I STILL DID NOT go to Willinghouse’s town house. Instead, I worked my way southwest across the city, using the roofs and fire escapes where possible to stay out of the alleys around the factories and tenements of the Thornhill District west of the Holymound market. There were still at least two hours till dawn, and there were certain parts of the city, parts ignored or forgotten by the members of Elitus and Merita, where it was not safe to be after dark. I reached the half-converted weaving shed on Seventh Street that I had once called home, went to the water tower above the ironmongers on the corner, and scaled it. I had spent many an hour up there in the past, usually hiding from the gang, and I could have made the ascent blindfolded. At the top I nestled onto a rusting metal gantry and curled up. I would sleep until the sun brought my former companions out to begin the morning shift. I had a job for one of them.
Tanish, now almost thirteen, had been my apprentice when I worked for the Seventh Street steeplejack gang. Life in the gang had changed over the last couple of months because the leader, Morlak, had been arrested and confined to Rivergate prison, where he would remain for the next eight years.
My doing, much of it, though I never actually testified against him in court.
The boys spilled out of the weavers’ shed just after dawn, bleary eyed, trailing satchels of tools. I watched from my vantage as they divided into their work teams for the day, nodding their wary greetings to the familiar black workers who shared the streets with them at this time—the road sweepers, milk and coal sellers with their horse-drawn wagons, the rag-and-bone man with his half-starved orlek, the flower girls who hawked their wares outside the inns of court, and the men and women who rolled barrows of fruit and vegetables to Bar-Selehm’s varying markets, some official, some less so. I was glad to see Tanish heading off down Seventh Street alone. I tailed him for three blocks, the first from the rooftops, then came down and caught up with him two roads west of the domes and minarets of Mahweni Old Town. He beamed delightedly when he saw me, then quickly doused the smile and looked away while he recovered his adolescent nonchalance. That didn’t matter. It had, I realized, been a hard night in lots of little ways, and it was good to be with someone who knew who and what I was and liked me for it, however much he pretended otherwise.
Sarn, one of the eldest remaining boys, had tried to step into Morlak’s shoes, but he didn’t have the old gang leader’s connections, and work—real steeplejack work of the kind that paid better than mere chimney sweeping—had become harder to come by. A compromise of sorts had been reached when the remnants of Seventh Street had merged—cagily—with the Westside boys, who were also short on numbers since the arrest of their leader, a man called Deveril who had, in his way, helped me in the past. The new gang was called simply New Boys, so that no one could claim precedence, and they had—said Tanish, sounding older than his years—“pooled their resources.”
“Sounds good,” I said, warily. I always wished he would find some other, less dangerous kind of work, though I had no idea what that might be. The factories hired black and Lani, but they didn’t pay them as much as the whites and tended to keep them in menial positions.
Tanish shrugged, shedding his momentary adulthood and looking lost.
“It’s not the same as it was,” he said. “I hated Morlak, but it was better before. In some ways. When you were there. I wish…”
But he was too kind a soul to actually say it. He knew how miserable I had been in the gang, and how much Sarn still hated me. Like it or not, my life had carried me away from them.
“They think you left the city,” he said at last.
“Probably for the best,” I replied. “Let’s not tell them otherwise, all right?”
He nodded.
“I went to the Drowning yesterday,” he said. “Saw your sister and her family.”
“And?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Just thought you should know.”
“Why did you go?”
He shrugged, but I could tell he was being evasive. He looked young and embarrassed, but also a little sad.
“What is it?” I asked. “Tanish?”
“When you were in the gang, it felt more like a family, you know?” he said. “Now it’s just a gang.”
But Rahvey has a family.
I nodded.
“I’m sure they’re glad to see you,” I said.
“The kids are,” he said significantly.
I grinned. If Rahvey felt any tenderness toward the boy, he would never know. My sister prided herself on her flinty exterior. She had always confused hardness with strength.
“Where are you working today?” I asked.
“Winelands bell tower,” he said. “Just a cleanup job, but it will take a few days.”
“Can I help?”
His face lit up.
“Really? You can come?”
“Something I want to talk to you about,” I said. “A job. Earn you an extra shilling or two.”
“Yeah?” he said, hope taking another year off his face.
“Yeah.” His relief surprised me. “You are doing all right, Tanish, yes? Sarn isn’t being too hard on you?”
“I’m fine,” he said, so spontaneously that I believed him, though he looked away and added, “But there is something. Not about the gang.”
“What?” I asked.
“Promise you won’t laugh?”
“Promise. Go on.”
“People have been talking. The Westsiders, mainly, but some of our boys too. They say they’ve seen … the Gargoyle.”
I didn’t laugh, but it was a near thing, and he pouted at me.
