The Marching Dead

by Lee Battersby

  If money is the root of all evil, then towns like Mish were the truffles of evil: pungent and hard to find, but if you’d acquired the taste for them then very nearly an addiction. Mish was built upon one very simple philosophy: people end up in soil-poor floodplains because they are either stupid, powerless, or hiding a secret – preferably all three. Humanity had made an art form of sending its least worthy out into the wilderness to die. Mish made an art form of feeding from the carcasses. Part trading post, part street party; part gambling den, whorehouse, and fighting pit; the owners of Mish created it to fill one side of a timeless equation: other people had money, and they wanted it.

  Marius sat in the scrub overlooking the town entrance and watched as Gerd and Granny approached the single steward who guarded the entrance. Stewards were different to guards, in his experience. Less heavily armed, and more likely to be draped in felt jerkins and brightly-coloured tassels than beaten and rusting armour; but that only represented another kind of danger. Anybody can swing a mace and hope their chest plate holds out longer than the other guy’s. It takes intelligence, and a form of ambition, to demand tribute from strangers while armed with little more than a shiny shirt and a ceremonial dagger. Even so, the guardian of this particular entrance was doing a roaring trade, judging by the constant stream of up-country types pouring through over the last three hours. Down by the gate, the negotiation with Gerd and Granny reached a crescendo, and they were turned away with a few pushes to Gerd’s chest and a clip across Granny’s shoulder that sent her staggering. Marius stroked Alno with renewed intensity until they clambered up to his vantage point and sat down.

  “Half a dozen riner,” Gerd reported, kicking at the ground with suppressed fury. “And he called Granny an old… old… thingy.”

  Granny cackled. “Used to be dating talk, where I come from.” Gerd fidgeted again, and she laughed even louder. “Oh, my poor sheltered boy. It’s such a pity you can’t blush.”

  Gerd did his best. “Why can’t we just go around?” he asked. “Why do we even have to go through this town?”

  Marius contemplated the gate as he talked. “Firstly, we’re at least a six-week walk from Borgho City. I don’t want to wait that long. I want horses, and maybe a cart. And I don’t want to turn up to my family home in a torn undershirt and bare feet and no hat. Call me vain, but I want breeches, I want a coat, and I want a knife at my hip. I want money in my pocket.”

  “So we can buy what we need on the way.”

  “Sure. Let’s say that.” Both men ignored Granny’s snigger. “Besides, look at it. How many people do you reckon are in that town? Two thousand? More?”

  “I guess. Maybe.”

  “So how many people do you think die in a town that big in, say…” he glanced at Granny, “seven weeks? And what do you think has happened to them?”

  Gerd and Granny stared at the wooden wall of the town for a long minute.

  “I want to find out,” Marius said. “I want to know as much as possible before I go after Drenthe. I know how soldiers think, how they strategise. Take the cities, and leave the towns to starve. Whatever he’s up to, I’m willing to bet he’s bypassed this one while he goes after a bigger prize further on. Which means he won’t be paying attention to them, but I can guarantee they’ll have paid attention to any army that went marching by. Which means I might just learn something useful.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Marius stroked Alno. “If he hadn’t hit Granny, I’d say we get ourselves eighteen riner and walk in. As it is, though…” He dropped the purring bundle and stood. “Come on, cat.” He strolled out from behind the bush and down the path to the gate, Alno padding silently after him.

  The steward eyed him as he approached, and Marius had an opportunity to size him up properly. Up close he was shorter than Marius had thought, not small so much as compact. He was dressed in a rich red tunic and leggings, a short black cape hanging down his back. Tightly-wound muscles shifted under his shirt as he changed his stance, and the dagger at his hip hung loose, not tied down as it would be if there purely for show. This steward expected to use it at some stage of his day, and looked like he knew how to do so. He waited until Marius was almost abreast before he held up a hand.

  “Stay right there, pal.”

  Marius stopped, the very picture of innocence. “Yes, officer?”

