Chapter 27

 

 

“Are you sure you want to chat with her alone?” asked Melissa as they hurried toward the drones.

“What makes you think I can’t talk to her by myself?” asked William, his eyes focused ahead.

“Everything I know about you,” she answered. “What will you ask her for?”

“Extra ships at the choke points,” he said as he reached Adonis. He turned to Melissa, his impatience obvious. “Jack made a good point about the rebels forcing their way through. We can’t expect the men on duty there to fight them off, but if we anchor a couple of ships in the way, it should at least delay them.”

“And you think she’ll agree to that?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” asked William. He patted Adonis’s neck before hopping on. “The duke’s life is in danger. Securing the harbor is her job.”

She stared up at him, the familiar look of annoyance returning to her face. “So I’m supposed to wait outside like a good little girl while you go in and do the important stuff? Is that it?”

“I didn’t say that,” said William. “Can we talk about this later? We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Oh yes,” she said, her eyes narrowing at him. “We’ll talk later.”

As she stormed off to her own drone, Adonis craned his head back to look up and down William’s body.

“What are you doing?” asked William.

“Checking you for burns.”

William sighed. “Of all the human traits you could learn, you chose sarcastic humor?”

“It seemed like the most appropriate way to communicate with you,” answered the dragon as he lifted off.

William wasn’t in the frame of mind to appreciate the scenery, but he still marveled at the number of boats choking the river mouth, packed so close together it seemed doubtful they could navigate without colliding. In fact, it almost appeared as though a person could cross the river by hopping from vessel to vessel without getting their feet wet.

When they reached the harbormaster’s island, a small crowd was already waiting, and even more people began to pour over the bridge as they spotted the dragons.

They found a clear space to land, but it was about as far from the office as the little island allowed. William sat as tall as possible on Adonis’s back and yelled at the crowd. “Clear the way! I need to get to the harbormaster’s office.”

Few people, if any, tried to move aside, held in place as they were by the throngs behind them, calling his name and thrusting books at him to sign. So thick was the crowd that William despaired of the possibility of using Melissa’s trick again. Besides, they were too far from the office, and in broad daylight. He turned around and gave Melissa a hopeful look, but she simply glared back at him as though to tell him to figure it out himself. He was about to give in and tell Adonis to try pushing through the crowd when Melissa’s voice rang out.

“Citizens of Faywater Port, we have an announcement. Duke Vincent has been kidnapped. A reward of one thousand crowns awaits the person who finds him. All we know for certain is that he is not on this island.”

A hush fell over the crowd, followed by a buzz as the news carried to its far reaches. A few people began to stream back across the bridge, but most remained. “Where should we look?” someone asked.

“Shops. Docks. Warehouses. Boats. Wherever a person might be hidden. Don’t break into private homes or closed shops, or the reward is no longer valid. If you suspect something, tell a guard.”

“We ain’t seen no guards in days,” someone else said as the crowd thinned further.

“That’s because they’re all looking for the duke,” said Rachel who had caught on to Melissa’s ruse. “You should, too. The sooner the better, because there’s only one reward.”

Their path cleared as the remaining people stampeded over the bridge and began spreading throughout the city. “Wow!” said William. “The whole city will be looking for him soon.”

“Not the worst possible result, Will,” said Jack.

“I know,” said William. “I wasn’t complaining. That was clever.” He caught a glimpse of Melissa still glaring at him, and quickly turned away. He slid from Adonis and sprinted to the office.

“I don’t have time to talk,” said Ungless as she looked up from the papers she was rifling through. “I have too much work, and it’s not made easier by that crowd of yours outside. They’ve been hanging around the past two days, hoping you’d show up again, blocking my crews from getting in and out to repair the damage. You may have noticed the storm last night.”

“Yes, I got caught in it. I need to—”

Ungless shook her head and cut him off. “You land folk can’t see a storm coming until it slaps you in the face. Where were you when it hit?”

William waved at the map on the wall behind her with a gesture of impatience. “Out there, somewhere. It doesn’t matter because—”

Ungless laughed, her bright white teeth contrasting against her dark face. “Still looking for your rebels? Believe me, they were hunkered down like anyone else with any maritime experience.”

“No, they weren’t!” he shot back. “In fact, they were quite busy. While we were out searching for them, they snuck onto the duke’s island, broke into his manor, and kidnapped him.”

Her mouth dropped open. “The duke? Kidnapped?”

“Yes, and I need your help. I need you to blockade the choke points by anchoring ships in front of them, immediately. The chains may not be enough to stop them if they decide to overpower your men.”

