aftermath of the emperor’s kidnapping, no one had found time to look up the new prisoners in the warrant book.
“Lost me a few runaways from my farm out yonder.” She pointed vaguely in the direction of the lake, beyond which agriculture still dominated the lowlands. “Heard they was here.”
“Describe them.”
“Four strapping fellows, well except for old Hoss. He’s a tall gangly one. Junior looks like he ought to be an officer in the army, ‘cept the women and the drink keeps him under the table ‘til noon if he ain’t watched good. Surly used t’ run with the gangs and looks it. Then there’s Scar. Name speaks for itself, I reckon.”
“Those aren’t the names they gave me,” the corporal said.
“Well, I figger not. Would you give up yer name if you was running from a work contract? I’ve got the doc’ments right here for ‘em.” She handed four bogus papers to the corporal. “They all signed on for two years in exchange for room and board and a share of the crops. I’d be in a right bind without them four hands. Planting season ain’t that far off, y’know.”
The corporal shrugged. “I’ll get the paperwork. It’s a hundred ranmyas apiece to free them.”
“A hundred apiece! What’d they do?”
“Obstructed a crime scene investigation and stole one of our steam trucks. Then they resisted arrest. They’ve resisted everything.”
“Idiots!” Amaranthe slammed a fist into her palm and did her best to look infuriated. “Why couldn’t they just run off and get drunk like you’d expect?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.” Amusement tugged at the corporal’s lips. “Do you have the money to pay the fine?”
“No,” she said glumly. “I reckon you’ll have to keep them.”
The corporal winced. She wondered just how troublesome her men were being.
“Don’t they have anyone else who could pay the fine?” he asked. “The big one-”
“Junior,” Amaranthe supplied.
“Er, Junior implied he had some family he might be able to get to come down.”
“His family’s all dead. Junior’s so used to lying he couldn’t tell the truth if his brandy supply hung on it.”
The corporal rubbed his chin. “He did seem quite reluctant to contact his kin.”
“What happens if no one can pay the fine?” Amaranthe asked as if she didn’t know perfectly well.
The corporal slumped. “They stay here. One hundred eighty days in a cell.”
“Well, I’m just a simple farmer, sir, and I’ll never have that much money to spare, but if you’d release them and let me put them back to work, I’d sure be grateful.”
“Can’t let them go without a fitting punishment.”
“Oh, they’ll be punished.” Amaranthe smiled and pointed at the heretofore silent Sicarius. “Pa here, he’s the farm dis-ci-pli-nar-i-an. He was a soldier and he knows how to lay into a man an’ make him wish he’d never thunk of running off. Ain’t that right, Pa?” She smiled up at Sicarius.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “Ma.”
Hm, she would have to remember not to put him into positions that required acting flair in the future.
“I don’t know, ma’am…” The corporal glanced over his shoulder toward the office. Wanting to get rid of the men but not sure his superiors would approve?
The enforcer that leaned through the doorway was not a superior though. He sported the rank of a raw recruit, and he had a swollen and likely broken nose.
“Want me to get those men for you, Corporal?” he asked in a nasal tone.
Amaranthe lifted her hand and pressed it to her lips to hide a smirk. How many enforcers had it taken to manhandle those four into cells?
“It makes sense,” she said. “If they was to stay here six months, all four of ‘em, that’s a lot of meals you’d have to be feeding them, and them doing no work in return, just lounging in them cells. I reckon that’d add up to a lot more than four hundred ranmyas over time. Seems like a better deal for the city if you let me take ‘em back to the farm.”
“I’m not the one paying for their meals,” the corporal muttered, but he glanced at his subordinate, who waited hopefully in the doorway. “All right, get them out.”
“That’s kind of you, sir.” Amaranthe smiled, and it was no act.
The corporal grumbled under his breath, disappeared into the office for a moment, and returned with paperwork. He laid the four sheets on the desk, stamped them closed, and scribbled something intentionally illegible in the box for recording the fine as paid. Illogically, the old enforcer in Amaranthe cringed at this ham-handed handling of the law.
Scuffles sounded beyond the doorway, and something crashed to the floor and broke.
“Rotten apples.” The corporal pointed at Amaranthe. “Can you help, or will they just get worse when they see you?”
Sicarius strode through the doorway. Amaranthe hustled after. She had to speak first, before the men blew her story.
She need not have worried, for they halted and stared when they saw her and Sicarius. It was not disbelief at their arrival, she realized, but amusement at the farmer outfits. Maldynado managed to open his mouth at the same time as he smirked.
“Junior,” Amaranthe blurted to beat him. “How could you leave the farm-leave my sister -like that? You plant your seed, then just run off to the city to get yourself wound up in antics that put you in jail. For six months! You expecting her to have the baby and care for it without no men-folk to help provide?”
Maldynado’s mouth did not shut; rather his jaw dropped lower and hung there.
Books slapped him on the shoulder. “Lout.”
“And the rest of you. There’s work to be done, even if there’s still snow on the ground. You forget your contracts? You forget your word what you gave me?”
Basilard appeared glad for his missing voice. An indignant expression lurched onto Akstyr’s face, and he started to say something, but Books elbowed him.
“It was a mistake, ma’am,” Books said. “We’re ready to come back to work.”
“Not soon enough.” Maldynado issued a disparaging glare at the corridor of cells behind him.
Amaranthe led them out of the station before anybody could say anything that might give away her story. Outside, snow squeaked under their boots and black ice glinted beneath the street lamps, but gusts of wind from the south promised warmer weather coming.
“Thanks for springing us,” Akstyr said.
“Indeed,” Books said.
Basilard nodded.
“Not that we couldn’t have gotten out on our own charms,” Maldynado said.
“I saw your charms on a couple of enforcers’ faces,” Amaranthe said. “I’d call them contusions, but it’s your story.”
Maldynado grinned. “So, what’s next, boss?”
“Since you asked…”
By the time they reached the icehouse, she had explained her plan.
“There’s just one thing I want to know,” Maldynado said at the end. He stabbed a finger at Amaranthe. “Is that the uniform?”
Smiling, she removed her straw farmer’s cap. She stood on her tiptoes and plopped it on Maldynado’s head.
“Only for you.”
Maldynado started to reach up to remove it but paused. He wriggled his eyebrows at Amaranthe. “Does it look good on me?”
“You look like an illiterate buffoon,” Books said.
“But does it look good?”
• • • • •
Sespian eyeballed the bowl of lotion his new valet had dropped off. The honey-and-cinnamon scent left him wondering if it was edible. He smeared some on his cracked cheeks and forehead.
