Leorik von Leyn kept his daughter close to him now, wrapped up in silks whiter than her bones, nestled beneath his jacket and beside his heart. He found that her presence, her beauty, soothed him as he wandered through the city of Vatan.
As soon as he had finished his work on her he had shot off into the pitch black, smothering darkness of the night streets. It had been during the little hours, when good citizens refused to go out for fear of corpse snatchers, thieves and the cultists of proscribed gods that skulked about the city in search of victims. Sneaking past the lamplights of dullard night watchmen was so simple that even a child could have done it. His destination was still as clear in his mind as when he had first seen it. The building marked with that beautiful, swirling spiral.
The artist had slunk his way through shadow streets with his daughter held to him, his thoughts giddy with anticipation. This would be the piece that he brought to the Thin Man. Leorik was certain it was his magnum opus, assured that it would fulfil the Thin Man’s commission and be a suitable replacement for the painting, - the thought of the painting still made him wince in pain - and then it would take prime place in that otherworldly gallery. He had never felt a need like this before nor such a swelling of pride, not even when ‘Faeries in the Garden’ had been hung to the left of the Emperor’s shining emerald throne.
This was why his breath hitched in his chest as he entered the alleyway the shop had once stood in. “No. No, no, no.” To his utmost dismay, there remained nothing of it but an expanse of damning brickwork, a stone cliff that seemed never to have been marked by beautiful glass windows, or by the shop’s imposing pine door. Screaming, he had battered his fists against the stonework until they were bruised and bloodied, until the strength left him and he slid down into the dirt of the street.
That was the moment Leorik von Leyn broke. Had it been his imagination, all of this? Had he killed his daughter for nothing? Finally, and most urgently, would he never create something worthy of the Thin Man? He took his daughter out, placed his forehead against hers, and sobbed. It was then that a thought came to him, a realisation; his daughter had been so ugly before he had fixed her, so hideously hateful and jealous of the painting. Certainly he had improved her, but that bile had marked her on the inside too, all the way to her bones. It wasn’t an issue of his technique, nor his skill. It was an issue of subject.
It all made sense to him now. One could be the greatest artist in the Five Planes, but if they did not find the correct subject they would never flourish. If he could just find the right person, one that was beautiful inside and out, then he could make something worthy of the black spiral, of the Thin Man’s court.
As an artist, he knew a number of distinguished ladies and gentlemen about the city who were all contenders. The most regal and elegant of ladies, gentlemen that were authoritative, yet gentle and refined. But they lacked that purity he was searching for, they had been blackened by the realities of upper class society.
He just needed to find someone who had been as beautiful and educated as nobility, but who had rejected their corrupt ways.
He just needed to find the right victim.
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Rijmen Paint Makers was not the sort of business that dangled a sign emblazoned with a paint pot above its door. It was the sort of shop with a very particular set of clientele, all with extremely specific needs. The sort of shop that supplied rare and exotic paints to the most esteemed and established of artists. In the art world, if one was permitted to purchase something from Rijmen, it meant they had made it.
Vespia was aware of its reputation. She remembered how, in her youth, her eldest brother had raged and wailed at the fact the shop refused to serve him, no matter how many numas he tried to place into their pockets. It was a particularly stinging barb from the owner - something about how he would never allow his paints to be used by a man with all the artistic talent of a blind ogre - that had turned her brother away from pursuing art as a profession and back toward the family business. Her father had been pleased, and Vespia had always harboured a secret suspicion that his meddling had been the reason for the reception her brother had received.
Despite all of this when she entered it was without any apprehension. She wasn’t here to buy paint, she was here with all the authority of the watch at her back - and in her weighty blackjack - to find out anything she could about a man who had most likely murdered his daughter. The shop had a wide glass facade, within the walls were lined with jar after jar of paints of every possible colour and hue, brushes of every shape and size, and all the accoutrements an artist could ever possibly require. The door creaked as she entered, and she took note of the attendant standing behind a wide countertop.
The man was a skinny, bespectacled fellow with a wispy moustache, a mop of unruly blonde hair with irregular tufts that jutted out in every direction, and the air of pompous derision about him that only someone who thought of themselves as an expert, and their every opinion as a gift to the world, could conjure up. At first Vespia had difficulty perceiving these details thanks to the fact the man was hidden behind a wide broadsheet paper, specifically The Vatan Inquirer. It was emblazoned with the tale of the vile necromantic fiend Renard upon its cover. A rap of her knuckles against the hardwood counter made him jump, and then peer over the paper like a noble who’s dinner had been interrupted by a particularly besotted peasant.
