by Neil Clarke
“A disappointing harvest,” she murmured.
“The soil is stony hereabouts.”
“Too true.” She dropped the eyeglasses back and started to scratch orderly figures in her ledger. “Tough times all over.” She often said that. As though it stood as explanation and excuse for anything and everything.
“Kurtis dan Broya asked me when the debt would be paid.”
She peered up, surprised by the question. “When the Quarryman says it’s paid.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“Good.”
“You asked me to be on the lookout for . . . a package.” Friendly placed it on the desk before her. “Broya had it.”
It did not seem so very important. It was less than a foot long, wrapped in very ancient stained and balding animal skin, and with a letter, or perhaps a number, burned into it with a brand. But not a number that Friendly recognized.
Mistress Borfero snatched up the package, then immediately cursed herself for seeming too eager. She knew no one could be trusted in this business. That brought a rush of questions to her mind. Suspicions. How could that worthless Broya possibly have come by it? Was this some ruse? Was Friendly a plant of the Gurkish? Or perhaps of Carcolf’s? A double bluff? There was no end to the webs that smug bitch span. A triple bluff? But where was the angle? Where the advantage?
A quadruple bluff?
Friendly’s face betrayed no trace of greed, no trace of ambition, no trace of anything. He was without doubt a strange fellow, but came highly recommended. He seemed all business, and she liked that in a man, though she would never have said so. A manager must maintain a certain detachment.
Sometimes things are just what they seem. Borfero had seen strange chances enough in her life.
“This could be it,” she mused, though, in fact, she was immediately sure. She was not a woman to waste time on possibilities.
Friendly nodded.
“You have done well,” she said.
He nodded again.
“The Quarryman will want you to have a bonus.” Be generous with your own people, she had always said, or others will be.
But generosity brought no response from Friendly.
“A woman, perhaps?”
He looked a little pained by that suggestion. “No.”
“A man?”
And that one. “No.”
“Husk? A bottle of—”
“No.”
“There must be something.”
He shrugged.
Mistress Borfero puffed out her cheeks. Everything she had she’d made by tickling out people’s desires. She was not sure what to do with a person who had none. “Well, why don’t you think about it?”
Friendly slowly nodded. “I will think.”
“Did you see two Northmen drinking on your way in?”
“I saw two Northmen. One was reading a book.”
“Really? A book?”
Friendly shrugged. “There are readers everywhere.”
She swept through the place, noting the disappointing lack of wealthy custom and estimating just how dismal this evening’s profits were like to be. If one of the Northmen had been reading, he had given up. Deep was drinking some of her best wine straight from the bottle. Three others lay scattered, empty, beneath the table. Shallow was smoking a chagga pipe, the air thick with the stink of it. Borfero did not allow it normally, but she was obliged to make an exception for these two. Why the bank chose to employ such repugnant specimens she had not the slightest notion. But she supposed rich people need not explain themselves.
“Gentlemen,” she said, insinuating herself into a chair.
“Where?” Shallow gave a croaky laugh. Deep slowly tipped his bottle up and eyed his brother over the neck with sour disdain.
Borfero continued in her business voice, soft and reasonable. “You said your . . . employers would be most grateful if I came upon . . . that certain item you mentioned.”
The two Northmen perked up, both leaning forward as though drawn by the same string, Shallow’s boot catching an empty bottle and sending it rolling in an arc across the floor.
“Greatly grateful,” said Deep.
“And how much of my debt would their gratitude stretch around?”
“All of it.”
Borfero felt her skin tingling. Freedom. Could it really be? In her pocket, even now? But she could not let the size of the stakes make her careless. The greater the payoff, the greater the caution. “My debt would be finished?”
Shallow leaned close, drawing the stem of his pipe across his stubbled throat. “Killed,” he said.
“Murdered,” growled his brother, suddenly no further off on the other side.
