Bad Penny

Jim Webster

Description

No good deed goes unpunished. When Benor saves a man's life he finds himself the target of assassins. Poetry, politics and the quarrels of academics make a lethal cocktail.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 31 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785385995
• Langue: English

Extrait

A BAD PENNY
Book Five of The Port Naain Intelligence Series
Jim Webster





First published in 2016 by
AG Books
www.agbooks.co.uk
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
© Copyright 2016 Jim Webster
The right of Jim Webster to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.



Chapter 1
Benor Dorfinngil was heading home for his own bed. Well, technically he was heading back to a barge where he paid a nominal rent and they let him spread his bedroll on that small part of the deck protected from the elements by the overhang of the cabin roof, but still, that’s where he was heading.
Benor was on his way home earlier than he might normally have been. The unexpected arrival of an errant husband meant that Benor had tactfully left the scene. This meant that an equally errant wife was currently claiming that she’d been warming her husband’s side of the bed for him, so much had she been longing for his arrival.
The night was wet, the rain had stopped and now there was just a constant drizzle. Benor had travelled south to hit the river and was now following the wharves that lined the estuary. His plan was to take the footbridge over Wherry Beck, and then cut across Tinker’s Wharf. From there it would be the simple matter of following the walkway along the top of the Graving Dock gate before picking up the Old Esplanade and then home.
As he crossed the footbridge the rain came on again, sheets of it blowing in off the estuary. By the time he’d crossed Tinker’s Wharf he was soaked to the skin. He was walking swiftly; hunched up trying not to touch the clothes he was wearing, and he almost never heard the cry for help.
It was a man’s voice, from over towards the Graving Dock. Benor broke into a jog. The lanterns along the edge of the Graving Dock cast an uncertain light. They seemed to create more shadow than illumination. Then, near the side of the dock he saw two men grappling with a third. The latter was striking out desperately; his two assailants seemed more circumspect, as if they were wary about how they landed blows. Finally, one of them caught him on the side of the head with a length of wood and he collapsed. They grabbed him by his feet and dragged him, head bouncing, toward the Graving Dock, as if about to throw him in.
Benor looked round desperately. Roof-runners traditionally go unarmed. Amongst the fraternity there is a sense that the husband is, to a degree, the one in the right. This means that it is considered bad form to fight your way out; a good roof-runner will flee, hurting nothing but the cuckolded husband’s pride.
He found a broken barrel stave, snatched it up and sprinted across to the two men who were still dragging their victim. The rain and the fact that Benor was wearing soft soled shoes meant that they never saw him. Indeed one had his back to Benor, and he knew nothing until the barrel stave struck him on the head and broke into several pieces.
At this point he turned round, saw Benor and shouted, “Right, I’ll have you.”
He dropped the victim’s leg and lunged at Benor who dived under his arm, rolled to avoid the boot of the second man and then got back on his feet. Both men were following him now, their victim temporarily forgotten. Benor ran across the dock with them in hot pursuit, turned down a narrow lane between two long stacks of barrels laid on their sides and accelerated, only to discover that it was a dead end. The two men behind were closing quickly and Benor didn’t hesitate. He scrambled up the stack as rapidly as he could.
The smaller of the two men followed him, reaching out and grabbing Benor’s foot. Benor kicked, broke the grip and scrambled on, reaching the top where he turned to face his pursuers. The first of them had almost got to the top of the stack. Benor sat down, placed his feet against the top barrel and pushed. The man climbing was unbalanced, lost his grip and fell backwards with the barrel falling on top of him. Benor hastily rolled another barrel forward and dropped that one down as well. Then he looked over the edge at his handiwork. The first man had knocked the second man as he had fallen, or perhaps the second man had tried to catch him. No matter what, the first barrel had caught them both, and then the second barrel had burst on them just after they hit the floor.
