An Apprentice Without Magic, page 11
part #2 of Magic Missing Series
Tru said something from the kitchen that Sam didn’t hear, but he sighed when the clatter of Emmy’s claws on the wooden floors reached his ears. The big gray dog ran into the parlor and began licking Sam’s face. The raspy tongue pummeled his cheek making it hurt, but the pain disappeared as Emmy snuggled her master.
Sam couldn’t help but laugh. “You are hurting me, but it is a happy hurt,” he said.
“Should I take her out? Emmy was scratching at the door.”
“I can handle it. Maybe she will want to sleep with me tonight,” Sam said. He rubbed behind Emmy’s ears. “Won’t you?”
Emmy barked as she usually did after Sam asked a question. He was grateful for the pot of warm water and the soaking towel. His face felt cleaner after a tongue cleaning from Emmy and from the wet towel. It made Sam yawn.
“Time for bed. Is that all right, Tru? I’m too beat up for much of a discussion tonight.”
“We will have plenty of time to talk,” Sam’s brother said. “Go to bed.”
Emmy beat Sam up the stairs. He wasn’t in shape to run up the treads, anyway.
~
“What happened to you?” Dickey Nail said as Sam showed up for work the next morning.
“I was waylaid by a gang on the way home. I damaged one thug’s hand pretty severely. I would like you to come with me to observe the apprentices working with Kened Rider.”
“The apprentices ganged up on you?”
Sam nodded and told Dickey of what injuries he could expect to see. “I want a witness before you see them.”
The apprentices were sparring with each other. Kened was examining weapons on a table full of them.
Sam could see the oldest apprentice struggling with a wrapped hand. Another had a bandage on his brow. Those were the visible wounds. Dickey refused to let Sam have the youths strip for an examination.
The boys on the floor studiously ignored Sam and Dickey, but Kened drifted over. “Came to watch? Some of the apprentices are not at their best today. They must have been in a tavern brawl or something.” Kened shrugged.
Dickey pursed his lips and eventually said. “Boys will be boys until they become men.” He looked at Sam. “Time to go.”
“Aren’t we going to do something?” Sam asked once they left the training room, out of hearing of the apprentices.
“What do you propose? Fire them all? Your problem isn’t them, it is you.”
Sam blinked. “Me? I was just walking home.”
“Going from your exclusive snoop job to your own house to see your extremely expensive dog after helping me organize the investigation of a high-level theft ring targeting aristocrats while they patrol the filthy streets of Baskin? You are the greenest of them, yet you can best them all with a sword. What do you think?”
“I understand they are jealous,” Sam said.
Dickey snorted. “You have no idea how much.”
Sam pointed to his bruised cheek. “An inkling, maybe? But I am blind to pollen.”
“Are you? What are the spectacles for?”
“But I can’t perform pollen magic.”
Dickey shook his head. “Do you think that is important to them if they don’t know?”
Sam made a face. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to tell them.”
“I agree,” Dickey said. “So, you just put up with it. We all have our weaknesses. Yours is a big one, but you’ve taken steps to overcome your lack of ability. You will have to keep at it to survive to adulthood and beyond.”
Sam knew that, but it stung him, nevertheless. He couldn’t face his future with such a bleak outlook. “I need to endure. Is that it?”
Dickey didn’t look at him as they walked into the snoop’s office. “That’s the way I see it. Now it is time to grade you on the report. Did you finish?”
Sam nodded. “That was why I was walking on Baskin’s streets at night.”
~
Dickey dismissed Sam while the sun was up and there were people on the streets. “Don’t go home in the dark for a while,” he said.
Sam agreed and arrived home before Tru. He took care of Emmy, and after a simple dinner and a walk before evening fell, Sam pulled out the two books on the Vaarekian language and put a lamp on a table next to the overstuffed chair.
It didn’t take him long to discover how different the language was. Not only words weren’t the same, but also sentences had a foreign structure. He picked up the second book, glad it had an explanation of the language in Toraltian, which was mostly Holdingian, the spoken language of the entire continent.
When the Vaarekians ruled Toraltia, they adapted Vaarekian into the Toraltian alphabet. Both books were written with Toraltian characters, but the Vaarekian equivalents were shown, as well. Sam didn’t know that other countries in Holding used a different alphabet than Toraltia. His teachers in Cherryton had never mentioned that. He wondered what else his schooling had missed.
Sam always felt he was better educated than his peers, since school came easily to him. Now he wondered how lacking he truly was, being a boy from the mountains. Was that how the apprentices looked at him? It would be dangerous to ask now. He suspected the attacker who hung back and never registered a blow was Mark.
He scratched Emmy’s ears. She had fallen asleep beside him. He put his hand on her chest and felt it rise and fall with every breath. So far, she had proven to be a reliable friend. He wasn’t so sure about Dickey, but Bentwick and Harrison Dimple were friends, at least he hoped Harrison Dimple remained a friend.
He shook his head and spent the rest of the time reading until Tru finally came home.
“What a day!” Tru said. He kicked off his shoes and collapsed on the couch. Sam figured the couch and his brother were very good friends. “I am still nursemaid to the apprentices and haven’t done much real work. It’s frustrating.”
