Soul of the Fire

  Before the crowds who gathered to hear his words, the Minister had called for new measures—unspecified—to deal with violence. Such measures were always unspecified and only rarely was any real action taken. The mere impassioned plea was all that was required to convince the people the Minister was decisive and effective. Perception was the goal and all that really mattered. Perception was easily accomplished, required little effort, and it never had to stand the test of reality.

  Of course, taxes would have to be raised in readiness to fund these measures. It was a perfect formula: opposition was seen as fostering violence and equated to the brutality of Haken overlords and murderers. The Minister and Dalton thus gained control over a larger portion of the economy. Control was power.

  Bertrand relished being at the center of it all, issuing orders, denouncing evil, convening various groups of concerned citizens, reassuring people. The whole thing most likely would soon die out as people went on to other things and forgot about the murder.

  Hildemara was happy; that was all that mattered to Dalton.

  Rowley stood with his head in the door, waiting.

  “Tell Inger to take his problem to Mr. Drummond,” Dalton said as he picked up another of his messages. “Drummond is the kitchen master and is responsible for the feast. I gave him a list of instructions. The man ought to know how to order meat.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The door closed and the room fell silent except for the gentle sound of spring rain. Gentle steady rain would be good for the crops. A good harvest would help annul grievances about the burden of new taxes. Dalton relaxed back in his chair and resumed his reading.

  It seemed the person writing the message had seen healers going to the Sovereign’s residence. He wasn’t able to talk to the healers, but said they were in the Sovereign’s residence the whole night.

  It could be someone other than the Sovereign needing help. The Sovereign had a huge household, after all—nearly the size of the Minister’s estate, except it was exclusively for the use of the Sovereign. Business, what there was of it for the Sovereign, was conducted in a separate building. There, too, he took audiences.

  It wasn’t uncommon for a healer or two to spend the night with a sick person at the Minister of Culture’s estate, either, but that didn’t mean the Minister himself was in need of healing. The greatest danger to the Minister was from a jealous husband, and that was highly unlikely; husbands tended to earn favor through their wives trysts with high officials. Raising objections was unhealthy.

  Once Bertrand was Sovereign, the possibility of injured feelings would no longer be a concern. It was a great honor for a woman to be with the Sovereign—it approached being a holy experience. Such divine couplings were widely believed to be blessed by the Creator Himself.

  Any husband would push his wife into the Sovereign’s bed, were she solicited. The prestige of this privilege conveyed along with the holiness a peripheral effect; the husband was the principal beneficiary of this collateral sanctity. Where the holy recipient of the Sovereign’s carnal notice was young enough, the blessings embraced her parents.

  Dalton returned to the previous message and read it again. The Sovereign’s wife hadn’t been seen in days. She failed to show up for an official visit to an orphanage. Perhaps she was the one who was sick.

  Or, she might be at her husband’s bedside.

  Waiting for the old Sovereign to die was like walking a tightrope. The wait brought sweat to the brow, and quickened the pulse. The expectation was delicious, all the more so because the Sovereign’s death was the one event Dalton couldn’t control. The man was too heavily guarded to risk helping him to the afterlife, especially when he only hung to life by a thread anyway.

  All he could do was wait. But everything had to be carefully managed in the meantime. They had to be ready when the opportunity came.

  Dalton went to the next message, but it concerned nothing more than a man who had a complaint against a woman for supposedly casting spells to afflict him with gout. The man had been—publicly—trying to enlist Hildemara Chanboor’s help, since she was universally recognized for her purity and good deeds, by having sex with him in order to drive out the evil spell.

  Dalton let out a brief chuckle at his mental image of the coupling; the man was obviously deranged, besides having no taste in women. Dalton wrote down the man’s name to give to the guards and then sighed at the nonsense that took up his time.

  The knock came again. “Yes?”

  Rowley again stuck in his head. “Master Campbell, I told the butcher, Inger, as you said. He says it isn’t about kitchen matters.” Rowley lowered his voice to a whisper. “Says it’s about trouble at the estate, and he wants to talk to you about it, but if you won’t see him, he says, he’ll have to go to the Directors’ office, instead.”

  Dalton opened a drawer and swept the messages into it. He turned over several reports that sat on his desk before he rose.

  “Send the man in.”

  Inger, a muscular Ander, perhaps a decade older than Dalton, entered with a bob of his head.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Master Campbell.”

  “Of course. Please come in.”

  The man dry-washed his hands as he bobbed his head again. He looked surprisingly clean, compared with what Dalton expected of a butcher. He looked more like a merchant. Dalton realized that to supply the estate the man probably had a sizable operation, and so would be more like a merchant than a laborer.

  Dalton held out a hand in invitation. “Please, have a seat, Master Inger.”

  Inger’s eyes darted about the room, taking it all in. He did everything but let out a low whistle. A small merchant, Dalton amended to himself.