“Do you have an appointment?” His accusative, nasally voice was like sandpaper against Vespia’s ears. “We don’t have anything else scheduled today, you know.”
She rapped her blackjack against the counter next, marking the varnished wood. “Merchant’s Watch. I’m here to talk about one of your clients.”
“Oh.” As with all self assured experts, he shrunk back at the mere implication of violence. “Our clients are all very reputable artists, I’m not sure which of them a member of the Watch could be interested in.”
“Leorik von Leyn. He purchased all of his paint from you. When did you see him last?”
“I’d have to check the accounts to be -” He cleared his throat as he saw the look in the woman’s gaze. Vespia wasn’t going to let him worm out of this. “Two days ago, perhaps? He was always very particular about what he wanted. Lots of Vaelanar Red lately, from the Elven Homelands, the New World.”
“And did he seem…stable? At ease? Or on edge?” By this point Vespia had slipped the blackjack back onto her belt, she had made her point. “It’s very important that we find him. The Watch has a number of questions we’d like to ask him.”
The clerk glanced this way, then that, as if he expected someone to jump out from behind the shelves of expensive paints and brushes. “Well. To tell you the truth he did seem off. We’ve always served eccentrics here of course, that is simply the nature of the art business. Why, I knew a man who refused to paint in anything except Xinyi White. It was exactly the same shade as his canvas, but the gallery owners went crazy for it. We just supply the paints, we don’t try to understand what people plan to do with them.”
“Leorik.” Vespia repeated, as the man started to go on his tangent. “You said he seemed off. How so?”
“Well. First of all, there was all the Vaelanaric paint. I don’t put much stock in rumours, but people say that things in the New World are different, that there's a strange enchantment to things there. You know, stories of colonies going missing and ancient ruins that aren’t quite as abandoned as we’ve been led to believe. Leorik had never been interested in those sorts of pigments before, his art was light.” The clerk had eased up a tad, delighting in a chance to gossip about one of his customers. “To tell the truth, I think his art was only popular because it invoked comforting emotions. Easier to hang up in a throne room or a dining parlour than some more challenging pieces.”
“Walk me through what happened the last time you sold paint to him.” Vespia wasn’t well versed in the specific minute differences between types of paint, but even she had heard stories about the recently rediscovered plane of Vaelanaire, about the ancient Vaelic homeworld.
“The last time I saw him he was all twitchy. I thought maybe he’d become hooked on the Muzdahiran Mistreed, lots of artists use that for inspiration. He asked me if I was familiar with a gallery somewhere in the city. He called it the Black Spiral Gallery. I told him it wasn’t anything I’d ever heard of before and I know every art gallery in the city, not to mention most of the major ones in the provincial capitals.”
“Black Spiral? I’ve never heard of anything like that either.” Vespia scribbled it down into her notebook and then motioned for him to continue.
“He seemed convinced it was somewhere along Merchant’s Road. He told me he was working on a commission for the owner, but he never gave me a name. Just referred to the fellow as the ‘Thin Man’. I’d think him a rather boring fellow if that’s the only feature he could remember.” The clerk put a finger up at that, “While he was trying to convince me the place existed though, there was something he drew. Give me a moment.”
The clerk made his way into the back of the shop, and Vespia placed her elbows onto the countertop in thought while she listened to the clinking and crashing from the backroom. It sounded to her like Leorik had gone off his rocker, which made her even more certain that he was the perpetrator of his daughter’s murder. What sort of father would go into hiding after his daughter had been killed if he hadn’t been involved? Her reverie was interrupted as the clerk arrived again and unrolled a sheet of paper before her. It was marked with a spinning black spiral, slashed not quite in half by a straight line.
“This was it. After that I gave him his paint and he left. I’ve not seen hide nor hair of him since.”
“Alright. Thank you for the help.” She pointed down at the piece of paper before rolling it up and placing it under her arm. “I’m taking this. If you remember anything else that might be relevant you make sure to let us know. Hire a runner if you have to and I’ll make sure you’re reimbursed for the cost.”
