The Marching Dead

by Lee Battersby

  There were hours in which to decide. Just as the day has a rhythm, a flow of spirit that determines mood, alertness, and most importantly for a conman, reaction speed, so does the night. It holds its own versions of the late-for-work rush, the slow morning dissolution of dedication, and the torpor that comes from a particularly boozy lunch full of sausage rolls and pastries. Marius listened to the night watch settle into its long-held routines. There was plenty of time for the first burst of energy to dissipate as the evening stretched. Details might differ, but guardhouses all over the continent ran to the same general tempo, especially at night. A quick check of the paperwork, the assignation of patrols, dealing with the grumbling from whomever struck unlucky and wouldn’t be patrolling anywhere near a decent pie shop, bar, or whorehouse. Then settle in, light the fire, do the midnight rounds, get comfy, and try to wait out the long, quiet hours until the day watch arrives and you can go home.

  Marius listened to the sounds filter dully through the door at the end of the cellblock, marking off each event in its turn. He had plenty of time to wait, and in waiting, to ponder his own situation, and just what the hell had led him here. Marius had been in plenty of gaols before. He knew the dangers of too much contemplation: how it could lead to inaction, and from inaction to despair. But sometimes it was better to smooth out the past, to make a better platform from which to jump. He lay with one hand beneath his head, raised the other one up and stared at it as he turned it this way and that.

  Marius had been dead before. Compared to then, this time didn’t look so bad. After a week of non-life his skin showed no signs of decay and, when he raised it to his nose and sniffed, there was no smell of putrefaction. Marius had robbed more than his share of corpses. He knew the smell of death intimately, and could identify a time of demise by how bloated and spongy a body had become. He felt well; better, he felt as fit and healthy as he ever had. Rarely had he lain in bed without some sort of twinge or bruise or physical complaint. But death seemed to suit him. He felt strong, vibrant, his body free from complaint despite the beating it had received only hours earlier. Marius knew something was wrong. Wasn’t there always? Decay should be crawling along his veins by now, eating his flesh from the inside. But there were no signs of damage. If not for the hole in his chest and the sallow greying of his skin he’d be in the best shape of his life. It might have given him hope for Keth, if not for the identity of the corpse who had abducted her. Drenthe was not the type to leave loose ends. Keth was dead, final and absolute, of that he had no doubt. Drenthe would see to it. Dead and dead were two separate things. As long as Death stayed absent, if any other man had been involved… there might have been a chance that Marius could find her, if not alive, then, certainly not quite so dead. He bit his lip. And then what? Two dead lovers, with no home and no living future together. What could they have but a long, slow decline into putrefaction?

  Marius poked the skin on his hand. Would that have been so bad? Other couples died separately, for the most part, parted by time or geography, or class. Did they find each other afterwards? Did they haunt the corridors of the underworld, calling out each other’s names? Or was there a forgetting, a slow numbness of thought as the things that were once important faded and were discarded along with the flesh that fell from their bones? Marius had no real idea what went on in the halls of the dead. He’d tried not to think about them for the last four years.

  But Gerd’s reappearance… now that was something. Marius considered his friend. The young swineherd had been dead for four years. What did a corpse that old look like? Not like Gerd, of that he was sure. So many years of rot would do things to a body. Yet he showed nothing of it. He was a little sunken around the edges, and his eyes were slightly filmed over, but nothing so much that it couldn’t be explained away as the result of a debilitating disease – something tropical, from one of those jungle countries explorers were always coming back from with fevers and strange outbursts of fear at dinner parties. Marius remembered meeting Sir Folmer Duckett at a reception to honour his return from the Hidden Territories. He’d looked worse than Gerd, and smelled like a crocodile’s privy to boot.

  Marius wasn’t a doctor. He’d pretended to be one on several occasions, usually when a foreign potentate’s daughter needed something explained away. But this was too different, too medical. He needed knowledge he couldn’t hope to understand, and he couldn’t think of anyone who might have it. Placing his hand behind his head with its twin, he stared at the rough ceiling of his cell. Get outfitted, get to Borgho City, and get himself an army. Get Keth. Get revenge. Get answers. In that order.

  He lay that way, barely thinking, letting his eyes wander the cracks and bumps of the ceiling, until the sounds of the watch house diminished. The minute groans that indicated a fire warming the stone walls settled into stillness. The night deepened and widened, in a way that only someone used to being awake long after sensible people have gone to bed can recognise. When he was sure the torpid post-midnight hours were at their nadir, Marius swung himself off his bench and examined the door to his cell.

  Holding cells are a curious hybrid of imprisonment and ease of access. Dungeon doors are designed to open twice in a prisoner’s life: once to let him in, and once so the guards can collect his body for burial. A true gaol cell is designed to open once a day: in the morning, so the prisoner can be removed to whatever work gang, exercise yard, or beating they’ve been assigned to, and then be closed again behind them when they return for the night. But holding cells may only contain an occupant for an hour or two whilst an appropriately large bribe is delivered to the sergeant in charge. In a city big enough, or corrupt enough, such a cell might see a dozen different occupants a day. Nobody wants to haul on a heavy steel door twelve times a day, not when the guardhouse might have twenty doors or more. Much as the holding cell itself is designed to give only the appearance of long-term despair, so the door gives only the impression of weight, the essence of impenetrability. Such a door, in such a cell, in a town where the occupants are treated as no more than temporary debtors having a quiet moment to rediscover their wealth… such doors presented no impediment to a professional like Marius.

