The Pearl Crucible - A Dardana Fenek Mystery - MARDONIOS AGAIN - (part 1)

Chapter 4, part 1

The newsfeeds were full of Mist’ Fortunato’s death the next day. It was a topline story, and the print journals shouted it too, with lurid engravings that busy artists cobbled out of letterpress blocks already to hand: one dead aristoi lying on a library floor as some maid gasps at the discovery is much like another, whether in a green novel or a deka dreadful or a back issue murder story from twenty years ago. My name did not appear. I wasn’t sure whether to feel grateful or offended.

Barsina slipped out to pick up the early journals before I woke because she’s like that, and I had the Advance, the Signal, the Posthaste, the Graphic, and the Secure on our bed when my eyes opened.

I also appreciated the eggs and bread she was frying on the hob, and she appreciated my sitting up in bed half-covered in my shawl, reading the front page of the Signal.

The city was filled with horror and shock. The State Museum had made no statement other than that the upcoming exhibition would go on as scheduled. The daughter and the wife had also declined to make statements to the press, and the First Councilor assured society at large that the culprit or culprits would be made an example of when their identity was determined.

The Posthaste talked breathlessly about the brutality of the killing (“Senselessly Bludgeoned to Death!”) and the curious weapon (“Statuette of Indentured Girl!”) and alluded elliptically to its possibly political implications (“Labor Issues Involved?”)

“I don’t like that,” I said. “If someone on the Council gets the idea that it was political? Inconvenient. Dangerous.”

The Graphic provided a reasonably accurate diagram of the murder scene, which meant a uniform had talked. I imagined Mardonios would disapprove. It also mentioned that a late visitor had found the body, the one nod to my role, such as it was. The Secure editorialized about the prevalence of crime and the likely doleman provenance of the offender. The dolemen must not be allowed to get out of hand. And so forth.

Barsina did my hair and dressed me in my most conservative chiton. Then we crossed the Night Market and entered the militia commissariat.

I waited in line for the crowd at the desk warrant’s counter to clear.

“What?” he asked, sweat beginning to bed on his forehead, even as early as it was. He was one of the ones I especially disliked.

“I am here to see Ensign-Captain Mardonios.”

He looked me over and then Barsina. “He’s busy,” he said. “But you can leave your blocknumber, Nosy-Panties. I’m sure he’ll want to talk with you later. Both of you.” He grinned slimily.

“He’s questioning witnesses this morning and is permitting me to observe.”

These words made sense to me but seemed to confuse him. He clacked open his handheld on his comms. “Oi, Randolo.”

A tinny voice buzzed back like a mechanical fly.

“Yah, Randolo, Nosy-Panties is here. Yah, her. She says Ensign-Captain wants her.”

I took a slow breath and let it out.

Buzz, buzz.

“I know, I know.”

Buzz, buzz.

“Well, ask, I suppose.”

Buzz.

“He’ll ask.”

“Thank you, warrant,” I said, inclining my head graciously.

He looked at my chest, and chewed the end of his stylus. He pointed at me with it. “One of the lads said you was at the aristoi killing last night, Fenek.”

“Miss Fenek.—I was investigating, yes.”

“Little above your usual job, ain’t it?”

“You work for the paycheck,” I said. “Whoever it is.”

“Or however dead he is.” He guffawed.

The handheld squawked. Buzz, buzz.

“Oi, all right.” He gave me a toothy smile. “You know where he’s at, same as Fat-and-Farty.”

“Thank you, warrant,” I said.

I’d been to Topĉu’s office plenty of times. It’s a spare box of a room with a window onto the Night Market and hitherto usually a bottle and a glass on the desk. Today, there was no bottle, the terminal’s screen was busier than I’d ever seen it, and Mardonios was putting on his dress coat. His arms and chest filled his white tunic nicely, and it was with an effort that I restrained myself from stepping forward to help him with his coat.

“Miss Fenek, good morning.”

I curtseyed without remark.

“I don’t want you to think I enjoy this,” he said. “But it has to be done.”

“I don’t enjoy it either,” I said.

“It’s the law. I’ll go gentle on them, though.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate it,” I said tightly, keeping my face still. I’m good at that.

“You remind me,” he said, “of—” He stopped, hesitating at the last clasp on his coat.

“Of?”

He closed the coat at his throat.

“You remind me of someone, but I’m not sure who.” He turned his head slightly as he looked at me.

I cocked my head. “I have a very common face. I’m sure there are twenty women just like me in Aulis.

“I’m from Helioshad,” he said. “It must have been there. Someone I knew as a child?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say.” The fact was, with his coat off and looking more boyish as he fumblingly got himself ready, he seemed familiar too, and that wouldn’t do if he had ever seen me before. “I have a common face,” I repeated.

He shook his head, belted on his sidearm. “Shall we?”.

I knew Barsina was uncomfortable with the questioning. It made me plenty uneasy as well: many things have happened to me and been done to me in my life, and I don’t care to repeat all of them. Or see them happen to others.