She in no way enjoyed having those scarred and lumpen killers’ physiognomies so near. Another few moments of their breath alone might have done for her. “Excellent,” she squeaked, and slipped the package onto the table. “Then I shall cancel the interest payments forthwith. Do please convey my regards to . . . your employers.”
“Course.” Shallow did not so much smile as show his sharp teeth. “Don’t reckon your regards’ll mean much to them, though.”
“Don’t take it personally, eh?” Deep did not smile. “Our employers just don’t care much for regards.”
Borfero took a sharp breath. “Tough times all over.”
“Ain’t they, though?” and Deep stood, and swept the package up in one big paw.
The cool air caught Deep like a slap as they stepped out into the evening. Sipani, none too pleasant when it was still, had a decided spin to it all of a sudden.
“I have to confess,” he said, clearing his throat and spitting, “to being somewhat on the drunk side of drunk.”
“Aye,” said Shallow, burping as he squinted into the mist. At least that was clearing somewhat. As clear as it got in this murky hell of a place. “Probably not the bestest notion while at work, mind you.”
“You’re right.” Deep held the baggage up to such light as there was. “But who expected this to just drop in our laps?”
“Not I, for one.” Shallow frowned. “Or for . . . not one?”
“It was meant to be just a tipple,” said Deep.
“One tipple does have a habit of making itself into several.” Shallow wedged on that stupid bloody hat. “A little stroll over to the bank, then?”
“That hat makes you look a fucking dunce.”
“You, brother, are obsessed with appearances.”
Deep passed that off with a long hiss.
“They really going to score out that woman’s debts, d’you think?”
“For now, maybe. But you know how they are. Once you owe, you always owe.” Deep spat again, and, now the alley was a tad steadier, tottered off with the baggage clutched tight in his hand. No chance he was putting it in a pocket where some little scab could lift it. Sipani was full of thieving bastards. He’d had his good socks stolen last time he was here, and worked up an unpleasant pair of blisters on the trip home. Who steals socks? Styrian bastards. He’d keep a good firm grip on it. Let the little fuckers try to take it then.
“Now who’s the dunce?” Shallow called after him. “The bank’s this way.”
“Only we ain’t going to the bank, dunce,” snapped Deep over his shoulder. “We’re to toss it down a well in an old court just about the corner here.”
Shallow hurried to catch up. “We are?”
“No, I just said it for the laugh, y’idiot.”
“Why down a well?”
“Because that’s how he wanted it done.”
“Who wanted it done?”
“The boss.”
“The little boss, or the big boss?”
Even drunk as Deep was, he felt the need to lower his voice. “The bald boss.”
“Shit,” breathed Shallow. “In person?”
“In person.”
A short pause. “How was that?”
“It was even more than usually terrifying, thanks for remindin
g me.”
A long pause, with just the sound of their boots on the wet cobbles. Then Shallow said, “we better hadn’t do no fucking up of this.”
“My heartfelt thanks,” said Deep, “for that piercing insight. Fucking up is always to be avoided when and wherever possible, wouldn’t you say?”
“Y’always aim to avoid it, of course you do, but sometimes you run into it anyway. What I’m saying here is, we’d best not run into it.” Shallow dropped his voice to a whisper. “You know what the bald boss said last time.”
“You don’t have to whisper. He ain’t here, is he?”
Shallow looked wildly around. “I don’t know. Is he?”
“No he ain’t.” Deep rubbed at his temples. One day he’d kill his brother, that was a foregone conclusion. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“What if he was, though? Best to always act like he might be.”
“Can you shut your mouth just for a fucking instant?” Deep caught Shallow by the arm and stabbed the baggage in his face. “It’s like talking to a bloody—” He was greatly surprised when a dark shape whisked between them and he found his hand was suddenly empty.
Kiam ran like her life depended on it. Which it did, o’ course.
“Get after him, damn it!” And she heard the two Northmen flapping and crashing and blundering down the alley behind, and nowhere near far enough behind for her taste.
“It’s a girl, y’idiot!” Big and clumsy but fast they were coming, boots hammering and hands clutching, and if they once caught a hold of her . . .
