Raulin sat in his room and took stock of his situation. For the first few minutes things felt dire and he was still angry at what had transpired. He dwelt on Takiya. Did he miss her or how she made him feel? Would he ever see something like that again? What of his friends? Had they been unfair or did he really deserve their ire?
He took a deep breath and stood. Harboring his thoughts on the past would only cause him to wallow in melancholy. He had a job to do.
At least he had been smart enough not to trust Takiya with all the information about his job. She still assumed it was a theft. If she was going to make good on her word, she’d warn the Fremarks or have her people steal the diamond earrings first. She would be looking in the wrong direction.
Takiya also assumed he had no knowledge of the city. He had played dumb, initially to get closer to her. While he wouldn’t say he was an expert, he had spent almost as much time in Riyala as he had in New Wextif during his previous stint in Gheny, so he wasn’t lost.
And lastly, she didn’t know she had slept with a trirec. Once he slipped his mask on, he was essentially another person, one who wouldn’t make the mistake of trusting anyone again.
He’d do this without Takiya and without the quartet.
First things first, he changed into his traveling clothes. He paid the innkeeper for his room and added that night’s fee, to keep the man assuaged. Then, he walked a block over and down, found a room on the bottom floor with a window into an alley, and left for dinner with his notebook ready.
“Day one,” he wrote in his normal code. “I have laid the groundwork and feel I am ready to pursue the target. I suspect the later evening hours or early morning hours to be the most likely time for a rendezvous. I will begin at six o’clock this evening.”
By the time he returned to the inn at two in the morning, he’d filled the page with notes. Lady Asetra was social, an unsurprising fact for someone in the echelons of the upper crust. She had visited several places, some for a quick call of fifteen minutes, some for as long as two hours. None stood out as suspicious, but he would be checking the next day to make sure that stayed true.
He slept until breakfast, grabbed something quick to eat, and made his way back to the Fremark estate. It sat on one of those lovely hills that overlooked the rest of the city, not terribly far from the neighborhood where both the hotels were. It was a small blessing, as was the fact that he hadn’t reached the end of the mile radius yet, though he thought he might have several times.
As he watched the house, he reminded himself that he needed to make sure that the lady was definitely inside. There had been at least three instances where he was tailing someone, just like this, only to discover that his target wasn’t where they were supposed to be. That morning wouldn’t be admissible as time towards the due diligence if his target had given him the slip. He needed to make sure she was still inside.
While the estate was lush in vegetation, creating a perfect cover for his skulking, it also had high walls topped in speared finials and plenty of attending servants. It took him over a half-hour just to make it from the edge of the yard to a window and another three quarters to locate Lady Asetra just rising from her slumber. She was an unmistakable woman. Like her sisters, her hair was a pale flaxen found in some Sonderian or Tondeivan lines, her skin equally as light. Her features were delicate, save her rounded nose and thick lips that gave her a commanding appeal. While the rest of the girls in the house seemed to shrink back into their dainty fans, she powered through rooms and conversations.
He made note of her pale pink dress and accessories, though he would also refrain from making the mistake again of assuming targets didn’t change their clothing. He left the house and grounds and waited across the street for her to leave, following her from event to event when she left around two o’clock. Soirees, parties, get-togethers, readings, plays, this was the life of a young, unmarried woman in Riyala. She would be expected to polish her family name while keeping proper decorum so that her future husband’s family wouldn’t be shamed.
After three days, Raulin’s thoughts on the matter were in the category of doubt. She seemed capable of a secret affair, and love found its way into all sorts of hearts, but she held to practically the same schedule every day. When would she find time outside of all that to meet with a mysterious lover?
He would have held that thought and done his due diligence, sending in his report after two weeks of nothing gleaned, save for one occurrence that happened.
Raulin was watching Asetra at a gathering at the Wilbet estate, some rich but not noble family many of her other friends were friends with. He was tucked in a corner under the brush, obscured from foot traffic by several large leaves from a ground plant. Occasionally he’d check she was still inside by finding her in his spyglass, then checking the time on his pocket watch, both items he had bought recently.
He was bored out of his mind. There were a million things he could be doing that were more interesting, even joining the girl inside and listening to the insipid conversation of high society youth and whatever fashionable philosophy they were clinging to. Gods, even a deep look into Tichen would be better than sitting and waiting.
“Now, what would you be doing here, Raulin Kemor?” a man asked.
“Sitting,” he replied casually, but he was alarmed. Who the hell knew who and where he was?
“Obviously. Seems like a strange place to sit.”
“I am a strange man who does strange things.”
“No, you’re a trirec who’s been tailing my little sister for the past few days.”
Raulin swore under his breath and moved the leaves out of the way. “Viscount, how nice to see you again.”
“I can’t say the same about you,” Viscount Dangic Fremark said, leaning on his cane.
“I’m hurt.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll get over it. Now, about my question.”
“Who says I’m trailing your little sister? Who says I’m trailing anyone?”
“Ah, the Cumber says so, and I’m willing to trust my men over the word of a trirec.”