“And women,” she said with a cold face. “I have plenty of women working for me too. Look, Lord William, the chains aren’t even up anymore. The choke points were evacuated at the first sign of the storm, which is standard procedure. We can’t keep people out there during a storm—it isn’t safe. And keeping the chains up might prevent a ship from reaching the relative safety of the bay, which would be tantamount to murder.”

“We need those chains up!” said William. “If the rebels escape with the duke, we may never see him again. Not to mention the huge amount of money they stole.”

She looked at him in exasperation. “I’m not indifferent to that, believe me. The duke has been good to me, and I wouldn’t have this job without him. But I have to do that job, especially after the weather we had.”

“The duke’s life is in your hands!” said William, his face burning with anger. “How can you abandon him? You need to send those ships out and get the chains back up.”

Hand on hip, she stared at him like a mother with an unruly child. “First, I don’t take orders from you, regardless of what authority you think your title gives you. Second, my resources are stretched thin at the best of times. The good duke has seen fit to limit the number of boats and people under my command, so if his captors slip away, he has himself to thank for it. And third—and I’ve mentioned this already—I’m busy doing the things that actually fall under my job description.”

William seethed. What could he do? Short of arresting her and assuming her position—and he doubted his legal authority to do so—the harbormaster’s ships and sailors remained out of his control. “If anything happens to the duke,” he said slowly.

“You’ll do what, exactly?” she asked, unmoved. “Why don’t you take this to the Guard? They’re in charge of security, not me, and they have two ships and the men to row them.”

“You know perfectly well the barracks are nearly empty,” he said.

She turned away from him, busying herself again with her papers. “Not my problem. Unlike them, I’m here doing my job, not hundreds of miles away on a wild goose chase. If this matters so much to you, why don’t you and your friends fly out to the choke points yourselves and blockade the exits?”

“Because we’re busy looking for the rebels, and—”

“Will, sweetheart,” said Melissa, who had slipped beside him, unnoticed. “Shut up.”

“Melissa…how did you—”

She placed a finger on his lips. “Shh. That was the opposite of shutting up.”

William glared at her, miffed at the interruption, but remained silent. After all, he wasn’t getting anywhere with Ungless himself. What harm was there in letting her have a try?

Melissa smiled at the surly harbormaster. “Keri, you mentioned your limited resources. What will happen to your operating budget if the king’s taxes leave this harbor in rebel hands?”

“Listen lady, the duke won’t punish me for something that’s out of my control.”

“What choice will he have?” asked Melissa. “The king won’t let him get away without paying taxes, will he? The duke will have to raise the money again or cut back on expenses to make up the difference, possibly both. On the other hand, play a part in rescuing the duke, and he’ll see you as invaluable. Who knows, maybe you’ll even get a promotion. If we don’t get the duke back though, who knows what his successor will do with you—or your job.”

Ungless stared at her for a moment, weighing the possibilities. Then she turned to William. “You should listen to your wife more; she’s smarter than you are. Okay, here’s what I’ll do: I’ll have the chains put across again, and I’ll send a single ship to each entry and anchor it nearby. I can’t make any promises about how long I can keep them there, though.”

“Thank you, Harbormaster,” said William. “I hope we won’t need them for long.”

They rushed back to the others to find that the crowds had finally dissipated, the hope of a thousand-crown reward outweighing their desire to glimpse a hero.

“Well?” asked Jack.

William put his arm around Melissa’s shoulder. “Thanks to my better half, the harbormaster agreed to put the chains up and anchor a single ship at each choke point. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but it might be enough.”

“Do we continue with the same search plan now?” asked Rachel. “I didn’t finish searching my area before the storm hit.” The others nodded their agreement.

“King’s crown…” muttered William as he slapped his forehead. “I completely forgot—Vincent’s kidnapping must have driven it from my mind. Just before the storm hit, I saw smoke rising from one of the islands. I couldn’t see where it came from, so we flew up to signal you guys, but the storm forced us back down. We spent the night on that same island. The smoke was gone by morning, but I decided to check it out anyway.”

“You did that alone?” asked Jack, dumbfounded. “How many times—”

“I had Clyde and Adonis with me,” said William, raising his hand to cut him off. “And besides, the site was abandoned. But it looked like lots of people had been there, and for at least a day or more. I was careful not to disturb too much, because I wanted Rachel and Maya to inspect it.”

“But it could have been anyone,” said Jack. “What’s got you so convinced it’s worth looking at?”

William counted on his fingers. “It’s not a permanent settlement, so that rules out fishermen. It’s far from town, so it can’t be traders. It’s recent, so it could be the rebels. It could be smugglers too, but wouldn’t they also want to be close to town?”

“Maybe,” said Rachel. “But smugglers would also have a base further away to hide during emergencies. But none of us have found anything else worth investigating. Let’s go.”

