from the porcelain pitcher into the cracked bowl, and scrubbed the bogus sores off his legs and the brown dye from his coppery hair, eyebrows, and beard. That accomplished, he pulled on one of the slate-gray borato shirts he favored, found a bottle of white wine in the little wrought iron rack, and carried it and the saddlebag out onto the balcony.

  He opened the sour vintage with a corkscrew, and he and his father passed the green glass container back and forth until the scarlet rim of the sun cut the hills to the west.

  Nicos said, "What's wrong?"

  "What makes you think anything's wrong?"

  "I know you, don't I? I can read it in your face and the way you carry yourself."

  Aeron sighed. He sometimes tried to avoid telling his father about his various jobs, because it made him fret. But somehow he generally wound up confiding in him anyway.

  "I stole something this afternoon."

  "I assumed you didn't buy the pouch," Nicos replied, "or what's inside it."

  "No. It was a complicated kind of job. I needed help, and things went awry."

  Nicos nodded somberly. Probably he was remembering times when his own thefts didn't go as planned.

  "I take it one of your helpers came to grief."

  "Not one. All three. Kerridi, Gavath, and Dal."

  "Damn. I'm sorry." Nicos took a slug of wine, then passed the bottle and asked, "Are they dead, or did the Gray Blades take them alive?"

  "I think they're all three dead."

  "Well, that's sad, but likely best for you and them both."

  "I know. It's just… I had to dry Dal out to make him fit to work. I had to buy him new powders, trinkets, and whatnot to cast his spells. I felt smug-proud of myself for being a true friend and helping him out that way. Now it turns out what I was really doing was digging his grave."

  "You can't blame yourself. He knew the risks. They all did."

  "I suppose."

  Nicos hesitated, then said, "You needn't feel guilty, but you can learn from what happened. Rethink the path you've-"

  "Please," Aeron snapped, "let's not argue about that all over again. I relish stealing as much as you did in your day, I'm just as good at it, and I can't think of any honest work I could do that would bring in enough to pay for all your poultices and medicines."

  Nicos spat, "Don't put it on me. I never asked you to risk your neck just to ease my aches and pains."

  "You didn't have to."

  "Anyway, if you're such a clever thief, why did your plan turn to dung?"

  "Because I dared to steal something inside the walls of the Paeraddyn, I suppose."

  Nicos blinked and said, "You're joking."

  "No. Kesk Turnskull hired me to do it."

  "The tanarukk? You're even madder than I dreamed. I'd better have the story quickly, before you take it into your head to jump off the balcony, just to find out if you can fly."

  And so, as the sky blackened, the stars twinkled into view, and the fishermen plying the river in their skiffs lit the colored lanterns hanging fore and aft, Aeron told the tale. Nicos hunched forward, intent, fascinated despite himself. He might worry about his only son's manner of living, but he enjoyed hearing about his escapades. Aeron knew he remained a thief at heart, and would still be robbing folk himself if only his broken body would allow.

  Perhaps it was his father's grudging admiration, or simply the wine warming his belly, but as he related the events of the afternoon, Aeron's sorrow receded somewhat, making way for a swelling of pride. Because, though he'd paid a heavy price for his boldness, he'd taken loot from within the Paeraddyn, and in all Oeble, what other knave could say the same?

  The story and the wine finished together. He set the empty bottle down carefully. Put one in the wrong spot, and it would topple over and roll off the slanted platform, perhaps to brain some luckless soul passing in the street below.

  His scars and infirmity veiled in darkn
ess, Nicos sat quietly for a few more seconds, evidently pondering, then asked, "If you'd known, would you still have tried?"

  "Known which?"

  "That someone cast spells of warding on the saddlebag. That it had so many able warriors looking after it."

  Aeron shrugged and said, "Probably. If we'd known about them, maybe Dal could have neutralized the other mage's enchantments. Then, using the potion, I could have stolen the prize without anyone noticing, and it wouldn't have mattered how many guards were hanging around. But of course, we didn't know. If Kesk had any notion how well protected the prize would be, he didn't see fit to warn me."

  "Maybe for fear you'd pass on the job."

  "Maybe," said Aeron. "I certainly wouldn't put it past the ugly bastard to withhold vital information."

  Aeron pulled open the mouth of the scuffed old saddlebag, slipped out the steel lockbox inside, and hefted it in his hands. It weighed several pounds, and didn't clink or rattle when shaken. Almost any sort of treasure might rest inside.

  He rose and fetched his pigskin pouch of picks and probes.

  Nicos gave a disapproving grunt and asked, "Do you think Kesk would like you opening the box?"

  "Since he specifically told me not to, I doubt it, but I want to see what my partners died for."

  "Well, if you must do it, at least make sure you don't break the lock, or-"

  "Or leave any telltale scratches around it I know."

  Though he wasn't as adept at teasing open locks as some thieves, Aeron thought he could manage it.

  As soon as he inserted a fine steel rod in the keyhole, however, a thunderclap boomed. The blast of sound jolted pain through his bones, kicked the strongbox out of his lap, and sent him tumbling backward in his rickety old chair. Worse, it set the whole balcony bouncing up and down. Aeron lay perfectly still, terrified, certain that the platform was about to tear free of its moorings at last.

  Gradually, though, the oscillation subsided, and he lifted his head. Nicos's seat had remained upright, but scooted to the very brink of the balcony, where luckily the older man had fetched up against an intact section of railing, which sufficed to keep him from falling over. Aeron scrambled forward and hauled his wide-eyed parent back from the edge.