Dark the Night Descending (The Paderborn Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “The very same, sir. What is all this?”

  “I’m Sergeant Godefroy. Perhaps we ought to speak in private.”

  Arran nodded and led the sergeant into his cabin, his heart threatening to beat clear out of his chest as he scrambled to think of something to say – to think of what Durville and the others might already have said.

  “Can I offer you a drink, sir?” he asked, as much to gain a little time as because the constable, an intelligent looking man with the misfortune of being burdened with a receding hairline and a rounded belly just starting to strain at his breeches, looked like he might appreciate the offer of liquor.

  “I can’t say it would go amiss.”

  “I take it I’m in a spot of trouble,” Arran said, laughing nervously as he filled a glass with whisky.

  “You could be,” Godefroy agreed.

  “It was just cargo. You know my kind, I’m sure. We’ll take anything if we think we’ll get paid for it, and we don’t often ask what it is.”

  “Which is a mistake on your part. How can you lie to me properly if you don’t know what you’re fibbing about?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Where did you get the iron from?” the constable asked.

  “I’m not really sure if I should say, sir.”

  “Tell me now or tell me later,” Godefroy shrugged, sipping his drink. “But you’ll be wishing to be cooperative, I think.”

  “Do you know a man named Roydin Balard? He lives in Cantrid.”

  “I do. And I know his handwriting, too. Which is why I was very surprised to receive a letter from him two weeks ago saying that you had tried to sell him several boxes of very high quality counterfeit iron. It wasn’t in his hand at all.”

  “That scheming little minx,” Arran muttered, shoving the cork back into the bottle.

  “I take it you know who might have tried to tip me off, then?” Godefroy asked, watching him closely.

  “Sir, may I speak candidly?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you after me or the forger?”

  Godefroy smiled a little. “Did you know what you were taking on?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then I’m after the forger – unless I find out you’re lying.”

  “That’s fair,” Arran said. “But I’m afraid I got to her first. She’s dead.”

  “Smuggling and murder?” the sergeant said, leaning forward a little. “What a busy man you are.”

  “She tried to kill me,” he protested, pointing at the gash on his head. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”

  “Explain.”

  Arran sat down and took a moment to think before he told the sergeant the majority of what had happened since taking Elargwyd on as his passenger. He had to tell Godefroy that she was a neneckt, of course, but he didn’t really feel it necessary to mention his pendant – or the gemstone that had been hidden in the crates. It was enough of the tale to make it clear that Arran himself was not responsible for the cargo, and he felt rather satisfied with his storytelling abilities as he wound down to the conclusion.

  Godefroy just stared at him for a long minute before he leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. “You mean to tell me that a sea demon somehow found half a ton of fake red iron, took it for a ride on your ship, and left you with a cargo worth five thousand guineas just so she could…what, exactly? Magically disappear half way through the voyage without leaving any evidence of her existence, conveniently giving you a way to avoid all responsibility but letting you hold on to the loot?”

  “Um. Yes? No. I suppose not. Not if you put it like that.”

  “I think you ought to come with me, Mister Swinn,” the constable said, standing up.

  “Sir, I swear it. It’s not my fault,” he said desperately as Godefroy took his arm in a surprisingly firm grip. “I can’t exactly prove it, but you have to believe me.”

  “No, I don’t have to believe you. I want everything brought to the guardhouse,” he called to his men as they hauled the last of the containers up to the maindeck.

  “You said you weren’t after me,” Arran pleaded as Godefroy took a pair of shackles from one of his subordinates and cuffed them tightly around Arran’s wrists, but the sergeant just ignored him.

  “Where are you taking him, sir?” Durville asked as Arran was led away.

  “Third Guardhouse,” Godefroy told him. “West Aldergate Street. I wouldn’t count on there being any bail.”

  The magistrate had not been sympathetic. He had been downright hostile after seeing a sample of the goods, and had told Arran that he would stay in the city’s cells until granted a trial – and there was no guarantee that would be any time soon.

  Paderborn’s system of justice, such as it was, did not move very quickly or very smoothly, and as Arran looked around the large, dark, low-ceilinged holding cell that he would have to share with an unspecified number of other criminals, he was fairly certain that his unfulfilled bargain with the eallawif would claim him before he was ever sentenced to the scaffold.

  It was more than frustrating. For just a moment, holding his weeping mother close, he had thought there was a way forward. It had all seemed possible for a short, sharp instant, but that window of clarity had slammed shut as surely as the cell’s sturdy oaken door locked behind him.

  Arran ignored the pack of other captives huddled in a loose circle on the floor. They stopped whatever game they were playing to peer at him with bright eyes looking out of dirty, bearded faces, but he chose the opposite corner and made himself as small as he could, burrowing into the joining of the walls, his knees drawn up and his head down as he contemplated the yawing depths of despair that had opened up in front of him.

  He tried not to listen to the click of dice as the others resumed their entertainment. There wasn’t anything to gamble with. He had been stripped of his wallet, his belt, and his fairly nice coat, all of which would be kept in trust for him, Godefroy had said. That was not likely to be the case. Everything of any value was probably already on its way to the pawnshop.

