Derla spent Oprian evening at her studies. Aspect Dendrish’s Rise of the Merchant Kings had been recommended to her by one of her clients, a Master of Histories from the Third Order who agreed to provide tutelage in return for a reduced hourly rate. After wading through a hundred pages of overblown prose long on narrative and short on analysis, Derla concluded her client had been somewhat biased in his opinion of his Aspect’s work. Still, the volume contained some useful statistical tables on the growth of Far Western trade since the days of the Red Hand which she spent a contented hour or two transcribing into her own notes. Besides Livera, economics had been Derla’s principal passion for the past several years and their rooms were increasingly filled with her reference library. It was all greatly amusing for Livera. “What use does a whore have for all these words and numbers?” she had asked shortly after moving in.
“The mind stays healthy longer than the body,” Derla told her. “And I’ve got no intention of living out my elder years in penury.”
She became so engrossed in her transcription that she failed to notice the hour until the faint tolling of the Midnight Bell beyond the window. Whilst their shared occupation invariably involved late hours Livera was usually capable of satisfying her clients and returning home well before the bell. Derla returned to her work for a spell but soon found herself pacing the room, nerves fraying with every prolonged second. After an hour in which Livera had signally failed to reappear Derla strapped her knife around her waist, pulled on her cloak and went out into the street.
She tried the Red Anchor first, a small but orderly drinking hole she knew Gallis favoured for a nightcap or two on the rare occasions he had money in his pocket. She found it only half full of patrons too insensible to even make the effort of a cat call. There was no sign of Gallis and the barkeep denied seeing him all night.
“Probably off climbing some rich bugger’s wall,” he said with a shrug, before leaning closer and adding, “Don’t suppose you’re working tonight, Derl? Been awful dull in the evenings since One Eye went on the rampage.”
One Eye. She supposed the name was inevitable. In the days since Frentis’s disappearance Hunsil had embarked on the kind of purge not seen in the Varinshold underworld for years. Rumour had it well over a dozen bodies had been consigned to the depths of the harbour, most of them slain by Hunsil himself, who made a point of wielding the knife in front of the victims’ kin. It was also rumoured that he forced them to look into his empty eye socket at the final moment, commanding that they cough up any knowledge of Frentis as the ghost of his eye now had the power to see lies. Such was the fear engendered by One Eye’s rampage that criminal activity had died down to almost nothing. Whores and thieves stayed home and went hungry rather than attract the notice of their new king, which is what Hunsil’s purge had made him now.
Derla ignored the barkeep’s offer and slid a couple of coppers across the bar. “Gallis shows up, send someone to tell me,” she said before turning and walking out.
Gallis kept an attic above a tanner’s shop on Skinner’s Row. Rents were cheap here due to the smell and Derla was obliged to shield her nose with a scented handkerchief as she pounded on the tanner’s door. “Ain’t been back all day,” the bleary-eyed and evidently peeved proprietor reported. “And I got no time for pestering doxies…”
He was an old man and lacked the strength push the door closed as Derla stepped forward to brace her shoulder against it. “And I’m in no mood to suffer insult, you old fuck,” she informed him quietly, bringing her knife up, quick and neat, pressing the tip of the blade to his nose. “Gallis comes back tell him Derla’s looking and he’d better not delay in finding me.” She kept the knife pressed into the warty mass of the tanner’s nose until he gave a very slow nod.
She spent another fruitless hour touring any haunt where Gallis or Livera might have gone, finding nothing. Eventually she forced herself to turn for home as the first glimmerings of dawn broke over the rooftops. Upon rounding the corner into Lofter’s Walk she came to an abrupt halt.
Little Dot waited on her doorstep. Although a woman of nearly twenty years Dot stood a hair over three feet tall. Her miniature features, usually so bright and cheerful, were set in a mask of grim sympathy. “My sister sent me,” she said as Derla forced herself to take a forward step, a hard ball of dread forming in her stomach. Dot’s sister, Big Dot, was both healer and mortician for much of the Varinshold criminal fraternity.
Derla managed a few more steps before coming to a halt, taking a second to steady her suddenly dizzy head as she stood staring down at Little Dot. The small woman clasped her hands together, blinking tears. She had always liked Livera, but then, so did everyone.
“She dead?” Derla asked, surprised by the calm she heard in her own voice.
“I’m so sorry, Derl…”
“Gallis?”
“Bashed up but still breathing.” Dot stepped forward, reaching out to take Derla’s hand. “C’mon,” she said and Derla allowed herself to be tugged along in numb silence. “Arrangements need to be made.”