Hell's Pawns Read online

  "Where did you go after leaving the Scions Academy?" asks Elliendo.

  "To House Henderthane," says Jeggare.

  Elliendo pauses for an elaboration. When Jeggare offers none, he continues with the usual inquiries: Whom did you see? What did you discuss? Where did you go then? The boss summarizes our actions since we left the Scions Academy with truthful answers just succinct enough to irritate the Paralictor. Eventually Elliendo reaches the only question he really wanted to ask.

  "So you admit that you expected to find Pavanna Henderthane here?"

  "I do not admit it," says the boss. "I state it."

  Elliendo's eyes glitter. "Excellent," he says. "Order a search for the Henderthane girl, captain."

  "You can't think she killed her mother," I say.

  Elliendo ignores me and speaks to the guardsmen. "She is our prime suspect in the murders of both Einmarch and Drulia Henderthane. I want her in custody before morning."

  "That's ridiculous," I say. "Pavanna had nothing to gain by her father's death, or by her mother's."

  The boss shoots me a warning glance, but I've already stepped in it. The Paralictor gives me the condescending smile of a tutor instructing a particularly dim student. "She could not know she had been disinherited until after her father was dead," he says. "At that point, her only chance of any inheritance came from the death of her mother."

  "But that's—" Now that someone has said it aloud, I realize it's perfectly possible, but I don't want believe it.

  "Assist my men," Elliendo says to the city guards. "Report directly to my adjutant."

  The captain salutes and bows his head. He must know that Elliendo is overstepping his legal authority, but he also knows the Paralictor's power extends far beyond his legal authority.

  "And you, Count Jeggare, are to cease your investigations immediately. I don't want to see you or your henchman until this matter is concluded to my satisfaction."

  The boss does not reply. It is one thing to awe a guard captain, quite another to intimidate a count of Cheliax.

  "Am I understood, Jeggare?"

  With a barely audible sigh, the boss replies, "You are, Paralictor."

  As we drive away from the Palace of Jubilations, Elliendo's signifier whistles up a pair of agents and sets them to follow us. I see no signs that they also are mages, and they don't even make an effort at subterfuge. Garden-variety goons.

  "What the hell is he doing?" I ask the boss.

  Jeggare waves me off of the rear seat of the coach and lifts it up to rummage in the compartment below. "He desires a speedy end to the Henderthane investigation."

  "What's it to him?"

  Jeggare removes a long footman's raincoat and lets the coach seat drop shut. "In itself, perhaps nothing. But it is the reason we visited the Scions Academy, which his son attends."

  "I get that," I say. "But why go after Pavanna?"

  Jeggare shrugs on the coat. It's too broad for his narrow shoulders, so he cinches the belt tight. "Because it is a logical approach. Unlike us, he is not interested in settling the matter discreetly, only quickly," he says. Then he looks me in the eye. "And also because he knows it will hurt you."

  I snort, but it's an unconvincing dismissal.

  "Do not underestimate the Paralictor, Radovan. He is smarter than you credit him, and far more cruel. He remembers every slight."

  I realize what Jeggare is really telling me. It's my fault Elliendo is going after Pavanna.

  "I shall return to House Henderthane," he says, rapping a code to the driver on the front panel. "You shall lead Elliendo's men on a leisurely drive down to Riverside and back."

  "Listen, boss, I can help fix this."

  "Stay in the carriage," he says, turning to close the curtains on the back window. "Keep them occupied for at least an hour, two if you can manage it." He puts a hand on the carriage door and glances out the window. The driver makes a sharp right turn.

  "Boss, you need me to watch your back."

  "Fetch me at Henderthane in two hours," he says. "No less." He leaps out of the carriage and darts into the open doors of a cheap wine shop.

  I shut the door and peer out through the back curtains. Elliendo's men turn the corner and follow without a glance at the boss's escape route.

  I can't waste a couple of hours playing tag with Elliendo's thugs. The boss wants me to stay away from House Henderthane, that's fine. That's the last place Pavanna would have gone if she knew her mother had been killed. I open the driver's panel and say, "Eel Street."

