The Tijervyn Chronicles
Chapter Eight

story by
Richard Fife

art by
April Herron

Chapter Eight: “Dark Secrets”

The crowd surged aroundKira in the Royal District, and she casually helped herself to the contents of the pocket of anyone who brushed against her. She was not actually in the area to pick pockets, but she could hardly pass by such an opportunity as presented itself. Normally, picking pockets here was a good way to end up with the nautilus, or in her case, a noose around the neck, but not a one of her marks realized what she was doing. She was too good to be caught, especially by nobles that had grown lazy with the supposed safety of the Royal District.

A block ahead of her, the Tidor boy and his minder walked into a noble’s manor. Once more, there had been no chance for her to even get near. The minder was always there, and she could not help but wonder where Lord Tidor had found the man. That he followed the young man everywhere was no doubt the work of Lord Tidor. Surely, no one could tolerate such a grim person hovering at their elbow whenever they were in public.

But then, how to get near the young Tidor? She had contemplated breaking back into Tidor Manor, but since the Thieves’ Race, the manor’s guards had become near on paranoid of another break-in. The rumors about Markus that filled the streets now were surely no help.

Everyone was at least half-sure that there was a revenant in the city, and it had attacked the Tidors. It could not have been a robbery. No, robbers never strike in the middle of the day. Never mind the eight other manors that had been broken into in broad daylight the same day. The constables, with their prickly pride, continue to just deny the entire thing had happened with only minimal arrests.

She reached over and felt the ring that was barely hidden by her fingerless gloves. She had won Lord Shadow’s race. She had also been wrong to underestimate Markus, although his involvement did not make her current situation any easier. It also stung, how easily he had ran the race. Sure, he had done plenty of risky, covert missions when he was in the army—not that he ever elaborated on what they were—but he was still new to true thieving. She had been running the streets of the slums for just over a decade, had earned her nautilus before she started her monthlies, and she had dreamed of running the race and earning her ring the entire time.

Then Markus, who had only been in the city and the world of the slums for a week, waltzed in and earned it without really trying. He did not even wear the blasted thing!

She took a deep breath and turned away from the manor before her. Fuming over Markus would not solve her problem. There was an obstacle before her, and now she just had to remove it. But how, now that was a question. Infiltrating the manor was out of the question, and the Tidor boy always had that Praedin-spawned minder. There had to be a way around him, some way to remove him from the equation, at least for a little while. But what could be so distracting as to make him abandon his ward?

It could not be a threat; that would only make him stay closer. No, it had to be something that would make him irrational, much like a fly could drive even the best trained horse mad. A distraction. A nuisance. She smiled to herself. She knew exactly what would work.

* * *

Markus took a long draw off his lager. Oddly enough, he had never really had a chance in his life to enjoy a relaxing evening in a pub, and doing so now was calming, exhilarating, and a little strange all at the same time. That he had found a friend in Megyn was even stranger, not that she really knew anything about him.

He put his beer down and turned to her. “So then, the major says to just go ahead and start firing anyway. We spent two hours throwing artillery at that hill, and sure enough, all we found when we finally stopped and stormed it was holes and no sign of the enemy.”

Megyn shook her head and laughed. “I can’t believe our side did that, too.”

“What?” Markus said.

“That our side blew an empty hilltop to Praedin, too,” Megyn said. “It actually must have been around the same time. My battalion was held up by a swamp that had swelled from a recent rain, and our colonel diverted us to a different position about three miles away from the one we were headed to. Later that day, we heard more than saw the Adervynian forces open fire on where we were supposed to be. Turned out all they did was blow the top off the hill.”

Markus looked down at the bar. “Huh, how about that? Guess it’s just a small, strange world.”

“What was the major’s name again?” Megyn said. “The one that told you to shoot an empty hill?”

“Oh, Troena above, what was his name,” Markus said. “We always just called him sir to his face and other less savory nicknames behind it. Major Lordin, I think? Something like that.”

“I’ll have to look him up,” she said.

“Look him up?” Markus laughed. “He’s a little higher ranked than you to go chew him out, isn’t he?”