“Who fucking cares? Get the thing back!” And her breath hissing and her heart pounding and her muscles burning as she ran.
She skittered around a corner, rag-wrapped feet sticking to the damp cobbles, the way wider, lamps and torches making muddy smears in the mist and people busy everywhere. She ducked and wove, around them, between them, faces looming up and gone. The Blackside night-market, stalls and shoppers and the cries of the traders, full of noise and smells and tight with bustle. Kiam slithered between the wheels of a wagon, limber as a ferret, plunged between buyer and seller in a shower of fruit, then slithered across a stall laden with slimy fish while the trader shouted and snatched at her, caught nothing but air, and she stuck one foot in a basket and was off, kicking cockles across the street. Still she heard the yells and growls as the Northmen knocked folk flying in her wake, crashes as they flung the carts aside, as though a mindless storm was ripping apart the market behind her. She dived between the legs of a big man, rounded another corner, and took the greasy steps two at a time, along the narrow path by the slopping water, rats squeaking in the rubbish and the sounds of the Northmen now loud, louder, cursing her and each other. Her breath whooping and cutting in her chest and running desperate, water spattering and spraying around her with every echoing footfall.
“We’ve got her!” the voice so close at her heels. “Come here!”
She darted through that little hole in the rusted grate, a sharp tooth of metal leaving a burning cut down her arm, and for once she was plenty glad that Old Green never gave her enough to eat. She kicked her way back into the darkness, keeping low, lay there clutching the package and struggling to get her breath. Then they were there, one of the Northmen dragging at the grating, knuckles white with force, flecks of rust showering down as it shifted, and Kiam stared and wondered what those hands would do to her if they got their dirty nails into her skin.
The other one shoved his bearded face in the gap, a wicked-looking knife in his hand, not that someone you just robbed ever has a nice-looking knife. His eyes popped out at her and his scabbed lips curled back and he snarled, “chuck us that baggage and we’ll forget all about it. Chuck us it now!”
Kiam kicked away, the grate squealing as it bent. “You’re fucking dead, you little piss! We’ll find you, don’t worry about that!” She slithered off, through the dust and rot, wriggled through a crack between crumbling walls. “We’ll be coming for you!” echoed from behind her. Maybe they would be as well, but a thief can’t spend too much time worrying about tomorrow. Today’s shitty enough. She whipped her coat off and pulled it inside out to show the faded green lining, stuffed her cap in her pocket and shook her hair out long, then slipped onto the walkway beside the Fifth Canal, walking fast, head down.
A pleasure boat drifted past, all chatter and laughter and clinking of glass, people moving tall and lazy on board, strange as ghosts seen through that mist, and Kiam wondered what they’d done to deserve that life and what she’d done to deserve this, but there never were no easy answers to that question. As it took its pink lights away into the fog she heard the music of Hove’s violin. Stood a moment in the shadows, listening, thinking how beautiful it sounded. She looked down at the package. Didn’t look much for all this trouble. Didn’t weigh much, even. But it weren’t up to her what Old Green put a price on. She wiped her nose and walked along close to the wall, music getting louder, then she saw Hove’s back and his bow moving, and she slipped behind him and let the package fall into his gaping pocket.
Hove didn’t feel the drop, but he felt the three little taps on his back, and he felt the weight in his coat as he moved. He didn’t see who made the drop and he didn’t look. He just carried on fiddling, that Union march with which he’d opened every show during his time on the stage in Adua, or under the stage, at any rate, warming up the crowd for Lestek’s big entrance. Before his wife died and everything went to shit. Those jaunty notes reminded him of times past, and he felt tears prickling in his sore eyes, so he switched to a melancholy minuet more suited to his mood, not that most folk around here could’ve told the difference. Sipani liked to present itself as a place of culture, but the majority were drunks and cheats and boorish thugs, or varying combinations thereof.
