Black Iron

by Franklin Veaux

  The Queen turned away from Alÿs. “Search the airship,” she commanded. “Every square inch. As for you,” she returned her gaze to Alÿs, “we shall decide what to do with you when we land. You!” She pointed to Roderick. “See to it that Alice does not go leaping out of any windows.”

  3

  The problem with a life of shady dealings, in Thaddeus Mudstone’s considered opinion, was that it invariably involved association with shady characters. Not that being shady was a bad thing, necessarily. Thaddeus wasn’t exactly a beacon of light himself, and besides, you could hardly have light without some shade, right? But shady characters could be uncomfortable sorts, and the man in front of Thaddeus was one of the shadiest Thaddeus had ever met. Light seemed to slink away from him. His demeanor suggested a personality that had gone past shady into downright opaque.

  This man, his most recent employer, had been quite clear that Thaddeus was to report to him the moment the job was done. No going home first, no talking to anyone, or half his pay would be forfeit. Do the job, come right here, get his money, and be on his way.

  He’d been tempted to go home anyway, just to replace the ridiculous things on his feet with something a bit more sensible, but his better judgment (or, more accurately, his greed, which in his line of work was an adequate substitute) overruled him. For what he was being paid, he figured he could wear absurd shoes for another hour.

  And now here he was.

  The dock district of Old New London had a logic all its own. It was the logic of commerce, in whose service every square inch of space had been sanctified. Entire neighborhoods sprawled in a rambly sort of unpremeditated fashion, buildings growing and merging almost like living things, all driven by the need for more: more places to store the crates and casks and barrels coming off the endless barges that made their long, slow ways up and down the Thames; more ways to obfuscate the flow of money that changed hands at every step of complex multitiered transactions, the better to hide it from the Crown’s revenue collectors.

  The space wasn’t really a room in the conventional sense of the word. Sure, it had a roof, and walls, and a door, but it was a small place formed when someone had roofed over an odd little corner of space where two buildings, driven to expand by the relentless demands of the great machinery of commerce, had met at an odd angle. It was a private space, easy to overlook, and did not seem to clearly belong to anyone in particular—a deliberate and quite delicate state of affairs. On the docks, a great deal of business happened in spaces that did not clearly belong to anyone.

  A small lantern glowed on the floor. Its light seemed reluctant to touch the man, sliding away as though wanting no truck with him. The man’s face was entirely concealed by a heavy black cowl. Not that there was anything unusual about that; in Thaddeus’s line of business, this was one of those things one got used to. Thaddeus was often not entirely clear on who his clients were.

  “Please, sit down.” The words slithered from the man’s lips and oozed into Thaddeus’s ear.

  A bony white hand extended from a heavy sleeve to point to the empty chair that made up the only furnishing in the room.

  Over the years, Thaddeus had developed a set of instincts as precise and cunningly fashioned as a jeweler’s pocket watch. They told mood instead of time, reading intent and motive in every subtle motion around him. Right now, they were jangling a warning. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stand,” he said.

  “Suit yourself.” The man’s hand vanished into its sleeves. “Is it done?”

  “Yes.”

  “You placed the ring in the Queen’s chambers?”

  “Yes.”

  “You took nothing and disturbed nothing, exactly as you were instructed?”

  Thaddeus felt the bulge of the ornamented case in his pocket. The way he saw it, the people who retained his services tended not to be the most honest sorts and were almost always up to no good. These kinds of people didn’t have any grounds to expect honesty. In fact, deceiving such persons was, in Thaddeus’s moral code, a virtue. If you tell a lie to a duplicitous man, well, that was hardly a sin, right? In fact, you could argue it was quite the opposite. Dishonesty to such persons was almost a civic duty! And they knew he was a dishonest man himself, so if they didn’t take that into account, well, that was on them, wasn’t it? Honor among thieves made one a poor thief indeed, in his experience.

  “Yes,” he lied.

  “Nobody saw you? You spoke to nobody?”

