The Chocolatier's Wife (76 page)

Ayers
nodded,
skipped
to
make the
bells
ring, and
ran
off
to
rejoin
the dancers
in
the
still
murky
light.
When
William returned,
people
would
be drinking
and
less
o
b
servant,
or
so
he
hoped.
He
put
on
Ayer’s dark
brown jacket and
hat and
made his way to Admiralty House.

Down
the
hillside
and
to
the
beach,
he
then
made
his
way
to
a
no
longer used sally
port.
He wished he
could
have
borrowed
the
sprites to help him, but
he
had
to
rely
on
his
own
lock
picking
skill
to
open
the
iron-bound wooden
door.
The
lock
was
not
in
too
poor
a
shape,
for
the
purpose
of
it
was still
recalled.
Once,
it
had
been
more
of
a
back
door
for
the
officers
in
case the
place
was
besieged.
Being
on
the
beach
as
it
was, they
could
easily
get to
a
ship
from
here,
it
was
hoped,
and
then
find
a
better
point
from
which to stage an
attack.

When
the
place
was
rebuilt
to
accommodate
heavier
guns
along
the
sea facing wall, the shape of the fort had changed so much that now the sally port
door
was
blocked
off
from the
part
of
the
beach
leading
towards
the harbor
and
ships,
leaving
a
barren
spot
of
land
that
required
an
exertion
of
great
effort
to
climb
down
to
or
out of
.
When
one
opened
the
door
and
went in,
as
William
finally
managed
to
do,
a
hallway
that
do
g
legged
onto
itself,
a maze of sorts created by new rooms and offices
and storage, was revealed.

William
had
been
here
once,
four
years
ago,
when
he
had
agreed
to take
a
cargo
of
questionable
legality
from
here
to
the
Emperor
of
Pandroth. The
Emperor
wanted
a
type
of
liquor that
was
illegal
to
make
within
the borders
of
Berengeny,
let
alone
sell
or
transport,
and
the
huge
barrels
had been
rolled
through
this
room
and
out
the
sally
port
door,
where
he
and
his men
had
loaded
them
onto
boats
and
transported
to
his
ship
one
moonless night.
He
delivered
the
cargo
and
heard
nothing
else
of
it,
though
he
found from
that
day
forward
that
he
was
never
charged
port
tax,
and
that
the rumbles
of
war
from
the
Pandroth Empire
soon
faded
to
mere
rumor
and speculation.

He
did,
however,
get
lost,
and
had
to
backtrack slightly,
and
twice
he had
to
hide
in the
shadows
made
by
the
deeply
recessed
doorways,
but after
a
time
he
managed
to
find
himself
picking
the
lock
of
Lavoussier’s office.
This
was
not
the
one
he
met
people
in,
but
his
private
office,
where he
did
his
real
work,
and
where
the
previous
Port
Admiral
had
once
offered William
a
sip
of
illegal
liquor.
Once
inside
he
took
out
a
cold
light
he’d pinched from
the ball,
and
rested it on
the desk.

He
wished
he
could
have
figured out
where
Lavoussier
had
begun
in his
search
of
the
Bishop’s things,
for
that
would
have
indicated,
perhaps, where
Lavoussier
himself
hid
the
things
he
thought
valuable.
The
room was
poky
and
crowded,
and
he
felt
quite
discouraged
as
he
began
with
the
book
case.
He
took
down
a
series
of
books,
well
and
often
read,
that
he, too
owned.
Well, last
time
I
read
that
set
of
novels
with
the
same level
of enjoyment.
He
was
careful
in
his
search,
slow
even,
because
he
knew
the second
Lavoussier
came
in
to
this
place
he
would
know
it
had
been
violated, and he
wanted
to
make
sure
he
left
as
few
clues
as
possible.
If
William
got his way,
L
a
voussier
would eventually excuse the feeling as paranoia.

He tackled the drawers next; grateful the office
was not overly large.

As
he
was
going
through
a
sheaf
of
papers
he
saw
Tasmin’s name,
the details
of
her
life
listed
in
a
neat
column, her
education,
her
family,
even the
fact
there
was,
a
c
cording
to
the
dressmaker she
had
visited
to
get
her costume,
a
birthmark behind
her
left
knee.
William
blinked.
Lavoussier’s spies worked quickly.

There
were
similar
dossiers
on
every
member
of
his
family;
the
longest, of
course,
was
Bonny’s. He
felt
ill
when
he
read
it
and
slightly
angry,
not only
because
of
the
fact
it
outlined
in
detail
everything
Bonny did
during lovemaking,
but
because
the
tone
was
detached,
even
sometimes
a
little derogatory.
Andrew’s
was
written
in
a
slightly
similar
tone.
The
file
was filled
with
quiet
malice
disguised
as
a
detached
p
o
lice
report.
William
put
it aside, unable to finish
it, and went on to his own.

Well. I
never
quite
saw
myself
in
that
light. I
never
thought
myself
as handsome
or
very
wise,
but
I
don’t
think
one
could
really
describe
me
as
a blithering
fat
sow.
Mayhaps
he
meant
cow?
Still,
the
gender
wouldn’t
be right.
It
included
a
manifest
of
the
Tr
e
gaurde
as
it
was, as
far
as
he
could tell,
during
the
Pandora
Chase.
Yes,
William
rea
l
ized,
that
was
exactly what
it
was,
for
it
even
had
the
names
of
the
seamen
that
had
been
rescued, along
with
the
Bishop,
listed
on
the
bottom.
At
the
top,
L
a
voussier
had written
The
Heart
of
Ithalia.
He
had
starred
it,
and
then
starred
the
list
of items
recovered
from
the
Pandora
,
circling,
“Pale
wood
box
of
undisclosed contents,
r
e
manded
to
the
Bishop’s cabin.”
It
was
the
original
page
from his own logs; William recognized his purser’s hand. It was aggravating to see
it
here,
for
all
records
were
supposed
to
go
into
storage
when
they
were finished
with, never to see the light of day again unless there was an audit.