19. New Developments

33rd of Nima

After debating and discussing all of our options, NaVarre and I came to an uneasy agreement. The best tactic would be to make sure that none of Arramy's men knew what we knew. Which meant we had to treat them exactly the same as we had before. Arramy would be staying with us, where NaVarre could keep an eye on him, while also keeping him in the dark. If he was the traitor, that connection was a valuable way to feed misinformation to the enemy. If he wasn't, he was in contact with whoever was, which still meant we could use him.

Meanwhile, on the 32nd, NaVarre went back to Nim K to find out more about Arramy's crew from his sources in the Enlistment Bureau, and to discover what had happened to the twenty men that had gone with us to the Vault. 

While he was gone, a few of those twenty men managed to make it back to the plantation. Penweather, one of the marines, and a handful of pirates came straggling in on the night of the 32nd, alive, dirty, and disguised as day laborers. That brought the number of Arramy's men up to four, Arramy included. With NaVarre's pirates, that meant nine of the twenty who had gone in had gotten out.

Late that night, NaVarre returned from Nim K late on the 32nd with the news that Raggan wasn't going to be one of those men. His body had been found in that alley, and his corpse had been loaded onto the poverstricke wagon. Since no one had claimed him by the end of that first day, he was thrown in the poor pit at the edge of town right along with the rest of the victims of the manhunt. 

I couldn't make myself feel it. Raggan was gone. Father was gone. Aunt Sapphine was gone. My friends, my life, the people on the Island, there were too many gone, too large a number. I couldn't make it real in my head. It was just the way things were, now.

I couldn't bear to sit still. Sleep was fleeting, ragged, and ultimately pointless, so when the sun rose this morning, I marched into NaVarre's study for the third day in a row, intent on combing the early entries in Obyrron's journal again for any spare tidbits I might have missed the day before.

When I came in, NaVarre was already sitting at his desk, a pile of papers in front of him. He looked like he had been in that chair all night. His hair showed signs of finger-raking, his eyes were dark-ringed from lack of sleep, and his shirt was rumpled. Someone had brought him a breakfast tray, but he hadn't touched anything other than the urn of hot Praidani. 

Moving quietly, I found Obyrron's journal, got myself a cup of tea, and claimed one of the armchairs. 

NaVarre gave me a small nod and went right back to what he had been doing. Every once in a while he would refer to a small black ledger, jot some notes, then return to the documents. Occasionally I turned a page or sipped some tea. We had been working in silence for quite a while when suddenly NaVarre let out a low whistle.

I glanced up.

He was eyeing the groups of papers strewn across his desk. Then he bent forward, quickly rifling through a stack of manifests to find a specific record. He compared that with the business listings from Nimkoruguithu. After a moment he sat back, eyebrows raised, and ran his hand through his already-mussed hair. 

"What is it?" 

He pursed his lips, his brows still high. "I... may have just found something."

I got up and came around the rakai table to stand on the other side of his desk. 

"This Fairgiver Provisions and Mercantile..." He pointed at one of the manifests from the third binder. "It's listed as the sender of two of the bins in this last group Obyrron mentioned, the ones they threw overboard after Razzar died." He pointed at the business listings quarterly. "Fairgiver P&M is the transport arm for a group of international enterprises called Casserides Incorporated. One of those enterprises is Aaridan Warehousing, which is owned by Lord Reixham. That's important later." 

NaVarre stood and pulled a sheet of clean paper from his stationary tray, scribbling the name Reixham at the top. "Now, this is where it starts getting interesting. Fairgiver is owned by Lord Delmyrre. Ten years ago, Delmyrre bought a seat on the Arritagne Grand Magistrates Bureau for Councilor Kerriwidge." Another line to the side. "Councilor Kerriwidge employs a thug named Tal Soult to run his tea plantation in South Altyr — the same tea plantation half a dozen of the girls on Aethscaul came from." 

