“Yancey didn’t mention it?” I asked.
A quick stream of tobacco smoke escaped from her nostrils. “I want you to ask me.”
I’d suffered more galling indignities. “Yancey says you’ve got a sharp ear and a long memory. I’d like to hear what they offer on the Duke of Beaconfield.”
“The Blade?” She did something with her face that conveyed the intent of eye rolling without actually being so uncouth as to roll her eyes. “Apart from the talent that earned his nickname he’s your typical bored aristocrat, cold-blooded, amoral, and cruel.”
“Those are more observations than secrets,” I said.
“And he’s broke,” she finished.
“So the mansion, the parties, the money he paid me …”
“The first is in hock to pay for the second two. The duke was blessed with an old name, a deadly arm, and not much else. And, like most nobles, his pecuniary abilities don’t go beyond spending. He sunk tens of thousands of ochres in the Ostarrichi national loan, and lost everything when they defaulted last fall. Word is, the creditors are baying at the door, and his personal tailor won’t accept his commissions. I’d be surprised if he makes it through the season without declaring bankruptcy.”
“So those diamonds on his crest?”
“Let’s just say the lion is the more pertinent half.”
The threat of poverty could drive a man toward terrible acts—I’d seen plenty of that. But did the thought of losing that gorgeous house of his really push the Smiling Blade to child murder and black magic? “What about his connections to the Prince?”
“Exaggerated. They were chums at Aton, one of those dreary boarding schools choked with tradition and staffed by pedophiles. But dear Henry …” She fluttered her eyes, and I wondered if this offhand reference to the Crown Prince indicated a grain of truth behind the rumors of their liaison, or if she just wanted me to think it did. “Is a bit too button-down for the Blade’s wild ways.”
“Interesting,” I said, as if it wasn’t. “How about his hangers-on—you know anything there? He’s got a cut-rate practitioner running errands for him, goes by the name of Brightfellow?”
She crinkled her nose like I’d dropped a fresh turd on the floor. “I know the man—though I hadn’t heard he’d hooked up with your duke. Brightfellow’s one of that unpleasant breed of artist who flits about the peripheries of court, pimping his talent to whatever nobles are bored or stupid enough to pay for his parlor tricks. I hadn’t thought much of Beaconfield, but I thought enough of him not to expect he’d get mixed up with trash like that. He must really be desperate.”
“What would Brightfellow be doing for the Blade?”
“I really wouldn’t know—but having met the two, I’d guess it doesn’t involve philanthropy.”
I figured she was probably right.
After another moment she cleared her throat, a short sound that made me think of sugar and smoke, and our interview was over. “And that’s it, then—that’s all the information I can provide you as to the secret dealings of the Smiling Blade.” She uncrossed her legs, then crossed them again. “Unless there’s anything else you wanted.”
I stood up abruptly, setting my glass on the table next to my chair. “No, nothing else. You’ve been a help—you’ve got a chit to cash in with me if you need it.”
She stood as well. “I’m tempted to cash it in right now,” she said, her eyes tilting toward the bed.
“No you aren’t. Not even a little.”
Her wanton leer faded, to be replaced with something more closely resembling a genuine smile. “You’re an interesting man. Come back again sometime. I’d like to see you.” She moved close enough for me to smell her perfume, intoxicating, like everything else about her.
“And that I do mean.”
I wasn’t sure I believed that either. Rajel was nowhere to be seen on the way out, but the bouncer gave me a sullen nod as I approached the exit.
“Fun place to work?” I asked as I grabbed my coat from the rack.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Three weeks of the month.”
I nodded sympathetically and left.
I was heading south when I saw him, a bony runt shadowing me from the opposite side of the street, a half block back in my wake. He could have picked me up anytime after I left Mairi’s—it would have been easy to slip out from a back alley in the thick fog.
