Death on A Pier
A short, serialized mystery
CH 1: The Arguement
(This is the story I’ve been writing for April Camp Nanowrimo. It will have to come in parts at a chapter a day. It shouldn’t take too long, and you can read it parts or go into incognito mode to read as much as you can in one sitting. Up to you.)
CH 1
Brynhild sat against the doorframe and sewed up the toe of her hose. She nipped off the string and rolled up the hose and needle before tucking them in her pocket. Fortuna bene, she had saved her hose for another year.
She looked up from the last stitch and stared down at the flickering river. Her castle’s wall extended through the marsh and opened onto a slope just over the inn and several stone piers. Beyond this, across the river, a mountain blocked the light, looking hazy and heather-gray in the summer sun. Warmth washed the scene below.
Brynhild grinned and leaned back from the burning sun. She moved her coif back over her pointed, prominent ears to get them out of the heat.
Bright red, mustard yellow, and verdigris tunics of the town’s people bobbed about the inn and along the edge of the sapphire-blue river. Simple cogs wobbled at the piers.
She was relaxing into the panoply when men’s voices rose from the inn. She cocked her head to the side, curious, but she did not have to wonder long. Klaus, the ruddy inn-keeper, marched up from the pier to the door. “Hey, some Luronian and your mother’s courier is breaking the peace here! How am I supposed to get the vendors to pay up if couriers break into fist fights on their stalls?”
Brynhild pushed herself off the doorframe and straightened her surcoat’s side-laces with a quick tug. “Coming.”
She strolled down to the inn-keeper’s yard. Vendors of all sorts of wares were lined up along the wooden fence. Utensils from the silver mines of Landgrave Reichert’s fief, thick white furs from the atticamas of Luronia, bales of wool and woven linen cloth from Fliedes and Bergstaat piled up on rugs as merchants haggled with the town’s folks over their prices. Captains of cogs leaned over them, seeing what they would pick up for the way home.
The talk was quieter than usual though, as people were watching Strausser, Burgravine Giselle’s stubby courier, scream at a stocky Asian man with long black hair.
The stranger was giving as good as he got. “You can’t leave, so you don’t get the job. You’re being a lazy slow-poke has nothing to do with me. Get out of my face and let me take my commission.”
“You swine! She asked me first, so it’s my commission! You undercut because you are a thief and a liar. There is no way you’re leaving in time to take the job, and you know it. You just stole from me.”
“You say you can’t leave tomorrow morning because you are lazy, so you lose out. Don’t blame me if people actually want their letters delivered.”
“I always deliver the letters I’m given. How do we know you’ll even find the recipient? Hand over the letter, bandit.” Strausser pushed his opponent.
The other man’s nose flared, and he shoved him back. A tense silence fell over the vendors.
Brynhild slipped in between the combatants and smiled at them. “Is something the matter, Strausser?”
Strausser took a step back. “This jerk. What is he doing here? He’s not even invited.”
She held up her hands. “Ah, I see we’re angry. Let’s start at the beginning. Your name, my good man?”
She turned to the Luronian. He had opted to wear Augstonian surcoat and leggings, but the fur hat from his homeland tilted over his forehead. He straightened and bowed. “Choegan, my lady, from Luronia.”
“You’re a courier?”
He beamed. “The fastest in the business. My horse and I can take a letter from Ainum to Eurobus in two months flat.”
Strausser crossed his arms over his chest. “Eurobus is in the opposite direction, Pal. This is Meiser.”
“I know where I am. I’m just too fast to be held in one place.”
“Listen, you-”
Brynhild stood on her tiptoes. “Ah, now that I know who my friends are, what happened to break things up?”
Strausser pointed toward a skinny little woman in a dirty wimple. “Anne wanted me to take a letter to her cousin in Hansea, and this jerk swooped in and stole my commission!”
Choegan snorted. “You told her she had to wait a week and I said I could take it out tomorrow. Obviously, she wants someone to do the job sooner.”
“I had a deal with her.”
