Belisia, Again
Berend wakes close to noon in his room at the Fox and Dove. He slept, and soundly, but it feels as though he hasn’t. His back aches and his eyes are heavy.
The carriage ride back from the Belisia estate had been tensely silent on Berend’s part, but Lucian Warder had given no indication that he noticed. He made notes in his book for the first hour and then had slept, leaning on the case that contained his strange device.
Berend tries to look at the positive. He’s fulfilled his contract—the haunting of the estate is over. He could feel it, as soon as the girl’s ghost had disappeared: a lifting of pressure and a lessening of the shadows, as though the house had taken a deep, cleansing breath. It won’t be livable for some time, and the garden is all but lost, but the ordeal is finished.
His hair and his clothing still smell of rot. Berend had arrived barely an hour from sunrise, and the innkeeper and his family were all asleep. He had scrubbed what he could in the icy water in the basin before exhaustion made him give up.
He calls for a bath, and for the bedding to be changed. There is a tray outside his door, with a cold cup of tea and half a small loaf of brown bread, but he can’t smell either of them under the moldy reek of the estate. Breakfast will have to wait.
There’s something else that clings to him besides the smell. In the white noise of the innkeeper’s daughters pouring steaming water into the bath and shaking out the sheets, he can hear the unearthly scream of the ghost. Had Lucian’s device harmed her in some way? He doesn’t know enough about spirits to tell, and he hadn’t asked Lucian. In truth, he admits to himself, he did not want to know. He still doesn’t. He would rather think of it as a job well done.
Herard Belisia, the badly hung-over scion of the house, had not mentioned anything about a murder, or even a missing girl. He certainly hadn’t said a word to incriminate his brother, Hybrook, the target of the ghost’s vengeful ire. Had Herard been protecting him, or did he honestly not know?
After Berend is bathed and dressed in his second set of clothing, the innkeeper’s youngest son brings him a note. It bears the Belisias’ seal and an address in the city center.
He’ll go collect his money, he decides, and he’ll tell Lord Belisia what transpired in the house. Surely, at the very least, the head of the family will want to keep another haunting from occurring. The expense to return the house to something resembling its former glory would be enough of a motivation.
I’ll be paid, justice will be done, and I can forget all this ever happened.
After that, he’ll get his hat back from the shop, find the grim-faced Sentinel, and get back to the business of finding the man who murdered Mikhail.
Death is a mercenary’s line of work, and he’s well accustomed to it. Murder, on the other hand, is something else entirely, and he’s encountered enough in the past two days to last a lifetime.
It’s a warm afternoon when Berend leaves the Fox and Dove and ventures out into the city—a stroke of good luck, as his heavy cloak is being washed. The sun is bright, and he misses his hat, but it’s a pleasant walk to the city center. The address on the official note leads him to an upstairs suite in a newer building. A tea service sits out on a small table on the balcony, at the center of a circle of delicate wrought-metal chairs, but there are no people visible from the street.
A doorman allows Berend in, and he goes upstairs. There is a young man sitting at a cramped desk on the landing. He stands as Berend approaches. “Gabriel Penmore, at your service,” he says with a bow. “I’m a clerk in the service of Lord Belisia. You must be Captain Horst.”
Berend hasn’t held a proper rank for some time. Someone has done their research since hiring him. “I am,” he says, and touches a hand to his forehead where his hat would be—and will be, soon, he reassures himself.
“Very good.” Gabriel returns to his desk and opens the drawers, a difficult endeavor in the limited space, producing two sacks of coins. “Five hundred silver, as promised, for a job well and discreetly performed.”
He empties both sacks on the surface of the desk and counts the money in Berend’s view before returning it to the bags and handing it over.
“Thank you very much,” Berend says.
Gabriel smiles brightly. He is sandy-haired and wears a pair of wire-framed lenses, looking every inch the recently-graduated scholar he undoubtedly is. “Professor Warder has already given a full report.” He holds out a thin stack of handwritten sheets of paper. “Is there anything you would like to add?”
Berend recognizes the handwriting as Lucian’s; it’s no more legible than it was when he was looking at the professor’s notebook from the opposite side of the carriage. “There is something, in fact. I’d like to debrief Lord Belisia himself. Is he available?”
Gabriel frowns. “I assure you, Lord Belisia has authorized me to act on his behalf. Anything you would say to him can be said to me.” He reaches into another drawer and pulls out a page with a spidery signature and the Belisias’ seal.
Berend waves the paper away. “The information I have is of a…confidential and sensitive nature,” he says. “To uphold both the letter and the spirit of my contract, I must speak to Lord Belisia and no one else. I am willing to wait.”
“Well, ah…I can relay your request,” Gabriel stammers. “But with the chaos surrounding the events at the estate, it may take some time before Lord Edwan is prepared to receive you.” He smiles again, now blandly professional. “Is there anything else I can do for you while you wait?”
Berend returns the polite expression. “A refreshment would not be amiss.”
