Pulling threads

Sheriff Ratcliff tracks down Iatr's mother, and discovers a complicated backstory. Who would have thought that a homeless kid with ambitions of criminal greatness would have a troubled family life.

This is the fifth story of Iatr, Klem and Ratcliff. If you haven’t already, subscribe to this newsletter to follow the story. And click on previously if you’re new to this series.

Previously;

Thrust, Parry and Riposte

Sheriff Ratcliff sat at his desk, and stared at papers. His office was well lit, with many tall clear glass windows illuminating a room full of shelves, books, intentionally disorganised papers, and a sizable number of full and empty ink pots. If you were to walk into this room, you’d think, ‘here sits a man of letters, numbers and words.’ You would also likely judge that ‘here sits a man who cares more about letters, numbers and words than he does about people, himself, or really much of anything.’

You’d think he was a nerd. [1]
You’d be partially correct.

1 - Sheriff Ratcliff was the nephew of the King’s High Chancellor.
Paperwork and books ran in the blood.
He wasn’t just a nerd, he was nerd aristocracy.
And a nepo-baby with something to prove.

Beyond the orderly arrangement of his desk, a chaotic explosion of books, paper and ink pots reigned. Immediately in front of him sat one stack of papers, with a single book opened up to page two-hundred and thirty-two of three hundred and twenty. The book’s title was “Refugees of Palinterra, 990 A.O.W.” And circled on the page was a list of four names, “Tessa Iatrdóttir,” “Iatr Tessason,” “Beatrix Tessadóttir,” and “Lylia Tessadóttir.” He stared at this opened book, and the single piece of paper he held in his hand, his brow furrowed, while he absentmindedly twirled his moustache.

There was a knock on the door. Sheriff Ratcliff looked up with a frown as the door opened. A young man in his mid-twenties, dressed as a King's scribe poked his head in.

“What is it, Treyvon?” Sheriff Ratcliff asked. He put down the paper he was holding and picked up a smouldering pipe that sat in a tray at the side of his desk - a tray with no flammable papers nearby.

“My Lord, Watchman Yunen is here as per your request. He’s waiting in the lobby,” Trevyon said with the dutiful air of a man who is still surprised that he is working for the Sheriff of Rundell - and determined that no one should know how lucky he felt, lest they figure out how unqualified he is for the job. “Should I tell him you’re coming, or send him up?”

“Thank you Trevyon. Please send him up,” Sheriff Ratcliff said, as he lit a burn-stick from a nearby oil lantern on his desk. As Treyvon disappeared, Ratcliff used the burn-stick to ignite the pipe packed with Targannian leaves, and drew in a deep breath of the noxious plant.

Sheriff Ratcliff remembered a time when he used to look down on his father and uncle for smoking the dried leaves of the tanbâku plant. But that was before he spent the last three years working as the Sheriff of Rundell, responsible for the collection of taxes in Rundell city and county, the offices of the king’s court, city watch and jail. It was a big job. With a lot of complicated obstacles.

Technically he was responsible for the city’s militia, but since the war with the Aes Sidhe had dragged on into its thirtieth year, this responsibility of the Sheriff had been taken up by the regular military commanders.

And since the House of Lords had blackmailed the King twenty years ago into establishing a semi-independent judiciary, his office oversaw the financial administration of the court system, and that was about it. No Sheriff had overseen a court in fifteen years. His “leadership” of the courts was largely ceremonial. He could fire a judge for gross negligence or financial imprudence - but then he’d actually have to prove that in the subsequent court case against wrongful dismissal. [2]

2 - Judges were notoriously litigious. Spitefully so.

And with the paramilitarization of the city watch, the growing unrest in the city in the last decade, increasing presence of local criminal gangs, and refugees who had poured in from all over the kingdom - the city watch was thoroughly under the command of Captain Rorrick.

Ratcliffs oversight of the watch was entirely financial. He had successfully engineered a financial coup d’etat in his second year of office, and consolidated the Watch’s budgetary management under his office, breaking nearly 15 years of tradition and upsetting many in the process. But since he paid the city watchmen on time and in full, he had earned a sizable popularity with the rank and file of the watch, if not its commander. Many of them remembered the inconsistent financial management of Sheriff Cecil Graves & Captain Rorrick, and appreciated Ratcliff’s insistence that they be paid according to their contract.

