Thieftaker Read online

  “Mister Kaille,” the merchant said grimly. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Is there a problem?”

  He was a short, round man whose clothes didn’t fit him quite right. They were too long in the sleeves and legs and too tight around the middle. He was bald except for tufts of steel gray hair that poked out from behind his ears, and he wore spectacles on the end of his nose.

  “There’s no problem, sir,” Ethan said, producing the necklaces and laying them on a small table beside the hearth. “I’ve come to return your wife’s jewels.”

  Corbett’s entire bearing changed. His eyes widened, and as he crossed to the table he actually broke into a smile. “You’ve found them already! Well done, Mister Kaille!”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And the thief?” Corbett asked, examining each necklace by the light of an oil lamp.

  “Daniel Folter.”

  The merchant looked at him. “Daniel? You’re sure?”

  “Yes, sir. You know him?”

  Corbett hesitated. “He did some work for me a year or so ago. He even expressed interest in courting my older daughter, though I didn’t encourage him in that regard.” He shook his head. “Still, I’m surprised. I never figured the man for a thief.”

  “No, sir.”

  Corbett studied the necklaces a moment longer before facing Ethan again. “Well, these look to be none the worse for their adventure. I take it Daniel has been dealt with?”

  “He won’t trouble you again, sir,” Ethan said, holding the man’s gaze.

  “Very well. I owe you another ten shillings, don’t I?”

  Ethan bit down on his tongue to keep from laughing. He had dealt with merchants before. “Actually, I believe you owe me fifteen.”

  Corbett raised an eyebrow. “Fifteen is it?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hmmm, I suppose that’s right.” The merchant dug into a small pocket on his vest and pulled out a coin purse. He poured its contents onto his desk and began to count out Ethan’s payment. “An acquaintance of mine said I shouldn’t hire you,” he said as he piled the coins.

  Ethan tensed. “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” the merchant said, not meeting Ethan’s gaze, lamplight reflecting off his glasses so that the lenses looked opaque. “He said I would have been better off hiring someone … safer.”

  Ethan didn’t know whether to laugh or yank out his own hair. There was only one other thieftaker in Boston; Corbett’s friend thought Sephira Pryce would be a safer choice than Ethan.

  Corbett went on. “I think he was concerned about your past.”

  “Of course,” Ethan said.

  “I bring this up because I wanted you to know that people still speak of it, those who remember anyway.”

  He knew this already, of course. Nearly twenty years had passed since the Ruby Blade mutiny, but few who were old enough to have heard of the incident when it happened would have forgotten. Mutinies were scandalous enough; add to that whispers of witchcraft and the result was enough to cause quite a stir.

  “Thank you, sir,” Ethan said stiffly.

  The merchant finished counting out the money and returned the coin purse to his pocket. “I intend to tell my friend that he was wrong about you,” he said.

  I don’t give a damn, Ethan wanted to say. Instead, he thanked him once more.

  “Here you are,” Corbett said, handing Ethan the stack of coins. “Well earned, Mister Kaille. I hope that I won’t require your services again, but should I have further need of a thieftaker, I’ll be certain to call on you.”

  “Thank you, sir. For your sake, and that of your family, I hope that won’t be necessary.”

  Corbett smiled and led him back to the front door. “My wife will be most pleased,” he said, pulling the door open.

  “I hope so, sir.”

  The smell of smoke had grown stronger. Corbett wrinkled his nose and frowned. “More trouble,” he said sourly. “I don’t hold with lawlessness, Mister Kaille. And I don’t choose to associate with those who do. Do you take my meaning?”

  Ethan was about to answer, but in that moment he felt the pulse of a spell, the air around him thrumming like a bowstring. Ethan’s first impulse was to ward himself, and his hand flew to the hilt of his blade.

  “Mister Kaille?”

  An instant later, Ethan realized that the spell had not been intended for him, that it hadn’t even been cast in this part of the city. Which meant that it must have been a powerful conjuring. He stared into the night, trying to locate the conjurer, wondering who could have cast such a spell.