  “Don’t get smart with me. You know what this emblem means.” He pointed to an insignia sewn into the breast of his tunic, a splash of dark black against the blood-red fabric. Marius peered at it with a bemused expression, and recognised it immediately. The personal seal of Mistress Fellipan, owner of the largest pleasuring house in Mish. By Marius’ reckoning it shouldn’t have been her turn to take responsibility for town security for another three months. Either something had afflicted Benlut, the breeder of fighting dogs, or there had been a silent coup some time in the year since Marius had been in town. He squinted at the crest, and made a great show of considering it.

  “I don’t quite… Is it a dog buggering a soldier?” he asked, his voice as innocent as a stage comedian.

  “Very funny.” The steward dropped a hand towards his dagger. “You can fuck right off, jester man. There’s no place for lepers in this town.”

  It had taken three days to walk to Mish. Marius knew he looked little worse than a man climbing from his deathbed. Granny was significantly more decayed, even if the full extent of her seven weeks of death had yet to really play itself out upon her features. The underworld had ceased to come for its denizens, and so death had ceased to act upon those who lived there. He smiled, and held out his hands.

  “Leprosy? Are you talking about my sense of humour?”

  “Off you fuck. Now.” The steward had his fingers wrapped around the hilt now. His arm tensed, and in that moment, Marius moved. He had been working his toes underneath Alno as he spoke, and now he swung his foot upward, flinging the tom forward. Alno, angered by the sudden absence of warm ground against his paws, reacted as Marius had expected. His claws sunk deep into the steward’s forearm. His teeth ripped through the thin shirt to lodge themselves into the delicate skin on the inside of the steward’s elbow. Before the other man could scream or grab the heavy burden that had his weapon arm impaled, Marius had stepped forward and rammed a fist into his mouth. His other hand came round and gripped the hair at the back of the man’s neck. He pushed the steward backwards so his knees buckled. In one quick moment the only thing holding him on balance was the strength in Marius’ arms.

  “You know, I normally don’t mind a bit of graft and corruption.” Marius shook the steward’s head just enough to emphasise his point. “But I’ve had a thoroughly shitty week, and watching you punch an old woman has really given me an opportunity to work it out of my system.” He tightened his grip, and was rewarded with a bulging of the shorter man’s eyes. “Now, I’m going to make a few guesses, and you’re going to tell me whether I’m correct or not, okay?” He moved his hands up and down, making the steward nod in agreement. “Good. Guess one. Mistress Fellipan has moved against the council and taken control of the town.” A shake of the head. “No? Then she’s working behind the scenes.” A shrug. “I’ll take that as a nod. Guess two. You’ve got at least sixty riner in that little bag I feel hanging round your neck.” Nod. “More?” Pause. Squeeze. Hurried nod. “Guess three. You’re going to give me that bag and let my friends and I walk into town, and you’re going to suffer an immediate and permanent case of amnesia about us.” Pause. Squeeze. Raise of the eyebrows and an amused stare over Marius’ shoulder. Marius frowned. And felt the prick of something razor sharp against the back of his neck.

  “Bugger.”

  Very carefully, making sure his hands could be seen at all times, he straightened the steward up and took a step back. Alno dropped from his victim’s arm and ran between his legs before a kick could connect, streaking into the nearby brush in an instant. The steward flexed his bleeding arm, looked at Marius, and smiled. Then he
drove his fist into Marius’ unprotected stomach, doubling him over.

  “Enjoy yourselves,” he said. Someone grabbed the back of Marius’ shirt and hauled him upright. He was spun round so that he faced the three guards who stood behind him, smiles like predators spread across their flat peasants’ faces.

  Guards are different to stewards. Firstly, they often have swords and a lot of metal covering their bodies. Metal on their heads, and over their fists, and very often over their knees and feet as well. Secondly, it’s a steward’s job to police the region in which they work, whereas guards usually just beat up whomever they’re pointed at. And they’d just been pointed at Marius.

