‘Very good,’ announced the clerk. ‘We will now vote upon the nomination of Councillor Lim to the position of temporary Legate of Council. All in favour?’
Almost all hands rose. The clerk did a quick count. ‘We have a majority of forty-two votes. Nomination carried.’
This time a stunned silence answered the announcement, as if those gathered could not believe that they’d actually succeeded. Then an enormous cheer arose, councillors laughing, reaching up to clasp Lim’s hands, hugging one another.
‘I wonder just how much all this cost,’ Coll murmured into the clamour. ‘A family fortune, I imagine.’
Speaking of money, it occurred to Torvald that he still had to break the news to Tis. Perhaps he should visit the bourse of the flower-sellers before heading home. And on the subject of costly items, just how huge was his new income from this prestigious post?
‘Excuse me for being so ill-mannered, friend Coll … but what is the pay for sitting on this assembly?’
The big man frowned. His thick greying brows bunched down over his eyes, almost obscuring them. ‘Pay? There’s no pay associated with a seat on the Council. It’s a service. One’s civic duty. However,’ and here the man strove to keep his face straight, ‘monies do flow to members … in direct relation to their power and influence upon the Council …’
Torvald slumped into a nearby seat. In other words, his earnings would amount to the impressive sum of zero. Perhaps for the immediate future it would be better if he avoided returning home altogether …
Impatient banging brought Jess lumbering once more to the doors of the Phoenix Inn. She unlatched the lock to peer out into the glaring morning light. A tall dark figure brushed in past her, imperious.
‘Not — oh, it’s you,’ she said, blinking. She shuffled to the kitchen to wake Chud.
Rallick crossed to the rear table, which stood covered in clumps of old wax, stained by spills of red Rhivi wine. Empty wine bottles crowded it, and crumbs lay scattered like the wreckage of war.
Jess came shuffling up to offer a glass of steaming tea. Rallick took it. ‘Thank you.’ He blew on the small tumbler, then sipped. ‘So … where is he?’
Jess cocked a brow at the man — a man rumoured to be the lover of Vorcan, once head of the city’s guild of assassins. And thus to her a man commanding a great deal of physical … tension. She kept her eyes on him. ‘Where’s who?’
‘The toad … self-proclaimed Eel. The fat man.’
She swept an arm to the table. ‘Why, he’s right-’ She stared, gaping. ‘Fanderay’s tits! He’s not here! He’s buggered off! Where’s he got to?’ A hand closed over her mouth. ‘Oh, Burn’s mercy … who’s gonna cover his tab? Have you seen the size of his tab?’
Rallick handed over the glass. ‘No. And I don’t care to, thank you.’ He headed for the door.
‘Where are you going?’
Without stopping Rallick answered, ‘Looks like maybe it’s up to me to settle accounts, Jess. I seem to be the only one around here willing to do it.’
Of all the men and women she’d seen in the Phoenix Inn it had always appeared to Jess that Rallick was the one who could close any debt. But this was a damnably huge one.
Rallick pushed open the ornamental wrought-iron gate that allowed entrance to the grounds of the alchemist Baruk’s modest estate. He walked the curving flagged path past subdued plantings of flowering shrubs. A small fountain tinkled spray from the mouth of an amphora held at a boy’s stone shoulder. Leaves cluttered the surface of the pond, as did something else: a piece of litter, or wind-tossed garbage. Rallick’s long face drew down, accentuating the deep lines framing his mouth.
Baruk’s grounds were always immaculate.
He pulled on a pair of leather gloves and extracted the litter from the sodden leaves. A card. A card from an expensive custom-made Dragons Deck. Soaked now, and flame-scorched. Turning it over, he grunted. A card of rulership: Crown. He dropped it back into the glimmering water.
The front door was unlocked. He lifted the latch and pushed it open. Inside lay destruction. Shards of ceramic urns and expensive glassware littered the carpet of the entranceway. Paintings had been thrown down; furniture overturned.
Rallick crouched to his haunches just outside the threshold. He drew pieces of wood and metal from his pockets and waist until he’d assembled a medium-sized crossbow, its metal parts blued. The sort of weapon that would immediately have you arrested should anyone catch sight of it.
He loaded it, then cocked it by slipping a foot into its stirrup and straightening. Then he crossed his arms, cradling the weapon across his chest. He called out, ‘Roald? Hello? Anyone?’
No answer. He heard the wind brushing through nearby boughs; a carriage made its noisy metal-tyred way down one of the alleys bordering the estate. In the light of the sun he studied the weave of the carpet lining the entranceway.
He rose, edged inwards. Over the years he’d done occasional work for Baruk; non-assassination jobs, gathering intelligence, trailing people, collecting rare objects, and such like. As had Kruppe, Murillio, and sometimes Coll. Indeed, it was this very work that had thrown the lot of them together. Four as unlikely associates as one might imagine. In any case, he knew enough to be very wary of crossing this particular threshold.
But others had entered already, to no ill effects he could discern. He peered into the nearest room opening off the foyer. Some sort of waiting room. Complete carnage and wanton devastation. Everything broken, thrown to the floor. Vandalism. Plain juvenile vindictiveness.
He moved on. Up the narrow tower stairs he found chambers similarly ruined. So far he couldn’t tell if the intruder had come deliberately searching for something and was venting her frustration upon failing to discover it, or whether such destruction, or insult, had been the prime purpose of the visitation from the start.
He glanced into what appeared to have been some sort of workroom. Delicate glass fragments of globes covered the bare stone floor, as did the tattered remains of torn books and scrolls. Workbenches had been swept clear of their clutter, which now lay in tangled heaps on the floor.
His foot crushed a glass shard and a chest flew open across the room. Rallick’s crossbow snapped out, seeming to point of its own accord, only to fall again — a squat toad-like familiar, or demon, was peeping out, its amber eyes huge with fear. ‘Gone!’ it croaked. ‘Out! Oh my!’
Rallick frowned, his mouth drawing down even further. ‘Who? Who’s out?’
‘Hinter gone! Out. Oh my!’
‘Where’s Baruk?’
‘Gone! Oh my!’
‘And the place ransacked,’ Rallick muttered, more to himself.
‘Not all,’ and the demon’s clawed hand flew to cover its mouth.
With a jerk of the crossbow, Rallick motioned the creature from the chest.
The demon led him down the narrow circular staircase, which continued on past ground level, passing floor after floor of quarters, storerooms, and workrooms. Rallick had had no idea the place was so extensive. It seemed so small from the outside. The creature stopped at what appeared to be the lowest floor. Rallick lit a wall-mounted lantern and raised it to peer around. The room was bare, almost completely empty.
‘Oh no!’ it gibbered. ‘Out! Out!’ It slapped its bald head with its tiny undersized clawed hands and hopped from foot to foot.
‘What’s out?’