The man’s mouth opened as if he were about to complain about Vespia confiscating the ‘art’, but a sideways glance at her blackjack made him decide against it.
Vespia donned her cap and made her way back out into the bustling street of the city, her mind on the murder that had been committed just that morning. The best lead she had was a paint smeared bit of paper and the reported ramblings of the suspect himself. She tried to put herself in the frame of mind of that murdered woman’s father. If he had trusted confidants he might have gone to them, but he was no hardened criminal, his friends were likely average citizens and they would report him as soon as they heard of the murder. The alternative was that he had gone to ground completely, it was easy to get lost in the maze-like, crisscrossing alleyways of a city as large as Vatan. Even now he could be covered in rags, sleeping in flophouses with drunkards, vagabonds and prostitutes past their prime and if that was the case he would be nearly impossible for the Watch to track down.
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Of course, Vespia had connections with more than just the Watch, no competent watch woman spent almost a decade in the job without making a few connections on the other side of the law. It was then that she decided that it was about time she had a drink.
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Vatan’s riverside always bustled with the activity of commerce and Empire, hundreds of cargo ships busied its fetid, sizzling, polluted water and disgorged goods from all over the Five Planes. Clicking bronze mechanical wonders looted from the crumbling cities of Once-Great Chandthira, hypnotizingly bejewelled sceptres and delicious new foods from the rediscovered and unexplored plane of Vaelanaire, cloth-of-gold covered chainmail and silver hued scimitars bartered away in the blighted desert plane of Muzdahir, rune etched slabs of jade proclaiming Imperial edicts and exotically printed art that made every collector’s heart heavy with greed came from the Dragon Empire of Xinyi, all of these and more crossed hands on the riverside, exchanged for clinking numas and crumpled notes of credit, but none of these goods was as important as one that was native to Telavingia. Grain.
If the grain barges ceased to arrive in the Empire’s capital for more than three days, and the cities grain dole was halted, famine and unrest would rip it apart with the same ferocity a rabid wolf would tear through a man’s flesh. So important were these barges that even the criminal element of the city had agreed they must be protected. It was why The Crooked Wench had never reported any sort of disturbance or crime in a decade; the city's wastrels needed neutral ground to meet, to do business and to come to accord with one another. The building, one half tavern and the other half brothel, was a three story building of pale blue painted cherrywood on the corner that led to the Triplets - a set of three bridges which spanned the Vat, such was its width, and which connected one half of the city to the other - and the entire construction was tilted anxiously to the right, like a drunkard that seemed as if he could topple over at any moment, yet somehow managed to remain upright. It would take a great deal more to destroy The Crooked Wench than dubious construction, it had already survived the last two great fires as well as a plot by an ambitious crime lord to have sacks of blackpowder hidden beneath it's floorboards and then blown up while his rivals met and plotted his downfall.
There was an unspoken rule that the Watch would steer clear of the place, and that anyone who caused trouble within it would find themselves drifting down the river with iron boots. In this case, Vespia had decided that flaunting said rule was warranted. Laws, after all, were far more binding.
When she arrived outside The Crooked Wench it was with all the well ordered discipline one could expect from the Watch’s finest and it did not go unnoticed, haggard mothers leaning out of tenement windows and tattooed riff raff stared and squinted at her approach. That was why her hand had dropped not to rest upon the heavy blackjack at her right side, but to the sleek flintlock pistol dangling from her left.
A set of nearly identical hulking thugs barred her way to the door, both were bald, ale gutted and each had one half of a preening woman tattooed upon the heavy bulk of their arms. If the two were to put their arms up against each other one would be able to make out Tabitha Sotheim, the Mildenhall Playhouse’s most accomplished and popular actress, though with a slightly stretched out face and a curve to her bust more outrageous than any corset she had worn in reality had ever managed coax out of her. They were the twins. Greg and Gregory.
“Lieutenant. Thought I said last time that you shouldn’t be sticking your nose where it don’t belong.” Said Greg, his voice gruff like a smoker, and deep as the ocean. “What brings you to our little drinking spot?” Gregory finished the sentence, with the tones of a man who guzzled a bottle of whiskey a day, the difference was subtle.
