Chapter One: I Hate Mornings
…
Very few people in the attached village of Subordo, a mostly residential area of the town of Ordon, ever woke early enough in the morning to be a bother to their neighbors. Children in groups of five and six on their way to school could never talk enough to get through the thick brick walls of the surrounding houses, and they could not shout for fear that the neighbors would whip them before returning them to their parents to receive the parents' brand of discipline. Livestock did not regularly travel the cobblestone roads to help keep them clean. When they were driven through, though, it was by farmers who kept their animals quiet out of respect as they traveled from the outlying farms into the trade market or the bank. Other than that, not many draft animals or mounts wandered the roads since the locals were quite content to walk wherever they were required to go. The air was quite humid, befitting a morning slowly relieving itself of mist, and a little cool to remind the residents that spring had yet to push aside the winter completely. All in all, it was the kind of day where, if one had no previous engagements, that person could look forward to sleeping past the morning and enjoying a warmer, more pleasant afternoon.
Ban ban ban!
So, when one young man found his sleep interrupted by the sound of a banging door, his attitude changed from comfortable to petulant. One arm slid out from underneath a ragged, feather-stuffed quilt and reached around the foot of the bed for something to grab. There was a dirty shirt… and nothing else. Confused, the arm then flipped one edge of the quilt over, exposing a mop of unkempt, dirty-blond hair. The hair then rolled to one side so that the face on the opposite side was exposed.
Ban ban ban!
"Ma—hkk!" the young man tried to yell when saliva trickled into his throat, causing his voice to choke off. He coughed a moment.
Ban ban ban!
"Mara!" the young man finally hollered. "Mara, someone's at the door!"
Ban ban ban ban!
"Mara?" he hollered, realizing that the person he was shouting for did not seem to be in the house. He folded his arm and placed it over his head. "Oh, for the sake of man and monster…"
Kkkkling kkkkling.
The young man's dark blue eyes, framed by a deep scowl, looked up at the ceiling. "Really?" he asked aloud. "Now you use the bell?"
Kkkkling kkkkling.
"Fine, fine!" he hollered, rolling onto his side so that he could kick the quilt off. "I'm coming!"
Kkkkling kkkkling.
"I said I'm coming!" he shouted louder as he sat up. He reached down and picked up the dirty white shirt. Grumbling to himself, he slipped the shirt over his scrawny frame. Then he stood up and crossed the small floor to the chair in the opposite corner, from which he took a pair of patched-up, brown trousers. He was about to put them on when he realized that they were inside out, so he fit his arms into the legs and whipped them rightside-out. This had the side-effect of tossing out the contents of the pockets: two green rupees, a bottle cap, and a folding pocketknife. He groaned and put the trousers on. After retrieving the knife, he stepped onto a sturdy ladder at the edge of the floor to descend from the hanging platform that was his bedroom.
His feet touched down on the polished wood floor of a large, narrow sitting room/dining room, and he glanced through the ladder's rungs, wondering where Mara was. Then he turned around and walked through the short, crooked hallway to the front door. In the small cobblestone entryway, he saw that both his leather slip-ons and Mara's sandals had been left undisturbed. It meant that she was tending to her garden in the back, where she would not be able to hear him. After glancing at a small clock on a nearby table, he heaved a sigh and opened the door.
Two figures stood on the other side of a blinding morning light, and he gave a slight recoil. "Sorry to bother you, Fieldview," a man's voice addressed him.
He stopped squinting after his eyes had adjusted to the brighter light of a mist-filled morning, and he immediately identified the speaker standing at the bottom of the steps in front of the door. It was a middle-aged man with an average build showing signs of recent weight gain. He wore the beige uniform shirt and matching slacks of an officer of the Ordon Sheriff, complete with a silver badge on his left breast. "Fieldview" gave another sigh and said, "At least you tried using the bell this time, Officer March."
Officer March scratched the stubble on his square jaw as he glanced off to the side. "Yeah, sorry about that," he said. "I'm used to knocking."
"Well," Fieldview said, "I'm awake. What do you want?"
"You know that there was a public event two nights ago, correct?"
Fieldview ran a hand through his hair as he thought, his eyes cast to the sky for a moment. "Be surprised if there wasn't. That's all anyone here in Subordo talked about for the past month. Whether someone was going or not, what kinda events they were setting up… It was some kinda endorsement thing, right?"
"The princess of Hyrule, Princess Zelda, was in Ordon to show support for the newly-established college. I would think a smart boy like yourself would appreciate a place where you could flaunt your intelligence."
Fieldview gave a shrug. "I do that just fine here."
The person standing next to Officer March cleared her throat, finally drawing Fieldview's attention. "Fieldview, this is Detective Sergeant Navi of the Watch," March said, indicating the woman with one hand. Fieldview looked up and down at a lithe woman in her late twenties. Her black hair was cropped short, and she wore a blue blouse underneath a navy-blue, cotton jacket and matching work slacks. Her shoes looked to be black patent leather recently defiled by dirt along with the hems of her slacks. A glint of light at her waist just where her jacket opened indicated the presence of a gold badge hanging from her black leather belt. She had one hand resting on what would have been her hip if not for whatever sort of firearm she concealed under the jacket. Her bright blue eyes gave him a hard glare, but she seemed to be struggling to maintain an overall neutral look. Fieldview guessed that her trip to Subordo had been less than pleasant so far.
He turned back to Officer March and asked, "So what happened at the ceremony? Must've been pretty bad if the City Watch of Hyrule sent a detective out here."