  “Thank you, Master Campbell.” The burly man clamped a meaty hand on the chair back and flicked it closer to the desk. “Just plain Inger is fine. Used to it being Inger.” His lips twitched with a smile. “Only my old teacher used to call me Master Inger, and that was just before I’d get my knuckles rapped. Usually when I neglected a reading lesson. I never got my knuckles rapped for numbers lessons. I liked numbers. Good thing, as it turns out. Numbers help with my business.”

  “Yes, I can see where they would,” Dalton said.

  Inger looked off at the battle flags and lances as he went on. “I have a good business, now. The Minister’s estate is my biggest customer. Numbers are necessary for a business. Got to know numbers. I have a lot of good people working for me. I make them all learn numbers so I don’t get shorted when they deliver.”

  “Well, the estate is quite pleased with your services, I can assure you. The feasts wouldn’t be the success they are without your valuable help. Your pride in your business is obvious in your fine meats and fowl.”

  The man grinned as if he’d just been kissed by a pretty girl in a booth at a fair. “Thank you, Master Campbell. That’s very kind of you. You’re right about me taking pride in my work. Most people aren’t as kind as you to notice. You are as good a man as folks say.”

  “I try my best to help people. I am but their humble servant.” Dalton smiled agreeably. “Is there some way I can help you, Inger? Something I could smooth out at the estate to make your job easier?”

  Inger scooted his chair closer. He placed an elbow on the desk and leaned in. His arm was as big as a small rum cask. His timid mannerisms seemed to evaporate as his thick brow drew down.

  “The thing is, Master Campbell, I don’t take any guff from the people who work for me. I spend time teaching them my ways with cutting and preparing meat, and teaching them numbers and such. I don’t put up with people who don’t do their work and take pride in it. Cornerstone of a successful business, I always say, is the customer being satisfied. Those who work for me who don’t toe the line my way see the back of my hand or the door. Some say I’m harsh about it, but that’s just the way I am. Can’t change at this age.”

  “Sounds a fair enough attitude to me.”

  “But on the other hand,” Inger
went on, “I value those who work for me. They do good by me, and I do good by them. I know how some people treat their workers, especially their Haken workers, but I don’t go in for that. People treat me right, I treat them right. It’s only fair.

  “That being the way things are, you come to be friends with people who live and work with you. Know what I mean? Over the years they come to be almost like family. You care about them. It’s only natural—if you have any sense.”

  “I can see how—”

  “Some of them that work for me are the children of people who went before them and helped me become the respected butcher I am.” The man leaned in some more. “I got two sons and they’re good enough lads, but I sometimes think I care about some of those who live and work with me more than I care about those two boys.

  “One of them who works for me is a nice Haken girl named Beata.”

  Alarm bells started chiming in Dalton’s head. He remembered the Haken girl Bertrand and Stein had summoned upstairs for their amusement.

  “Beata. Can’t say as the name rings a bell, Inger.”

  “No reason it should. Her business is with the kitchen. Among other things, she delivers for me. I trust her like she were a daughter. She’s smart with numbers. She remembers what I tell her. That’s important because Hakens can’t read, so I can’t give them a list. It’s important they remember. I never have to load for her; after I tell her what’s to go she gets it right. I never have to worry about her getting wrong right or being short.”

  “I can see—”

  “So, all of a sudden, she doesn’t want to deliver to the estate.”

  Dalton watched the man’s fist tighten.

  “We had a load to bring over today. An important load for a feast. I told her to go get Brownie hitched to the cart because I had a load for her to take to the estate.

  “She said no.” Inger’s fist smacked the desktop. “No!”

  The butcher sat back a little and righted an unlit candle that had taken flight.

  “I don’t take well to people I employ telling me no. But Beata, well, she’s like a daughter. So, instead of giving her the back of my hand, I thought to reason with her. I figured maybe it was some boy she didn’t like anymore she didn’t want to see, or something like that. I don’t always understand the things a girl can get in her head to make them go all moody.

  “I sat her down and asked her why she didn’t want to take the load to the estate. She said she just didn’t. I said that wasn’t good enough. She said she’d do double loads to somewhere else. She said she’d dress fowl all night as punishment, but she wouldn’t go to the estate.

  “I asked her why she didn’t want to go, if it was because someone there did something to her. She refused to tell me. Refused! She said she wasn’t going to take any more loads there and that was all there was to it.

  “I told her that unless she told me why, so I could understand it, she was going to take the load out to the estate whether she wanted to or not.

  “She started to cry.”

  Inger was making a fist again.

  “Now, I’ve known Beata since she was sucking her thumb. I don’t think that in the last dozen years I’ve ever seen that girl cry but once before. I’ve seen her slice herself open good when she was butchering, and she never cried, even when I stitched her. Made some real faces in pain, but she didn’t cry. When her mother died, she cried. But that was the only time.

  “Until I told her today she had to go to the estate.

  “So, I brought the load myself. Now, Master Campbell, I don’t know what went on here, but I can tell you that whatever it was, it made Beata cry, and that tells me it wasn’t nothing good. She always liked going before. She spoke highly of the Minister as a man she respected for all he’d done for Anderith. She was proud to deliver to the estate.

  “No longer.

