Chapter 7
When he woke up in the morning Gareth realized he had spent the night outside. Jerome was snuggled up against him and seemed to still be asleep. Dawn was just breaking and there was just enough light for Gareth to see two men arguing in the distance.
In moving to get a better look, Gareth woke Jerome and had to grab him to keep him quiet. As he crept closer, he could recognize the butler from the previous morning but in spite of their animated gesturing, he still couldn’t understand what they were saying.
Abruptly the arguing stopped and the two men headed off in opposite directions. Gareth cursed softly under his breath. Something was happening here and he intended to find out what. Returning to the house, he found the library deserted. Looking around for clues on what happened last night, he noticed that both vials of hangover remedy had already been consumed.
On the nearby table was a handwritten flyer proclaiming the annual get together of The Order of Retired Bookkeepers.
Calling all members of The Order of Retired Bookkeepers.
It’s that time again for our annual meeting. Starting May, 22 in the seaport town of North Louden.
This year’s theme is maritime bookkeeping. Break out these rusty skills and learn how cargo vessels and yes, even pirates, keep their books.
Rejoin old friends, meet new acquaintances.
Gareth struggled not to laugh. This wasn’t quite the message he had anticipated but it certainly got the details across.
With a short knock on the door frame the butler entered and said, “Begging your pardon young master. I didn’t mean to wake you and your dog this morning. The gamekeeper is getting too uppity for my taste. The master wanted a bit of venison for the evening meal and the gamekeeper was offering some fresh game birds instead. They probably died of old age in that shack of his. I didn’t know you were there or I would have done my discussion elsewhere.”
The butler turned to go and then said “Oh, the master is indisposed this morning. He asked that you go into town, open the shop up and get some breakfast there. He also said something about getting that flyer in your hand printed. He seemed to think you would understand.”
Before setting off for town, Gareth made sure Jerome was fed and told him to guard the wagon. Jerome was much better behaved when he had a job and Tobias knew how to get past if need be.
Arriving at the shop slightly early, Gareth took the time to examine the books. Although the office was locked, the books were out in the open. Gareth considered marking the books to make sure none went missing but the only book that counted was the current ledger book and there was only one copy of it.
While he was looking at the book, Rachael arrived. Seeing Gareth she gave a short sniff of annoyance and asked where Martin was. Gareth explained that Martin had had a late night and would be coming in later. He went on to ask where he could get some breakfast and if she knew where the printer was located.
“I want you to know, Garret,” she started. “It’s Gareth.” he corrected. “Gary, Gareth, Garret, I don’t care. I want you to know that I don’t work for you.” She continued, “If Martin puts you in charge, I’ll quit and work for our competition.
“If you want to find the printer, Just walk out the door, turn left and you’ll see him. Keep walking and I’m sure you’ll find someplace willing to serve you. Don’t feel the need to return. We’ll do fine without you.”
Gareth understood the reason for her animosity but even if his cover seemed to be public knowledge, he still had a role to play. Looking her up and down, he shook his head and said, “What a shrewish tongue you have. It’s a shame that shrill voice is your best asset.” Knowing it would infuriate her more, he stepped outside before she could respond.
Finding the printer’s shop was easy but wafting in the air was the smell of freshly baked bread. Printer or baker? He was still trying to make up his mind when he realized he had walked into the printer’s shop.
The pleasant smell of baked bread disappeared the moment he entered the shop. The shop assailed his nostrils with the sharp odor of ink and paper, almost causing Gareth to sneeze. Gareth introduced himself as Martin Rolfling’s partner. This caused the shop owner to greet Gareth warmly, asking what he could do for him.
Gareth showed the paper to printer and asked if he could make twenty copies of it. Surely twenty copies would cover all the towns. The printer looked at the paper and said, “I can’t match the handwriting but I can center it up to make it look nice. I can even put a nice decoration top and bottom. See, like this one I printed for your clerk Tom.”
The paper he handed Gareth had a wavy line at the top of the page, some lines of poetry, a few paragraphs of plain words and then another curly line at the bottom. Gareth had no idea what was good when it came to printing but decided that this probably represented the printer’s best efforts.
Still, appearances had to be observed. Gareth examined the paper closely, he held it at an angle to look along the edge and then rubbed the paper between his fingers. His “examination” done, he nodded his head and asked how long it would take.
They started at three days and ten silver. When the printer offered one day and fifteen silver, Gareth agreed, shook hands to close the deal and left in search of the baker.
