Quartz, page 13
It didn’t come.
Roland clenched his hands around the arms of his ancient oak chair, knuckles white as he heaved himself up to his feet, moving slowly as if bound in chains. But when he stood, eyes smoldering, it was not as a man burdened, but a man liberated.
“Risewater.” Roland did not raise his voice, but the hiss reached everyone’s ears.
“Sir.” The commander of the Guarda Royal stepped forward.
“Go into the city. Arrest the editors of The Daily Gazette and The Muckracker for their part in inciting treason. Also…”
Rafe’s reaction was mirrored in the shaken expressions of everyone else as Roland detailed the list of persons to be arrested in a slow lifeless voice. Editors, writers, and publishers of tracts critical of the Machine. Union leaders and outspoken local politicians. Street corner orators.
“Tristan.” Roland spoke without looking at his son. “You got a good look at the female leader. You will provide a detailed description of her so we can get a sketch out to the Guarda Publica.” He didn’t wait for Tristan’s hesitant “y-yes” before outlining more strategies.
Rafe exchanged glances with his friend Wil, a captain in the guard, but that was all they dared to do.
“The blight of antimachinism has been allowed free rein long enough. It’s time to cut it off at the root and burn it, for once and for all.” Roland’s gaze raked the room. “I expect you gentlemen to see to it that it does not flourish in your respective spheres. If you have any other suggestions, now is the time to offer them.”
Rafe took a few moments to marshal his thoughts—how to tell the King that he had lost his mind?—but before he could speak, Tristan blurted out, “But—but, Father, maybe—maybe we ought to listen to what they’re saying! They may… you know… have a point!”
Roland spun on his heel, eyes wild and savage. His fist struck his palm with a crack. “Treason! That’s what they’re committing, and so does anyone else who supports them! Scorch it all, they’re going to kill us! Think about where we would be without the Machine. No water, no gas, no sewage, no food, no light nor heat! If they destroy our machines, we have no way of repairing them unless we send to Shimmer for mage-worked quartz, which will drain the treasury dry. Blackstone would run us over! This talk about jobs and wages? All cover for genocide. Pah!” Roland spat his contempt on the floor. Several persons recoiled, some nodded.
Rafe put a hand on Tristan’s shaking shoulder. The prince, ashy-grey, looked close to collapse. “I… I’m sorry, Father…” he managed through the sob in his voice, before it broke and he was left mouthing words with no breath behind them. Rafe squeezed his shoulder to steady him. “I… I won’t… I won’t…”
Roland stared cold-eyed and pitiless at his son, as if he weren’t seeing him at all. “You are young still, but not that young. No son of mine will ever say such things again.”
Tristan blinked back tears. “Yes, Father,” he whispered, hanging his head.
“If you please, Your Majesty.” Leo barreled his way to the front of the crowd, pulling all the stares to him. “We need to sweeten this whole debacle with some honey. The citizenry will be fearful if we start banging down doors in the middle of the night, like the Secret Fist. The comparison will be inevitable if you do this.” His eyes met Rafe’s for an instant: You look after the son, I’ll deal with the father.
With a nod, Rafe steered the unresisting Tristan out the nearest doorway, as Roland, wary and weary, said, “I’m listening, Leo.”
They passed into the conservatory, a glass-domed chamber with a large fountain as its centerpiece. Plants grew in raised beds and huge pots, wicker chairs stood in nooks created by metal screens, and statues of past kings stared at their descendent with indifferent stone eyes.
“Did you hear, Rafe?” Tristan choked out, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “He… he…”
“Yes, I heard.” There had been no need for the king to chastise his heir so publicly, not to mention for a father to cut his son so cruelly. Rafe squeezed Tristan’s shoulder. “Look. The antimachinists aren’t the demons your father made them out to be. Most are misguided idealists, but you shouldn’t underestimate them, either. Misguided idealists are what destroyed Goldmoon and created Blackstone.” Rafe looked around for eavesdroppers and spoke low and fast. “Misguided idealists and inflexible rulers. The antimachinists do have a point, though they go about matters the wrong way.”
“Father… he said…” Tristan’s eyes were huge.