Ratcliff had thought being appointed the Sheriff of Rundell, a role perceived to be of great status amongst the nobility, was an honour. Until he had to work the job. That was when he discovered he was a glorified tax collector, in a system that the nobility and merchants of the city had corrupted through bribery, perversion of the law, negligence and malicious non-compliance. A role his predecessor had given up on trying to enforce, chose instead to personally enrich himself, and then retired to the countryside three years back to “spend more time with his family.”

The King, having observed his capital city’s revenue base drop steadily over the last ten years, had turned to Ratcliff to “fix the problem.”

Half way through modernising the documentation of the beleaguered tax and inspection system, Ratcliff had taken up the vice of his father and uncle. He had, to his distaste, become a “smoker.”

But he couldn’t argue with the fact that it did settle his nerves, and helped him focus through the piles of literary excrement he had to wade through on a daily basis.[3]

3 - And he used the word “literary excrement” quite intentionally, as many of the documents he had to go through were fabrications of accounts, disconnected from any monetary reality. Rundell’s primary form of storytelling, in Ratcliff’s opinion, was bullshit tax fraud.

“My Lord,” a crisp deferential voice said from the doorway, “Watchman Yunen reporting as requested.”

Ratcliff blew out the tanbâku smoke towards the ceiling, and looked down to see a man in his early thirties, with long prematurely greying hair standing formally in the doorway. He was a tall man with a strong build, several scars across his face, and a tired expression [4].

4 - He looked like a man who probably needed a vacation, but wasn’t going to get one any time soon, and had resigned himself to white-knuckling his way through the discomfort in the hopes that “some day” he gets a break.

Ratcliff gestured towards the chair across him, “Please sit, Watchmen Yunen. I have some questions about the rabble rousing pair of youth known as Iatr and Klem. Rorrick suggested you might be something of a local expert in these two blossoming criminals.”

Yunen’s face scrunched up in distaste at the names, but nodded. He came over and sat in the chair opposite Ratcliff. “For whatever that honour is worth, my lord. I suppose I am.”

Ratcliff nodded, and smiled, “No need for the honorifics. Ratcliff will do. What do you know about them?”

Yunen looked uncomfortable, “My Lo… Sir… Iatr and Klem came to my attention two years back when the two started working the lower tavern district as cutpurses for a local gang called Rori’s Reavers. They had apparently broken ties with the Reavers a week before we raided the gang’s hideout and clapped the lot of them in irons. Word was that Iatr had a falling out with Rori and convinced Klem to go ‘independent’ with him.”

“Curious timing. One week before? Highly independent thinking for children of… what.. eleven? Twelve? Do you know where they came from?” Ratcliff asked, looking interested.

“Your guess is as good as mine, sir. There are a lot of street kids these days, what with the war creating so many orphans. We can’t really keep track of them. They do what they can to survive, same as anyone. Usually they get swept up into a gang, and eventually wind up in the quarries or serving in a prisoner battalion,” Yunen said with a grimace.

“Are you familiar with Tessa Iatrdottir?” Ratcliff asked, changing directions.

Yunen frowned, opening his mouth, and then closed it.

“No? I think Iatr might be a bit young to be a father,” Yunen said, a wry smile appearing on his face as he thought about that.

“Tessa Iatrdottir was a refugee from Palinterra who arrived in the city ten years ago, when the Sidhe first conquered that city. She arrived alone with 2 daughters, named Lylia and Beatrix, and a son named Iatr. I had a hard time tracking her down, but according to our last census, it appears that a Tessa Bracken lives on Tanner Road with her husband Jake, one daughter named Lylia, and two older sons named Robert and Brithon. Any chance you’ve been on patrol duty on Tanner?” Ratcliff asked.

Yunen closed his eyes and frowned in thought, crossing his arms as he did so. “Yes… I have. It’s a hard street. There’s a lot of poverty there, and hard working tradespeople who have to work for the crown providing armour and barding. I’ve met Jake Bracken before, one of the local tanners, from a long traditional family of tanners. Bit of an ass, from what I remember. Never met his wife.”

“Have you ever seen Iatr on Tanner road?” Ratcliff asked.