Fortunately the baker was easy to find. Once inside, he was again faced with making a choice when he knew nothing about the subject. Should he try one of the little pies, or a sweetbread, or maybe a cake? Should he bring something back to the shop? That was an easy answer, no. The man that he had chosen to emulate for this character would never have shared. After selecting two small pies that the baker had assured him were made with “the best apples in the kingdom,” Gareth sat down in a nearby chair to enjoy his meal.
Having no companion to talk with, he started reading the flyer the printer had given him. The leaflet had two parts, the top half consisted of poetry and the bottom half had a description of the poet’s thoughts as he wrote the poetry. Unlike the pie Gareth was eating, the poetry was horrible. There was no rhythm, no rhyme and several of the lines were barely coherent. The dialog portion was little better. Gareth wondered if Tom had been drunk when he wrote those lines and why would he pay money to have such balderdash published.
Starting on the second pie, Gareth abandoned the leaflet and looked around the shop. Unfortunately aside from the breads and pastries, there was nothing in the shop. The baker had gone into the back leaving him alone. Gareth tried reading the leaflet again, nothing had changed it was still garbage.
With nothing better to do Gareth decided to use the leaflet to practice another one of Tobias’ memory games. The exercise was simple, he would read through the leaflet once and keep a separate count for each of the vowels. The remaining pie was finished by the time he finished the count on the poetry section. He decided he didn’t enjoy the exercise enough to continue with the second half of the leaflet. It was time to check on the printer.
When asked if he was done with the printing, the printer only laughed. “I don’t know what you expected but it will take me the better part of the day to set the type and most of tomorrow to print off your twenty copies. Come back late tomorrow.” With that he went back to his press, still chuckling.
Nothing to do now but go back to the shop, Gareth thought. He hoped that Martin had made it in. Rachael was so much more pleasant when Martin was around. Knowing he was stalling, Gareth recalled the numbers for each of the vowels. That was the second part of the exercise, how long could he remember those numbers. A fifteen, E twenty four, I forty two, O seven and U five. Odd, usually E had the largest number followed by A.
Still stalling but curious now, Gareth studied the leaflet again. His second count had 43 “I”s but all the other counts were correct. Looking at the poetry again to understand why the count was so far off, he got another surprise, the awkward wording of the poetry was often caused by choosing a word with an “I” instead of a more common expression. It looked like Tom thought a proliferation of “I”s would make his poetry more attractive.
Why would he think that? Did he have another reason for all the “I”s? It was at this point, Gareth realized he had walked past Martin’s shop and was standing at an almost deserted pier. Taking in the view of all the ships at the other piers and the rhythmic crashing of the waves, Gareth wondered what possessed grown men to risk their lives in that unnatural environment. He found a large rock slightly off the pier and making sure to face land, sat down.
Gareth looked at the leaflet again. What secrets did it possess? Was it a code? Doing a quick vowel count of the other half revealed nothing. The frequency of the letters was still off but only slightly. Maybe the “I”s indicated words in the other section. Word five, “Catherine”, word six, “returning”, word nine, “three”, word eleven, “weeks”…
Gareth took off running to the office.
When he reached the door, he paused realizing that Tobias should be informed before they confronted Robert. Opening the door, he could see both Robert and Rachael were at their desks and Martin was helping Robert look up one of the scale factors. Holding onto his stomach, Gareth slowly entered and then groaned. “I think that baker tried to poison me. I haven’t felt this sick in a long while. Do you think that traveling potion maker would have something to help?”
Martin realized something was up said, “He might. His hangover remedies certainly work. I think he was going to try selling a few potions on the dock today. I can help you find him. I don’t want your mother getting mad at me again.”
Sensing an opportunity, Rachael looked up and said, “We can handle it, we certainly don’t want the little boy’s mother getting upset.”
Suppressing his urge to retort, Gareth turned to Martin and said “We need to leave now before I lose my breakfast. Stepping outside with Martin he whispered, “Tom is the leak and I know how he’s doing it.
Martin gave an incredulous look but said nothing.
Finding Tobias was harder than expected but they finally found him in the market haggling for fresh herbs and gathering information from the merchants. Looking at the two grim faces, he knew something was up and motioned them with his head to an open shop.
As all three men gathered at the shop, Tobias got the owner’s attention and said, “Francis, my friends and I need to have a private conversation, do you mind if we borrow the back?”
“Ah John, I do love your sense of humor.” The proprietor continued, “Everything in this shop is for sale or rent, we just have to agree on a price. Say ten silver for the back room.”
Tobias had just opened his mouth to bargain when Martin said, “Done” and slapped the coins down on the counter. Francis raised an eyebrow to Tobias but he stepped out of the way and pointed in to the back.
