Den of the Red Wolf

Charlotte Silvermane was not disturbed by the deepening shadows in the alley behind the Black Dagger.  She was more concerned with the mercenaries she was about to meet in the pub.  The contract she was trying to fill required subtlety.  The Shadow Cloaks were about as subtle as a call girl on a street corner.  Moreover, she did not trust them.  Especially Turnbuckle.  That dalibor would forsake her crew for the smallest taste of power.

Charlotte almost ignored the man who stepped out of the doorway in front of her.  Most likely, just someone heading home or for a drink after finishing up their workday.  Almost, but not quite.  She was not so rusty as to let her guard down totally.

A few things prevented it from being an impeccable ambush.  No door had closed behind the man.  His dark clothes were more worn than most traders in this area would find acceptable.  Then, there were the other two failing to move up behind her quietly.

“Well, now.  Don’t usually get such fancy folk on their own so near the Tyr.  Maybe not quite so fancy after you hand over your purse.”  His grin was marred by two missing teeth.

“I’ll give you what you want.  Please don’t hurt me.”  Charlotte’s voice trembled as she reached for the purse on her belt.

Instead of taking coins out of the purse, she brought out a steel ball.  With a flick, she fired it into the thug’s crotch.  As he crumpled in pain, she darted around him.  When she turned to face the other two, she had a small dagger in each hand, shiny enough to be seen in the dim light.

“Now, believe I can hit a target just as easily with these.  Even small ones.”  Charlotte slowly backed away from the moaning would-be-mugger.  “Drag your friend back to the Tyr, and get him some ice.”

She slipped into a cross alley and dashed down it to Market Square.  Most of the stalls had closed up for the day.  There were still plenty of local craftsmen and out-of-town traders talking in small groups or heading for refreshment.  The uninjured thugs would not be stupid enough to follow her.  They could not be that stupid, right?  She would not underestimate them.

She was furious with herself.  She had been sloppy.  In her prime, when she had been with the Green Flame, she would have noticed those goons before they got within a dozen paces.  Living as Rue Toltein for the past few years had dulled her edge.  Rue was a go-between, a negotiator hiring not-quite-criminals to perform not-quite-moral acts.  Rue held court in the backrooms of pubs.  Rue did not fight ruffians in the streets.

Maybe that should change.  Charlotte knew that the Shadow Cloaks would make a mess of the job.  She could do it herself.  Sharpen her skills.  Get back into her old form.  At least, start the process.  Gathering enough evidence of malfeasance to get Samuel Kerstens dismissed would not be too taxing.  One did not get to be Assistant Master of the Honorable Order of Merchants without doing a few naughty things.  Especially an Assistant Master the Order’s Board of Governors was just looking for an excuse to expel.

Charlotte checked the time.  It was not too late in the evening.  If she hurried, the Rabid Rabbit would still be fairly crowded.

The Rabid Rabbit was a working class pub in Midtown East.  It was close enough to the towers of East Gate to attract a crowd of clerks, receptionists, and other office workers.  When Charlotte walked into it, much of the after-work crowd had already dispersed for the evening.  Those remaining, however, were mostly quite drunk.  Just the state Charlotte wanted them in.

Rue Toltein was much too bourgeois for the Rabid Rabbit.  The Rabbit was clerical working class to its core.  Here, the secretaries and bookkeepers from the towers of East Gate found sanctuary away from their merchant and trader bosses.  Charlotte had changed Rue’s loose trousers, dark blouse, fur-lined leather jacket, and boots for Larca Streeb’s sweater, skirt, and heels.  If her sweater was a little tighter, her skirt a little shorter, and her heels a little higher than would be acceptable in most offices, well, that would only make her job easier.  Getting information out of drunk, lustful men was somewhat easier than getting it out of men who were only drunk.

Selecting her targets was straightforward.  A group of three men were complaining about their bosses a little too loudly.  It sounded like they worked for one of the major merchant houses.  And their table had a free chair.

“Howdy, boys.  Looks to me like you all need a refill.”  Charlotte thunked down four pints of ale on their table.  It always amazed Charlotte that a certain class of young men never thought something might be amiss when an attractive stranger brought a round of drinks to their table and sat down without an invitation.  

