Brown River Queen

by Frank Tuttle

  “Speak,” croaked Mama, opening her eyes.

  The light flared. Within it appeared a skull.

  A child’s skull, pitiful and small and very, very familiar.

  I cussed.

  The skull clacked its teeth and issued a faint giggle and vanished. The light that held it flickered and went out as well.

  Mama clenched her jaw and crossed her stubby arms over her chest.

  “Buttercup, honey, come out,” I said.

  More giggling came from above and with it the telltale sound of bare little banshee feet scampering away on the rooftop.

  “Mama.”

  “Don’t you Mama me, boy.” She waved a finger in my face. “Look here. My niece left the family trade and took to finding. I ain’t got no other suitable kin. And I ain’t getting any younger. What’s the harm in usin’ that banshee a bit if’n it keeps a roof over our heads and soup in our pots? Ain’t neither free nor cheap, and you knows it.”

  “You taught Buttercup that trick?”

  “She’s always playin’ with that skull anyways, boy. You tried to take it away from her a half dozen times. So have I. But I reckon there ain’t no denying her that thing, and why not gain some good from it?”

  We’d rescued Buttercup from an ancient crypt a little over a year ago, and had been hiding her in plain sight by passing her off as Gertriss’s stunted daughter ever since. Mama sticks a pair of obviously fake wings to her back and claims Buttercup is a rare tame forest sprite. The neighbors snicker and nod and wink knowingly at each other, which is exactly the reaction we’d hoped for.

  The skull is a more recent and disturbing addition to our little family. The sorcerer who held it expressed a desire to see me dead—I’d declined to participate, and in the fracas, the sorcerer had fallen. I grabbed the skull on my way out, not wanting to leave behind any potentially vengeful witnesses to our little disagreement.

  We’d still been trying to decide how to dispose of the skull when Buttercup found it. The tiny banshee may be a thousand years old, but she’s still childlike in some ways, and finding the wand-waver’s talisman filled her with glee. She cuddled it and carried it and whispered nonsense to it constantly. Hiding the skull did no good. We’d never found a place that could conceal it against Buttercup’s sharp little banshee eyes.

  Mama even brought in her friend Granny Knot, who claims she speaks to the dead. Granny pronounced the skull haunted by the ghost of an innocent, bound to the bone by a wand-waver’s dark spell, a spell she dared not attempt to unravel. What powers the skull might command, she could not or would not say.

  Not that it mattered. Buttercup took the skull everywhere, and on those rare instances she wasn’t holding it, she hid it in places only a sure-footed banshee could reach.

  Mama let the ghost of a grin slip. She’d won and she knew it, and I realized she’d been planning this little spook show for days if not weeks.

  I sighed. I’d come to try and make peace with Mama, and if I hadn’t expected some stunt like this from her I had only myself to blame.

  “Fine. Mama. I didn’t come here to argue with you. You haven’t been coming around lately. When you do see me, you don’t talk. I think we both know why.”

  Mama crossed her arms again.

  “I’m sure I ain’t got no idea at all what you’re talking about, boy.”

  “I’m sure you do. Darla and I got married and you weren’t invited.”

  “I reckon it’s your business who you invites to your nuptials, boy. Ain’t no concern of mine.”

  I took a deep breath. “We didn’t plan to get married that day, Mama. I’ve tried to explain that. We were just there to keep Darla’s friend safe.”

  Mama pulled in air and puffed up. The effect was more toad-like than imposing, but I got the message.

  “I thought the world was ending, Mama. The sky went dark. We saw flashes. Heard what I thought was cannon fire. Everyone in Rannit was sure we were dead. You’ve heard the stories. You know I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Well, it weren’t no cannons and it weren’t no army and it weren’t no end of the world now, was it?”

  I shook my head. “No. It was just Evis and his steamboat full of fireworks. But we didn’t know that. I thought we were about to die. It just…happened.”

  Mama snorted.

  “Mama, I swear. I didn’t mean to slight you. Darla didn’t mean to slight you.”