They mounted quickly, and William caught a small grin from Melissa seconds before they took flight. His heart warmed, and he smiled to himself for the duration of the flight. William led them around the island, searching for signs of activity before picking a beach to land on.

“Are you sure we should land?” asked Jack as he dismounted.

Rachel gave him a playful nudge. “I thought you’d be happier on the ground.”

“Oh, I am,” he said. “As long as we don’t get attacked.”

“It doesn’t look like we are,” said Maya as they approached the campsite. “Rachel, where do you want to start?”

Rachel cast her gaze across the site, looking for details that William couldn’t even guess at. She nodded at the garbage pit. “We’ll save that for last. I want to check the paths around this camp first. Everyone stay right where you are for a few minutes.”

William picked a log to sit on while Rachel went about her business. She followed several small trails leading out from the campsite, returning by the same path each time. At one point she remained out of sight for several minutes, and William considered following her to make sure she was okay, but Melissa put a hand on his arm to stop him.

Moments later, Rachel returned. “All the signs point to a large number of people,” she said. “Based on the size of the firepit, the number of logs set around it, that garbage heap, and the tracks, I’d say at least twenty, maybe thirty. And a few boats too—their imprints were still fresh on the gravel.”

“How do you know all this?” asked Oz, clearly amazed.

Rachel smiled at him. “Years of practice. And I had a good teacher.”

“So, was it smugglers or rebels?” asked William.

“Impossible to say for sure,” said Rachel. “But smugglers don’t usually work in such large numbers.”

“So what now?” asked Jack. “Even if we assume the rebels camped here, where does that lead us?”

“We sift through the garbage now,” said Rachel. “And we look for clues.”

“What kind of clues?” asked William.

“Anything that tells us something we didn’t know before,” said Rachel. “Every object tells a story, every choice they made reveals something. If we’re lucky, we might notice some sort of pattern, or find something that tells us where they’ve been.”

William shivered as he recalled sifting through the garbage at Kirby’s camp. They found many of the same things, including discarded animal carcasses, apple cores, and even a few metal tins. Not surprisingly, plenty of it appeared to be of marine origin. “What sort of shells are these?” he asked.

“Oysters,” said Maya. “The bay is full of them.”

“Could they have collected them here?”

“Unlikely,” she answered. “The beach here is too gravelly. Oysters prefer to bury themselves in sand. These are all about the same size, meaning someone went to the trouble of sorting them. Only a shopkeeper would go to that trouble, which means someone bought these at a local shop.”

“Ugh, what is this? Or rather, what was it?” Jack held up a flattened, rotting bird carcass.

Maya took it from him and inspected it from all sides. “It looks like a pigeon. Rachel?”

Rachel nodded. “Yep. Look at the nostrils above the beak.”

William’s heart pounded. “Pigeons are city birds, aren’t they? Even the wild ones? That means Bird was here. Or at least one of his pigeons was.”

“It’s too much of a coincidence to be anything else,” said Maya. “The rebels must have been here.”

“Okay, but where does that leave us?” asked Jack as he wiped his hands on his pants. “They may have been here, but they aren’t now. And every second shop in the fish district is an oyster seller, and we can’t check them all.”

“Does this help?” asked Melissa as she held up a large burlap bag as far away from her body as she could.

Maya squinted at the bag’s markings. “It’s pretty dirty, but it looks familiar. Lay it flat on the ground.” Melissa did so, and Maya continued to stare at it. “I’m pretty sure I know what it is, but I want a second opinion. Charlie, can you tell what the label says?”

Charlie inspected it briefly and nodded. “Rosengard and Wong,” he said without hesitation.

“Who are they?” asked William.

“Oyster sellers in town,” said Maya. “One of the biggest. Either the rebels found this sack and used it for something else, or they bought their oysters there. Given how many shells we’ve found, it’s pretty obvious which one it was.”

“Do you know where their shop is?” he asked breathlessly.

“Of course,” said Maya. “I walk past it every day on my way to the clinic.”

“Then let’s go,” said William. “We need to ask if they remember selling to them.”

“Hang on,” said Jack. “What if it’s a dead end? Shouldn’t we go through the rest of this…stuff…to look for more clues?”

“It’s garbage, you sissy,” said Rachel. “And we’ve gone through all of it.”

“Besides, we don’t have a lot of time,” added William. “Every moment we spend here, we give the rebels a chance to hide or find a way to escape.”

“But they could be nearby,” said Jack. “Why don’t we at least circle around a few more islands?”

“We can peek at them as we fly by,” said William. “But our luck is finally starting to turn, and I don’t want to waste this opportunity. Sooner rather than later, I want to know what this oyster seller knows. I’ve got a hunch it’ll lead us somewhere.”