Isle of Blood and Stone Page 15

  “Has something happened at the castle? A mishap? I will fix it immediat—”

  “It is nothing like that.” Mercedes straightened the monkey’s hat. “I’m looking for information only. And your discretion.”

  Galena’s confusion deepened. “Always, Lady.”

  Mercedes had already decided to trust her. Mistress Galena had always been kind to her and, more important, to her mother. Demanding of the castle servants, but fair. Also, she did not tolerate idle chatter and telltales. “You’ve been in my family’s service for many years now. . . . How many?”

  “Forty, Lady. Since I was ten. I started in the scullery.”

  Jorge stirred, and Mercedes stroked his back. “Then you were in Cortes the day the princes disappeared?”

  Mistress Galena pulled the sheet higher. Whatever questioning she had expected, this had not been it. “I was not,” she said. “Back then, I managed the king and queen’s summer home.”

  Mercedes was surprised. “You’re from Esperanca?”

  “Yes, Lady. I was summoned here to replace Madame Fe after the . . . great tragedy.”

  “Replace her? Why?”

  Mistress Galena was somber. “Fe was a widow with three children. Two girls and a boy. They were in service that day, sent with the princes.”

  Mercedes’s hand stilled on the monkey’s back, struck with horror. “All three?”

  “Yes,” was Galena’s quiet response. “Not one of them reached their eighteenth year. Fe lost her wits that night. That is why I was sent for. No one else was qualified on so little notice.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “No, Lady. The king and queen showed her every possible kindness. They gave her a home and a nurse in the parish of St. Michel. She died ten years ago.”

  The murky waters surrounding the missing servant girl cleared a little. Mistress Galena waited patiently as Mercedes worked through her thoughts. The monkey woke, yawning and stretching on her lap. “Hello, Jorge,” she said absently. To Galena, “Would there be a record of the servants who traveled with the entourage that day?”

  Mistress Galena looked thoughtful. “Certainly. I will look at once. Though it may take a little time.”

  “Do what you’re able, and take my thanks with you.” Here it became tricky, siphoning off information that she would prefer to keep close. “I’m looking for a female who would have gone on the picnic and disappeared in the chaos afterward. Someone who might have been missed.”

  Mistress Galena stared. “You think . . . ? I don’t understand. The servants were all buried by their families.”

  Mercedes wanted to say, Were they? Who says? Madame Fe? She said only, “It was a confusing time. For everyone. I would like to know for certain.”

  Elias did not try to find Judge Piri at his home. It was midmorning already, late hours for a maritime judge. Instead, he went to look for him at the waterfront.

  Del Mar’s harbor was a vast, sprawling affair, shaped like a half-moon, thick with people and commerce. Every ship one could imagine was anchored here: sleek galleys and tubby cogs, fishing vessels and pearling dhows. Sturdy, battered junks. A crane rose above a carrack, with its forecastle and sterncastle, hoisting heavier goods from the ship and lowering them onto the dock. Elias eyed the crane wobbling in midair and prudently moved out of harm’s way. Better not to tempt fate. Out of habit, he searched for his own ship, unsurprised to find it missing. The Amaris would have sailed north already for repairs at the royal shipyard near Esperanca.

  He wound his way past market men and women doing brisk business. This one selling the cheap tin trinkets that turned one’s fingers green, that one hawking fried fish, mussels, and prawns. A row of beggars crouched against a wall, bowls extended and flies buzzing about tattered robes. Just past them, three imposing buildings rose from the very center of the harbor: the Guild of Mariners, the House of Trade, and the Court of Sea Affairs. Elias headed toward the last.

  People flowed in and out of the courts like the tide. No one ever looked happy to be here. Not the stern-faced men in robes or the ships’ officers with their ramrod postures. Not the shipman leaning against a stone pillar and biting his fingernails down to nothing. The court oversaw all manner of legalities involving the sea: missing cargo and stolen cargo and spoiled cargo. Insurance claims and counterclaims. Complaints leveled against captains, accusations of mutiny. Elias had just passed beneath the center archway when he saw Judge Piri hurrying his way.