  “Not a soul,” Thaddeus said solemnly. “I was in and out like a mouse.” His face was the very picture of honest innocence.

  “Good. It is so nice to know there are reliable people in this world. And now on to the matter of your payment.”

  Thaddeus leaned forward. This was always his favorite bit, though it was also the most fraught. If someone was going to double-cross you, it was usually here. Well, here or at the bit where you’re slipping into the alleyway expecting your accomplice to distract the guards at the other end, but often here. Shady men could rarely be counted on in such moments, and that, Thaddeus thought, was a damn shame. Where would you be if you couldn’t trust the people you worked with?

  The man’s hand dipped into the pocket of his robe and came out with a bulging coin purse. “I believe we had agreed on two hundred,” he said. The words crawled off his tongue like vipers leaving their nest.

  “Yes.”

  “Here you are, then.” He extended the heavy bag toward Thaddeus. Thaddeus reached to take it.

  The man was fast, far faster than anyone had any right to be. A flash of bright steel whirred toward Thaddeus’s throat. Thaddeus jumped back, turning away as he did. The dagger brushed past him, slicing through his jacket without effort. Its edge was so sharp it barely slowed down.

  Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He’d been stupid, Thaddeus thought. He should have seen it coming. Oldest trick in the book. Show a man the prize in your left hand, and he won’t pay attention to what’s in your right. Thaddeus had done the same thing himself countless times. Stupid.

  The dagger reversed, arcing back toward Thaddeus. Thaddeus was off balance, encumbered by the ridiculous clothes he was wearing. He ducked and kicked out with one leg. His foot connected solidly with the chair, sending it crashing into the man’s knees. He fell sideways. The coin bag hit the floor. Two hundred shillings’ worth of gleaming gold spilled across rough wood planks. For the tiniest fraction of a second, Thaddeus hesitated.

  In that instant, the man was already up again and coming at him fast.

  Priorities, Thaddeus thought. Gold was nice. Life was better. Time to do what he did best.

  He turned and bolted, feeling a swish of air as the dagger passed through the space he had just vacated. A moment later he was through the door and in the warren of tiny, confusing alleys that together made up the dock district of Old New London.

  The sun was nearly gone. Sensible people were heading home, and people of Thaddeus’s sort were not yet out. Thaddeus chose a direction at random and plunged off as fast as he could, weaving through the crowd of laborers and merchants of the petty sort. Behind him, the door to the tiny shack, really little more than a pile of planks coaxed by a trick of the carpenter’s artifice into believing it was a storeroom, banged open.

  Run now. Think later.

  The dock district was a tangle of lanes and alleys, some of them little more than crevices between rows of warehouses. It hadn’t been built so much as thrown up. The engine of commerce was constantly arranging and rearranging the architecture, and many of the pathways seemed more like accidents of urban geography than anything intended to conduct traffic.

  Thaddeus saw an opening between two buildings on his left, completely deserted. He darted through it and flattened himself against the wall. His pursuer flashed by the opening, a blurred shape in the failing light. Thaddeus exhaled slowly. That should buy him a few moments
.

  He crept carefully down the alley, cursing his shoes. The hard soles, so practical for walking down broad, well-paved streets, slapped on the rough cobblestone. Even a blind rat could follow him, Thaddeus thought.

  The passageway opened up into a wider space, with alleys heading off in all directions. A young girl, perhaps in her tenth year, looked up at Thaddeus with an expression of suspicion. She was dressed entirely in rags.

  “D’you have a shilling, mister?”

  Thaddeus paused for a moment, panting. “No. I don’t have a shilling. I should have a lot of shillings, but I don’t. Listen, there’s a bad man chasing me. Which way should I go?”

  She looked Thaddeus up and down appraisingly. “That’s a rum qab y’got.”

  “What?”

  “I ken your qab.” She held out her hand. “Give it t’me.”

  Thaddeus looked around wildly. He could hear feet pounding down the alley toward him. He took off his top-hat and handed it to the girl. “Which way do I go?”

