Chapter 353: Quiet Checks

Captain Ryn read the order twice before she accepted its existence. Magistrate Oren’s seal was intact at the bottom, and the language retained a deliberate restraint--increase patrols at the yards, gates, and Free boarding districts, take intake reports, confirm recent arrivals, no raids, no posted notices at the walls, no speeches, and if questioned, the inspection excuse would suffice. Ryn set the paper down and studied her two shift leads. "You heard the tone. Dull inquiries. Neat notes. If a Free becomes prickly, you don’t prod the story from them. If a house runner tails you back along the street, you mark them but don’t stop."

The more senior of her leads, Matthis, frowned as he took the document. "This is more paperwork than we usually take in."

"Correct," Ryn said, "Upper Walk is predicting visitors. Visitors who want records. Therefore, we provide records, and we keep the under streets distracted."

"Visitors?" The younger of her leads asked.

"The sort that you don’t ask for in the ready room," Ryn said, "You take your pairs. Yards first, boarding houses second, hold market last. Preliminary sheets before second bell."

They dispersed, and by the midmorning the additional coats had appeared in sufficient numbers for the dock sellers to guess at reasons--tax audit, missing cargo, but most believed a house fight was coming, and the magistrate wanted names before any blood was spilled. None received a definite answer.

Foreman Sull spotted the pair as they approached the river yards, and wiped her hands on her apron. "If this is about the smeared seal you saw yesterday, I already assured your clerk that it was clean."

"It isn’t," Matthis said, holding his voice carefully steady and bored. "Recent day labor. New Frees. Names, arrival dates, any irregularities?"

Sull studied him for a long moment. "Irregularities?"

"Of the variety that don’t match what they claim to be," he said.

"That is half my board in an off year," Sull sighed and still pulled the slate. "You may copy what is here. You don’t frighten my men away from the line."

"That isn’t our purpose," Matthis said, "We are to record."

Lucian felt the change in the air before he could define it. The Watch pair didn’t shout, didn’t grab, only their presence near Sull became something she adjusted to, subtly, like most workers would have adjusted to a changed shift supervisor. Pesh took notice as well, and muttered along with the pair as they set a crate down together.

"Extra coats," Pesh said, "You in debt to anyone?"

"No," Lucian said.

"Good," Pesh said, "Then answer simply and move past them. You irritate the less patient when you dawdle at the gate."

Lucian nodded and took the next lift, drawing upon a controlled range of his abilities so that the strain showed in his arms when his turn came. When one of the Watch officers finally drifted close enough to demand his name, Lucian obliged.

"Lucian."

"House?"

"None."

"Arrival?"__

"Recent. Day labor under Sull."

The officer scrawled it down. "Any particular specialty?"

"Lifting what I am ordered to,"

The reply earned a soft snort of amusement. "Stay available in the event of follow-up"

"I reside here," Lucian said, "I will be easy to find."

The officer moved on. Pesh waited until the man was out of earshot. "That was excellent," he said, "Some Frees stumble into their stories and end up in the annex."

"I have no particular story to tell," Lucian said.

"Then you are well suited for this," Pesh said. By the time the Watch pair left the yards Lucian’s name was on a page with considerably more than his own, all with the same bland offerings of labor and the short span of acceptable arrival dates. He ate at the break wall as easily as the others, listening to Orrin’s complaints of his recent gate fees and Pesh’s insistence that the crane would collapse outright before the week was out. There was no conversation of any real length necessary, and that was fine.

Reed Street’s residents had their turn in the afternoon.

Old Henn spotted the coats from his window and spoke before the pair had finished knocking. "If you are inquiring about overdue rents, take the notice and go. If you are inquiring about recent boarders, I expect to hear that speech as prepared."

Captain Ryn had taken a personal hand in this particular matter. She stepped inside, regarded the narrow stair, and then returned her attention to Henn. "Recent Frees. Names, approximate arrival dates."

Henn sucked his teeth. "You people are industrious this week."

"We are obedient this week," Ryn said, "There is a difference."

He retrieved a worn book from the desk and opened it with his thumb. "Two have left the city already. Both found yard work and pay on time, one is a hard drinker and imagines I don’t hear his late nights. That is my lot."

"The yard?"

"Lucian. Quiet. Early riser. Doesn’t break doors or collect fights at the door," Henn shut the book half way. "If Upper Walk intends villains, they will have to browse elsewhere."

Ryn wrote down the name he provided. "Visitors enquiring?"

"Not yet,"

"If this changes, see that I am the first to know,"

Henn watched her for a long moment. "I rent rooms. I do not run a tip service."You run a boarding house in my district," Ryn said, without unkindness, "and I would prefer your counsel to any house runner’s unwanted conversation."

Henn grunted and tapped the table once. "If they begin nosing about, I will consider my civic responsibility."

"Good enough," Ryn said, and left him to return, once again, to his waiting meal. Henn looked up the narrow stair as Lucian came down for the mug of water.

"Watch inquired as to your name," Henn said.

Lucian filled the cup. "I was aware. It seems they were in the same vicinity at the yards."

"You rattled?"

"Nothing of the sort."

"Good," Henn said, "Rattled workers carry too much guilt for the crime of being tired." The old man leaned against the table, "This isn’t a neighborhood theft inspection, Upper Walk doesn’t take the measure to find only what they want to know ahead of time."

"Any ideas of who might have been responsible?"

"Ideas are free and rarely correct, thank you," Henn said. "Continue your work, continue to be dull, if a smiling magistrate comes to inquire as to your services, tell them to return when you have the time."

"I intended to,"

"Plan harder,"

Veyrn’s and Sallis runners conducted similar inquiries elsewhere in the city, making more inquiries in turn, asking more questions with careful civility and buying drinks in exchange for opinions about new Frees, whose stability ranged from questionable to nonexistent for most responses, all the while marking the notes about a man who worked well, and spoke little, in the river yards.

By evening Captain Ryn was sifting through the first reports in the lower Watch office, the clean lines of the intake sheets, the neat gate logs, and the boarding house records all following the same careful pattern of recent arrivals and conveniently unremarkable pasts. Matthis stood across from her as she finished another sheet.

"Anything jump?"

"Nothing that stands out," Ryn said, tapping a line with the back of her finger. "A few names settle too well, however. This Lucian from Sull’s yard and your neighbor Henn are two examples. The sort who take work, pay what they say, and answer questions with as little information as acceptable."

"That may only be a man who wants his rent in full,"

"True," Ryn said, settling back, "Or it may be a man who knows his value and chooses the currency in which he deals. We clear the man away to avoid accusations of theft, we keep the rolls tidy and wait for the next inquiry from Upper Walk to take what we need."

"And if the house runners arrive first?"

"Then we remind them this is still a civic district," Ryn said, "While we still remember the rule."

Outside Keth-Arel kept its careful night watch, horses, voices, the steady sound of a bell. On Reed street Lucian sat by the window, wiping the dust from the yard into his gloves as a man who had finished his day’s work. His name was on paper, but that wouldn’t be news, and he meant, if ever possible, to control the story.