Dragon Clan #7: Shell’s Story

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

River said, “Ships that used to sail across the sea are available at bargain prices. There are three of them that can be had, that I know of, but one is in such bad condition from years of neglect I wouldn’t trust it. A second has a skipper who drinks far too much and wants a small fortune for his ship. The third has an owner who once had a thriving business sailing across the sea and back, but now he tries to compete with local coastal ships that carry smaller cargoes and have tiny crews, so his ship sails half empty.”

“Tell us more about the third one,” Shell said.

“Rumors say he’s about to lose his ship, home, and anything else to debt, and selling all that won’t begin to cover what he owes. He and his wife and children will be sold into servitude to pay the debts within a few ten-days.”

Camilla said, “He should never have borrowed.”

River said, “True, but if my family agrees to let me use the money to pay off his debts, he should be willing to let us use his ship for our needs. If not, we can let him and his family be sold into slavery, and we can still buy the ship from the creditors, probably at a cheaper price. We might even buy him on the auction block, or we can hire a new captain from down on the wharfs.”

Camilla settled back and allowed the three plates of apple cobbler be placed in front of her. She distributed them, and Shell, who had never tasted cinnamon and sugar. From the aroma, he found himself more interested in the pie than conversation.

Shell tasted the cobbler and decided it was the best food he’d ever eaten. He looked up at River and said, “You seem a nice man on the surface, but beneath that is a ruthlessness I’ve never encountered, so I don’t know what to think. You will let the man and his family be sold into servitude without a qualm?”

“I don’t know him, didn’t advise him to borrow so heavily, and it is no concern of mine. If he agrees to sail where we want, so be it. If not, that is his choice.” River spooned pie into his mouth as if that ended the subject.

Shell said, “We should speak to him. Camilla?”

She set aside her spoon and looked at River. “When do you hope to hear from the Raging Mountains?”

“A month, at most.”

“A lot can happen in a month. The war may be over, or our family on the other ship may be in dire straits. The owner of this ship and his family may be sold into servitude, and the ship auctioned to others. How much does a ship of that kind cost?”

River snorted, as said as if speaking of a fortune, “At least three gold standards. He also has half that again in debt.”

Shell cut in quickly, “I’m from far away. How big is a gold standard?”

River made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, a circle much smaller than Shell expected. Within the money they had taken from the cabin, there were a dozen gold coins of the size he indicated and more that were larger or smaller. That didn’t even count the silver. He glanced at Camilla. We can buy five or six ships, maybe more.

Camilla said, “You’re telling me to have the captain and the ship, a buyer would have to pay for the ship and half that again to free the owner so he could sail her? That is not a good business deal if you ask me.”

Shell said, “Do you personally know this owner?”

“No, why?”

“I may have five gold coins that size, and few of silver, too.”

Camilla said, “Only fools would pay that much.”

“There is a lender who will get little if the captain and family are sold on the auction block, and then the ship becomes another liability the lender has to sell. But before we talk of that, you two had better eat your cobbler or there will be hell to pay when Rachael comes back.”

A pair of men entered and shouted for ale before the door slammed shut, obviously old customers. Not long after, three more men entered, talking loudly and teasing each other. Camilla suggested they pay Rachael and go back to their rooms and continue their talks.

The day had vanished while eating and talking, and a cool evening settled over Fleming. Many people out walking wore sweaters or light jackets, but there were almost as many people on the streets as during the day. Oil lamps attached to stone or brick walls glowed at almost every street corner, and more between. Most of the nicer doorways had a lamp providing a cheerful yellow light.

But as they approached the rooming house, there were no lights in the small windows. Shell caught a glimpse of a shadow as someone stood from the chair on the porch where the spy had sat earlier, and it disappeared into the darker shadows between the buildings.

Camilla said, “That’s odd.”

“Did you see him slip into the alley?” Shell asked.

“No,” Camilla said. “No candles or lamps inside.”

They paused in the center of the street, searching for danger. River split away from them and moved carefully closer to the far wall of the building, while Shell was more direct and pulled his knife. People on the street either circled well around them or drew back to observe, sensing something was about to happen. Soon a semicircle of people stood silently and watched the three creep up to the front door, but only after making sure the narrow alleys on both sides of the building were safe.

Camilla eased the door open and left it for the others to follow. Shell hesitated, watching the crowd, looking for the spy, or anything else out of place in the group. The silent reaction of the crowd raised the hackles of the neck. They neither seemed responsible, nor willing to offer help.

“Shell!”

The shout from inside the rooming house snapped his attention to Camilla’s voice, and he ran inside. The woman who rented the rooms lay sprawled on the floor near the chair where she sat and knitted. River was sparking his flint, lighting an oil lamp. A dark stain surrounded the woman’s head. Camilla knelt at her side.

“She’s alive,” Camilla said.

River held the lamp closer as the flame took hold and threw back the darkness. The woman’s face was pale, her breathing slow and shallow, but the blood pool had almost dried and was not expanding.

River sat the lamp on the floor and leaped to the front door, and outside. He shouted to the crowd, “We need a doctor and constable.”

Shell found where the blood oozed from a cut on the woman’s head, and on the floor beside her a stick of firewood larger around than his arm. “Don’t move her until a doctor gets here.”

River didn’t return, but an unknown woman entered and announced, “I am a nurse. Let me see her.”

Shell got out of the way. The new arrival probed the wound with gentle fingers and snapped, “Where’s her bedroom?”

“I’ll find out,” Shell said and ran into the rear of the house. He knew only four doors were upstairs, none of them hers, so she must live on the ground floor. One door took him to the kitchen. Oddly, the rear door stood wide open. The second door was a bedroom. “In here.”

