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

Chapter 2, part 1

I conducted him out with the usual formalities, then closed the door and returned, shaking my fistful of bills at Barsina with glee. “Fifty!” I said. “Irodiada blesses us, Barsnjo!”

“Yes, Miss,” Barsina said. “And Ishara, too,” she reminded me.

“Tush, we won’t forget Temes either,” I said irreverently. “And every nymph and dryad in the wood, and the household fatas as well.” I curtsied at a little icon hung on the wall. “Now, what d’you think of all that?”

“It seems strange to me, Miss. I can believe the ground-car failing by itself, and I can almost believe a bit of hemlock in the salad … but both together, I find that hard. And yet, it’s curious for someone to try their hand at poison, then tamper with a ground-car’s programming instead?”

“It sounds unlikely, doesn’t it? Let me see what you have.”

Barsina offered the notebook and hid the money as I read. Barsina’s writing is even and straight and precise, mostly spelled correctly, though I’m one to talk, and on nice level lines. She has a nimble hand and a sharp mind, and it was all there and a thing or two I’d forgotten.

“Family on Artume?”

“Yes, Miss. He wasn’t clear how many, but they’re unlikely suspects.”

“A bit of a trip,” I said dryly, “all the way from the big moon! And they’d hardly stand early in line to benefit. We’ll keep them in mind.” I scratched under my left breast, and Barsina immediately adjusted my chiton and breastband. “Cousins in Clytemnestra. A little more likely since they aren’t off-world, but that’s still half a planet away. Younger brother in Calypso. Much closer! But I don’t think of the administrator of a crèche as being a murderer—unless you’re a baby tank-girl that’s ‘defective’.”

“The wife, Miss?”

“Closer, there. I wonder what’s the story? He didn’t permit a divorce? They’ve both reason to stay married but not live in the same house?”

“If she was her family’s heiress, Miss—”

“He’d never permit it,” I finished for her. “We should learn more about her.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Then there’s the Sub-Director. Would the position of Director of the State Gallery be worth murder?”

“Only if it could be assured. But he did not seem to hold Mist’ Azzopardo in high esteem.”

“Tension there.” I looked at her notes again. “He lives with his daughter. Did he say how old?”

“He did not.”

“I didn’t think so. But he’s not young, and she’s not on the country estate with Fortunato matro, so she must be of age. At least twenty-one, then. But if he dies and his wife lives, the daughter—Alkimila?—isn’t any farther ahead than she was. Well, women have killed their fathers for other reasons than money, I suppose. I should interview her and the Sub-Director, and if I can, get apparato-calls in, somehow, to the brother and the wife. Someone may have an idea. An unlikely bunch so far. Shall we go to Sarangerel’s for lunch?”

“Miss does not need to go to Sarangerel’s.”

“Miss has fifty drachms, and Miss will spend one to celebrate. We none of us have tomorrow.”

“This is true, Miss.”

Sarangerel’s is a, shall we say, political eatery. Political, in Aulis, is a short way of saying likely to get coshed over the head by militia during some Air Fleet Week riot. But they allow my girl to sit down and eat without giving her uncomfortable looks, and there’s posher places to eat that I honestly wouldn’t feel safe going in. I’ve made a few enemies, though no one’s tried to kill me. Yet.

It’s at the end of the Mercanter Narrows, almost right by the Green Quarter, but not quite close enough for the toffs to come slumming. We were coming up the street, Barsina a respectful half step behind, when Narvi, of all people, came running at us. “Oi,” he said, “didn’t see me, cor,” and all but threw himself into a filthy gap between a bookseller’s and a tobacconist’s that served as a pass-through to some doleman warren within the belly of the block.

Now, I protect my sources when I can, so I stepped forward, barring the gap, running my fingers blindly across a box of books while looking the way Narvi’d come. There was a hubble-bubble there, and two militia raced with a clatter of hobnails, people dodging out of the way. Hard on their heels was another in a blue officer’s cuirass, arms and legs pumping. They skidded to a stop in front of the book-seller and tried to get past me, but I recoiled, filling the gap with my body and crying out as if frightened and confused, “Girl, what are they trying to do to me?”

Barsina wrung her hands, wailing, “Sirs, Sirs, please don’t hurt my Miss, oh, my Miss!”

They’d laid hands on me when the officer stumbled up. “Oi!” he said, “Let her alone, what are you doing?”

“She’s blocking the way, sir!”

“Well, ask her to move, don’t just yank her!”

“Miss! Move!”

I was cowering behind a book grabbed from the box, but I felt I’d done enough for Narvi. I scooted aside, and they crammed themselves down the slot between the buildings. The officer sighed, disgusted at the dark, piss-scented alley, looked at me, and then looked again.

You know the moment when the hero meets the heroine of a green novel, the birds sing, and fauns play music behind the trees, and they’re covered in sunlight, and you know that no matter what, the book will end just fine?

This wasn’t that moment. He reached out to me, took the volume, and stared at it. “Really?” he said and shoved it back at me, turned sideways, and was gone after his men.

I looked at it. It was as yellow as gold, with red lettering on the cover: Bound and Beaten by my Lesba Maid.

I might have blushed, but I thumbed through it, too, read a passage, and handed it to Barsina. “Buy it,” I said. “And we’ll get lunch.”

( … Chapter 1 part 3 … ) ( … Chapter 2 part 2 … )