A couple of corner boys lounged at the intersection. ‘Nobody that matters.’
Eloway breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the stained cloth above his brow, revealing a pair of eyes that showed no immediate evidence of dysfunction. ‘By the Lost One, it gets hot in there.’
‘I don’t understand why you still bother with this get up.’
‘Force of habit, I suppose. Besides, you’d be amazed how much I hear sitting against alley walls – people tend to think the blindfold means I’m deaf as well.’
Eloway the Blind was not a beggar. He dressed like a beggar, looked like one even, a too-thin forty with bad skin and worse teeth. And he begged, a mewling patter that brought in more coin than a day of honest labor at the mills. But he was not a beggar, and in fact any reasonable audit of his finances would have placed him at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Eloway the Blind was the executive of the most efficient system of spies, plants and spotters operating anywhere within the city proper. The shiftless youth outside your window sent word to him on what you ate for breakfast, and the ten-penny whore you slummed with last night reported every nasty itch you asked her to scratch. His army was the dispossessed, the unwanted and unnoticed. Probably Black House could best him in the suburbs, though more than one underpaid serving boy cribbed their meager earnings selling scraps from their master’s table. And of course his tendrils didn’t reach outside of the capital into the countryside, or to foreign shores. But south of the Old City he knew everything there was to know, and if you needed to find a man or take a peek at his journal, Eloway was whom you spoke to.
Assuming you had the coin – though he asked for it, Eloway didn’t run a charity.
‘You got my cigarette?’ he asked.
‘Are you seriously trying to shake me down?’
Eloway tapped at his rags. ‘Pockets kill the effect.’
‘Sakra’s cock, you think maybe you take this charade a little far?’ But I rolled one up for him anyway.
He took it with a smile. ‘What did Joachim Pretories want?’
Everything worth knowing, like I said. ‘Trying to run me, Eloway?’
‘What do you cost?’
‘More than you could afford,’ I said, though it wasn’t true. ‘I’m looking for a woman.’
‘A clean one should run you a couple of argents, but this part of town you could get serviced for half that, if you ain’t particular.’
‘Name’s Rhaine Montgomery, though she won’t be using it. Early twenties, red hair, blue eyes. Top crust and trying to hide it. She overpaid for lodgings, and she’s probably been took by half the clip men on whatever street she’s holed up in.’
‘Montgomery? As in Edwin Montgomery’s daughter?’
Facility with names was a requirement of Eloway’s position. ‘Yeah.’
He ashed my cigarette on the ground next to him. ‘I’m a patriot, Warden,’ he said, impressively dignified given that his costume included a smattering of fresh dog shit. ‘And not interested in causing the general any harm.’
‘He’s the one asked me to find her,’ I said. ‘Does that mean I get a discount?’
‘I’m not that much of a patriot. When do you need it by?’
‘What time is it?’
‘Round two.’
‘I’d like it before one-thirty.’
He chuckled and quoted a price. I quoted a lesser one. We reached an agreement, and I counted it out and handed it to him. One of the boys slipped over and took it, then ran off. ‘Send word to the Earl?’ he asked.
I nodded and he pulled his rag back over his eyes. As I left the cover of the alleyway a passing merchant looked Eloway over sadly and slipped an argent into his cup. Eloway’s patter turned grateful, though I suspected beneath the blindfold he was winking.
12
It was no more temperate in the Earl than it was outside. But it was darker, and that was enough to pretend. I didn’t bother to spark a lantern, finding my way to a chair in the corner and lighting a twist of vine. Between that and my general laziness, sleep came quickly enough.
I was awakened by Adeline standing over me. More accurately, I awakened with Adeline standing over me. For all I knew she’d been waiting silently for three-quarters of an hour, counting the seconds until some unrelated incident brought me up from sleep.
‘Howdy darlin’,’ I began, blinking myself alert. ‘How’s the queen?’ Adeline was wide-hipped and plain, and looking at her you wouldn’t call her a pretty woman. But later on you’d remember her that way. Finding her was one of the few true pieces of luck Adolphus had ever received, and holding on to her evidence of greater wisdom than he sometimes displayed.
Her lips hinted at a smile, as if afraid to breach etiquette. ‘Staying cool?’ In keeping with the demeanor, her voice rarely rose above a murmur.
‘Trying to.’
‘I’ll bring you some lemonade.’
‘My angel.’
Despite the heat, Adeline didn’t sweat, seemed barely even to breathe. It was difficult to square this passivity with the fact that she oversaw virtually everything that was required for the continued functioning of the Earl, as well as the needs of her husband and adopted son. ‘I heard you had a talk with Wren.’
That was surprising – the boy was sullen in childhood, and even more loquacious youths tend to lose their taste for dialogue after entering adolescence. ‘I know, he shouldn’t be associating with such an unsavory element.’
‘He said you caught him practicing the Art.’
‘Is that what he was doing?’
‘He said you told him you’ll find him a teacher.’
‘He’s a chatty one, our Wren.’
‘He won’t sit on the shelf forever.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know.’
‘So you’re taking care of it.’ Not a question, though phrased as such.
‘I am.’
She nodded.
Talking to Adeline is like searching for meaning in the bottom of a tea cup, or the quivering in a line of fresh entrails. But near on fifteen years of practice had given me a feel for the hints which indicated movement beneath the waters. ‘What else you got?’
‘Adolphus.’
‘He’s a drag. What say the two of us ditch him and make for the coast, buy a little cottage and sleep the days away?’
She didn’t laugh. ‘I don’t like his new friends.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘Then you’ll speak to him?’
‘He ain’t Wren, Adeline.’
‘He listens to you.’
‘Not on this.’
She sighed unhappily, then disappeared, coming back after a few minutes with the promised glass of lemonade. Then she busied herself preparing for the evening trade, cleaning tables, sweeping the floor, activities that required illumination and thus made further repose impossible. I busied myself in the pages of a history tome I’d picked up a week earlier.
After a while a soot-faced boy came calling my name. I waved him over and he passed me a small slip of paper.