  “Mister Kaille! I asked you a question!”

  “Yes, sir,” Ethan said, far more interested in the spell he had felt than in whatever Corbett had said. “I beg your pardon. What did you ask?”

  “I said that I don’t hold with those who would flout the law in pursuit of political aims, and I asked if you took my meaning.”

  “I do, sir.” He wanted to go. Right now. He wanted to find the conjurer who had cast that spell. But Corbett had paid him, and might well hire him again. Kannice would tell him that he should give the man his undivided attention.

  The merchant gazed out into the night. “Do you support them?” he asked. “These agitators?”

  In recent days, Ethan had heard arguments on both sides of this issue. There was nowhere a man could go in the city without overhearing discussions of Grenville’s Stamp Act. Like much of Boston, all the people he knew were beginning to align themselves according to whether they supported or opposed Parliament’s latest attempt to raise revenue. Corbett had made his position clear, and Ethan thought it best to give the safest response he could, even if it didn’t exactly answer the man’s question.

  “I’m a subject of the British Crown, sir,” he said. “I recognize the authority of Parliament in all matters pertaining to the colonies.”

  Corbett nodded. “That’s most wise of you. This sort of villainy and licentiousness will be the ruin of Britain.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ethan said. “Good night.”

  “And to you, Mister Kaille.”

  Ethan stepped out of the house, followed the path back to Long Lane, and turned northward. As he walked, he wondered if Corbett and his acquaintances knew only of the mutiny and Ethan’s time in forced labor, or if they knew as well the role that conjurings played in all that happened aboard the Ruby Blade. Just how many people in Boston knew that he was a conjurer? Three or four months might pass without anyone speaking to him of his spellmaking abilities. And then he could have days like this one, when it seemed that everyone knew.

  He had his share of enemies in the city, and none of them would hesitate to use his secret against him if they thought themselves safe from his retribution. But fear of conjuring ran deep, even among the wealthy, even among the likes of Sephira Pryce.

  Corbett’s coins jingled in Ethan’s pocket, bringing a smile. Combined with the seven and a half shillings Corbett had paid upon hiring him last week, it was money enough to last him a while. He wouldn’t need to work again for at least a month, perhaps longer. Maybe this would be a good time for him to stay out of sight; let talk of his … talents die out. Particularly if there was another conjurer in the city casting spells as potent as the one he had just sensed. And in the meantime, he could spend a few days with Kannice.

  He was headed to the Dowsing Rod now. She would want to know that he had found Folter and managed to avoid getting himself killed in the process.

  Ethan strode through the heart of the South End, passing by the brick edifice of the Third Church, its steeple looming dark and tall against the moonlit sky. The smell of smoke grew stronger as he walked, and he could hear shouts coming from different parts of the city—the area just north of Cornhill as well as the North End. He wondered if there were two mobs loose in the streets, or if there might be even more. As he neared the First Church and the Town House, he saw the glow of the fire he had been smelling.

  He
slowed. Ezra Corbett wasn’t the only client who might look askance at Ethan’s involvement in any mischief, and Ethan had no interest in attracting the notice of officials of the Crown. He had already endured enough British justice to last a lifetime.

  A sound behind him made him spin; his knife was in his hand almost before he realized that he had reached for it. Two shadows emerged from behind a dark house and trotted up to him. Shelly and Pitch: a pair of dogs who lived in the streets, and spent most of their time scrounging for food at Henry’s door. Ethan lowered his blade, laughing at himself. But his heart continued to hammer as he sheathed his weapon and squatted down to greet the dogs. They licked his hand, tails wagging.

  Shelly had first shown up at the cooperage several years before, not long after Ethan took a room there. She was a large dog with a short coat, mottled gray and white. She had a splash of tan on her snout, and pale gray-blue eyes. Henry had named her Shells because he said her coloring reminded him of the shells that washed up on the harbor shore. But before long he and Ethan were both calling her Shelly.

