Chapter 24
Viv’s feelings of high alert ebbed slowly over the following days. No invading army of wights appeared on the horizon, and no gray-clad strangers menaced them. In fact, nothing happened to warrant so much as a suspicious glance, much less a bared blade.
In her experience though, things tended to get quiet right before they got loud.
They discovered that Satchel became even more nervous when customers entered the store. Any time the door opened, he collapsed instantly and rolled his component bones underneath one of the shelves, only emerging when Fern reassured him that the intruders were gone.
Potroast also liked to gnaw at his ankles and could not be deterred.
As a result, Satchel mostly kept to his satchel during the day.
Maylee showed up one late afternoon, put her fists on her hips, and demanded, “Well, where is he?”
When Fern sprinkled dust over the bones and Satchel made his rattling appearance, she took it in stride.
Viv supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised, given her history.
When the dwarf extended a hand for the homunculus to shake, Viv couldn’t help but think of her long-ago encounter with the goblin across the river.
Fern rigged a box on the countertop with a slit in the front that Satchel could occupy during the day, but for the most part, the homunculus preferred to be up and about outside of business hours.
The animating force granted by the bonedust ebbed over the day, and he seemed to sense when it would desert him.
While awake, however, he could not be dissuaded from tidying and arranging, with rag and broom, soap and polish.
“I can’t get him to stop,” Fern said, chin in paw. She looked miserable. “It’s not right. I can’t let him just … do things around here without paying him.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “He insists he doesn’t want anything. That it’s his choice. But that doesn’t make it any better.”
Thistleburr was definitely tidier. The wooden floors fairly glowed, the walls had been washed, and Viv could swear that Satchel must have trimmed away the errant binding threads on some of the older volumes.
Even the scent indoors was improved, smelling more strongly of paper and ink and wood wax than dust and salt and gryphet.
“Maybe you need to start lending him books, too,” said Viv, only half joking.
“Does he read, do you think?” she asked, glancing toward the box on the counter, currently occupied.
“He has a better vocabulary than I do.” Viv unwrapped another of Maylee’s brown paper packages. Four enormous, rugged scones lay tucked within, larded with nuts and fruit. The gryphet napping on the floor twitched in his sleep and uttered a drowsy hoot but didn’t wake.
Fern selected one and nibbled at it as they watched Addis, the gnome who owned the perpetually closed junk shop, ambling slowly beside a shelf.
Addis was a serial browser, and Viv had never once seen him purchase a book.
He muttered a lot to himself and often selected a volume, only to open it, nod as though discovering some important bit of information, and then reshelve it.
Viv found it maddening, but Fern seemed used to it.
“Must not be any silver in the junk business,” muttered Viv as Addis rejected yet another book.
“Speaking of a lack of money, did I tell you I finally ordered that fresh shipment?”
“The one you’d been marking in the catalog?”
Fern sighed. “I guess I forgot to mention it. Although there’s been an awful lot going on these past few days.” She knocked gently on the top of Satchel’s box, and a very quiet bump echoed back from within.
Viv leaned more heavily on the counter, extending her leg and flexing it. It was sturdier by the day. “I thought you said you didn’t have the room? Satch—Uh, I mean it’s definitely more organized, but where are you going to put the new books?”
“I suppose I’ll have to stack them in the back. I can barely get to my bed as it is, though. There are old books everywhere. I live under threat of perpetual landslide. Still, I have to try something. I’m doing a little better financially, but if I can’t get things to pick up …”
“It’d be best if you could sell the old ones though, wouldn’t it?”
Fern stopped with her scone halfway to her mouth. “My, what a brilliant fucking idea. Whyever didn’t I consider that? Thanks.”
“If there are that many books people don’t want, though, then what’s the use in having them around?”
“They’re books. You don’t just throw them away.”
“I didn’t say that! But … I mean, if nobody wants them, then …”
“They just don’t know they want them yet. That’s the point. How many have you been through now?”
“Well …”
“Plenty, that’s how many. I just had to get them into your hands. The right hands.” She put the scone down. “That’s the whole gods-damned problem, isn’t it?”