If Vespia was in any way intimidated by the towering pair, she certainly didn’t show it. Instead she glanced over to Greg and arched a brow. “Last time we met you ended up with a bullet in your arse after you said that. Still got the limp? I can arrange for you to get a third hole back there.” The woman fingered at her pistol and offered the two a patronisingly polite smile.
Greg bristled, and Gregory had to place a monolithic slab of an arm out in front of the barrel chested brute to hold him back. “I’ll ask again Lieutenant, what brings you to the Crooked Wench?”
“I’m here to see Triska. It’s Watch business.” Gregory had been beating his latest squeeze, some youthful boy, in a drunken rage on Merchant Street last she saw him, and sending a lead bullet into his retreating rear had been worth the chewing out she got at the station house that evening.
Gregory looked her up and down, turning the thought over in his mind. In the end he decided she could be his problem out here, or someone else’s problem inside. “Fine. But he’s on the second floor right now with one of the girls, so you’ll have to wait. No one interrupts his personal time.” He placed his meaty palm on the door behind him and pushed it open.
Vespia touched the rim of her cap toward him and entered the tavern, Greg’s scowling glare on the back of her head the entire time before the door shut behind her.
Inside The Crooked Wench was a smokey world of creaking wooden tables, shadowy booths tucked away into rounded alcoves, and busty tavern maidens avoiding the pinching hands of skilled pickpockets or the palms of coin extorting wastrels. The low hum of breathy conversation was punctuated with the plucking of a half tuned lute which stopped as Vespia stepped inside and the crowd turned as one to squint at the feather in her cap, the silver buttons on her darkly viridescent jacket and her upright posture.
“What? You’ve all seen a Watch Lieutenant before.”
The crowd’s answer was the equivalent of a room rolling its heaving shoulders up and down in a shrug, and each returned to their conversations as Vespia made as if to approach the long wooden counter that ran the length of the tavern’s far side.
But once she was a spear thrusts length away, she switched tracks, making for a side door that led into the building’s stairwell; she didn’t want Triska knowing she was here too early, he still had warrants out for smuggling mistreed and wyrdroot into the city and was likely to try and make an escape at the slightest hint of her approach.
The stairway was angled and twisted, thanks to the building’s leaning nature and a decade’s worth of stamping feet as well as the lack of proper lighting. Vespia had started for a moment at the foot of the stairs, thinking some dark figure stood at the top only to discover the illusion had been created by deep shadows and a hung up coat.
She passed the first floor quickly after that, the smell of stale booze and staler sex making her wrinkle her nose in disgust. When she arrived on the second floor it was to an open hallway, littered with a few scandalously clad women leaning against the walls and puffing at lit up, tapered reeds. They had probably just finished up a shift. When they noticed her uniform they spluttered and made to bat away the smoke.
“Which room is Triska in?” Her confidence cut through them, and one of the shorter girls instinctively pointed toward a half open door at the end of the hall. Vespia gave them a nod, pushing her way past them and ushering them off toward the stairwell with a wave of her hand at the same time.
Creeping slowly, and with her other hand on her blackjack just in case, she made her way over toward the door. It was getting late in the afternoon, and it being this late in the year meant the sun was just starting to dissipate, like a distant star winking out in the middle of the night. She shoved the door open with one hand, and let out an amused snort at what she revealed.
The room was spartan and simplistic, the only piece of furniture was a bed with cheap covers and cheaper pillows. Nevertheless, it was in disarray, with empty bottles of ale, mead and dark spirits littering the floor and the bedframe askew in the middle of the room. The man sitting upon it, Triska, was a short haired runt, with a pockmarked face that declared how he had survived the weeping sickness as a boy and a wiry frame packed with deceiving amounts of musculature. At that moment he was shirtless, his breeches were half opened, and he lacked one of his boots. Clearly he had hired all three of the trio outside earlier.
“Triska. Now look, I just want to-” Vespia was cut off as the vagabond shot up with surprising speed and without a single shred of hesitation threw himself head first out of the open window. “Slippery little shit.”
The Lieutenant sprinted toward the window, poking her head out - and expecting, perhaps even half hoping, to see him dashed against the cobblestones - and growling. The building was tilted in the direction of the window, and Triska had thrown himself off toward one of the balconies opposite a thin alleyway which the Crooked Wench loomed over. He had landed with an acrobat's finesse ignoring Vespia’s shouts, “I just want to talk, Triska!”, and then disappeared into the building opposite.
