The Cipher Read online

  He jogged up his front steps and rapped sharply on the door. It was unlatched and swung open almost immediately. Good man, Baskin. Marten slipped inside, feeling no little relief as the door shut firmly behind him. He turned the lock.

  “I am late, Baskin,” Marten called as he headed for the stairs. “We have to hurry. My brother will froth at the mouth if I ruin the dinner.”

  A light bloomed as a lamp was kindled. “Well then. Don’t want to hold ye up. Give us our money and ye can be on yer way.”

  Marten stopped and turned, his mouth dry. A wiry man with straight brown hair sat in a chair in the center of the front salon. He was framed by four hulking bullyboys who smelled of sweat and gin. His eyes glittered as Marten came to stand in front of him.

  “Neckbitt. Making house calls now?”

  The other man smiled, a yellow, bucktoothed smile. “Figured it was only fittin’, seein’ as how ye haven’t been by in a while. Figured a toff like yerself mighta got so busy ye fergot the money ye owes me.”

  “As it happens, I haven’t forgotten. I don’t have the funds at the moment,” Marten said coolly, his stomach tightening. There wasn’t a lot of point to lying.

  “That so? Well, that ain’t such good news.” Neckbitt’s glittering stare hardened. “Might be you’ll be ruinin’ that dinner after all. Seems ye need motivatin’ to pay yer debts. Boys?”

  They didn’t leave any marks on his face. Two held Marten by the arms while the other two pummeled his chest and gut until he slumped to the floor. He couldn’t breathe. He gasped, head reeling. Blood and vomit blended on his tongue. His body shrieked with pain. The animal part of him howled for him to run! Run away! But he could only lie curled up helpless at their feet, his arms clasped around his stomach. He watched a booted foot draw back to kick him.

  “I’ll have it!” he ground through clenched teeth.

  “Hold,” Neckbitt said. He squatted down, gripping Marten’s chin.

  “Ye’ll have it, will ye? And when might that be?”

  “In a few sennights. I’ll have it.”

  “I’ve heard promises like that afore. Mostly anchorless. Where ye gettin’ the blunt?”

  “My brother. I’m—I’m doing a job for him. When it’s done, I’ll have what I owe you.”

  “Must be quite a job.” Neckbitt considered him a moment longer and then stood, straddling Marten and wedging his head between his filthy boots. “Three sennights. And fifty percent extra fer interest, trouble, an’ insult. Mind yer not late. Or trust me, ye’ll live to regret it.”

  With that they left. Marten listened as they clomped across the floor and the door shut with a bang. He staggered to his feet, weaving drunkenly. His stomach heaved and he vomited into a wastebasket, pressing his hands against his agonized ribs. He lurched into the foyer and found Baskin in the closet beneath the stairs. The valet’s face was bruised beneath the gag that had been knotted around his head and he’d been tied hands and feet with strips of a curtain. Marten freed him. Baskin bounded to his feet, cursing. He was a small, bandy-legged man with close-cropped gray hair and deeply tanned skin. His hands were rough and scarred with years of working as a stevedore.

  Marten leaned heavily against the doorjamb. “Stop. I take it your pride is hurt worse than anything else. Good enough. I’m late and I cannot beg off. If Lucy Trenton doesn’t come around, I’ll need to be in my brother’s good graces. Or Neckbitt will cut off my balls and feed them to me.” Marten shuddered. He wouldn’t put it past the moneylender.

  “You’re a damned fool if you think that brother of yours will bail you out of this mess,” Baskin said harshly, reaching out to help Marten up the stairs.

  “Maybe so. But it’s the only hedge I’ve got.”

  “Better bring that miss to heel, then.”

  Marten thought of Lucy’s expression when he’d first bumped into her that morning. She’d looked like a spider had just crawled into her drawers.

  “I’ll get her. But it doesn’t hurt to hedge the bet. Now help me get cleaned up. You’ll have to bind my ribs. No time to track down Keros.” He was an unregistered majicar, one that Marten used on shipboard to keep his crew healthy. The cost and risk were more than made up for by the efficiency that came from having a healthy crew complement. And Keros liked the freedom from the demands that came with being a registered majicar.

