Shadows Linger

“Me, too. I’m out of debt. I can refurbish the Lily, set my mother up in her own place, and have plenty to make it next winter, no matter what business is like. I’m going to forget that castle exists.”

“I don’t think so, Shed. You want to get away from it, better come with me. It’ll always be calling when you want some fast money.”

“I couldn’t leave. I have to look out for my mother.”

“AH right. I warned you.” Then Raven asked, “What about Asa? He’s going to be a problem. The Custodians are going to keep looking till they find the people who raided the Catacombs. He’s the weak link.”

“I can handle Asa.”

“I hope so, Shed. I hope so.”

Krage’s disappearance was the talk of the Buskin. Shed played a baffled role, claiming he knew nothing, despite rumors to the contrary. His story held up. He was Shed the coward. The one man who knew differently did not contradict him.

The hard part was facing his mother. Old June said nothing, but her blind stare was accusing. She made him feel evil, an infidel, and disowned in the secret reaches of her mind. The gap had become unbridgable.

Chapter Sixteen

Juniper

Nasty surprise

Bullock looked me up next time he wanted to go downhill. Maybe he just wanted company. He had no local friends.

“What’s up?” I asked when he barged into my tiny office cum dispensary.

“Get your coat. Buskin time again.”

His eagerness excited me for no reason other than that I was bored with Duretile. I pitied my comrades. They hadn’t yet had a chance to get out. The place was a drudge.

So away we went, and going down the hill, past the Enclosure, I asked, “Why all the excitement?”

He replied, “Not really excitement. Not even anything to do with us, probably. Remember that sweetheart of a moneylender?”

“In the bandages?”

“Yeah. Krage. He’s vanished. Him and half of his boys. Seems he took a crack at the guy who cut him. And hasn’t been seen since.”

I frowned. That did not seem remarkable. Gangsters are always disappearing, then popping up again.

“Over there.” Bullock pointed to some brush along the Enclosure wall. “That’s where our men got inside.” He indicated a stand of trees across the way. “Parked their wagons there. We’ve got a witness who saw those. Filled with wood, he says. Come on.

I’ll show you.” He pushed into the brush, dropped to hands and knees. I followed, grumbling because I was getting wet. The north wind did nothing to improve matters.

The interior of the Enclosure was seedier than its exterior. Bullock showed me several dozen bundles of wood found in the brush near the breach.

“Looks like they were moving a lot.”

“I figure they needed a lot to cover the bodies. Cut it up there.” He indicated trees above us, back toward Duretile. The castle stood limned against streamers of cloud, a grey stone rockpile one earth tremor short of collapse.

I examined the bundles. Bullock’s associates had dragged them out and stacked them, which may not have been smart detective work. Looked to me like they had been cut and bundled over a period of weeks. Some ends were more weathered than others. I mentioned that to Bullock.

“I noticed. Way I figure, somebody was getting wood regular. They found the Catacombs by accident. That’s when they got greedy.”

“Uhm.” I considered the woodpile. “Figure they were selling it?”

“No. That we know. Nobody has been selling Enclosure wood. Probably a family or a group of neighbors using the wood themselves.”

“You check on wagon rentals?”

“How stupid do you think people are? Rent a wagon for a raid on the Catacombs?”

I shrugged. “We’re counting on one of them being stupid, aren’t we?”

He admitted, “You’re right. It should be checked. But it’s hard when I’m the only one who has guts enough to do legwork in the Buskin. I’m hoping we get lucky somewhere else. If I have to, I’ll cover it. When there’s nothing more pressing.”

“I see the place where they got in?” I asked.

He wanted to tell me no. Instead, he said, “It’s a fair hike. Use up an hour. I’d rather go sniff around this Krage thing while it’s hot.”

I shrugged. “Some other time, then.”

We got down into Krage’s territory and started rambling.

Bullock still had a few contacts left from his boyhood. Coaxed properly, with a few gersh, they would talk. I was not allowed to sit in. I spent the time sipping beer in a tavern where they alternately fawned over my money and acted like I had the plague. When asked, I did not deny being an Inquisitor.

Bullock joined me. “Maybe we don’t have anything after all. There’s all kinds of rumors. One says his own men did him in. One says it was his competition. He’s a little pushy with his neighbors.” He accepted a mug of wine on the house, something I hadn’t seen him do before. I put it down to preoccupation.

“There’s one angle we can check. He was obsessed about getting some foreigner who made a fool of him in public. There’s some say the same foreigner was the man who cut him up.” He took out a list and began to peruse it. “Not going to be a lot there for us, I expect. The night Krage disappeared there was a lot of whoop and holler. Not a single eyewitness, of course.” He gri

“What have you got there?”

“A list of people who were maybe getting wood out of the Enclosure. Some might have seen each other. I was thinking I might find something interesting if I compared their stories.” He waved for more wine. This time he paid, and covered the first mug, too, though the house would have forgiven him payment. I got the impression Juniper’s people were used to giving Custodians anything they wanted. Bullock simply had a sense of ethics, at least where the people of the Buskin were concerned. He would not make their lives harder than they already were.

I could not help liking him on some levels.

“You’re not going to pursue the Krage thing, then?”

“Oh, yeah. Of course. The bodies are missing. But that’s not unusual. Probably turn up across the river in a couple days, if they’re dead. Or screaming for blood if they’re not.” He tapped a name on his list. “This guy hangs around the same place.

Maybe I’ll talk to this guy

Raven while I’m there.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Who?”

He looked at me strangely. I forced myself to relax, to look casual. His eyebrows dropped. “Guy named Raven.

The foreigner who was supposed to be feuding with Krage.

Hangs out the same place as this one guy on my wood-gatherer’s list. Maybe I’ll ask him a few questions.” “Raven. Unusual name. What do you know about him?” “Just that he’s a foreigner and supposed to be bad news.

Been around a couple years. Typical drifter. Hangs out with the Crater crowd.”

The Crater crowd were the Rebel refugees who had established themselves in Juniper.

“Do me a favor? It’s a long shot, but this guy could be the ghost I was talking about the other day. Stand off a ways. Pretend you never heard the name. But get me a physical description. And find out if he’s got anybody with

him.”

Bullock frowned. He didn’t like it. “Is it important?”

“I don’t know. It could be.”

“All right.”

“Keep the whole thing under your hat if you can.”

“This guy means something to you, eh?”

“If he’s the guy I knew, that I thought was dead, yeah. Him and me got business.”

He smiled. “Personal?”

I nodded. I was feeling my way now. This was touchy. If this was my Raven, I had to go careful. I didn’t dare let him get caught in the coils of our operation. He knew too damned much. He could get half the Company officers and noncoms put to the question. And made dead.