The Shewstone Read online

  The urge to flee could no longer be resisted. Eawynn crawled the first yard, until she got feet under her, then she ran, stumbled, and staggered across Silver Lady Square. The echo of the hemp sandals came back flat and mushy from the surrounding wall of houses.

  She reached the edge of the plaza. A dark passageway opened before her and she plunged in, out of the sight of the guards, out of sight of anyone who might witness her humiliation. At the first intersection, she turned left, and mainly by touch, found a deep recess, the top of a flight of steps leading to a cellar.

  Already the darkness of night was giving way. To the east, the sky was paling with the approach of daybreak. The wind carried the scent of rain. Eawynn hunkered down, clasping the loaf to her chest. Then the tears came. It no longer mattered. There was no one to see. The drops rolled down her face, tasting of salt and yellow paint. They were tears of anger and shame and fear. Now, she could give in to them.

  The sound of footsteps snared Eawynn’s attention, reminding her of where she was. She scrubbed her eyes and listened. Multiple feet, coming in her direction. Eawynn slid further down the steps and peered furtively over the top. Two figures, tall and heavily built, rounded the corner. Their feet were clad in boots. Iron nails clacked on the cobbles. Eawynn ducked down deeper, praying they would not see her.

  Unhurried, the two men swaggered along the street, exchanging grunted words of conversation. As they passed, Eawynn saw the cudgel one had, swinging in time with his steps. A few yards farther on, a hard, humourless bark of laughter rang out, and then their footsteps faded away, into the sleeping city.

  Eawynn’s heart was pounding. Maybe those men were honest citizens, about their lawful business. Maybe, if they had seen her, they would have done her no harm. Maybe she had not needed to hide. But there were others in the city who were not honest, who would harm her, and she could not hide from them all.

  Eawynn realised that, until then, she had not really known what fear was.

  *

  After four days, Matt had got a feel for the pattern of activity in what used to be the Flyming home. At the same time, she had been keeping an eye on how the pieces were falling in the upturned power battle of the Fortaine underworld. She had kept the wig, hacked into a shorter, less fashionable style that was still surprisingly effective at changing the shape of her face. It was hardly a foolproof disguise, but she had seen no sign of any attempt to hunt her down. Maybe Gilbert assumed she had fled to Port Baile, like Ricon, who had headed off two days earlier. Maybe Gilbert had too much else on his mind.

  Already there was trouble in his gang. One of his lieutenants had decided Gilbert’s share of the action was bigger than needed or deserved, and so had claimed the Clambrook district for herself. A quarter of the gang were now working for this new boss. Meanwhile, Benny had pulled together a crew of rowdy boys and was talking about revenge. Jenny the Trip had re-emerged on the dock and was not budging. Someone in the city watch wanting to make a name for himself had seized on the upheaval as a chance to shut down a few operations. If Tobias Flyming did not make a move on Gilbert soon, there might be no piece of him left to stake.

  Yet, while Gilbert’s problems could not be too few for Matt’s liking, they were not her main concern. She needed information about the man who had murdered Edmund, and she knew one place to get it.

  Gilbert’s gang were occupying the house, though not using it as a base of operations. A permanent guard was set outside the main door, and a crew of four were always in the building, but the comings and goings stopped around midnight. After that, those inside might party a while, usually with guests from one of Gilbert’s brothels, and take turnabout on the door, but otherwise the house was quiet. The rear of the building was unguarded, or at least, no guard Matt need worry about. The occupants of the neighbouring houses, after years of practice, were ignoring everything.

  In the quiet hours before dawn, Matt waited, melding with the shadows where the side street branched off beside the house. A dozen yards farther along was the delivery gate—the same gate she had used for her first break-in. The room at The Jolly Wagoner was stocked with clothes and equipment for all occasions. However, Matt needed to trade warmth against freedom of movement. She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering. Not much longer.

  From where she stood, she was out of sight of the front door and the guard, but not out of earshot. The door latch clacked as it opened for the last changeover of the night.

  “How’s it going out here?” A low male voice.

