Liz shifted on the bed, dislodging the sheet and showing me a smooth unbroken line of flesh from ankle to shoulder. As my eyes traveled up her skin, I realized her own were open and regarded me with wry amusement.
“Most people pay when they go to a show,” she said sleepily.
“I already paid you this morning.”
She smiled and stretched, revealing even more pale skin. “That you did, my friend.”
I put some tea in two cups and poured hot water into them. She smiled and blew me a kiss when I handed one to her. Patches of sweat still gleamed on her pale skin and lightly freckled shoulders as she sat on the edge of the bed. She took a sip, sighed contentedly; then her expression grew serious. “I should go see if anything’s salvageable at my office. And find somewhere to stable my horses.”
That comment brought back every bit of the previous night’s doubt and worry, which I’d completely put out of my mind. She stood, picked up the heated kettle and went into the next room. I heard water splashing as she washed up.
I stared down into my own tea, my appetite suddenly gone. “Good thing you brought the wagon home.”
“Yeah, if I hadn’t been so beat from that run to Pema, I wouldn’t have.” She leaned out, her wet upper body sparkling in the morning light. “Funny how things happen like that, isn’t it?”
I nodded. She resumed washing.
After she left I also washed up. The soap and water cleaned out all the minor cuts I’d accumulated, and there were a lot of them. With Liz gone I was free to curse and wince as much as I wanted. I applied some of the moon priestess salve to the worst of them, although after a good night’s sleep they’d scabbed over pretty well on their own.
My knuckles, as expected, were swollen and bruised. I could still make a fist, and grab my sword hilt, but I doubted my grip was up to too many parries.
I got dressed and formulated a plan. Well, sort of a plan. Actually more of a next step. As in the next step a blind man locked in a dark room might take as he looked for a key that wasn’t there. The dragon people were connected to Gordon Marantz, which meant he was connected to the death of Laura Lesperitt. That explained why Argoset and the Sevlow big shots might be interested, too. What I didn’t know was why, and it seemed Marantz would be the best one to ask about it. So it was time to find him.
Mrs. Talbot sat on the edge of the porch, her sullen grandson huddled against her. Something about that boy always gave me the creeps, like he’d seen too much for a child his age, and understood way more of it than was natural. “Hear about the murder last night?” she said as I left the building.
“I just got up,” I said, not giving anything away. “Who was murdered?”
“Found some woman dead in the alley. Cut up like a side of meat, they said.”
“Dangerous town.”
Her lips smacked disconcertingly when she spoke. “Heard somebody say they set the fire to distract people from it.”
“Not everything’s connected, Mrs. Talbot.”
She nodded. “That’s a true thing. But lots of things are, and most of us don’t even know about it.”
I’d gotten sucked into this discussion before, so I quickly excused myself. I went down the street to Angelina’s tavern, and my office. The breakfast crowd filled the counter, and rather than force my way in, I waited for an empty stool. When I finally sat, Callie slapped a plate of ham and eggs in front of me without asking. It wasn’t my usual breakfast-I didn’t really have a “usual”-but her harried glare warned me against any rebuke. She had the look of someone who’d worked all night and would snap off the head of the first person who crossed her.
I picked at the runny eggs and listened to the two merchants beside me as they discussed local gossip. I knew them by sight, but we’d never really interacted and they paid me no mind.
“They say the blacksmith burned it down because he was about to be arrested for rum smuggling,” Kopple the tailor said. He had a scar on his cheek that left a gap in his otherwise full beard. “It went up so fast because he soaked the place with his contraband first.”
“Can you blame him?” replied Kopple’s companion, the stonemason Walsh. He ate voraciously, heedless of the egg stuck in his long mustache. “The thought of gentle Muscodian justice scares the hell out of me, too.”
“Man, this is Neceda, not Sevlow,” Kopple said. “Every-body’s into something here, including the king’s men. If the guy wanted to smuggle ale no one would care, not like they would in the capital.”
“Nobody except the Big Mace,” Walsh pointed out, using Gordon Marantz’s nickname among the people who didn’t deal with him.
Kopple nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. He might care. But if the blacksmith had been doing it for a while, he was probably working for him.”
“Maybe, but did you see that officer from Sevlow poking around? I hear King Archibald is going to bring back torture chambers to get confessions and eliminate the whole appeals process he copied from Arentia.”
“Just like the good old days,” Kopple said wryly. “When I was an apprentice, you didn’t come to Neceda alone unless you wanted to leave bloodier and poorer than you arrived.”
“It’s almost that bad now,” Walsh said sadly. “My wife’s knocked up, and we’re thinking about getting out before the baby’s born. Did you hear that, besides the fire, they found some woman stabbed to death in an alley?”
“How do you hear all this stuff?” Kopple asked, irritated.
“I pay attention.”
“It was probably some whore who tried to cheat someone. That could happen anywhere.”
“Yes, but the way she was killed. They said she was lying in an inch of her own blood with her belly slit open and everything taken out.”
“Hey, I’m trying to eat here!” someone farther down the counter bellowed. My own breakfast suddenly looked less appetizing as well.
“Sorry,” Kopple said. “The way things work in the real world still amazes my friend.”
Callie suddenly appeared in front of me again. Sweat made her hair stick to her cheeks, and she had circles under her eyes. “You’ve got someone up in your office,” she said wearily. “A woman.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when I first came in?”
“Hey, as busy as we are, you’re lucky I even saw her go up the stairs,” she snapped. Then she shot away down the bar to deliver tea to a demanding patron.
I scooped up the last of my eggs on a piece of bread, wiped my face and headed upstairs. Before the fire, Hank had told me Mother Bennings wanted to see me, so that’s who I expected. But instead Peg Pinster sat on the bench in my outer office, head down, clad in a long black dress with a mourning shawl around her shoulders. Her wavy brown hair was pulled back in a tight bun. In all the time I’d known her, it was the first occasion I’d seen her with no children nearby.
Despite her brood she was still an attractive woman, with the kind of earthy beauty that looked its best in dishevelment and kept husbands honest. Hank had loved her with a ferocity I’d never understood until I met Liz.
Peg looked up as I entered, then stood. “Mr. LaCrosse,” she said formally, and attempted a curtsy.
I scowled.“ ‘Mr.’?”
“I need to talk to you professionally.”
I nodded. “Okay, but you don’t have to genuflect at me. Come on in.”
We went into my inner office. I opened the window-even smoky air was better than stuffy-and indicated she should take the guest chair. I closed the door and sat behind my desk. “I know it’s early, but if you’d like a drink-”
She waved a dismissive hand. “No, that’s all right, thank you.” She slumped to one side, as if it took the last of her strength to simply stay in the chair. I doubted she’d slept at all. “Mr. LaCrosse-”