Sweet Silver Blues

23

"Where the hell are they?" Morley roared at the innkeeper.

"How the hell should I know?" the man roared right back, obviously used to rough trade. "You said don't give them anything to drink. You didn't say nothing about nursemaiding them or keeping them off the streets. If you ask me, they looked like they was growed up enough to go out and play by themselves."

"He's right, Morley. Calm down." I didn't want him getting so stirred up he'd need to run ten miles to work it off. I had a feeling it would be smart if we stuck together as much as we could. Assuming the Old Witch knew what she was yakking about, somewhere there was a killer who might get unnerved by our poking around.

I repeated myself. "Calm down and think about it. You know them. What are they likely to be doing?"

"Anything," he grumbled. "That's why I'm not calm." But he took my advice and sprawled in a chair across the table. "I've got to find some decent food. Or something female. You see what's happening to me."

I didn't get a chance to put in my farthing's worth. Dojango came ambling in looking like a rooster on parade. He had his hands shoved into his pockets, his shoulders thrown back, and he was strutting.

"Calmly," I cautioned Morley.

Doris and Marsha each had a hide with the look of old, scuffed shoes, but they were grinning too. Strutting was too much for them. The ceiling was only twelve feet high.

Morley did very well. He asked, "What's up, Dojango?"

"We went out and got in a fight with about twenty sailors. Cleaned up the streets with them."

"Calmly," I told Morley, hanging on to his shoulder.

From the looks of Dojango, compared to his brothers, his part in the fight must have been mostly supervisory.

Morley suggested, "Maybe you'd better tell it from the beginning. Like start with what made you go out there in the first place."

"Oh. We were going down to watch the harbor in case anybody interesting came in. Like the guys on that striped-sail ship or the ones that snatched Garrett's girlfriends, or even the girls themselves."

Morley had the good grace to look abashed. "And?"

"We were headed back here when we ran into the sailors."

Doris—or maybe Marsha—rumbled something. Morley translated. "He says they called them bad names." He kept a straight face. "So. Besides making the streets safe from marauding, name-calling sailors, did you accomplish anything?"

"We saw the striped-sail ship come in. One guy—the one Marsha threw in the drink in Leifmold—got off. He hired a ricksha. We figured we would be too obvious if we tried to follow him, so we didn't try. But we did get close enough to hear him tell the ricksha man to take him to the civil city hall."

Full Harbor has two competing administrations, one civil, one military. Their feuding helps keep city life interesting.

"Good work," Morley grouched.

"Worth a beer?" Dojango asked.

Morley looked at me. I shrugged. They were his problem. He said, "All right."

"How about two?"

"What is this? A damned auction?"

Morley and I mounted the rig. He asked, "Where to now, peerless investigator?"

"I figured on hitting the civil city hall next, but Dojango changed my mind. I don't want to run into that guy again if I can help it."

"Your caution is commendable if a bit out of character. Keep an eye peeled for a decent place to eat."

"Get up," I told the horses. "Keep an eye out for a pasture where Morley can graze."

I don't understand it. We went into the church and there was nothing going on. Every day seems like a holy day of obligation for the Orthodox from what I've seen.

A priest in his twenties with a face that did not yet need shaving asked us, "How may I help you gentlemen?" He was unsettled. We weren't ten feet inside the door, but already we had betrayed ourselves as heathen. We had overlooked some genuflection or something.

Earlier I'd decided to deal straight with the church—without telling everything, of course. I told the priest I was trying to locate the former Kayean Kronk, of his parish, because she had a very large legacy pending in TunFaire. "I thought somebody who works here, or your records, might help me trace her. Can we talk to your boss?"

He winced before he said, "I'll tell him you're here and why. I'll ask if he'll see you."

Morley barely waited until the kid was out of earshot. "If you want to get along with these people, you should at least try to fake the cant."

"How do you do that when you don't have the foggiest what it is?"

"I thought you said you and the gal used to come here for services."

"I'm not a religious guy. I slept through them most of the time. The Venageti must not have made it this far during the invasion."

"Why do you say that?"

"Look at all the gold and silver. There aren't any Orthodox among the Venageti. They would have stripped the place and sent the plunder out on the first courier boat."

