Today was the 28th. The letter didn’t have a date, but it had probably been there for at least a span and a half. She must have left it only a few days after the fire in the Fishery.
I briefly tried to decide how I felt about it. Flattered that she had tried to find me? Furious that the note had gone unfound until now? As to the matter of the “fellow” that she had met….
It was far too much for me to deal with at the moment, weary, wounded, and still somewhat the worse for drink. Instead I quickly cleaned the shallow cut as best I could using my washbasin. I would have put some stitches in it myself, but I couldn’t get a good angle. It started bleeding again, and I cut off the cleaner pieces of my ruined shirt to fashion a makeshift bandage.
Blood. The men who tried to kill me still had the dowsing compass, and I’d undoubtedly left some of my blood on his knife. Blood would be vastly more effective in a dowsing compass than a simple hair; that meant that even if they didn’t already know where I lived, they might be able to find me despite the precautions I’d taken.
I moved around my room quickly, stuffing everything of value into my travelsack, as I didn’t know when it would be safe to return. Under a stack of papers I found a small folding knife I’d forgotten about, after I’d won it off Sim playing corners. It would be worth next to nothing in a fight, but that was better than nothing at all.
Then I grabbed my lute and cloak and snuck downstairs into the kitchen, where I was lucky enough to find an empty Velegen wine pot with a wide mouth. It was a minor piece of luck, but I was glad for whatever I could get at this point.
I headed east and crossed the river, but didn’t go all the way into Imre proper. Instead I headed south a bit to where a few docks, a seedy inn, and a handful of houses perched on the bank of the wide Omethi River. It was a small port that serviced Imre, too small to have a name of its own.
I stuffed my bloody shirt into the wine pot and made it watertight with a piece of sympathy wax. Then I dropped it in the Omethi River and watched it bob slowly downstream. If they were dowsing for my blood, it would seem like I was heading south, running. Hopefully they’d follow it.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Signs
I CAME SUDDENLY AWAKE early the next morning. I didn’t know exactly where I was, only that I wasn’t where I should be, and that something was wrong. I was hiding. Someone was after me.
I was curled up in the corner of a small room. I lay on a blanket and I was wrapped in my cloak. This was an inn…it slowly came back to me. I had rented a room at an inn near Imre’s docks.
I came to my feet, stretching carefully so as not to aggravate my wound. I’d pushed the dresser against the room’s only door and tied the window shut with a length of rope despite the fact that it was too small for a grown man to fit through.
Seeing my precautions in the cool blue light of early morning, I was a little embarrassed. I couldn’t remember whether I’d slept on the floor out of fear of assassins or bedbugs. Either way, it was clear that I hadn’t been thinking too clearly toward the end of the night.
I gathered up my travelsack and lute and headed downstairs. I had some planning to do, but before that, I needed breakfast and a bath.
Despite my busy night, I’d barely slept past sunrise, so I had easy access to the bathhouse. After cleaning myself up and rewrapping the bandage around my side, I felt mostly human. A plate of eggs, a couple sausages, and some fried potatoes later, I felt I could begin to think rationally about my situation. It’s amazing how much easier it is to think productively when your belly is full.
I sat in the far corner of the little dockside inn and sipped a mug of fresh-pressed apple cider. I was no longer worried that hired killers were going to leap out and assault me. Still, I was sitting with my back to the wall with a good view of the door.
Yesterday had left me shaken mostly because it had caught me so unprepared. In Tarbean I’d lived each day expecting people would try to kill me. The civilized atmosphere of the University had lulled me into a false sense of security. I never would have been caught off my guard a year ago. I certainly wouldn’t have been surprised by the attack itself.
My hard-won instincts from Tarbean were urging me to run. Leave this place. Leave Ambrose and his vendetta far behind. But that feral part of me cared only for safety. It had no plan.
I couldn’t leave. I had too much invested here. My studies. My vain hopes for gaining a patron and my stronger hopes of entry to the Archives. My precious few friends. Denna…
Sailors and dockworkers began to filter into the inn to get the morning meal, and the room slowly filled with the gentle buzz of conversation. I heard a bell ringing dimly in the distance and it occurred to me that my shift in the Medica would be starting in an hour. Arwyl would notice if I was absent, and he was not forgiving of such things. I fought down the urge to run back to the University. It was well known that absent students were punished with higher tuitions the following term.
To give myself something to do while I was thinking through my situation, I brought out my cloak along with needle and thread. The knife from last night had made a straight cut about two handspan across. I began to sew it closed, using tiny stitches so the seam wouldn’t be obvious.
While my hands worked, my thoughts wandered. Could I confront Ambrose? Threaten him? Not likely. He knew I couldn’t successfully bring charges against him. But maybe I could persuade a few of the masters of what had really happened. Kilvin would be outraged at the thought of hired killers using a dowsing compass, and perhaps Arwyl…
“…all blue fire. Every one of them dead, thrown around like rag dolls and the house falling to pieces around them. I was glad to see the end of the place. I can tell you that.”
I jabbed my finger with the needle as my eavesdropper’s ears picked the conversation out of the common room’s general din. A few tables over, two men were drinking beer. One was tall and balding, the other was fat with a red beard.
“Yer such an old woman,” the fat one laughed. “You’ll listen to any piece of gossip.”
The tall man shook his head somberly. “I was in the tavern when they came in with the news. They were gatherin’ folk with wagons so they could go get the bodies. The whole wedding party dead as leather. Over thirty folks gutted like pigs and the place burned down in a blue flame. And that weren’t the least oddness from what….” He dropped his voice and I lost what he was saying among the general noise of the room.
I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my throat. I slowly tied off the last stitch on my cloak and set it down. I noticed my bleeding finger and absently put it in my mouth. I took a deep breath. I took a drink.
Then I walked over to the table where the two men sat talking. “Did you gentlemen come downriver by any chance?”