The Chronicles of Nir

12 | Southey and Vine, Part 1

According to a map posted in the lobby of the Larkspur Lodge, Turnkey Lane was in one of the lower areas of the city. Leaving Starlight in the Larkspur's luxurious stables for a well-earned rest, they hired a topless buggy to take them there. As they climbed aboard the small carriage, Eri fidgeted and pulled at the collar of the green silk shirt he had borrowed from Tallon. Besides the shirt, he wore a pair of brown linen breeches with delicate embroidery which drew the eye from hip to knee, accentuating a shapely leg. His boots were likewise fine (also borrowed from Tallon) and made of soft leather which laced to the calf. He had styled his hair neatly, the long ropy strands gathered in an intricate knot at the back of his head.

Maisie wore a dress Tallon had purchased for her in Grenlow Harbor. It fit her well, having been crafted by a master seamstress with fabric suited for travel; but while it would do for a meeting with a thief, the simplicity of the cut and lack of the latest fashionable features would earn nothing but scorn from the upper nobility. They would have to stop at a clothier before visiting Thaddeus Vine.

Tallon himself was dressed in an understated style, wearing a lavender shirt of the finest woven silk, sage green breeches, and black leather boots. With Maisie's help, he'd arranged his hair in a fashionable braid, and carried a hat with a cocked brim.

On Eri's recommendation, they had left most of their valuables in the suite, locked in a safe, but Tallon had taken one thing with him: Ben's brooch, inside out to hide it, fastened to the collar of his fur-lined cloak.

As they passed through the city, gate by gate, paying the toll each time, Maisie couldn't help but notice the drastic change in their environs. In the area around the Larkspur Lodge, not a scrap of trash polluted the streets. The paved stone sidewalks were washed clean, and if a horse should happen to relieve its bowels as a passing coach rattled by, a street sweeper in a uniform would rush forth with a shovel and broom before the last clump had finished falling from the horse's ass.

The lower streets exhibited the opposite state, with refuse heaped in stinking piles and litter raining down from above. As they turned into the narrow alleyway which bore the name of Turnkey Lane, someone threw open an upper window and tossed out a bucket full of slop, splattering brown goop across their path.

"Could have been worse," Eri said, as the coachman drove the little open carriage over the stinking puddle. "She could have aimed for us."

"I think she might have been," said Maisie, glancing up to where the woman, with one eye clouded by cataracts and a face lined by hardship and pain, looked down at them with an expression that could hardly be interpreted as anything but the deepest hate.

Eri nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised. Race—whether you are an elf, a human, dwarf, troll, gnome, or otherwise, does not matter so much in Ardensfall; what matters is how much coin is in your purse, and thus, to which circle of the city you belong. Naturally, there is a great deal of resentment between the ranks. Ah—" he pointed ahead to a brownstone building with a weathered sign hanging on a post above an equally weathered door. "That must be Bodner Southey's place. It fits the description, leastways."

Bodner, they had learned, ran a pawnshop, in which one might find myriad treasures at a reasonable price, as long as one didn't question how said treasures had been procured.

As they dismounted, asking the driver to wait, Eri laid a hand on Tallon's arm.

"I think you had best take the lead here," he said. "I have not had dealings with Southey myself, so he will not recognize me. Pretend that you have been robbed, and that you have lost something very precious to you—which is not far from the truth. If you play your cards right, Bodner can tell you what you must do, and the way you must go to retrieve it."