CHAPTER NINE - WORKING ARRANGEMENTS
Mayor Brimly bubbled over with enthusiasm when Julian and Raedrick announced their acceptance of the offer. He shook both their hands repeatedly, fairly bouncing up and down each time he did.
“Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you! The people of Lydelton will honor your names always.”
He sure was laying it on a bit thick, considering they hadn’t really done anything yet. Julian found it understandable to an extent; the town had been living in fear for weeks. But still, he couldn’t help but wonder how true the Mayor’s gratitude really was.
Constable Malory was more reserved, merely nodding with a small smile. Again, appropriate. It was the Mayor’s place to be boisterous, and from what Julian had seen they all tended to enjoy it. The Constable had a serious job, though, and that tended to attract more serious, business-minded men to it.
Finally, Mayor Brimly took a step back. “You’ll report to Lucian on this, but I’ll be keeping tabs on how things are going. For now, I’ll leave you to get better acquainted.” He beamed a smile at them and added, “Good luck to us all!” Then he turned and strolled out of the Inn.
“Well he’s plenty enthusiastic,” Raedrick quipped.
“Mayor Brimly cares very deeply for the people of this town,” Constable Malory said.
Just then, the waitress came out of the kitchen, carrying a tray with two plates, a pitcher, and two cups on it. She approached the table, but paused when she saw the Constable standing next to them. She looked between Julian, Raedrick, and Malory with a questioning expression on her face.
The Constable noted her presence and gestured for her to get about her work, saying, “I’ll not interrupt your breakfast any longer. Come by my office after you’ve dined and we’ll discuss the situation in more detail.”
Breakfast consisted of chopped up fried potatoes, a hunk of bread smeared with butter, and fish meat baked in a sweet batter, along with spiced cider. Julian had noticed in their short time in town that the locals seemed to put fish into just about everything. That was understandable, he supposed, considering the proximity of the lake and its obvious contribution to the local economy. Still, fish for breakfast struck him as odd.
It was tasty though. He couldn’t complain about that.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Julian said as he and Raedrick tromped upstairs to retrieve their equipment. His thigh began to sting again, causing him to question his decision.
Raedrick responded with a soft snort and a shrug of his shoulders. “You know as much as I do.”
Julian rolled his eyes. Yeah, this was going to end up being a bad idea.
A few minutes later, after they donned their mail and strapped on their weapons, the two friends headed out.
In midmorning, Lydelton was markedly different than it had been the previous evening. More people were out and about, conducting the errands of the day. Looking to the right as they exited the inn, the road became more congested quickly as it descended to the lakeshore and the docks. A trio of boats were tied up along the lone pier in sight. A line of men stood around next to each boat on the dock, helping offload large bundled items in a daisy train leading off of pier, and out of sight to the right.
The scene struck Julian as a bit odd. “A little early to be offloading isn’t it?”
Raedrick followed Julian’s gaze toward the dock. A confused expression on his face, he shrugged his shoulders before replying. “I would think so. I wonder what’s going on?”
There was no particular hurry to get to the Constable’s office, so the two men set off toward the docks. The road descended quickly, and before long they reached the reached the head of the pier. From there they could see five more piers stretching out into the lake, each with a couple of boats tied up and similar lines of men hauling bundles. The lines of workers converged on a large wagon that waited at the head of the second pier, one street over from where Raedrick and Julian stood.
As they watched, the wagon reached its capacity and a balding man with a bit of a paunch waved off the lines of men with their burdens. Then he hopped into the front of the wagon and shook the reigns. His team of two horses began moving, and the wagon departed up the street. Moments later, a second, identical, wagon appeared from the same street and came to a halt before the pier, and the lines of men commenced to fill it.
That was curious. Julian and Raedrick hurried past the newly-arrived wagon and up the next street. A block up the road, the first wagon was parked next to the side entrance a nondescript building that could only be a warehouse. Additional workers were offloading the wagon and bringing its contents within.
The two friends walked past the wagon to the corner of the warehouse, where another door that looked to be the main entrance was situated at the head of three short stairs. Julian looked at Raedrick questioningly and received a shrug in response, so he led the way to the main entrance and then inside.
Within, the warehouse was larger than it appeared from the outside. The ground level consisted mostly of a single large room with a vaulted ceiling. A number of large bins stood at intervals around the room. The workers came in through the side and walked to specific bins. There they unwrapped their packages and dumped the contents, fish of course, into the bins. As Raedrick and Julian watched, one of the bins became filled to capacity, and a man standing near it pulled on a rope. A bell rang overhead and, a moment later, another pair of workers entered the room, pushing a bin before them. It was only then that Julian noticed that each bin was wheeled. The two new men replaced the full bin with their empty one and pushed it toward the rear of the warehouse, where a wide pair of swinging doors separated this room from another.
“Hey, what are you doing in here?”
The voice, gruff and businesslike, drew Julian’s eye to a tall stocky man who was approaching from the left. The man was in his early middle years and wore his greying black hair cut short. He wore work boots and coveralls like the other men, but his shirt was red while theirs were blue. Julian surmised he was the foreman.
“We were just curious about your setup here,” Julian said, putting on a friendly smile. “Seems a bit early to be offloading the boats. The day’s not even a third done.”
