by Rob May
The tavern was an old beamed building, furnished with lots of cheap wooden furniture. Men and their pets, and a handful of women, stood or sat around quaffing ale. The rushes that covered the flagstones were damp with spilt drinks. There was shouting and excitement emanating from a table in the centre of the room. Kal didn’t bother getting a drink—she would rather wash in the watered-down brew they served here, than drink it—so she wandered over to see what the commotion was about.
Will Straightarrow and three red-nosed, wrinkled old men were sitting around a wooden board that was full of colourful tokens and coins. Straightarrow was rattling a wooden cup to the accompaniment of a rhythmic handclap from the spectators. His opponents watched him intently. ‘Come on, William,’ one of them said. ‘Put us out of our misery.’
‘Double six will do it,’ Will said, then released the dice into a felted circle in the middle of the board.
Double six! The crowd erupted, and the three defeated old men slipped dejectedly out of their seats while Will poured the money from off the board into his bag. Two new opponents had already sat down, and Kal had to leap forward, pushing men out of the way and spilling their drinks, to secure the remaining seat.
Will looked up and grinned. ‘Hello, Kal. So you managed to escape earlier, then? I did my best to lead those guards away. Have you come to try your luck against me?’
Kal smiled back. ‘I don’t need luck,’ she said. ‘I am the master of every game I play.’
She examined the board in front of her. ‘I don’t know this one yet, though, so you’ll have to tell me the rules.’
The crowd roared with laughter. ‘It’s easy!’ Will said, handing Kal the cup filled with five dice. ‘We always let new players go first. I’ll explain the rules as we go, but for now there’s only one move you can make to start things off.
‘So come on, Kal—roll the bones!’
III.v
Bad for Good
Kal rolled a six, two fours, a three, and a two. She looked up at Will with a well, what do you make of that, then? expression.
‘The game is called Demon Dice,’ Will said, ‘and the aim is to call on the help of three gods in order to defeat the demons. Five ones will call Arcus to your side; five fours will call Banos; and five sixes will call Lovath herself.’
Kal was only half-listening. Looking over Will’s shoulder, she could see a familiar shape up on a shelf above the bar. A long tubular weapon made of gleaming brass and polished wood. A blunderbuss! It would be a mistake to complain about watered-down beer here.
‘You get four rolls though,’ Will continued, ‘before you have to pass the dice to the next player, and you can set aside any dice that you want to keep before each roll.’
Kal’s hand hovered over the board. ‘Okay, I think I get it …’ she said, setting aside the fours, and dropping the three remaining dice in the cup. ‘By the way, what are we playing for?’
‘I almost forgot,’ Will said. ‘Everybody put ten shillings in the middle.’ The other two players started counting out their loose change. Kal smiled to herself. They were playing for a grand total of two crowns. She added half a crown to the pot, and then shook and rolled the dice: another two fours and a two.
‘Two more rolls to try to get the last four,’ Will said, ‘and then you win a token to place on the board. Get all three tokens and all this’—he waved a hand at the pile of coins and they both laughed—‘could be yours!’
Kal worked out the odds in her head. ‘That’s a little less than one chance in three,’ she said, setting aside the fours and throwing the remaining die again: it tumbled across the felt, bounced back off the wooden rim of the board, and finally came to rest … a five.
‘One more chance, Kal! But when you pass the dice to my friend, Dene, on your left, he also gets to pick any of your rolls to set aside before he makes his throw.’
Dene was watching Kal with interest. Like Will, he was young and broad-shouldered, with an easy smile. The guy on her right was the same, as were the crowd of supporters rooting for Will from the sidelines: confident youths wearing casual but well-cut clothes. They weren’t your average downtown tavern patrons, that was for sure—they weren’t like the sad-faced labourers who spent half their wage on drink to get them through the night.
Dene’s eyes followed Kal’s hand as she picked up the die for her final throw. His mouth turned up in a half-smile and he even dared to wink at her!