“All I’m saying is that you should think for yourself. You’ll be king someday. Make up your own mind. And if you’re going to explore antimachinist philosophy, do yourself a favor and read some real books, not the screed shrilled out by rabble-rousers on the street.” Rafe smiled a little. “And for Sel’s sake, be discreet.”
He gave Tristan’s shoulder another squeeze, and left him to the ministrations of his attendants who had just slunk in. Rafe smiled a little as Tristan told them to stop clucking as being hens didn’t suit them, and thought that perhaps Tristan would recover.
Now if only Uncle Leo could get Roland to soften his stance and mend matters with his son.
The four-storey warehouse had a deserted air, set as far back as it was from the river. It was not a handsome building, with its sooty brickwork and rusty metal roof. The other buildings gave it a wide berth, as if not wanting to get their elbows dirtied through contact with it.
It was close to Leaf by the time Rafe rapped at the padlocked door. He’d gotten up late and missed the trolley down to the river, thanks in a large part to not having spent his sleeping hours actually sleeping. After leaving Tristan, he’d been accosted by the queen who’d fixed him with a steely eye and demanded to know why her son had been out walking the streets during the Hour of the Dead. That had been followed by a terse conversation with Leo (“Roland’s out of his mind, but since Judge Havers is writing out all those warrants, tell him you want a search warrant for that warehouse of Rocquespur’s”) and a long wait outside Havers’ office.
The judge had been roused out of his bed, but had still found time to put on his red robe, chain of office, and tall tasseled hat. The hat was askew and the judge had neglected to change out of his slippers in the confusion. But he wrote warrants as if he were a machine and silent minions waited at his elbow to whisk each one away, still-wet ink glistening. Rafe barely explained what he wanted before the judge was scrawling away furiously. When Rafe got home about Mold, he had in his pocket a warrant authorizing him to search and seize any questionable goods in the warehouse.
Except there seemed to be no one around to let him in so he could get on with his searching and seizing. No guards. No workers. No interested loiterers wandering over, no loaders hanging around looking for work. A few lights illuminated the pavement outside, but the warehouse itself was dark and vacant-eyed. Rafe peered in through a window, but there was nothing to see beyond the thick bubble-filled glass.
Rafe poked at the lock on a door so thick and sturdy that it might as well have been the city gate, then circled the building. A ramp led up from the canal to a loading bay at the back. Wavelets slapped against stone stairs cut into the ground beside the ramp.
And right next to the massive closed doors of the loading area was a smaller regular-sized door. Hidden by shadows, Rafe worked the padlock with a pick until it clicked open. He pulled back the bolt, opened the door, and just missed tripping over stone stairs going up. Rafe kept his fingertips against the sandpapery brick wall as he eased up the stairs in a thick darkness.
Scritch… scritch.
Rafe froze, straining with all his senses. A ripple of half-fear, half-thrill went down his back.
Silence settled around him in gentle musty-smelling drifts. The smells of shut-up grain and oiled wool lingered like old relatives. At the top of the stairs Rafe found an unlit lamp in a metal bracket, with a stub of a paraffin candle in it. Once lit, it was just bright enough to let Rafe know he was in a cavernous space full of vast shelves, stacks of boxes, and pallets in the middle of the floor. No doubt they were all mostly common things, but the small light turned them into storybook monsters. Rafe felt along a metal counter running the length of the wall for another lantern—surely there must be more lighting in here!—and tripped on something just as the front door screeched open.
He half-fell, grabbing the table with one hand while his knee struck something with a thump of flesh meeting flesh. The lantern swung wildly and the flame twisted.
A bright mage-light blossomed from the open doorway, and Rafe turned his face away from it. A raspy voice spoke. “Well, well. Young Grenfeld. Why am I not surprised to find you poking about in here?”
Rafe put his unneeded lantern on the table. “Because you’ve been engaged in illegal activities and it was only a matter of time before the law caught up to you, Rocquespur.”
The beacon moved from Rafe’s eyes to the floor. “I see,” drawled the Marquis, “that we have a problem.”
Rafe looked down into a face that, despite the horrible grimace and unnaturally wide eyes, he recognized. Pyotr, the shop owner from Blackstone, dead in an Oakhaven warehouse. “Yes, Rocquespur, we do,” he said grimly. “Perhaps you can tell me why there’s a Blackstone informer dead in your warehouse?”
