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

very early. I told him I had served Tarquin, and that seemed to give him a start. He asked me if I knew any magic, and was very disappointed when I did not. I'll try to sound him out a little more tomorrow."

"You think he killed the wizard for a failure of magic?" The theory clearly attracted the Aedile; he leaned even further forward with· an almost laughably serious expression.

"Well, it was one of his ships that crashed on the Teeth. If he'd had some contract with Tarquin, then it would seem Tarquin did not live up to it." Coeccias leaned back with a small smile of satisfaction, and Liam qualified his statement. "I would not be in too much of a hurry to arrest him, though. He didn't exactly go white and confess when I mentioned Tarquin's name."

"Shrewd ones never do, Rhenford. But I'll grant your doubts. And as it seems you've done your work, I'll report on mine."

He had gone to see Viyescu early in the day, and hinted about a girl who was known to have been an acquaintance of the druggist, and who had bragged in her cups of knowing a certain powerful wizard.

"Though by straight and true I'm not supposed to do such, it was wondrous effective, a great spur to him. There were no bloody confessions, true, but just a few hours later he barred his shop early and found his way to a suite of rented rooms in the lower quarters. A man of mine followed him, and when our druggist left, sore disappointed, he made some discreet inquiries."

The Aedile paused, it seemed, for effect, and leaned back, waiting smugly to be asked the outcome of the questions. Liam waited too, and looked around the common room with an ostentatiously apathetic air. For a few moments, both were silent, before Coeccias's desire to tell overcame his desire to make Liam ask, and he resumed his report with a sour grunt.

The rooms, the owner of the house reported, were rented by a young lady who always arrived masked and cloaked, though the rent was brought to him by a common messenger. The lady was only there a few nights out of every month, but had, on occasion in the past, received a robed and hooded visitor, presumably male. Neither had been there recently, but the rent was still brought by the messenger every month.

"So, what make you of that?"

"Viyescu keeps a mistress."

"No," the burly officer said scornfully. "A hooded, robed visitor? Rented rooms and great secrecy? It's clear we've found the wizard's bawd!"

Liam frowned and shook his head. "Wizards aren't the only people who wear robes, Master Aedile. Priests do too, and some officials, and I've known rich men who affect them to seem sophisticated. What's more, men who value their appearance of virtue have been known to wear disguises when indulging their vices. You think Viyescu went there to warn the girl about your investigation. What I think is far more likely is that Viyescu went there so that his mistress could soothe his fears and worries. You must have startled him a great deal, and he felt the need of her comfort."

It was Coeccias's turn to frown, and Liam pressed on.

"Next month's rent will be due in two days. I'll wager if we wait until then, we'll find that the messenger brings it, which'll prove the girl wasn't Tarquin's. And I'll wager even more that if we trace the messenger, we'll find he gets his money from a man in a neat little apothecary's shop."

The Aedile scowled unhappily, recognizing the validity of Liam's argument.

"Still, it bears searching out," he said stubbornly. Liam agreed, but only on the principle that they should make the best of what they had.

"There's something else I'd like you to check on. I remember a girl Tarquin once mentioned, a barmaid named Donoé. I think it might be worth our while to talk with her. Can you have your men find her?"

"Seek out a single barmaid? In all of Southwark? Better ask us to find a pearl dropped in the harbor! Have you any idea how many taverns and inns and bars there are in this city?"

"Not that many that Tarquin would have gone into, let alone struck up an acquaintance with a barmaid there. I bet you won't even have to look beyond the rich quarter, and there are none too many bars there."

"All right, all right, I' 11 send someone round to con for this barmaid. Donoé is her name?" At Liam's nod, the Aedile repeated it with a humph of displeasure. "Barmaids! I offer you th' assassin complete in this rented girl and her monthly rooms, and you throw it away on barmaids!"

"Not just on barmaids. There's still Marcius, and the minstrel we haven't met yet." An idea struck him, left over from his thoughts of Lady Necquer. "Say, Master Aedile, what's the Golden Orb Company?"

Confused by the sudden change of subject, Coeccias replied slowly, trying as he spoke to figure out the connection.

"A troupe of players here; they put on a series of entertainments and performances the year round. They've two theaters in the city, a summer amphitheater and a covered one for winter. Often in the winter I close them out, and send them packing to the heath, to perform for the villagers and keep the pest at bay. A close theater in the winter breeds the plague like a she-rabbit coneys." Enlightenment suddenly dawned around the neatly trimmed beard. "You recall the knife, if I guess aright, and think to find your minstrel there! Shrewd, very shrewd, Rhenford'! I hadn't thought to comb that rabble for him!"

"No, no, that's not what I meant," Liam said hurriedly. "That's not what I was thinking at all." He began to explain his afternoon with Lady Necquer, but thought better of it. "I just heard the name earlier from my landlady, and I hadn't heard of it before. I thought I might go see a performance."

"Truth,