  The judge was in his middle years, short and fat; rolls of excess flesh hung from his chin. His robes were more crimson than red. The judge did not see Elias at first. He was too busy barking at his clerk.

  “What do you mean, he’s not here?” the judge demanded. “Where is he? Why am I paying a translator who is not here to translate?”

  “My lord judge,” the harried-looking clerk said. “Master Duarte’s father died two days ago.”

  “And?”

  “And? Er . . . and he’s gone to be with his mother. To comfort her during her time of grief.”

  The judge’s sigh was long and irritated. As he drew closer, Elias heard him say, “Families. Such a nuisance.”

  “Judge Piri,” Elias said before the judge could walk past.

  Both men stopped. The clerk bowed. Judge Piri took in Elias’s wounds, new and old. And leaped to conclusions. His scowl deepened. “Lord Elias. Another fight, I see. Whose fault was it this time?” “Not mine, sir,” Elias said, and, when the judge snorted, “May I have a word?”

  “You may,” the judge answered. Elias and the clerk fell into step beside him. They headed directly toward the water. “But it will have to wait until I’ve found myself a translator, as it is far beneath the capabilities of my clerk.”

  Elias spared a sympathetic look for the red-faced clerk. He thought fast. If Judge Piri slipped away now, he might lose his only chance to question him today. He asked, “What sort of translator?”

  “The ship is from Caffa,” the judge said. “There’s some dispute with the cargo, which must be seen to at once, I’m told. No one understands a word the captain is saying.”

  “I speak Caffeesh,” Elias said.

  The judge glanced at him sidelong. “Fluently?”

  “Yes. I can translate, if I may have a word afterward.”

  The clerk sent Elias a grateful look, and, mollified, the judge said, “Agreed.”

  Elias surveyed the vessels rocking at the water’s edge. “Which ship is it?”

  “It’s just there, Lord Elias.” The clerk pointed to a handsome caravel with triangular lateen sails and a name painted near the prow in a flowing, womanly script.

  “The Flying Stag,” the judge read, and grimaced. “Ridiculous.”

  The cargo was ruined. The captain was, too, though he did not know it yet. It was all because of the rats.

  Elias stood in the Flying Stag’s cramped hold and tried to breathe through his mouth. The chamber had room enough for two shipmen to work comfortably among the barrels and crates. At present, he shared the space with five others on a day growing rapidly hotter: Judge Piri and his clerk; the Flying Stag’s captain and his clerk; and William the Spicer, a del Marian whose family had traded in spice and pepper for generations. The pleasing scent emanating from the spices was overpowered by nervous, stinking sweat and the unmistakable presence of Coronad rat droppings.

  Judge Piri was the first to speak, in del Marian. “Lord Elias, ask this puppy how long he’s been in command of this ship.” The judge’s clerk had turned the top of a cask into a temporary desk, complete with inkpots and quills he’d requisitioned from the captain’s quarters. He scribbled away, recording every word spoken, stopping occasionally to dab away at the beads of perspiration on his forehead.

  Elias turned to the captain. He was younger by a year or two and looked near collapse, his face the color of salt, his formal captain’s attire drenched in sweat and lost dignity. Elias translated the judge’s words, leaving out the puppy reference and rep
eating the question twice before the captain finally stammered a response.

  Elias tried not to let his surprise show. “He says three months,” he said, and, ignoring the oaths spewing from William the Spicer, added, “He inherited the captaincy after his father and brothers died last winter. He was not intended for the sea.”

  “Clearly,” the judge said, his expression severe. “What was his livelihood before this disaster?”

  Elias winced at the captain’s answer. “He was studying to be a sculptor.”

  “A sculptor!” This outburst came from William the Spicer. He was only a handful of years older than Elias, but his face was so red and the vein ticking at his temple so pronounced that Elias worried for his heart. The spicer’s rage was understandable. He had likely waited many months for this shipment to arrive, and it was a common practice to pay for the whole order in advance. The spice crates filled the hold floor to beam, full of clove, nutmeg, mace, and others that would have been worth a fortune . . . had Coronad death rats not found their way into the crates and left behind enough droppings to fertilize the royal orchards of del Mar.