“I’m just curious if he did anything else as moronic,” she said. “It isn’t as though he had the love of his soldiers, not that many of our senior officers did. Not at all like the Adervynian army, as I understand it.”

“Oh, I’m sure the Adervynians had their fair share of bad commanders,” Markus said.

“Perhaps, but we didn’t have their general,” she said. “I have to wonder what kind of man he had to be, to have been turned into a revenant and still have been well thought of by his troops.”

“Traval was, well . . . .” Markus looked down into his beer. “I guess you’re right. We didn’t have anyone like him.”

Megyn looked at him for a long moment, but she did not ask whatever question was in her eyes. Instead, she sighed and looked into her beer. “And now look at us. You a thief, and me forced to work for a yellow bellied desk clerk that avoided the war with his family’s influence.”

“Hey now,” he said. “I never said I was a—”

“Calm down,” she said. “I’m not going to turn you in. You’re a good man, Markus. You still believe in the difference between right and wrong, but you’ve just fallen on some hard times. I hope you get out of them.”

He drew his shoulders up a bit and looked back to his beer. “I’m not a thief.”

“Alright, alright, save it for the priest,” she said. “Long as you talk to him, you’re good in my book. Troena knows that he’s the only reason I can manage to keep a clean conscience.”

Markus looked up from his beer. “What’s that mean?”

“Markus, you were right to get out,” she said. “I wish I could have, but as I said, I can’t even imagine going back to the life I had before. But I’m not a soldier anymore. The Council must feel horrible for having allowed women to join, and they can’t just kick us back out, so they’ve turned the few of us that wanted to stay in into secretaries and gofers.”

“It’s still a steady career,” Markus said. “Security and the ability to go out on your time and do what want.”

“Except that my commanding officer makes my life Praedin’s nightmare,” she said. “He takes bribes and kickbacks from whoever can offer them. He doesn’t even understand the justice and peace he is supposed to be protecting, and he looks down on me because I do. Tell me, Markus, what did we go out there and fight for? We were trying to take back a rogue city, but we barely have our own capital! Tijervyn is festering with a disease, and nobody, not constables or nobles, seem to care.”

Markus opened his mouth but found he had nothing to say. He could see her point: the city was nothing like he remembered it a decade ago. The slums had been bad, but nowhere near like what he lived in now, and the very fact there was a Lord Shadow and enough thieving bands to rotate through his race made it seem like the entire city was on the brink of lawlessness.

“You know it’s true,” she said.

“But what can we do besides live our lives?” he said.

“A single drop can make a glass overflow,” Megyn said. “And even if you are only emptying a glass a drop at a time, it will eventually empty.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “What?”

“Finish your beer,” she said. “We’re going to go make a difference.”

* * *

Vlad looked at Kira in confusion. “So, what exactly is it that you want me to do?”

“I need you to distract that ugly bodyguard,” she said. “Do whatever it takes without actually appearing to be a threat. Make him so focused on you that he forgets everything else that’s around him.”

“Right.” Vlad nodded and looked down the street, where the Tidor boy and his minder were walking towards them. “And this is all so you can pick that young man’s pocket?”

“Well, no,” Kira said. “I need to get him away from that bodyguard. I’m going to pull him into this empty store. I shouldn’t take that long, but the longer you can keep Mr. Ugly there occupied, the better.”

A smile broke across Vlad’s face. “Ah . . . I see now. This boy, he is your lover? But, isn’t he a little young for you?”

Kira flushed despite herself. “He isn’t my lover! I just need more time than to simply pick his pocket.”

“Oh.” Vlad sighed, crestfallen. “You aren’t going to kill him, are you? He doesn’t seem like all that bad a boy.”

Kira nearly screamed in frustration. She should have realized trying to use the strange, foreign man would be a double-edged sword. Sure, if anyone could cause a distraction by merely being there, it was Vlad, but that meant she had to put up with him until she unleashed him on his unsuspecting target.

“Vlad, just do it, okay? Stop worrying about what I’m going to do, it isn’t anything horrible or bad, it’s just—”

“Then why are you trying to keep it secret?”