Yunen’s eyes opened and narrowed. “Aye Sir. First time I ever chased the little runt was on Tanner road. He’d nicked some tradesman’s tools and a leather bag. If memory serves, it was Jake’s tools he’d grabbed. Though Jake never mentioned that the Iatr was a relation - only that he was a thief and we should cut his hands off if we caught him.”

Ratcliff took a long inhale on his pipe, feeling the satisfaction when disparate pieces of information came together.

“That’s interesting information my Lord, but why do you care about these two? This seems like more of a city watch issue. Don’t you have enough problems within your existing responsibilities?” Yunen asked, curiously and a little forwardly.

Ratcliff snorted, smoke coming out of his nostrils in a, for him, pretty undignified manner. “Excellent observation, Watchman Yunen. I do, in fact, have more than enough problems. However, I have need of a rat - specifically, a pair of rats with the talent and instincts for surviving in difficult circumstances.”

Yunen nodded, “Well… that does seem to be these two. But they’re proven difficult to control, even by the criminals of the city.”

Ratcliff smiled, “Precisely why we’re going to go speak with Iatr’s mother.” And stood up, “I think it’s time we paid the Bracken household a visit.”

---

“What’s this about, I’m all paid up,” the tall, burly red haired man said in a tone that proved the reliability of watchman Yunen’s memory. “You parasites are always looking to squeeze more out of us hard working tradesmen! You know this city and the war would collapse without our cooperation - I’ll report you to the guild for illegal tax collection!” His bearing was defiant, and his inclination leaned to fighting.

The sun had begun to set across Tanner Road, leaving the street level in shadow as the light receded. Workers from the day shift had returned home, and the stench of the days work and local meals being prepared could be smelt up and down the street.[5]

5 - Being the district that it was, and food prices being what they were, these weren’t particularly good smells.

Sheriff Ratcliff had barely gotten any words in before Jake Bracken, noticing the Sheriff’s pin of office on his coat, had launched into a diatribe of the predatory nature of tax collectors and how hard done by the working man was. Which Ratcliff had to admit, historically, had truth to it. One of the first things that Ratcliff had done when appointed to Sheriff was to stamp out arbitrary double collection of taxes by entrepreneurial Bailiffs.[6]

6 - Ratcliff was convinced that his predecessor, Sheriff Cecil Graves, had run a dual tax collection scheme, where he had been collecting taxes on behalf of the crown, and when he could get away with it, for himself. When he finally retired, his collaborators in this scheme kept the practice up. Most of those lackeys were now working their debt to the crown off as involuntary amateur stone sculptors.

The paperwork to prove his predecessor’s involvement, however, was curiously missing.

Yunen, and another watchman named Nialh, came up behind Ratcliff at the hostile tone of Jake’s voice and did their best “professional looming.” Jake eyed them warily. Bailiffs making their rounds didn’t usually come with so many guards.

“Jake Bracken I presume?” Sheriff Ratcliff said. Jake’s eyes darted between the watchmen and the (not much) smaller Ratcliff. He nodded curtly.

“I am Sheriff Ratcliff, of his Majesty’s Exchequer, and this is Watchman Yunen and Watchman Nialh,” he continued, gesturing to the two watchmen behind him. Jake’s eyes widened, and Ratcliff could feel the man’s anxiety rise. Ratcliff smiled, enjoying the man’s unease. “Is your wife, Tessa, home?”

Jake’s anxiety twisted into guarded hostility. “What business is it of yours?” and crossed his arms.

“I want to talk to her about the criminal escapades of her son, Iatr.” Ratcliff said, and was rewarded for his pronouncement with a look of surprise, that then evolved into something uglier. Jake’s face took on a quality that would be best described as delighted malice.

“I always knew the little shit was destined for the gallows. She’s cooking dinner now,” Jake said, and beckoned them in. He laughed as he walked into his house, “Tessa!” he barked, “The lawmen are here to talk to you about your shit stain of a son!”

Ratcliff exchanged a look with Yunen, who muttered, “told you.” Ratcliff nodded in reply, frowning.

Turning to Nialh, Ratcliff said quietly, “Tell the other two to keep a low profile, and watch the street for any sign of Iatr and Klem - if they hear yelling from inside the house, they’re to join us. Then I want you to come join Yunen and I inside. There will be trouble, I expect.”

The bigger man nodded, then Ratcliff and Yunen followed Jake into the Bracken townhome.

Editorial Note;

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Robin George