“Nothing binding. I offered my services.”
“It was, too, binding!”
Anne tried to shrink into the shadows of the inn, but Brynhild waved her forward. “What happened?”
Anne took a few wobbly steps into the middle of the yard. The buzz of business lowered to a background hum. She looked around. “I…I don’t know where to start.”
Strausser opened his mouth to say something, but Brynhild waved him quiet. She put her hands together and fixed a gentle expression on her face. “Why not when you wrote the letter? Who wrote it for you?”
Anne gave a nervous look to a vendor standing in the northern corner. “Fredi over there wrote it for me. I have to tell my cousin about mother- you know.” Her mother had passed recently, and Brynhild nodded sympathetically.
“So Fredi wrote the letter for you. And then where did you take it?”
“Well, I thought one of the cog captains here- er- they might, since Hansea is a port…but then I saw Strausser. I remembered he was a courier when we started talking.”
She paused to inhale.
Brynhild loosened her fingers in their prayerful position. This would take a bit, and the femme in the case showed every sign of wandering from the point. “Ok. Did Strausser offer to take the letter for you, or did you ask him to?”
“I don’t- well, I think I asked. Yes, I think I asked.”
“Ah. Did you pay him?”
“Well, er, nnnnnnooooo….”
Brynhild nodded. “Did you make a promise of payment?”
“Ah…no, because uhm, he said he had to wait a week and went into the inn to see Klaus- you know, he was supposed to get his horse fed and Klaus’s serving boy never does it right, and Ingrid’s run that boy through the steps a million times…”
“Yes. So, Strausser quite wisely went to supervise the feeding of his most prized possession. Did you get a tally stick or money to give him?”
“Er, what? Uh, n-n-no. This other man-“ She waved toward Choegan. “He came up and said he heard that I needed a letter delivered and he could do it tomorrow. Well, my cousin can’t wait to hear about Mutti…”
Brynhild raised her brows. “Did money exchange hands then?”
“Wel-l-l…”
“No! I caught this jerk right before he could snatch my money!”
Anne whimpered.
Choegan wheeled on Strausser and leaned into his face. “You mean you almost pushed her over to take coins out of her hand. Which she was handing to me.”
Brynhild put her hand on Choegan’s shoulder. “I’m sure he’s sorry. Did she give you the letter?”
Choegan whipped a folded piece of parchment out of his belt and flapped it in the air. Strausser jumped for it, and Choegan pulled it out of his reach.
Brynhild put her palms on the men’s chests. “Now, please good men, as Meiser is a merchant’s choice town, Anne does have final choice, barring a written contract or a guild membership…”
Strausser howled. “She can’t write!”
“A tally stick or exchange of money would work in lieu of her mark or witnesses.”
Fredi offered, “I witnessed it. She handed the foreigner money.”
“As Strausser only gets priority on my mother’s and Wolfsburg’s official business, we have to say that Anne has spoken, and Choegan is delivering her letter.”
“But I only went away for a minute. He swooped in when my back was turned.”
“Your loss, my gain. Get over it.”
“You go hang yourself, you thieving pig. I hope a bandit stabs you in the back while you’re delivering the letter.”
“Shikyap,” Choegan snapped.
“My good men, please, why don’t I buy both of you some of Ingrid’s fine beer and get you settled. I’m sure Strausser has much to tell me, and he has plenty to do this week. Mother has sent you?”
Choegan shook his head. “I’m out. I have a journey to prepare for. Hah!” He turned and skipped off to the pier.
Strausser fumed. Anne scurried out of the yard, her wimple pulled low over her head. The voices of the merchants and town’s folks rose. Brynhild hooked her arm around Strausser’s. “I didn’t realize you were in town. What does Mutti want?”
Strausser screwed up his face and sighed. “Will you believe she made me take four letters out at a time? Four.”
“I am so sorry. Were any of the letters for me?”
Strausser shifted his weight. “I think she wanted to say hello.”