Kal bared her teeth in response, put the die back down, and grabbed the four dice that she had set aside instead. She dropped them into the cup, shook it and tipped them out onto the felt, ruining Dene’s chances of completing a set of fours. She held his gaze, not looking down at the results.
‘Your move!’ she said, handing him the empty cup.
* * *
It was three hours later when Kal and Will stepped out into the late afternoon sun. Kal’s pockets were jingling with all the money she had won. ‘Let’s walk and talk,’ she suggested, ‘and I’ll buy you a bite to eat somewhere.’
Will didn’t seem all that bothered that Kal had shown him up in front of his friends. ‘Alright,’ he agreed. ‘What did you want to talk about? I’ve no money to give you right now, if that’s what you’re after. And that jewellery from Raelo’s … well, I might have fenced it off already.’
‘Let’s talk about your little den of thieves,’ Kal said. ‘You might want to keep the blunderbuss hidden under the bar, in case other people you’ve robbed make the connection.’
Will shrugged. ‘There are a lot of guns in the city these days. And I drink in a lot of different bars.’
‘Oh really?’ Kal said. ‘But how many of them have a sign above the door saying, William Straightarrow: licensed to sell intoxicating liquors?’
‘I see nothing gets past you, Kal,’ Will conceded. ‘What else did you notice?’
‘That there’s a brewery attached to the inn. If you ask me, that would be a good place to concoct your strange green fog of sleepiness that you used at the Snake Pit. By the way, Zeb is still wondering where her guards got to on the night of the robbery.’
‘They’re quite safe, I promise you,’ Will said. ‘We locked them away in the cellar. I’ll try and remember to set them free tomorrow. And as for the green fog—some of the lads are chemistry students at the university. We don’t use anything that we haven’t tested on ourselves, though!’
They walked until they reached the wharf, where Crab Corner met the harbour. The smell of seafood was making Kal hungry, and they wandered over to the food stalls, where fresh fish were being grilled. ‘Don’t you worry, though,’ Kal said, ‘that one day you’ll be found out, or even betrayed, to the Senate or to the crime lords?’
‘Every single day,’ Will admitted. ‘But we are experts at destroying evidence and maintaining a web of alibis. Hell, Straightarrow isn’t even my real name, for a start! Hey, fancy some jellied eels?’
Kal pulled out a handful of coins, but the girl selling the eels waved the money away. ‘Will doesn’t pay for his eels,’ she said, ‘and if you’re with him, then neither do you.’
‘Girlfriend of yours?’ Kal asked Will as they walked away. She tucked into her eels: they were chewy, and the mash that came with them was hot and soft.
‘No,’ Will said. ‘I just helped her out once when her father was in jail. He was caught selling fish cakes with added slivers of slug. I’m all for punishing frauds, but they didn’t have to smash his tools and equipment too.’
‘Aren’t you the helpful one,’ Kal said. ‘So who else do you hand money out to?’
‘Well …’ Will said. ‘You see that beggar over there?’
‘No.’
‘That’s because Jimmy Bobbin is now apprenticed to a carpenter in Shavings Street. Fourteen is far too young to be begging on the streets; too young to have lost an arm in a street fight that got out of control. We figured out that you only need one hand to saw if you’ve got a good vice to hold the wood steady.’
<
br /> ‘Why do you do this, Will? Why do you have to help people?’
‘It’s just the way I was brought up,’ he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘If you’ve got the brains, the energy and the means, then you have a responsibility to help others, wouldn’t you say? You’re wasted running around after Benedict Godsword and his slimy friends, Kal; you should join us. We’re not rum divers or ding boys: there is honour among some thieves, you know.’
‘Hmmm,’ was Kal’s reply. She had no idea what a rum diver or a ding boy was.
‘Isn’t that why you came here?’ Will asked her, with mock surprise. ‘I was hoping you were thinking about leaving Ben for me.’
The cogs in Kal’s mind turned around slowly as she sensed an opportunity. ‘It’s tempting,’ she admitted, with just a small hint of promise in her voice. ‘But I never leave business unfinished. Zeb still needs my help.’
