Player's Ruse Read online

  “You saw a fire on the cliffs and you didn’t report it?” Potter’s voice was sharp now.

  “I knew of no reason I should, for we are stran—”

  He’d already turned away. “Tippy, run for the sheriff. He might still catch the motherless bastards, if nothing else. Tell him to bring two extra horses—theirs are done in.”

  He had to shout the last of his instructions, for the tapster had taken off at a run, not even stopping to snatch up a cloak.

  “What’s wrong, Master Potter?” Fisk asked. “What was that fire?”

  “Ah, I’m sorry I spoke so sharp to you. New in town, there’s no way you could know. We’ve wreckers here.”

  My breath hissed in, and Fisk’s lips tightened. Rose looked from one of us to the other in confusion. “Wreckers?”

  “You’d not know, Rose, for they only do their wicked work on rocky coastlines, such as this one.” And Rose, like me, had been raised inland. But I’d met and spoken with sailors since, and even crewed a ship myself, and I’d heard their tales. I should have guessed. . . .

  ’Twas Fisk who continued. “They’re pirates, of a sort. They light a couple of fires, like the one we saw, near a place a shipmaster expects to find harbor beacons. Only when he sails in, there is no harbor.”

  “But then the ship would hit the rocks.” ’Twas more an anguished protest than a statement of disbelief. “They’d sink.”

  “Not for a time, Mistress,” said Potter bitterly. “It takes days, sometimes, for a ship on the rocks to break apart. Though mostly it’s just a few hours. They go out in small boats that can dodge the rocks and loot. And some of the cargo will float. But the passengers and crew can’t.”

  Rose’s lovely face looked cold again. “But the ships have small boats, too? And on the rocks, they’d be close enough to swim. . . .” Her voice trailed off at the sight of our grim faces.

  “Some do make it to shore, Mistress, but they find the wreckers waiting. If you gentlemen would care to change your clothes, I’ll find some dry cloaks to cover ’em. The sheriff’ll need your guidance. And you’ve no need to worry about horses, for—”

  “We heard you tell the tapster,” said Fisk. You could see that the idea of going out again held no appeal, but only resignation sounded in his voice.

  For myself, I only hoped we’d be in time.

  Lester Todd differed from the last sheriff I’d had significant dealings with, for he was tall and thin, and still had his straight, mouse-brown hair. With his long, lined face and an almost scholarly stoop to his shoulders, he couldn’t have been more different from Sheriff Potter—if nothing else, he greeted us courteously. I had some hope of dealing well with him, as long as he didn’t discover that I was unredeemed.

  Even the drizzle was beginning to lift, though the odd shower pattered down from time to time. But if the rain had ceased, the mud was no better. After one of the twenty-some deputies’ horses fell, and its rider broke a wrist and had to go back, we reduced our pace to a brisk trot, deeming it better to arrive late than not at all.

  “Or without enough men to fight,” Todd told us grimly. “Three years ago, when this started, I posted groups of three, then four and even five men along the headlands in the likely places. As far as I can tell, it didn’t even slow them down. We’d find my deputies dead, along with the handful of sailors who made it to shore. Now I send out patrols in force, but the wreckers do most of their work in the storms, and in weather like this . . .” He shook his head. “We do our best. We patrolled this stretch of road this afternoon before the storm broke, and we’d just come back from the East Coast Road when Ebb Dorn came running in.”

  “It sounds like they know where you’re riding—could you have a leak in your department?” This was fairly tactful for Fisk; he claims that sheriffs’ departments leak gossip like an old bellows leaks air.

  Todd shrugged. “Half the town can see which gate we ride out, and half the countryside sees us if we loop back through the fields. It’s hard to conceal over twenty men and horses, Master Fisk.”

  “ ’Tis amazing that you’ve so many volunteers,” I put in soothingly, for we’d learned that most of the men who rode with us made their living in other professions.

  But Fisk pressed on, “Can’t you trace the loot back through its fence? In three years, surely some of it’s surfaced. At least . . . Can you get cargo manifests for the ships they sink?”

