Chapter Sixteen: “From the Shadows”

Megyn eased the office door shut behind her and frowned. She had risked quite a bit, breaking into Captain Hares’s office, and that his files had contained nothing even marginally damning or helpful did not bode well for her search. Where else might she find proof of his dealings?

There was, of course, the strong possibility that there was no such proof. After all, if one was constantly flaunting the law and peace one was sworn to protect, it would not be the wisest move to keep detailed records of it.

On the other hand, Rojer was nothing if not arrogant, and he might think himself untouchable. Or perhaps he feared his low-born vulnerability, especially since he dealt with so many nobles. As such, it would seem prudent to keep records with which he could blackmail anyone who attempted to lay him low.

Regardless of their existence, the papers were not in his office. She supposed she could break into his home. Her shift ended before his by quite a bit today, and she had already staked the house out, just in case. It would mean skipping her usual tasks in Docktown or the slums, but she had made a promise.

She took a deep breath and looked around the hallway to make sure no one had seen her, and then started back towards her own office. When she turned the corner, she bumped right into Sergeant Fresen.

“Well, hello there, lovely,” he said.

She took a step back and straightened her coat. “You will address me as ma’am, Sergeant.”

His lips split into a bare smile. “Don’t like a compliment?”

She sneered and pushed past him without another word. No amount of telling the man off or threatening him with discipline would do any good. He was a favored pet of Rojer, and that meant he could harass her to his heart’s content. Luckily, that had thus far only been in the form of mildly lewd remarks and a complete lack of respect.

When she reached her office, a soldier stood from the chair he had taken and turned to her. “Ma’am, I have the ledgers you requested.”

“That was faster than I expected, Corporal,” she said. “I only just sent you after them.”

The soldier looked at a nearby mantle clock. “It has been nearly an hour, ma’am.”

She followed his gaze and saw he was right. Had she truly spent so long in Rojer’s office? “Oh, I must have lost track of the time. Very well. Leave them here, Corporal.”

The soldier nodded respectfully and put the two ledgers down on Megyn’s desk and left. At least not all of the soldiers followed Rojer’s lead. Truth told, only a few did. It just happened it was the few that mattered. But she could endure it, at least for a little longer.

She sat down and opened the two ledgers. One was a list of visitors to the complex over the last month and who they were here to see. Names were written out in various hands, some tidy and others barely legible scrawls. Dates and times progressed at a snail’s pace in some places, and jumped quickly elsewhere. Rojer’s name appeared under the column titled “reason for visit” far more commonly than she would have liked, but many of the names were familiar to her as his regular customers, where others were envoys from the castle and pertained to his actual duties.

In short order, she found what she was looking for. The entry was for Lord Thames just over a week ago, and was the most recent time he had visited. The entry, she noted, was the last taken in the particular handwriting.

She reached over to the other ledger and flipped through it. Here, soldiers’ names and ranks were listed out next to dates and their assigned duties. She found the tables for the reception desk, and was not the least bit surprised to find that the soldier who had last received Lord Thames had been none other than Sergeant Shane Fresen. Likely, he had been the man that followed the so-called Lord Thames back to Logain Street.

She turned back to the first ledger and flipped back through the pages. Two days earlier, she found a blacked-out entry, but she paid it no mind. The book was full of such, and she had done it herself a few times besides. When the writer made a mistake, it was easier to just black it out and use the next line than to waste the time and effort of scrapping the entry blank again.

It had been quite some time back since the next visit from “Lord Thames”. It had been the day she had fetched Markus’s records for Rojer. That gave her quite a window to search. Rojer might have been contracted to find this Kira Jons the very next visit or the visit before Thames returned.

She read through the ledger slowly, taking care to not skip any of Rojer’s appointments. Oddly, she found that she recognized all of the men and women who had come calling on the young captain. Not all of them were the most official sorts, but she had come to know what their business was, and kidnapping slum-dwellers was not in any of it. Also, oddly, she found that the only blacked out line between the two visits had been the one she noted earlier.