Viv considered the unfolded brown paper and the remaining scone waiting atop it. Toying with the string, she murmured, “Yeah, I guess the thing is not knowing what you want. Having to pick it in the first place, when you don’t know what’s out there …”
The rattkin searched her face. “Sure. But some folks don’t want to be led. And sometimes, I don’t know what they want either. A lot of the time, honestly.” She cocked a thumb at Addis. “Like this one, for instance.”
“Well,” continued Viv, an idea firming in her mind, “what if they didn’t have to know? Or at least, not much?”
“What are you getting at?”
“We didn’t know what we’d be getting in this package from Maylee. We might not have picked these at all. But we’re eating them, aren’t we?”
The rattkin retrieved her scone and examined it thoughtfully. “Go on …”
“And the surprise is part of it too, right?” Viv ate one in two quick bites. “It’s almost better because we didn’t know. So—”
“So what if we wrapped up the books?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t have to be fancy.”
“Maybe more than one.” Fern’s eyes lit up as the idea took root in her mind. “Tie them up with string. Like little presents.”
“Maybe write a few words on there. Give people some idea of what they’re in for.” Viv thought about Ten Links in the Chain. “Swordfights. Beheadings. Betrayals?”
“Mmm. Maybe moist,” suggested Fern with a wicked grin.
Viv laughed aloud. “Wonder how many of those you’d sell? Maybe you should put that on every package.”
Addis exited the shop without so much as a wave, the door banging shut behind him.
“Bye, Addis!” Fern called after him.
Viv shook her head in annoyance.
From within the box on the counter, Satchel’s sepulchral voice issued, brimming with sudden interest.
“Moist books?”
“Use the heels of your hands.”
“It’s sticky,” grumbled Viv, trying to shuck globs of dough from around her knuckles.
“That’s why you can’t use your fingers,” said Maylee, with a laugh buried in her voice. “Yeah, that’s the way. Now fold it over and do it again. Keep it up. You got the arms for it.”
Sea-Song was locked tight for the day, but according to Maylee, there was still plenty to be done. Viv had offered to lend a hand, with the vague notion that this might mean scrubbing or sweeping or something equally straightforward. The dwarf, however, had other ideas.
She looked at Maylee askance as the shorter woman sprinkled flour in front of the ball of dough in an easy arc. “Are you trying to domesticate me?”
“You said you wanted to help, and I’ve got bread to bake. Besides, you seem to be domesticatin’ yourself just fine at Fern’s place.”
Her tone was teasing, but the words made Viv tense, like she expected a manacle to snap onto her wrist. A ridiculous reaction, she knew, and yet she couldn’t help but infer something hopeful in Maylee’s gaze.
“That’s different.”
“Oh, yeah? How d’you figure that?”
“Well,” said Viv, grunting as she folded the dough and pressed into it.
The countertops were built for dwarven stature, and she had to really hunch to bring her weight to bear.
“I did get tossed in jail over a street fight, there’s been at least one dead body, and we have a talking bagful of bones, so I think there’s a lot more adventuring going on than you’d expect. ”
“You seem to be gettin’ a lot of aggression out on that poor dough, too. Though maybe it’s just you. Either way, flour looks good on you.” She tossed a playful pinch.
Viv bared her teeth in a mock growl, only to get a faceful.
“D’you figure he’s goin’ to bring trouble?” asked Maylee, suddenly serious.
“Satchel?”
She nodded, then touched Viv’s hip to move her to the side, taking over kneading the dough. The easy press and release of her hands and the sway of her body were unexpectedly sensual.
Viv tried not to stare.
Dusting flour from her arms, she parked her butt against the counter. “Honestly? Yeah. I do.”
The dwarf sighed. “So do I. I’ve just got that feelin’.”
Viv knew exactly the one she meant. Like the sound of a battle three hills over.
She was reminded that Maylee wrestled dough with hands that had once wielded a mace. There was some safety in that which Viv couldn’t untangle just yet.
Maylee stopped kneading and gave her a searching look. “That doesn’t really upset you, does it?”
“I don’t want anybody to get hurt,” Viv hedged. But that wasn’t really an answer at all.