  Master William sputtered, “This is contemptible! I’ve sunk a fortune into this shipment. A fortune! My lord judge, I demand recompense! I demand—”

  “I’m well aware of why we’re here,” Judge Piri said. “There’s no need to shout it at me. Lord Elias, tell the captain to show us the cats.”

  Elias’s heart dropped when he translated the order and saw the blank look on the captain’s face.

  “Cats?” the captain repeated. “What cats?”

  Despite the barrier of language, his words needed no translation.

  “Is he simple?” Judge Piri asked no one in particular. William the Spicer sagged against an open crate filled with pepper and rat droppings and moaned.

  “I think he just doesn’t know our laws,” Elias said, adjusting the carrier on his shoulder. His shirt stuck to his back. “Should I explain?”

  Judge Piri nodded. Elias turned to the captain. “Sir, all ships sailing within the Sea of Magdalen must carry a minimum of two cats on board.”

  “But why?”

  “They keep down the rat population,” Elias said. “It’s very important when you’re transporting perishable goods. The animals must be officially documented by the ship’s clerk”—he glanced at the captain’s terrified clerk, who clutched an oversize sea register to his chest—“before departure, with the rest of the cargo. If your man can show that you brought the animals on board at the start of this voyage but the cats subsequently died, then you will not be held responsible, as the damage did not occur due to your negligence. The law is written in the Magdalen Sea Codes, Article 20.”

  The captain swallowed several times. “And if there are no cats?”

  Elias was very careful not to look at the spice crates. “Then the captain of the vessel will be held liable for all loss.”

  The captain swung toward his clerk and spoke in low, urgent tones. Like the captain, the clerk was just a boy. In fact, everyone on this ship was uncommonly young. Where were the more seasoned sailors? The officers? Elias wondered if the captain had replaced them with younger men who would not question his lack of experience. He had seen it done before.

  While the spice merchant fumed and the judge sighed his impatience, the Caffeesh captain ordered the clerk to examine his book and produce evidence of cats. The clerk kept shaking his head and repeating himself: There are no cats on board, Captain. There never have been. Both men looked ill.

  Finally, the captain turned to Elias. He said softly, “The cats . . . we did not know.”

  William the Spicer was incensed. He shouted, “That is his defense? Every fool knows you need rat catchers—”

  The captain interrupted in a flurry of rapid Caffeesh.

  “What did he say?” Judge Piri demanded.

  Elias paused long enough to give the captain a disgusted look. All pity for him vanished. “He says the droppings can be removed. His crew will pick them out and the spices can still be used. No one would have to know, outside this ship.”

  A tense silence fell. Realizing his error, the captain backed up against a wall of crates. Judge Piri’s expression had turned thunderous. He said, “Tell this puppy this: St. John del Mar is not some savage outpost. We do not give our people food touched by rat filth. Particularly Coronad rat filth, which is poisonous.”

  Elias translated. A rat made an appearance just then, emerging from behind a crate. For a Coronad death rat, it was average only, its length roughly equal to Elias’s forearm. The rat’s eyes were cloudy, like an old, old man’s, and its fur was the dark, matted green of seaweed. The rat, bold and curious, sniffed at the Caffeesh clerk’s boots, and the clerk, already rattled, screamed. The rat scuttled out of sight, claws scraping against wood.

  “I’ve seen enough,” Judge Piri said. Heat and anger had turned his face the same color as his robes. “Ignorance of the law is no defense in this kingdom. It is the court’s decision that the captain will reimburse Master William what is owed for the cargo. Master William, what is your loss?”

  Elias’s mouth fell open at the figure William the Spicer named. The captain swayed, then said, “Sirs, I do not have it.”

  The judge heard Elias’s translation and was unsurprised. “Can you send for it?”

  The captain shook his head. He met no one’s eyes.

  The judge said, “There’s no choice, then. The . . . Flying Stag will be sold, immediately. Proceeds will go first to pay wages to the crew and their passage home. What remains will go to Master William.”