  Without his outer garment, however, the loose cuffs of his sleeves kept riding up, threatening to reveal the eallawif’s mark.

  “At least I did one thing right,” he said to himself, pulling up the fabric to peer at the crisp and perfect edge of the black circle.

  “Shut up,” someone shouted at him, startling him from his contemplations. He hadn’t realized he had spoken the words out loud.

  “Sorry,” he said to the room at large. He couldn’t see who was yelling at him.

  “I said shut up!” the voice screeched, and a small but startlingly powerful shape launched itself at him, bony fingers scrabbling to get a grip around his throat as Arran yelped in surprise and tried to fight him off. The other prisoners just starting laughing, like it was some long-shared joke, but the attacker wouldn’t stop until he had been wrestled to the ground with Arran’s knee on the back of his neck, his arms twisted up behind him to stop his clawing.

  “I said I was sorry,” Arran told him as the small man started whimpering.

  “He just likes to cause a scene,” said another voice. “He likes to see if you’ll roll over for him or not.”

  “Well I didn’t,” Arran said, searching the shadows. The moment of inattention made his attacker start squirming again, and Arran pressed down harder. “Do you think I can let him go now?” he asked the stranger, still unable to make out more than a vague shape in the darkness.

  “What do you think about that, Sid? Going to pipe down for once?” the newcomer asked, and the small man nodded, the stubble on his cheek making a scraping noise against the flagstones. Arran released him and he scrambled into a crouch, hissing like an angry raccoon before scuttling off on all fours across the room, disappearing behind the cluster of players.

  “Don’t mind him,” the friendly voice said, moving a little closer and coming into what little light made its way into the dreary room. It was a youngish man, maybe simi
lar to Arran in age. He was a bit pasty, as if he spent most of his time indoors, and his blandly straw-colored hair did little to help the impression of a sunless existence. Still, he was clean and well dressed, with a tidy shirt and spotless hands. His neat, nearly fastidious appearance made Arran think that was he a bit of a dandy – or maybe someone with some sort of special privileges that allowed him access to a laundry press.

  “He’s only here because he bites people when he’s left on the streets,” the man continued. “It’s better in here for him, anyway. He gets his food and he gets to stay warm. He don’t have a home otherwise.”

  “At least someone can enjoy it.”

  “You can call me Faidal,” the young man said, holding out his hand but keeping his face firmly in the shadows.

  “Arran,” he replied, reaching out his own, but the tussle had ripped his sleeve, exposing the mark despite his quick efforts to hide it.

  “Looks like you’ve had better mornings, yes?”

  “You could say that. Why are you here, if I may ask?”

  “Oh, this and that,” Faidal said, still smiling. “I’m getting out soon, though.”

  “Is that so,” Arran replied, feeling morose again as he put himself to rights, wiping his cheek to see if he was bleeding.

  “What about you?”

  “Smuggling. And possibly murder. Although I don’t think they could get me for the smuggling if they believed I murdered her,” he mused. “But I think murder would probably be worse.”

  “Complicated.”

  “Yes. Do they feed us around here?”

  “You missed breakfast,” Faidal said. “You’ll have to wait until sundown.”

  “Hell and death,” Arran sighed, settling back into his corner.

  “And overcooked beans,” added Faidal.

  He laughed a little despite himself. “Do you know Godefroy? Is he a fair man?”

  “Very. And he’s been a good friend to me.”

  “Really?”

  Faidal nodded. “He likes honesty. Show him enough truth and he’s yours.”

  Arran wasn’t sure he quite understood what that was supposed to mean, but he wasn’t certain that it mattered, either. He had nothing to show the constable that would change his mind about Arran’s guilt. Elargwyd’s dress? There was nothing convincing about having a dress. Neneckt blood looked just like his own, and there was too much of both on the garment to mean anything. The Siheldi gemstone? He had already signed it away. He could ask the eallawif to tell Godefroy of its provenance, perhaps. She was incapable of lying, by her very nature, and would tell the sergeant every hand that had touched the object, including the neneckt’s.

  But even if the eallawif would do him such a favor above and beyond the terms of their agreement, she was a terror and a nuisance as far as the city guard was concerned. If Godefroy agreed to follow Arran to her lair, it would only be to drive her off.

  The unavoidable truth was that Elargwyd had outsmarted him. It was as simple as that. She had marked him out as her patsy long before she had ever tapped him on the shoulder in Whitstone’s, and he hadn’t had a chance in hell since the beginning.

  There was something a little comforting in that. It wasn’t admitting defeat: it was acknowledging that he had been destined for failure from the start. How could he have fought it? He didn’t even know there was a battle going on.

  I wonder if my father had known, he thought suddenly, his mother’s anguished face appearing before him, begging him to find the token they had almost all died for, the same old question tugging at his mind. What would a small-town tailor have to do with the affairs of the Siheldi?

  “Are you all right?” Faidal asked.

  “What?”

  “I asked if you have a trial date yet, and you didn’t answer.”

  “Oh. No, I don’t. That’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “Sort of.”

  “How did you get one?”