A galleon from the far south was anchored in the deeper waters offshore, and small boats had been ferrying passengers, merchants, and crew members to the beach throughout the late afternoon.
Coaches rattled in both directions along the southern road to Cardus.
As a result, it was one of The Perch’s livelier nights.
Viv was comfortable enough on her leg to be seated at the bar.
Her favorite table was occupied anyway. She nursed a second beer while she tried not to race through the last three chapters of The Lens and the Dapplegrim.
Brand was a blur beyond her vision, and the noise piled up against the walls, leaving her alone in the center of a perfect sphere of story.
Each word tumbled into the next, a rockslide of prose that would end in a dramatic confrontation between Investigator Beckett and the deliciously devious Aramy, with Leena’s life in the balance.
At least that’s where she expected things to go.
The book had a way of confounding her expectations, and every time it did, she experienced a thrill of delight.
When someone sat down beside her at the bar, she paid them no mind, absorbed as she was.
As she recognized her neighbor, though, the raucous sound crashed back in on Viv, and she found herself fully, instantly present.
“I’ll confess, I didn’t imagine you were the literary sort.” The voice was husky, dryly amused.
Iridia.
Viv did her best not to sigh in annoyance, marking her place with a thumb.
The woman tapped the bar-top and nodded at Brand for a drink. She was perfectly at ease. Her longsword was still belted at her waist, lantern on the opposite hip. Viv didn’t think it looked very comfortable.
Iridia downed a swallow of her beer before eyeing Viv. “I see you’re on the mend. I expect you’ll be off soon, then.”
“When Rackam returns, yeah,” said Viv evenly. “No idea when that will be. I guess you’re stuck with me until he shows up.”
The tapenti silently considered her.
Viv waited for something further, and when no words seemed forthcoming, she ventured, “What do you want? I was just minding my business. Being literary. That ought to make you happy, right?”
Iridia ignored the question. “Varine. Have you seen her?”
Viv blinked. “No. Plenty of her spawn, but never her.”
“Would you even know her if you saw her?”
Viv took another slug of her beer. “I’ve got a description, but even if I didn’t, I think I’d know.”
“And why is that?” Iridia’s tone was hardly warm, but it wasn’t as antagonistic as it had been during their prior interactions.
Viv studied her. “What are you after? You don’t like me much, you made that plain. So what is this?”
The tapenti sighed. “I don’t dislike you. I dislike what you mean.” She tapped her mug with a finger. “To be clear, that doesn’t mean I like you either.”
Viv snorted at that and raised her mug. Iridia cocked a brow and clinked hers against it.
“To annoyed mutual tolerance,” said Viv.
It’s possible the tapenti’s lip might have curled in a smile, but Viv couldn’t be positive.
After another drink, something shifted in the Gatewarden’s posture. The scaled flesh of her hood relaxed, and she swept the long, dry threads of her hair to the side.
“We’ve found nothing on whoever murdered our gray-clad stranger.”
Viv almost blurted his name but caught herself in time. There was no easy way to explain how she knew it.
“Oh, yeah? I guess I’m not surprised.” Then, carefully, “Did you find that bag you were looking for?”
“No.” Iridia toyed with her cup. “I pride myself on my practicality. Adaptability. Too many Wardens are set in their ways. Authority gives them an excuse to be lazy.”
“And to hassle wounded mercenaries minding their own business?” Viv grinned wryly.
“Oh, no, that’s just good sense,” said Iridia, and Viv was pretty sure she was joking. Maybe. The tapenti continued, “I told you I’d take Varine seriously, and I have. But maybe not seriously enough, because I realized I haven’t spoken to the one person who has recent information.”
Iridia actually reminded Viv a little of Madger from Ten Links in the Chain, but without Legann’s balancing influence. Grudgingly, she admitted to herself that she might not actually dislike the tapenti.
But to be clear, that doesn’t mean I like you, either, she thought, echoing the Gatewarden’s own words.
“Brand,” called Iridia, catching the tavernkeep’s attention. “Her drinks are on me.”
She rested an arm on the counter. “So, I’m here to rectify that. I want to know everything you know. Are you willing to talk?”
Viv drained her mug and set it back on the bar. “I won’t even make you buy me dinner.”