  Pitch, who showed up a few months later, was a bit smaller, and entirely black, save for his deep brown eyes. His coat was long and silky. Ethan often wondered if he had once belonged to a wealthy family; dogs as pretty as Pitch generally didn’t live in the streets.

  “No food,” he told them, as they continued to lick his hand and sniff his clothes. “Sorry.”

  He scratched them both behind their ears. Judging from their response, this made up for the fact that he had nothing to feed them.

  Standing again, he backtracked to School Street, and followed Treamount northward, the two dogs flanking him. He hoped to keep his distance from those abroad in the streets. He soon realized, though, that rather than avoiding the mob, he was walking directly toward it. The closer he got to Queen Street, the louder the noise grew. He could hear raucous laughter and shouted curses, the shattering of glass and the splintering of wood. As he crossed the lane and gazed eastward, he saw men tossing broken furniture and bundles of parchment from the window of a stately home directly across the street from the courthouse and prison. The irony of it nearly made him laugh out loud.

  One man stood in the middle of the lane, holding a bottle of wine in one hand and what looked to be a table leg in the other. He spotted Ethan and shouted, “Hey, you!” The man sounded so merry, one might have thought that he was celebrating the coming of a new year rather than the sacking of someone’s home. “Care t’ join us?” the man asked. “Th’re’s plen’y t’ go ’roun’!”

  Ethan waved a hand and shook his head without breaking stride.

  “Wha’samatter?” the man called after him, his voice hardening. “Don’ like wha’ we’re doin’? King’s man, eh? Well, damn ya t’ hell!”

  Ethan walked on, allowing the man to shout at his back. But he spoke a spell under his breath. “Veni ad me.” Come to me.

  The air around him hummed, and the ghost of the old man appeared at his shoulder again and fell in stride beside him. The drunkard continued to shout after him, but he didn’t follow. Shelly and Pitch broke off, whining slightly as they headed back to the South End. This wasn’t the first time Ethan had seen the dogs flee at the first appearance of the ghost. He regretted scaring them off, but he felt better knowing that he could summon his power instantly if he had to. Too much was happening this evening. The spell he had felt, these rioters; he had grown cautious over the years, and if ever there was a night that called for care, this seemed to be it.

  Ethan felt the ghost watching him, but he kept his eyes trained on the street ahead. He wished he knew more about this glowing figure who materialized at his side whenever he conjured. The man was tall and lean, with a trim beard and mustache, and close-cropped hair that looked like it would have been white had it not been for the shade’s reddish glow. He was always dressed the same way: in a coat of mail and an ornate tabard bearing the leopards of the ancient kings, like those worn by medieval knights. Ethan guessed that he had lived hundreds of years ago, and he assumed that the old man was one of his mother’s forebears. All Ethan knew for certain was that every time he spoke the words of a spell, the ghost materialized to blend his power with whatever source Ethan had chosen to complete his conjuring.

  The ghost couldn’t speak; at least, he had never said anything to Ethan, although his bright eyes and bushy eyebrows could be quite expressive. Over the years, Ethan had taken to calling him Uncle Reginald—Reg, for short—after one of his mother’s older brothers who had a prickly personality.

  At last, as he continued to walk up Treamount, Ethan glanced at the wraith, who was still eyeing him with that familiar vexed expression.

  “Something on your mind?” Ethan asked.

  By way of answer, the ghost pointedly glanced back toward Queen Street and then nodded toward the knife on Ethan’s belt.

  “Yes, I could have spoken a spell when I needed you. But the castings are faster when you’re already here.” He grinned. “Besides, you’re such pleasant company.”

  The specter glowered at him.

  They reached Hanover Street, and Ethan heard more commotion coming from down the lane. Two weeks ago the agitators had concentrated their ire on Oliver; tonight, they were casting a wider net. Best to get off the streets.

  When at last he reached the Dowsing Rod, Ethan turned to Uncle Reg again. “Dimittas,” he said within his mind, not bothering to speak the words aloud. I release you.