“The Gargoyle is a made-up story,” I said. “You know that. It’s a steeplejack myth that kids like Sarn use to scare the new boys, the one you get round to late at night when you’ve already told every Crane Fly legend and the one about the time Daven Saide got forgotten and was hanging for three days in his bosun’s chair on the backside of the Dock Street clock tower. It’s not real.”
“The Crane Fly was real,” he said, as if that proved him right.
“Supposedly,” I said. “But the Crane Fly was an actual person, even if we don’t know who he was. The Gargoyle was never more than a way to give little kids nightmares.”
“I know!” he protested. “And I didn’t believe in it, but Javesh, who was, like, second in command of the Westsiders before they joined us, said he saw it two nights ago way up on the old candle factory stack on Oatshill Road. Said it looked right at him. Scared him half to death, it did.”
“It’s not real, Tanish. He’s trying to wind you up.”
“He didn’t say it to me. I heard from his apprentice. All thin and gray, it was, bald too, and its teeth were like … I don’t know, like broken fangs.”
He shuddered, and I put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’ll come see you on the Winelands bell tower,” I said, “and if I see the Gargoyle, I’ll give it a smack on the nose. Sound like a plan?”
He smiled grudgingly and shrugged the moment off.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“On the south bank there are some warehouses and factories owned by blokes called Markeson, Horritch, and Montresat. Three different businesses.”
Tanish nodded immediately, the Gargoyle forgotten.
“I know them,” he said. “Down by the potteries. One of them burned, right? Horritch’s.”
“Right.”
“What do you need?”
“Just information,” I said. “Anything. But don’t ask a lot of questions. I’d rather you just watched them when you get a spare few minutes. See what they’re making, what their schedules are, who they deal with. Anything really.”
He frowned.
“Sounds a bit vague,” he said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It does, doesn’t it?”
* * *
SOCIETY MURDER! BLARED THE headline. I peered quickly at the paper that Willinghouse had flung down on the low-slung coffee table in his tasteful withdrawing room.
The cream of Bar-Selehm’s social elite were astonished to find that one of their number—Mrs. Agatha Markeson, wife of Thomas Markeson, the well-connected shipping magnate—was brutally beaten to death within the confines of one of the city’s most exclusive clubs.
Sureyna’s work, and more lurid than I would have liked.
“How did they find out so quickly?” Willinghouse asked.
“They keep watch on the police stations,” said Inspector Andrews sagely. “Come snooping around the moment officers are dispatched.”
I said nothing. Willinghouse had been his usual taciturn self since my arrival. He had scowled thoughtfully at the news that Markeson had been the sponsor of the assassin calling himself Barrington-Smythe, but the death of the industrialist’s wife—and the speed with which it had made the paper—clearly muddied the waters, as far as he was concerned.
“You shouldn’t have slipped away like that,” he said. “It looks suspicious.”
“What would you have had me do?” I protested. “I couldn’t be interviewed as Lady Misrai, could I?”
“It would have been awkward,” agreed Andrews. He had arrived at almost the same instant I had, and Dahria had come down moments later, agog to hear all that had transpired. “The investigating officer is Inspector Walter Defries: a good man in his way, but absolutely by the book,” Andrews continued. “When I left, he was looking for a contact address for Lady Misrai. He knows she—which is to say, you—couldn’t have killed Mrs. Markeson, but he wants to talk to you about why you left.”
“Sooner or later, he’s going to show up at the Istilian embassy,” said Willinghouse, squeezing his eyes shut till the hooklike scar on his cheek blanched, “who will say that they’ve never heard of such a person. It’s a mess, and if we’re not careful, it will lead back to us.”
“Do you not know anyone at the embassy who might—” I began.
“Derail a murder investigation?” snapped Willinghouse. “No, I bloody don’t.”
“Language, Josiah,” Andrews scolded. “There are ladies present.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Willinghouse returned, pointing at Dahria and me in turn. “She’s my incorrigible sister, and she’s a Lani steeplejack.”
We both stared at him.
“Which just means they’ve heard worse,” Willinghouse added hastily. “I didn’t mean they weren’t … you know … ladies.”
His embarrassment, even in the circumstances, was almost funny, but I glared at him anyway. Dahria yawned.
“I apologize,” he said curtly. “I am frustrated. This was a great deal of effort and expense for so little reward.”
“It’s a start,” I said, then turned to Andrews. “Has Inspector Defries spoken to Violet Farthingale?”
“The Markesons’ governess?” said Dahria. “Pretty girl? Breasts like the snow-capped peaks of Mount Zana?”
I grinned at her.
“He got her details, but I don’t believe he asked her anything particularly probing,” said Andrews, tearing his stunned gaze from Dahria. “Why?”
“He should,” I said.
“Governess?” asked Willinghouse.
