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

herself in a more comfortable padded seat behind the writing table. She traced Liam's gaze to the slate board, and gave a smile that did not reach her eyes.

"Y' are impressed, sir? Blue blood and true, one and all. Only royalty here."

Noting the coldness of her smile, Liam spoke nonchalantly, peering with studied consternation at the slate lists. "I was just wondering if you knew that Princess Cresside was a hunchback in life."

Her smile began touching her eyes. "Well, sir, with no queen worth a whit in Torquay, we needs must take our royalty where we can."

"Well, how can there be a queen in Torquay?" Liam responded, grandly flinging a hand at the slate board. "You have them all here!"

The smile reached her eyes finally, and Liam thought he might have made up for his gaffe in the hall.

"Tell me, Coeccias," she said, turning to the officer, who had fidgeted through the exchange, "is this your business? T'upbraid me for the naming of my stable?"

"A scholar, Herione. It's his business to know such things. He meant no offense."

"Coeccias, y'are wooden," she sighed. "I know't, he knows't; why make you amends? Now come, your business." She steepled her hands before her on the table among the coins, and became serious.

"Have you a girl named Donoé here? A barmaid, or serving wench?"

"None such," she replied instantly.

"Not perhaps one of your empresses?" Coeccias asked, raising an eyebrow at the slate board. Herione shook her head definitely.

"None such. Why do you ask?"

The Aedile glanced at Liam, who shrugged absently, still looking at the slate board. "We're looking for a girl of that name, who may've known the wizard Tanaquil."

"The murdered wizard." She did not seem fazed by the news, but she did look curiously at Liam. "Do you always string along a scholar when you con a murderer, Coeccias?"

"No," the Aedile rasped at the playful tone in her voice. "He knew the wizard best of any, and's proved helpful. So, no Donoé, and we're to't again. Come, Rhenford."

He stood, but Liam waved for him to stop.

"Wait a moment, if you would. I've a question or two the lady may be able to answer, if I may ask."

Coeccias muttered, " 'Take no surprise' "to himself, but remained standing behind his chair. Herione shifted polite interest to Liam, who moved his gaze from the slate board to her.

"Your questions, sir?"

"Has Ancus Marcius ever come here?"

"Ever? More than ever, sir. Quite often. Twice, thrice a moon. And's good for a solid gold each visit," she added meaningfully to Coeccias. "I'd hope this won't reflect on him."

"If he's a murderer, bawdry won't soil him any more." Herione offered a slight nod in agreement.

"Truth," she exclaimed softly.

"One other question, if I may. Has Freihett Necquer ever come here?"

"Necquer?" She frowned into her memory.

"A Freeporter merchant."

"Oh, yes, yes. Necquer. Once, perhaps, a long while since, over two years. He took a wife not long after, and has not returned since."

Liam nodded, gratified. "Thank you, lady."

Coeccias muttered his thanks and the two left, going unescorted through the empty foyer with its gurgling fountain and out into the cold street.

Liam paused for a moment on the steps to look closely at the bas-relief panels set into the doors. They depicted strange scenes, large groups of people engaged in uncertain acts. The carvings were not explicit and, in fact, were strangely tasteful, almost artistic. He tried to trace the intricacies of one scene with the point of a long finger, and then gave up and went down the steps to join Coeccias.

"An acquaintance?" He phrased the question as casually as he could, though he was more than a little curious. There had been undercurrents running rampant in Herione's office that went beyond Coeccias's responsibility for keeping tabs on the local houses of pleasure. Yet he could not imagine the stolid, bulky Aedile having anything to do with the quick-witted madame.

"What's Necquer in this?" Coeccias shot back, ignoring the issue. "Is his wife Lons's taskmaster?"

"She is, but I don't think Necquer's involved. I asked for ... personal reasons."

Liam took it as a measure of how little the Aedile wanted to talk about Herione that he did not press about Necquer. That was all right; it was Coeccias's business, after all, and the visit had dispelled his suspicions of Necquer. If the merchant had been unfaithful to his wife, as Lons had suggested, he would have done it in Herione's house, clearly the most expensive in the city and, from its unassuming front, the most discreet.

So discreet, Liam thought, that in four months I never heard of it. What else is there in this city that I've missed? The Golden Orb, the worship of Uris, Herione's house, so much I've missed, and so little I can say I've seen.

Preoccupied with his own morose thoughts, he did not hear Coeccias the first time, and had to ask him to repeat his statement, which he did after clearing his throat.

"I said she was somewhat of an acquaintance. The Duke requires a man to register the houses. The office is mine."

Liam accepted the tight-lipped explanation with a noncommittal sound and remained prudently silent. Coeccias strode along the street with a heavy thunder in his thick brows.

The owner of the second-to-last inn on their list somewhat nervously said that yes, he did have a serving girl named Donoé. When Coeccias had allayed his fears that the girl was a criminal, and convinced him that they only wanted to. ask her a few questions, he bustled off, shouting her name.

"Fortune bears us only a small grudge," Coeccias growled at the innkeeper's retreating back. "She saved us from one last house; quite generous of Her." Liam nodded absently.

The inn seemed appropriate to Tarquin. It was comfortable, without the ostentation of the others in the rich quarter. The woods were blond, and light flooded in from a large window, and it reminded Liam slightly of the wizard's home on the beach. For a man who had chosen to live outside a city,