  In all fairness, it wasn’t the worst beating he’d ever received. Guards are often the poorest paid members of a town’s security, drawn from those sons considered a bit too dim to take over the family farm, or smithy, or pick-pocketing ring. And all that metal can make a man clumsy. The three assailants crowded each other out in their eagerness to get their lumps in. For each blow that landed, another two were interrupted by an errant arm or leg. It set up a mighty clamour, all that metal hitting metal, but Marius knew how to survive a guard beating. He crumpled at the first blow, curled up as soon as he hit the ground, and let his shoulders and back take the majority of the punishment. He had plenty of time to reflect on another advantage to being dead: there’s no need to protect your kidneys if you have no intention of using them. The same might go for nose, ribs and genitals, but Marius was quite fond of those.

  In the end, the guards quickly tired of thumping an inanimate lump that neither begged for mercy, attempted to fight back, nor tried to escape. It was over in less than two minutes, and then he could relax and let himself be dragged through the gates and along the cobbled street towards the town’s gaol.

  And it was, Marius reflected – once he’d received another beating from those guards who had missed out on the first one because they were guarding it – a rather nice gaol indeed. Prisons in gambling towns, or well-run gambling towns at least, are not like those in big cities. The object of imprisonment in a big city is to punish the inmate until such time as a magistrate can be persuaded that there is a monetary value to be gained from giving you a damn good hanging or exiling you on the nearest ship to the Forgotten Continent. Cities are presided over by people who crave power, and power can only be truly expressed by holding it over someone else.

  The owners of gambling towns, however, have no interest in nebulous concepts like power. They prefer money. And the best way to get a lot of money is to persuade punters to come back a second time and spend more. In gambling towns, repeat business is God. There is no value in exiling someone for the crime of running out of cash. Far better to allow them a short rest away from the excitement of the town’s attractions, the better to help them remember where they might have a bank account they haven’t accessed yet, or a favour they can call in, or best of all, the name of that nice fellow who struck up a conversation last night and mentioned very reasonable loans at half the going rate of your average bank in Scorby. It can be difficult to have those sort of internal dialogues while a rat is nibbling at your toes.

  So the gaol in Mish was relatively well-appointed. Marius had a bench raised off the floor, with both a pillow and sheet to lie upon. The guards provided him with a ticket he could redeem to get his boots back, with only a two riner administration fee to be paid upon receipt. The fact he had no boots was a simple administrative inconvenience. This was Mish. Boots could be purchased at the gift store. Even the bowl of gruel he was given that evening had hardly been pissed in at all. Marius still had the sense to sniff at it carefully.

  “Arjen!” Another small difference between gaols: here, the guards wanted prisoners to remember their names. It helped a confused punter – and they were, to some extent, all confused – to remember who to pay back for all the little kindnesses they were told had been done them while they were sleeping. “What’s in this?”

  Arjen paused in his journey to the next cell, and returned to the window of Marius’ door. Every guardhouse had an Arjen. There had to be someone willing to scrub the floors, and unblock the privy, and feed the prisoners while the other guards got ready to go out of an evening and start calling in all those favours they did for the town’s prostitutes earlier in the week. In a city guardhouse such a duty often fell to the oldest member of the watch, the guy who crapped away all his graft when he found out that it was the uniform, not the man, which spent the last forty years getting booze and snuff and hand-relief for free. But in gambling towns, there were no guards of retirement age. Either they got smart, and retired as soon as their hidden nest egg became too large to keep in the nest, or they stayed stupid, and found themselves marching next to a thousand other slightly bamboozled “volunteers” the next time the King’s army came through the area looking for recruits to fight whatever war was being fought that season. Even so, there was always one who got left behind, who zigged when he should have zagged, raised when he should have folded, or stayed loyal to Tallian Rosie when even the town rats knew she’d contracted the pox. Somebody had to shut the gate after the horse had bolted. He pressed his face up against the door, and viewed Marius with gentle, trusting eyes.

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “I don’t know.” Marius sniffed again. “I don’t want to taste it until I know whether I’ve worked up an immunity to whatever’s in it.”

  “It’s cinnamon,” Arjen said in a hurt tone. “It won’t poison you.”

  “Cinnamon?” Marius was genuinely wonderstruck. “Who puts cinnamon in prison gruel?”