  “Fun and laughs like always.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Better than that, you can see for yourself. I’m off to bed.”

  “Yeah. Cheers for that.”

  Matt waited long enough for the old guard to fall asleep and the new one to grow bored, then she was off. She slipped along the side street, far enough so there was no risk of the guard hearing the clink of her grapple catching the top of the wall.

  In seconds, Matt was over and in the garden on the other side. She crouched motionless, listening. A soft rustle in the undergrowth gave a moment’s warning that she was not alone before she was pounced on. The Flyming mastiffs were trained not to warn intruders by barking, but they still wagged their tails and licked and slobbered like any other dog. Matt hugged them around their necks and wiped her sudden tears on their coat. She had not expected it would cut so sharply to be welcomed home with love.

  Of the Flyming household, only the three mastiffs remained. Trained guard dogs were valuable. Perhaps Gilbert hoped to buy their loyalty, given enough time and beef. Meanwhile, the dogs paid no heed to the changes inside the house and kept the rear secure at night, against all strangers—except Matt was not a stranger to them. If Gilbert and his underlings had thought of this, they still had no reason to expect she would pay the house a visit.

  The garden was pitch-black. The sliver of the moon barely poked above the horizon. Matt let go of the furry necks and then, working by scent and memory, glided through the garden, the dogs trotting happily at her heel. She passed the overgrown gazebo where she had sat fourteen days before, talking to Edmund. The ghostly echoes remained.

  “Love you, Pa.”

  “Love you too, Mattie.”

  The last words they had exchanged. Again, Matt’s eyes burned. She pushed the memory aside, but at least she had no regrets on this account. She could wallow in grief later if she wished. For now, she had a job to do.

  Matt parted with the dogs after a last round of slobbering and head patting. She would miss them, along with everything else. She pulled herself onto the shed roof outside the scullery, and from there, shuffled along to outside the rear stairwell window. The cornice offered no more than two inches of foothold, and the brick facing had hardly anything to claw on to, but it could be done. Matt had demonstrated it to Edmund when she was twelve years old.

  “Look, Pa. When you get here, the gap between the frame is too big. All you need is a thin knife.”

  She flipped the latch on the inside with her stiletto, pushed open the window, and then sat on the sill, looking down on Edmund in the garden.

  He laughed and applauded. “Well done.”

  “Anyone could break in.”

  “You’re not just anyone, Mattie.”

  “Aren’t you going to fix it? Get a better latch?”

  “You should always be able to break into your own house.”

  Was it foresight or whimsy on his part? Matt swallowed, again pushing away the grief.

  The latch put up no more resistance than it had thirteen years earlier. Matt slipped inside and crouched in deep shadow, halfway up the stairs, listening. Nothing stirred. The darkness was complete, but she did not need to see. All the house’s secrets were known to her. The third step creaked if you stood on the left side. The floorboard in the hall had lifted at one end and could trip the unwary. The hinges on the landing door were offset and would pop if opened too wide.

  Matt navigated the hazards. The
only sign of life were snores, rasping from one room she passed. Everywhere was in darkness until she reached the balcony overlooking the entrance where a single candle burned below, on the stand by the door.

  The scene was so familiar. Matt rested her hands on the rail, heedless of all else. How could the faces she knew be gone? She shut her eyes tightly, trying to believe she only had to open them and everything would be as it should. This was a nightmare. It could not be true. At any moment, a door would open and Pearl would appear, or Edmund’s laughter would ring from a nearby room. The world could not have changed so much.

  But it had. Matt opened her eyes, and the nightmare continued. The scene might not look so different now, but the house was not the same. She could feel it in her bones, in her blood, in her heart. The entrance hall filled with phantoms, scenes running before her eyes.

  Edmund smiled down at her ten-year-old self and the puppy cradled in her arms. “No. She’s not a pet.”

  “But can’t I keep her? Bobo loves me. Pearl said you’re going to sell her.” The puppy tickled, licking her fingers.

