Imager’s Intrigue by Jr. L. E. Modesitt Page B

him for elveweed running and attempted murder. Oh…and tell Huensyn to send a wagon here for the other bodies.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    The runner mumbled words through his ruined face. “…Attacked us…didn’t do…nothing…tried…knife…keep her…off me….”
    That was doubtless true. It didn’t make any difference. There might not be much I could do about elveweed, but I wasn’t about to have school-age boys as runners. Besides, the injured runner would live far longer as a coal loader for the Navy or as a quarry apprentice or the like.
    “Off with you, sow-scum,” ordered Mhort.
    He and Deksyn marched the runner down the three crumbling brick steps and then toward Quierca.
    I followed Yherlyt into the small front hall where two bodies lay on their backs. One’s face was contorted in agony. That had to be the elver boy. The other figure wore a black shirt and trousers, both washed so many times that their color was closer to dark gray than to true black. His face was burned by streaks of something, and the burns hadn’t even started to heal.
    In the parlor sat a dark-haired and painfully thin woman. Someone had bandaged her arms with strips of cloth, but in places, some blood had soaked through the crude dressings. She looked at me, not questioningly, but not blankly.
    “I’m Patrol Captain Rhennthyl.”
    She nodded.
    “Why did you kill the one runner?” I asked.
    “Why?” Her voice rose. “He killed my son. He gave him that weed, and Nygeo smoked it, and he died. He died horribly. You saw his face. Then that scum runner came and demanded silvers for the elveweed. He said that terrible things would happen to me and Foyneo if I didn’t pay. I have few silvers, just what I earn from helping Ielsa. She is a seamstress on the other side of Quierca. We would not eat…and he killed my boy. He took out a knife, and I threw the grease in the pan in his face and then hit him with it…”
    That explained the burns on the dead runner’s face.
    “Don’t take me away!” she pleaded.
    Yherlyt looked to me. I understood why I was there.
    “I don’t see any reason to take you anywhere,” I said. “Two elveweed runners attacked you to collect silvers that they said your son owed them. You defended yourself. Self-defense is allowed.” I paused. “We will need to take Nygeo’s body.”
    “He won’t need it…” Behind the stoic words was an edge, and her eyes were bright, but her voice did not break, nor did actual tears flow.
    “I’m very sorry,” I said, inclining my head to her.
    She just turned away.
    Yherlyt and I carried both bodies out of the dwelling and to the sidewalk.
    “Thank you, sir,” he said as we lowered Nygeo’s already stiff figure to the stone.
    “You’re welcome. I just did what captains are here for. Write up the report the way she said it, but mention that he had a knife when the dead runner asked for the silvers.”
    “Yes, sir. That’s the way Mhort and I heard it, too.”
    “Is there anything else you need me for, Yherlyt?”
    “No, sir.” He paused.
    “I need to tell Deyalt. They’re not supposed to be using schoolboys for runners.”
    “No, sir.” After a moment, he added, “I’d not speak poorly of the dead, but Nygeo was always a problem. Foyneo is a good boy.”
    “We don’t want the dealers getting any ideas.” I didn’t like having any elveweed in the taudis, but there wasn’t any way I could stop the trade. I’d had to use every tool I knew to get the taudischefs to press for the ban on selling to schoolchildren and not using schoolchildren from the taudis as runners.
    I spent more than a glass on the streets. I never did find Deyalt, but did run down one of his toughs in the green jackets. There were always a few around, keeping an eye on things.
    “Captain, sir.”
    “You know Ismelda on Sleago? She sometimes works for a seamstress. She has two boys. One of them might have been a runner.”
    “That’d be Nygeo. Deyalt told him not to