The priest came hustling back. "Sair Lojda will give you five minutes to argue your case." As we followed him, he added, "The Sair is accustomed to dealing with unbelievers, but even from them he expects the honor and deference due his rank."

"I'll be sure not to slap him on the back and ask if he wants a beer," I said.

The Sair was the first to ask for my credentials. I made my pitch while he examined them. He did not give us the full five minutes allotted. He interrupted me. "You will have to see Father Rhyne. He was the Kronk family confessor and spiritual adviser. Mike, take these gentlemen to Father Rhyne."

"What are you grinning about?" I asked Morley as soon as we were out of the presence.

"When was the last time you had a priest take less than three hours even to tell you to have a nice day?"

"Oh."

"He was a dried-up little peckerwood, wasn't he?"

"Watch your tongue, Morley."

He was right. The Sair's face had reminded me of a half-spoiled peach that had dried in the desert for six months.

Father Rhyne was a bit remarkable, too. He was about five feet tall, almost as wide, bald as a buzzard's egg, but had enough hair from the ears down to reforest fifty desert craniums. He was naked to the waist and appeared to be doing exercises. I have never seen anyone with so much brush on his face and body.

"Couple of minutes more, men," he said. He went on, sweating puddles.

"All right. Throw me a towel, Mike. Trying to shed a few stone," he told us. "What can I do for you?"

I sang my song again, complete with all the choruses. I wondered if I would run out of bottles of beer on the wall before I picked up Kayean's trail.

He thought for a minute, then said, "Mike, would you get the gentlemen some refreshments? Beer will do for me."

"Me too," I chirped.

"Ah. Another connoisseur. A gentleman after my own heart."

Morley grumbled something about brewing being an unconscionable waste of grains that could be stone-ground and baked into high-fiber breads that would give thousands the bulk they desperately needed in their diets.

Father Mike and Father Rhyne both looked at him like he was mad. I didn't contradict their suppositions. I told Father Mike, "See if you can't track down a rutabaga. If it doesn't put up too fierce a fight, squeeze it for a pint of blood and bring that to him."

"A glass of cold spring water will be sufficient," Morley said. Coldly. Sufficiently. I decided not to ride him so hard.

Once our guide stepped out, Father Rhyne confessed, "I wanted Mike out of the way for a while. He has a tendency to gossip. You don't want this spread around any more than need be. So you're looking for Kayean Kronk. Why here?"

"The Kronks were a religious family. This was their parish. I know she was married some time ago, but I don't even know her husband's name. It would have been in keeping with her character to have had a big parochial wedding. If she did, and it was here, then the groom's name would be on record."

"She was not married in the church. Not this parish or any other." There was something very odd and ominous about the way he said that.

"Is there any chance you could give me a useful lead or two, either toward her or a member of her family who might be willing to help?"

He eyed me a full half a minute. "You seem like an honest enough fellow, if not entirely forthright. But I expect our trades are a little alike in that respect. You satisfied the Sair, who has the eye of a buzzard when it comes to judging character. I'll help however I can as long as I don't have to violate the sanctity of the confessional."

"All right. How can you help me?"

"I don't know. I can't tell you where to find her."

"Is that privileged knowledge?"

"No. I don't know."

"What about the name of the guy she married?"

"I can't tell you that, either."

"Privilege? Or don't know?"

"Six of one, half dozen of the other."

"All right. I'll worry about getting a dozen out of that later. Can you tell me where I can get in touch with any of her family?"

"No." Before I could ask he raised a staying hand and said, "Ignorance, not privilege. The last I heard of any of the Kronks was about two years ago. Her brother Kayeth had been decorated and brevetted major of cavalry for his part in the victory at Latigo Wells."

Morley stirred just the slightest. Yes, another cavalryman. It might or might not mean something. Kayeth was younger than Kayean, which meant he was younger than Denny and me, which meant their periods of service might not have overlapped at all.

Idiot! They didn't need to overlap for them to have met if Denny was her lover after me.

"Do you recall what unit he was with?"

"No."

"No matter. That should be easy to find out. When was the last time you saw Kayean?"