  “Yes,” said Todd shortly. “Huckerston’s a small city, in some ways, for the potteries and brick works are our only large manufacturers. But we’re also the only deep-water port for dozens of leagues, and all the wine in the area ships out through us. Several of the major banks and insurance brokers have offices here. We usually have a ship’s manifest before it arrives. But none of the goods have surfaced anywhere in Lord Fabian’s fief, or that of any of his neighbors. And the reward’s high enough now to tempt any fence to come forward.”

  “So either they’re sitting on three years of highly identifiable loot,” said Fisk, brows knitting, “or they’re sending it off and fencing it elsewhere.”

  “The latter, I think.” Todd wiped a fresh splatter of drops from his face. “They take only jewelry and other small valuables—things that could be hidden in some larger cargo and shipped out without the captain even knowing what he carried. We’ve tried to check that possibility as well, but we can’t open every cask of wine or basket of crockery that leaves port. That’s a very knowledgeable comment, Master Fisk. Tell me, what brings you and Master Sevenson to Huckerston?”

  I believe he said it more because Fisk had annoyed him than from any true suspicion, but I answered quickly, before Fisk came up with some lie that would bring real suspicion on us when ’twas exposed.

  “I’m a knight errant, Master Todd, in search of adventure and good deeds, and Fisk is my squire. We’re escorting my cousin, who has come here to meet a friend.”

  Most folk laugh when I tell them this, a response to which I’ve become so accustomed, it no longer even pricks. Todd was one of the other sort—he drew back and examined me for signs of further, more dangerous insanity. I waited serenely.

  “I hope your business prospers, Master Sevenson.”

  “It’s Sir Michael, actually,” said Fisk, in a tone of helpful sincerity that sprang from pure mischief.

  “Yes, of course. If you’ll excuse me . . .”

  He urged his horse forward and was gone without further ado.

  “Fisk . . .”

  “You started it. I’d think that by now you’d have learned to avoid the interest of the local law.”

  “Is he questioning us now? My argument rests. Fisk, if we’d gone to investigate that fire when we first saw it—”

  “We’d have met the same fate as the deputies the sheriff used to post,” said Fisk grimly. “And no one would have known about this till it was far too late.”

  He was right, and my mind knew it. ’Twas my heart that couldn’t accept it, and my sinking dread deepened as we approached the headland where the fire had been.

  I rode forward to point it out to the sheriff as soon as it came in sight, for the flames no longer burned. Without Fisk’s and my directions they’d never have found it.

  We had to backtrack several hundred yards to reach the trail that led down the bluffs to the beach—though calling it a trail was overly optimistic—’twas so narrow, we had to leave the horses atop the cliff and slither afoot down the muddy track, no more than a ledge in spots, with an unnerving drop beneath. My sword’s unaccustomed, awkward weight was a cursed nuisance, but ’twould do me little good in the roll on Chant’s saddle where I usually kept it. The irregular light when the moons peeked through the clouds was of little help, mayhap even a danger, for I kept trying to see if there was a ship upon the rocks instead of paying proper attention to my footing.

  Fisk’s mind dwelled on more practical matters. “No wonder they take only small stuff—not even a mule could carry much up this path. I wonder how many
ships they’ve sunk, to find they carried only cotton bales, or lamp oil.”

  “Just two,” said one of the deputies behind us. He was a young man, with a workman’s leather britches and vest under his thick, rough coat. “Not that they didn’t have bulky stuff aboard the others, too, but except for those two the bastards have never hit a ship that wasn’t carrying something small and valuable. The bulkiest cargo they’ve taken was a load of dyes, and they pay almost as much as silver, by weight.”

  Fisk’s brows knotted again. “But how could they learn what ships carry the kind of goods they’re looking for? How many have they sunk, by the way?”

  The deputy’s eyes, like mine, were on the sea; he slipped and swore. “Eleven, so far. Some we didn’t find till days after. But everybody knows which ships are due in. We’re a port town.” He shrugged. “As to how they know what’s on the manifests—that’s one of the things we can’t figure out.”