  She examined the hat with a critical air. Thaddeus felt his hands curl into fists.

  “There,” she said, pointing. “That way.”

  “Thank you, little girl. Don’t tell the bad man where I am, okay?”

  She nodded.

  Thaddeus ran down the alley she had pointed to as though all the legions of Hell were behind him. Not that there was much difference between that and one person hell-bent on murder behind him. Past a certain point, it stopped mattering how many people were trying to kill you.

  The alley extended barely twenty yards before it ended in a rough brick wall. Thaddeus stopped. The girl had sent him down a dead end. Refuse-dumps lined both sides.

  Behind him, he heard a voice, glutinous and sibilant. “Little girl, have you seen a man run this way?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “D’you have a shilling?”

  “Oh, yes. I have a shilling for you,” came that slithery voice.

  There was a pause. Then, “He’s that way. Down Ambush Alley.”

  Thaddeus felt his heart freeze in his chest. Oh, you impudent little urchin, he thought to himself. He flattened himself against the wall, as far in the corner as he could get. The refuse-dumps were almost empty and offered little cover. He crouched in the deepest part of the shadow, holding his breath.

  A shadow loomed in the far end of the alley, a man-shaped hole in the fading light. He was nearly silent. It was easy, when you have the proper footwear. The knife gleamed in his hand.

  Thaddeus held himself still. The shape glided closer. He willed himself to melt into the shadow.

  Another step closer. Another. The man was cautious, wary of cornered prey. Closer.

  Thaddeus exploded out at him. The man reacted almost instantly, the dagger thrusting up and out.

  Fortunately, there is a world of difference between “almost instantly” and “instantly.”

  They crashed into each other. The dagger flashed and gleamed. Thaddeus brought his foot up. The hard metal tip collided hard with a particularly sensitive portion of the man’s body.

  The man fell, eerily silent. The dagger skittered across the cobblestones. Thaddeus leapt past him, heading back the way he had come.

  The child was still standing where she had been. Thaddeus’s top-hat sat on her head, nearly covering her eyes. She looked solemnly at him. “D’you have a shilling now?” she asked.

  “You nit little hackie,” Thaddeus said. He snatched the top-hat from her head as he sailed past.

  She spun to face him, hands on her hips. “Hey! Tha’ mine!” But he was already on his way out.

  She started after him. “Oi! Mister! Tha’ my hat!” she yelled. “You give tha’ back or I’ll call the posies on you! Mist—oof!”

  Thaddeus spared a backward glance. The man in the cowl had collided full-speed with her, sending them both sprawling. How was that possible? A kick like that should have kept him down for at least five minutes, curled up around the family jewels. How was he still moving?

  Run now. Think later.

  A right, a left, another left, a quick right, a direction that wasn’t really right or left so much as sideways, and he emerged in a broad alley behind the grain silos, filled with the slow-motion traffic of tired people heading away from backbreaking jobs. The last light faded. No sign of pursuit.

  He held his breath for a count of ten. His pursuer failed to appear.

  Ten more beats. His pursuer continued to not appear.

  The tension inside him uncoiled slowly. “Thaddeus, my boy,” he said to himself, “that was a close one and no mistake.” He placed the top-hat, beaten almost beyond recognition, back on his head. He turned toward home, where a stiff drink and his own shoes awaited.

  ✦

  Thaddeus took a circuitous route, wary of followers with sharp steel. By the time he reached his destination, night had finished its long fall and was lying sprawled out over the disorganized heap of Old New London. Rows of gas lamps created uneven pools of light along the roads. Deep shadows lurked between.

  He was less than a block from home when a shadow detached itself from the wall and moved toward him menacingly. “Oi there, who’s this, then?” came a voice, heavy with implicit violence. “Got any money on you?”

  “Put a cork in it,” Thaddeus said. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Ha! Muddy! Didn’t recognize you.” The shadow stepped under a gaslight, where it resolved itself into the shape of a young man, tall and broad and thick with muscle. “Why’re you dressed like that? You look a complete prat.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Thaddeus said. “Long day, remember?”

