Honey for Celephaïs: Chapter 3
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Later that day, Sergeant Jabari notified the Wardmaster—Mistress Mary, better known as Mary the Boneless because she was paralyzed from the waist down—that they were performing an unannounced and immediate wall inspection.
She acquiesced, of course, since there was really very little she could do about it other than complain to the King, who was quite disinterested and would probably side with the Constabulary in any case… not to mention, the inspection would be long done with by the time she got an audience!
Jabari left two officers at each gate and split the rest of her women into two groups, one working from the Boreas Gate up and then across the Wall of Euphrosyne, the other starting from the di Scalotta Gate to the Wall, until they met somewhere in the middle.
The Wall wasn’t that long, they’d be done soon enough.
She positioned herself up on the Wall itself, in roughly the middle. The walk on top of the Wall was once designed for defense, before the city had grown beyond it, and a third wall had been built even farther out from the Pinnacle. With crenelations and arrow slits it still looked forbidding, but was generally considered more of a hindrance than a defense measure by the populace. There were only gates through the walls, so it could take a considerable amount of time to move on about inside the city.
There were always constables at both ends of the wall where it bordered Skala Eresou, of course, to stop people from entering that way, even though the entire Wall was supposed to be off-limits to everyone but them. From the top she could see both groups of constables at they worked their way along the setback, an empty space running along next to the Wall on the inside to facilitate rapid movement by defenders. Over the years the law had become looser and looser, and now even buildings of one story built up against the wall were pretty much ignored, as long as the roadway stayed wide enough for men and carts to pass easily.
Enforcement was looser, but the law still gave the Constabulary the right to demand entry to every structure abutting the wall. In most cases the owner allowed them immediate access, coming running quickly when called to prevent them from smashing the lock. Or the door.
In a few cases the owner couldn’t be contacted and they’d have some repairs to do later.
Larima pounded on the door of the shack, demanding entry.
“Wake up some of the people around here, and find out who owns this place,” she ordered, and the constables with her spread out and began questioning local residents. Those who could left promptly, discovering urgent business elsewhere, and the laggards confessed that they had no idea who owned it.
It had gone up a few months ago but nobody remembered ever seeing anyone go in or out. Or so they said.
The Constabulary was rarely appreciated, except for theft or fire.
After half an hour or so, with no owner and no information, they broke down the door to discover an empty room with rough boards laid down for a floor.
Larima trusted her instincts and looked underneath… sure enough, there was a tunnel opening hidden under it.
She stepped outside, looked up at the wall walk to catch Jabari’s eye, and motioned.
It only took Jabari a few minutes to climb down the closest ladder and walk over. After one look she dispatched a runner to notify Captain Ragnarsson.
A ladder descended into the pitch-black hole.
“There must be a torch around here somewhere…” Jabari muttered, searching. Ah, there it was, hanging from the ladder.
“Larima, you’re with me,” she ordered, lighting the torch with her flint. “Ihala, make sure everyone finishes checking the rest! And if the Captain shows up, send him down here.”
The torch sputtered a few times then settled down to a steady, almost smokeless flame. No odor, either, she noted. Expensive.
The ladder was longer than she expected, ending about three meters down, with another shaft extending off to the side. One side of the tunnel was the stone of the Wall itself: the horizontal tunnel ran along the wall, not through it as she’d expected.
“I think it’s headed toward the sewage tunnel,” said Larima.
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah, Sarge. And lots of it.”
They had to hunch over to traverse the shaft, and as Larima had thought it ended up at the sewage tunnel. The shaft opened up in the wall overlooking the flow. The river water was rapid here, picking up speed as it descended the slope toward the sea, but the place stank anyway, of course.
Jabari tied a cloth over her nose and mouth; Larima followed suit.
The stonework of the tunnel was ancient. Celephaïs had stood here for centuries, and while there were tales of its founders and their work, nobody really knew much about its origins, or its tunnels. Some thought they had originally been built as canals—most were certainly wide and deep enough for a small boat, and indeed the artificers often used boats to navigate it for inspections and repairs.
There were rumors of unmapped tunnels branching off into the darkness, and some extending downward where no boat could travel, deep into the earth or out to sea. The artificers had maps, of course, but everyone knew they were incomplete, only covering the portions they actually used.
