Scholar

14

Again on Jeudi, Quaeryt rose and ate early, and plied Lily with another three coppers to save the garret chamber for yet another night. Unlike the previous day, he immediately headed toward the harbor Patrol building. He reached there even before the patrollers going on duty left the building. Duultyn and his partner were among the last to leave, and they headed in the direction of the Sailrigger.

Using his concealment shield, Quaeryt followed more closely. After several days, he was beginning to understand the rougher Tellan of the east more clearly.

“… never said what happened last night…”

“She wasn’t there. Old lady Shaalya took me into every room in the place.”

“Then she’s gone.”

Duultyn shook his head. “Just for now. She’ll be back. Then she’ll pay. More than she wants.”

“Your uncle said not to-”

“I told him that she’d been seeing that scholar we chased.”

“Oh … still don’t understand what he has against them. Except for the one … don’t seem any worse than anyone else.”

“They’re worse.” Low as Duultyn’s voice was, the venom was far stronger than the words. “Worse even than imagers.”

“You, I understand. But him? You’ve never said why he-”

“You don’t want to know. Leave it, Thuaylt. Just leave it.”

Duultyn stopped and looked at the taproom, with its shutters and doors all closed. “Be a shame, a real shame, if the place caught fire.”

“Too many people know what happened yesterday.”

“I can be patient. Long enough for people to forget.…” Duultyn turned and resumed his strolling walk toward the piers.

Neither patroller spoke for a time.

“You’re fortunate, Thuaylt,” Duultyn finally said. “Pretty wife who wouldn’t look past you, no matter what.”

“Thank the Nameless for that every day,” agreed the taller patroller.

“I still wonder why…” Duultyn shook his head. “Never will understand women.”

Even from what he’d overheard, Quaeryt knew why the patroller never would.

“Been a hot week.”

“So was last week,” replied Duultyn. “I’ll be glad when tomorrow’s rounds are done.”

“That makes two of us.”

By the time Duultyn and Thuaylt stopped at another cafe for a midday meal, Quaeryt was convinced that he’d discovered all that he was going to by following the pair, and he returned to the first pier. Two more ships had ported, and he inquired about the destination of each. One was heading east, and the other was a Ferran brig headed homeward via Westisle.

Then he eased past another pair of patrollers to get onto the second pier, where a single worn brig had just tied up at the innermost bollard. Even before he reached the ship, he had the sinking feeling that the vessel was the Moon’s Son.

He stood back and studied the ship, but he had to admit, worn as she looked, she was also trim, and nothing looked out of place or in ill repair. While the gangway was already down, he watched the crew for a time before he finally made his way up the plank and requested permission to board from the bosun.

“Come on aboard.”

“I’m looking for passage to Tilbora.”

The bosun replied, “We port there, but best you talk to the captain.”

“That’s Chexar?”

“Aye.” The bosun turned. “Captain … the gent here is looking for passage.”

The man who walked across the deck toward Quaeryt was of average height and build and not notable in any attribute, except for the copper-red brush mustache that matched neither the dull red of his hair nor the brownish red of his eyebrows. “Yes?” His voice was a raspy baritone.

“I understand you might be heading to Tilbora,” offered Quaeryt.

“That we would be, but not until a glass before dawn on Samedi. Passage costs a gold, and three coppers a day for fare. That gets you a bunk cabin in the fantail and the same meals as the rest of us.”

Quaeryt handed across two silvers. “That’s to hold it, the rest when I come on board Vendrei night.”

Chexar took the silvers. “Done. What do we call you?”

“Quaeryt.”

The captain frowned. “Had a mate once, kept talking about a quartermaster type who left to be a scholar … name like that. Said he’d have been a good mate.”

Quaeryt wasn’t surprised. Even halfway decent quartermasters were rare, and captains kept their ears open about mates and others of possible value.

“Might have been me.” Quaeryt smiled wryly. “Might have been someone else.”

Chexar nodded. “Why might you be headed north?”