The nurse said to Camilla, “You take her feet. Your man and I will lift her shoulders and carry her.”

Shell and Camilla traded places. They lifted, but the woman was short and thin, so she weighed almost nothing. After a few steps they placed her on a bed and Shell was told to fetch water, while Camilla remained to help.

River returned, a constable wearing a brass badge at his heels. River carried the lamp to the bedroom and soon had several glowing while Shell gave a quick update to the constable, just the bare facts.

The constable asked, “Do you have any reason why someone would do this?”

“We’ve only spoken a few times when she rented us the rooms this morning,” Shell said, but a feeling of dread began to slip over him as he considered the two obvious reasons. The Breslau spy or the money?

Either way, it was their fault. He needed to go upstairs and see if the money was gone, not because of wealth, but because if it was missing, that had been the object of the attack. The constable asked more questions, wanting to know where they had been, if anyone could vouch for them, and if they’d seen anything. River answered most of the questions. Shell had already delivered a bucket of water to the nurse and stuck his head inside the bedroom long enough to ask if they needed anything else.

When they didn’t, he went back to the constable and tried to think of an excuse to climb the stairs, but a man carrying a small leather bag entered.

“I’m a doctor.”

“In here,” the nurse shouted, and he hurried deeper into the house.

“Anything missing?” the constable demanded.

Shell said, “I’ve never been in the rest of the house, but feel free to look. Do you mind if I run upstairs and see if my room is okay?”

The constable looked ready to object, but River must have sensed Shell didn’t want the constable upstairs yet. He said, “Now that you mention it, there might have been a vase on that table.”

“We’d better check it all.” He turned to Shell, “You sing out if someone has been in your room.”

Shell climbed the stairs and went into his room. The drawers were dumped onto the floor and the little money left for bait was missing. A quick check assured him that neither of the other locations had been found. He didn’t know where Camilla hid the rest, but when he opened her door, all was neat and orderly. The other rooms were untouched, meaning they had returned and interrupted the theft, probably. Whoever it was hadn’t had the time to search Camilla’s room.

Realizing that a search of the rooms by the constable might turn up his hidden money and that would certainly raise eyebrows and new questions, and it might shift the attention away from a simple break-in to an investigation of Camilla and himself. He didn’t need the constable upstairs.

It was the work of half a moment to clean his clothing and belongings off the floor and stuff it all into two drawers. He called out, “Everything up here is normal.”

He met Camilla on the stairs and followed her into her room and closed the door. Camilla said, “She will be fine, we think.”

“My room was searched. The small coin sack is gone, but the rest is still there.”

She moved to a floorboard near the corner of her room and pried it up, then put it back in place. “We’re good here.”

“I think we interrupted them in the act before they could search thoroughly. The back door was left open, probably the way they escaped. The one out front was the lookout.” Shell’s voice stuttered as his mind caught up with his mouth.

“River?”

Camilla said, “He’s trying to get rid of the constable. Make him leave.”

“We brought this on her, you know. I’m not sure how, but it was us.”

“We’ll hire someone to stay with her. And we should hire one of those men down on the docks to stand guard here,” she said.

The doctor called to them and met them at the bottom of the stairs. “It’s not as bad as it looks. She needs to stay off her feet a day or so, but I’ve left instructions, and she will be fine.”

Camilla said, “Did she say what happened?”

“She has no idea. My guess? Someone snuck in the back door and hit her with the firewood before she even knew he was there. Then he looked for something to steal.”

Camilla glanced at Shell and River. Then back to the doctor. “Can you check back with us tomorrow? And I hope to have someone here to look after her.”

The doctor turned and headed for the door. As he had one foot out, he turned and said, “It would be good if someone large looked out for her. If you like, I’ll send a man over that you can trust.”

“That would be wonderful,” Camilla said.

River and the constable went to each room, and River pointed out a missing statue and a few other items he described but had never seen, but they satisfied the constable, and he made a list, detailing each item, then said he would return the following day so make a note of anything else.

When the constable and doctor had gone, and the crowd outside dispersed, Camilla lowered the bar to lock the door and called a meeting of the three in the small sitting room. “I’ll sleep down here with her,” Camilla pointed to the open bedroom door.

“Robbery?” Shell asked, and he reached out and touched the mind of Pudding. He didn’t want the wolf in town but relished the protection it could give. The wolf waited nearer than Shell thought, and if needed the animal could race down the streets of Fleming, defend Shell, and be gone before anyone realized what happened.

“Coincidence,” River asked, then shook his head. “She’s been renting rooms for years, but this happens on the day you arrive? No, I don’t think so.”

Shell said, “Tomorrow morning we will go to the money-lender and make an offer. After that, we will see, but if it’s left up to me, I will sleep on the ship. It’ll be safer.”

“We can’t do that,” Camilla said. “We owe that poor woman back there.”

Shell wanted to explain that none of the three of them had done anything to the woman, someone else had, but after taking a good look at Camilla’s expression he wisely held his tongue. A knock at the door spun all their heads, but Shell remembered the doctor had offered to send a large man to guard them. He opened the front door and found a man a full head taller than himself, and weighing twice what he did.

“I’m supposed to stay awake and not let anybody come inside.”

Shell waved him inside. “Thank you for coming.

The guard set himself a bed outside the bedroom door, but told them he would try to stay awake the entire night. A friend would take over during the day, and he would return the next night. River, Camilla, and Shell went to Shell’s room to plan. The first thing agreed upon was that if any of them saw the suspected spy in the following days, no matter where they would attempt to seize him. River planned an active search beginning at first light. Camilla wanted to begin now. Shell found himself in the unwanted role of peacemaker.