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

the same weathered gray boards as the building, and ran the length of the wall to a closed-in loft at the rear of the room, illuminated along its way by torches placed in irregularly spaced sconces.

Liam waited for almost an hour. Scar and the Rat carried on a desultory conversation, almost but not quite oblivious to his presence. He did not listen to them, but looked around the room, particularly at the staircase, or at his maps. Impatience grew, and he wanted to get it over with, afraid he would lose all his carefully prepared meekness if he were angry. He prepared himself a dozen times to tell Scar or the Rat to ask if the merchant would see him yet, but always decided against it.

When he was going over the advantages and disadvantages of pressing his appointment for the thirteenth time, the door to the closed-in loft was flung open and he stood up as Marcius called out angrily.

"Is the scholar here yet?"

"Aye, he's just arrived, Master Marcius," Scar called loudly, with an evil grin at Liam. "Just this moment!"

"Send him up immediately!"

The door slammed shut and Scar came over and shooed him to the stairs, trying hard to keep his ruined face straight. "Heard you the master, scholar? Immediately! Go to, go to!" He fluttered his hands towards the stairway, and Liam hurried over to the accompaniment of the Rat's squealing laughter.

The stairs were dilapidated, creaking ominously beneath his weight, and Liam skipped over them as lightly as he could. The door of the loft had no latch, and swung open beneath his knuckles. He peered into the room as owlishly as he could and inquired politely:

"Master Marcfos?"

"In, in! Stand not by the doorway, sirrah! Y'are late enough as it is!"

Liam inched into the room, anxiously rubbing his hands together.

The merchant sat on a high stool beside an expansive secretary laden with papers and account books bound in goldstamped leather. Open braziers filled with glowing coals flanked him, shelves and pigeonholes stacked with ledgers and scrolls spread around the walls. Wrought iron candelabra bore clusters of candles, reflected as tiny constellations in Marcius's sourly appraising eyes. Dry and perched high on the stool, he was impressive: his oiled, ringleted hair hung perfectly to his shoulders, his clothes hung beautifully from his spare frame, and the height he gained from the stool allowed him to look down his aristocratic nose at Liam.

"Well and well, scholar," the merchant said after peering at him coldly for a minute. "Report says you've a whole store of goods to vent—maps, charts, directions, soundings—the rounded whole wanting for a rich voyage. Report has it you've made Necquer far richer than he's any right to be."

"I gather he has done well," Liam said guardedly, unsure where the merchant's elaborately casual conversation was heading.

"I wonder then, why you come to me to vent this mappery? Why not sell them to Necquer?"

"Master Necquer does not appreciate my services, Master. He won't even pay me what he owes me, and I must leave Southwark soon enough, so I need ready money. The whole city speaks well of you, lord, and I thought to try my luck here."

Marcius considered this for a moment, apparently indifferent.

"Necquer won't pay you, eh?" He smiled dreamily, contemplating something that pleased him. "Your fault of course, sirrah scholar. 'A Freeporter's purse is drawn tighter than a crossbow,' they say. Your fault entirely."

Liam's agenda was not being followed to his satisfaction, and he tried to turn the talk away from Necquer with a fresh spate of whining.

"Oh, please, Master Marcius, I am in a desperate position. Now that Master Tanaquil has been murdered, I have no protection in Southwark. If you'll only buy these charts, I can leave—"

"Why?" Marcius interrupted without heat." Why should I buy your charts, when it were just as easy to follow Necquer's ships next season? Can you tell me that, scholar?" He smiled to himself, as though he had just made a telling point, but Liam was prepared.

"Ah, now, a shrewd, a very shrewd question, Master, " he said in a flattering tone, "but I've an answer. You see, Master Necquer was impatient. He bought only a single set of my charts in the middle of the summer, after most of his ships were gone. He only wanted the maps to those ports he could easily reach. And those are the poorest of the ones I can guide you to. If he had bought other charts earlier, he might have reached far richer ports, but as it was he barely made it back by the close of the season, and only the miracle kept him safe .... " He let the silence draw out, but Marcius did not react to the hint about the Teeth. Instead; the merchant seemed to consider his words for a moment, then spat out a question suddenly.

"How do I know you won't sell me your charts and then go speak with Necquer? Twice as much for you, eh?"

"Oh, no, Master, I'd never deal with Master Necquer again. Why, he has not paid me for the first set of charts! Besides, I must leave Southwark soon."

"Your harping on that theme is most tiresome. Why are you so anxious to part our city?"

"I've explained, Master. I fear I'm in some danger from those who killed my former master, the wizard Tanaquil."

"Know you who took him off!"

"I ... no, Master Marcius, I don't."

"Then how do you know y' are in danger? You, a mere cowering scholar?"

"I don't know, Master. I'm simply afraid. It was murder, after all."

Marcius considered this as well, and Liam wondered if he had gone too far. The merchant had shown no reaction that was clearly incriminating, and Liam felt frustrated. How much of Marcius's suspicion was due to business shrewdness, and how much to guilt, he could not tell, and the uncertainty tempted him to further baiting.

"Well and well, Scholar Rhenford, for all y'are a low time-serving wretch, let's see your maps."

Opening his writing