“I have a patron who sent me there. I need to do what he wants and return before the turn of winter.”

“Might have been better staying a quartermaster,” replied Chexar.

“True enough, Captain, but we can’t live over what we might have done.”

“All too right.” Chexar nodded again, brusquely. “Be aboard before eighth glass tomorrow night.”

“That I will, Captain.”

Chexar turned and walked forward, toward where the bosun was overseeing the off-loading from the forward hatch.

Quaeryt walked down the gangway and headed back toward the harbor Patrol building. When he passed the Sailrigger, he noted that all the doors and shutters remained tightly closed.

Once he reached the street across from the Patrol building, he began to watch, moving from point to point, occasionally using a concealment shield. He continued his surveillance until almost a glass past midday, changing his position, using a concealment shield at times until a coach pulled up. The coach was green and trimmed in polished brass. Quaeryt once more raised a concealment screen and eased along the uneven brick sidewalk until he was within a few yards of the coach, if with his back to the wall of the adjoining cafe.

Shortly, a tall, burly, and gray-haired patroller in greens, with a gold seven-pointed star on each collar, emerged from the building, accompanied by another patroller, and walked toward the waiting coach.

“… don’t care what’s wrong with his wife.… He keeps the schedule, or he can take an early stipend.… Tell him that.”

“Yes, Chief.”

Just from his body posture, the few words, and the chief’s tone of voice, Quaeryt didn’t care any more for the chief than for Duultyn, who, apparently, was Burchal’s nephew. That family tree has more than its share of sour lemons.

After the coach pulled away, Quaeryt decided to walk back to Hill Square, as much because he wanted to look around a nicer part of Nacliano as because there was little more he could learn by watching the Patrol building. Besides, he couldn’t hold the concealment shield for long, long periods without getting exhausted, and remaining near the Patrol building without concealment might call too much notice to himself.

As he walked along the even yellow-brick sidewalks that bordered the equally uneven yellow-brick surface of the streets, he couldn’t help but notice a certain almost furtive air displayed by many of those he passed, who moved with their eyes shifting quickly from point to point. Yet few eyes rested long on Quaeryt, as if those who did look at him quickly dismissed him and looked away.

When he neared Hill Square, he began looking for the narrow street that held the bookshop, then turned down it. He walked past the felter’s shop, then stopped. The dilapidated building between the felter’s and the cordwainer’s was closed, the iron-grated door locked. It looked abandoned, and as if it had been for years. Yet he had been there the day before. Abruptly, he nodded. Clearly, the use of the “cooperage” as a bookstore was a tacit accommodation between Burchal and the bookseller, who had to have once been other than a mere vendor of tomes.

He retraced his steps back uphill in the direction of the nearer pastry shop. Less than a quint later, he stood inside a white-walled shop filled with the scents of baking bread, almonds, and other nuts and spices.

A dark-haired girl who could not have stood to his shoulder looked over the counter at him. “Might I help you, sir?”

“What’s the best pastry you have?” he asked.

“The lime tarts are good, and so are the orange ones … or perhaps the walnut-honey layers…” The woman girl smiled shyly.

Lime tarts reminded him of sour lemons, and so might an orange one, especially if it were the slightest bit bitter. “I’ll try one of the walnut-honey pastries.”

“A walnut-honey layer it is. Two coppers.”

Two coppers? The shop definitely catered to the wealthier citizens of Nacliano. Quaeryt handed over the coppers and received in return a square of layers of thin pastry interspersed with honey and ground nuts and placed on a larger square of brown paper.

“There you are.”

Quaeryt took the pastry outside and walked slowly in the direction of the Tankard, not that he was in any hurry. He took a small bite of the walnut-honey layer, chewing it slowly.

For all its sweetness, the pastry tasted bitter.

Like Nacliano.

He finished the last crumbs and licked his fingers, then continued eastward toward the Tankard, which, for all its lack of comfort, somehow felt more honest than did Hill Square.