  “It is not nearly enough,” the spice merchant whispered. “It is a fraction of what I paid.”

  Judge Piri gave him a pointed look. “Have you insurance?”

  The merchant’s answer was to close his eyes. When he opened them a moment later and leveled a malicious look at the captain, Elias guessed his intent. He shoved Judge Piri out of harm’s way as William the Spicer grabbed a crate full of worthless, sullied pepper and flung the contents across the hold, directly into the captain’s face.

  The morning had not gone as Elias had intended. There was some delay and screaming as fresh water was located to flush out the captain’s eyes, which had taken on a grisly appearance. The whites had gone red with inflammation, much like Judge Piri’s robes. William the Spicer had been hustled from the Flying Stag by the harbor guards and thrown into a cell in the lower reaches of the Court of Sea Affairs. The judge might have overlooked the merchant flinging pepper at the sea captain in a fit of rage, but if Elias had not acted quickly, Judge Piri would have suffered the same fate. And for that, he was far less forgiving.

  “Well, Elias,” the judge said now, “what is this about?”

  They were in the thick of the harbor, waiting for a food seller to prepare their lunch. The woman made a living selling baby molluscs. The sea creature resembled a miniature octopus, roughly twelve inches in length from the top of its head to the tips of its sixteen tentacles. Its color rivaled that of a pure stone emerald, and while the mollusc was firmly impaled on a sharpened stick, it was so fresh as to be not quite dead. The eyes had drifted shut, but the tentacles rose and fell in a slow, lazy motion, as if it believed itself to be under the water still.

  Elias exchanged payment for three molluscs on skewers, offered two to the judge, and said, “I wanted to ask about Felip of Mondrago.”

  The judge leveled a sharp glance at the food seller, but she had already turned away to help the next customer. He studied Elias, frowning, then said, “Let’s walk.”

  They wound their way past numerous languages and dialects; past Lunesian shipmen disembarking from a ship, trunks carried on their shoulders; past an old gypsy woman sitting on a crate, smoking a pipe with her face tilted upward, basking in the warmth of the sun.

  Judge Piri was in no hurry to speak. He bit off the end of a tentacle. The mollusc emitted a short, sharp squeal, then fell abruptly silent, every tentacle falling li
mp. The judge swallowed, made a satisfied sound, and finally said, “The infamous Felip of Mondrago. A curious topic. An old one. What is your interest?”

  Elias thought of Lady Esma: Mondragans? Those men weren’t from Mondrago. They were del Marian. He knew he would not endear himself to Judge Piri with a lie. How many did a judge have to listen to in a single day? No, an outright lie would not do. But a half-truth was not the same thing.

  “I never knew my father,” Elias said. “I suppose I’d like to know as much about him as I can. Including how he died. It’s not something I can ask my mother.”

  “No. But there’s not much I can tell you.”

  Elias said, “I’ve spoken to the king. I’m to say you may speak freely here.”

  The judge was silent for a time, concentrating on his mollusc, never a simple creature to chew. He asked, “How old were you then? Two years?”

  “A year.”

  “Only a year.” Judge Piri looked off toward the ships. “A pity. A child should know his father.”

  There was an odd note to the judge’s voice. Elias tried to recall what he knew of him. Not very much. Only that he was a widower. No children.

  The judge tossed his stick, licked clean, to the ground and said, “Felip of Mondrago confessed. He knew details only the guilty would know.”

  “What details?”

  The judge made good headway on his second skewer before answering. “He was a soldier in the Mondragan army,” he said. “Not high-ranking. One night he, along with several other soldiers, were summoned to a secret meeting with their king, who made them an offer. Gold and estates, more wealth than they could dream of, in exchange for one simple task.”

  Elias’s mollusc remained untouched. “Kidnapping our princes?”

  “Yes,” Judge Piri answered. “They were to sail to del Mar and keep to themselves until they heard from a fellow countryman here. Country woman,” he corrected. “A Mondragan within the del Marian court who would give them further instructions.”

  “That would have been their ambassador?”