He pulled up the bag tied to his belt and rummaged in it. He took out a folded piece of parchment and handed it to her. The blue wax seal gleamed in the sun, with the castle impression outlined.
She tucked the letter in her own pocket and let it weigh her belt down. “Tell her I say hello back. How was the ride up?”
“Bumpy. I hate it. And I can’t believe you gave that foreigner my commission.”
“You know you couldn’t give her what she needed. Mutti pays you enough to enjoy a slower ride anyway. Come on, I’ll buy you a round.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and stomped alongside her to a row of tables that had been set up around a barrel of beer. Brynhild cocked her head toward him as they approached the barrel. “The usual?”
“Oh, now you want my opinion?”
Brynhild frowned. Ingrid, the inn keeper’s wife, leaned over the barrel and raised an eyebrow. She was a rounded woman with gray-green eyes and a bridge of freckles over her nose. Her bodice had been patched recently, and the faint smell of soap came off her. Brynhild bobbed in greeting and asked after the family.
“We’re fine. The girls help around the rooms, and we have some people from town hiring on for the fur merchant meeting.”
“Wonderful. Do you have a big bowl for the beer?”
“Absolutely. Strausser? Are you sharing?”
He hummed under his breath. “Fine. Look, help me out here. Did I or did I not have to come into the inn a bit ago to get my horse settled?”
“Yes, but what about it? Is that what all the yelling was about a few minutes ago?”
“A new courier took our ducens hominem’s opportunity to deliver another letter.”
“I was only gone for a little bit. Just enough time to walk around the stable three times. And that foreigner swooped in and stole the letter.”
“Strausser, he offered a better deal. You were already complaining about the four letters Mutti gave you.”
Ingrid picked up a bowl and dipped it into the barrel. Amber liquid flecked with grains rippled in the container. Ingrid swiped it with a towel from her belt and handed it to Strausser. “Are you talking about the Luronian?”
“You know him?” Brynhild asked.
“He’s been staying here since the night before last. He said he had letters to deliver further down river.”
Strausser asked, “So why is he poaching on the locals?”
“I am just the inn-keeper’s wife. I only know who shows up, not why. Here, I’ll give you an extra ladle-full for your pains.”
Ingrid reached for a spoon on the table, but Strausser yanked away the bowl. “I’m not being bought off. You saw me.”
Ingrid shrugged and leaned back on the barrel.
Brynhild said, “Her testimony doesn’t change the rule of merchant’s choice.”
“It’s a stupid rule…or lack of rule. I came all this way because Giselle made me with her letters and now I have to fit in my horse somewhere, and you are not giving me preference after all these years. How long do I have to take your letters for you to give me the letters? My horse is practically lame now.”
“I’m not in a position to favor you beyond giving you priority for my own letters. A castellan must show even-handedness, and do you know how many letters get sent out of a port? Millions. You cannot possibly imagine you’ll deliver all of them. You’re over-reaching.”
Strausser huffed and gulped some of the beer. Brynhild took it from him and sipped it. The herbal taste made her smile, and she tipped her head to Ingrid in appreciation.
The inn-keeper’s wife settled on the top of the barrel with a self-satisfied look. She cocked her head to the side and eyed Strausser. “Where are you going after this, then, if your horse needs attention?”
Strausser groaned. “To get my horse seen, of course. Ugh.”
Ingrid looked about to ask more questions, but a party of town’s men came up, yelling for a pitcher of beer. She smiled and went over to them to take their order.
Strausser flopped down on the nearest bench and Brynhild picked her skirts up and lowered herself next to him. She asked, “What are you really doing here, Strausser? You’re right that I have known you all my life, so don’t try to bluff with this horse business. Why are you over-reaching and screeching about a foreigner now? Mutti must have been paying you well over anything you can expect with all the letters we’ve been sending in the past year or so. What are you begging for?”
“Begging? I’m begging? How am I begging? I’m doing my job and it’s not getting my horse treated!”
“Yes, you are begging and demanding rules bend just for you. You know how Meiser has worked, and now you want me to favor you when couriers have always been equine dependents?”