Benor climbed down, ready to scramble back up if either moved. Both barrels had smashed and the men were surrounded by joints of salt mott. One of his victims stirred and Benor struck him with a barrel stave. This one didn’t break. Then he hastily went though their pockets. Both had purses, which Benor pocketed. One had a second purse tucked into his boot, this Benor also took. He felt he was entitled to some recompense for his troubles. He tied their hands behind their backs using their britches, feeling this would slow any pursuit. Finally he selected a mott ham from the ruins of the barrel, slung it over his shoulder and went to find their victim.
He was on his hands and knees being sick. Benor waited until he’d finished.
“How are you?”
The man started to shake his head, then stopped with a look of pain and said, “My head is sore.”
“It will be. How much do you remember?”
“I remember being attacked, where are they?”
“Over there,” Benor pointed. “We’d better go before they come round.”
“Which way?”
“Lean on me.” Benor helped him to his feet and had the man put an arm round his shoulder. He then rebalanced the ham on the other shoulder and set off across the footway. The top of the dock gate was reasonably wide but there was no hand rail. At one point Benor almost lost the ham. By the time they had got to the other side, fear seemed to have made his companion more alert and he was walking unaided. Still they weren’t making good time. By the time they reached the eastern end of the Old Esplanade it was almost dawn, the tide was already going out and the area was thronged with shore-combers, who regarded Benor, companion and ham with interest. By the time Benor got back to the boat the sun had risen.
* * *
Tallis came into the galley when he heard Benor arrive. When he saw Benor’s new acquaintance he stopped, surprised.
“Charlon Drane, what are you doing here?”
Drane looked up cautiously. “Being rescued, I think Tallis. Your friend stopped me being thrown into the Graving Dock and brought me here.”
Tallis inspected the bruise on the side of Charlon’s head. “I think you better rest a while. Benor, some hot water please, to clean where the skin has broken.”
Benor opened the stove’s firebox and prodded the damped-down embers with some dry kindling. Slowly the flames took hold and then he built the fire up with some more wood. He put some water in the kettle and placed it at the hot end of the hot plate.
The job done he turned back to face Tallis and Charlon. “So you two gentlemen know each other?”
“Oh yes, Charlon is the editor of the Port Naain Literary Review. Were I a more financially successful poet it’s a publication I would invariably buy. As it is, I occasionally find a copy lying unattended in the Misanthropes Hall which I manage to purloin for my own reading.”
Shena came in, still brushing her hair, and looked round the room; “Ham and a guest?”
“I found them both on my travels last night,” Benor explained. “I thought that as we might have a guest at breakfast I ought to make sure we had something to offer him.”
Tallis took the water and started to bathe Charlon’s head. Shena looked at the ham. “A few slices fried, I think Benor. Use the larger pan.”
Leaving them busy she stepped out onto the deck and looked westward. The sky was clearing, in another hour she ought to be at her office on the Old Esplanade, but at least it wouldn’t be raining. She yelled, “Mutt?”
A young boy, aged perhaps ten appeared instantaneously. “Yes.”
“Breakfast.”
She returned back into the cabin, Mutt following, closing the door behind him. “See to the ham please Mutt, I want to hear Benor’s story and he cannot cope with doing two things at once.”
She took the mug of coffee Benor offered her and gestured to a chair. “Right, sit down and explain.”
Benor told the tale from when he’d heard the shout. Mutt muttered inaudibly when Benor told about using a rotten barrel stave as a club, but was more vocal in his compliments when Benor related searching the bodies of the two prone assailants.
“So what you get then?”
Benor pulled the three purses out of his pouch and emptied the first. “A little silver, a little gold, and a lot of copper dregs.”
The second purse was similar. Mutt scanned the heap from his place by the stove and commented, “Could be nearly a month’s wages there.”
Benor sorted through the coins. “Five alar in gold, plus an alar’s worth of silver and plenty of copper.”
He then opened the third smaller purse. “This hasn’t much in, so I saved it to last.”
He tipped it out onto the table and ten copper coins rolled out. He examined them. “They’re all twenty-four dreg pieces.”
“It’s another half-vintenar,”