  The slip shoots me a look of exasperation, but he slaps the reins and heads toward the waterfront.

  We're a couple of streets away from the Goat Pen, and I'm still trying to figure out how to finesse Zandros into helping me locate Pavanna, when a clot of dirt hits the side of the carriage.

  "Hey!" shouts the driver. I peek out the window to see him shooting the tines at someone in a nearby alley. Our assailant lingers long enough for me to catch a glimpse of him before he beckons to me and retreats down the alley. It's Gruck.

  Through the front panel I tell the driver to take the next left and let me off, then to pick me up after that trip down to Riverside. I hop out and shout to the empty carriage, "Back in an hour. You got it, boss." As the driver pulls away, I step into a sleazy little gambling den and pretend not to notice Elliendo's men coming around the corner, close enough that I'm certain they heard me. One will follow the carriage, the other me.

  The occupants of the shack barely glance up from their cards as I pay the dealer the toll and head through the back door. When my tail follows me, he'll have a long negotiation to get into the "upstairs game," by which time I'll be gone.

  Gruck waits for me in the alley. "Miss Pavanna," he says, gesturing for me to follow him. The thought of another Goatherd trap crosses my mind, but it's worth the risk. Besides, I've got a good feeling about the kid.

  I follow him through the back alleys to an old tenement variously employed by squatters and fugitives from the city guard. We take the rear stairway up to the second floor, pause for a look around, and climb in through a garret window. Inside are four dirty mattresses, a few pieces of salvaged furniture, and a door barred from the inside, leaving the window the only entrance and exit. Pavanna Henderthane rises from her seat on one of the lumpy mattresses. Her eyes are red, but she's dressed like she was when I first met her, so I've never seen anything lovelier.

  "I didn't kill my mother," she says.

  Gruck's wide eyes tell me this part is new to him, and if I'm right about him, the last thing I want to do is get him more involved.

  "Can you get us some food?" I hand him a few coins, plenty enough for a meal, but not so much as to seem like I'm brushing him off.

  He looks reluctant to leave, but Pavanna flashes him a smile, and he gives her back a confident nod. He slips over the window sill, and I lean out to take his arm.

  "Find a pie shop in Dice End," I whisper, "then come back around Long Market. Take your time."

  He hesitates.

  "In case someone spots you," I add. "You've been around enough now to be recognized."

  His nods with a confidence I know he doesn't yet feel, then slides out the window and clambers down the stairs.

  When we're alone, I turn back to Pavanna. "I believe you," I say, and it's mostly true. "Unfortunately, not everyone shares my high opinion."

  "Count Jeggare doesn't believe I killed her, does he?"

  "No," I say. "I don't think so. But Paralictor Elliendo has ordered you arrested for questioning."

  "The Order of the Scourge!" She pales, bringing her freckles into sharp contrast. She knows as well as anyone what methods the Hellknights employ in their interrogations. "Why are they involved?"

  "I don't know," I say, again only partly lying. "But I t
hink it's time you came clean with me."

  "About what?" she says. I can see by the flicker of her glance that she's stalling, deciding how much I already know.

  Keeping the rest of their secrets safe is the reason most Egorian nobles call on Count Jeggare to deal with one that's gotten out. Still, in this case I don't like it, especially since I'm the one who brought this case to the boss, and it's turning out to be more than I expected.

  "For starters," I say, "you can tell me how you met Zandros."

  "You can probably guess," she says, trying but not quite succeeding in hiding the relief in her voice.

  "Spare me the effort."

  "Dice, cards, the sticks," she says. "I was always careful not to lose more than I brought with me."

  "Yeah," I sigh at the familiar story. "Until that one night."

  "More like a bad run of ten or twelve nights."

  "How long ago?"

  "Five, maybe six months," she says.

  "And you've kept up with the interest all that time?" Zandros never lets a month go by without collecting at least the interest, and I shudder to think of how the scabrous old Sczarni collected from Pavanna.