The oddity of the line drew her attention, and she looked at the entries above and below it. She did not have to check the ledger to recognize the hand as that of Fresen. Out of curiosity, she looked through the rest of the ledger and found several more times that Fresen had been on duty. While other people might have one or two blots to their name, Fresen never did. His writing was so meticulously neat that she wondered how he managed to write with any speed. Each letter was perfectly formed, each name perfectly spelled, and not a single smudge or blot.

She turned back to the blacked out entry and tried to see if there was anything that could still be read through the ink. To her surprise, she could just make out the ghost of who had received the visitor. It was, of course, Rojer.

She picked the ledger up and walked out of her office and down to the common office the enlisted shared for their work when they were not forced to other, more menial tasks. That she had seen Fresen earlier meant he was likely not at one of those dreadful duties, and the direction he had been headed could have lead him here.

Sure enough, the vile man was sitting at a desk, filling out a report of some sort. When she stopped in front of his desk, he looked up and gave her a smile that made her feel like she needed a bath.

“Yes, lovely?”

She slammed the open ledger down in front of him. “Explain this, Sergeant.”

He looked down at the ledger then back up at her. “Explain what?”

“Don’t play games with me, Fresen. The blacked out line.”

He looked back down. “It appears that someone made a mistake.”

“You made a mistake,” she said.

“You recognize my handwriting,” he said. “I’m flattered.”

She crossed her arms. “Who was that entry for?”

He pointed to the next entry. “It would appear it was for Lieutenant Gier’s wife, come to visit him.”

“That blotted line wasn’t a mistake.” She leaned in. “You don’t make mistakes. So don’t make one now, Fresen. Who visited Rojer?”

“I can’t say I remember that day very well. That is why we keep ledgers in the first place, you know. Us enlisted men have such bad memories.” He hesitated and looked her over. “Although, my memory might be jogged with some . . . encouragement.”

She stood and scowled at him, and he only shrugged. When she turned to leave, he mumbled something that might have been “your loss.” When she was a few paces away, she stopped and shuddered, and then looked back at him. He was eyeing her. She held back her sneer, steeled herself, and nodded to him. She then headed in the direction of a large supply closet.

She went inside and pulled the door closed. Fortunately, the room was large enough to warrant a gaslight in the ceiling. She went to the far side and kept facing away from the door, and when it opened a moment later, she only heard and felt Fresen behind her. He closed the door and walked up to her.

“See, we don’t have to be on such bad terms, lovely. Now, about my memory.” She heard him starting to undo his pants, and she wheeled around and placed a slender knife blade to his crotch. With her other hand, she grabbed his throat and pressed on the tender spot at the base of his neck with her thumb.

“Yes, about it,” she said. “Allow me to jog your memories with a simple question. What is more important to you? Rojer’s secrets, or your manhood?”

“You stupid wench,” he said. “Do you think you can get away with this?”

“If you are smart, I will,” she said. “Your injured pride will stop you from admitting what really happened in here, and Rojer never need know what you said. And if you force me to castrate you, well, I might be brought up on charges, but in the end, you will still be a eunuch, which is fitting enough in my opinion.”

She held his eyes with her own, and his defiance melted when he saw that she meant every word she said. He grunted and struggled a bit, but stopped when she put the slightest pressure on the blade.

“Lord Douglis Tidor,” he said. “That’s who visited. That’s who the blotted out name is.”

“And this is the man that wanted Rojer to kidnap Kira Jons?”

“I don’t know what he wanted.” He gasped when she pressed hard enough to draw a drop of blood. “I honestly don’t. But it was shortly after that that Hares told me to keep an eye out for Lord Thames. And it was a girl we took from the man’s hideout, although her name was Kira Tidor, not Jons.”

“And where did you take her?”

“We took her to an empty warehouse on the north end of the factory district. On Marcel Street. A group of men were waiting for us there and took her somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.” He squeaked again at more pressure. “Troena above, you bitch, I don’t! They went west, that’s all I know. Rojer didn’t order me to follow them, so I didn’t.”

She looked him over for a bit then decided that he was telling the truth. She contemplated castrating him regardless, but instead pushed him away, which ended with him tripping over the bunched up pants that had fallen around his ankles. She sheathed her knife and stepped over him.

