Fanuilh by Daniel Hood (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📗

was interrogatory, like a question mark stamped down on his thoughts.

"I don't know, maybe some spell that will make me irresistibly fascinating, so that he can't tear himself away from me. Maybe a love potion, so he'll confess all his soul's secrets to me .... "

I know very few spells, and none like that.

"I was joking," Liam explained. "Have you any practical ideas on the subject?"

I am not sure if Marcius is the proper suspect.

"I'm not sure either, Fanuilh, but there has to be some sort of order to my investigation, or I might as well just send out criers asking the killer to show himself in the town square at noon."

I understand. I simply do not believe it is worth spending the time.

"Well, then," Liam said with an exasperated sigh, "it's a good thing it's not you who'll have to spend the time, isn't it? Besides, he may lead elsewhere, like Viyescu. I'd never thought a druggist could kill, and still am not inclined that way, but he told me about this mysterious girl. I presume you know what I'm talking about?"

The dragon cocked its head and looked at him, as though the question were strange.

Of course. I can—

"Pluck the thoughts right out of my head?" he said ruefully. Another thought began slowly to form, but he tensed and hurried on. It faded away. "Do you remember what she looked like?"

I did not see her. I only heard a voice.

"How did she sound? Young? Old? Angry? Sad? What?"

Seductive.

Fanuilh replied with such certainty that Liam was momentarily taken aback. By the dragon's recollection, the woman had visited Tarquin on the afternoon Viyescu's sinner had stormed out of his shop, but if she had been angry with the wizard for getting her pregnant, would she have sounded seductive? Perhaps Fanuilh had misunderstood her tone.

She cooed.

"All right," he said aloud, "I believe you. She was seductive. But why? Viyescu implied that someone, perhaps Tarquin, had gotten her pregnant, and that she was angry about it. So why coo?"

I do not know. I only heard her coo before Master Tanaquil sent me away.

Liam began pacing thoughtfully around the room, idly picking up glass jars and books and strange tools without paying them much attention. He leaned against the middle worktable, where a single lonely glass decanter stood. Picking it up, he tossed it from hand to hand as he thought. The label, a small square of white paper pasted to the smooth surface, read VIRGIN'S BLOOD, though the beaker was empty and a thick black X lay over the words. Liam grimaced and put the decanter down.

The dragon did not interrupt him, but he found it annoying to know that all his mental processes were constantly open to observation. He itched to be able to keep his head to himself. Despite the irritation, however, he came around to an idea.

"Fanuilh, do you remember a woman who was here during the summer? Sort of pretty, dark-haired, a girl, really?"

Donoé. Master Tarquin called her his 'little barmaid.'

Pleasantly surprised, Liam smiled. "His 'little barmaid', eh? Did she come often?"

Perhaps three or four times, but she was not the one who cooed.

"I didn't think so. Do you know where she was a barmaid?"

You think she might help you find the cooer.

"It's a possibility, you have to admit."

I do not know where she worked.

"Then perhaps Coeccias can scour all the taverns in the city, eh?" He only half-meant it.

Not all the taverns. Only the ones Master Tanaquil was likely to frequent. There should not be so many of those .

Likely to frequent, Liam wondered. "Did he go to the city often?"

Once or twice a week; more often during the· summer. I do not know what he did there.

The model of Southwark caught his eye, and he went to it. "Fanuilh, this model—do you know why he made it?"

For a spell. I do not know for whom the spell was intended. He rarely included me in that aspect of his business.

He could think of no other questions, but stayed in the workroom, dipping a finger in the miniature waves with a distracted air. The pattering of the rain on the windows lulled him, and his thoughts wandered and grew unfocused. The Teeth of the model, small though they were, duplicated the grandeur of the original, inspiring a sort of awe and no small amount of fear. With an effort, he eventually shook himself and tore his gaze from the tiny rocks. He took his cloak from the shelf and frowned to find it still damp.

"I have to go," he said, putting the clammy cloth-around his shoulders. "Unless you can think of anything else to tell me."

There is nothing.

Liam shrugged irritably. "Fine. If you think of anything ... "

I will let you know.

"Are you sure there are no spells that would help? Or maybe one of those things in the other room? The one with the cases?"

No.The thought was firm, and brooked no questioning. Pursing his lips in consternation, Liam left.

From Coeccias's and Fanuilh's description of his manner, Liam had expected Ancus Marcius to be a big man, but the figure on the docks was small, pretentious only in dress.

Ignoring the light drizzle into which the morning's downpour had resolved itself, the merchant stood among a group of stevedores, shouting instructions about the unloading of a battered carrack. Though the rest of the waterfront was empty, Marcius's men bustled along as though there were nothing unusual, stepping briskly in accordance with the merchant's commands. They brought bales and chests down the gangplank and loaded them onto a line of carts drawn by mules waiting miserably in the icy drops. The harbor was quiet except for the slap of bare feet on gangplank and wet stones, and the water was a still and metallic gray, pocked with rain and curtained by a bank of mist rising off the sea. The Teeth hovered across the harbor, vague black shadows.

Marcius was short and slight of build, and his cleanshaven face bore what seemed