  “We don’t need so many guard dogs, but…” He crouched down so their eyes were on a level. “I think you’re right. Bobo will be a very good guard dog. She can’t stay in your room, but we will keep her.”

  And they did. Bobo was dead and buried, five years or more, but three of her pups now roamed the garden at night.

  Fifteen years old, she closed the front door, shutting out the sunrise that tried to follow her in. Last night, Yvette, the young whore at the Honeysuckle Bower, had taught her new games to play, and Matt had liked them. She had liked them a lot.

  Even at the early hour, Pearl was awake and stuck her head around the door of her room. “Morning, Mattie.”

  “Ah. Morning, Pearl.”

  “Had fun, did we?” Pearl smiled, knowing everything. Pearl always did know everything.

  The phantoms streamed on by.

  Sitting on the bench and counting the day’s takings with Taffy and Hogan, to see who had lifted the most.

  Six-foot-tall Raff teaching her how to dodge a punch when she was still so young he had to kneel to be at eye level with her.

  Falling down drunk after her twenty-first birthday and crawling up the stairs, while Edmund stood, hands on hips, and laughed.

  There was no time to acknowledge them all. Matt closed her eyes briefly, asking the ghosts for patience. If Gilbert was not taken care of by the time she returned to Fortaine, she would make him pay.

  Matt reached the door to Edmund’s study—the room where he had died. She took a moment to brace herself before turning the handle and slipping inside. Again, she was in darkness, but here she would risk a little light. The lamp and tinderbox stood where they always did, on the cabinet beside the door.

  Gentle yellow light flowed over the room. Matt forced herself to look at the dark stains on the floorboards. Edmund’s blood. His body would be feeding the fishes in the bay, along with Pearl and all the rest. There would be no grave to lay flowers on. She knew that. The stains were the closest she would get. Tears filled her eyes. Matt forced them away. They were a luxury she could not afford. Later she would cry, if she had to.

  Edmund’s desk still dominated the room. He had told her the information collected on the strangers was in the back drawer. Matt knew what this meant. She knelt and pulled the top drawer halfway out. Then, using fingertips, she slid the bar on the underside of the desk two inches sideways, exposing the small catch. A faint click sounded when she twisted it, and the panel at the rear popped open.

  Four rolls of papers lay inside, all bound with ribbon. Matt transferred them to the bag she had brought. They would cover more issues than just the Shewstone, but it was Flyming business, and she would not let it fall into Gilbert’s grubby hands. Matt stuffed the bag inside her jerkin and returned the desk to its original state. She had what she came for. Now it was time to go.

  After blowing out the lamp, Matt paused and listened at the door. No sound came from the rest of the house. Based on her observations, no one was likely to rise for a while yet. Retracing her steps to the garden should be safe enough, but there was no need. Matt went to the window overlooking the side street.

  The latches at the front of the house were more complex than those guarded by the dogs at the rear. They needed two hands to open, one to squeeze the top and bottom while the other pulled the lever. This was the trick that had thwarted her on her first attempt to escape from the study. A burglar could climb up, even smash the window, but would still need both hands free for the latch.

  Matt squeezed, pulled, and opened the window. The side street was deserted. Overhead, the first hint of dawn was greying the sky. It was time to be off, but Matt was not quite ready. She sat on the window ledge and stared into the dark room, inviting the phantoms back for just a little longer.

  Actually, it was impressive she had got the window open, way back when. She had not known to press the buttons, but had still managed it, using only a penknife. And she had picked the right window, unlike Ricon who had clearly gone out the front.

  Edmund spoke to her, a few days after she came to his house. “You’ve got a thief’s instincts. You bypassed the nearer window and went for the side. If you’d got out, you wouldn’t have been seen by the guard on the door, and you’d have landed on packed dirt, which is quieter than the cobbles on the main street.”

  “But I wasn’t thinking like that.”

  “No, you weren’t thinking.” Edmund smiled. “It was instinct. You’re a born thief.”

  Supposing her instincts had been working a bit quicker? What if she had got through the window that night, before she was caught? What if she had never met Edmund or joined his gang? How would her life have been?