“Nothing happened in here, am I understood, Fresen?” She stopped at the door and looked back at him. “One story is just as bad as the other. We both got the supplies we needed and nothing happened. Am I understood?”

He scowled at her. “You won’t get away with this.”

“I’m an officer,” she said. “I’ll get away with what I want, and I can quite clearly see that you don’t have the balls to challenge that. Now cover up that wretched joke Troena afflicted you with and get back to your duties.”

She left the room before he could retort. Douglis Tidor. It was not as much as she had hopped, but it would have to do. And if Markus wanted more, Praedin could take him, for all she cared. She had done what she could. She returned to her office to write a letter.

* * *

The carriage clattered to a stop in front of the Dunny manor, and Qristina glowered out the window up at the oversized house. In her youth, before Tesma had brought her to Tijervyn, they had lived in little more than a hovel, the largest room reserved for Tesma’s own work. Hard packed dirt had been her bed, and she still only kept a narrow cot in her chambers. She had worked her way up to her station.

Of course, her father had done so a thousand times over. He had already been accounted a great meister when she was born, and it had been only a matter of poorly handled business that had kept him from excelling. But what had he been before that? An urchin on the streets, or so he had said, before he had been taken in. And while that spoke of great strength, it was also his weakness.

Her father was strong, persistent, and covetous of success, but he was also blind to the ways other minds worked. He rightfully looked down on the nobles, but he went too far to think of them as chattel to be corralled and maneuvered. No, it was much like at the menagerie, and the nobility were the lions. Still dumb animals, but lethal if mishandled.

Fortunately for Tesma, she knew how to play the nobles’ games, and right now, she had been pushed into a position of weakness. That she was forced to come here showed that. Even the Dunnys, long time allies of the Guild, had been quickly affected by this new influx of unbound meisters. If it was one thing that could be said of nobles, they smelled blood in the water as well as any shark.

Her porter opened the door to her carriage, and she slipped out and smoothed her skirts as a servant ran up to greet her.

“Meister,” the man said. “Please, this way. Lady Dunny and Lady DeRosa are already in the parlor.”

“The parlor,” Qristina said. “Very well.”

The man turned, and she followed him into the manor as her driver and porter took the carriage around the back. For better or worse, she was in this dance.

Inside, the manor was only of middling opulence. An occasional gilded vase or statue decorated a nook, but the walls were smooth panels, and the moldings were plain and carved, not sculpted. Ten years ago, the Dunnys had seemed wealthy. How perspective could change in so short a time.

Ariel’s parlor was spacious, but not overbearing, and afforded just the right amount of space for three nobles, once one accounted in servants and the like. Fortunately, Qristina’s own lack did not show, as all of the servants today would be provided by Ariel. Still, if she thought of it, even for a moment, they would as well.

“Qristina!” Ariel stood and walked over to embrace Qristina and give her a peck on the cheek. “I was so glad to receive your letter. It has been far too long since you visited.”

She endured and returned the gesture. The visit had been Ariel’s idea in her reply, but pointing that out would hardly help Qristina’s cause. “I am glad I could make it. There was another riot in the streets outside of factories. My driver had to bring us through the slums just to avoid them.”

Becka looked up from her cup of tea as Qristina and Ariel walked over to the table. “Ah, Qristina, so good of you to come. How is your father?”

“He is well,” she said. “If somewhat concerned for the welfare of the city, what with the sudden deluge of false meisters that have arrived.”

“How droll,” Ariel said. “We were just talking about the new meisters. I had thought they were brought in by Tesma to help with reconstructing the buildings claimed by the fire, not to mention meet House Sunset’s recent demands on Guild.”

“The Guild has meisters enough to meet the city’s demands,” Qristina said. “It would be well advised of any noble or businessman to beware contracting with a meister that does not wear the bracer.”

“Lady Kanadis speaks highly of the meisters,” Becka said. “I heard—”

She cut herself off, and Ariel leaned in. “You heard what?”

Becka blushed and fanned herself. “Oh, I had just heard her say they were at least the equals to our own meisters, not that I would know one way or the other.”

“She presumes to know, does she?” Qristina said. “I’ve seen some of these untested grease-wrenches. Voxfeldian, from the looks of them, which does not speak highly for them. I’ve visited Voxfeld, and I must say I am honestly surprised the city is not falling apart. Any meister that could not find work there must be a poor meister indeed.”

