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

nowhere to be seen, and no thoughts crashed into his head as he walked tentatively from room to room, calling the creature's name. Bemused, he went out to the beach and let the trunk tumble off Diamond onto the sand. Then he half-dragged, half-carried it into the entrance hall.

Feeling he had pressed his luck enough, he left it there, mounted Diamond again and started back for Southwark.

He did not want to see Fanuilh, and was glad he had not. He did not want to see Coeccias at the moment either, but he had promised, and there were things that he would have to explain. He purposefully dawdled on the way back, because he did not want to arrive early.

Coeccias was waiting for him, opening the door himself and ushering Liam in.

"How was your sleep?"

"Good," Liam said, surprised to find it was true. "I'm sore."

The Aedile laughed. "Your friends' 11 be in hand soon." He led the way to the kitchen and put the finishing touches to a positively monstrous cauldron of cider while they talked.

Liam outlined the story, filling in the details he had learned or figured out the night before. It was remarkably easy.

Rora was pregnant and Necquer would not support her. Kansallus's talk had hinted at a certain pride and vengefulness in her; if anything, he had underestimated them. She had obviously been much more fierce than Kansallus had guessed, even with the evidence of Knave Fitch's mangled ear. And the way she had used Viyescu to get her the poison to murder Necquer and then threatened to reveal whatever had passed between them indicated the depth of the ruthlessness hidden behind her beauty.

"I don't think she was altogether right in the head," Liam commented, and Coeccias grunted his agreement.

So she was set on killing Necquer. Lons must have told her about his deal with Tarquin, and she convinced the wizard to switch the spells, in return for some of her blood. Why she chose the illusion spell was not clear; perhaps she did not want to ruin her brother's arrangement, and thought that as soon as the Teeth disappeared, Lons could claim his reward. It would not matter if Necquer tried to enter the harbor the very next day and was smashed to pieces. Perhaps she thought it would be fitting, a sort of double revenge: give his wife to another man and then kill him.

"She was clearly somewhat mad, for all her cunning." Liam amazed himself with his own tone of voice. He sounded cold and analytical, describing the events from a pitying distance. He wondered how he was able to do it.

Tarquin had tried to cast the spell she wanted, but it had failed—Rora had had no real virgin's blood to give him—so he cast Lons' s original request, maybe as a kind of revenge. When Necquer returned unharmed, she went to see Tarquin, most likely to upbraid him for not casting the spell, not knowing he had figured out her deception. He threatened to reveal her plot to Necquer, so she killed him.

"Of course," Liam said finally, talking to Coeccias's expansive back as the Aedile crouched over his boiling pot like a gnome or dwarf from a story, "there's little pure proof. Much of it's only circumstance, and motive. The santhract she put in Necquer' s wine proves something, I guess, and she was pregnant. Really, it just fits best." He paused, reflecting. He knew she had done it. "And Tarquin's familiar certainly thought she did."

"Truth. Curious, that," Coeccias said at last, rising from the pot. "But I grant you all—she must have done it. There's naught else that makes sense. And I've something from Herione, as well: Rora used to dance for her—just dance, you mind-nigh on two years past. We'll say that's when Viyescu met her, and Necquer as well."

For a moment, the stout man regarded Liam intensely, as if trying to pry a secret from him; then his features softened into admiration. Liam realized Coeccias had been wondering how he had figured it all out. In telling the story, he had left out both Rora's visit to him and Fanuilh's part. Thinking back, he realized he had sounded like quite the natural investigator, and the cold, confident tone he had assumed had not hurt. It was Luck, again, the Luck he carried with him, that allowed him to handle something incompetently and somehow come out looking all the better for it.

It made him feel very uncomfortable, and he hung his head to hide his guilty blush. He suddenly thought that he had not said Rora's name once while telling what he knew. He had said "she" or "her." Not her name. It made him feel worse.

"When do you want to tell Lons?"

"I've already done it, last night," Coeccias said. He and Boult had brought Lons his sister's body, recovered from the gable where it had lodged in her fall. Liam was shocked by this, but the Aedile hastened to explain. Fanuilh had not been vicious—scratches on her back, and a single bite at her throat. He and Boult had washed away the blood from her face and hands, and covered the wounds pretty well. "The Golden Orb's company parts Southwark tomorrow for the heath, and Lons'll with them."

There was nothing else to say about the investigation, and Coeccias suggested they go to his sister's. Liam wondered how they would get the cauldron of spiked cider to her house, but it turned out that she lived only a block away, and Coeccias simply filled a smaller pot to bring with them.

"One of the whelps'll run back for more when we've drained this one."

Coeccias' s sister was like him, broad and short, with weight to spare but a warm, matronly face. She kissed her brother warmly and made much of Liam. Her husband was a cooper, and they had an uncountable swarm of children. They held Liam, as a stranger, in awed respect, but mobbed Coeccias affectionately at first, and then Burus when