For a brief two weeks, it seemed to Neeka almost as if dear Master Lokos was still alive and simply gone from the city on a trip, but it was too good to last. One afternoon, Ahrohnos hurried into the shop and drew Neeka aside. The slender man’s face was drawn with worry, and his voice was tight and harsh.
“Mistress Neeka, Lord Pehtros was attacked as he passed through the central marketplace this noon. The men who attacked him and his guards were all slain, but he was gravely injured. Some say he’s near death, some say already dead. Mistress Neeka, I saw the corpses of the men who struck him down. All of them were men who roomed in the apprentice dormitory … and at least two of them were closeted with Master Froh yesterday afternoon.”
Komees Pehtros died that night, and most citizens of Esmithpolisport mourned his tragic passing, for he had been an efficient, honest and fair city governor, with many friends and few enemies. Sizable rewards, to be paid jointly by fort commander Major Pahvlos and Thoheeks Esmith, were shouted through every street and alley by brazen-throated town criers all through the following day. On the morning of the second day after the murder, Ahrohnos hurried into the shop, red-faced and sweating heavily, despite the bitter chill.
“Mistress Neeka,” he puffed, his little round belly jiggling to his labored breathing, “Master Froh is making ready to leave the city. Should I go to the fort and tell what I saw on the day before they killed poor Komees Pehtros? Should I, Mistress Neeka?”
“How do you know Froh is leaving the city, Ahrohnos? Maybe he’s just going out to sell more of Master Lokos’ estate,” said Neeka.
“Mistress Neeka, he had me and the boys carry three travel trunks down from his suite. His iron box is open and empty, and it took all three of us to carry that last trunk downstairs, and it the smallest one, at that. He sent one of the boys to find a carter, too,” replied the chef. “Oh, Mistress Neeka, I just know he means to leave on the noon coach. Should I go to the fort? Please tell me.”
Neeka thought hard. Of course Ahrohnos should tell his tale to the authorities. Froh should not be allowed to get away with a conspiracy to murder, nor should he be allowed to quit the city with the specie into which he had converted so much of Master Lokos’ estate. On the other hand, she had no wish to be left alone with the hunchback. She had hurt him, humiliated him and been responsible for his incarceration, and she had no doubt that the vindictive little barbarian swine would at least try to accomplish some sort of revenge upon her before he left Esmithpolisport.
“Do you have a weapon, Ahrohnos?”
From within the tops of his calf-length boots, the chef withdrew a pair of short, edgeless stilettos, five inches of blued blade and guardless bone hilts. Wordlessly, he laid them on the counter, his bushy brows raised in silent question.
Neeka nodded, picked up one of the needle-pointed instruments, hefted it, then thrust it deep into the large, gleaming bun of blue-black hair at her nape. Reaching into a secret place beneath the counter, she laid a couple of silver thrahkmeh pieces before Ahrohnos.
“For the gate guard,” she told the man. “There’ll be no waiting for you to see Major Pahvlos if you spread a little silver amongst the guards. Hurry, Ahrohnos!”
Master Fahreed nodded to himself. The bleeding from the heart thrust under Neeka’s left breast had slowed to a trickle of pale pink—blood mixed with clear serum. Stepping back over to his victim, his sensitive fingers found the throat pulse. They found it easily, for it was strong.
“C’est impossible?” In his shock and wonderment, he reverted to the language to which he had been born on an island far to the south in the hot seas beyond the Witch Kingdom.
Crouching, the physician placed an ear to Neeka’s breast for a moment, then straightened, stood and stepped back with a muttered “Merde!”
The woman’s heart, which he had so carefully damaged, supposedly shredded, with his skill and the little knife, was beating as rhythmically and as powerfully as before ever the blade had tasted of her blood. Crouching down again, he gently lifted the left breast.
An icy-cold prickling suffused his entire body and the small room seemed to be spinning about him. The narrow wound had now ceased to bleed entirely, and it was closing, healing, even as he watched!
Ahrohnos had not been gone ten minutes when Master Froh shuffled into the shop from the rear. As the cook had said, the cripple was dressed for travel—thigh-high boots, linsey-woolsey trousers and shirt, a wool scarf wrapped around his scrawny neck, a fur-lined leather cap; over the shirt, Neeka noticed that he had donned one of the several old brigandines that Master Lokos had customarily loaned to the hired bravos who accompanied him on long journeys. The armored garment might even have been a fair fit, save that Froh’s hump caused the back of it to ride far up.
Behind the shuffling little man came two bigger, normal men. Neeka recognized one of them, and her heart sank. She knew what the abominable creature was going to say even before he showed his rotting teeth in a leering grin.
“Betchew thought as how you’s gonna git away with breakin’ my nose and damn near pullin’ my balls off and gettin’ me thowed inna friggin jail, dintchew, you Ehleen bitch? I thought on havin’ you kilt, too, but then I figgered thet wouldn’ make no sense when I might be abut to turn me a hones’ profit. Well, these here mens jus’ branged me half the money and, when we all gits to the whorehouse, Mistress Djoy, she’ll gimme the rest. And I might even spend some of it to buy me a piece offn you ‘fore I leaves this dunghill town.”
Stoo Shif, the pimp bravo Neeka had recognized, grinned too. “Don’t give us no trouble, Neeka, honey. If you do, I’ll feel obliged to knock you in the head, and Lady Djoy, she’s real anxious to talk private with you, soon’s you git there.” He came around the counter and reached out for her body with both hands and, when she flinched away from him, he said in a placating tone, “Now, honey, just hold on, I ain’t trying to cop no feel off you, I just wanta be sure you ain’t got a knife or nothing.” He chuckled and added, “Howsomever, as I recalekt, you don’t need you no knife to kill a man.”
He hooked a thumb at the other bravo. “This here’s Alik Dahl. He’s a ole Freefighter, like me, but he ain’t been with Lady Djoy but ‘bout a year. He was hired on after a damn drunk sailor kilt ole Djimi one night.”
Neeka went quietly. After the cautious Stoo had meticulously examined the garment for hidden weapons, he helped her to don her cloak, then he and his partner followed Neeka and the grinning, chortling hunchback out of the shop and down the street toward the dockside section in which was located Djoy Skriffen’s bordello.
Neeka made no attempt to leave a message for Ahrohnos. For one thing, the cook’s reading ability was minimal; for another, he was not a member of ee Klirohnohmeea and would have had no idea how to help or whom to approach for advice. On the other hand, Iktis was a member—a high-ranking member, at that—of the Heritage, and he would certainly be at the brothel, for Djoy Skriffen never allowed more than two of her four goons to be absent at any one time.
Even so, Neeka’s mind was awhirl with thoughts of vengeance upon the evilly grinning Froh. From his comment about his thought of having her killed too, she was now dead-certain that he had been responsible for the fatal attack on Komees Pehtros. Ahrohnos had gone to tell his tale at the fort, but it was just possible that the wily thief and murderer, Pawl Froh, rich with the proceeds of Master Lokos’ estate, might be able to elude justice—slip secretly out of the Duchy of Esmith or even take ship and leave the Confederation entirely.