17th Kingsway
The Keep's cells were exactly as Killeen remembered them, and as she followed Aveline down the stairs to the lower corridor she had a moment of dizzying disorientation. Dank stone walls, guttering torches … the long row cells with their bars and their manacles … cold almost all year round except for the stifling heat of Justinian and Solace …
She had heard some of the worst things it was possible to hear, in these cells, confessions, justifications, attempts at explanation — words doled out parsimoniously in sentences slowly coaxed or dragged from that day's prisoner, or spilled out rapidly in a flood of desperate excuses and rationalisations. Had sat, from time to time, on one of the wooden trestles that served as bench and bed in each cell, shoulder-to-shoulder with a man or a woman who had done things no sane or normal person could even contemplate — things that were, somehow, worse than the deranged efforts of Corypheus to destroy the world and the devastation he had caused, precisely because of their small, intimate scale.
Killeen was good with people, as her old sergeant had said, and so it was her, it was always her, sitting on the bench, sometimes taking the manacled hand of the monster beside her. I understand. Just tell us the rest of it. What did you do next?
The walls almost seemed to whisper their words back to her, and then I … with the knife … didn't mean … she made me … as if no time at all had passed, or as if she had never left at all, as if she never would —
But there had never been an occasion for her to be down here with Aveline, and the other woman's presence jerked Killeen back to the present.
"He says his name's Sam," Aveline said shortly. "Which is as likely as that he's a butler. I'll talk to him. Come in when the time's right."
They stopped outside the cell which held the man who'd opened the door at Madame de Follette's. He sat, hands tied behind him, on the wooden bench fastened to the wall which was the cell's only furniture.
Aveline unlocked the door, stepped inside, and leaned casually against the wall. "Normally I'd ask how you are," she said. "Get to know you. Pretend to be a friend. But we're in a hurry. So talk."
"Nothing to say," Sam snarled.
"You see her out there?" Aveline said with a jerk of her head toward Killeen. "If you don't talk to me, I'll let her in here."
Killeen leant against the wall across from the cell door and tried to look bored. She took the knife from her boot, examined it, and began to clean her nails.
'Sam' the 'butler' eyed Killeen, and then shrugged. "Little girls don't frighten me."
Without shifting position, Killeen threw the knife through the bars of the cell. It landed with a thunk in the bench — directly between Sam's legs. He looked down at it, still vibrating, and then up at her.
Killeen smiled pleasantly, drew her sword, and made a show of cleaning her nails with that.
"Reconsider," Aveline urged. "She used to work for me. Until I had to fire her, for beating up one too many suspects. This girl I'm asking about? Her sister."
"Look, I don't know nothing about nothing," the man said. "I just answer the door."
Aveline nodded. "To who?"
He shrugged. "Deliveries. Madame. That's all."
"So you answer the door … and keep the girls from leaving," Aveline said.
Sam laughed. "They don't want to leave," he said. "Three meals a day and a roof over their heads, and work at the end of it? Would you?"
"Maybe not," Aveline conceded. "But what kind of work are we talking about?"
"Nice jobs in nice houses," he said, and shrugged again. "That's what Madame says. They must be good jobs, too."
"Why?" Aveline said.
"They don't none of them come back."
"What about the children?" Aveline asked. "Some of them have children, right?"
Yet another shrug. "I guess. I dunno."
Aveline glanced at Killeen, and Killeen swung her sword about in her hand and went through the cell door fast. Before the 'butler' had a chance to react, she had her knee in his chest, her foot on his balls — and her sword at his throat. She reached down to tug the knife free from the bench with her free hand, spun it idly between her fingers. "Try again," she said. "What about the children?"
"I did tell you," Aveline said to Sam, folding her arms.
"Look, I don't know nothing about it!" the man protested, winced as Killeen put a little weight on the sword.
"I think he's telling the truth," Aveline said. "I don't think he does know anything."
"I think you're right," Killeen said. "May as well kill him."
"Now hold on —" the 'butler' said.
"Wait until I'm down the hall," Aveline said. "Saves paperwork."
"Sure," Killeen said easily.
"Now hold on!"
Aveline ignored him, turned on her heel and strode out. Her footsteps echoed in the corridor, fading away into the distance.
Killeen turned her head as if judging how far away Aveline was, turned back to the prisoner with a thin smile.
"Hold on, hold on, hold on!" he shouted. "Come back! I'll tell you! Come back!"
Aveline returned, just a little bit faster than she should have been able to in Killeen's opinion, but perhaps the Guard Captain was out of practice playing a prisoner, and at any rate, Sam didn't seem to notice. "I'm listening," she said.
"Get this bitch out of here," Sam said. "Get her off me, and I'll tell you."
"Killeen?" Aveline said.
Killeen pretended to consider, then nodded reluctantly. She stepped back, sheathed her sword and stepped out of the cell. "I'm counting to five," she said to Sam.
The 'butler' swallowed hard. "Mistress Millar in Lowtown!" he said. "That's where they take them! The children! Mistress Millar in Lowtown!"
"Thank you," Aveline said, and locked the door. "I know Tisa Millar," she said grimly, starting towards the stairs. "She doesn't run an orphanage."
Killeen pushed her knife back into its boot-sheathe and followed, taking the steps two at a time. "What does she do?"
"Small scale smuggling, mostly," Aveline said, keeping pace with her.
"Small like a baby small?"
