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

like that when he cast his spell? Like a god on a high mountain with a storm raging unnoticed around him, reaching down a massive hand and rearranging the world to suit his whims? It was a strange idea, and Liam shook rain out of his face and cursed his soaking feet before resuming the climb to his garret.

He smiled gently at the kitchen drudge and greeted her politely. She shuddered and hid her face, remembering his wolfish grin. Shrugging ruefully, he beat a retreat up to his room.

There was nothing more for him to do before his afternoon visit to Lady Necquer. When he had changed into his third and last set of clothing, and spread that morning's wet ones out to dry, he realized he had time to kill, and sat himself with a sigh at his table by the window. His papers were still there, and some of his books. So many blank pages.

When Liam had arrived in Southwark, he had fully intended on filling those pages; had, in fact, bought particularly expensive paper for the task. Hundreds of sheets of it, and in four months he had covered exactly three of them with writing. All he had to show for his intentions were three pages of notes and outlines and, of course, the maps of his travels. He wondered where the time had gone.

Wandering the town, exploring it without noticing the sights. Daydreaming at his window, staring out at the harbor and ignoring the view. Swimming off Tarquin's breakwater.

He shuffled the pages of notes around, debating trying to do something with them. His list of suspects no longer lay beneath them, stowed safely now in Coeccias's pouch, but he remembered it clearly. He now had faces to attach to some of the names.

The druggist, the merchant, the cooing woman, the minstrel. He thought he might as well add the barmaid, Donoé. The last three he had not seen, and he wondered how he could ever possibly find them on Fanuilh's sketchy remembrance. He was getting places, he knew, but if he had to continue running around the town in punctured boots and a perpetually sodden cloak, he thought he might confess to the murder himself.

With an explosive sigh he pushed the papers away and went to his trunk. Beneath a layer of small clothes and trinkets lay a bulging sack made of sailcloth. He snatched it out and upended it on his blanket.

Silver and gold coins clinked together with the happy sound of large amounts, and two or three gems winked dully, their vibrant color only a memory in the shadowy garret.

A fortune by Southwark standards, where a single silver coin was his monthly rent. He had over fifty, and a like number of gold coins, and he knew it little mattered that the faces and inscriptions on them were of kings and in languages that had never been heard of in Southwark. Gold was gold and silver was silver, no matter whose head was on the coin.

He picked out two of the gold coins, and hesitated before picking out a third and dropping them into his belt pouch. When the sack was back in his trunk with its contents replaced, he left his room and walked briskly out into the street.

Liam bought himself a new, heavier cloak that was supposed to be weatherproof, and ordered several suits of warm winter clothes from a tailor in the rich quarter. The man bustled and fawned nicely when shown the gold coin, and promised "eminently satisfactory results" in a few days. Liam left feeling slightly better, and warmer already in his new cloak.

A cobbler repaired his holed boot while he waited, and took an order for two new pairs with gape-mouthed pleasure. A leatherworker yielded up a beautifully tooled belt and a proper scholar's writing case, made to hang from the belt, with pockets for pens, paper and ink, blotter and seals.

His maps rattling around in the roomy writing case, snug in his waterproof cloak and dry toes wriggling in his. fixed boots, Liam felt good despite the rain and the blank pages in his room. He bought himself a large lunch in the inn Coeccias had led him to the night before and enjoyed it thoroughly.

When he was done, tolling bells announced that it was time to visit Lady Necquer, and he set out for the merchant's home. The rain still poured steadily down, now gurgling in the overflowing gutters, and the afternoon sky might well have been night, but he whistled, and felt well.

"Master Rhenford," Lares said with unaffected pleasure when he opened the door. "The lady was not sure you'd come."

Liam merely smiled and allowed himself to be let in and led up to the second floor.

Lady Necquer looked pale, but delighted to see him, as though he were a reprieve.

"Sir Liam! I doubted your coming!"

"I could not stay away, madam. It is a great pleasure to enjoy your company." He spoke blandly, the statement only a pleasantry, but her breath caught.

"I ... " She faltered, and a silence yawned in which Liam fidgeted uncomfortably. He wondered what he could possibly have said, and thought of the handsome, angry young man at the door the other day.

Lady Necquer smiled weakly and fixed her eyes on her lap, spots of color reddening her pale cheeks.

"I beg your pardon if I am skittish, Sir Liam. I thought you were ... an echo, perhaps." She forced herself to look at him and the smile grew more assured as she gestured him to a seat across from her. "Please, sit, and tell me more of your travels."

He took the offered seat, peering curiously at her. "I'm sorry to be a mere echo, madam. I don't think your husband asked me to come to bore you with repetition."

Something in his tone, or perhaps his mention of her husband, relaxed her, and the unnatural blush faded. Glad of it, he went on.

"If there is anything you need to discuss, madam, or