Vespia seethed for a moment, crushing her hands into fists. Impotently she glared around the room, before muttering to herself. “Fuck it.”
She threw her cap to the side as she moved out into the corridor for a running start, shocking the trio of girls as she copied the rogue’s motion, sprinting forward and flinging herself out of the window and toward the opposite balcony. Her stomach jerked as gravity started to pull her down, for half a moment she was suspended in the air and her blood froze, but then she hit the balcony, hard, and if it wasn’t for the speed she wrapped her arms around the iron railing she would have fallen. She pulled herself up with a little less dexterity than Triska, but just as much determination and then flew through the room in pursuit.
It flashed by in a blur with the speed she was going, but she made out the shocked faces of a family eating dinner as she barreled toward the only open door in the apartment, out into the corridor and sprinted her way toward the building’s stairs. She paused for a moment, and realised she could hear the off balance ‘THUMP’, ‘SLAP’, ‘THUMP’, ‘SLAP’ from down below of a leather boot hitting stone, then the sole of a foot in a staccato rhythm. Then she was off again, practically jumping down the stairway three steps at a time.
In normal circumstances Triska probably would have left her behind with ease, but instead when she arrived at the bottom of the stairs it was with him in the doorframe, trying to hurry along with tying up his breeches. Vespia let out a growl of frustration when she saw him, and he bolted off into the street with her hot on his heels.
The streets were filled with trundling carts and strolling citizens enjoying the dim light of dusk, Triska deftly weaved through, over and even under them at one point. Vespia employed a different technique, “Watch! Get out of my bloody way!” It wasn’t quite as effective, but those who didn’t step back with haste found themselves shouldered out of the way.
She knew that if she didn’t do something soon she’d lose the fellow - and he was her best connection to the city's underground - but a grin lit up her face when she saw the alleyway he was entering, Merovik’s Way.
Triska continued to weave his way through the street, dipping into Merovik’s Way and dashing under clotheslines, past bickering matrons and over a stray, clucking chicken. He had lost the Lieutenant too! Ballsy of her to come to the Wench, but nobody caught Slippery Triska. Not even Lieutenant Vespia Larue.
That was his last thought before a charging green figure came thundering toward him out of a darkened nook and tackled him flat onto his rear end. His world became a tumbling blur, before he hit the ground and it faded to darkness.
When he stirred once more, it was with Vespia standing over him, a cacophonous headache, various aches and pains, and a set of manacles about his feet. “Oh bloody hell, my head!”
“That’s probably from all the booze you drank, I didn’t tackle you that hard.” The Lieutenant sighed, shaking her head. “You really didn’t have to make it this difficult.”
“What, you think I’d go to Coldshank without at least trying to get away, Vee?” He offered her a smile, revealing a row of yellowed teeth. “I had a good run.”
“I’m not here to put you in prison, you dullard.” She crossed her arms at that, tapping a finger against her elbow impatiently. “I’m here because I want to ask for your help.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?”
“You jumped out the bloody window, Triska. You didn’t really give me the chance.”
The man grumbled, but there wasn’t much of an argument to make. “So what do you want my help with?”
“I’m looking for someone. A man called Leorik von Leyn.” Vespia explained, crouching down to eye level with the slumped over criminal.
“Oh aye? He sounds fancy, like nobility.” The man jerked his head to the side, “Why don’t you try the palace?”
“He’s an artist. I think he killed his daughter, mutilated her.” The Lieutenant grimaced as she thought back to the bloodied corpse she had seen that morning. “I also think he might be hiding with the beggars and scum of the city.”
“His daughter? That’s nasty. I won’t ask about the mutilation, but what makes you think he’s still hiding out in the city?” Triska had pulled himself up at that point, wobbling as he got onto his feet.
“A hunch. If you help us find him, put some feelers out, I’d be willing to get the smuggling charges dropped.”
“Well! When you put it like that...” He scratched at one of the pockmarks that marred his features with the back of his thumb, “Someone like him would stick out, even if he was dressed like he was homeless. I can make some inquiries. Can you get these manacles off of me?”
Vespia fished out the key, throwing it over to the man. “Keep ‘em. Courtesy of the City Watch. You know where you’ll be able to find me.” With that, she left him with one bare foot in the frosted up cobblestones, “I’m going back for my cap.”