I stopped at a corner stall run by an aged Kiren and inspected his wares. “Duoshao qian?” I asked, angling a chipped bracelet up to the dull winter light as a pretext for scanning behind me. The vendor quoted me a price ten or twelve times what the junk was worth, and I feigned disappointment and dropped the bauble into a bin. He snatched it up quickly and shoved it back into my face, streaming forth a broken monologue as to the exceptional merits of his goods. By this point my tail had drawn close enough to make out some detail. I couldn’t see the Blade hiring the brand of cheap thug this hooligan epitomized, and he obviously wasn’t a heretic, so Ling Chi was out. Of course, there were plenty of other people scattered about the city who wouldn’t mind seeing me fall on something sharp, some dealer I’d wronged or slumlord who thought I threatened his business. We’d find out soon enough.
I hadn’t tooled up before going to visit Mairi, seemed like a bad way to make an impression, but I wouldn’t need a weapon to get the jump on this skinny little bastard. The only thing better than ambushing a motherfucker is ambushing the motherfucker who thinks he’s ambushing you. I slipped past the merchant, heading down a side alley, cutting around the corner, accelerating slightly as I made the turn—
Then I was on the ground, the strange sensation of light and heat that accompanies a strong blow to the head distorting my vision, so much so that the figure standing above me was, for a moment, unrecognizable.
But only for a moment.
“Hey, Crowley.”
“Hey, faggot.”
I made a play for his ankles, but my movements were slow and clumsy, and Crowley shut down any hopes of escape with a booted toe to my ribs.
I slumped back against the wall, hoping that last shot hadn’t broken a bone, the agony in my side suggesting such optimism was unfounded. My lungs worked to fill themselves properly, a pause during which Crowley was kind enough to resist beating on me, making do with an excessively unfriendly grin. I managed to cough out a few sentences. “Having trouble with your arithmetic? I’ve got five days, Crowley. Five days. If big numbers confuse you, take your shoes off and count on your toes.”
“Didn’t I tell you how funny he was?” Crowley said to someone behind him, and now I realized that Crowley hadn’t come alone. He was backed by three men, not agents I didn’t think, but hard folk, syndicate muscle maybe—regardless, unfriendly in the extreme. They stared at me with expressions that ran the gamut from outright boredom to sadistic glee.
I had been played like a rank amateur. The first one had let himself be seen, drawing my attention while Crowley and his crew lay in wait. By the Scarred One, how had I been so stupid?
“You see a uniform on me, punk?” Crowley asked. “This ain’t got nothing to do with the Crown or the Old Man.” He accentuated this last point with a kick to my shoulder. I winced and bit my tongue. “Today’s my day off.”
“So running into me was just a quirk of fate?” My mouth was full of copper and I could feel blood dribbling down my chin.
“I wouldn’t chalk it all up to chance. Might have something to do with me thinking you’ve long outlived your usefulness. Another body showed up earlier today—a boy this time.”
Poor Avraham Mayana. “Don’t pretend you give a shit about the victims.”
“You’re right. This isn’t about them.” He shoved his brutish face into mine, hot breath filtering rank across my nose. “It’s you. I fucking hate you. I’ve hated you for ten years, ever since you second-guessed me on the Speckled Band case. When the Old Man gave the orders to bring you in last week, I almost did a jig I was so happy. Then when we
let you go …” He shook his head and spread his arms wide. “Ten years waiting to close your book, and you get another pass because of that slick mouth of yours? I know they say you shouldn’t bring work home with you, but … what can I say? Maybe I’m just too devoted a civil servant.”
“What do you think the Old Man will say when he finds out you aced me?”
He laughed, a guffaw that was no less threatening for being clownish. “When I leave this alleyway, you’ll be alive and kicking.” He dabbed a fat finger in the gusher coming from my nose, bringing it back wet with a red sheen that he inspected carefully, almost tenderly. “Course, I can’t speak for these gentlemen. Untrained, you know, but full of enthusiasm. Besides, I wouldn’t count too firm on your patron’s good humor. Last I checked, you ain’t done much to curb violence in your little ghetto. We found that boy in the river today—and I assume you heard about your old partner’s unfortunate demise.”