“Verney rents this place from me.” Rocquespur minced forward with a click-click of his red high-heeled shoes. As usual, he was dressed as if for an historical masquerade: loose breeches of sapphire hiding his suspected chicken legs, a shirt in a violently clashing shade of blue, long coat with huge mirrored buttons, a garish pin shaped like a demented bird at his neck. There was a patch on his chin and rouge on his white cheeks, and he wore a long curly wig with what looked to be a small ladies’ hat pinned to it. The odor of dry snuff clung to him. He nudged the corpse’s hand with one disdainful toe.
The hand crumpled.
Rocquespur froze, eyes narrowed and glittering. “Interesting.”
Rafe gingerly picked up Pyotr’s other hand. It was dry and paper-thin as if all the insides had leaked out, as if it would crumble any moment. Rafe laid it down quickly in case it did disintegrate into powder in his hand.
“Some kind of poison?” Rafe kept his voice low, afraid that a loud sound might cause poor Pyotr’s body to collapse into dust.
Rocquespur glanced around the room and shrugged his thin shoulders.
A man was dead and he was bored already. Rafe got to his feet and glared into the Marquis’ dark eyes, “The last time I saw this man”—he indicated Pyotr who had been so scared of the dark and then died all alone in it—“was in Blackstone, where he helped me. Now his body is in Oakhaven, in the warehouse of a suspected smuggler of Blackstone goods. How do you explain that, Rocquespur? And if this is Verney’s lease, why are you here today of all days?”
“I have the right as landlord to inspect the warehouse. You’ll find that I squared it with Verney quite a while ago. And as to ragamuffins like this tattered fellow being found in here? Well, people break into these places all the time for shelter. You’ll find that I filed a complaint with the police about it months ago.” Rocquespur’s mouth turned down aggrievedly. “I see no reason for you to think I have a connection with this man.”
“Except—” Rafe bit down hard on the word. Isabella was the only connection between Pyotr and Rocquespur that he could think of.
But she had said so passionately last night I hate him! And Bryony had said Rocquespur wanted Isabella dead.
“Except?” A predatory gleam shone in Rocquespur’s eyes. “Except for what? Or who?”
“Verney,” Rafe got out the name through clenched teeth. “He’s quite your minion, isn’t he? Quite a number of his unsavory dealings are known to me.”
“It is expedient for me to be temporarily allied with him.” Rocquespur bestowed a sour smile upon Rafe. “You’ll find he fears and hates me as much as I loathe him. In politics, anyone is dispensable. Your uncle knows this well.”
“So, you’re going to pin this on Verney, eh?”
“What is there to pin? Some Blackstone drone finally managed to escape his dreary existence under the Protectorate, arrived in Oakhaven via the river and canals, and crawled in here to die of malnutrition and exhaustion. After all, you managed to break in here. Verney has not been maintaining this place.” The Marquis looked around discontentedly. “No lights, no guards, half-empty. I am very cross with him.”
Rafe narrowed his eyes at this callous indifference to poor Pyotr. “We must call the Guarda Publica. There will be questions.”
Rocquespur sighed and put a scented handkerchief to his nose. Rafe took a step back from its pungent smell. “Yes, I expect so. Do take care of it, won’t you, Grenfeld? I fancy you know where I live—your uncle certainly does. I shall leave you the light.”
Without another word, he click-clicked away, leaving Rafe wishing that he did have a warrant in his pocket for the arrest of one Marquis of Rocquespur.
“Nothing.” Coop stabbed his mushroom and onion wrap with a fork. “No poison and no illness causes a body to disintegrate like that. It’s as if he were sucked completely dry! Organs dissolved, bones turned to gelatin, skin peeling off in sheets—and he can’t have been dead for more than a day, if we believe Verney’s people that there were no signs of him when they were last at the warehouse.”
Rafe poked at his own cress-and-cranberry sandwich, which had cost far too much for such wilted greens and tiny berries. “Wil?”
