Damson Griggs had returned to her cottage in town, leaving his pie and cold boiled potatoes covered by a plate in the kitchen. From the two empty wineglasses, red with the dregs of a bottle of claret, Oliver guessed that his uncle and their guest had eaten already. He walked to the top of the staircase and saw that a light was still showing under the door of his uncles study, the muffled sound of conversation inside.
Damson Griggss words of warning came to his mind. Why was this interloper of uncertain provenance visiting his uncle? Was Uncle Titus stooping to involve himself in some scheme of a dubious nature? Oliver was not a financier from some fancy address in the capitals Sun Gate district, but his uncles business affairs seemed sound enough from his limited vantage point.
Oliver crept back down to the ground floor and lifted a key from under the stairs, then quietly unlocked the door to the drawing room. Inside, the fireplaces flue ran upwards through to the study, opening into a grill above, the only source of warmth for the study during the cold winter nights at Hundred Locks. As Oliver had discovered, where heat carries upward, the sounds of conversation echo downward. Oliver placed his ear to the opening. Outside, the first evening stars were appearing. Before midnight, all seventy stars the grey limestone house was named after would be visible. His uncle and his guests voices were not raised and Oliver had to strain to catch snippets of the conversation.
Trouble counting on a commo plan compromised His uncle.
If it is think they hostile service learn The dis reputable Stave.
This time up to in the black
Oliver leant forward as much as he dared. There was a familiar tapping. His uncle clearing his mumbleweed pipe on the side of his desk.
Will they be coming Harry Stave.
Our friends in the east? Uncle Titus.
The East? Olivers eyes widened. The Holy Empire
of Kikkosico lay northeast. And directly east lay Quatérshift but no friends there. Not since the Two-Year War.
In defeat, the Commonshare of Quatérshift had completely sealed its land border, hexing up a cursewall between the two nations; to deter any of her own compatriots who developed a yearning to leave Quatérshifts revolution-racked land, as well as putting off military incursions by the Jackelians. There was no official trade with the shifties, although smugglers still landed cargoes of brandy along the coast, where moonrakers could evade the attentions of officers from the customs house. Like all the children in Hundred Locks, Oliver had been severely warned never to stray into the hinterlands east of the town, where only the shadows of patrolling aerostats and the odd garrison of redcoats and border foot lay dotted across the wind-blighted moors.
A dirty game Harry Stave.
Already in the wind Uncle Titus. There was a rasp as a chair was pulled back. Two of my people dead
Dead! Oliver caught his breath. What foul business had Harry Stave involved his uncle in? Was their warehouse in Shipman Town concealing casks of untaxed brandy? Had officers from the customs house been murdered on some small rocky harbour in the mountains above?
A sudden realization struck Oliver. His uncle had never revealed the full extent of his business dealings to him. Oliver ran errands and gleaned what he could, learning piecemeal from the occasional tale of which factor could be trusted to deal fairly, which clipper captain might be tempted to skim a cargo. Only his uncle was at the centre none of his staff. Even Oliver could see the interests of those in the warehouse never stretched or were allowed to stretch further than Shipman Towns wharves. Was this more than a cautious nature? Or did the left hands ignorance of the right hands dealings stem from the need to keep Uncle Titus from dangling on the wrong end of a hangmans rope outside Bonegate gaol?
There was more scraping of chairs from upstairs and Oliver silently slid the drawing room door shut, then climbed into his bed on the ground floor. Damson Griggs had the measure of Harry Stave, it seemed. But just how deep did his uncles involvement go? Oliver felt the sting of shame as his immediate reaction to the thought of his uncle being thrown into prison was not concern for his sole surviving relative, but worry for his own fate. His uncle had already risked exile from what passed for polite society at Hundred Locks for keeping a registered boy under his roof, but no, the unworthy Oliver Brooks was more concerned about what might happen to his own neck.
If Uncle Titus were incarcerated, he would be left with no chance of employment at Hundred Locks, no future save the cold unwelcoming gates of the local Poor Board. He shivered at the thought. The county of Lightshires poor and down on their luck had enough problems of their own; a registered boy being thrown into their midst might be the final straw. How much easier to arrange a small accident at night? A pillow slipped over his face and the unwelcome interloper smothered out of the poorhouse inhabitants lives.