"Personal property belonging to Her Highness Zelda was stolen during the later hours of the ceremony," March explained. "DS Navi is here to supervise the Sheriff's investigation to ensure that the privacy of the Royal Family is maintained."
"'Privacy'?" Fieldview repeated with a skeptical tone. "What'd this guy steal, the princess's underwear?"
March pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fieldview, don't start getting snide."
"You woke me up. I think I'm entitled. So… what, did you run into a problem you need me to solve?"
"Hardly, Fieldview. We already have a suspect."
"Then why're you bothering me?"
"Was your friend Brookstone at the ceremony?"
Fieldview narrowed his eyes, finding the conversation quickly turning to a bad taste in his mouth. "You're not blaming this on Joth."
"Was he or not, Fieldview?" March asked, his tone impatient.
"Of course he was," Fieldview answered. "But he didn't do anything."
"He's just a suspect for now, Fieldview. When there's sufficient evid—"
"You'd better have something other than his record."
"Fieldview, the guy collects all sorts of memorabilia. He's a fanatic with a history of assaulting other people to get what he wants, and it doesn't take a fanatic long to escalate to thievery."
"Well, I sure hope that's not all the police work you plan to do, Officer March," Fieldview told him, crossing his arms. "Otherwise you're gonna look like a complete idiot. A court won't convict him." He pointed a finger at March. "If you arrest him, you're gonna risk seriously messing up whatever stance he has in this town. Bad enough people think he's strange because of the stuff he collects. He doesn't need to be arrested for it."
"Nobody is being arrested," March asserted. "It's not an interrogation. I just wanna talk to him. Where is he?"
Fieldview raised an eyebrow. "You have to ask where he is?"
"He doesn't have identification papers recorded with the province; no address to look up." He then pointed a finger at Fieldview. "Let me tell you something if you're thinking about stonewalling. I like to think I'm a nice guy. But if I have to, I will dig until I figure out where he is. And when I find him, I will arrest him. Don't make this any harder, Fieldview. Remember which one of us has the badge here."
"That's too easy, and you know it," Fieldview told him.
"If he didn't do it, he might even be able to lead us to who did commit this crime." March hooked his thumbs into his belt, something Fieldview had usually seen him do when he was trying to calm a situation. "Fieldview, this is a sensitive matter. The Sheriff is under pressure from the Royal Family and some of the local nobility to make an arrest as soon as possible."
"Oh, boo-hoo for you," Fieldview replied in a spiteful tone. "You're gonna get him ostracized just because the Sheriff tells you to hurry through your job? Where's the justice in that?"
"No, look, I didn't mean it like that," March said with a hand raised.
"Are you condoning this?" Fieldview asked the detective, indicating March. "Does the sloppiness of this investigation impress you?"
The Watch detective glanced at March. Then she said to Fieldview, "For now, I concur with Officer March's method. Once Brookstone has been cleared, he will be returned home with the apologies of both the Sheriff's office and the Watch."
"Then you're just as big of an idiot as him."
"Now that's enough," March snapped as the detective's face formed an offended look. "This is your last chance, Fieldview. Otherwise, Brookstone gets arrested."
"I'm gonna tell the Sheriff on you!" Fieldview replied in a bratty tone, leaning forward like a child trying to get the last word before running away.
"Have it your way, then." March spun to walk away.
"Wait!" Fieldview shouted at him. March stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. "Look, as long as you're gonna just talk, Joth should be at home right now."
"Where at?"
Fieldview hesitated a moment. "The fifteenth block of Gale Street. Number four."
"Gale-fifteen-four," March said to himself in an attempt to devote the address to memory. He looked up at Fieldview and said, "Look, I know the kind of loyalties you show for friends in trouble. Please don't get involved in this. If the Watch sees fit, they'll take this away from the Sheriff's office. Then you'll get to watch Brookstone's life get worse."
"You got me involved the moment you started knocking on my door," Fieldview told him. "So you're better off just going about your business and let me deal with mine. And when you find out that Joth's clean of your allegations, I'll already have your perpetrator in sight."
"Just stick with petty crimes, Fieldview," March told him. "Don't get involved in something that already has enough complications."
Fieldview gave a dry chuckle. "Good day, Officer." Then, in a final show of petulance, he slammed the door. He wished March had been standing at the top of the steps; it would have satisfied him more to know that March would have to jerk back to avoid having his nose busted. Carefully, he leaned forward on the door and let his temper slowly cool.
"Is everything okay, Link?" came a voice from behind. He glanced over his shoulder to find Mara's wide, homely frame standing in the middle of the dining room. Her hunter-green dress sported patches of dirt, indicating that she had been out back in her garden. Even more convincing was the fact that her blond bangs were matted to her forehead by her sweat. She was just pulling her long hair out of its usual ponytail as she commented, "I heard arguing from the front."
Link gave a small grin as he turned around. He took a few steps toward her so that he would not have to speak loudly. "No, everything's all right. Actually, things look like they're gonna be fun today."
"Really?" the older woman asked with a skeptical tone. She crossed her arms. "What happened to your 'grand' plan of sleeping in until the afternoon?"
"And miss out on an opportunity like this?" he replied, pointing a thumb at the door. "Do you know how often it is that the Watch gets involved with something outside of Hyrulia?"
"Well," Mara said, "if you intend to be out, take some money and buy us some fresh milk."
"Anything else while I'm out making an impression on March and the Watch?" he asked as he strode forward.
"Just the usual," Mara replied with a sigh. "Be back for dinner and don't get arrested."
"Always," Link replied with a wink just before he started climbing the ladder to his room.