  We saw nothing as we climbed down the cliffs. I began to hope, as we hurried over the slippery stones and water-hardened sand, that we might be in time. Or that they’d failed to bring their prey into the shore.

  But then we rounded a jagged outcrop of rocks, splashing through the higher waves, and the men ahead of us cried out in anger and dismay.

  Once past the rocks I could see the wreck myself, and ’twas no wonder we’d not seen it from the cliffs. The ship had come within a few hundred yards of the shore and, on striking the rocks, had broken and rolled. Or mayhap the wreckers had sunk it. Only the round, dark curve of its hull showed above the waves, like a half-beached whale.

  Even at this distance we could see bodies crumpled on the sand. Crabs were already scuttling about, plucking at clothing and flesh.

  ’Twas that which drew my unwilling feet forward, for I confess the ignoble part of my spirit wanted only to turn away. My useless sword jingled mockingly at my side. The least we could do for those poor souls was to carry their remains up to be identified, that their kin might be told.

  I’ve seen violent death before, in the collapse of a mineshaft some years before Fisk and I met. But no matter how many times you’ve seen it, ’tis still grievous to gather the heavy, lifeless limbs. And now ’twas grievous to bind blankets over the empty faces, that they might be protected until transport up the cliffs could be arranged.

  I’ve no idea what Fisk’s experience with sudden death might have been, for though I believe I am as close to his heart as any person living, my squire has the habit of keeping his past to himself. Indeed, had his sisters not summoned him home the winter before last to settle a most troubling matter, I don’t believe I’d know anything of his life at all. His brief visit home had ended badly. I sometimes wondered if he corresponded so happily with Kathy to make up for the fact that he wasn’t answering his own sisters’ letters. Fisk’s reticence about his feelings had long since told me that someone had badly broken his trust, but I knew that badgering him would gain me nothing. I was content in his friendship, and time eventually mends all hurts.

  As he worked beside me now, his expression bleak and hard, I was grateful for his company. We wrapped a blanket about a man in his middle twenties—scarce older than the two of us. Had he a wife or babes who would mourn him?

  Fisk scrubbed his hands in the damp sand, for this time he had lifted the broken, blood-soaked head. “I hope they hang the bastards.” His voice was vicious, for this was the fourth such skull we’d seen.

  “ ’Twill not bring back the dead,” I told him, though my heart agreed. “I only wish—”

  “There! Look there!” ’Twas one of the deputies, pointing out to sea. Had it not been for his gesture, I’d have missed it. The scrap of wreckage slithering in the wave troughs was less than a yard square. In the shifting light only the sharpest of eyes could have caught the white flash of clinging human hands.

  The cold waves slapped my calves as I ran into the sea; then I was swimming, growing cold and wet, my whole attention focused on the need to reach that makeshift raft. On the hope that one life might be salvaged.

  The surf fought my progress, battering me back, but I pressed onward, and soon I seized the floating wood—the corner of a hatch—groped my way around it, and looked.

  She was dead. I’d seen it often enough in the last hour to be certain even before I touched her icy skin, but I still scraped her sodden hair off her throat to feel for a pulse. I’ve heard tales of men who were certain someone was dead and proved to be quite wrong.

  I found no pulse, and nothing but the rush of a sudden wave disturbed the damp spikes of her lashes. There were no bubbles in the water when it ran across her mouth. I had been right, alas.

  But even so I couldn’t leave her here.

  The hatch cover she clung to was bigger than it looked from a distance, for much of it floated beneath the surface. But it did float, and rather than entangle myself with the girl’s drifting skirts, I grabbed the corner and started swimming for the shore. The rough wood scraped my hands and wrists as the sea fought to keep its prize, but already others were swimming out to help me.

  Three of us hauled the poor lass’s raft to the shore. Fisk wasn’t among those waiting in the shallows, for he cannot swim, or so he claims, and so had chosen to remain dry.

  I half forgave him when he held out my cloak, which I had evidently dropped before going into the water. The cool breeze cut through my wet clothes as if they weren’t even there. The other half of forgiveness came when I saw the sorrow on his face as he took in the expression on mine.

