Chapter 39. Kella
Detective Massi slouched in her seat on the train, staring at the back of the marshal’s head. Sometimes his little partner would come talk to him and sometimes he would go walk around or sit in other cars. Then there had been the excitement with the two men from first class who seemed to have disappeared into the rear of the train, and the marshal returned alone and soaking wet.
All very interesting.
Kella might have developed a more critical analysis of her hours on the train except the burning, aching pains all over her bandaged and sutured body kept her focus wandering. Her stomach demanded food, but she had none to give it. So she slouched in her seat, clutching her wooden cane and keeping the fabric of her scarf carefully arranged around her head to obscure her face. There was no reason to think anyone here might recognize her, but she wasn’t feeling particularly adventurous at the moment.
Risks are for rookies. I plan to retire in one piece.
After racing lightly across the highlands, the train had slowed to a more ponderous and stately pace as it climbed the ever-steeper slopes of the Atlas Mountains, eventually encountering the switchbacks that forced the entire assemblage of cars to reverse up the long ridges before continuing forward along their crests. Then there were the three stops at the way stations to replenish the engine’s water supply. Slowing, reversing, climbing, stopping. Had the train been able to simply run straight from Arafez to Orossa, the journey might have taken less than three hours, but instead it took nearly six. As they rolled into the Lower City with much steamy huffing and brake squealing, Kella peered out at the train station clock.
Midnight.
She waited as the passengers slowly awoke, rubbing their eyes and yawning and stretching. One by one, they slid out from their bench seats, gathered up their bags, and shuffled out onto the platform. The two marshals made a small show of “waking up” and then wandered outside with the others. Kella watched them amble across the platform and disappear into the shadows near the end of the station.
The storm was breaking up, the thunder rolling farther and farther away, and the rain fell in light sheets and sprays as the wind gusted through the empty city streets. The Lower City of Orossa was deathly still and silent, the darkness broken only by a handful of streetlamps still burning high above the street corners in a few lonely neighborhoods. The Lower City was a city in name only as it contained none of the modern trappings of city life. The train station and airfield, along with a small cluster of government offices at the base of the Royal Road, were the only buildings in the valley that were not single-room houses. There were no telegraph offices, libraries, restaurants or cafes, theaters or museums, or even a fire department. Law and order flowed from the army barracks as needed, and it was rarely needed. The residents of the Lower City were far too busy farming their thin terrace plots on the mountainsides, and chasing their goats, and mending their fragile homes. There was no time to make trouble in the mountains.
Detective Massi limped out of the train, her cane knocking loudly on the wooden platform. This was her eighth time setting foot in the Lower City and once again it was in pursuit of a runaway criminal, though for the first time she knew at least that her quarry would not be hiding in one of the small houses dotting the valley floor. This was not a place of luxury or even of industry. It was a place of worship. Kella peered up the mountainside, just barely able to trace the Royal Road up the slope in the darkness. There, a third of the way up, she saw the long black shape of the Mother’s Shrine half-buried in the mountain. She wondered if there would be time to visit it, afterwards.
Shivering, she pulled her coat tighter around her bandaged shoulders and hobbled out of the drizzle under the shelter of the station roof. Not waiting to see where the marshals went or whether the travelers in the first class car would disembark, she moved as quickly as she could manage through the deserted streets toward the General’s Square, the plaza at the base of the Royal Road where the only large buildings in the Lower City could be found, among them a single hotel. The distance was short, but her steps were shorter, truncated by a dozen wounds all threatening to open at any moment. She hobbled faster.
In the lobby of the hotel she found a young man dozing behind the front desk and she was careful not to disturb him. Just around the corner from the foyer she found a small lounge, and there she fell into a large padded chair and closed her eyes. She awoke a moment later to the sound of voices. Lifting her head a bit, she saw an elderly man with an iron gray beard leaning against the desk and speaking to the yawning clerk. After a brief conversation, the young man led the older one down the hall in search of a room, leaving the detective alone.
With a grimace, she stood up and slipped around the desk where she found the hotel’s log book. The current page indicated that new arrival was one Evander of Athens, wherever that was. But above that was an open entry, a reservation for a large party of adults and children listed under a single word. Arafez. Kella nodded, took a quick glance around for food, and, finding none, eased herself back into the chair around the corner just as the young man returned to his desk. He was beginning to snore again when Kella heard a small stampede of feet thumping through the front door, and accompanying the low mutters of several women she heard the soft whimpers and whines of tired children.
There was a very brief exchange in which Kella heard Lady Sade issuing instructions to everyone around her, and then the entire entourage gently stampeded down the back hallway to their rooms. When they had gone, the detective once again forced her body to stand and cross the lobby, this time heading out the front door into the dark, windy street. “Marshal?”
A pause. Then two figures stepped out from the shadows. The major looked exhausted, but his young partner seemed better rested and perhaps somewhat eager to draw a gun, judging by the awkward way in which he held his hands by his hips. He called out, “Who are you?”
Kella waved at them to follow her around the side of the hotel. “Detective Massi, third district police, Arafez. I was investigating Doctor Medina last night when the prosthetics shop burned down, or blew up, depending on which story you read. An associate of yours came to see me this morning. A pilot. Told me what was going on, or at least as much as she knew.”
The corporal snapped his fingers with a brief flash of excitement in his eyes. “From the hospital! I was there too, but I left before you woke up.” He suddenly frowned. “How did you get here? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“Probably, but I thought you might want some backup, so I took the evening train. I enjoyed your little show. Lots of shenanigans with Sade’s thugs.”
The major said, “I appreciate the help, but you don’t seem to be in any condition to be, well, to be doing anything.”
“Really? Look who’s talking, mister tall-wet-and-unarmed.” Kella leaned heavily on her cane. “Tell me, do you have enough evidence to arrest Lady Sade? Do you have any evidence against her at all?”
The major frowned. “Not yet.”
“Well, I do.” Kella leaned a little harder on her cane. “Sade is staying the night here, in suite number one, and then they’re leaving in the morning at eight o’clock in a carriage to the Upper City.”
“How do you know all that?” asked the corporal.
“It’s called police work, kid.” Kella massaged her shoulder. “Listen, if we arrest them now, by ourselves, then they’ll just wriggle through the system and be back home before supper. I know these people. Sade, Othmani, Chaou. They own the courts in Arafez. Judges, advocates, juries, police. But, if we get the Royal Guards to arrest them, they’ll be imprisoned immediately, and all their wealthy and powerful friends will suddenly forget all about them. I guarantee it. Even the old blue bloods are afraid of the Royal Guards. You can’t buy them. You can’t even talk to them. So I say we get them to notice something highly illegal about our friends tomorrow on the Royal Road. Don’t do anything tonight. You can get them in the morning. Got that? Can I count on you to get the guards moving?”
The major nodded. “You’re right. The guards are probably the only people we can trust right now. Kenan, give the detective my gun. She may need it.”
The corporal started to object, then thought better of it and turned over the weapon. Kella slipped it into her coat. “Thanks. If the guards don’t catch me with it, it might come in handy. Now go get some rest, major. You look like hell.” She turned and hobbled away toward the rear of the hotel.
“Where will you be?” he asked.
She glanced back. “Somewhere close to Sade.”
It took several minutes to explore the garage in the dark, feeling her way around the walls and stalls and tool