Before I won her at cards from Mama Solene, she’d been stretched more than once by Mama Solene’s first girl, who is a real piece of work, and now she looked as nervous as a snake in a wildfire. The bedgirls, tearstained at the evil news of Fortunato’s death, looked no happier. They sat in their night chemises in the holding cell by the questioning chamber. The chamber itself, I knew, opened beyond on a windowless courtyard with an iron chair. For a fee, the commissariat would question your indentureds until they had no more to say and then make a fast end of them. Topĉu had generally pocketed those fees.

Seeing Mardonios, they went from sitting on the bench to kneeling and raising their hands beseechingly.

“Girls,” he said, “you have to be questioned because your contract-owner was murdered, and you were in the house. It’s in your best interest to answer my questions quickly and truthfully. You’ll go in one at a time. What are you called?” He pointed at one.

“Bilistiche, Sir,” she said nervously.

“All right, have her out,” the ensign-captain said.

The rack in the Night Market commissariat is a wooden frame with rope webbing. With a mattress, it would be a perfectly comfortable bed. At either end is a wooden axle with loops for wrists and ankles, the axles studded with capstan handles. The unlucky girl was taken in, the door closed, she was laid down, and the ropes tightened a few notches until her feet and hands were raised. Her hair hung through the ropes with the fabric of her chemise.

“Bilistiche, are you a former citizen or a tank-girl?”

“Tank-girl, Sir. I was devesseled at Calypso crèche.”

“All right, Bilistiche, have you ever been questioned before?”

“N-no, Sir.”

“I am going to ask you several questions, and you’ll answer them, then the ropes will be tightened, and you’ll be questioned again, then they’ll be tightened, and you’ll be questioned a third time. Understand?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“If I am satisfied, that will be all. If not—then not. I’d prefer to be satisfied, all right?”

“Yes, Sir.”

My shoulders and hips ached sympathetically as a government nurse took her blood pressure, listened to her heart, and signed off on the questioning. I eyed Mardonios with disapproval. I’d seen other indentureds put to the question or, like Barsina, corrected. It’s obvious that tank-girls are so rigidly loyal that their testimony is suspect, and former citizens are notorious liars, so in principle, I understand. But for the witnesses—much less the girl—it can be … grueling.

The worse so if the operator is sadistic. Men seem careless when it comes to an indentured’s body. No one imagines she feels anything until they dislocate her limbs. I held my breath, my heart pounding, prepared to be angry.

But he surprised me. He showed no more signs of enjoying this than I, though the uniforms pulling the capstans seemed happy enough. Ensign-Captain questioned her quickly and methodically and ordered the tension increased by a single notch each time. The last time she was suspended off the net, but seemed under no pain. Her answers didn’t vary, and Barsina, pale and frightened, wrote everything down.

No, she’d seen or heard nothing, no, she didn’t know who could have done it, no, she and her fellow girl hadn’t left Mist’ Fortunato’s rooms until the militia opened the door and pulled them out. No, and no, and no.

Then the other one.

“Cytheris, are you a former citizen or a tank-girl?”

“I was born a citizen, Sir, the youngest daughter, so, la, Sir.” She lifted her hands helplessly.

On the net she went, and was drawn once, twice, and three times. Her story was substantially the same except that she said she’d been by a window brushing her hair and thought she heard a thump, a door open and shut inside, and then another door outside, faint. “Thought it was Majordomo,” she said, the ropes taut on her.

“When was this, do you know?”

“La, I don’t, Sir.”

He had her drawn a fourth time to question her again on the point, and she was clearly in discomfort then, but he was quickly satisfied and released her.

“Take them back to Miss Fortunato,” he told a disappointed uniform, and stood there musing. “What do you think, Miss Fenek?”

“I think they’ll both have a new contract-owner within a fortnight,” I said, beginning to breathe again. “The Miss will have no use for her father’s girls.”

“You think? H’m.—I was thinking of the noises she heard.”

“Well,” I said cautiously, “he can’t have been dead very long, so the thump she heard probably did its thumping no more than a quarter of an hour before Barsina and I were at the mews gate. No one came down the alley from the mews at us, and we were in the square then walking around the house walls, so to my mind, I missed the murderer by minutes.

“Unfortunate,” he said. “Or coincidental: I’m assuming it wasn’t you, of course.”

“Why would I murder my client?”

“I’ve only your word that he was your client,” he pointed out.

“Why would I yank the bell-pull after murdering my client?”

“Good question! But keep in mind these are questions other people may ask me to ask, later.”

He offered his arm, and I laid my hand on his sleeve, and he walked me out. I felt unaccountably buoyant and smiled at him on the steps of the commissariat, and Barsina took out her sandals and put them on her feet in the street. Probably, I was just relieved he didn’t show himself to be vicious.

“If you divine anything from all this, please let me know,” he said.

“I will.”

“I should ask for your blocknumber if I need to call or convo you,” he added.

“I don’t hand out my blocknumber,” I said.

“Really? How do you get any business?”

“Anyone can walk up four flights. If you need me,” I said, “I’m at Twenty-three Stana-Fajfilo Strateto—as if you don’t already know.”

( … This way to Chapter 3, part 3 … ) ( … This way to Chapter 4, part 2 … )