His brother launched into a litany of complaints. Sam wondered if anything was going right for his brother. At least Tru had a roof over his head, independent of his employer. Everyone picked on him and called him ‘Country’, meaning he grew up outside Baskin.
“Why did Potter hire you then?” Sam said, tired of all the griping coming from his brother.
“To take the job of training apprentices that no one else wanted. Didn’t I say that? I was naive enough not to realize that I wouldn’t be working metal as much,” Tru said.
“Can you find another position?”
Tru shook his head in frustration. “The metalworking trade in Baskin is a tight group. There is a guild that I had to join, and if I go looking, it will get back to Potter.”
“Then you will be out on the street?”
Tru managed a smile. “No, thank goodness. I have you, and I have this house.” He rose from the couch and stretched. “I’m going to fix some dinner. I suppose you’ve eaten?”
Sam nodded. “Some time ago. I’m ready for bed. I have practice early tomorrow. Can you put Emmy out?”
“If she is willing to follow my instructions, or you’ll find her in your room again.”
Tru left Sam alone with his books. Emmy snorted and began to snore after his brother left the parlor. When he had made sufficient progress in understanding the Vaarekian sentence structure, he quietly closed his book and slipped upstairs.
The pain from his beating still reminded him of the attack two nights previous, but it wasn’t enough to keep Sam from quickly falling asleep.
~
Sam massaged his shoulder. His constable-opponent hadn’t given him much quarter. If Sam had thought he was a great swordsman, the proof of the opposite was becoming more evident as the sessions proceeded. He would guess he was still in the lower third of the constables he faced.
Dickey had him attend daily sessions, and the constables still rotated through. Only a few showed up regularly, and Sam learned that constables were required to work out twice a month.
“You are improving, Smith,” Kened Rider said when Sam handed him his weapon. The instructor had him working with a cutlass.
“I keep getting beaten. I’m sure my shoulder will be purple tonight.”
Kened laughed. “Keep at it. You are picking up more than you realize. You are only fifteen, anyway.”
“Just,” Sam said.
He and Tru had gone to dinner for his birthday a few days previous. He didn’t feel any different than when he was fourteen, but that really wasn’t true when he thought about it. He knew a lot more about the world than he had the day the Cherryton schoolmaster expelled him.
After washing his face, he changed into street clothes and was able to grab some breakfast at the commissary, which wasn’t always the case. Dickey was already at his desk.
“There you are,” his partner said brusquely. Dickey lifted an intricately folded yellow paper. “Antina Mulch sends us a message. You are the one experienced in opening one of these things up.”
Sam took the message. He was only more experienced because he had opened one other note from the woman, but what were apprentices for? He struggled a bit but handed the opened paper to Dickey without reading a word.
Dickey’s eyebrows went up. “We can expect another theft today,” he said. “One of Antina’s customers was victimized last night. She suspects it is the same thief.”
“So we wait?”
Dickey shook his head. “What else are we going to do? It is time for another report.” He pointed to a stack of notes in the middle of his desk. “I’ll be back in an hour. It would be better if you completed the paperwork before I get back, so we can visit the third robbery scene.”
Sam hurriedly went through Dickey’s notes. He was involved in investigations that didn’t include him. Sam had to remember that he wasn’t a true partner, but still a raw trainee. He had picked up how to decipher Dickey’s handwriting and order his notes, so the report was complete before his partner’s return.
It gave Sam some time to think about what Dickey had been doing. He was involved in continual surveillance of the same ironmonger’s shop that Sam had observed with him. There wasn’t much substance to report, but Sam diligently listed the comings and goings of the visitors.
Dickey hadn’t bothered to continue to analyze the duration like Sam had done when they worked together weeks ago. Sam began to do so and identified those who had spent hours of time in the shop.
“Working the timeframes again?” Dickey said as he walked in and looked over Sam’s still-aching shoulder.
“Do you really think these five people would spend over four hours at the shop?”
“They would if they worked there,” Dickey said.
“Not dressed like you described,” Sam countered.
“Hmmm.” Dickey rubbed his chin. “I’ll have someone check who is working when I have my turn tomorrow.”
“Can I do that?”
“You can go in one time only if you buy something cheap and return to me.”
Sam grinned. “I can do that.”
“One would hope,” Dickey said. He pulled out a white paper. “Mulch’s victim has reported the theft. You get another look at a servant’s door. Let’s go.”
Chapter Thirteen
~
T he next mansion was farther away from the king’s palace and smaller than the others they had visited. The language issue hadn’t changed, and they were both let in through the side entrance. A woman dressed in unrelieved black with iron-gray hair walked in after they waited for what seemed like an hour.
“I will interpret for you,” the housekeeper said.
Dickey kept his mouth shut. Sam nearly blurted out that his partner could speak court language. The woman made them take off their shoes. Dickey had a hole showing his little toe. Sam smiled at Dickey whose face remained impassive.
They were shown up servants’ stairs to the second level of the mansion. This was more of the size of Banna Plunk’s house in Mountain View. The furnishings weren’t as nice until they entered a woman’s suite.