“Of course.”
Gabriel brings him a cup of milky coffee from the suite, and after another moment, a chair. He returns to his desk and occupies himself with more paperwork. Perhaps he is only pretending to be busy; his eyes dart furtively toward Berend every few moments. He goes in and out of the suite behind him and closes the door in his wake each time. If there is anyone else in there, they do not appear.
Berend sips his coffee and waits.
An hour passes, perhaps two. Sunlight begins to stream into the westward-facing windows downstairs. Berend’s chair isn’t comfortable, and his back still feels the hours in the carriage to and from the Belisia estate, but he’s had worse.
Finally, Gabriel emerges from the door once again. “Captain Horst? Lord Belisia will see you now.”
Berend stands, trying to stretch in such a way that maintains his dignity. “Thank you.”
He enters the quiet suite, and the door shuts behind him with a soft click. Edwan Belisia sits behind a heavy oak desk, pressing a seal onto a sharply folded letter. He’s perhaps sixty, every pleat in his doublet and jacket pressed into a precise line, his silver-and-black hair and black-and-silver beard neatly trimmed.
He looks up as Berend approaches. The top half of his right ear is gone, the ragged, scarred edge at odds with the rest of his appearance. It’s an old wound, and he’s made no effort to hide it.
“You must be the mercenary,” he says. “Horst, was it?”
Berend bows. “At your service.”
Lord Belisia gestures to a chair facing his desk. Berend sits down.
“Now, what is it that you couldn’t discuss with my secretary?”
“I wanted to protect the confidentiality of my contract,” says Berend. “However, I must inform you of certain factors relating to the haunting in your estate. Were you aware of the death that caused the disturbance?”
Lord Belisia fixes him with a cold, measuring gaze. “Hauntings are usually caused by deaths, are they not?”
“Indeed.” Nobility does not intimidate Berend, in and of itself, but the man’s military bearing is obvious. “I assume Mr. Warder has informed you of the success of the operation. I can confirm that the device worked as promised, and the estate is no longer haunted.”
“Yes, I’ve sent someone ahead to verify Warder’s account,” Lord Belisia says. “But that isn’t why you’re here.”
Berend remembers the apparition of the weeping girl and takes a steadying breath. “Based on the evidence that I was able to find, the victim was a young woman in your employ, and she was murdered by your younger son.”
Lord Belisia’s brows draw together in a frown that gives little indication of his thoughts. “I see.”
“They were involved in a…romantic entanglement, and he got her with child,” Berend continues. “It appears that he promised to marry her, but instead strangled her to death and buried her in the rose garden. It was her restless spirit that caused the disturbance in your house.”
Lord Belisia says nothing. He laces his fingers together and sets them on top of the desk.
“It is my experience that the sort of men who commit these sorts of deeds do not do them only once,” Berend says. “I swore to maintain my discretion—”
“You did,” Lord Belisia interjects, his tone grimly level.
Berend nods. “I leave the decision to you, as lord of the house. But if you do not act, there will likely be more bloodshed, and more restless spirits. You will not be able to keep it a secret forever.”
“Is there anyone else you’ve spoken to about this?”
“Only you, Warder, and your elder son, who hired me,” Berend says.
Lord Belisia stands, and his upholstered chair scrapes against the floorboards like the low growl of an animal. “Very well, Mr. Horst, I am grateful to you for bringing this to my attention.” He holds out a hand. “I sincerely hope that we shall never see each other again.”
Berend gets up as well, and takes the offered hand with an iron grip. It’s a handshake he’s had to do before, one that carries the full weight of his history and the reputation of the Sons of Galaser—Lord Belisia is old enough to know of them—and the message to do something. Meeting the man’s gaze with equal intensity, he says, “I share your hope, sir.”
He hopes it will be enough. It will have to be, for now. He has never broken a contract before, and he’s not going to start today.
The ghost is gone, he tells himself. I’ve done what I can. Still, the memory of the house hovers around him, though he’s gotten rid of the smell. He leaves the city center feeling little relief from the burden.
Some time later, hat firmly back atop his head where it belongs, Berend sets out to continue his previous investigation. The Sentinel is not at the chapel on the blue field, where he expected to find her, and Brother Risoven directs him to the River District.
It’s early evening by the time he finds her. After walking the length of the harbor twice, he sees the familiar black-clad figure at a small table in the corner of the local bakery. She sits across from a plump woman in a flour-stained apron, whose eyes are red from weeping. Between them is a small metal box and a key, as well as a small pouch of coins. In the baker’s cracked hands is a silver charm strung on a pink satin ribbon, the perfect shade to complement her copper-and-white hair.
Berend waits for a few more minutes. When Isabel emerges, she walks a step past him before turning to him in surprise.
“Mr. Horst,” she says.
“Evening, Sentinel,” he replies, tipping his hat with no small amount of satisfaction. “I hope the past evening was more pleasant for you than it was for me.”
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