  “Just as you say, Cap’n. But if I was you, I’d be looking for a place to hole up till after Chance and then I’d set sail for the freelands. Neckbitt ain’t gonna stop hunting you. And he ain’t the only one you owe. Them others’ll be right behind.”

  “They won’t have to. They’re all going to get their money. I’m not going to let Lucy Trenton hole my ship.”

  “A moment, Marten, if you please.”

  The command in Edgar’s cultured voice was impossible to ignore. Marten halted and schooled his features into a mask of curious pleasantry. He turned to face his elder brother, his bruised muscles and broken ribs flaming. He breathed shallowly, ruthlessly ignoring the pain.

  Edgar Thorpe, Third Commissioner of the Merchants Advisory Council and eminent tradesman, shared the same broad shoulders, prominent nose, and whiskey brown eyes as his younger brother. There the resemblance ended. He stood half a head shorter than Marten, with balding, dirty-blond hair. His closely trimmed beard couldn’t entirely disguise his loose jowls or the pocks from an illness he’d suffered as a child. But he was dressed impeccably and expensively in sharp contrast with Marten’s shabby sea captain’s uniform. It was the best suit of clothes Marten owned, and the heavy wool coat hid the bindings around his chest. He looked well in it, he knew. He was lean and tan, his hair streaked gold from the sun. But while he had good looks and charm, Edgar had the gilding of money. A lot of money. And when he commanded, men obeyed. Including Marten. Especially Marten.

  “I do not want to keep you from your guests. Edira wouldn’t soon forgive me for ruining the first course,” Marten said, referring to his brother’s tyrannical cook. Once when he’d been less than punctual, she’d salted his meat to the point of inedibility.

  “We shall be brief,” Edgar assured him, motioning Marten into a salon. His guests went eagerly ahead into the dining room, their moods made merry by aged whiskey and fine wine.

  Marten sighed quietly and did as told. He’d managed to arrive a narrow ten minutes before the meal, in time to drink a glass of whiskey and pour a second. He glanced around the room, wishing for the drink he’d set aside on the way in to dinner. Beeswax candles burned in cut-crystal chandeliers, and the honeywood paneling was carved in linenfolds and polished to a high sheen. He could smell the scents of roasted meat and vegetables drifting in from the kitchen and his stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since his breakfast porridge. He grimaced and went to stand beside the fire. Edgar shut the glass doors and joined Marten.

  “Let’s be swift. Have you anything to report?”

  Marten’s lips tightened. “I wasn’t aware a report was required. I believe the terms were that I have until the Pale begins to shift. Yes?”

  Edgar nodded with an ironic smile. “Unless this is the year they fail.”

  Marten rolled his eyes. “Every year those rumors chew through Crosspointe like rats in a hold of grain and still the wards have never failed. But then again, if they should choose this year to do so, the bet would be moot. None of us would likely survive to collect.”

  “Very pragmatic,” Edgar said. “You win either way. If you call getting caught out in the Chance storms winning.”

  “I’d be free of those damned creditor duns at any rate.”

  “You really ought to stop gambling. It will be the ruin of you.”

  Marten eyed Edgar in disbelief. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

  “Come now, brother. I’m a businessman. I merely provide the service. You need not partake. And as your brother, I recommend that you don’t. You’re teetering on the edge of losing everything, of going to the blocks. I don’t thi
nk you’d like wearing the iron collar.”

  “I won’t be when I win our little wager.” Marten’s jaw knotted. He would not let himself fall so low as to become an indentured servant—he might as well be a slave. He’d jump off his own ship into a current of sylveth first.

  “Ah, yes. I ask again, how is that coming?”

  Marten grimaced. “She’s running ahead of me. But I’ll get along her broadside and careen her. I’ll have her tipped on her side in no time,” he said, slipping into sailing slang.

  Edgar lifted his brow. “Oh?”

  Marten smiled and winked broadly with a confidence he promised himself was deserved. “Even the most iron-hard women can be softened in the bedroom. All a man needs is a firm hand on the wheel and a gentle touch. I have had some success in the arena.”

  “I hope so. For your sake. You are, as the saying goes, under poles and at sea.”