  “I was planning on deliverin’ a blessing to you both on your wedding day,” said Mama. “Been brewing up a charm for it for a year. A solid year, boy. Put a lot of work into that there charm, I did.”

  “I know you did. And we both appreciate that.” I stood. Mama didn’t look up. “We miss you, Mama. I miss you. I’m sorry things happened the way they did. Wars have a way of changing plans whether we want them changed or not. You know that.”

  “Then you went and bought a fancy house and moved,” said Mama as my hand closed on her latch. “Without so much as a fare-thee-well.”

  “You wouldn’t open your door. Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me knock.”

  I got no reply.

  “Things have changed, for both of us,” I said, not turning. “Gertriss is living in my old place. I’m married and newly with house. You’ve hidden your birds and bought a broom. But think about this, Mama. We’re still the same people. We can still be as much a part of each other’s lives as we ever were. But that won’t happen if you don’t open the door when somebody knocks.”

  Mama didn’t reply. I didn’t wait.

  Stubborn as a mule is my old friend Mama Hog.

  I left her to her tasteful paintings and fresh-scrubbed floors and headed north, toward home.

  The Missus and I have a standing lunch date, breakable only in cases of extreme emergency. She hoofs it toward home from the dress shop, I make my way from the office, and we meet up at the corner of River and Fane before strolling the last three blocks home.

  I reached the corner first and killed a quarter of an hour picking out a yellow peony for my lapel and a red fireflower for Darla. Then I decided to ply my detective skills by slipping down the alley by Sylvester’s Hat Emporium and sneaking up behind my betrothed, who was hurrying down Fane with a decided spring in her step and a brown paper parcel in her arms.

  I made it within two strides of her when she slowed suddenly and held the package out beside her.

  “For heaven’s sake, take this. It’s heavy.”

  I took it, and it was.

  Darla turned and grinned. “It’s your shoes. I know the sound of your footsteps, my dear, and I can pick them out of a crowd, even a noisy lunchtime crowd.”

  “From now on, I’m going barefoot.” I moved the parcel around and drew her in for a kiss, which is no mean feat when neither party stops walking. We made it brief and managed to avoid any collisions. “How is my favorite wife today?”

  “Famished. Someone interrupted my breakfast.”

  I feigned surprise. “What mannerless ape might that have been? And what’s in the box? More lavish gifts for your new husband?”

  She laughed. “Mostly it’s for the kitchen. I found a silverware pattern I liked. Fireflowers and vines.”

  “My favorite.”

  My beloved grinned. “You’d be content eating with that old knife you keep in your boot.”

  “As long as I’m eating.”

  “I got you a new hat, too. You’ll love it. Solid black with a dark grey band.” She turned and adjusted the hat I was wearing. “Elegant with just a touch of roguishness.”

  I nodded. “That’s me. Elephant with a touch of robbery. But you aren’t fooling anyone, dearest. Confess. You’re in cahoots with my junior partner, aren’t you?”

  We stopped to let a nanny and her pair of shrieking infants pass.

  The quizzical expression Darla turned toward me was flawless, right down to the tilt of her head and the barely-raised eyebrows.

  “In cahoots how?”

  I laid my fing
er on the hatbox’s ornate stamping. “A new black hat. From Carfax. I’m no hat maker, Darla dear, but I know how they rank, and this is the top of the pile.”

  “You need a new hat.”

  “For our cruise on Evis’s new boat. Since we’ll be rubbing well-dressed elbows with the upper crusts of Rannit’s worthies.”

  “Will it help if I flutter my eyelashes and pretend I’ve never heard of Evis?”

  “Nope. When did Gertriss tell you?”

  “Yesterday. I got myself an evening gown. Black as a crow’s feather. Slit up the side, up to here.” She indicated a spot high up on her right hip.

  “You’ll cause a riot.”

  She laughed. “Well, if I do, you’re being paid to quell it. Speaking of being paid, how much did you manage to drag out of the poor pale soul?”

  “A thousand crowns. In gold.”

  She clutched my arm and danced a step.

  “A thousand?”