The back area was less of a room and more of a storage area with a hint of light. There was no place to sit unless you counted the floor. With all three of them crowded in the back area, even the floor was not an option.
“Your boy is telling me that he has proof that Tom is the leak,” Martin started angrily. “That proof will have to be very convincing. Tom has been with me for over five years. I’ve never had reason to doubt him.”
Tobias looked over at Gareth and said “Explain.”
“It’s a secret message he puts in the poetry he writes. He distributes it freely to anyone that takes a copy. It’s actually brilliant. The information isn’t time critical because he’s telling when the ship is expected back, along with the cargo we’re insuring, uh cargo Martin is insuring, “ Gareth hastily corrected himself. “The beauty is that he doesn’t have to know who reads the code. Anybody can get a copy but only someone who knows the key can understand it.”
“Do you have proof?
Tobias interjected, “Martin, calm down and think. If he tells us there’s a code, he has proof. Don’t you?”
Gareth nodded and then realizing it was probably too dark to see a nod said, “The printer gave me a sample of Tom’s poetry when I had your flyers made. I had started counting the letters on it, it really is too horrible to read, when I realized the ratios were off. It had way too many ‘i’s in the poetry section. When I used those words as markers, I could decipher the lower half of the message. This one said when the Catherine was expected to return and that it was carrying wool and spices.”
Martin, still trying to control himself, said, “Do you always go around counting letters…no, never mind, how you read is your problem. It looks like Tom is now my problem. Any suggestions?”
“If I were running an operation like this, Tom would have no idea who was reading his messages. He may be getting paid but given the trust you place in him, it’s more likely he or someone he cares about is being threatened. Money is a great way to induce cooperation but some people are more stubborn and require a little persuasion.”
Gareth was glad the darkness hid his expression from Tobias. He sounded like he had had a lot of experience in these techniques. Remembering something, he spoke up. “Tom showed up to work injured shortly after we got here. He said that he had been robbed but it matches what you’re saying.”
“Do you know if he has close family nearby? Tobias asked.
“No close family but he started writing poetry shortly after he announced his engagement to a girl. Come to think about it, I haven’t heard much about her recently.”
“They may have taken her captive or she was in on it from the beginning and used him. Maybe both.” Tobias said. “I’m not sure it matters to us. I’d rather not rely on someone that thinks they may be in love. We need to neutralize Tom long enough to get a fake message out. Once we put the pirate out of business the rest will sort itself out.”
Gareth had been with Tobias for almost six years but just like the warhorses Tobias had described, this was a different man, more direct, less compassionate. The longer they worked this, the more Tobias seemed to be slipping back to some former life. Gareth wasn’t sure where he stood with this new Tobias.
“The Bookkeepers will give us manpower, the Catherine will give us transportation. Gareth, do you think you can craft a message saying the Catherine will be returning with a cargo of gold from one of the nearby kingdoms trying to set up a trade office in our port? Make it for May 25, about three days after our announced meeting. How can we make Tom disappear or keep him quiet until this is over? We don’t want him exposing our message as fake.”
“Without knowing who to trust, trying to hold him as a prisoner for two weeks is out of the question. Not to mention he would be missed. Can you drug him or make him sick enough he can’t get out of bed?” asked Gareth.
“You already know the answer. Three or four days could be done without risk but more than that and keeping them alive becomes difficult. Two weeks is out of the question. What if we send him on a long sea voyage?”
“I’m not comfortable with that,” Martin said. “There’s too much risk with the pirate out there. We don’t know who’s involved in this. Could we send him on an impossible mission? We only need two weeks or so.”
Tobias responded with, “He might abandon the mission and hide out. We’d never know until it was too late. Are you sure you don’t have a dungeon hidden away in your house?”
Finally getting a moment to speak, Gareth said, “I may have an idea. Does one of your Bookkeepers live about a week away?”
“Frost might, how does that help us?”
Gareth continued, “We need two weeks. If it takes Tom a week to get there, the best Tom or Frost can do on the way back is another week. We give Tom a token to give to Frost. If he has it when he arrives, we know he met Tom. If he doesn’t show up or doesn’t have the token we have time to reset our trap.
“Speaking of our trap, we need to make our gathering point about two days from here. That will allow the Catherine to appear as if coming from a distant port, not leaving town.”
Martin and Tobias considered this for a few moments, then Tobias said, “That might work. What do we use as a token?
Pulling a gold coin from his purse Martin said, “We can use this coin. I’ll carve my initials in it to make it unique. We’ll need to get more flyers if we change cities. I like the idea though.
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