The last member of the party—a former comrade-in-mischief and another younger son forced to seek his own employment—shook his head. “It could be as Rocquespur said. There was one unlatched window cracked open on the right side of the warehouse. We found a shabby bedroll in one of the offices and a knapsack of clothes. A tin cup of water on the desk, and a greasy paper basket—might’ve had fish and chips. A dozen vendors could’ve sold it to him.”
“But where would Pyotr have gotten the coinage to pay them? Oakhaven corals aren’t exactly plentiful in Blackstone.” Rafe balled his fist in frustration. It was well past high moon, closer to Fruit than Pollen, and he’d been at the warehouse all day. He’d asked for Wil and Cooper to be pulled off their duties to help him, because he could trust them to not mess up his investigation. Rocquespur was a powerful man, and any one of the other guards and clerks crawling through the warehouse in the glare of the mage lights Rafe had begged off his military contacts could’ve been bribed to discard a valuable piece of evidence, hide a letter, unlock a door.
“He could’ve worked for pay,” suggested Wil.
“Then there’s a river boat or barge somewhere whose crew would recognize him.” Rafe pushed aside his plate, and started scrawling notes on a piece of paper. “A Blackstonian is a rare animal around these parts. His bedroll and clothes—were they all of Blackstone origin? Anything he picked up in Oakhaven leads one to suspect someone was helping him. It would be like Rocquespur to stick the poor old man into a dark warehouse, though.” Isabella, he thought. Isabella had given Pyotr gold coins. None of those had been found among Pyotr’s possessions, only a handful of Oakhaven coins. Rafe wrote “moneychanger” on his list.
“What about the goods in the warehouse?” asked Wil. “There didn’t look to be anything obviously illegal among them.”
“No, but finding a murdered informer on the premises has given us greater leeway to examine Verney’s internal records. The ministry clerks took away stacks of documentation. It’ll take them weeks to compare them with customs office records, especially those from Clearwater and Ironheart, but if there is any fraud, they’ll find it.” Rafe grinned. “Verney was livid.”
“And Rocquespur?”
Rafe made a half-growling noise. “Yes, he was scheduled to inspect the warehouse this morning. Yes, he is in the habit of doing so every year, but whenever he feels like it. I didn’t even get to see him or Sable. His man left me cooling my heels for an hour and then gave me a statement. Couldn’t answer any of my questions, either.” Rafe showed his teeth in a mirthless smile. “Leo’s working on it.”
The Grenfeld-Rocquespur rivalry was well-known. Wil nodded and grabbed a handful of peanuts as he drew himself up to his feet. Exhaustion lay shroud-like and heavy on his shoulders. “I need some sleep. It’s been a long night and a long day and I’m on duty again in another few hours.”
“By Sel, man. Get to bed before you collapse all over Longhill’s floor.” Rafe indicated the empty food shop, abandoned even by the late lunchers. Even the owner had quit the front room, though occasional clangs from the kitchens showed that someone was still hard at work.
Wil offered a tired smile and trudged off, shouldering his helmet as if it were a great weight. Rafe frowned at his friend’s back.
“Fellow’s a martyr to his duty,” Coop observed. “Or is he working off romantic disappointment?”
“What, Wil?”
“Yes, Wil.” Coop stared at Rafe, then gave a short laugh. “You dope, haven’t you noticed how he would stare at Bryony, back in the days she used to eat here with us, before she became so grand?”
“Wil and Bryony? I never thought it.” Rafe shook his head ruefully. “I had some notion of you and Bryony, perhaps. It was the way you two would tease each other.”
Coop gave a hoot of laughter. “Oh, no, being an Ironheart proudwife would never have suited Bryony. And she never looked twice at poor Wil. And now…” He gave Rafe a direct look. “I’m sorry for what she did and how it eats you up, but no one forced her hand, Rafe. She’s a grown woman, like it or not, my lad.” He wagged a fork in Rafe’s direction.
Rafe swatted it away. “Bryony’s been ill-done by the laws of Oakhaven and my family. I wouldn’t blame her for being resentful, which she isn’t.”
Coop shrugged, amiably. “As you say, mate,” he drawled in the Ironheart accent Rafe rarely heard from him. Then, leaning forward, serious again, “I thought you’d be interested to know that I’ve seen it before.”