Will shook his head. ‘The money that I stole from her—from the rich senators who can more than afford it, rather—has been put to work on several big community projects around Crab Corner. I couldn’t return it even if I wanted to. Which I don’t, by the way.’ He grinned. ‘It’s against the thieves’ code.’
‘Then help me catch a killer,’ Kal implored him. ‘That’s something worthwhile, surely?’
‘When a senator dies, it’s not murder—it’s politics,’ Will said sagely. ‘And I have no interest in politics. Let them kill each other. Do you think whoever winds up as consul is going to make any difference to the people around here?’
Kal glanced around the busy wharf. It was a mild summer evening, the day after Midsummer Night; a good day for winding down after a party, for taking a stroll and catching the sunset … except everyone here was working; fishermen were loading their boats with lobster pots ready to catch the dawn tide; shipbuilders were hauling planks of pine between workshops; seafood on ice was being packed into wagons for nighttime delivery to restaurants and kitchens around the city. For the people of Crab Corner, a public holiday only meant a mad rush to catch up afterwards.
‘There’s something I want to show you,’ Will said. ‘I’m building something—well, restoring actually—something that will level the playing field a little for the locals; close the gap between Crab Corner and Arcus Hill. It’s this way!’
They walked away from the wharves and onto Crab Common—a patchy strip of grass that was bordered by rows of identical tenements: narrow, crumbling five-storey buildings that were decorated, not with banners and flags, but with clothes and bed linen hung out to dry.
Kal grabbed Will’s hand. She had no illusions about her powers of seduction, but she knew how to be direct. ‘If you won’t help me personally, at least tell me what the word on the street is. You know what people are talking about; you told me so earlier.’
‘That’s true,’ Will said. ‘We do try to keep tabs on what other criminal organisations are up to around Crab Corner, and we’ve heard some of the local crime bosses are getting a little nervous: Senator Viola Witchwood has been seen visiting the Bower.’
‘The Bower?’
‘The Peacock’s den. It’s not too much of a stretch to believe that Witchwood may have acquired her advantages in business and commerce by making deals with Amaranthium’s criminal elements. The Peacock is already involved in tax evasion, extortion and slave labour. If Witchwood becomes consul, then between them they would rule both legal and illegal sides of city; they could get away with anything, with … murder.’
Kal remembered Viola’s striking green eyes looking playfully at her during Ben’s meeting in the Forgotten Tomb. Was the rich, beautiful senator really conspiring with the head of the criminal underworld to take control of the city?
‘We should investigate,’ she said. ‘Together! If Witchwood and the Peacock are plotting, then we could take them both down. I know the Peacock is after you for that stunt you pulled at the Snake Pit. Zeb paid hundreds of crowns a week in protection money; so you weren’t just stealing off her, you were stealing off the city’s biggest crime lord too. The Peacock isn’t going to rest until you are caught and, well … you must know how thieves who try to go it alone are killed.’
‘Remind me,’ Will said with a lopsided smile, but Kal thought she detected a flicker of worry behind his brown eyes.
‘I heard about this one occasion where they let a man loose in the middle of the crowd at the Panathletic Games. That was after they had cut his ribs away from his spine and broken them so they stuck out of his back like wings—’
‘Alright, I get it,’ Will snapped. He took a deep breath. ‘Sounds like the kind of thing that the people who mutilated your friend Senator Grey might enjoy. You know, I’ve always been meaning to take on the real bad guys in this city—it’s just that stealing from rich, lazy folk was just too damn easy. Okay then: for now, we’re partners.’ He gave her hand a squeeze and led her across the common.
Kal should have been pleased, but Will seemed even more upbeat now than before. Had she really got him to help her, or had he somehow manoeuvred her into agreeing to help him? Either way, she had got in with him like she planned, so she guessed she may as well see it through.
‘We’ll stake out the Bower tonight then,’ Will suggested. Kal nodded. ‘But for now,’ he said, ‘here’s what I wanted to show you!’
* * *
They were standing on the edge of the common, staring up at a crumbling old ruin. The sinking sun cast long shadows amongst the broken stone columns and weather-worn statues. Kal noticed that there was wooden scaffolding around the stonework.