Something hot flared up in my stomach. “Don’t talk about Crispin, you sodomitic gorilla.”
The toe of his boot clipped my forehead, and my skull rang against the wall. “You’re pretty feisty for a man about to get a long look at his insides.” One of his boys, a whip-thin Mirad with the ritualized facial scarring they use to mark criminals in that unfortunate theocracy, shook a poinard out of his oversize coat and said something I couldn’t make out. Crowley took his eyes off me to snarl at him, his face mad dog with hate. “Not yet, you fucking degenerate. I told you—he bleeds first.”
This was as good a chance as any. I cocked back my right foot and shot it at Crowley’s kneecap. Something was still up with my vision though, and it went wide, catching his shin.
It was enough, barely. He howled and backed up a step and I leaped to my feet. I guess Crowley had figured that first knock would keep me down longer. Dumb motherfucker—he’d known me a decade and still hadn’t learned to compensate for the thickness of my cranium.
I turned a corner and heard the distinct thunk of metal on stone indicating the Mirad’s blade had missed its mark. Then I was putting one foot ahead of the other with as much alacrity as my battered frame could muster, making west for the canal with every drop of energy I had left.
The alleys in that part of Low Town ring the main thoroughfares like a cobweb spun by a drunken spider, weaving back and forth irregularly. Even I don’t know them all that well, a fact reinforced when once or twice I stumbled back through previously traversed intersections. But if I was having trouble, I could tell Crowley and his gang weren’t doing any better—the gray walls echoed with the angry shouts of my pursuers, providing an unneeded impetus to my movements.
I broke cover through the warren of passageways and into the wide boulevard that skirts the canal. Here the channel broadens to its widest point, just south of the River Andel, Rupert’s Trestle covering its shoulders. I broke into a dead sprint, reaching the foot of the bridge and ascending its limestone arch. On a normal day this area would be bustling with travelers hurtling toward their destinations and picnickers taking in the view, but with the weather I was the only one in sight. At first, anyway.
Coming across from the other side, a long, curved knife held backward against his arm, was the man I’d first seen following me, and he looked a lot bigger than before. Behind me the scarred Mirad slipped from the mouth of the alley, his features dim in the heavy mist.
I stopped at the zenith of Rupert’s, working desperately to figure out a plan. I debated making a break for it through the goon rapidly narrowing the distance between us, but unarmed as I was he’d hold me up long enough for the rest of his gang to cut me apart. From over my shoulder I heard Crowley cursing my lineage and promising gratuitous punishment. A quick look revealed him hot on the tail of the Mirad, who slowed up, waiting for his pack before coming against me.
Sometimes success is about complex stratagems—a sacrificed pawn or a cornered bishop. More often, though, it’s about speed and surprise. Crowley would never be mistaken for a genius, but I wasn’t the first poor bastard he’d trailed through the streets of Rigus. With a few more seconds to think he would have known I’d rather take a bath than go toe-to-toe with his goons. But as he rounded the corner he hadn’t yet processed the possibility and was left flat-footed as I climbed the railing and took a swan dive into the canal below.
The ice wasn’t as thin as it looked from the bridge, and I bruised my shoulder pretty good going through. I didn’t feel the injury for long, the cold water anesthetizing me straight through to the bone. Righting myself, I managed to shed my heavy coat and tear off my boots, my numb hands fumbling at the laces, fingers stupid and unresponsive.
Crowley would figure me to head downriver, but I ain’t ever been much of a swimmer and didn’t fancy my chances of outrunning him and his boys. Instead I kicked my feet and headed deeper into the depths. The canal was thick with the city’s waste, too opaque to see through even had I been foolish enough to open my eyes, so I had to hope Crowley fell for it. I held my breath as long as I could, then spurted up to the surface for air, lifting the top layer of ice half an inch above the water, then diving back to the bottom. I couldn’t keep this up for long. Already my limbs felt languid and heavy, each movement increasing in difficulty, the willingness of my body to obey my commands diminishing with each passing second.