He had to think about that. I figured he was having trouble remembering I was wrong. He was debating proprieties. He gave me an exact-to-the-minute time and date slightly more than six years ago, and added, "That is when she ceased to exist in the eyes of the church."

"Huh?"

Morley said, "He means she was excommunicated, Garrett."

Father Rhyne nodded.

"What for?"

"The reasons for excommunication are revealed only to the soul to be banished from grace."

"Wait a minute." I was confused. "Are we talking about the same woman?"

"Take it easy, Garrett," Morley said. "Excommunication don't necessarily mean she turned into some kind of religious desperado. They do you in because you won't let them extort your whole fortune. Or, if you're a woman, because you won't come across."

That was a deliberate provocation. Father Rhyne took it better than I expected. "I have heard that sort of thing happens up north. Not here. This is a church militant, here in this archdiocese. The priest who tried that would find himself staked like a vampire. The reasons for Kayean's excommunication were valid within the laws of the church."

I stepped in before Morley rendered his opinion of laws that judged him to be without a soul and therefore beyond the protection of its golden rules. "That's not really the sort of information that's likely to help me, Father. Unless the reasons for her excommunication have some bearing on where she is now."

Father Rhyne shook his head, but with just enough hesitance to show he was not sure.

"My job, and my only job, is to find the woman so I can tell her she has inherited a hundred thousand marks. Once I tell her, I'm supposed to ask if she wants it. If she does, I'm supposed to escort her to TunFaire because she has to claim it in person. If she doesn't want it, I have to get a legal deposition to that effect so that others down the list can benefit from the legacy. That's it. That's all."

"Nevertheless, you have a personal interest."

Glass Door Garrett, that is what they call me. See right through me. "The guy who died was a good friend of mine. I want to see what kind of woman would get him to leave her everything when he hadn't even seen her for seven years."

A twitch of a smile worked one corner of Rhyne's mouth. I stopped, confused. Morley said, "In the shadows behind the tombstones."

That did it. Of course. Rhyne had been Kayean's confessor. He'd never say a word, but he remembered sins confessed that included a Marine named Garrett.

"All right. We know where we stand. We know what my job is. I've asked the questions I think are pertinent—and a few that weren't and some that were probably impertinent—and I think you've answered me fairly. Can you think of anything you could volunteer that might be helpful?"

"Hang on a second, Garrett," Morley said. He drifted to the door as soundlessly as a cloud and jerked it open. Father Mike almost fell over.

I'd wondered what had been keeping him.

"Ah! That beer at last!" Father Rhyne had on a big, jovial host's grin, but his eyes were not smiling. "Just put the tray down and go about your duties, Mike. I'll talk to you later."

Father Mike went out looking like he hoped later would never come.

Rhyne chose to pretend that nothing untoward had happened. He poured beer from a monster of a pitcher into enormous earthenware mugs. Morley's water was in a blown-glass tankard of equal size. I'd barely taken my first sip before Father Rhyne parted from his mug and said, "Ahh!" He wiped his mouth with the fur on the back of his forearm, then belched like a young thunderhead. He poured himself a pint chaser.

Before he hoisted it, he said, "What information can I volunteer? I can tell you that you won't find her in Full Harbor. I can tell you to walk very carefully because I can infer, without absolute certitude, that there might be people who wouldn't want you to find her. I can tell you not to look for the image that lives in your memory because you will never find her."

I finished my brew. "Thank you. Good beer."

"We make it ourselves. Will there be anything more?"

"No... Well, something from off the wall. I've heard her father was murdered. Any comment?"

He got a very evasive look. "It's possible."

His expression told he would clamp his jaws on that cryptic statement. I returned my mug to the tray. Morley followed my lead. He had downed enough water to show he appreciated the stuff in quantities too small to rock a boat. We headed for the door. I said, "Thanks for everything."

"Sure. If you do find her, tell her we haven't stopped loving her, even if we can't forgive her. That might help."

Our gazes locked. And I knew that fat little hairball did not mean "we" at all. I also knew the whole thing was as chaste and courtly as any perfect knight's affection for his lady in an old roman. "I'll do that, Father."

"Another one," Morley said when we got outside. "I've got to meet this woman." There was not an ounce of sarcasm in his tone.