The foreman scowled. “It’s almost done for this shift. Fish don’t jump except at twilight, so the boats go out before sunrise and at sunset to catch them.” He looked them up and down, his eyes lingering on the sword at Julian’s hip and Raedrick’s saber. “Don’t see what that matters to you. You don’t have the look of men looking for a job.”
“We’re not.”
“Then get out. This is a business, not a tourist attraction.” He pointed with authority toward the door they had entered through.
There wasn’t any point to objecting, so they left.
* * *
It took about ten minutes to walk to Constable Malory’s office from the fish warehouse. By the end of the walk, Julian’s thigh was throbbing again. Each step caused him to grit his teeth. This was no way for a big hero to start off his job as savior.
Constable Malory was seated behind the desk to the right as they walked in the door, perusing a small collection of official-looking papers. He looked up as they entered and nodded in greeting.
“I was just going over the reports of all the raids to date. I thought maybe you would like to review them as well. Might be there’s something we missed.”
That made sense, Julian supposed. He moved over to the desk to pick up one of the reports, but Raedrick’s words brought him up short.
“Where is the prisoner?”
Julian turned to see his friend looking into the cell block. His eyes widened when he noticed what Raedrick was talking about: all the cell doors were open. Julian turned back to the Constable, a simmering anger beginning to well up within him. What had these people done?
Then Constable Malory spoke, dousing Julian’s anger as quickly as it flared up. “Fendig has him down at the courthouse for his preliminary hearing with the judge. They should be back in an hour or so.”
“I didn’t realize you have the resources for a full inquiry and trial here, as remote as you are,” Raedrick replied as Julian picked up the stack of reports.
“Due process is still due process, wherever you are,” Constable Malory said, his lips turning downwards into a slight frown.
”I didn’t mean to imply…” Raedrick began, but Constable Malory cut him off.
“You did more than just imply it. You flat out stated that…”
The argument faded into the background as Julian picked up the reports and began reading.
The first was the deposition from a month and a half ago by a fellow named Modrin Gilanty, of Holis, over by the Great Sea. He owned a trading company and had been traversing Holbart’s pass when he was accosted by half a dozen men who were equipped similarly to the brigands Julian and Raedrick encountered the previous day. Gilanty reported that his guards had repelled the attack but one of his carriages had been burned to the ground, along with all of its wares, and two of his men killed. Total loss: 200 marks, including contractual reparations he now owed to the families of his lost men. Julian winced; that much money would keep twenty families eating for a year in many areas of the kingdom.
That was bad. The next report was worse. Julian knew what to expect from what Malory had told them back at the Inn, but the deposition went into more details. Lev Harpwell was the man who discovered the burned out farmstead during a run to deliver horseshoes from Gil Aberdyn, one of the two blacksmiths in town. What he described… It made the burned out farm Julian and Raedrick came across seem civilized, by comparison. What was wrong with these people?
The reports continued, almost a full dozen of them spanning the time between the first caravan attack and the attack above the falls yesterday.
Julian replaced the last report before his and Raedrick’s back down on Constable Malory’s desk and suppressed a slight shiver. This was not going to be easy. He looked over at Raedrick, who was reading an earlier report, and shook his head.
“All of a sudden I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Raedrick looked up, one eyebrow moving upward as he responded. “You had a good feeling before?”
“You know what I mean. The lady who gave this last report said there were dozens of attackers. We’ll need a bloody army to fight them off.”
Constable Malory nodded. “Aye, I’d come to a similar conclusion. I asked the fishing foremen to lend me some of their boys like they do in the summer, but they refused.” With a sigh, he settled back into his chair. “I’m hoping they’ll come around if you can add a few smaller victories to what you did yesterday, and get these cells filled.”
“Let me guess, you and Fendig won’t be coming with us for these victories.”
He shook his head. “We will help as we can, but you must understand my primary duty is to maintain law and order within the town limits.”
“Great.”
Raedrick picked up the final report and scanned it quickly. “Did the wounded guard from this last attack pull through?”
Constable Malory shook his head. “Alas, no. He passed not long after we got him to town. The Guildsmen from the Healers Circle tried their best, but they say he lost too much blood.”
“That’s too bad. What about the woman? Is she still in town?”
“Oh yes,” replied the Constable. “And complaining every minute about it. She’s holed up over at The Oarlock. Word is she tried to hire every coachman in town to drive her down to Calas, but none of them would take the job.”
Julian felt his interest piqued. “How come?”
Malory shrugged. “Too dangerous.” A sudden grin appeared on his face and he chuckled, adding, “‘Course, I can think of two men offhand who said they were willing, except for her attitude.”
Julian had a feeling he knew who the Constable was talking about. “Good looking?”
Again Malory shrugged. “They don’t seem to have problems with the ladies…”
“Not the drivers, the woman!”
The Constable blinked, and flushed slightly. Clearing his throat, he nodded. “Yes, quite striking in fact.”
Julian grinned. This was turning out to be his lucky day. Giving Raedrick a little punch in the shoulder, he said, “I think I know where we can get some help.”
Glimmer Vale is the first book of the Glimmer Vale Chronicles, an ongoing heroic fantasy series set in a world of valor and magic. It will be published here, one chapter per week, on Tuesday.
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