“Oh!” She rubbed her temple then looked down the street. “Look, they’re almost here. Please, Vlad, just do this? I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I’ll drink some Vladka with you afterwards, okay? Just go!”

She was pushing him by the end, and he looked at her with a sly smile. “A Rasputnik’s promise?”

“Yes!”

He spun on his heel and marched out into the street. “And behold, for fortune favors friends foretold forthwith famously!”

The boy and his minder stopped dead in their tracks, both with utter looks of confusion on their faces. The boy, at least, looked intrigued. The minder only scowled.

“Off with you,” the minder said. “We don’t want any of your charlatanry.”

“Ah, but such similarities you seem to surrender at a simple scent with the scant salvages of a sickly specter.” Vlad reached into his coat, and the minder tensed. He did not relax when Vlad brought out a clear vial. “With but one ounce of Omega’s Oeuvre de L’Eaux, one can oust the odious odor that occupies the oily outings with which you smell acquainted.”

The minder growled, but the young man laughed. “Oh, calm down Walden. He’s entertaining. I haven’t had a good laugh since that revenant attacked the manor.”

“And he might work for that same revenant, Master Douglis,” Walden said. “Come along, we shan’t be held up by this tomfoolery.”

Walden tried to walk past, but Vlad moved in such a way as to stay in front of him without ever giving ground or making contact. “Come, good sir, a gracious gentleman surely can give a glass’s grain to a gift that could grant generous gains.”

“Stand aside!” Walden moved to walk through Vlad, but Vlad then threw the glass vial to the street. It shattered immediately with a flash, and a puff of violet smoke wafted up. The man took a step back with an oath.

Vlad took a deep breath of the smoke. “Ah, such pungent perfumes placate paranoia—a perplexity you prodigiously possess—and perchance a purchase could poison the penchants of peril of which your person is prone.”

Walden snarled, and Douglis took a step back to watch, his arms crossed. Kira smiled as Walden seemed to take no notice of Douglis’s distance, so focused he was on Vlad.

“Now see here, you cad,” Walden said. “You will remove yourself from our way, or I will remove you from it!”

“Violence is another vicious investment my Voxfeldian vials can vigorously vanquish.” Vlad flourished several more vials, and Walden looked uncertain. “A quick query against quarrelsome quandary can quite quietly quell any question.”

Walden’s face reddened, perhaps at Vlad’s words or that realization that he was letting himself be cowed by vials. He swung his cane, and Vlad stepped to the side in such a way as to appear as if he did not even know he was being attacked, but had simply decided to move. The cane whizzed, but where Vlad’s head been a moment ago, there was only air.

“Maybe, dear man, ‘tis a malady of muscles, or a murmur of the mind. A morbid mucus that maligned myself once marked me most malignant, until made I the magnificent, mayhap magical mixture I move this morn. A drop may manage to mix the mélange of many a malicious man.”

Walden swung again and again, and each time Vlad side-stepped or rotated, never giving ground. When Walden tried to rush him, there was a puff of smoke from a dropped vial, or Vlad would seemingly elbow the man by accident, followed with profuse apologies, but with the result still that they occupied the same small stretch of road.

Douglis had moved over to lean against a building and watch, one hand up over his mouth as he tried to hold in his laughter. Kira had to admit, now that Vlad was not directing his frustrating attention on her, it was rather comical to watch. A small part of her still pitied Walden, though. It seemed almost cruel of her to pit the man against something he could undoubtedly never be prepared for.

Kira took a deep breath then made her move now that Walden was thoroughly distracted. She quickly slid in through the alleyway door of the abandoned shop Douglis now leaned against, made her way to the front, and quietly opened the door. Walden was still futilely swinging at Vlad, who was still rattling off his various lines that barely made sense, if at all, and apparently hawking his panaceas and elixirs. Douglis was in arm’s reach and completely out of Walden’s attention.

She took a deep breath and grabbed the young man’s arm. He turned in shock, a scream on his lips, but when he saw her face, he swallowed it. She put her finger to her lips anyway, and then pulled him into the store. Inside, she pushed him to the floor then stooped next to him.