How had it come to this, eh? The usual refrain. He drifted across the street like he’d nothing in mind but a coin for his music, letting the notes spill out into the murk. Across past the pie stall, the fragrance of cheap meat making his stomach grumble, and he stopped playing to offer out his cap to the queue. There were no takers, no surprise, so he headed on down the road to Verscetti’s, dancing in and out of the tables on the street and sawing out an Osprian waltz, grinning at the patrons who lounged there with a pipe or a bottle, twiddling thin glass-stems between gloved fingertips, eyes leaking contempt through the slots in their mirror-crusted masks. Jervi was sat near the wall, as always, a woman in the chair opposite, hair piled high.
“A little music, darling?” Hove croaked out, leaning over her and letting his coat dangle near Jervi’s lap.
Jervi slid something out of Hove’s pocket, wrinkling his nose at the smell of the old soak, and said, “Fuck off, why don’t you?” Hove moved on, and took his horrible music with him, thank the Fates.
“What’s going on down there?” Riseld lifted her mask for a moment to show that soft, round face, well-powdered and fashionably bored.
There did indeed appear to be some manner of commotion up the street. Crashing, banging, shouting in Northern.
“Damn Northmen,” he murmured. “Always causing trouble, they really should be kept on leads like dogs.” Jervi removed his hat and tossed it on the table, the usual signal, then leant back in his chair to hold the package inconspicuously low to the ground beside him. A distasteful business, but a man has to work. “Nothing you need concern yourself about, my dear.”
She smiled at him in that unamused, uninterested way which, for some reason, he found irresistible.
“Shall we go to bed?” he asked, tossing a couple of coins down for the wine.
She sighed. “If we must.”
And Jervi felt the package spirited away.
Sifkiss wriggled out from under the tables and strutted along, letting his stick rattle against the bars of the fence beside him, package swinging loose in the other. Maybe Old Green had said stay stealthy but that weren’t Sifkiss’ way any more. A man has to work out his own style of doing things, and he was a full t
hirteen, weren’t he? Soon enough now he’d be passing on to higher things. Working for Kurrikan maybe. Anyone could tell he was marked out special—he’d stole himself a tall hat that made him look quite the gent about town—and if they were dull enough to be entertaining any doubts, which some folk sadly were, he’d perched it at quite the jaunty angle besides. Jaunty as all hell.
Yes, everyone had their eyes on Sifkiss.
He checked he weren’t the slightest bit observed, then slipped through the dewy bushes and the crack in the wall behind, which honestly was getting to be a bit of a squeeze, into the basement of the old temple, a little light filtering down from upstairs.
Most of the children were out working. Just a couple of the younger lads playing with dice and a girl gnawing on a bone and Pens having a smoke and not even looking over, and that new one curled up in the corner and coughing. Sifkiss didn’t like the sound o’ those coughs. More’n likely he’d be dumping her off in the sewers a day or two hence but, hey, that meant a few more bits corpse money for him, didn’t it? Most folk didn’t like handling a corpse, but it didn’t bother Sifkiss none. It’s a hard rain don’t wash someone a favor, as Old Green was always saying. She was way up there at the back, hunched over her old desk with one lamp burning, her long gray hair all greasy-slicked and her tongue pressed into her empty gums as she watched Sifkiss come up. Some smart-looking fellow was with her, had a waistcoat all silver leaves stitched on fancy, and Sifkiss put a jaunt on, thinking to impress.
“Get it, did yer?” asked Old Green.
“Course,” said Sifkiss, with a toss of his head, caught his hat on a low beam and cursed as he had to fumble it back on. He tossed the package sourly down on the tabletop.
“Get you gone, then,” snapped Green.
Sifkiss looked surly, like he’d a mind to answer back. He was getting altogether too much mind, that boy, and Green had to show him the knobby-knuckled back of her hand ’fore he sloped off.
“So here you have it, as promised.” She pointed to that leather bundle in the pool of lamplight on her old table, its top cracked and stained and its gilt all peeling, but still a fine old piece of furniture with plenty of years left. Like to Old Green in that respect, if she did think so herself.