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

"Truth, I'd have never thought Marcius to be so open in his businesses."

Liam gave a questioning grunt and tilted the mug to his mouth without raising his head. The wine slid coolly down his ragged throat, and quieted what was left of his dizziness.

"It surprises me that he'd only beat you, and leave harsher measures by. If I were Marcius, and I thought you could finger me a murderer, I'd've had my roughs beat you more than senseless."

What started as a laugh turned to a drawn-out "oh" of pain, and Liam gave it up. "Marcius didn't have his roughs beat me senseless because Marcius isn't worried about being connected with Tarquin's death. One of them said that Marcius was terribly unhappy with me for having seen a man we both knew."

"And what of it? The man's me, and Marcius wanted to fright you from helping me."

"No," Liam smiled limply, his head still on the table. It would have been ridiculous, if his stomach and chest did not hurt so much. "Marcius wanted to fright me from helping Freihett Necquer. Remember the maps I used as such a clever pretext for seeing him?"

Coeccias's face went blank, and then broke out in a sheepish wince. "It liked him not that you might sell the same over again, to another merchant. We misjudged how slight a thing would draw his ire. For mere mappery he'd beat a man; but think what he'd've done to a man who failed him in an important spell. It argues against him with the wizard."

Speaking was less of an effort now; even as Liam listened to the Aedile his body was reconciling itself to the beating. "It does, a little, but I don't think it's in any way we've imagined, if at all."

Coeccias glowered and crossed his arms.

"Pray you, Milord May-Do-Aught, how not? What news have you to change your mind and redraw the whole argument? No, don't tell, I'll guess—now you think the player's the man, accompliced by the high priest of Uris. Well? Do I hit the mark?"

"Not even close," Liam laughed, and regretted it instantly. He quickly told what he had learned that morning from Viyescu, and what he had figured out from Tarquin's spellbook. The Aedile pursed his lips at the new information, as if he had just sucked a lemon.

"And so we're not done. You'll want to search out this woman, and hope to substitute her for the player. You never gave him up as guilty, did you?"

"No," Liam admitted, annoyed that Coeccias had struck so close to home. There was no need to mention Rora, he figured. It would only lessen Coeccias's confidence in him.

"Then what would you? How do we gather her in? Do we set a crier out, begging all cloaked and hooded women gather in the square this day week?"

"I don't know," Liam said, ignoring the sarcasm. "I think we could talk with Viyescu again, and maybe have him followed. I think he knows her better than he lets on; perhaps he'll lead us to her."

"And what with the player? Do we take him, or leave him loose?"

"That's up to you." He forced himself to say it, though his conscience firmly admonished him. "Take him if you like. He's still the best suspect."

Throwing his hands up in a familiar gesture of exasperation, Coeccias began his heavy-footed pacing again. "If you'd your way, I'd have to leave him forever, while you con the town for some unfaced woman who, by reason of some broken clues, only may have a hand in this. You see what you put me to?"

"Are you satisfied that Lons killed Tarquin?"

"Truth, satisfied enough!" He was clearly not satisfied however, and let his anger fall away, deflated. "If you'd a plan, it'd be easier to let this play on. Have you any plan?"

"I still think Viyescu knows more than he says. He's frightened of her, though."

Coeccias snorted. "Of a maid! Ha!"

"Not of violence, obviously, not from a pregnant woman. But she may know something about him, some secret sin, that keeps him from telling."

"The threat of revelation?"

Liam shrugged. "Maybe. He was all bluster the first time I went to see him, and changed his tune when I said I was a Hierarch in disguise. He accepted it right off, as if he was expecting me to pronounce divine judgement on him."

"And he so devout," Coeccias breathed. "It would mock his pious marches and professions. An interesting tum."

"If there were a way we could find out more about him, something about drink, perhaps, or women ... "

"Herione'd know it, if it's to be known, or she'd know who might know. I'll to her now. Is there anything else I should ask?"

"Oh, anything that comes to mind," Liam said airily, drawing a grin from the Aedile.

"Perhaps I should ask if she knows who killed the wizard."

"It couldn't hurt."

"Truth, it couldn't! I'll do it." Chuckling, he paused in the doorway, and looked back thoughtfully. "Perhaps I'll send some men to look for Marcius's roughs to boot. We can't have our poor, milky scholars beaten in their own homes. What were they like?"

Liam described Scar and Ratface vividly, and gave what he could remember of the third man.

"A scar so big should shout itself about the city. We'll have them in soon enough."

"Tell your men not to be too gentle with them," Liam called as the Aedile closed the door behind him.

Less than twenty minutes later, Liam was closing the door himself. Much to his landlady's dismay and the drudge's obvious admiration, he managed to clear the kitchen without falling over.

The clouds, and with them a bleak chill, had reached the city from the sea; the blue sky was only a thin memory to the north. Still, the cold air cleared his head and took the edge off his aching. He kept to the side of the street, trailing his hand along the walls of stone and wood, unsure of his wobbly legs.

On reaching the Point without