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‘Ants and such will take him down to bones in just a few days,’ said the Chalcedean. ‘If he is found, which I doubt, no one will be able to tell who he was. Now we go back to your room and obscure all sign that you were ever in Cassarick.’

He had meant it quite literally. He’d burned the children’s hands in the pottery hearth and destroyed the elaborate boxes that had held them. Redding’s cloak became a sack to hold the precious stones he’d salvaged from the boxes. He’d departed briefly, warning Hest not to leave. Hest suspected that he went to murder the woman who had rented him the room. If he did, he accomplished it very quietly. Perhaps, Hest told himself as he gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering, he had only bribed her well. But he was gone a very long time, leaving Hest alone in the room that smelled of burnt flesh and spilled blood. Sitting in the dimness, he could not shake the image of Redding’s ruined face peering back at him from the crook of the tree. The Chalcedean had slashed it repeatedly, cross-hatching it with cuts until his familiar features were eradicated. Redding’s eyes had stared out from the dangling tatters of his once-handsome face.Advertisement

Hest had always thought of himself as a ruthless Trader. Deception, spying, sharp deals that bordered on theft; he had never seen any advantage to being fair, let alone ethical. Trade was a rough game and ‘every Trader needs to watch his own back’, as his father often said. It had pleased him to think of himself as rough-and-tumble, a man hardened to everything. But never had he been a party to murder. He hadn’t loved Redding, not as Sedric over-used that tired word. But Redding had been an adept lover and a jolly companion. And his death had left Hest alone in this mess. ‘I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,’ he had told the dying flames. ‘It’s not my fault. If Sedric had never made his insane bargain, I wouldn’t be here now. It’s all Sedric’s fault.’

He had not heard the door open, but he had felt the draught and seen the hearth flames flicker. The Chalcedean was a black shadow against the blackness beyond. He pulled the door quietly closed. ‘Now, you will write a few letters for me. Then, we shall deliver them.’

Hest had been beyond questioning what was happening to him. He wrote the letters as he was told, to names he did not recognize, signing his own name to them. In the notes he bragged of his reputation as a clever Trader and directed them to meet him before dawn at the impervious boat that was tied up at the docks. Every letter was identical, stressing discretion and hinting that a great fortune awaited them now that ‘our plans have come to fruition’, and citing names of Traders that Hest had never even met.

Each letter was neatly rolled, tied with twine, and sealed with a drop of wax. Then the Chalcedean smothered the fire in the hearth and they left the stripped room, carrying the missives with them.

The long night had become endless as they moved through Cassarick. The Chalcedean was spry but not absolutely certain of their way. More than once, they retraced their steps. But eventually, the six scrolls had been delivered, tied to door-handles or wedged into door-frames. Hest had been almost grateful to follow the assassin down the endless stairs to the muddy road at the bottom of the city. His well-appointed stateroom, a clean warm bed and dry garments awaited him on the impervious ship. Once he was there and alone, surely he could put the night’s events into focus and decide what he must do next. Once there, he would be Hest again and this evil adventure would become no more than an episode in his past. But when they reached the vessel, the Chalcedean had prodded him along at knifepoint, forcing him into a cargo compartment below decks, and then dropping the hatch shut behind him.

The indignity had astonished him. He’d stood, arms crossed sternly on his chest, and waited in silence, certain that the Chalcedean would return at any moment. As time passed, the discomfort had infuriated him. He groped his way around the freight compartment but found only rough timber walls with no hope of egress. The hatch was just out of his reach and when he climbed the short ladder to push at it, he found it secured. He pounded on the hatch but could achieve no real force, and his shouting roused no one. He had paced, cursing and roaring until he was exhausted. Eventually he had sat down to wait for the Chalcedean, but awakened to darkness. How long he had been held there, he did not know.

Time passed. Hunger and thirst afflicted him. When the hatch was finally lifted, the wan daylight flooded down and blinded him. He immediately started up the ladder.

‘Out of the way!’ someone shouted at him. And other men were pushed pell-mell down the hatch. Three landed well, cursing and trying to fight their way back to the ladder even as others were being forced down. Hest recognized some of them as his fellow passengers from the trip up the river, and others as members of the ship’s crew. Some were Jamaillians who had invested in the boat’s construction, the last a pair of Bingtown Traders. The men who looked down at them, mocking and threatening, were unmistakably Chalcedeans, with their embroidered vests and the curved knives they favoured. pqdm.com