  “No day long enough to make me go out lookin’ like that. ’Eard you coming a mile off. Thought you were some nobleman lost his way.”

  “Around here? No nobleman’s ever been that lost,” Thaddeus said. “Hey, listen, Jake, you seen anyone looking for me who doesn’t belong?”

  Jake scratched his enormous head with an enormous hand. Everything about Jake was enormous: his hands, his feet, his height, his strength, his club, his library of creative violence. His expression tightened with the exertion of thought. “Nope,” he said after a while.

  Thaddeus felt himself relax a bit more. “Good.”

  “Why’re you dressed up like a ninny, anyway?” Jake said.

  “I was on the Queen’s airship,” Thaddeus said. “Went to a dance with the nobles.”

  “Oh.” Jake pondered the idea. “Hur hur hur. You dancin’ with the high and mightily. Just say you don’t want to tell me. No need makin’ up stories.”

  “I’m going to bed,” Thaddeus said. “Don’t hit too many people over the head.”

  “Why not?” Jake looked puzzled.

  “You might strain your arm.”

  Jake brightened. “Naw. I got a new club. Ergonometric.”

  “Good man,” Thaddeus said.

  “No I ain’t.”

  Home, for Thaddeus, was a small room on the ground floor of a tiny ramshackle wood building with a pitched roof wedged between the imposing brick faces of two larger structures that had once been warehouses. They’d been put to new use as times and the city had changed. Nowadays, the one on the left was used as a tannery, and the one on the right was home to a textile mill. Granted, it took a bit of time to get used to the smell. Once you’d done that, it wasn’t a bad place, at least if you didn’t mind neighbors like Jake.

  That was the rub. People did not live next to a tannery because they enjoyed the aroma. Thaddeus’s neighbors, like Thaddeus, lived where they lived only because they lacked the means to live anywhere else. But for the most part, the folks in the neighborhood recognized a certain kinship in one another and, more importantly, understood that nobody else had anything worth taking, so they mostly left each other alone.

  Like Randal
l McAddams, Thaddeus’s upstairs neighbor. He hardly bothered anyone except on the nights when he drank too much and reenacted the Siege of Kabul in his bedroom, with much crashing about and occasional small explosions, but that rarely happened more than three or four times a week. Post-stress disorder of the trauma, he called it.

  The bedroom where Thaddeus lived, which was also his living room, his dining room, his study, and his kitchen, was a bit wider than his bed. He had easy access to the privy behind the tannery, not that he needed it, because he had a chamber pot of his very own he kept beside the bed so he wouldn’t have to brave the night air. It wasn’t like he was poor, after all.

  There was a small coal stove to keep out the chill and a tiny table next to the bed that was barely large enough for a chipped china plate. Above it, scraps of wood had been nailed to the wall to form something that approximated a set of shelves, and on those shelves Thaddeus kept his good shirt (which, to a casual observer, was nearly indistinguishable from his less-good shirt), a collection of small bits of metal that looked like a pile of scrap to a layperson but in the hands of a man like Thaddeus became magic keys to almost any lock, and a small brown bottle topped with a bit of cork.

  Thaddeus pulled the door closed and fastened it with a bit of string. He heaved a great sigh and sat down on the edge of his bed, which creaked beneath him. Finally, he could relax for a moment, take off those ridiculous shoes, and—

  The door crashed open.

  Everything slowed.

  Thaddeus was aware of a large shape coming at him with the unspoken promise of mayhem. Of more immediate interest was the club held tightly in the shape’s hand. It was banded with iron and had an exuberance of spikes all over it, like someone had found a morning star and said, “but it doesn’t look menacing enough!”

  He was also aware, in a peripheral sort of way, of two more shapes just outside the door, both crowding to get in. His room was barely big enough for just him alone, Thaddeus thought. Four would be absolutely intolerable. Particularly if three of them wanted to kill him.