I came up for air twice more before the cold got to be too much, and then I swam to the west embankment and hauled myself over the side of the canal. For a few seconds I lay prostrate on the dirty cobblestones, willing myself to move, my injured body unsympathetic to my demands. The thought of what would happen if Crowley and his men found me—that is to say the looming threat of torture and death—provided sufficient energy for me to pull myself to my feet.
Another afternoon it wouldn’t have worked—they’d have seen me climbing up out of the water and run me down—but the fog was thick off the bay, walling off anyone unlucky enough to be caught in it and rendering pursuit almost impossible. Crowley had swallowed my deception—in the distance I could hear them yelling to one another, trying to figure out where they’d lost me.
I knew I’d never make it back to the Earl—I didn’t even try. I just turned down a side alley and moved as fast as I could. The wind whirled heavy about my face, and I could feel the peculiar sensation of my hair freezing to my scalp—if I didn’t get out of these wet clothes and in front of a fire soon, the cold would do what Crowley had been unable to—less painfully perhaps, but just as permanent.
The narrow streets twisted and turned, my vision blurring in and out of focus and a terrible ache rising up from my chest. I only had a few blocks to go—I figured it was even money if I’d make it.
My jog became a half jog, then a slow walk, then a sort of awkward stumble.
Another step.
Another.
I climbed the white stone hedges with an appalling lack of dignity, banging my knees as I did so, even those low walls proving difficult to negotiate with my frozen limbs. I tripped over the last one, landing headfirst in front of the tower. I fumbled inside my shirt for Crispin’s Eye, belatedly thinking I might burst the Aerie’s defenses, but my fingers wouldn’t work, and anyway I knew I’d never be able to muster the concentration its powers required. Pulling myself to my feet I banged futilely against the door, my pleas for entry lost amid the wind.
The gargoyle remained silent, a mute witness, as I slumped to the ground.
In high summer of my nineteenth year Rigus came down with war fever. The streets were abuzz with the failure of the Hemdell Conference and the news that our continental allies, Miradin and Nestria, had mobilized to defend their borders against the Dren menace. High Chancellor Aspith had called for an initial commitment of twenty thousand men, then the largest collection of soldiers the Empire had ever assembled. Little did anyone appreciate that this first sacrifice would prove to be no more than kindling for the conflagration that would ravage the continent.
In the years since it ended, I’ve heard a lo
t of different reasons as to why we went to war. When I first signed up, I was told we were dying to uphold the treaties we had sworn with our comrades in arms—though what conceivable interest I had in ensuring the territorial integrity of the aging Mirad Empire and their degenerate Priest-King, or of helping the Nestrianns avenge the injuries the young Dren commonwealth had done them fifteen years prior was beyond my understanding, then or now. Not that it mattered—the powers that be jettisoned that one pretty quick once our eternal allies capitulated two years into the conflict. After that I started to hear that my presence hundreds of miles from home was needed to protect the Throne’s interests overseas, to stop the Dren from gaining a warm-water port that would allow them to threaten the scattered jewels of our Empire. A professor I knew, a client of mine, once tried to explain that the war was the inevitable by-product of what he called the “expanding role of the oligarchic financial interests.” We were pretty cooked on breath at the time, though, and I was having trouble following him. I’ve heard a lot of explanations—hell, half of Low Town still blames the whole thing on the Islander banking houses and their preternatural influence at court.
But I remember the buildup before the war and the packed lines at the recruitment centers. I remember the chants—“The Dren, the slaves, we’ll lay them in their graves!”—you could hear bellowing out from every bar in the city any time of the day or night. I remember the lightning in the air and the lovers bidding good-bye in the streets, and I can tell you what I think. We went to war because going to war is fun, because there’s something in the human breast that trills at the thought, although perhaps not the reality, of murdering its fellows in vast numbers. Fighting a war ain’t fun—fighting a war is pretty miserable. But starting a war? Hell, starting a war is better than a night floating on Daeva’s honey.
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