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

It could not hurt to check. If he was right, he could tell Coeccias who the hooded woman was, and that would settle a great number of things. With trembling fingers, he gathered up the coins, shoved them in his pouch, and left.

The bells were tolling three as Liam passed the city square. The sky was alive with writhing black clouds, but he did not think about the imminent storm. Coeccias had told him where the woman's apartment was, deep in the Warren. He would look there, and try to find out what made the coins strange.

He walked faster, and though he still kept close to walls, the dizziness was almost gone. The soup had settled his stomach, and all that was left was a steady, uniform aching. It was relatively easy to ignore.

The Warren was less uninviting than usual, the poor being smart enough to clear the streets well in advance of the storm. The lodgings he was looking for were located off a court that was approached from two separate streets by long, narrow alleys. His footsteps sounded like the slithering of wet snakes on the slick, gritty stones, slipping on mounds of sodden refuse. In the summer, he knew, he would not dare enter the hidden court for fear of the stench, but with the rains the smell was held down, and all that reached his nostrils was mildew. He hurried into the court, gazing wistfully up at the thin ribbon of gray sky far above him.

Even on a sunny day, little light would have filtered down to the tiny courtyard, ringed in by topheavy buildings. With the clouds, he had to squint Jo make anything out. Fragile porches climbed the walls like ivy, hung with washing. There were few windows in the walls, and those were small and showed no lights. A heap of broken furniture and staved-in casks took up nearly half the floor of the courtyard. Two thin children, a boy and girl as far as he could tell, clambered over the jumbled pile with the agility of mountain goats.

Liam called to them, and they approached silently, arm in fearful arm, with wide, respectful eyes. The girl, no more than ten, took in his clothes and attempted a clumsy curtsy. At a pinch from her, the boy knuckled his forehead. Liam asked them if they knew the owner of the building at the east end of the courtyard, the one whose entrance was almost blocked by the wooden junk they had been playing on.

The girl shoved the boy, who turned and ran, nimbly climbing over the pile and disappearing into the building.

"My brother'll fetch'm m'lord," the girl said, curtsying awkwardly again. Liam nodded and looked around the courtyard. There was nothing to see, so he turned his eyes back to the girl, who still stood before him, staring with unabashed greed at his rich clothes. He blushed under her scrutiny. She was no more than ten, with dirty, colorless hair and a child's smock, but her eyes seemed to take him in and dissect him, weighing every piece of him for value. Apparently she rated him high, because she shared a confidence with him.

"He's a fat rascally knave, m'lord, is th'owner. For that he's so long in coming."

"Mmm." Liam did not know what to say. He had never penetrated this far into the Warren, never left the larger streets, and he had never felt at ease talking with children. He was relieved to see the boy clambering back over the pile and to hear behind him the cursing of a full-grown man trying to make his way around.

The girl had told the truth: the owner was fat, and sweating heavily despite the chill. He had the poor man's haircut, shaven until just below his ears, and he cursed like a sailor until he caught sight of Liam. Then he stopped and wiggled his way past the last projecting piece of garbage and bowed as deeply as his belly would allow. He knuckled his forehead as well, with the ease of much practice. The boy and the girl drifted back to their playing.

"How now, my lord? If it please you, what office can I perform?" He was obsequious in exactly the manner Liam disliked, rubbing his hands together with an oily smile.

"The Aedile Coeccias sent a man to you recently, about one of your lodgers."

The fat man nodded eagerly, dropping his grin for an expression of considered interest.

"You told him the rent had been paid this month in foreign coins."

"Faith, m'lord, the strangest coins I ever saw, most strange."

"Can I see them?"

The man stiffened, and his face alternated between suspicion and contrition. "No, if it please you, my lord, for that I've spent them. On wood, my lord, and warm clothes, with winter almost on us, my lord."

"Well, never mind; can you tell me why they were strange?"

He scratched his bare neck and shuffled. "Strange indeed, strange indeed. They showed beasts the like I've never seen, even in the menageries as travel down from Torquay and can be seen for a copper. Great beasts, my lord, like-well, like naught so much as a bull, but with a whip in place of a muzzle, and so large that a city stood on its back."

"Were there others?"

"No my lord," the man said regretfully, "only those." "Well, thank you."

It did not matter; he knew the coins to which the man was referring. They came from Epidamnum, one of the ports on the maps he had drawn for Necquer, and represented what were called elephants. The Epidamnites used them for war, and put towers on their backs. He had only seen elephants on coins from that land, which meant that it was likely that only people from Necquer' s crew could have them.

The man still shifted from foot to foot, as though expecting something. Liam cleared his throat and dug into his pouch.

"Thank you again," he said, pressing a coin into the owner's hand. The fat man smiled and