“Douglis?” she said. “Is it really you?”

“You’re the woman from the other day,” he said. “The one with the revenant.”

She nodded. “Yes, but we weren’t after Tidor Manor for any other reason than it being the end of Lord Shadow’s race. I’m sorry I had to knock you out like that.”

He scooted back. “Why are you here? How do you know me?”

“Douglis,” she said. “Don’t you recognize me? It’s me, Kira!”

He narrowed his eyes then widened them in shock. “Kira! I thought . . . where have you been?”

“I’ve been living in the slums,” she said. “I ran away from that horrible place, and I found a place that I can actually call home. Come on, I don’t know how much longer Vlad can distract that goon Lord Tidor has guarding you. Come on.”

She grabbed his wrist to lead him, but he did not follow. “What are you talking about?”

She turned back to him. It really was Douglis! She had thought she would never see him again, yet here he was. She still thought of him as a boy, but the more she looked at him, she knew he was no longer the awkward youth she had abandoned in that terrible house.

“You don’t have to live in terror anymore,” she said. “I had never dared to hope there could be someplace safe, even when I ran away, but I found one. It frees you of being a slave to the gilded manacles of nobility and your father’s whims. Just come, see, and . . . .”

She trailed off as she looked in his eyes. There was no spark of longing, or even a shadow of fear. No, the face was Douglis’s, but those eyes—the last time she had seen eyes like that, she had been looking into the eyes of Lord Tidor.

“Kira,” he said. “I don’t know what kind of trouble you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in, but I can get you out of it. House Tidor isn’t quite as lacking in influence as it once was, and we can sweep anything you’ve done under the rug.”

She let go of his wrist and scooted back. “No. No, Douglis. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Kira, I can help you,” he said. “It was wise for you to come to me like this, but we can stop this charade. Come with me back to the manor. I don’t know what kind of horrible life you’ve tricked yourself into thinking is good in the slums, but surely a warm bed under a real roof is better.”

“A gilded prison with locks made of fear and torment,” she said. “That is what I left. I know you suffered, too.”

“Kira, come back,” he said.

She stood and shook her head. “Douglis, I can’t. I won’t! I’ll never sit in that cage again!” She bolted to the alleyway door, but paused a moment to look back at Douglis. He was still sitting under the front window, and his face showed only disappointment. She brushed a tear from her eye and ran.

* * *

The breeze between the buildings cooled the afternoon air only slightly with the heavy price of a strong scent coming in from the sea, and Markus had to wonder why Megyn had led him to Docktown. He did not bother asking, though. All his prior attempts to find out where they were going had been met with “You’ll see,” and all his attempts at finding out why they were going there were met with “to make a difference.”

Wooden buildings replaced the predominately stone ones that made up the rest of the city, with a good many of them covered in a tar to keep out as much moisture as was possible. The traffic that flowed along the streets was strange at best, with long lines of wagons moving the goods that were not being loaded onto trains, or perhaps carrying them to or from a different station. Plenty enough workers and merchants moved about as well, but despite the crowd, Markus felt like the slums were safe in comparison.

There was something about the eyes of those workers, especially the way they looked at Megyn, that made him think they would stab or shoot them given cause and not even worry about someone calling the constables. As he realized this, Megyn stopped.

“Well, we’re here.”

He looked around. “And where is here?”

“Someplace we can make a difference,” she said. “Look around you. What do you see?”

“A lot of Docktown workers that don’t looked all that thrilled to see an officer and a slum-dweller.”

“You see what this city is turning into,” she said. “The slums are little better. Unrepentant thieves and murderers walk and act out in broad daylight, sometimes in sight of a constable. Is this why we fought for five years in a hopeless and meaningless war?”

“Of course it isn’t,” he said.

“Right,” she said. “It isn’t, and we’re going to do something about it.”

Before he could say anything, she started moving again, this time heading down an alleyway. Faint shadows hid recessed doors, but not much else. Small piles of refuse and debris littered the narrow way, as did a few drunken sailors who sat glumly on crates and nursed bottles of cheap liquor.