  Marten raised his brows at Edgar’s concern. “I should think you’d be more worried that I might succeed. It is quite a sum you’ll be paying me.”

  Edgar clapped his hand on Marten’s shoulder and laughed. Marten caught his breath as pain sliced through him. His brother didn’t notice.

  “That’s why I run the house; I win either way. Though in all truth I have much more to lose if you fail than if you win. I hope most heartily that you do not disappoint.”

  The meal was superb. The steaks were thick and succulent, the ham juicy, the sauces rich, the wines crisp and fulsome. If it hadn’t been for the pain in his chest and the nagging problem of Lucy, Marten would have enjoyed himself thoroughly. His straitened circumstances had reduced him to simple meals of casseroles accompanied by hard, brown bread and sour ale. But that would soon be over, he promised himself. He’d win his bet, pay off his debts, and live more frugally. Edgar was correct. He needed to give up gambling. Before he was thrown in prison, or worse. And in that moment, for just a moment, Marten truly believed he would.

  A sudden rumble of agitated voices at the other end of the table distracted him. He looked up, his fork caught halfway to his mouth.

  “Oh, dear,” the matron beside him muttered in her trembly voice. “Such abominable manners. In my day, they’d know better than to be so disagreeable at dinner….”

  Marten muttered something vaguely amenable, trying to hear the blossoming argument.

  “I say, that Patmore chap is an ape-drunk liar. The wards have never failed and they never will. What’s he about, claiming they will? The Sennet ought to have him up on charges. And that rag he works for, the Sentinel. It’s fraud. They’re a menace, I tell you!”

  This was from a rotund little man with a bald pate and a florid complexion—Minister Credelsham. A compatriot of Edgar’s from the Merchants Advisory Council.

  “Come now, Charles. You ring a fine peal, but really, how do we know he’s wrong?”

  “I didn’t say he’s wrong, Venner,” Credelsham interjected. “I said he’s lying.”

  “The Sylmont Sentinel stands behind him. I know Jonathon Greyson personally. He’s a fine, honorable man. He wouldn’t publish anything he didn’t have some proof for.” Venner was a lanky man with thinning brown hair and a long, hooked nose. His knobby fingers were stiff and swollen with rheumatism.

  “It’s a bag of moonshine,” a younger woman drawled. “Why should the Sennet bother to refute such dribble?”

  “Because they can’t,” said another man with shaggy brown hair. Nicholas Weverton was heir to a massive shipping fortune. One of the founding families of Crosspointe, the Wevertons built the first docks and warehouses in the harbor. The whelp was sharp, a true shark among minnows. He’d already taken the helm of the family business and was well on his way to doubling or tripling the Weverton fortune. Even Edgar could learn a thing or two from him.

  “I think we can all agree that the majicars have little idea how the Pale works,” Weverton added. “Given such a fact, how would they know if it were failing?”

  “Surely if there is a problem, His Majesty would do something to protect us,” said a timid woman.

  Edgar snorted and set his wine aside with an audible click. “His Majesty is an incompetent fool and if you’re depending on him to fix the wards, you’d be well off to buy a warm cloak for the storms.”

  Marten studied his brother over the rim of his glass. It wasn’t at all like Edgar to express his opinions so adamantly, and never at dinner. He tended to vigorously quash any conversation that might sour the food.

  “Besides,” said Credelsham, “he’s quite tied up with the Chancery suit. Damned good thing, too. Royalty finally doing some actual work to support themselves. Leeches, all of them.”

  “Maybe we’ll have the Ramplings off the throne yet,” Weverton said quietly, swirling his wine in his glass and sniffing it.

  Marten couldn’t tell by his uninflected tone if it was intended to be a joke or not, but it was met with a startled silence, quickly broken by Edgar’s jovial tones.

  “Now, Nicholas, I must ask you not to be treasonous at the table. It will curdle the cream and upset the ladies,” he said, taking his wife’s hand gently and folding a kiss inside her palm. “Shall we speak of something more pleasant?”

  “I’d have thought that it was a pleasant topic in this house,” Weverton said, quirking his brows, his expression provoking.