“Lady Agatha had a child late in life,” said Dahria. “A boy, I think. Or a girl. I don’t really care.”
Andrews checked his note book, “A girl called Hyacinth,” he said, “twelve years old.”
“Hyacinth,” echoed Dahria, making a sour face. “See? I was better not knowing.”
Andrews ignored her.
“Violet Farthingale is employed to teach the girl music, needlepoint, Feldish,” he said. “The usual. Why would Defries particularly want to interview her?”
“Because she was having an affair with Thomas Markeson,” I said. “Or people thought she was.”
“Good God, how on earth do you know that?” exclaimed Dahria.
“Gossip,” I said, “and a slightly embarrassing incident before dinner.”
“How delicious!” said Dahria. “And, now that I think of Markeson, repulsive. Oh, that poor girl!”
Andrews looked at her in surprise.
“If there is even a hint that she has any connection to the murder, however indirect,” said Dahria, “our upstanding society friends will cut her dead.”
“Meaning?” I challenged.
“They won’t speak to her or acknowledge her in any way.”
I rolled my eyes, but Dahria cut me off.
“No, for one used to evading killer street gangs by climbing up chimneys, that might not sound like much,” she said. “But she will lose her position, her friends, her connections, and that means she will not find similar employment in the city. Ever. Whatever training or schooling or expertise she has will cease to have any value for those who might give her work. She will either have to leave Bar-Selehm entirely, or—since she will probably not be employable as a servant by any respectable household—she will have to find employment in a factory. You see, my dear steeplejack, the mere whisper of scandal just made her working class, and her aspirations for the future should now be calculated as if she were a black woman from the terraces of Morgessa. And no, brother, that was not a criticism of their worth, but an assessment of their opportunities.”
Humbled, I said nothing. Willinghouse, however, was undaunted.
“So this may all be a nasty little family squabble, and nothing to do with the stolen plans after all?” he said, even more dissatisfied.
“I’m not so sure,” I said, thinking about what Sureyna had said about the oddity of coincidence where Elitus was concerned. “I doubt Violet Farthingale beat Agatha to death, even if they were rivals for Thomas Markeson’s affections, something which is—frankly—hard to believe.”
“Hard to believe?” Andrews prompted.
Dahria and I looked at him.
“Markeson is a rich and respected man,” said Willinghouse. “Those are powerful attractions to young women.”
“Know a lot about what attracts young women, do you?” I asked.
He flushed.
“Markeson looks like a newly spitted pig,” said Dahria. “If Violet Farthingale was having any kind of relationship with him, it was to feather her own nest. More likely the great shipping magnate wanted to dock one of his barges in her—”
“Dahria!” exclaimed Willinghouse, genuinely shocked.
I bit back a laugh. Dahria was unabashed.
“It’s true,” she said.
“You shouldn’t impugn other ladies with your sour attitude to the male sex,” muttered Willinghouse.
“It’s not my attitude that’s sour,” said Dahria, her lips pouting in a moue of distaste.
“Perhaps if you were a little more accommodating,” said Willinghouse, nettled, “you’d have more suitors.”
“Then God keep me less accommodating,” said Dahria.
In the circumstances, I was surprised that Willinghouse allowed himself to be drawn into so private a spat in our presence, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“I swear, Dahria, that you delight in tormenting men,” he sputtered.
“If so,” she said, “it is well deserved. But no, dear brother, the torment is all mine.” She smiled privately, mischievously, as if at some secret joke, and as she lowered her face, her eyes met mine and held them. Her hazel eyes twinkled significantly, though I was far from clear what she meant and was almost relieved when Andrews pulled us back to the matter at hand.
“Miss Farthingale would never admit to any involvement with Markeson, actual or imagined,” said Andrews. “Not to the police. It would destroy her reputation either way.”
“Maybe she would talk to Dahria?” suggested Willinghouse. “Assuming my sister could keep a decent tongue in her head.”
“Confess her indiscretions to a fellow society lady?” Dahria scoffed. “One from whom the very existence of Merita has been carefully kept secret? I swear, Joss, I wonder sometimes what world you actually live in.”
I considered her. She had made light of the discovery that Elitus had a secret sister institution, but it made certain truths about Bar-Selehm society uncomfortably clear, and I felt sure she was, in her own way, upset by it.
“Violet might speak to me,” I said.
The others stared at me.
“You?” asked Willinghouse.
“Not Anglet Sutonga,” I said, “but Lady Ki Misrai, an esteemed person who witnessed her humiliation but is not part of Bar-Selehm society.”
“I thought that identity had gone down the river?” said Dahria.
“It will,” I said, “but it will take time for the police to get to the embassy and more time for whatever they learn to become public knowledge. If I change now, and Inspector Andrews were to take me—”
“Go,” said Willinghouse.