Master of Plagues: A Nicolas Lenoir Novel (15 page)

“In that case, Inspector, Sergeant—I have a great deal of work to do.”

Kody gathered up his fallen weapons, pausing to load a quarrel into the crossbow before they hit the road. He didn’t much fancy sneaking out the back like a murderer, but he saw the wisdom in it, so he followed Lenoir to the rear of the tent and held the ragged flap aside for the inspector to pass. He was halfway out himself when he paused and looked back. “Good luck, Merden.”

The soothsayer had already been swallowed in darkness, but his deep voice reached out of the gloom. “And to you, Sergeant. I daresay you will need it.”

Kody stepped out of the tent into a bright afternoon. The sudden change in light was enough to force a sneeze from him, and then another, and he had to blink furiously to banish the glare. As his vision came into focus, he saw that he still had blood on his hand. He thought he’d wiped it all off.

Better wash up properly before we go,
he thought.

The last thing he needed was to catch plague.

K
ody scanned the docks with a weary expression. “Sorry for asking, Inspector, but what exactly are we hoping for, here?”

A miracle,
Lenoir might have said, but he kept the thought to himself. The sergeant knew perfectly well how desperately unlikely this lead was, and as for Zach, Lenoir did not want to look like a fool in front of the boy. He told himself that this was not pride, but merely a desire to preserve the mystique of police work in Zach’s eyes. The boy wanted to be a hound someday, and had little else to strive for in life. It would be a shame to disappoint him so soon. “We are following the only lead we have, Sergeant, which is a trio of sailors who may have encountered this disease before. It may come to nothing, but we will not have wasted our time. All the signs point here, to the docks.”

“What sort of signs?” Zach asked, a little less brightly than usual. The boy was nervous about being reunited with his card-playing mates following the unfortunate incident of the day before. Ordinarily, Lenoir would not have brought him along, but Zach would save them valuable time. He knew what the men looked like, and would not have to ask around. Besides, the boy needed to learn
that there were consequences to his actions, and this would be a safer way to learn the lesson than most.

“First,” Lenoir said, ticking off on his fingers, “we know that the disease almost certainly came to Kennian by sea, probably carried by corpses. Second, we have your sailors, who spoke of a similar disease in a foreign land. Third, we have the account of Brice Wenderling, who described our killer as an athletic man with tanned skin and a crude accent.”

Kody grunted thoughtfully. “You reckon he could be a sailor.”

“The description fits.”

“It also fits a bricklayer, or a carpenter, or just about anybody who works with his hands.”

“It is tenuous,” Lenoir admitted, “but it fits too well to ignore. Moreover, it is all we have at the moment.” His gaze skimmed over the salt-scoured, windblown jungle before him, towering timber and dangling rope and a canopy of furled sails that blocked the sun. Somewhere in this strange wilderness was an answer, Lenoir felt sure. They just needed to find it.

“There it is.” Zach pointed. “The Port. That’s where I met Harry and the rest.”

Lenoir squinted. The tavern was jammed in with the row of warehouses lining the boardwalk, with nothing to distinguish it from the adjoining buildings save a faded sign reading simply, A
LE
.

“I’ve been there,” Kody said. “Full of brigands and cheap whores.” He glanced at Zach, incredulous. “You were playing cards in there?”

The boy scowled. “Would’ve won, too, if my partner wasn’t dumb as an ox.”

“Whereupon you would have celebrated by buying a round from the Lerian’s purse.” Lenoir walked away before the boy could embark upon his customary protests, making for the tavern in purposeful strides. It was early yet, but
Serendipity
was still in port. Lenoir liked their
chances of finding Zach’s sailors more or less where the boy had left them.

His faith was rewarded. As soon as they entered the tavern, Zach pointed again, subtly this time, his sharp features tense with worry. “Can Sergeant Kody go first?” The boy gazed hopefully at Lenoir’s burly deputy.

“No, but he will be right beside you.” Lenoir gave the room a quick once-over. Aside from the front door, he located three exits: a door behind the bar, presumably leading to a storeroom, a passage to the kitchen, and a set of stairs heading up to the rooms where the whores plied their trade. Of the dozen or so patrons strewn about, only the cardplayers looked lively; the rest were wharf rats and bored-looking whores, many of them too far into their cups to know whether it was night or day. A group of Mirrhanese sat isolated from the others, drinking tea and playing tiles, but they barely glanced up when the hounds entered; they were unlikely to pose a threat. That left the barkeep. A hard-bitten fellow, he made no secret of the fact that he was watching Lenoir, and his expression said,
Stay out of trouble.
Lenoir had no doubt there were weapons stashed under the bar, and they had probably seen plenty of use. “Barkeep,” he said in an undertone.