  I nodded. “Easy. Without that arm, my suit won’t hang straight. Yes. We’re rich, my dear. Almost rich enough to buy hats from Carfax and gowns from—”

  “Eloise’s.”

  “Eloise’s, then. So, what’s for lunch? Caviar and hundred-year-old brandy?”

  “Sandwiches. Ham. Two slices, since we’re rich.”

  I kissed her cheek. “See how quickly decadence takes over? Next we’ll be hiring servants to fan our brows and sleeping on pillows stuffed with money.”

  We stopped on the corner while a blue-capped Watchman waved a pair of lumber wagons through the intersection. Darla said something but it was lost in the rumble of wagon wheels and the clip-clop of heavy hooves.

  A dozen other pedestrians took up positions beside or behind us while the wagons thundered past.

  I was still trying to puzzle out what Darla might have said when a slightly-built young woman dressed all in black tapped me on my left shoulder, smiled at me, and plunged a long sharp knife directly toward my favorite kidney.

  I dropped my heavy parcel in the vicinity of her toes and slapped the blade away. Her dainty hand darted under mine, reversed, and bore in on my gut. She never lost her smile.

  I half-turned and let her put a rip in my jacket and stepped back. She tried to follow and nearly tripped over Darla’s fireflower-embossed silverware and my good new hat.

  It was only then that I heard the shrill and rising banshee’s scream.

  The smiling woman with the knife heard it too. Buttercup’s volume is in no way limited by her diminutive stature. Her inhuman howl rose up and up, higher and higher, reaching for a crescendo no human lungs would ever approach, much less match.

  The woman hesitated.

  I had it in mind to rush her. Grab her knife hand, take a cut if need be, but knock her off her feet and put a knee in her gut and hold her knife hand down until someone could grab the blade.

  Instead, Darla, my newlywed wife, simply grabbed the woman by her hair and threw her into the street.

  One brief shriek and it was over. The driver of the wagon that ran my would-be murderess down never slowed and certainly didn’t halt.

  I turned in a quick circle as my Army knife made its way into my hand. People were shouting and pointing. Some turned away in horror. Others crowded closer to the curb for a better look at the ruined body in the street. No one approached us with mayhem in mind or appeared to slink guiltily away into the crowd.

  Buttercup’s hair-raising banshee cry faded quickly. I scanned the nearby rooftops, caught a brief glimpse of a tiny, wild-haired figure scampering away.

  Darla pressed herself close.

  “Are you wounded?”

  “No. You?”

  “No.” I felt Darla shiver. Watch whistles blew up and down the street. The Watchman directing traffic came stomping our way.

  “What do I say?”

  “Crazy woman pulled a knife on me. I pushed her away. She fell into the street.”

  “What if someone saw?”

  “They’ll get half a dozen different stories anyway. I pushed. She fell.”

  “What about Buttercup?”

  “I didn’t hear a thing. Did you?”

  She shivered again. “That woman. Did you know her?”

  “No. Never met her. You?”

  Darla shook her head. I saw various eyes cast wholly innocent glances down at our parcel so I snatched it up before it sprouted shoes and ambled away.

  “She meant to kill you. Right here on the street.”

  “Maybe she couldn’t abide black hats.”

  Watchmen stormed into the street, whistles blowing, arms raised against traffic. Blood was pooling and spreading around the crumpled body on the cobblestones. I looked but couldn’t see the knife.

  A pair of Watchmen shouldered their way through the crowd. I recognized their faces about the time they recognized mine.

  “Well, ain’t this a surprise,” said one. He spat on the sidewalk in open defiance of the Regent’s new ordinance against gratuitous expectoration on public thoroughfares. “Markhat next to a body.”

  “I reckon you didn’t have nothin’ to do with this, either,” said the other.

  “I wish I could say I was just a bystander,” I said. “But today’s your lucky day because I pushed that woman right in front of a beer wagon.”

  I returned Darla’s fierce hug and put the parcel in her hands. “Go on home,” I said as the Watchmen exchanged frowns and put themselves on either side of me. “This is likely to take all day.”

