Heart's Blood(15)

The other brow joined the first and Mr. Carteret looked down at her in astonishment. "Then why did you follow me?"

"Because you're Mr. Greyson Carteret, magister of the conjurer's guild. I recognized you. I'd followed you before." She let her voice go very quiet. "But I never had the courage to approach before."

"Yes. Well. You're my apprentice now, so it's done." He seized a chair from a nearby desk, dragged it over to Pearl, and sat in it backward, folding his arms across the back and resting his chin on them as he thought. He straightened before he spoke, but didn't unfold his arms.

"We'll go out to retrace my steps later. There may be some significance in them. Ferguson-" His voice rose to carry across the chamber to the desk near the door. "You'll come with us. You've the keenest magic sense."

"Yes, sir." Ferguson was the young freckled man who'd first addressed her, Pearl recalled. He was the only Briganti who'd addressed her directly.

"Is that why he's a Briganti?" Pearl kept her voice quiet, not sure if her question might be considered an insult or not. "Even though he's a wizard?"

"Partly. He's very clever, and he can work a bit of conjury as well, so it's all to the good. Besides, I think it's useful to have all the schools of magic represented. Now-" Mr. Carteret tapped her book to focus her attention. "Now, Pearl, I want you to tell me what happened when I fell, and what you saw and heard while you waited with me in that alley. Can you remember?"

"I'd been carrying your hat for a bit," she began. "You'd lost it in Wellclose Square, when you went through there. You went all the way through to the dock and around it, right next to the wall on Pennington Street, and down between the two docks-London and East London, not St. Catherine's-toward the river, jerking and lurching and stumbling all the way."

Pearl looked away from those dark, mesmerizing eyes of his. They were too compelling. "I was astonished you were still standing, still moving. I'd never seen any drunk so unsteady on his feet who could keep walking. You stumbled all the way along Green Bank to Bird Street, by the basin, and back toward the dock, to Tench Street, and came at the alley from that end. You were-" She stopped to clear her throat. Those nearest them didn't bother to pretend they weren't listening.

"Go on," Mr. Carteret said gently. "I cannot be offended, nor can I be embarrassed."

"It's not-" Pearl broke off, then leaned forward to whisper. "It's my shame that silences me. I am ashamed of what I thought."                       
       
           



       

"You cannot be faulted for thinking what anyone would have. Please. Continue. Tell us what you observed, and we will draw our own conclusions."

"The last little bit-up Bird Street and around Tench and down the alley-it's mostly warehouses there, you know. And you were leaning on the buildings while you walked, sometimes with your hand, sometimes with your shoulder. And you jerked." Pearl demonstrated, flinging her head back so violently, her bonnet shifted askew. She straightened it.

"As if-" She jerked her head again as she had seen Mr. Carteret jerking that night, trying to fit things together. "It looked as if you'd been struck," she said slowly. "Like someone hit you each time you lurched, or jerked, or staggered. And there at the end, you made noises each time. A sort of strangled shout. But you wouldn't stop moving. You kept walking and walking, holding onto the wall. Until you gave a choking cough and toppled into the gutter."

She bit her lip, staring into his deep, dark, mysterious eyes again. Eyes that stared back at her. "I was afraid you were dead. But you weren't. So I turned your face, so you wouldn't drown, and put a ‘don't-look' spell over you, and waited for you to wake up."

"What happened while you waited? What did you see? What did you hear?"

"Water dripping, mostly. There was that slow drizzly rain that night, that didn't stop till almost sunup."

"What else?"

"I'm thinking." She didn't snap at him, quite. "I didn't see anything. Except for rats and the cats that hunted them."

"What did you hear?"

Pearl shrank a little into herself. She didn't want to remember, didn't want to think about it. But she had to. "I tried very hard not to see or hear anything."

"But you did." His voice was all silken threat. Or was it a promise?

Miserable, she nodded. "I heard the Bow bells toll twice-too faint to count the strikes, but we'd been there just over an hour, I figure. And I heard noises. A horse over on the Green Bank. It was nervous and blowing, and the man with it kept cursing it, but quietly. I only caught a few of the words, and very rude they were, too," she said primly.