  "Yes," she says, but then she sees the assumption in my face. "Not like that. Dark Prince forbid! Have you seen Zandros? I'd sooner sell myself in a Qadiri market."

  "So how did you pay off your debt?"

  "Calligraphy."

  I hit the side of my head with the heel of my palm as if to knock water out of my ear. "Sorry. I thought you said ‘calligraphy.'"

  "It is a stupid thing, I know, what a second daughter receives instead of a proper education. But I have a certain knack for it, as you saw the day we met."

  I remember the scroll she used to conjure the sound of a hunting cat, scaring off the wererat who was trying to gut me. "That's a little more than calligraphy."

  "Well," she says with phony modesty, "I have a little more than a knack."

  "Magic," I say.

  "Only enough to get me into trouble," she says with the rhythm of a favorite aphorism. But hearing herself say it, she turns somber. "And I thought enough to get me out, too."

  The cold lead ball reappears in my stomach. "What did Zandros have you do?"

  "He had me rewrite contracts and restore the magical seals."

  "Oh, hell."

  "I know."

  "Do you?" I smack the top of a faded cabinet, causing an explosion of dust. "Haven't you seen what they do to forgers on Judgment Day?"

  "I knew it was dangerous, but what else could I do? Everything I've done since then was to try to fix my own mistake."

  "It's not that easy," I say. "Did you think Zandros would forget what you had done for him? Even if you ever managed to pay your debt, the secret of what you've done is just another coin he can spend later."

  "That's why I came to you." She puts a warm hand on my arm, but I pull away. "I need your help."

  "What you need is a long boat ride to Saragava," I say. For a second I wonder whether the Chelish authorities would send an agent to such a distant rebel province to punish a forger. If there is one thing the worshipers of Asmodeus hate, it is a flouter of contracts. Without realizing it, I've been backing toward the door.

  "Don't leave me," she says. Before I know what she's doing, she's in my arms. Without her makeup, she smells sweet as spring pollen mingled with the faint tang of fear, her body's musk overpowering even that Andoren perfume the boss smelled on me after our first meeting. Her naked lips brush the line of my jaw. My arms, slightly against my will, encircle her waist.

  "Listen," I say, but then she is kissing me. Before my brain can protest, I'm kissing her back, and then her fingers find the buttons on my shirt. She pulls my hands toward the laces of her own, and I don't need any further encouragement.

  I know it's dangerous, but what else can I do?

  "Even in her current condition, I can't take my eyes off her."

  A creak from the stairway outside the window tells me Gruck has returned. We've just finished putting our clothes back in order, and I speak as if that's all we've been doing in his absence. "What's important now is that you stay out of sight while I find out what's going on back at your home."

  "You mean you and Count Jeggare, yes?" she says. "He will continue to investigate, won't he?"

  "The Paralictor has warned him off," I say. "But yeah, that won't stop him."

  Gruck comes in through the window and sets down a couple of covered pails in front of Pavanna. She opens one and takes out a steaming hot stuffed bun while Gruck finds a couple of tin cups and wipes them with his shirt tail. From the second pail he fills the cups with dark red ale and offers one to Pavanna and the other to me. I wave it back to him. "You first," I say. "You brought supper."

  We sit a while and eat without talking, sharing the two cups among us three like a peasant family.

  "You need to be anywhere tonight?" I ask Gruck.

  He shrugs and says, "Nowhere I'll be missed."

  "Can you look after her then?"

  He nods, chest expanding at the implied compliment.

  "After I leave, I want you to find another place," I tell Gruck. "Somewhere the Goatherds don't use. You understand?"

  "Yeah." He frowns a bit, trying to think of such a place.

  "Don't tell me where," I say. I hand him the boss's expense purse. "Once you're settled, send a message to Greensteeples in Sorrowside. Don't go yourself. Send someone else, and have him tell the butler his order is ready at that place. Got it?"

  "Got it," says Gruck.

  "What about you?" says Pavanna.

