Chapter 1009 — Northwind House

CHAPTER 1009

Northwind House

“He hanged himself with his own belt,” Qian Ze said. “That’s what the provincial office says, Guest Elder.”

The tower’s sixth-floor room was full. Helian Ba stood by the window with three of his scouts behind him, all of them still in their travelling furs. Qin Wuyan stood at the door. Qian Ze stood in the middle of the room with his hands folded, looking very unhappy to be there.

Shi Feng sat at the desk with a hand pressed flat on his stomach. He’d ridden back from the gorge the day before, and every bump in the road had told him about it.

“Tell me again from the start, Ba,” Shi Feng said.

“My uncle’s caravan,” Helian Ba said, and slapped a paper down on the desk. “Struck on the eastern road nine days before you came. That route was filed with the provincial transit office here in Beiling three days before it left. Every caravan has to file. It’s the law. Nobody else knew the day.” He slapped down a second paper. “The herb train that was going out of Bitter Wind Gorge the morning after the fire. Filed with the same office. My scouts went through it all yesterday. Both routes were copied by the same clerk.”

“Zhou Wenshu,” Qian Ze said quietly. “He was found this morning. In his room above the office. With his belt.”

“And mine?” Shi Feng asked.

Qian Ze hesitated.

“The tower files a guest elder’s travel with the provincial office as a courtesy, Guest Elder,” Qian Ze said. “Your road to Inkwater. Your road to Iron Glacier Hold. Both filed. Both copied by Zhou Wenshu.”

Nobody said anything for a while. Outside, the wind banged a shutter somewhere down the street.

“Someone far to the south is tidying up,” Shi Feng said. “The bandits didn’t hang that clerk. Bandits leave ash on the doorsteps. They don’t hang a clerk with his own belt so it looks like he did it himself. Someone wanted the copies to stop, and wanted nobody to ask who he was copying them for.”

“Then who—” Helian Ba began.

“I can’t prove it,” Shi Feng said, before he could finish. “And don’t finish that question in a city with a provincial office in it, Ba. You’ve got a clan to go home to.”

Helian Ba shut his mouth. His scouts looked at the floor.

“Stop filing my routes,” Shi Feng said firmly. “Qian Ze, it’s a courtesy. If the provincial office complains, tell them I’m a 6 Mark and I’ve withdrawn that courtesy. They can ask me directly.”

“Yes, Guest Elder,” Qian Ze said, and looked relieved for the first time.

“Where will you stay?” Helian Ba asked. “If the tower files your comings and goings, the tower’s no good to you.”

Shi Feng thought about it. Then he untied the black jade token from his belt and turned it over.

He’d carried it since Tianjing. Long Caili had given it to him for “my business in the north”, and at the boundary stone it had turned out to be a Long household surety seal. He’d stopped thinking of it as anything else. But on the back, small enough that he’d only ever noticed it as a pattern, were six characters carved into the jade.

Northwind House. Salt Street. Beiling.

Shi Feng felt embarrassed. He’d been in Beiling two weeks without reading that inscription properly. He’d focused on the surety seal and overlooked the address she had given him.

Salt Street ran along the inside of Beiling’s south wall, a street of warehouses and counting rooms that smelled of grain dust and brine. Northwind House was the biggest building on it, three storeys of grey brick with a yard full of carts and a sign over the gate in plain black characters. Grain and salt. Nothing else.

A woman of about forty came out of the counting room as Shi Feng walked into the yard. Her hair was pinned flat, her sleeves were tied back for work, and she had a brush in her hand. She looked at the young man in the gate, and at the old man in Pavilion grey behind him, and then at the black jade token in his hand.

She put the brush down and bowed.

“Master Shi,” Tong Xian said. “This humble steward is Tong Xian. We’ve been expecting you.”

“Since when?” Shi Feng asked.

Tong Xian went into the counting room without answering, and came back with a ledger. She opened it on the cart nearest the gate and turned it toward him.

The first page was dated, and Shi Feng knew the date. The house had opened its books the week he’d walked out of Tianjing’s north gate.

He looked at the date for a while.

The princess had written it into a ledger in Beiling on the same week she’d stood at her counter in Tianjing and told him coldly not to turn round. She’d never mentioned it, and she’d never needed to.

“There’s a furnace room at the back,” Tong Xian said. “Sealed. Her Highness had it built to a 6 Mark’s specification and ordered that nobody open it until the token came through the gate. There are guest rooms upstairs. Nobody in this house files anything with anybody.” She closed the ledger. “The provincial office doesn’t even know the furnace room exists. It’s listed as a salt store.”

“What exactly is Her Highness’s business in the north?” Shi Feng asked.

Tong Xian looked at him with no expression at all.

“Grain, salt,” Tong Xian said, “and whatever the token’s bearer requires.”