They reached the door to the main hall together. "That's what I'm thinking," Aveline said. "Listen, I've had word of a carriage going out of the west gates just before curfew six days ago, curtains drawn. The gate guards — one of them, anyway — heard women talking inside it. There's four estates on that road. We'll check them all - Donnic's taking a squad."
Killeen snorted. "As if they'll let you in."
"Some might," Aveline said. "That will narrow it down. Hey, Leith, Sanderson! With me."
The two Guards she'd named fell in behind Aveline and Killeen as they reached the street. Fraser was waiting by the door.
"Go find Donnic," Killeen said. "He'll be heading out the city. Go with him, report back to me when you get back."
"Ser," Fraser said, and went.
They strode down through Hightown, through the market and into Lowtown. People who got a look at Aveline's face got out of their way in a hurry — those who were slower to move found themselves shouldered aside.
"Here," Aveline said, stopping outside a narrow, peeling door in an alley known to one and all as Adie's Place, for reasons lost to time and memory. She raised her hand to knock.
Killeen kicked the door open and went through it.
The front room was empty, but Killeen could hear a baby crying, startled by the noise, and went that way, Aveline and the Guards close behind her. In the house's narrow back room, they found four cots, six children between them. Killeen had no way of judging their age except they were larger than Felicity, smaller than Fel.
The back door swung open and she lunged through it, and saw a wiry woman of middle years trying to climb the courtyard wall. Three strides took her across the yard and she got hold of the woman's leg and yanked her back down, sending her sprawling.
Tisa Millar came up with a knife in her hand. Killeen put her faith in Master Harritt's mail and knocked the blade aside with her gauntleted hand, landed a short hard jab on Tisa's jaw and, as the other woman reeled, swept her feet from under her with a low kick.
Tisa went down and Killeen landed on top of her, getting her hands behind her back with little care for her comfort. "Thomas Hanmount," she said. "Is he one of those inside?"
"Those are all my children!" Tisa protested.
"Then you are truly one of the Maker's miracles," Aveline said from the doorway. "Six children in two years, and not a one of them twins? We should call the Chantry."
"Thomas Hanmount," Killeen said again, twisting one of Tisa's wrists to the point of breaking.
"I don't fucking know, all right?" Tisa snarled. "All of them could be, as far as they tell me."
"Leith, hold her," Aveline said, and Killeen surrendered the woman to him. "Kill, you look. See if he's here."
"I've never seen him," Killeen said. "All I know is he's six months old, about. How big is that?"
"Maker's breath," Aveline muttered, and went back into the house. She was examining the children as Killeen joined her. "Girl, too old, girl, far too old, — this could be him."
Killeen looked doubtfully at the fat, fair-haired baby Aveline indicated. "Our family tends to run to dark."
"You said you don't know anything about the father," Aveline pointed out. "Or what about this one? He could be six months. On the small side."
Killeen looked from one baby to the other. "Maker's balls," she said in frustration. "How the fuck should I know? They just look like babies."
Aveline frowned. "Your sister will know, when we find her."
"If you find her," Killeen countered. She remembered the red-haired girl at Madame de Folette's. Gone, last week.
She strode back into the courtyard. Leith had hauled Tisa to her feet and was holding her with her arms behind her back. "When did those kids in there arrive?" Tisa glared at her, and then her mouth worked. Seeing it coming, Killeen stepped aside as the other woman tried to spit in her face, then took Tisa's neck in one gauntleted hand. She squeezed, gently. "When?"
Tisa looked at her face, and blanched. "Three last week," she said. "Two this morning. One a fortnight ago."
"Which ones last week?" Killeen demanded. When Tisa hesitated, she squeezed a little harder, then let go to allow the other woman to speak.
"The girls, and the oldest boy!" Tisa squawked.
Neither of the babies was Thomas. "A boy was brought last week," she said. "Six months old. Called Thomas. Might have had dark hair."
Recognition flickered in Tisa's gaze — followed by fear. "No," she said quickly. "I never saw him. He was never here."
"Listen to me," Killeen said very evenly. "That child is my nephew. You are going to tell me where he is." She let go of Tisa's throat, stepped back and drew her knife from her boot. "You're going to tell me before I cut off several of your rather important bits and pieces, or after — but you will tell me."
"You don't scare me," Tisa said through ashen lips. "I know the Guard. You have rules."
"They're the Guard," Killeen said. She studied the blade of her knife. "I'm the Inquisition."
"Killeen!" Aveline put her shoulder between the two of them. "You can't —"
"Can you stop me?" Killeen asked.
"I'm not fighting her, Captain," Leith said. "Sorry. But I've got a kid on the way."
"Andraste's mercy, Killeen —" Aveline said. "Please." She turned to Tisa, lowered her voice and said urgently, "Tell her. I think she's — you should see what she did to Sam up at Madame de Follette's. Flames, it was horrible. I can't stop her. Tell her!"
Laying it on a bit thick, Killeen thought, but Tisa was to frightened to notice. Her gaze flickered from Aveline to Killeen. "I couldn't stop him!" she burst out. "I couldn't!"
"Stop who?" Aveline asked, dropping the act like a discarded cloak.
"I don't know his name, I don't, I swear I don't!" Tisa babbled. "He comes to chose from the children every month! He came yesterday and he picked that little boy, the one you're talking about! I couldn't stop him! He has an arrangement with Madame!"
"How do we find him?" Killeen asked.
"I don't know, I don't — somewhere in Darktown, I think — I'm guessing, it's just — that's where they hide, isn't it?"
"Who?" Killeen demanded. "Who is they?"
"Blood mages!" Tisa cried.