Clandestine circle

“Thanks, Mica,” she said. She sat for a few more minutes and drank a cup of water he brought her, then she climbed carefully to her feet. The loss of blood made her weak and a little dizzy, but she pushed the fatigue aside and went to work. While she searched the house, Mica dragged the looter’s body outside, where the guard patrol could pick it up. They met back in the front room where the old priest sold his work.

Silently they looked around at the devastation. The room had been trashed by the looters as they searched for things of value. Scrolls, parchment, vellum, and delicate sheets of handmade paper lay strewn everywhere, torn and shredded or lying in pools of spilled ink. Quill pens had been torn and bent and scattered over the counter. Old maps were ripped from the walls and torn to pieces. A broken shelf spilled its books on the floor, and a smashed lamp lay in a puddle of oil that seeped into the wooden floor.

“Well,” said Linsha, gazing at the mess, “I hope his records weren’t in here.”

“I doubt it. They’re probably with his personal things. So where is he?”

The lady Knight grimaced. “In his bed. He’s been dead for a day or two. The entire place is a wreck. The looters have been here for a while.”

Mica snatched a broken quill off the counter and tossed it to the floor. “Blast it! I really needed to talk to that priest.”

“I’m sure he would have preferred that, too,” Linsha said dryly.

Ignoring her remark, Mica left the shop to search the rest of the priest’s residence. Linsha went outside to bring their two horses into the shaded alley. She took off her blood-soaked tunic and tossed it over her saddle horn. Her shirt was bloody as well, but not as bad, so she dabbed it off as best she could with some muddy water from a public pump and left it to dry. Unwilling to listen to Mica’s irritations, she started to straighten up the shop. Ostensibly she did it to look for the records. Internally she wanted to do something for the dead scribe within. She didn’t know him, had never been in his shop, yet he had died alone and lay unburied and vulnerable to scavengers. The least she could do to honor the dead was fix some of the dishonor done to him.

For nearly an hour she labored to clean the floor and counter and put things back in order. She was kneeling beside the counter, picking up broken glass, when the sound of heavy boot treads interrupted her quiet thoughts.

“On your feet! Who are you, and what are you doing in here?” demanded a harsh voice.

Linsha snapped out of her reverie and came alert. As she slowly stood upright, her sharpened attention picked out something in the big wooden counter she hadn’t noticed before. But there wasn’t time to investigate. Two City Guards, both dwarves, stood by the door, their swords pointed unwaveringly at her. She saw with some amusement that their eyes widened at the sight of the bloodstains on her shirt.

“I am Lynn of Gateway,” she answered. “Squire in the service of the lord governor. I am, as you can see, trying to clean up this mess.”

The second dwarf started forward. “Lynn. I’ve seen you before.” He lowered his sword. “She was in the guards until the governor picked her out,” he told his companion.

The-first guard sheathed his weapon. “Sorry. We’ve had reports of looters in this area. We saw the horses and the wagon-”

“And the man tied to the wagon wheel,” added the second dwarf. “That got our attention.”

“I would worry if you didn’t investigate,” Linsha said. She explained her mission to the shop with Mica and told the guards briefly what had happened. Mica, hearing the voices, came out to join her. He was empty-handed.

The guards stayed for a few minutes then left, taking the prisoner and the wagon with them. The dead priest and the looter they left for the dead wagon to retrieve.

Mica took in the changed state of the shop. “Looks better,” he admitted.

“Did you find anything?”

“Not yet.”

“Then look at this.” She bent over and pointed under the counter. The counter was a large, heavy fixture made of oak stained and aged to a deep, rich brown. The front, facing the door, was trimmed with simple panels; the top was flat and featureless, save for the nicks and stains of steady use. In the back lay a trove of shelves, cupboards, drawers, and slots. Linsha had already refilled some of the shelves with the salvageable parchment, scrolls, and sheets of valuable paper. But on the end abutting the wall was a narrow drawer built into the bottom of the countertop. Linsha hadn’t noticed it until the guards disturbed her and she looked up at just the right angle. It didn’t have an obvious handle or lock, only a finger-sized indentation at the top edge. When Linsha tried to pull it open, it remained firmly in place.