Marcus Hartwell's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Marcus Hartwell had eleven coins left, and a wife and two children waiting three towns away for the day he could send for them. He counted the coins twice on the counter of the corner store, hoping the number might change. It did not. The room above this shop rented by the week, and he could afford four days. After that, he slept in the street. He had come to Duskwood to buy his family a home. So far he had bought himself a shrinking pile of money and a stomach that ached by noon. He was an accountant. He had told the shopkeeper as much, and the baker, and the man who mended boots. Each had shaken his head. Duskwood did not seem to want numbers. It wanted strong backs, and Marcus had thin arms and soft hands. A boy tugged his sleeve outside the store. "The old man at the big house needs a sum-counter," the boy said. "Nobody will go. You go." Marcus went. The manor stood apart, tall and pale, with graceful windows and iron rails. It did not belong near the sagging fences of the rest of the town. A servant led him inside without a word. The old man waited by a stone fireplace, hands folded, rings crowding his fingers. His white hair swept back like smoke. He did not rise. "You count," the old man said. It was not a question. "I do. Marcus Hartwell. I kept books for a trading house for nine years." "Aldrich Pembrose." The rings clicked as he waved at a table piled with ledgers. "My last clerk left. The one before him left. Taxes come due. My accounts are a swamp. Fix them." Marcus opened the top ledger. Columns crossed columns. Sums ran into sums with no order. Money came in from names he did not know and went out to names he could not read. It was the worst set of books he had ever seen, and the largest. "This is a year of work," Marcus said. "You have a month." Aldrich smiled without warmth. "I pay well. Better than anyone in this town could dream. Room here. Meals. Coin enough to bring a family and buy a house, if you finish." Marcus's heart jumped. He thought of his wife's face, his children's beds. Then he looked again at the ledgers, at the numbers that hid something he could not yet name. "Why did the others leave?" he asked. Aldrich's smile did not move. "They lacked the stomach. Do you have the stomach, Mr. Hartwell?" Marcus set his coins in his pocket. Four days of rent, or a home for his family. There was no choice, and both men knew it. "I'll start now," he said. Aldrich rang a small bell. The servant returned and set Marcus's bag by the door. He was hired. He was housed. And bent over the first crooked column, Marcus began to see the numbers hiding money that should not exist.