Kody nodded almost imperceptibly. “Got him.”

His inventory complete, Lenoir started across the room. The cardplayers paid no attention, too busy heckling one another to notice the newcomers.

“A hammer!” one of them cried, driving a fist into the table and whooping with laughter. “He plays a hammer! Bless my balls, if he isn’t the worst cardplayer in the Five Villages!”

Lenoir felt a tug at his sleeve. “That’s Bevin,” Zach whispered. “The one to his left is Gerd, and the red-haired one is Harry. I don’t know the other two.” He sounded relieved.

“Are ye offer yer nut, Harry?” said a small, weathered man, one Zach did not know. “We got no shields and no
swords. What good is a sodding hammer?” He had the hard-edged accent of southern Braeland, almost strong enough to pass for Sevarran. “Small good yer peasants’ll do us.” He tossed a card onto the table in disgust.

The red-haired man opened his mouth to respond, but then his eye fell on Zach, and he scowled. “Well, well. You got some stones coming back here, kid.”

“Stones,” Kody said, “and friends.” He leaned against the adjoining table in a posture that was casual, confident, and just happened to expose the butt of his flintlock.

“Hounds,” the one called Gerd growled.

“Very perceptive, sir,” Lenoir said. “Hopefully we can put those keen powers of observation to good use.”

Gerd started to reply, but the man called Bevin put a hand on his arm, and Gerd subsided. Bevin, for his part, fixed Lenoir with a long, unflinching gaze. Abruptly, his face split into a broad grin, and he waved for the barmaid. “Ella, lass—bring us some drinks for these brave lads! Hounds on the hunt deserve a bit of the fine foam.”

This one is dangerous,
thought Lenoir. Aloud, he said, “Thank you, but no—we are on duty.”

“It’s a sorry sort of employment that won’t let a man wet his gullet,” Bevin said, still grinning, “but don’t worry. I’ll drink ’em in your honor.”

The red-haired man was still glaring at Zach. “Might’ve known he was a
bitch
,” he said.

Most street folk would take offense at being called a
bitch
, with all its graphic innuendo about “taking it” from the Metropolitan Police.

Not Zach. “That’s right, I’m with the hounds.” An impudent little smirk hitched one side of his mouth. “It was that or playing cards for a living, and I just didn’t think I could compete with the likes of you.”

Bevin laughed loudly at that. “He’s a clever one, your little pup,” he told Lenoir. “Worth twice what you pay him, I’m sure.”

Just now, Zach could best demonstrate his cleverness by holding his tongue, but Lenoir spared the boy and did not say so aloud. Instead, he said, “I hope you will indulge me, sir, by answering a few questions.”

Bevin smiled. “Whoever he was, it was self-defense.”

“Very amusing,” said Lenoir, without a flicker of amusement. “Let us begin with names. You are called Bevin?”

“That’s right.” Bevin pointed a thick finger at each of his fellow cardplayers. “This is Harund, this is Gerd, this is Marius, and this skinny scrap of leather is Stew. And you are?”

“Hounds,” Kody said, “and that’s all you need to know.”

Bevin’s smile turned brittle. “Not quite, Big Dog. I also need to know why you’re here.”

“We are interested in a voyage
Serendipity
made approximately four years ago,” Lenoir said. The sailors exchanged glances, genuinely bemused. “On the voyage in question, you encountered some sort of plague.”

Bevin grunted. “The plague, is it? I remember now—your little pup was asking about it. What do you want to know?”

“Where was it?”

“Inataar.” It was the small man, Stew, who answered. “Darangosai.
That
was a trip, and no mistake.”

Inataar.
Lenoir and Kody glanced at each other. Could it be a coincidence? The sick man, Drem, claimed to have seen an Inataari while gathering corpses in the Camp. A rare sighting, but not significant in itself—not unless it came up again. And now it had. “Why was it such a significant trip?” Lenoir asked.

Stew hooked a thumb at the red-haired man, Harund. “Well for starters, Harry here got into it with some pirates, and almost got himself nutted—”

“We’ve all heard the story,” Harry snapped.

Lenoir had not heard the story, for which he was profoundly grateful. “I asked about the plague.”

“What about it?” Gerd frowned suspiciously over the rim of his flagon.

“What were the symptoms?”

Stew started to answer, but Harry cut him off. “How should we know? We didn’t get it, did we?”

“You have eyes and ears. In my experience, when plague strikes a city, people tend to talk about it. In fact, they talk of little else.”

Harry shrugged. “Maybe I wasn’t paying attention.” He gazed at Lenoir in open challenge.

Lenoir obliged him. “Sergeant.”