  I take a last swig of ale. "I'm going back to find Jeggare and help him fix this problem of yours."

  "Promise?" she asks.

  I throw one leg over the windowsill and pause before dropping down onto the stairs. "You can bet on it."

  Chapter Five: Blackrose Gardens

  We cross Thrune Square and pass beneath the enormous bronze statue of Queen Abrogail I ascending to her throne on a stairway of prostrate men and devils.

  It's not the sort of shortcut I like, since it puts Count Jeggare's conspicuous red carriage right in the thick of society gossips in Egorian, but the driver is anxious that we fetch the boss on time, and I kept the halfling waiting during my rendezvous with Pavanna. He takes out his frustration on the horses, slapping the reigns with a powerful crack that makes me reevaluate his strength. I decide to buy him a pint later, both to soothe his feelings and because he managed to shake off the Paralictor's goons before picking me up in Bridgeside.

  The slip angles north for a few streets before slowing for the turn toward House Henderthane, but instead of taking it he drives past. Before I can ask what he's doing, he opens the panel and jerks his head to right. I peer through the window to glimpse a pair of Hellknights standing at the gate to House Henderthane.

  Elliendo must be shutting off every lead he knows we've been chasing in the Henderthane case. I hope the boss had time to slip out before the Order of the Scourge arrived.

  "Where to?" asks the driver.

  The boss didn't name a backup location, but nearby there's one we've used before. "Blackrose Gardens," I say. The driver cracks the reins again.

  Sometimes the boss gets nostalgic about the days before the Thrunes signed the Infernal Compact. That was before my time, of course. It was before my grandparents' time, and Jeggare himself was still a young scion of Cheliax, notorious as the bastard child of Countess Pontia Jeggare. After a few of his fancy cordials, he sometimes muses about the days when the surrounding fields were full of roses, both the red, which had always grown in the region, and the white, which the god Aroden created upon his arrival in Egorian. When Aroden died, however, all the white roses of Egorian turned black, and builders ever since have favored red-
veined black marble in new constructions. The architects call this color scheme part of their "Egorian School," but everyone knows they stole it from the flowers of Blackrose Gardens.

  The driver detours around the streets surrounding House Henderthane before passing through the rose-twined gates of the oldest public garden in the city. Inside is a labyrinth of topiaries, fountains, pavilions, and beds of flowers imported from all over Golarion. Everywhere among the thousand features of the garden are the black and red roses, married in twines to form high walls and arches.

  Here's where I came to escape when I was a kid no older than Gruck, the Goatherds' latest recruit. A few hours wandering the shaded lanes of Blackrose could cool me off after a scuffle with one of the other gutter rats or one of the endless indignities Zandros used to toughen us up. It was here that I first caught sight of the boss as he followed a winding bluestone path among the statues of Chelish nobles whose names have long since been erased by the rain. Later, that promenade became a regular rendezvous when we split up to follow separate leads on a case.

  The slip drives slowly past the southernmost statues, a pair of stout lords holding rods and scales for justice and commerce. Beyond them, a muffled figure emerges from behind the armless statue of a centaur. Jeggare hurries to the carriage, where he shrugs off the oversized footman's coat and throws it inside as I open the door. Rather than entering, he nods toward a triangular reflecting pool among the statues, and I follow him there.

  He doesn't speak at first, instead pacing the gravel perimeter of the pool. A cool breeze ripples the lead-gray water, rocking the lily pads. I shadow him for a complete circuit and two more sides before I can't stand it anymore.

  "I caught up with Pavanna Henderthane."

  "Yes," he says in that tone that tells me he already figured that out. I pinch up a fold of my shirt and sniff. It still smells of that Andoren perfume the boss noticed after I first met her. "What did you learn from your encounter?"

  I tell him the story about her gambling. When I get to the part where Zandros the Fair bought up her debts and forced her to alter legal contracts with her magical calligraphy, Jeggare turns to face me. He can tell by my expression that I know how serious her crime is. In Egorian, killers go to the salt mines. Forgers go to Hell.