‘The old Thermalore,’ she said. ‘I remember hiding out here for a night a few years ago!’
‘Well, it’s in a somewhat nicer state now,’ Will said. ‘On the inside, at least—come on in!’ He bounded up the wide stone steps and took a key to the solid bronze doors. He and Kal then took a door each and heaved them open.
The vestibule was lit by high windows that were set just below a domed roof that was painted a bright, clean white. Apart from some workbenches, a pedal-driven lathe and some scattered tools, the space was fully restored and redecorated. Indoor plants and a mosaic, depicting Whalo and Firuze mixing water and fire, gave the room a splendour rarely seen in Crab Corner.
Will led the way through a door and into a long dressing room, where newly-cut stone benches lined the walls beneath a glimmering line of polished brass hooks. The decor was simple, but tasteful. When Kal followed Will through the door at the opposite end, she gasped.
The last time she had seen the main bath, it had been just an empty pit gouged into the earth, open to the sky. Now it was a perfect rectangle—a fifty-yard-long lead-lined pool beneath a new barrel-vaulted roof. The air between the pool and the roof hung with steam.
Kal couldn’t resist running to the edge, kneeling and plunging her hand in. ‘It’s hot!’ she exclaimed. ‘But who …’
‘I might have sent Dene ahead of us to light the furnace,’ Will admitted.
‘Oh really?’ Kal raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you have a special signal for that, whenever you’re thinking of bringing a girl here?’
‘Actually, this is the first time the furnace has been lit, and the first time I’ve ever brought anyone here, let alone a girl! I swim alone in the cold water most days.’ Will shrugged off his shirt and kicked away his short trousers. Kal watched wide-eyed as, step-by-step, he lowered his naked body into the water. He was slim and muscular; with a swimmer’s V-shaped body. Kal’s eyes were fixed on his abdominals as they shifted and rippled each time he twisted his torso. If he was going to be shameless in his nudity, then she would be shameless in her staring.
‘You’re bruised all over,’ was all she could say.
‘No thanks to you dropping me on a tree. Are you coming in or what? Nothing like a hot bath to relax you before a tough adventure.’
Kal stood and dropped off her belt, laying her knife and crossbow on the tiles. The dragonskin leather came off next, peeling e
asily off her body like it was silk. Kal walked over to the side where there were no steps, raised her arms, bent her knees and fired herself into the air. She broke the surface of the water cleanly.
Will watched her from the centre of the pool as she swam slow rings around him. ‘How did it come to this?’ she asked him. ‘I mean, how did your life lead you to the point where you find yourself planning an offensive against the city’s biggest crime lord?’
‘I guess it was when I made the mistake of robbing the Snake Pit in order to finance this little bit of luxury for the not-so-fortunate people of the city. I admit, it was probably a bit too audacious, even for me; a robbery too far.’
‘And what was it that drove you to do that?’ Kal persisted, treading water in front of Will.
‘My parents,’ he said. ‘Although I was born in Crab Corner, my parents worked hard and saved enough money to send me to the university. I studied politics, philosophy and economics … and soon came to the conclusion that to make a difference to the world, you have to operate outside the system. My parents were disappointed; I think they were hoping that I would find a respectable, and well-paid, job in the Senate.
He swam forward, closing in on Kal and putting a hand on her shoulder as they floated face-to-face. ‘You tell me how it feels to work for the Senate,’ he said. ‘Do you feel like you’re doing good in the world?’
‘I’m too selfish to think about doing good for others,’ Kal admitted. ‘It’s hard enough looking after number one. It’s a tough city; there are too few moments like this when you feel you’ve gotten away from it all, even if it’s only for a little while.’
Will smiled: his wide, unaffected smile that had stuck in Kal’s mind since the first moment that she saw it. ‘See?’ he said. ‘I told you this was a worthwhile enterprise. And I get my pleasure and satisfaction from seeing it in other people.’
They leaned in as one to kiss. The mineral water on their lips had a sharp, metallic taste.