“So what? I’m needing it now, not before. Why can’t you just believe me?”
“Because you’re a person, and people believe things that benefit them regardless of truth. And then they obfuscate to other people to make themselves look correct.”
“You mean lie.”
“You are the one who said it. I’m being more accurate.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“I can’t help you if you aren’t accurate in turn.”
Brynhild took a gulp of beer and handed it to Strausser. He shoved it toward her. “Keep it. I’m out.” He jumped to his feet and stomped into the inn.
Brynhild scowled at his back. How was he hiding something from her after all these years? Fortuna pessimi, the world was ending if she couldn’t rely on Strausser.
She resettled on her bench. There was no one around now. The men who had rambled in for their pitcher of beer had rambled back to the stalls, and their bawdy jokes could be heard mingling with the river captains on the piers.
The smell of fresh fish and the algae from the marsh behind them drifted in with the mix of cooking fires and the beginnings of lunch. She cocked her head back and drank the last of the beer, letting the mouthful linger on her tongue. Mmmm…ginger and fennel, with grains of barley puffed up and fermented.
As she put the bowl back down, she remembered the letter Strausser had given her. That’s right, her mother wanted to say hello- and probably issue orders along with unpleasant comparisons to other people.
She stretched her legs under the table and looked around. No one needed to know Giselle’s latest realization.
But no one was coming to the tables, and the world was generally calm. She took out and popped the letter open with a prod from her fingernail. It read:
“Girl-Child,
I write with more irritation than you can fathom. Hansea is at it again in some inexplicable way. Phaler-graf is technically in Ducta with your father, probably making fighting for Prince Salvatore a living nightmare by being his prickly, miserable self, so, in a strictly technical sense, he probably isn’t going to be the direct source of your upcoming headache. His obnoxious little seneschal, Hildebert, will be. You’ve never met him, but he’s a pedantic rat. He wrote to say he wants our two ports to have some kind of deal. What he is scheming, I can only imagine. He gave no useful details. I foisted him off on you, as I figured a weasel was best equipped for hunting rats.”
Brynhild snickered and flicked the letter. What a charming way of acknowledging that Brynhild knew the ins and outs of Meiser better than Giselle and might find out better how this Hildebert was planning on ruining it. Also, lovely way of saying that, since her mother didn’t care to deal with him, she was going to appoint someone else to take the burden.
Her smile died back. Fortuna pessimi, what does this seneschal want? Nothing good: Brynhild’s father had been feuding with Phaler-graf for decades before Augston’s civil war led to the king dying and a contested election for the new king. The feud was not officially off- her father had to tolerate him to keep fighting on Prince Salvatore’s side. What if this was the feud by some other means?
She shook her head and read the rest of the letter, which ran for the entire page in tiny letters and along the sides.
“How is the river? Still running and reeking, I hope. I won’t be able to prod you in person until this Christmas, forecurse it. What in the name of St. Peter are you still doing with that Book of Hours you got last year? Did you finish the Romance A Clef? Was it good enough for me to steal from you at Christmas? Sorry I’m dropping a pest on you, but genuinely, I have no idea what else to do with him. Write what he wants and what he’s about as soon as possible, and I’ll bless any decision of yours that doesn’t lower the port tolls. The God-forsaken burgomaster is here to complain about a wool merchant’s landgrab, so now I’ll have to hear about deeds and contracts for the rest of the day. Wish me luck. Get some sleep, you little weasel. Giselle.”
Brynhild folded the letter back up and tucked it back in her pocket. She frowned. “Tell me to sleep and then tell me our hereditary enemy is about to besiege my castle. Thank you, Mutti. That is a stellar example of logicae et sapientiae at work. Truly, all of the logic and wisdom.”
But she had better warn her cook to start whipping up something special for the guest, and she would double check the locks, prepare the men’s quarters with writing materials and fresh linen, and well…no sleep for a while, fortuna pessimi. She hopped to her feet, picked up her skirt, and scampered into the castle, intent on making it ready.