  The ghost touched a glowing hand to his own brow and then began to fade from view. Ethan gazed back toward the center of the city, where smoke continued to billow into the night. Shouts echoed through the streets, punctuated occasionally by strident cheers. If anything, there was more commotion now than there had been earlier. He could guess who was behind these riots, and he knew that only trouble could come of them.

  Chapter

  THREE

  The Dowsing Rod was owned and run by Kannice Lester, who had become the sole owner of the tavern several years ago, after her husband Rafe died. Kannice served decent ales at a reasonable price, but she was known throughout Boston for her stews, which most people, Ethan included, thought were the best in the city.

  From without, the Dowser looked clean and reputable. Kannice wouldn’t have had it any other way. She made it clear to all her guests—even Ethan—that she wouldn’t tolerate gambling or whoring or any other sort of mischief within the walls of her inn.

  “Leave it in the streets,” she always told them. “Or you won’t be welcome here again.”

  Ethan had yet to meet anyone brave or foolish enough to defy her.

  Stepping into the tavern, Ethan expected to be greeted by the usual din of laughter and shouted conversations. But the Dowser was half empty, unusual even for a Monday night, and those who stood at the bar or sat at tables arrayed around the hearth spoke in hushed voices. The air within was heavy with the smell of candles and pipe smoke, and the mouthwatering aroma of one of Kannice’s famous fish stews. Though the crowd was small, Ethan saw several familiar faces, including Devren Jervis—Diver—an old friend who occasionally helped Ethan with his work.

  Of all the people Ethan knew who frequented the Dowser, Diver came closest to getting himself banned from the tavern. He did so with some frequency, and, as Kannice had pointed out on more than one occasion, if it wasn’t for Ethan’s friendship with the man, Diver would have been tossed out into the street long ago. He sat alone at a table near the back of the tavern. Catching Ethan’s eye, he raised his tankard and gave it a little wave.

  Ethan had to laugh. The evening mist and a few stubborn midges still clung to his waistcoat, and already Diver was asking him to buy his next ale. Ethan walked to the bar, where a few men stood drinking ale and eating oysters.

  “Evenin’, Ethan,” said Kelf Fingarin, the hulking barman. “Wha’ kin I getchya?” Actually, he said it so quickly that it came out as a single word: WhakinIgetchya? Ethan understood only because he had been in this tavern a tho
usand times. Newcomers weren’t so lucky, and in addition to being the size of a Dutch merchant ship, Kelf also had a quick temper. He was certain that his words were as clear as an autumn morning in New England.

  “What’s Diver drinking?” Ethan asked.

  “Th’ cheap stuff, as usual.”

  Ethan wrinkled his nose. “You have any of the pale left?”

  “From Kent, you mean?”

  Ethan nodded.

  “I might have a bit.”

  Ethan tossed two shillings onto the bar. “I’ll have two. And keep them coming.”

  Kelf grinned and grabbed two tankards. “Someone jest got paid.”

  “Where’s Kannice?” Ethan asked.

  Kelf was already filling the first tankard. He jerked his head toward the entrance to the kitchen. “’N back, gettin’ more stew. I’ll tell ’er ya’re here.” He placed the first ale on the bar, began to fill the second.

  “There’s another mob out in the streets,” Ethan said.

  “Don’ need t’ tell me,” Kelf said. “Look ’round. Half them who’re supposed t’ be here are with th’ rabble, an’ th’ rest are too scared t’ leave their homes.”

  “You know why?”

  The barman shrugged and put the second ale on the bar next to the first. “Stamp nonsense again.”

  Ethan took the ales. “My thanks, Kelf.”

  He wove his way past tables and chairs, nodding and smiling to the few people who met his glance and offered a greeting. When he reached Diver’s table, he placed one ale in front of his friend and sat.

  “I’m grateful, Ethan,” Diver said. “I’ll get the next one.”

  “We’re paid through a few rounds,” Ethan said. “You can pay next time.”