“Perhaps they have their information wrong. I’m following Danri Offert,” he said, waving inside to one of the men he knew was there, “on charges of embezzlement. My sources tell me he’s been secretly meeting with associates weekly and I need to find out where and with whom. So, if you’ll excuse me, I need to wait here until he leaves.”
“I could have you arrested.”
“You could,” Raulin admitted, “but watching a party is hardly grounds for arrest. Or did you mean for breaking and entering the Cumber? Even the director will have a hard time drawing up the paperwork to extricate me to Shingden. Does the king give you carte blanche?”
“Almost,” he said, rubbing the whiskers of his sideburns. “Mr. Kemor, let me level with you. I know you’re following my sister. I don’t know why and I don’t know who hired you. I do know that if a trirec is tailing someone, it’s not a good thing. It means that you’re going to harm her some way.
“Now, we can come to an arrangement. We know that trirecs have a time limit to their contracts, which means you’ll be leaving Gheny in a few months. Up until now we’ve let you do what you needed to without harassment; we can’t go around arresting people for being a trirec. Bad on that business end, after all.”
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“Oh, you’ve let me do my contracts. How kind.”
Fremark pulled out a notepad from his breast pocket. “There was a murder in Baradan shortly after you arrived, followed by an assassination in Whitney. You made short work of those bounty hunters in Ashven, then we lost you for a while until someone reported a trirec associated with a murder on a ferry.” He looked at him. “You were cleared, but that was you on the Constance on the Sea, yes? Well, then you were involved with a few things in Tektorn. Now, you’re here for some reason.”
Had Raulin been shouting his location to everyone in Gheny? He tried to convince himself that this was only because he’d had to wear his mask the whole year and not because he was sloppy. “I’d be a stupid man to admit to any of that.”
Fremark put his pad away and leaned once more on his cane. “Between you and me, Mr. Kemor, I am not a man who sees only evil in men. While you’ve killed some good men and ruined a few lives, you’ve also done some amazing things. Schoolinghouse admits freely they hired you to clean up and, despite the president’s son being implicated in espionage, they were quite pleased with your work. You spared a woman from possibly being killed by a stalker, saved a city from the grip of a mob family, and put down a crazed killer who had been terrorizing a quarter of Tektorn. I don’t see you as a menace to the law any more than I would consider a carpenter a disaster to a forest.”
“I’m so happy to receive your approval.”
The Viscount sighed. “We don’t have to be at odds was what I was trying to get at. If you’re willing to let me know the details involving my sister, I’d be willing to extend our hands-off approach to your career. I would even throw in some bonuses, like any information we had regarding future contracts or an assurance to deal with local police on your behalf. And, of course, my offer in New Wextif still holds.”
Raulin closed his eyes. It was the most tempted he’d ever been about his future, ten times more than back in New Wextif. If he embraced the Cumber, he might be able to live a life with all the comforts he’d always wished for. And with his defection would come other powers, like saving a little boy from the Nui-Breckin Alliance, which might clear things with Anla. He could see it, a modest three-story house here in Riyala. Anladet in beautiful dresses, Al and Tel taken care of. Children; there would be three, no four, three boys and a girl. He’d name them after his father and brother, himself, Anla’s father, and his mother. Here, they wouldn’t mind. It ached, it ached so badly.
“You still haven’t answered whether or not I’d get a nice uniform with a cape,” he said.
“Dammit, Kemor!” Fremark sword, slamming his cane into the street. “It’s easy! It makes so much sense!”
“I can’t help you,” Raulin said, “but I can offer another exchange.”
“Which is what?”
“I want your assurance that, if I give you a name, the Cumber will find him and care for him until his sister can retrieve him.”
“Who is this?”
“Someone important to someone important. He’s a boy who’s in trouble for no reason other than who he is.”
“A political pawn?”
“He’s half-elven.”
“Ohh,” he said, holding out the syllable. “And that woman you travel with is also half-elven. Are they related?”
“They are.”
“And she’s the ‘someone important’?” Raulin didn’t answer this. “I can’t believe you’re not taking my offer with that in mind.”
“Here’s my exchange, which I’m sure will go punished if discovered. There was a man in Declinst, Ashven who was making black powder for the Freeman’s Army. I assume you know of them?”
“’Black powder’?”
“It is a substance that combusts when ignited. I wasn’t aware of this when I set his house on fire and was launched thirty feet in the air. Imagine projectiles more efficient than a human and what they could do to the defenses of Shingden if the Army developed that weaponry.”
“The name of the boy?”
“Garlin Deerborn Auchindol.”
“Auchindol? That name sounds familiar.” He took a few moments before his eyebrows raised. “But that’s…his father wouldn’t happen to be Martin, would it?”
“He was. He was hanged in Analussia.”
Fremark exhaled loudly. “That’s…sad. All the more reason to save the boy. Thank you for your information. We’ll look into it and we’ll keep a net out for this Garlin.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help today.”