In one smooth motion, Kody stepped behind Harry’s chair, wrenched his arm behind his back, and slammed his face down onto the table. Gerd and Stew started to move, but Lenoir reached for his flintlock, and they thought better of it.

Kody produced the iron cuffs. “Paying attention now?” he growled into Harry’s ear.

Lenoir leaned over the table, close enough to smell the ale on each sailor’s breath. “Perhaps I have been unclear. I believe that you men have information that may be useful to my investigation. As an inspector of the Metropolitan Police, I have considerable authority under the law to compel your cooperation. You are welcome to explore the boundaries of that authority, but I doubt very much you will find it a pleasant experience.”

Bevin smiled that slow, dangerous smile of his, spreading his hands in a mollifying gesture. “Inspector, please. There’s no need for that. Our Harry is a bit of a hothead, that’s all. You have our full cooperation.”

“Excellent.” Lenoir nodded at Kody, and the sergeant let his man sit up—though he did not remove the cuffs. “Now,” said Lenoir, “am I obliged to repeat the question?”

“The plague,” Bevin said. “We can tell you what we know, but it isn’t much.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“All right, then. Let’s see . . .” Bevin scratched his beard. “We weren’t in port long, I remember that. Just long enough for Harry here to dip his quill in the wrong inkpot. It was like you said, though—all of Darry was whispering about the plague. Even that first night, we heard about it. Folk reckoned it was being passed between the sheets. ‘Stay away from the whores,’ they told us. Funny enough, that turned out to be bad advice for Harry.” Bevin turned and grinned at his red-faced shipmate. “Whores don’t tend to have brothers protecting their honor.”

Lenoir suppressed a growl.
Zach was right. These men cannot go five seconds without mentioning whores.
Aloud, he said, “Focus, please. Aside from advice about which inkpots to avoid, what else did people say about the plague?”

“There were lots of places you couldn’t go,” Bevin said. “They’d quarantined whole neighborhoods. The fun ones, mostly. Made for a dull shore leave.”

“Captain didn’t want to stay long anyway,” put in the sandy-haired man, the one called Marius. “He’d been hearing things about ships losing half their crews within a matter of days. Said we’d unload and go, no dallying about.”

Highly contagious, and deadly within a few days.
It certainly sounded the same. “And the symptoms? What did you hear about that?”

The small one, Stew, made a disgusted face. “Didn’t have to hear. Saw it with my own two eyes. Beggar woman calls out to me as I’m walking by. I look down, and she’s got blood in her eyes, and the next time she opens her mouth, she’s coughing it up!” He shuddered at the memory. “I hightailed it out of there, I can tell ye.”

Lenoir and Kody exchanged another look. It was not ironclad proof, but it was as close as they were likely to get. “It sounds as though that disease has made its way here to Braeland,” Lenoir said, watching the men carefully.

Bevin did not trouble to look surprised. “Figured as much, after your pup there brought it up yesterday.”

“It was only a matter of time,” Marius said. “Humenori been sailing across the Grey for near a century now. The Inataari got our rats, and we got their plague. All part of the trade between nations. God bless progress.” He hefted his flagon in mock salute.

“Actually, Inspector, that’s a good point,” Kody said. “When we looked through the dockmaster’s ledgers, how much of it was spices from Inataar and Mirrhan? Half? Maybe more? There must have been dozens of crossings between Kennian and Darangosai in the past four years. Seems strange we haven’t heard of this plague until now.”

“Lots of crossings,” Marius said, “but not many ships. Not every captain willing to take on the Grey. She claims her share of tribute, and may God rest ’em well before he musters ’em up.” He raised his flagon again, and this time his shipmates joined him.

“As for those of us who do make the crossing,” said Bevin, “I promise you, we’ve
all
heard of the plague. If we don’t talk about it, that’s only because it’s a fool of a seaman who tempts fate.”

“You have all heard of it, yet trade continues,” Lenoir said. “Are you not afraid of catching it?”

“It’s gone now,” Gerd said. “Been gone three years or more.”

“The Inataari found a cure?”

Bevin shrugged. “Must’ve done. We stayed away for a year or so, but then we got word things were more or less back to normal, so we started up again. Been back there three times since, and she looked like the old Darry to me.”

“Me too,” said Stew, “only better, ’cause there weren’t so many ships coming through as before. Makes it easier for a man to get what he needs.” His leer threatened to steer them back to the subject of whores, but fortunately, Bevin had other things on his mind.

“Suppose this means they got it back again,” he said.
“Captain won’t go near any port that’s got plague. Looks like we’ve seen the last of Darry for a while, lads. It’ll be another year of timber and fur. Cheap Mirrhanese silk if we’re lucky. Hope old man Tully’s been saving, or we’re out of work.” He waved for the barmaid.