“Do you truly think so?” Ariel said. “Then why would Sunset House allow them to work here? You would think there would be laws against such things.”

“Oh, surely we can trust whatever means they have of declaring themselves meisters in Voxfeld. After all, it is the home of the vaunted University.”

Qristina smiled as an idea started to come to her. She put it away, though, much like a note in a folio. That was not why she was here, and she was hardly in a position to start that particular idea growing. Instead, she took a sip of tea just as a servant entered the parlor and bowed next to Ariel’s ear.

Ariel sighed and nodded to the servant before turning back to her guests. “I’m sorry, but father is out and something that requires his immediate attention just came in. I shan’t be but a few moments.”

“Of course,” Becka said. “I am sure we can entertain ourselves for a short while.”

Ariel nodded and left before Qristina could lower her teacup to say anything politely. Once Ariel was gone, Qristina turned to Becka.

“So, I hear that Kanadis is not the only one endorsing these new meisters.”

“You speak of Uncle Jaeger?” Becka laughed. “Yes, I suppose he has put his weight, for what it is worth, behind them as well. I’d imagine he isn’t all that pleased with how your father snubbed him back at the fencing salle.”

“He snubbed the Guild first,” Qristina said. “My father was merely protecting the city’s interests.”

“I always thought it was the Sunset Count that protected the city’s interests,” Becka said.

Qristina sighed and leaned forward. “Why do you protect him so, child? He has forsworn House DeRosa, and he only uses you for his own, petty ends. Is that how you want DeRosa to be remembered? As the pawns of a powerless count?”

Becka stood up. “You go too far, commoner.”

Qristina stood and used her height to tower over Becka. “The Guild has had a blow struck against it, but do not think we are maimed. This little strike against us will hardly be more than a gnat bite, and we will only be the stronger for it.”

Becka swallowed hard. “You are rather confident.”

“And what of you?” Qristina said. “Sunset House has over extended itself, perhaps thinking that it will be able to rely on Kanadis to support it. Or perhaps it merely over estimates its own strength. Regardless, I doubt he will have time for his forgotten blood.”

Becka narrowed her eyes. “What is your point?”

“The Guild doesn’t forget its friends nearly as easy as nobles,” she said. “Help us, and we will remember DeRosa.”

“You just said that you have it well in hand, though,” Becka said. “Why would you need help?”

“Because,” Qristina said. “We can swat this nuisance easily enough, but we would much rather strike at the source.”

“You mean Jaeger and Maaike,” she said. “If you are suggesting—”

“We don’t want to hurt them,” Qristina said. “If that was our goal, we would not need you. But if we wish to break their alliance, then we need information. That, I have a feeling, you can provide me with. Such a trivial thing, really. Just help me throw the wrench in the works, and DeRosa will be given some rather lucrative contracts with the Guild. Think, my dear, of the possibilities. This may be a contract from the shadows, but it bears far more weight than anything you can lay your hands on in the light.”

Becka stood in silence, and Qristina let her brood until Ariel returned, and then, sure as a sudden change of weather, they were back to smiling and chatting while making small japes at each other that they all refused to acknowledge. By the time it was done, Qristina had a rather splitting headache, yet she still managed to lie fluidly enough about regretting that they all had business they should see to. As she stood to leave, she caught Becka’s eye and lifted her hand off of a small pocket watch that she left on the table behind her teacup, where it would be hidden from Ariel’s sight.

Outside, she paused just before stepping into her carriage as Becka called out to her, waving the pocket watch. When the shorter woman caught up, she handed the watch over and swallowed.

“Uncle thinks Maaike has a revenant in the city, and he is trying to find it so that he can use it against her. You are right, their alliance is tenuous at best.”

“The revenant is Maaike’s, is it?” Qristina tapped a finger against her lip. “Yes, I’d imagine that would upset Jaeger, and might even win him to our cause should we deliver. Thank you, Becka. If you think of anything else, feel free to call on me at the Guild.”