  Lonelier, poorer, duller, and most likely, shorter.

  “Love you, Pa. And miss you.” Matt mouthed the words.

  Edmund’s ring was on a cord around her neck. She would not wear it until she had avenged him and earned the right. The hard shape under her shirt was a promise to the dead. Matt bowed her head, then pivoted through the window, hung from the sill for a second, and dropped the twelve feet to the ground. She landed making no more sound than a cat. If the guard on the front door heard, he did not bother to investigate. Matt turned and padded away though the sleeping city.

  The hunt had began.

  *

  Eawynn huddled in the corner, curled in a ball, arms wrapped around her stomach as tightly as she could. Maybe if she squeezed hard enough she could block the painful rumbling. Maybe she could fool her body that her stomach was not empty. But it was, utterly, and had been for over a day.

  She had eaten half the loaf the first morning, intending to save the rest for later, only to have it stolen by a street urchin. Since then she had eaten nothing. Two days, while the gnawing in her gut grew ever more savage. How much longer could she go without food? And how many more nights could she endure, like the one coming to an end? The cold had burrowed into her bones, oozing up from the hard stone. What would winter be like in Fortaine? Would she be around to see it?

  Soon, the sun would come up. Eawynn clung to the thought, the one hope she could allow herself. Anything more was a pathetic fantasy. Already the light was strong enough to make out brickwork on the other side of the alley. There would be heat again, but nothing for her stomach. She needed money to buy food and something warmer than the temple castoffs. A roof over her head as well would be nice, but she did not want to be greedy with her wishes. Eawynn bit the heel of her hand to stop herself crying.

  She had tried to find work. Somebody in Fortaine must need a scribe, but none of the establishments she tried had even been prepared to put her abilities to the test. The clothes were probably what destroyed her chances of being taken seriously. Her claims to be able to read and write six languages had only provoked derision. One bookkeeper had physically kicked her out. The other two settled for threatening to call the city watch.

  E
awynn scrunched her eyes shut, grimacing at memories of the only chance to earn money that had come her way. So far, seven different men had offered her, “Three pennies for a fuck.” They had all seemed quite serious about it, except maybe the last one, who had obviously already spent all the pennies he had on drink. Despite this, he had been unwilling to take no as an answer. If he had been able to stand, things might have gone badly. As it was, Eawynn had little trouble escaping, although the stench of his breath had stayed with her. Eawynn fancied she could still smell it on her clothes.

  The area around the docks was where the poor and the outcasts gathered, as if wanting to pool their misery. Eawynn had spent the first night after her expulsion there, thinking to find safety in numbers. The reverse was true. The dockside was where she encountered the drunk. She should have known better. It was also where she lost the bread. Why had she not taken that as a warning?

  This last night, Eawynn had fled up the hillside, to the more affluent areas of Fortaine. The threat of violence was reduced, but she still did not feel safe. She was not wanted among the honest citizens. Most ignored her. Others did no more than watch with suspicious eyes, but some had threatened what they would do if she did not move on. So Eawynn had moved on and at last found an out of the way corner sheltered from the wind and tried to sleep. She might as well not have bothered. Cold and hunger were poor bedfellows. Safety from attack only meant she could starve to death in peace.

  A few hours of broken dozing was all Eawynn managed, finally waking well before dawn. The night had done nothing except for sticking icy needles of cramp into her joints. Time dragged by. She was exhausted, yet could not sleep. Then a wave of nausea made her head swim. Absurdly, she felt as if she was about to throw up. How could she? There was nothing to throw. Eawynn sat, hugging her knees, and waited for it to pass. She needed to eat. How much food could you buy for three pennies? How much longer before she was forced to find out?

  A sudden ebb in the light alerted Eawynn. Someone was coming straight for where she sat. The dark figure was almost upon her before she realised. How had she not heard? Wallowing in self pity was one more luxury she could not afford. Eawynn turned her face to the wall and cowered into the corner, as if she could make herself invisible by disappearing into the bricks. Please let him walk on by.