“Understandable. I still consider our conversation open-ended.” He tossed a calling card on the ground. “We can help you. You don’t have to throw away your hopes and dreams because you’re loyal.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
Fremark left him alone. Whether the Cumber did as well, he couldn’t be sure, but he kept a sharper eye out for tails. It came as a surprise to him that, later that night, a boy ran up to him with a message. “There is a metal masked man following you,” he said, his palm out.
Raulin gave him a silver for his troubles. The kid scarpered off before he could ask questions, unfortunate because he had a few that he would pay gold to have answered. He continued on until he could guess where Asetra was going, then waited around a corner until a trirec stepped out. Before he could register that he’d been discovered, Raulin slammed him against the wall of the building and held his knife to his throat. “Name, contract,” he growled in Merakian.
“Jakith, watching you do your contract.”
“Jakith? From the hedge maze?”
“Yes. Are you stealing this from me, Kemor?”
He dropped his knife and let of the pressure. “No. That would seem strange, reporting my own actions. Who hired you? Was it Arvarikor? I checked in immediately, even though they said it was a courtesy,” he said bitterly. He had known this, and still the Hanalese headquarters had brought him in and punished him for it.
Jakith shrugged. The question had been a courtesy; either Jakith didn’t know or he wouldn’t tell.
Raulin took on a more casual air. “How am I doing?”
“Since you caught me, you’re doing well.”
Raulin stepped away. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but know my eye is fixed firmly behind me. Take care, Jakith.”
So, he had the Cumber, Arvarikor, and some phantom watching him now. He was grateful he was wearing his mask. Although Arvarikor allowed them to break uniform for situations where being masked would be a hindrance, he might not being able to talk his way out of being unmasked while tailing someone.
Arvarikor was likely following up on the issues he’d had when in Hanala. The person who tipped him off maybe wanted to make a little extra money; Raulin would have to keep an eye out for him. Those were answers that were satisfactory enough, but why was the Cumber following him? Did they follow every trirec now? Did they think Raulin was the weak link they could snap? Why announce it now and not wait for a more opportune time?
He took his position across from an estate that was holding their soiree on the lawn due to the heat and ruminated a bit more. He decided by the end of Asetra’s night that it wasn’t the Cumber, but a personal matter. People never protested more loudly then when they were guilty.
Raulin expected to see a change in Asetra’s schedule, assuming her older brother tipped her off, but nothing deviated over the next three days. Not one thing. She had either been coached to keep her schedule the same, she was innocent, or she hadn’t been notified. Again, why would her brother step in if she were innocent? Raulin wasn’t harassing her. Eventually he would leave.
What if she was guilty, but nothing needed to change?
He thought on this while in his room. What would that look like? Every day, or every few days, she’d visit someone’s house. With or without her friend’s knowledge, she’d find her lover and consummate her feelings. His money was on one of the daily places. If she was willing to risk everything for him, then she likely had a need to see him daily.
He checked his notebook and began taking notes. “Check dailies for lover,” he wrote. “Either meets or works there.” He circled five places before putting down his notebook for a bath.
On his way to the Fremark estate, a vendor waved him over. “This is for you,” he said, handing him a letter.
“Who is it from?”
“Don’t know,” he said and folded his arms.
Raulin cracked the seal, just blobs of wax with no crest, and read the note quickly.
“Tuchien Mistar, steward of the Graliss Family”
He thanked the vendor and kept walking. Was this someone he needed to meet? A member of the Cumber, perhaps, or maybe even the man who had tipped him off to Jakith’s presence? He took out his notebook again and saw that the Graliss estate was one that Asetra had visited five out of the seven nights. She would likely be there that night.
Raulin supposed it didn’t matter which order he went in, so he went to the Graliss household. He made his way to an unused bedroom and waited until guests began to ring the bells on the door before ducking his mask in his shirt and finding a better vantage point.
Asetra arrived and sat for tea. She pardoned herself about an hour later, went upstairs and entered that same bedroom he had holed himself up in. Five minutes later, a young man, perhaps of Raulin’s age, entered the same room and closed the door. All it took was a very slow turn of the knob and a slight push on the door to confirm the tip.
He left, not without the sadness of knowing those two would soon have to say goodbye. Perhaps she would find happiness with her new husband and eventually would get over Tuchien.
He wrote his letter to the Silant family, wondering what they would do with the information. Then, he wrote a note and had it sent to the other hotel.
They were waiting for him the next day, chatting about something until they saw him. They quieted, until Al said, “How is your contract going?”
“It’s finished. We’re leaving today.”
“Will Takiya be joining us?”
He looked at Anla, whose hands were folded in her lap as she stared ahead. “Takiya and I called it quits some time ago. It will just be the four of us.” A ghost of a smile played on her face, but she controlled it quickly.
“So sorry to hear.”
“I’m sure you are, Wizard. Let’s go.”
They walked back to the wharf. Raulin chatted with several men about suitable places to unwind for a few weeks, places that were harder for people to follow him to, but also had everything a man could wish for. “Ah,” the last one said, “you want Lanelais. It’s on the way up to Haka Ril. It’s a large island with several towns. It’s self-sustaining for the most part. There are quite a few rich that stay there.”
“Sounds wonderful,” he said and found them a ferry to take them there.