  Marten leaned back, rolling the stem of his wineglass back and forth between his fingers and watching his brother’s face between slitted eyes. Edgar didn’t like to be baited, in his own home and in front of his wife especially. Weverton was powerful enough not to fear Edgar, but he ought to. There was nothing Edgar wouldn’t do, no limit he wouldn’t break, to preserve his honor or to get revenge. None at all. He could turn savage in the space between breaths. But his expression remained congenial, though there was a slight tension to his jaw that Marten thought foreboded ill.

  “I am more interested in that blood oak find,” Edgar said. “Didn’t I read about that in this evening’s edition of the paper? A ship found a chunk?”

  “And promptly lost it when it broke up on the knucklebone weir,” Weverton added.

  There was an explosive babble of voices as everyone joined the speculation. Marten said nothing, envy making it hard to breathe. Blood oak was essential to creating larger majicks, and it was more scarce than anything else in the world. The majicars had for years bemoaned the fact that they had an insufficient supply—hardly any—and no one knew where the trees grew. Bits of it washed up on shore, or, as in this case, were found floating in the shipping lanes. Sailors earned a cut of the profit that came from a blood oak discovery. What Marten could have done with such a prize! He swallowed, the want so severe that he thought he might suffocate in it.

  “Word is that someone has got ahold of it and is selling it on the black trades. His Majesty is quite up in arms over it,” Weverton said. “He’s claimed it for the crown, citing eminent domain.”

  “Whatever for?’ asked Venner.

  Edgar set his knife and fork down, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “He plans to have the majicars use the blood oak to fashion a protective Pale for a new port on the Root, and to establish a caravan road leading into Glacerie and out into the freelands.”

  He glanced at Weverton, but the other man seemed startled by the information.

  “But how? Isn’t that impossible?” The timid woman spoke again, looking pleadingly around the table, her cheeks flushing.

  “Of course it is,” Weverton said in his desultory way. “The majicars can’t fix the Pale we have. How would they create another?”

  “As you say, sheer folly,” Edgar said.

  “But why? Why another port?” asked the man with rheumatoid hands. “Everything comes through Crosspointe. We have room enough to expand the port and we already have wards. Why go to such an expense?”

  “His Majesty claims it will protect us from the Jutras Empire,” Edgar said.

  “Building a port on the Verge will protect us from Jutras?”
Credelsham asked.

  “Of course not,” Edgar said, his genial mask slipping. His smile faded and his hand fisted on the table. “Rampling believes that building stronger trade with the free-lands will strengthen them against invasion and keep the Inland Sea free of a Jutras stranglehold. But the only thing that will stop the Jutras is extermination. We ought to be using the blood oak to develop defenses and weapons. The freelands would pay a pretty penny for them and it would preserve our trading base. Even if the majicars could create a new Pale, which they can’t. His Majesty is a fool.” He rapped on the table with his knuckles to emphasize each of the last words.

  Silence dropped like a shroud. Edgar’s guests appeared thoughtful, worried, and no little bit admiring. Nicholas Weverton was watching Edgar appraisingly. The moment passed and the conversation turned into speculation about who had the blood oak. Marten let the voices fade, drinking down his wine and gesturing for more, trying to numb the increasing pain in his chest.

  The course was cleared away and the next brought. Servants poured fresh wine and Marten found himself idly watching Edgar’s young bride. His third. They’d been married less than a year. Cecy was a pretty thing, diminutive and quiet, with raven hair and fine bones. She had skin the color of cream and the texture of silk. She bent toward her husband like a flower to the sun, entirely enthralled. Edgar seemed helpless to stop touching her. He kept reaching over to brush his knuckles over her cheek or lightly grasp her hand and kiss her fingers. Pregnancy made her seem even more fragile and it was clear by Edgar’s constraint that he feared hurting her.

  Unaccountably, Lucy’s face floated across Marten’s mind’s eye. She was appealing, with auburn hair, pale blue eyes, and red, plump lips. He gave a minute shake of his head. She was pretty enough, but she was also driven. He preferred his women more passionate and outspoken than Cecy, and more self-indulgent than Lucy. She probably wore a corset in her bath.