Becka curtsied, although the sudden widening of her eyes told Qristina that she realized what she was doing too late. A noble curtsying to a common meister. It was a start back to the right path, but they had much further to go. Qristina would make sure they got there.

* * *

Megyn stepped into the church and stopped. A few supplicants were scattered about the pews, their heads down in prayer. No few of them were covered in soot and grime, likely from having sifted through the wreckage across the street before coming to pray. The slum dwellers, though, are not what had stopped her.

No, at the front of the nave, Rojer was talking to Father Morgan. He casually looked back over his shoulder when Morgan saw her and nodded, and a thin smile crossed his lips. Shane had told him everything, she just knew it. She had banked on that weasel of a man having too much pride to admit he had almost been stuck like a pig by a woman.

Hares broke away from Morgan and walked back to her. She did not move a muscle as he approached. She was not eager to talk to him, so she did not move to meet him, and she did not want to show any signs of guilt, so she could not run. Maybe he did not know, after all. Maybe he had just come to check on her, make sure she actually was coming to the cathedral.

“Lieutenant, I was hoping to catch you here,” he said.

Did he accent the word ‘catch’? “Is that a fact, sir?”

“Yes,” he said. “I was curious to meet the priest that keeps you so somber, but I also had hoped to ask you about the fire across the street.”

“The fire?” She looked back out the still open doors. “And why might you be interested in that, sir?”

“The military has a bad reputation right now,” he said. “And Sunset House thinks this might be an opportunity to improve it. I want you to head a work detail to work with the foreign meisters in cleaning the area up.”

She forced herself to give a disgruntled cough, despite wanting to sigh in relief. He did not know she had spied on him; he was just here to give her scut work and rub it in that it was at the place she went to get away from him. On any other day, she would have been beyond irate. Today, she could almost have kissed him for his simple, petty motives.

“As you wish, sir.” She had a thought. “Perchance, might I select my own detail?”

Rojer narrowed his eyes and looked at her. “No, I think I’ll select my own. Sergeant Fresen will be the next in command, though, I think.”

She scowled at the name while smiling inwardly. He did not know of their own recent altercation, else he would not have put them together so far from his sight. “Very well, sir. After my break, I will return to the offices and collect my assignment.”

He nodded absently. “See that you do. And, while you are digging, be on the look out for anything of strange interest. Perhaps bits of broken machinery or the like.”

He was looking for Markus, no doubt. But why? Not that it mattered, she knew he was not buried under the rubble, but she saw no reason to tell him that. She hated Rojer more than the revenant, although it was a close thing. “Yes, sir.”

He looked at her strangely, and she realized that she had not questioned the order, as she usually did. Too late, now, though, so best to take a different route.

“Will that be all, sir? I’d like some time to speak with the priest.”

“Rushing me off, is it? Not very becoming of a lieutenant to her captain,” he said. “We’ll talk about that back at my office. I’ll see you there promptly on your return.”

Thankfully, he left, and she walked calmly into the nave. Morgan moved up to meet her, concern written on his face.

“So that is Hares, is it?”

“Yes,” she said. “I trust you can see why I despise him?”

“Even the worst of men have good in them, somewhere. That is our way.” He hesitated. “Granted, I can see that perhaps Captain Hares has less than some. But you did not come to talk on such matters, I am sure. Tell me, daughter, what troubles you?”

She handed him a letter. “I just wanted you to deliver this to Markus.”

“Another letter of times to meet?” He looked at it, noticing this time there was a seal.

“No, I thought about that,” she said. “But I want you to pass on a message to him as well. Here is the information he wanted, and I had best never see him again.”

“Daughter,” Morgan said. “You are both members of my flock. He could have been in here today, or some other day. Surely you cannot expect him to avoid the cathedral for fear of seeing you.”

“He won’t have to,” she said. “You have helped me greatly, Father, but it is time I found my own way. Please, make sure Markus gets the letter. And, Kris, thank you for everything.”

Morgan called out after her, but she turned and left. It grieved her to have to leave the cathedral, for as much as she would miss Morgan’s comfort, but right now she did not want to see Markus for the world. She stepped out onto the street and started back towards her office.