  “Knowing Beata, I’d say someone here had their way with her. Knowing Beata, I’d say she weren’t willing. Not willing at all.

  “Like I said, I almost think of that girl as my daughter.”

  Dalton didn’t take his eyes off the man. “She’s Haken.”

  “So she is.” Inger didn’t take his eyes off Dalton.

  “Now, Master Campbell, I want the young man who hurt Beata. I intend to hang that young man up on a meat hook. From the way Beata was bawling, I have a feeling it wasn’t just one young man, but maybe more. Maybe a gang of boys hurt her.

  “I know you’re a busy man, what with the murder of that Winthrop woman, rest her soul, but I’d appreciate it if you looked into this for me. I don’t intend to let it go by.”

  Dalton leaned forward and folded his hands on the table.

  “Inger, I can assure you I won’t tolerate such a thing happening at the estate. I consider this a very serious matter. The Minister of Culture’s office is here to serve the people of Anderith. It would be the worst possible result if one or more men here harmed a young woman.”

  “Not if,” Inger said. “Did.”

  “Of course. You have my personal assurance that I, personally, will pursue this to resolution. I’ll not stand for anyone, Ander or Haken, being in any kind of danger at the estate. Everyone must be entirely safe here. I’ll not allow anyone, Ander or Haken, to escape justice.

  “You must understand, however, that with the murder of an important woman, and the possible danger to the lives of other people, including Haken women, my first responsibility lies there. The city is in an tumult over it. People expect such a grievous act to be punished.”

  Inger bowed his head. “I understand. I will accept your personal assurance that I will have the name of the young man or men responsible.” The chair scraped across the floor as Inger rose. “Or the not-so-young man.”

  Dalton stood. “Young or old, we will put all due effort into finding the culprit. You have my word.”

  Inger reached out and clasped hands with Dalton. The man had a crushing grip.

  “I’m pleased to know I came to the right man, Master Campbell.”

  “You did indeed.”

  “Yes?” Dalton called out at the knock on the door. He expected he knew who it was and kept writing instructions for the new guards he was ordering posted at the estate. Guards at the estate were separate from the army. They were Anders. He wouldn’t trust authentic guard duty to the army.

  “Master Campbell?”

  He looked up “Come in, Fitch.”

  The boy strode in and stood erect before the desk. He seemed to be standing taller since he had put on the uniform and even more so since the business with Claudine. Dalton was pleased with the way Fitch and his muscular friend had followed instructions. Some of the others had given Dalton a confidential report.

  Dalton set down the glass dipping pen. “Fitch, do you remember the first time we talked?”

  The question staggered the boy a bit. “Yes… uh, yes, sir,” he stammered. “I remember.”

  “Up the hall a ways. Near the landing.”

  “Yes, sir, Master Campbell. I surely was grateful for you not—I mean, for the kind way you treated me.”

  “For me not reporting you were somewhere you didn’t belong.”

  “Yes, sir.” He licked his lips. “That was very good of you, Master Campbell.”

  Dalton stroked a finger along his temple. “I recall you told me that day how the Minister was a good man and you wouldn’t like to hear anyone say anything against him.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s true.”

  “And you proved yourself as good as your word—proved you would do whatever needed doing to protect him.” Dalton smiled just a little. “Do you remember what else I told you that day on the landing?”

  Fitch cleared his throat. “You mean about me someday earning my sir name?”

  “That’s right. So far, you are living up to what I expected. Now, do you remember what else happened that day on the landing?”

  Dalton knew without a doubt the boy remembered. It wouldn’t be something he
would soon forget. Fitch fidgeted as he tried to think of a way to say it without saying it.

  “Well, sir, I… I mean, there was…”

  “Fitch, you do recall that young lady smacking you?”

  Fitch cleared his throat. “Yes, sir, I remember that.”

  “And you know her?”

  “Her name is Beata. She works for the butcher, Inger. She’s in my penance assembly.”

  “And you must have seen what she was doing up there? The Minister saw you. Stein saw you. You must have seen them with her?”

  “It wasn’t the Minister’s fault, sir. She was getting what she’d asked for. Nothing more. She was always fawning over him, talking about how handsome he was, talking about how wonderful he was. She was always sighing aloud whenever she mentioned his name. Knowing her, she asked for what she got. Sir.”

  Dalton smiled to himself. “You liked her, didn’t you, Fitch?”

  “Well, sir, I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to like a person who hates you. Kind of wears you down, after a time.”

  Dalton could plainly see the boy’s feelings for the girl. It was written all over his face, even if he denied it.

  “Well the thing is, Fitch, this girl might of a sudden be interested in causing trouble. Sometimes girls get that way, later. You will someday come to learn that. Be careful of doing what they ask, because they will sometimes later want to make it seem they never asked at all.”

  The boy looked bewildered. “I never knew such a thing, sir. Thank you for the advice.”

  “Well, as you said, she got no more than she asked for. There was no force involved. Now, though, she might be having second thoughts, and be looking to cry rape. Much the same as Claudine Winthrop. Women who are with important men sometimes do that, later, to try to get something. They get greedy.”