  “Dead? Not surprising in this cold. You’d better wrap up, or you’re likely to follow her. I wonder if there’s anything left of the signal fire.”

  My first thought was that I’d rather freeze than warm myself at so villainous a fire, but that would be foolish. My teeth were beginning to chatter, and my fellow swimmers must be as cold as I, though one of them was alert and concerned enough to capture my hand as I pulled my cloak tighter.

  “Here, you’re bleeding. Let me—”

  Had it not happened so fast, I’d not have let him. In my own defense I should say that my cuff buttons do not come off, for Fisk stitches them on with a heavy thread, and checks them for looseness whenever he washes my shirts. And at that point I was so numb with cold that I’d not realized that my sleeve had torn, and that blood from the scrape beneath it stained the pale fabric. And my mind still dwelled on the dead girl. So I think there’s some excuse, whatever Fisk says, for me to be just a second too slow when the deputy took my hand and pulled the torn cloth aside to see the cut. Of course, that wasn’t all he saw.

  To my bizarrely enhanced sight, the two broken circles on my wrist glowed with eerie silver fire. They use magica ink so the tattoos cannot be scraped or burned away. The deputy would see only the thick, black lines, but that was enough. His grip clamped tight—tight enough to hurt. I met his eyes steadily, despite the shock and disgust that showed there, for I’ve had practice with this, too.

  Indeed, I couldn’t blame him. The most usual reason for a common man to bear the mark of a broken debt to the law is that he had killed someone and there were sufficient extenuating circumstances that the judicars didn’t want to hang him. Since murder is a debt that can be paid only in life or blood, he goes “unredeemed,” his debt forever unpaid.

  The most common reason for a noble to bear those marks is that his family’s power or money influenced the judicars on his behalf. The irony of that always hurt, for ’twas not to influence anyone in my favor that my father’s power and wealth had gone. To do him justice, he truly believed that the life he’d tried to force me into was what was best for me. ’Tis seldom my father’s plans fail, and as usual, the satisfaction of that thought lent me strength enough to stand, silent, in the deputy’s grip.

  “Sheriff! I think you’d better see this.”

  Todd had been examining the dead girl, but soon he stood before me, looking down at my wrist, his mouth tight with disdain.

  I felt almost as resign
ed as Fisk looked, for I knew what would follow.

  Sometimes, especially if they saw the flogging scars on my back, they made a speech. In fairness to my father, and myself, I should explain that those scars had nothing to do with him or the law, but were acquired in the course of a somewhat uncomfortable good deed. Whether they gave a speech or not, they ordered me out of town, sometimes out of their lord’s fief entirely. One particularly sanctimonious son-of-a-bitch held me in lockup for two weeks. When his deputies escorted me to the border, the deputies of the next fiefdom met me there. I crossed four lords’ holdings under such escort, before they released me onto the lands of someone whose neighbors didn’t care to warn him.

  But Todd surprised me. “I don’t suppose it’d do much good to ask how you came by this?”

  He meant that I’d not tell the truth. Remembering how complex the tale had become the last time I’d tried to explain that for all her faults, Lady Ceciel had not committed the murder of which she was accused, and that due to some obscure matters of inheritance and taxation her trial wasn’t likely to be fair, and especially when I’d tried to explain why my father had set such terms on my redemption in the first place . . .

  “Probably not.” I pulled my wrist from Todd’s grasp and wrapped my cloak about myself, for I was now very cold.

  The sheriff’s serious, scholarly gaze rested on my face for some time. Then his eyes went to the dead girl, and then past to the line of blanket-wrapped bodies at the base of the bluff. Surely he couldn’t think I was involved with the wreckers? They’d been working on this coast for three years, and I’d just reached town. ’Twas—

  “Don’t leave Huckerston, Master Sevenson,” Todd said curtly. “You and your friend are witnesses. I know you’ve told us what you saw, but other questions may arise.”

  My jaw dropped. “Don’t leave town?”

  “That’s what I said. For now”—he was already turning away—“I believe we can dispense with your assistance.”