He wrote down Tal Soult, then added two more lines, and two more names. "Now, I cannot prove any of this, but rumor has it that a man named Sartero Pha Mun-Ghour is in debt up to his eyeballs to Tal Soult. I found that out when Sartero popped up as the owner of a property in Tetton known for Shadow Road activity. Sartero's brother, Desmodian, just so happens to own a small-time overland freight line... and according to his signature as the delivering agent on several of your father's documents, his freight line does regular contract work for..." he drew a line back toward Delmyrre. "Fairgiver P&M."

NaVarre paused, surveying his little circle of connections. "So. Tal Soult is Livestock Procurement. Sartero and his farm would be the first stop on the Shadow Road. Desmodian is the Shipping Master." He sat back and pursed his lips. "Fairgiver gives us Lord Delmyrre, and that connection gives us Arridan Warehousing. Arridan Warehousing gives us Reixham. Delmyrre is rich, but not upper echelon of the Circle of Lords rich. Reixham is squarely upper echelon and would never mix socially with Delmyrre, but he does fit right into the Coventry." NaVarre tilted his head, then slowly drew a line from Reixham to the blank area at the top of the page. "I never could prove it before, but now, thanks to your father, I've got an arrow pointing straight at him... and... for the first time... I might have a way to get close." 

He stopped talking abruptly and looked up at me with that calculating glint that I had come to recognize all too well.

I gave him a suspicious squint. "What?" 

"Reixham always throws an end-of-season party for members of the Circle. Very hush-hush, private invitation only, extremely high security, everyone wants to go. My father being who he is, my family is always invited." His eyes narrowed in speculation. "I've gone once before, but I went alone and spent the entire evening fending off romantic advances. I couldn't even make it past the circularri." He tilted his head, his gaze moving down my person, then back up to my face. "I needed a woman on my arm, someone who could discourage such... interest. But I didn't have a woman I could trust to pull it off. Until now."

With a start, I realized what he was saying. "You want me to go with you?"

NaVarre lifted a brow, still studying me intently. "Yes. Absolutely. You'd be perfect." He quirked a little grin.

A weight began settling on my shoulders. I swallowed. "And if you go to this party, will you be able to find out who is running the Coventry?" 

His grin faded to a serious line. "There's a good chance, yes. More than a good chance, if I'm right about Reixham." 

I was nodding as if everything made perfect sense, while that weight on my shoulders grew, dragging at my bones. I took a breath, letting it out as I looked at the floor. 

"I won't lie. It's not going to be easy," he said quietly. "This won't be anything like the Harvest Balls you're used to. These people aren't a bunch of polite society mammas sitting around a drawing room, sipping mulled punch and gossiping. If you make even a tiny mistake they will turn on you... and your job will be to keep them distracted while I slip away from the party."

I pictured Ydara and Jinny and Grenna standing side by side in the Dormitory courtyard. Char, hiding her food. The boy with the broken legs. My father. Obyrron. As if from a distance I heard myself say, "I'm in. I'll do it." It was a strange mix, that absolute certainty and the intense weariness that followed.

Silence fell. 

NaVarre shifted his weight. Then he cleared his throat. "Thank you." Suddenly he straightened and drummed his hands on the top of his desk. "Well, I, for one, have had enough of this mess for the moment. I vote we go do something fun. Get out of here. How does that sound?"

I didn't say anything. 

"Good? Good. Go on up to your rooms. I've sent something up for you. Meet me back in the hall in an hour. I'll have Cook prepare a bag lunch."

~~~

Circularri: (serk-oo-lah-ree). A large, elaborately decorated central conversation room common in Lodesian high society architecture, designed to show off the wealth of the owner. It is the first room accessed from the public entrance, and is often round, with other passages leading off of it. Newer construction may have a dome overhead, but in older estates the roof is left open in the middle. Only those accepted into the owner's inner-most circle are allowed past the circularri and into the rest of the house, thus the phrase, "I'm past the circularri" connotes having an in with someone powerful or rich, having good prospects, or having a reliable source of income or information.