Decorations filled the walls. Sam removed his spectacles. There were seven pollen-made objects.
“These are interesting,” Sam said, looking at one of them.
“The lord has recently taken to buying objects of art for the lady. You are to remain silent when she enters her suite,” the housekeeper said directly to Sam.
Evidently, he was obviously too junior to contribute. Even with the more modest environment, the arrogance hadn’t diminished.
The door opened, and a maid entered to hold the door open for the lady of the house. The woman was younger than Dickey Nail and very pretty.
She said something to the housekeeper.
“All her jewels were taken.”
Dickey nodded. “Can she show us where she kept them, and do you have an inventory of what was taken?”
The housekeeper snorted. “Of course I keep an inventory.” She spoke to her mistress who stepped to a small dresser and pressed a stud somewhere to unlock the doors.
The language was unintelligible, but Sam could tell the lady was undoubtedly distressed.
“You may ask a few questions. The lady must return to her guests as soon as possible.”
“When did she notice the jewels missing?” Dickey said.
“In the early morning. She thought she heard a burglar, but the lord was already looking for the thief, who had already disappeared.”
Dickey nodded. “Had the lord been out for the evening?”
The housekeeper said something to the lady, who looked a little flustered.
“Of course. He generally spends evenings at his club.”
Dickey pulled out his notebook and made a few scribbles. “And that club is?” He wrote out the name as the woman spoke it, not waiting for the translation. “I have no further questions. The lady is free to return to her entertaining.” He smiled at the woman, who returned the gesture with an upward curl of the right side of her mouth. She left the room, followed by her maid.
“We would like to examine the room for signs of breaking and entering. You may wait outside,” he said dismissively to the housekeeper.
The woman stepped through the door, but it was obvious she stood nearby.
“Usual investigation, Constable Smith,” Dickey said.
He walked to the windows as Sam pulled out an envelope and tweezers, plucking strands of pollen from the floor. After nodding to Dickey, Sam took a few ornaments off the walls and looked them over. He found more fakes. With a more modest mansion, Sam thought fake decorations might have an appeal.
“I’m done,” Dickey said. “Time to go.”
The housekeeper stuck her head into the room. “Finished?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I will escort you out of the house.”
They entered a plain door and took a different servant passage to the same small foyer and were shown the door.
“Are we going to visit Antina, now?” Sam asked.
Dickey winced and shook his head. “Of course. The lady is a customer, so I am hopeful we will get more information.”
His partner looked like he didn’t look forward to another encounter with Sam’s friend, but in a few minutes, they walked into Antina’s shop.
This time a customer talked to Antina in whispers, pointing to scrawls on a paper. Sam and Dickey removed themselves to the sitting area and waited for the woman to leave, but a couple entered the shop, and then a string of customers kept them waiting for nearly an hour.
Antina finally sat down with them. “Sometimes business is, well, busy,” she said airily.
“Never mind that,” Dickey said. “I want the details about your customer’s story.”
Antina batted her eyelashes. “Which story?” She laughed. “All my customers have stories.”
Dickey pursed his lips and folded his arms. “The woman who had her jewels stolen yesterday.”
“Oh, that!” She smiled at Dickey and then at Sam. Antina leaned over and said conspiratorially, “She’s not my favorite customer, but I make quite a bit of jewelry for her.” Antina cleared her throat. “Some of it, I’m afraid, consists of pollen made to look like jewels. I am quite adept at that line of magic. She and her husband are not first- or second-born in their households, and I do believe they have trouble making ends meet.”
“They are faking it?” Dickey said.
Antina raised her eyebrows. “I wouldn’t go that far, but they stretch out their resources where they can. The settings are real precious metals, but the jewels…” she shrugged. “I have a list of what I’ve made her, and she wanted me to get to work to get her collection remade. It won’t be cheap, but my work is a fraction of the cost of the real articles.”
“Do you sell them as real?” Dickey asked.
Antina narrowed her eyes. “Of course not. What others think about the jewels is their business, not mine. She said the theft occurred in the early morning, just after her husband returned from a long night at his club.”
The comment clicked with Sam. He would talk to Dickey at the office, but he had to follow up his conversation. “Do you know what the name of the club is?”
“Many noblemen are members. It is called The Piper Club, in Vaarekian, of course.”
“Of course,” Dickey said, looking at Sam. “I’d guess the husbands of the other victims were members there, as well.”
Perhaps Sam wouldn’t be revealing anything to his partner, after all.
“The likelihood is very high, so I’m sure you can find out. You two are snoops, aren’t you?”
Dickey forced a smile. “We are.” He stood up. “Sam has more pollen to give you, and we will be on our way to another appointment. We agree to keep your information confidential, and we hope you won’t mention our inquiries to your customers.”
Antina looked like her feelings were hurt. “I am helping you with the investigation. Any inadvertent comment that I make might jeopardize your snooping. Of course, our conversations are private.” She smoothed her face and smiled, rising to her feet. “I’m sorry you had to wait.” She smiled apologetically and showed them to the door after Sam left the envelope containing pollen on the table.