  Faidal shrugged. “I didn’t maybe kill someone while maybe smuggling something.”

  “I did kill her. And…well, I guess either way I did smuggle something.”

  “Right. You probably shouldn’t actually say that out loud, though. You never know who’s willing to snitch.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Maybe. Does that matter?” asked Faidal, pointing to the mark on Arran’s arm.

  “That’s none of your business,” Arran told him, shifting his position so the stranger couldn’t see it anymore.

  “Could be,” Faidal said, pushing up his sleeve to reveal an identical mark, the perfect black rose standing out starkly against his papery skin. “You’re not the only man with more than one master to serve.”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” Arran said warily. If it was a coincidence, then it was an eerie one, and he wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to make of it.

  “Not even if we could help each other?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You have a ship, I’m guessing, and I need one. I have a way out of here, and you definitely need one. Sounds to me like there’s some room for negotiation.”

  “I think I’ve had enough of bargaining for the moment,” Arran said. “Besides, my ship will be in dry dock for at least a month. I’m no use to you.”

  “I can wait that long.”

  “You can?”

  “Time is not my problem. Money is,” Faidal said sheepishly. “I can wait…as long as it’s free.”

  “And how exactly will you get me out of here?”

  “I think that’s best left between me and Godefroy.”

  Arran looked at him closely, trying to figure out why that sounded particularly odd. The man was smiling again, and it was putting him off. Besides, he really wasn’t sure he could make any more promises. He had no idea how he was going to keep the ones he had saddled himself with already.

  “You can’t do nothing if you’re still in here,” said Faidal, as if he was reading his mind.

  “Let me think about it,” Arran told him eventually. “All right?”

  “Suit yourself. You’ve only got till the morning, though. That’s when I’m gone.”

  “Fine.”

  “Want to play?” Faidal asked, nodding towards the other prisoners as a cry of triumph went up from half the group. “It’s just hazard, but there ain’t no bets.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said again, standing up and moving off towards the others.

  Arran tucked his knees up again and kept half an ear on the dice game. He was hungry, and the dank stone was cold on his back without his coat. He had no particular destination in mind for his next journey, if there was to be a next journey, but he still should have asked Faidal where he needed to go. His record with taking on passengers blindly was starting to look a little grim.

  But was there really anything to lose from accepting the offer? If he didn’t want to go where Faidal asked, he could just pay for the man’s passage on someone else’s ship. It might cost him a couple hundred pounds, but at the rate he was spending money he wasn’t sure he had, adding a ticket to Port Ravenaught or even some godforsaken village in the Ivory Isles wouldn’t make too much of a difference. He would be out of prison, which would be worth it. Wouldn’t it?

  So why wasn’t the deal sitting right with him? He was probably just still smarting from his recent spate of ill treatment. Just because he didn’t like the way Faidal smiled didn’t mean the man was trying to put one over on him. He didn’t like the way Durville smiled either, with his blackened and missing teeth, but he still considered him a trusted friend.

  He was almost certainly being overly cautious just because he had been too trusting before leaving Cantrid. He had to assess the facts at hand without bias, and the facts said that it would be foolish not to try to take the only option he had on the table. It was only common sense. Wasn’t it?

  He was still unwilling to come to a decision as the sun slipped behi
nd the building across the street, sinking the prison into gloom long before it touched the unseen edge of the earth and wrapped the city in faded twilight. The gambling had ended as if on cue a few minutes before the guards came with a cauldron of boiled beans and a few loaves of bread. It was bland and uninspired, but it wasn’t bad food, and Arran’s stomach was empty enough to eagerly accept anything.

  Everything got very quiet after the men had finished their meal. There was a little bit of hushed talk as the prisoners sorted themselves into twos and threes, moving to carefully spaced patches of the empty floor that had clearly been fought over. The biggest of the men, a pair of dockhands with bulging arms and broken noses, held court in one deep corner, protected by the overhang from the staircase that led to the floor above them, while Sid and the other weedy unfortunates huddled together in the middle of the room, exposed to the dwindling light from the overhead window, crisscrossed with shadows from the cemented bars.

  If there was rain, they would be the unlucky ones, but there was another reason for their disquiet as they shoved and struggled to shrink along the barest edges of the patch of leftover daylight. Should the Siheldi come – and the general discomfort suggested that they frequently did – the weakest of the prisoners would be spotted first and taken.

  Arran made the required motions to see off a few hopefuls who wanted his spot, but the challenges stopped after Faidal came to sit by him. None of the other prisoners seemed to want the man near them anyway, and they were more than happy to leave the prime location alone once Faidal had claimed it. Arran decided to take that as a good sign, and made no argument when his new friend settled onto his heels next to him.

  “Have you faced them before?” Faidal asked quietly as the last of the dusk slowly seeped away.

  “Yes.”

  “Me too.”

  “Do they come often?”

  “I haven’t seen them yet, but the others say they do. There’s nowhere for us to run.”

  Arran hoped no one could see the shiver that ran through him. It was true. There were no warning lamps. There was nothing to cast a shadow. There would be nothing but the solid stone walls to listen to them as they died.