They passed the sailors with only leers and catcalls to Megyn for trouble. She scowled at them and flashed her pistol, which only earned her a few cruder suggestions about where she could put it. She narrowed her eyes, but walked on, dragging Markus behind her.

They crossed the next street into another alley, where they found more shirkers and lewd remarks, but no more. The third alley, though, held what she was apparently after.

A shirtless dockworker had corner a woman who was futilely trying to beat him off. Her pathetic slaps had little effect against his corded muscles, though, and he had already ripped her blouse open and was working on pulling her numerous skirts up with one hand while another quested beneath. Strangely, for all the woman was obviously struggling, she did not scream. Perhaps she knew it would do no good.

Megyn drew her pistol. “Let her go, you coal-kissing son of a bitch!”

The man did not even turn around. “Bugger off, wench, unless you want some next.”

Megyn pulled the hammer back on her pistol, and the sound echoed off the alley walls. Both the dockworker and the woman froze, and he slowly turned his head and locked eyes with Megyn.

“I said let her go,” Megyn said.

“Megyn, what are you doing?” Markus said.

“Making a difference,” she said.

“Easy now, girly,” the dockworker said. “You don’t want to hurt yourself. That’s a mighty big gun you have there. Stole it from your daddy’s cupboard and thought to come down and make a difference? I bet you haven’t ever fired it, have you.”

She adjusted her aim a hair and squeezed off a round, and a jug of grog that had been sitting on a crate just past the man exploded. The woman screamed in shock, and the man flinched. Megyn pulled the hammer back again and trained her aim back between the man’s eyes.

“You have until I count to three,” she said. “One.”

“Who do you think you are?” the man said.

“I’d let her go,” Markus said. “She’s pretty serious.”

“Two.”

The man pushed the woman towards them, and she fell at Megyn’s feet. Markus quickly helped her up and out of the way, and Megyn kept the gun on the dockworker. The woman looked from Markus to Megyn, obviously with no clue what to expect next. Markus honestly could not have told her himself.

Megyn glanced at the girl. “Cover yourself up, and go.”

The girl nodded fearfully, did what she could to make herself decent, and ran from the alley. The dockworker looked from Markus to Megyn and laughed nervously.

“There, no harm, no foul, right mates?” he said. “Now, I’ll just be going myself, right?”

Megyn glanced behind, perhaps to see if the woman was gone, or perhaps to see if anyone was paying attention. Regardless, when she turned back, she pulled the trigger. A quick spurt of blood speckled the alley wall, and the man, now with a hole between his eyes, collapsed.

Markus ran over to him and felt for a pulse, although it must have been out of habit. It was clearly a clean shot; the man had died before he finished falling. Markus looked up at Megyn.

“Why’d you do that?”

“He’s a rapist.” Megyn calmly holstered her gun.

Markus stood. “We stopped him before he technically raped her.”

“He’d raped before,” Megyn said. “And he would have raped again. He didn’t deserve to live. Can you honestly say you disagree?”

Markus looked down at the body and sighed. “Well, no. But, we could have just taken him to the constables.”

“Why, so he could be held for a day or two until his friends bribed him out?” She sneered at the corpse. “The law is just a joke anymore, Markus. It says he should have hanged for what he did, and he would have barely been inconvenienced. I doubt he would have even received the nautilus.”

“Still—”

“Still nothing, Markus,” she said. “He deserved to die by the laws of the nation we fought to protect from afar. Those who are supposed to protect those laws here are derelict in their duty, so it falls to us once more. Look at him, remember what you saw, and tell me that we have not done some good this day.”

Markus looked down at the body. Now, without the mask of life giving the sinister look to his face, and ignoring the hole in his head, he looked like just another man. Markus could almost forget that he had been about to rape that woman, and perhaps kill her afterwards, for all he knew.

“I,” he said. “I don’t know.”

Megyn walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t either, at first. And Father Morgan even has a hard time disapproving of my actions, although he still gives me the whole speech about Troena abhorring murder. This was not murder, though. This was the only justice this city knows anymore. I know it, Father Morgan knows it, and I think, deep down, you know it.”

Markus tore his eyes away from the man. “I just don’t know.”

