Chapter 121: The Handler and the Smuggler

Marienne found the name Serren Mott in the first accepted contract almost immediately.

Severin stood at the short end, facing the door. Alicia stood just behind his right side, ears turned toward the hall. Nyra sat opposite him with yesterday’s folded scrap beneath her fingers.

Marienne flattened the contract page and ran her fingertip down the receipt section.

"First date," she said. "The tannery matches. Mott is on the receiver line."

Nyra unfolded her scrap. "And the next date?"

Marienne turned deeper into the packet. "Same packet. Mott again."

Severin looked at the signature block. "Mott signed it?"

"No." Marienne’s finger moved back up the page. "The tannery is the contracting party. Mott only appears where the load is handed over."

Nyra leaned across the table and set her scrap beside Severin’s hand. "This says what somebody wrote down. That’s all."

Alicia’s smile tightened for a heartbeat.

Her ears stayed angled toward the corridor.

"Hall’s clear, Master," she said.

Nyra caught the expression, gave Alicia a dry look, and went back to the dates without comment.

Severin glanced at the other packet. "The last date?"

Marienne opened it and checked Nyra’s note against the handling section before answering.

"Here." She turned the page toward him. "Different packet. The tannery holds the contract; Mott is only in handling again."

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Severin looked at the page. "Registry."

Marienne’s gaze softened for the briefest moment before she gathered the 2 packets. "You want to see if the registry ties the name to the tannery?"

"Anything that puts Mott on paper as more than a receiver."

Nyra folded her scrap and tucked it back under her palm. "And if there isn’t anything?"

"Then we stop wasting time looking for a man the paper hasn’t given us."

Her mouth twitched. "Better."

They left the records room together.

At the south gate, Marienne unlocked the west leaf without stepping outside. The household servant already stationed there stepped closer when she held out the key.

"Keep this until we’re back," Marienne said. "This gate only."

The servant closed his hand around it. "Yes, ma’am."

Severin sat with Alicia at his right. Nyra and Marienne took the opposite bench. The servant stayed inside with the key as the driver sent the carriage through the open west leaf.

As the carriage crossed the manor boundary, Severin caught a clean sense of the south gate and outward movement. The ward gave him no more than that.

Behind them, the servant closed the west leaf and locked it from inside.

The registry was warmer than the street. Fresh ink and dry wood cut through the close air.

Severin stood at the center of the counter. Marienne moved to his left with the accepted packets. Nyra stayed just behind her. Alicia watched the door and the hands of anyone who came close.

The clerk looked up from the counter.

"Serren Mott. What sort of filing?"

"Anything that places Serren Mott in this tannery’s business beyond a receiver line," Marienne said. "Merchant or business entry. Registered office or address. Filed office title."

The clerk glanced at the packet. "Contracting party?"

"No. Receiver."

"Hmph."

He pulled a heavy book toward himself, checked an index, then disappeared through the shelves behind the counter. Routine pages turned. A drawer opened. Something wooden knocked and went quiet.

When he returned, he carried the registry books under his arm.

He checked them standing up.

"No merchant filing under Serren Mott." Another page. "No registered office or address under that name."

Marienne pointed to the other packet. "Filed office title tied to the tannery? Receiver, agent, factor, anything entered here."

The clerk checked again.

His brow creased.

"Nothing under Mott. Tannery itself is registered. Has been for years. But this name? No office entry I can give you."

Severin watched the clerk rather than the books. The man looked mildly annoyed at the extra search, not frightened.

No reason to make more of it than the records gave him.

Nyra shifted her weight. "So the tannery accepts the name in the receiver line, but the registry can’t attach it to the job."

Marienne closed the packet halfway, then stopped. "In the records we checked, yes."

Nyra nodded.

Severin turned toward the door.

"Back to the tannery, Master?" Alicia asked.

"Yes."

The carriage took them there without delay.

The smell reached Severin before the building did: wet hide, lime, old water, and something sour trapped in timber. The tannery’s front trade office was busier than the registry. Workers crossed behind the counter with stained aprons and rolled sleeves. None of them paid Nyra’s shoulder bag more attention than they gave Marienne’s packets.

Marienne laid the accepted counterpart covering the first 2 dates on the counter.

"We need the handling records for these receipts."

The clerk behind the counter looked at the tannery mark, then at her. "Problem with delivery?"

"I’m checking who accepted it."

He made a face that suggested paperwork was a personal insult, but he took the packet.

"Wait here."

While the clerk was gone, Severin shifted closer to the counter. When the man returned with a daybook and a thinner handling book, Severin could see the first opened page without crossing behind the counter. Alicia stayed at his right, attention split between the corridor and the workers moving behind them.

Marienne matched the first date.

Then the next date.

Nyra drew out her folded scrap and checked the last date herself.

"All 3," she said quietly.

The clerk scratched his jaw. "You want copies?"

"I want to see the handling line," Marienne said.

His mouth tightened at the extra work.

"Records room. Don’t move anything out of order."

He tucked the thinner handling book under his arm, carried the daybook ahead of them, and led them through a short passage into a ground-floor room lined with shelves darkened by years of dust and tanning smoke.

A rectangular table stood in the center. Severin took the near edge. Marienne came up on his left and spread the 2 accepted packets, the one covering 2 dates nearest her and the other directly above it. Nyra faced him across the table, her own scrap never leaving her hand.

The clerk kept the daybook near his side and opened the thinner handling book between Severin and Marienne. Alicia stopped 1 step behind Severin’s right shoulder, keeping the corridor in sight.

Her ear turned toward the passage.

Severin read the first handling entry. The page carried the tannery mark, the load description, the date, and a receiver line naming Serren Mott.

The next page carried the same name.

So did the last.

Marienne traced farther across the line and stopped.

"There."

Severin looked where she pointed.

Beneath the receiver entry, a short routing note sat in the handling column.

Lower receiving.

Nyra leaned closer, eyes narrowing. "That note isn’t in the daybook entry."

"Different record," Marienne said. "The handling book tells the staff what happens after acceptance."

The tannery clerk had remained near the door. He shrugged when Severin looked at him.

"Late loads go where the handling line sends them."

"Where’s lower receiving?" Severin asked.

The clerk frowned as if the answer should be obvious. "Below the main floor. Receiving level."

Severin looked back at the page. The registry hadn’t tied the name to this work, but the tannery still treated it as enough to move a load below.

Nyra leaned over the receiver line without touching the page. "If the workers honor it, they know what the name means."

"Yes," Severin said.

Marienne glanced at him. "That still doesn’t tell us who."

"I don’t need that answer yet."

Her expression eased. She left the 2 packets open.

Severin looked at Nyra. "Find out what a worker expects when someone uses this name. Spoken, written, whatever they accept."

Nyra nodded. "Without asking who Mott really is?"

"Without deciding there’s a man behind it before we know."

Nyra’s mouth bent. "I can work with that."

"Marienne, keep the 2 counterparts open."

"Already doing it."

Alicia’s gaze stayed on the corridor.

"I’m here, Master."

Severin put his hand on the edge of the tannery page.

"Start there."

The clerk at the door cleared his throat. Marienne kept the 2 contracts spread beside the open handling book. Nyra bent over her scrap again, and Severin reached for the next handling page.