The blackish, scummy water was about a palm’s width below the walkway at tunnel’s edge. The walkway itself was only barely wide enough to stand, let alone walk on, and was covered with mold and fungi.
Jabari held the torch closer… there were scuffmarks here, in front of the tunnel, but the walkway was untouched a meter or two farther, in both directions.
They must have used a boat, and that meant they couldn’t tell if it came from upstream or down.
She held the torch high and the two of them examined the walls and ceiling. While they couldn’t tell what might be hidden in the darkness, there was nothing visible—no markings, no doors, no signs that anyone had been here for centuries.
“Nothing more we can do here,” she said. “And I’m not getting in that water!”
Larima nodded.
“Let’s go get some air.”
They retraced their footsteps, and Jabari replaced the torch in the holder as they climbed out of the hole.
“I wonder if we can make it look like nobody was here…” she mused. “Larima, what do you think?”
“Uh…” the woman thought for a moment, looking around. “We can straighten up inside easy enough, but we kicked in the door…”
“Yeah, but we kicked in a lot of doors along the Wall, and checked all the structures. Suppose we just put the floorboards back, and make it look like we never noticed the tunnel?” suggested Jabari. “Go get me some dirt, Larima.”
She squatted down and began brushing out their footprints with her hands.
Larima brought in a few handfuls of street dirt, and they scattered it around artistically, camouflaging the few signs of their visit.
“That should do it, Sarge,” said Larima, flicking one last clod onto the floorboards.
“Yup, looks good. Now we need to settle in across the street somewhere to keep an eye on this place…”
They stepped back outside, and Jabari slapped a huge ILLEGAL STRUCTURE sign on the building. Signed by the captain of the Constabulary, it said the structure would be destroyed and the owner fined if it wasn’t removed within a week.
Nobody ever paid any attention to those signs, but it was a good way to explain why they kicked the door in while reassuring whoever used it that they really didn’t care that much.
As they were just finishing up a runner came from the Aglaea Gate. Captain Ragnarsson wanted to come in and requested permission. Even though he was their superior, as a man he couldn’t enter Skala Erasou without the permission of the Council, and since the Council had authorized her in their place, that meant Sergeant Jabari.
“No, I’ll go meet him there,” she said, denying the request. “Larima, finish the inspection, slap a few more notices on some of the more obvious structures, and then pull everybody out. Keep our little discovery as quiet as possible, but bring Ihala up the speed.
“I’m off to fill in the captain.”
“Yessir.”
“And keep an eye out for a good place to wait tonight, too.”
Jabari strode off to meet the captain.
He was not in a good mood.
“Dammit, Jabari, you call me here for a tunnel and then keep me waiting?”
“Sorry, sir. Things are a little more complex than we thought…”
She waved with her hand at a small teashop almost next to the gate, built against the Wall, looking out into the rolling parkland of the innermost Cirque.
“Let me fill you in quietly, sir. This way.”
She took an outside table, pulling it some distance away from the other tables there. The shopkeeper was not impressed, but knew better than to get angry with her, let alone with Captain of the Constabulary.
A pot of spice tea appeared on their table in seconds, and the shopkeeper retreated to safety as soon as he could. She smiled her thanks, but she could tell he wasn’t taken in—her reputation was pretty well established around here.
She filled the captain in, and explained they’d be watching from now on to see who was using the building, if anyone. They still didn’t know if it had anything to do with the murder, but it might explain how the man had gotten into Skala Eresou.
And the honeydrops.
The captain ignored his tea completely.
“You’re coming with me,” he said, after her tale was completed. “We’re off to talk the Chief Artificer.”
“The Chief Artificer?”
“First time?”
“No, but I’m just a sergeant…”
“Yes, but you’re my sergeant,” replied the captain. “Oh, that reminds me… there were some minor errors in your report. I made a few corrections to it, and would appreciate it if you’d rewrite and resubmit. Nothing major.”
He handed over her report with some scribbled edits marked.
“Of course, sir. I’ll have it to you first thing in the morning.”
One of the “corrections” was that the pouch had contained three honeydrops, she noted. Well, we’re all only human, she told herself. Even the captain.
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Honey for Celephaïs: Chapter 4