  “I do.” Arjen had his pride. It wasn’t big, and it wasn’t worth anything, but it was his pride, and he was quite proud of it. It may have been a shitty job, but if it was worth doing, it was worth doing with a modicum of something, and pride was all he had left. Arjen was in the wrong job. He should have been a teacher of small children, or the proprietor of a petting zoo; some occupation where small kindnesses were noticed and a caring attitude wasn’t considered a weakness. But then, every guardhouse has an Arjen, and the world does not need another petting zoo. “I thought it might make the gruel seem a little nicer.”

  “It does.” Marius took a spoonful – they had even allowed him a spoon, and only added five pennies to his bill – then finished the bowl off in a flurry. “It really does. Thank you.” He wiped the bowl clean with his fingers, and held it up to the window for Arjen to retrieve. “Thank you, Arjen. That was delicious.”

  Arjen smiled. His was not a job that attracted gratitude. “You’re most welcome.”

  Marius returned his smile. “You’d best be getting on,” he said. “The other prisoners will be wanting theirs, and I think they’ll be most pleased when they get it.”

  “Oh, there’s only one other prisoner.” Arjen pointed off to his left. “And he’s probably still drunk. He won’t appreciate it.”

  “Only one?” Marius was puzzled. “In a gaol this size? You must run a very orderly town, my friend.”

  “Not us.” Evening had fallen. The day guards had gone off-shift, dispersing to whatever bordello or back alley they’d been saving up in their imaginations over the last week. The night watch were slowly filtering through the city streets towards the gaol. Arjen was always lonely at this time. All he had to look forward to was the long climb to his room in the attic, to count out his weekly pay and put the coins in envelopes to be collected by the series of loan sharks who kept him working and glad he still had a roof over his head, even if it only cleared him by an inch and a half. Leaning a shoulder against the door, he shook his head. “It’s been a lot quieter since Master Benlut was elected mayor.”

  “Has it, now? Why is that, do you think?”

  “Well, he’s been clever, hasn’t he?”

  “What’s he done?”

  Arjen stretched, and yawned. “Used to be that whoever was mayor had to supply all the stewards and pay for the entire guard. But Master Benlut, well, he’s chang
ed all that. He’s doled it out through the entire council, so’s all six of them have to contribute a quota. Master Fellux covers all the gambling houses…” Which he already owns, thought Marius. “Master A’alk covers the merchant’s quarter…” Ditto. “Mistress Uill covers the taverns…” Marius was pretty sure he could see a pattern forming. “And so on.”

  “And poor Mistress Fellipan has to cover her, ah, houses of convenience and all the town entrances and exits, am I right?”

  Arjen harrumphed. “Yah, well. Serves her right, it does.”

  “Why is that?”

  “A slattern like her on the council.” Arjen was quite moral, in his own way. Naïve, and possibly deluded, but moral. “They may be necessary, but a woman who charges for providing God’s own special gift should make up for it somehow, I say.”

  “Ah.” Marius was a past master at hiding a smile. He did so now. “Would I be correct in thinking you are a member of the Ascetic Temple?”

  Arjen bowed his head. “Sadly lapsed, but I do still believe.”

  Marius made the sign of the Seven Austerities. “Thank you for the gruel, brother.”

  Arjen quickly returned the sign. “And you, brother.”

  “Thank you also for the conversation, but if I may, I might attempt to sleep now.” Marius indicated his surroundings. “A tiring day, as you can imagine.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Arjen glanced around the cell. “A better tomorrow, brother.”

  “And you.”

  Marius waited until he was sure Arjen had moved through the door at the end of the cellblock. Only then did he smile, and lie down on his shelf. He loved the religious. He really did. A stranger was just a friend they hadn’t met yet, and friendship was a coin Marius could flip any way he wanted. He listened to the sounds of the night watch coming in to the floors above him. Dinner had been acceptable. The cinnamon was a nice touch. But he had no desire to sample breakfast. Still, the night was long, and the dead don’t sleep. Gerd and Granny might be gods-knew-where, running around in panic without him. He might be trapped, and further away from discovering Keth’s resting place than he had been since he started his journey. And he might have no hope that she had survived, even in such a state as his, but he still very much wanted to find her resting place before he tore the marrow from Drenthe’s bones. Still, he had learned important information, and more importantly, he had made a friend. All he had to do now was decide how to flip him.