* * *

People walked along the street, going about their business. Fine lords and ladies in their tailored suits and fitted dresses, the would-be gentry of the middle class and businessmen, even the shifty-eyed sort that tended to stay to shadows and the slums. They all passed by, and not a one took note of the man in the gutter.

He was easy to miss in a city as congealed and thick as Tijervyn. In the recent months since the war ended, crime had risen sharply, especially in the slums, and no few of the passersby probably thought the man was a corpse, for how he laid splayed out on the walkway, only half propped up against the wall.

Others saw him for the live yet lost soul that he was. Their eyes raced over him quickly and saw the sodden clothes, the unkempt and soiled face, and the bottle of cheap spirits grasped firmly in one hand. With that, they knew his story, or at least the short of it. A once proud man brought low. Those were as common as corpses, though, and deserved just as much attention. Less so, really, since a corpse would begin to bring disease and vermin. The man probably did both, but not so much as to make people care.

The sharper of eye, though, saw the cut of his coat, and here and there could at least guess at what was once its true color. For the greatest of ironies, it was the cutpurses and scoundrels that noticed, for they were always of the sharpest eye, especially in this most inauspicious time that had fallen on Tijervyn. They saw what was missing from the man, the epaulettes, then ropes of rank, the medals. They saw a man they had once despised with the burning passion of the sun, but now he was naught more than a guttersnipe and beggar, and no threat. They could see what he was worth, and for that, regarded corpses and the high-brought-low above him, as both might at least have something of value on them. He, they could tell, had nothing but his memory and wine-soaked breath.

And all of this, he knew for himself. He had been in all of their places and seen men such as himself before. He had looked down on those men as well. This knowledge did not stop him from resenting them back just as much as they ignored him. Surely, all of the men such as himself had thought their present circumstances a cruel twist of fate that was delivered unjustly, but where they were wrong, he was right. He had been used and cast aside, and he would but give the world for his vengeance.

“You are in a sorry state,” a voice said to his side.

He did not look over to the man who had stopped to talk to him.

“Do you wish to be out of it?”

He turned his head slowly and tried as he might to focus his eyes through the haze of the wine. A tall, lean man stood before him, wearing a dark gray suit that seemed to disappear into the dusk. Under his tall hat, he wore a mask.

“Who are you?”

The masked man tilted his head slightly to the side. “You mean you do not recognize me? I recognize you, Constable Black.”

Wynfeld inhaled at the name. Was he not so far gone as to be unrecognizable? “I am a constable no longer. Leave me to my misery.”

“A misery that was not of your own forging,” the man said. “At least, not entirely. Tell me, Black, would you care to bring justice on those that brought you low?”

Black tried to take a swallow of his wine, only to find it empty. “If you offer me vengeance on nobles, I want none of it. Count Jaeger did what he had to.”

“Nor did I ever presume to say he hadn’t,” the man said. “But I never said that was of whom I spoke. No, I know you, Black, and I know you are a man driven in a singular fixation to duty. What I imagine you crave is a chance to fulfill your final task.”

Black looked back up at him with bleary eyes. “The revenant.”

“The revenant,” he said. “And those that let him escape for their own petty desires. Look to Captain Rojer Hares, stationed at the Military Records offices. He was who orchestrated your failed raid to apprehend a girl and let the monster run free.”

“Why would I care for him?” Black spat at the stranger’s feet and noticed the blood that was mixed with his spittle. “He let the revenant go. He will not be the path to it.”

“But Rojer is the path to the girl, and the revenant is after the girl as well. Find the girl, and you find the revenant.”

“Little good that will do me,” Black said.

The stranger leaned forward. “Ah, but what good it might do others. You are not the only one in this city who hates the revenant. Find them, and you might yet find your vengeance.”

The stranger took several steps back, and Wynfeld squinted at him through the sunset. “Who are you?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Black?” The man flourished a bow. “I am Lord Shadow.”

Black’s fingers tightened on the neck of his empty bottle, yet he could not bring himself to make any move against the man. “And why are you helping me?”

“I have told you much, but not that,” Shadow said. “But now I shall take my leave. I hope you find what I have told you useful.”

The man walked off, a shadow in name and truth, and Black could only stare after him and wonder.

 

Story by Richard Fife | Art by April Herron