  Chapter Three

  Evis paced, a wine glass of something thick and dark in his left hand and a Lowland Sweet glowing red in the other.

  “And you swear you didn’t know the woman? We’re the only ones here, you know. Your sordid secrets are safe with me.”

  I cussed, but not at length or with true passion. My time spent with the Watch had left me hoarse and tired. Evis puffed and sipped until I was done.

  “So she’s not an old flame inflamed by your recent nuptials.”

  I opened my mouth to cuss some more but decided on a long draught of Avalante’s good red wine instead.

  “You can ask me that another half dozen times and I’ll answer the same. I never met the woman. I certainly never pitched any woo in her direction. Not my type.”

  “You said she was a looker.”

  “She was, but she smiled while she stabbed. Which means she enjoyed stabbing people. Not exactly a quality I look for in a woman.”

  Evis nodded. “All right. Strange woman with a fondness for knives tries to gut you on a street corner with a crowd of dozens all around and the Watch waving at traffic not fifty feet away. You drop a box of fancy spoons on her toes. Your wife takes an exception to the whole affair, and strange woman winds up tragically deceased, but you take the credit for her mishap.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “The Watch buying your story?”

  “The important parts are true. A dozen people saw her try to knife an unarmed man.”

  “Not very discreet with her murderous rages, was she? A noontime stabbing on a busy street. I’d say she wanted plenty of witnesses.”

  “Same thought occurred to me.” It was a troubling thought. Especially knowing that, had the knife found its mark and the lady had vanished into the crowd, the Watch would have sighed and rolled their eyes and written my untimely demise down to the fury of a woman scorned.

  Evis drained his glass and sat down behind his desk. The single small candle illuminating the room barely lit his face, but I saw his brow crease in a pale frown.

  “All this within hours of my leaving your office this morning.” He leaned forward, fingertips together, his bloodless skin ghostly in the flickering candlelight. “I’m not a believer in coincidence these days, Markhat.”

  “You think someone doesn’t want me on the Queen?”

  Evis sighed and the candle flame flickered, nearly extinguished. “No. I can’t even entertain that thought. We’ve been so careful, finder. So da
mned careful.”

  “Maybe Avalante has been careful. Maybe the Regent’s people haven’t. Or maybe this has nothing to do with Avalante or Regents or steamboats at all. Maybe the woman just woke up batty and grabbed a knife and didn’t like my shoelaces.”

  “Too bad we can’t ask her.”

  “Darla didn’t mean to kill her.”

  “Not what I meant.” His dead eyes met mine. “If the old spook was around, we could just let her rummage around in the body. She can yank memories out of fresh ones.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “She’d probably roast me if she knew I knew.”

  “So the Corpsemaster is really gone? Not just napping somewhere?”

  If it’s possible for a candlelit halfdead to look any more glum, Evis did just that. “We’ve been watching the dead wagons, Markhat. Since she dropped out of sight, they’ve been pulling nearly twice the usual number of bodies out of alleys in the wrong parts of town. Bodies that show no recent wounds. To quote a certain dead wagon loader, ‘they look like they was walkin’ around one minute an’ dead the next.’“

  I cussed some more.

  The Corpsemaster used the War to secretly swell her ranks with the dead. They had returned to Rannit alongside everyone else, with none the wiser, and since they’d slowly inserted themselves into the social order as drunks and weed addicts and street people—invisible to the living, but always awaiting the Corpsemaster’s commands.

  Evis nodded. “Yes. They’re just falling over dead, practically in rows. That doesn’t bode well for us ever seeing the Corpsemaster’s black carriage again, does it?”

  “You think she really bought it going up against the three wand-wavers from Prince?”

  Evis shrugged. “Beginning to look that way.”

  “You still getting a Captain’s pay?”

  “Every month like clockwork. You?”

  “Same here. In old coins.”

  Evis leaned back into the comfort of the shadows. “The House considers it vital that the Corpsemaster’s status is known before we entertain the Regent, Markhat. If she’s dead or incapacitated, well, we need to know.”