"What else?" Mr. Carteret leaned toward her, over the chair's straight back. His hand held on to one of hers. When had that happened? She appreciated the comfort, or encouragement, or whatever it was.

"The horse's hooves on the cobblestones-it was misbehaving, I'm sure, there was so much clattering. And it neighed. A . . . thud. Soft, but loud. Loudish. Like a great sack of grain dumped on the ground, maybe. More cursing, very quiet. The cursing went on a fair while-and it moved off. Horse, too." She was curled up into a tiny ball, she realized, except for the hand clutching Mr. Carteret's. She forced herself to uncurl and look at him. "I didn't know I heard so much."

"You were trying very hard not to." The silk in his voice soothed her this time, but it still gave her chills.

"I heard Angus Galloway's body being disposed of, didn't I?" she said very quietly. She wanted to curl up and make herself small again, but refused to allow it. She couldn't stop her voice from becoming small, though.

"I think it's likely, yes." Mr. Carteret rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. Pearl didn't think he knew it. She ought to tell him, but if he knew, she would feel foolish.

"Why did he dump the body on the street?" she asked as a distraction. For herself. "The river was right there, just a few more steps away. Would have been easy as easy and the body not found for ages, if ever. On the street, it was sure to have been found-well, when it was."

"I imagine he meant to use the river," he said, distractedly, "but the horse was uncooperative. Horses don't like dead bodies. Likely it tossed the body off and our murderer decided to leave it lying there rather than try to convey it the remaining distance and risk being seen."

"D'you suppose anyone did see?" One of the Briganti spoke, an older man with a country accent, and Pearl was snatched back to awareness.

There were others in the room. Ten or twelve of them. Enough that she was not alone with Mr. Carteret, much as it might have seemed. Subtly, she hoped, she reclaimed her hand and folded it in her lap with the other.

"That is what you shall discover, Rollins." Mr. Carteret sprang up from his chair in a whirl of flying coattails. "Spread the word among your contacts. Usual terms. Sixpence for information, another shilling if it's verified. Do not stint their pay, Rollins. This is magic we're hunting, and even the maddest-sounding rumor can have an element of truth. The branch can stand the expenditure of a few pence in the hunt for a murderer."

"Still think we could get the same results for tuppence," Rollins muttered. He was perhaps ten years older than Mr. Carteret, Pearl thought, but deferred to him willingly. Of course, Mr. Carteret was the better conjurer of the two, so that was as it should be.

"Go on. Get started." Mr. Carteret waved a hand at the man and Rollins departed.

The other men in the room received their orders next. A good many were investigating other crimes and Mr. Carteret kept them at it. Pearl got another page of her book read.

"All right then, Parkin, Ferguson, let's be off." Mr. Carteret clapped his tall top hat on his head while Pearl scrambled from her chair and collected her other book.

Her magic-master took it from her and handed it to a passing clerk of the nonmagical sort as they left the room. "Have this delivered to my house straightaway."

"I'll carry that." Mr. Ferguson held his hand out for her sorcery book.

"Miss Parkin can carry her own book, Ferguson," Grey said.

"But thank you." Pearl flicked a smile at the young wizard as she marched after Mr. Carteret, wondering why she couldn't let him carry it for her. Still, her magic-master had spoken.

"It's quite large and bulky." Ferguson smiled earnestly at her. "Why not use the beast of burden-me-while it is available?"

She looked hopefully toward Mr. Carteret.

"She needs the book as ballast to weight her down so she doesn't blow away in those skirts." Mr. Carteret led the way into the street, a much quicker exit than she'd expected until she realized they'd come out a different door. The door they'd gone in was a good thirty yards down the street.

"The wind isn't blowing," Ferguson said, tugging his gloves on. He held his hand out for the book again.

"Leave it," Carteret snapped, his voice hard and cold. "It's a book on sorcery. Just leave it alone."