“Think on it,” she said. “My afternoon break is almost over. Come on, let’s get going.”

They left Docktown in silence, and Markus only mumbled a farewell at the intersection where she branched off to go to her office in the Royal District. Afterwards, he made a slow trip back to the slums, and instead of going down to The Hole, he went into the church.

Father Morgan gave him a friendly smile that was quickly replaced with concern, but after Markus declined to talk about his problems, the priest left him alone. The entire time he sat in the church, he only thought of one question: was Megyn right? By the time he finally left and returned to The Hole, he still did not have an answer.

* * *

Rojer looked up from his paperwork when a single knock reverberated off his doorframe. In the open door, Sergeant Shane Fresen stood very nearly at attention while also maintaining an air of disinterest. The mix made Rojer like the man, despite his tendency to be overly quiet. So many people assumed the quiet ones had nothing about them worth knowing. Years of administrative work had taught Rojer differently, yet he had been thus far unable to detect what was special about Fresen.

He sat his pen down and folded his hands. “Yes, Sergeant?”

“A minor lord here to see you, sir,” Fresen said.

“Oh, Lord Thames?”

Fresen frowned. “No, sir. A Lord Tidor.”

“Tidor?” Rojer said. “Well then. Show him in, I guess. Hardly good manners to leave a lord waiting.”

Fresen withdrew, and Rojer took the time to clean his desk. He returned the whiskey and tumbler to the sidebar, and put away papers that gentler eyes did not need to see. One could never tell with nobles. Some would just as soon the whiskey was at hand and would not bat an eye to anything, and others would see him in irons just for having the top button of his uniform undone. Tidor was one of the latter.

On that thought, he fastened the button then returned to his desk, where he picked up his pen and started making notations on a report that did not really matter. The appearance of work was all he needed. Just enough to make sure the noble knew he was interrupting.

Fresen returned, and Rojer waved them in without looking up. He thanked and dismissed Fresen, then begged patience with his free hand as he finished a line calling for corrections on the fictitious report.

When he looked up, it was with some surprise that he saw a younger man with blond hair sitting across from him. “Ah, Lord Tidor, sorry for keeping you waiting, although please pardon my confusion. I expected someone else.”

“I’d have imagined you expected my father,” the man said. “I’m Douglis, his son, and I’d appreciate it if my coming here doesn’t come up the next time you happen to meet.”

“That depends,” Rojer said. “I can hardly lie to a lord.”

Douglis reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a rather thick envelope. “I know about you, Captain Hares. I trust this will buy your silence, as well as secure your services, should you be amicable.”

Rojer accepted the envelope and could not stop his eyes from widening when he opened it. The amount inside was rather ludicrous, at least for the kind of work Rojer did. That alone should have earned the boy a polite but firm dismissal, but Rojer also had to admit he was curious.

“And what information do you value so much?” Rojer said.

Douglis leaned back. “Not just information. I need the whereabouts of someone, and I need you to secure them for me.”

“Secure them?” Rojer said. “That sounds like constable work. I’m sure you can find a friendly ear in one of the stations.”

“The constables are incompetent,” Douglis said. “They would do well enough if who I needed secured was in the public eye, I suppose, but this particular woman is buried in the underworld. In fact, she’s a thief who ran in Lord Shadow’s Race.”

Rojer crossed his arms. “I still think the constables would be a better option for you.”

“But the constables have a very bad habit of talking to whoever pays them,” Douglis said. “You, though, I’ve heard, are quite discrete. And, above all else, this thief must be caught quietly and no one, not even my father, must know.”

“Quite some measure to get back at someone who robbed you,” Rojer said.

“While she did break into our manor, that is not why I want her.” Douglis leaned in. “Not that I can tell you that unless you accept to find and secure her for me.”

Rojer knew he was getting in too deep. He should demure, tell this lordling that it was well and nice that he had dark secrets and ulterior motives, but that he should take it up with the law, but again, his curiosity bested him. “Very well. One thief shouldn’t be too hard.”

Douglis nodded. “Then be gentle, and bring her to me unharmed. The woman you are tracking is my sister.”