Even one or two of the bronze giants would have made the morning’s work faster and safer, but borrowing kraikons meant approaching the proctors, and approaching the proctors meant gaining the Council’s blessing. And the Council’s blessing took time. Scaring up a score of constables had been hard enough.
And then there was the other problem. Kraikons weren’t reliable in Dregmeet’s mists. As in the Forbidden Places Josiri had trespassed as a boy, and later relied upon as a wolf’s-head outlaw, unhallowed magic brought the foundry’s constructs to a creaking halt.
Josiri shook his head. Too late to worry about that now. “Let’s get to the morning’s business.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll send word once it’s safe.”
“Thank you, captain, but I’ll be coming with you.”
Her lips twisted in the expected scowl. “I don’t think that’s—”
“These are my people.”
She stiffened. “Mine too.”
Her voice held enough pride and resentment that she probably meant it. That made Vona Darrow something of a rarity, and a nobler soul than her predecessor. But better the blame fell on his shoulders than hers if matters went ill. His past created an expectation of rashness. His rank offered forgiveness for it.
Ever since the Council had passed the Settlement Decree – finally annulling the old laws of indenturement, and freeing thousands of Josiri’s fellow southwealders – there had been disappearances. Freed from their slave’s bridles, too many had simply vanished. Officialdom had never cared much about the fortunes of those who bore the rose-brand upon their wrist, save to ensure that they weren’t taking unearned liberties or passing themselves off as “decent” folk.
Again and again, Josiri had heard the same tale: that the missing had been taken by the Crowmarket, dragged down into Dregmeet. It didn’t take much imagination to determine the rest. A welter of unwholesome trade transacted in the city’s shadows. And beyond the walls? Plenty of unscrupulous merchants who’d spend coin on workers no one might miss. Cheaper to pay the local reeve to look the other way than part with fair wages.
“Then let’s waste no more time arguing,” said Josiri.
Darrow exchanged a brief glance with Kurkas, found little in the way of support, and offered a stiff-armed salute. “Right you are, my lord.”
She slipped woollen muffler from clapper. The bell rang out. Others answered through the mist. Constables emerged from alleyways and bore down on the portreeve’s manor, a circle of king’s blue tabards to seal its secrets tight.
Josiri advanced, Kurkas at his side. Darrow pushed on ahead, her long stride eating up the roadway’s mismatched and sunken cobbles. The gate’s sagging hinges yielded to the strike of her boot. The rusted bars crashed back into tangled bushes.
“This is Captain Vona Darrow of the city guard!” She ploughed on down the choked pathway. “Anyone within these walls is bound by law. You’ll come to no harm, unless you want it otherwise.”
“Maybe there’s no one home,” muttered Kurkas.
Josiri tugged the tails of his coat free of a bramble’s snare and peered about. “No. Someone’s here. Too many snagged and trampled branches on the path. Plenty of visitors, but hiding their numbers. Some veteran you are.”
Kurkas sniffed. “’Course I noticed. Wasn’t sure you had, that’s all.”
“Once a wolf’s-head, always a wolf’s-head.”
He’d never thought of those as happier times. And they weren’t, not really. But they’d been simpler.
“Sah!” said Kurkas. “But you’re a councillor now. Stay back and let me take the lumps in your place, if any are in the offing. Matter of professional pride.”
Josiri glanced down at his waistcoat, shirt and trews. Practical enough in the morning chill, but they wouldn’t turn a blade. Not like the leathers and chain Kurkas wore beneath his tabard. “Yes, captain.”
The manor erupted. A knot of men and women in patchwork garb and the ragged cloth masks that were a vranakin’s only uniform burst from the front door and ran headlong for freedom.
Bells chimed, rousing the constabulary to pursuit. Darrow tackled one fugitive, captain and quarry striking the weed-choked gravel with bone-crunching force. Another shoved a constable and bolted for the undergrowth. Dark shapes crashed through tangled branches. Cries of alarm and the dull smack of truncheon on flesh rang out. The clash of steel upon steel. A scream, and the crunch of a body falling onto gravel.
It was over by the time Josiri reached the manor itself. Constables led living fugitives to the clogged fountain and forced them to their knees beside a growing pile of confiscated weapons. The dead, they dragged by their heels. A scruffy bunch, but then the vranakin were seldom otherwise – crow-born with tattered wings. The desperate, the poor and the hungry rubbing shoulders with the thuggish and malevolent. Society’s left-behinds. No one chose a life in Dregmeet.
Darrow broke off from conversation and hurried over. “We’re secure, my lord. I’ve set watches on the exits. No sign of anyone yet, but I’ll wager we’ll find a few rats inside the walls.”
“Let’s take a look, shall we?”
Darrow’s scowl deepened, but she nodded and turned away. “Sergeant Marzdan? You’re in charge out here. Drag this rabble to the cells. I’ll want a long talk with them later.”
Josiri ascended the weatherworn steps. The archway keystone bore the ever-present rays of Lumestra’s sunlight, and also a tide motif. An oddity, but he supposed it made sense that the portreeve would offer deference to Endala, if only to ensure safe passage for his ships. For all the church liked to pretend otherwise, Lumestra was not the only divine power worshipped in the Republic.
He reached for the door.
Kurkas grabbed his arm. “Hold up.”
“What is it?”
The captain pointed at the arch, where the upright began its gentle curve towards the keystone. There, concealed by the dawn’s shadow, was a bundle of black feathers, bound with woollen thread and topped with a corvine skull. Nailed into the mortar at shoulder height, its eyeless gaze cut across the threshold. It gave the impression of something waiting to pounce.
“Crow charm,” said Kurkas. “Used to mark territory and warn away the curious. Give the Raven a coin, he’ll hear you. Give him a feather, and he’ll guard you.”
“Is it dangerous?”
Kurkas shrugged. “Plenty of folk’ll tell you they bring bad fortune.”
“And you?”
“Do I look like a man smiled on by fate?”
The captain’s face held a measure of wariness, but it was a rare day when it did not. Might have been a trick of the eyepatch, but superstition was a fickle thing. Priests and crowmarketeers alike grew fat off it. But just as all lies held a grain of truth, superstition coalesced about fragments of the divine. Harmless, until it killed you.
“Not often, no,” said Josiri.
“Too late anyway.” Kurkas snatched the charm from its nail and crushed it beneath his heel. “Crossing the Crowmarket is bad fortune. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
Josiri stared down at the fragments, shook away a pang of dismay and eased the door open. Darkness loomed beyond.