“Well, now, who might you be?” asked the man to her left.  His eyes had not gotten higher than her chest.  Charlotte was glad she had decided to use the breast forms.  At least one of these guys was fascinated by Larca’s larger bust.

“Back home, people call me Larca.  Pleased to meet you.  What’re you called?”

“You’re not from around here, then?  Didn’t think I’d seen you in here before.  I’d remember.”  At least the man across from her looked her in the eyes.  She was definitely holding the attention of two of the men.  The third, the one on her right, was looking down intently at one of the ales she had brought.

“Just off the ship.  Steward said I might look around here for a job.  Goin’ to need one soon.  Me coin ain’t goin’ to last forever, you know.”

“Oh, what sort of job are you looking for?” asked the eye-gazer.  His emphasis on the word ‘job’ made it clear what he wanted to hire her for personally.  She needed to disabuse him of that notion.  Not that Charlotte had not played the prostitute before to get a man in private, usually to rob him.  Tonight’s work was best done in the open.

“I worked for a big merchan’er, I did. Assistant to one of the partners.  Set up his meetin’s, filed his papers, fetched his tea, that sort of stuff.  Thought I could do somethin’ like it here.  You boys know of any,”  Charlotte arched her back, “openings?”

“Um, yes, I, um, see,” stuttered the boob fancier.  The man to her right dropped his head so low that he almost got a noseful of ale.

“Business is in a bit of a downturn, right now,” said the man opposite.  “A lot of competition for…positions.  You might need to do something special to get noticed.”

Hold it together, Charlotte.  You’ve done this before.  He’s a lech, not a threat.

She leaned back, draping her arms over the back of her chair.  “I got skills.  Just a question of who’s, you know, deserving of ‘em.  Any heavys in play?”

“Let’s see.  Word over at the Livestock Syndicate is that Tanaf Colestein’s wife made him fire his secretary.  Colestein’s not senior over there, but the job does come with side benefits.”  Maybe she could knife him on his way home.  “Or Karle Fendersen,  he’s pretty high up at the Miner’s Union.  He goes through assistants like, like a very fast thing.  Like a train through a tunnel.  That’s it.”

Need to get to the point, thought Charlotte.  Only one of these guys wants to talk, and he looks like he is about to pass out.

“How ‘bout this, let’s see, this Honorable Order of Merchants?  Purser on the ship said they always had places open.”

Charlotte could not be sure in the Rabbit’s dim light, but she thought that her interlocutor went pale.

“No, that’s the Guild, you see.  Guild sets the rules, you see.  Lot of power over there.”

“Just about right, then.  Power means they got coin, don’t it?”

“Not really.  You want coin, you work for a house.  You work at the Guild, you want control.  Too many like that, makes it, makes it cutthroat.  Hard to last long over there.”  He gave Charlotte a sloppy grin.  “Hello, darling.  Yeah, get fired from the Guild, no house going to touch you.  Traders neither.  Getting worse, too.”

“Sounds ‘orrible.  How can it be worse?”

“Word is, Kerstens, he’s the number two over there, is planning a…a coup, that’s it.  Wants merchants to make deals directly, not through the traders.  Those new factories out in the Fan?  They want long-term contracts.  Not getting those through the traders.  

“Kerstens’ got a few of the newer houses on-side.  Promising bigger profits, more coin.  Get some of the biggies, darling, and he can take over.  Throw out the board.  Rewrite the rules.  Going, going to get blood flying over there.”

“Sounds ‘orrible.  I’m lookin’ for an easy place, I am.  Someplace not havin’ to look out for a knife in me back.  Thanks for the warning.

“Bloody Nora!  I was supposed to be somewhere a quar’er hour ago.  Best I hurry along.”  As she stood, Charlotte chucked the breast enthusiast under the chin.  “Nice talkin’ to you fellas.”

Good to get the taste of that ale out of her mouth, thought Charlotte as she brushed her teeth that evening.  It was truly foul.  Turned out that some of the patrons of the Rabid Rabbit were pretty foul, too.  What had she been thinking?  She had not been Larca since…well, since.  Why had she thought she could play the flirty sexpot like she had done so many times in the past?

Anyway, she had succeeded.  She had the information that she had sought.  Tomorrow, she could take the next steps.  Now, she would take one of Marjorie’s sleeping draughts.  Maybe it would keep the nightmares away.  Hopefully.