  There is a reason why real cell doors have small, flap-like windows: to prevent prisoners from reaching through and identifying the lock hanging from the hasp as, for example, a Tightlok Number Five, one of the cheapest and most widely available in Scorby. It is widely available because it is produced to a single design, and cheap because it is made from inferior materials. It is almost never used to contain hardened criminals inside a cell because it only has one combination of tumblers, and if a person happens to be carrying a key that fits one, it will fit them all. An experienced lockpick with a piece of wire can open a Tightlok Number Five in under thirty seconds. Or, if they lack a wire, a suitably long sliver of hard wood will do the job. Which is why most real cells have a bundle of rags on the floor on which to sleep, and not a wooden shelf.

  Marius was out in under three minutes.

  He immediately sank into the shadows at the other side of the corridor. One of the first things he had learned as a street thief on the Borgho streets was how to make use of the darkness, how to fall so still that a mark would walk within fingers’ reach and never see the dip that removed his wallet. Marius had stayed small enough to retain this skill into his adulthood. If his exertions caused anyone to come into the corridor, his childhood training might give him the extra second or two he needed to get past. He waited a full minute, letting his breathing slow, then remembered he wasn’t breathing to begin with, and suppressed a smile. Being dead had too many advantages. He was going to have to avoid the temptation to go back to his old ways.

  When he was sure nobody was coming, he slunk towards the door and examined it. A lightweight internal door, it even bore a handle just waiting to be turned. Marius shook his head. They really weren’t expecting proper criminals in this part of town. Slowly, in tiny increments, Marius turned the handle, waiting between ea
ch minute movement for any sound from the room beyond. None came. He placed his hand flat against the wood and leaned the smallest measure of his weight against it. The door shifted. Unlocked. Marius stifled a giggle, and let it slide shut again. This was too easy, even for Mish. Even a gambling town had the occasional thief, or the odd mugger. There was no such thing as a murder-free town, especially when money and whores were involved. Where were they kept? And what was on the other side of the door that gave the guards confidence enough to keep them in such pitiful security?

  Marius stepped back. There was no way to find out, short of walking through. He closed his eyes, and ignored the grey line that appeared on the floor at his feet to show that at least one prisoner had done more than leave peacefully under their own power in recent days. He took one unnecessary breath, and prepared to sneak through. To his immediate right, someone snored. Marius froze, then relaxed as he realised who it was. Arjen had mentioned another prisoner. Curiosity took hold. Marius tiptoed to the cell door through which the snore had erupted, and peeked through the window.

  An idiot lay on the floor. Flat on his back, arms and legs thrown akimbo, for all the world like a child sleeping the unselfconscious sleep of innocence. Marius knew him for an idiot immediately. Firstly, he hadn’t managed to stay on the sleeping shelf. More importantly, his expensive-looking jerkin bore the crest of the House of Tesnuk, the most powerful family of merchants in the south of the continent. A simple foot soldier would not have a shirt so fine, nor trousers and belt so obviously handmade. No soldier would think to remove their high leather boots and stand them neatly at the end of the bed before he succumbed to his drunken stupor. All of which marked out this particular occupant as a Tesnukian merchant-son, a member of the family itself; and therefore, very rich indeed. And if he hadn’t the sense to pay off the guards to take his inebriated arse back to his hotel to see off his drunk there, he was plainly an idiot. Marius eyed the clothes, the boots, the strap of the moneybag he spied peeking out above the collar of the drunkard’s shirt. And smiled.

  “Psst.”

  The prisoner stirred.

  “Psst. Mate.”

  The prisoner, oblivious to his newly acquired friend, snorted and delivered a fully rounded fart. Marius sighed, and fingered the sliver of wood with which he had opened the lock on his cell door. Marius had won the Keeled Haul’s annual darts tournament seven years in a row, mainly because most of his opponents were too pissed to hold the darts the right way round. Even so… He took aim, and sent the sliver arrowing straight at the sleeper’s cheek.

  “Wha…? Ow! Lady fuck!” The drunk jerked upright, slapping the dart away from his face. “Fucking hell!”

  “Psst. Mate.” Marius tapped on the window bars. “Here.”

  “What? What?” The drunk looked about himself blearily. “Oh, fuck me. Not again.”

  “Oi. Are you thick or something?”

  It took some time, but eventually the idiot managed to point his head and both his eyes in the right direction. “I told you I don’t want any gruel.”

  Marius sighed again. “Do I look like the gaoler?”

  “Actually…” The prisoner focussed. “No. Who are you?”

  “A fellow prisoner.”

  “But you’re outside.”

  “Not yet.” Marius leaned in closer. “What’s your name?”

  The drunk puffed out his chest. The change in his centre of gravity made him wobble. “Toshy. Toshy Tesnuk.”

  “Really?”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “No, no. It’s just–”

  “I’m an important man, I am. I’m Assistant Special Envoy to the… the…” He waved a hand in the vague direction of “out there”, and continued, “We’re selling stuff to all the towns and shit.”

  “Ah.” Assistant Special Envoy. A merchant title, afforded to all useless sons and idiots, the better to send them on long journeys and keep them the hell away from any important goings-on.

  “I’ve got duties, I have. Special duties.”

  “Really? What are they, then?” Despite himself, Marius’ interest was piqued. Rumours circled the Tesnuk merchants like wary scavengers. They were assassins, spies for the Scorban king, slave traders, terrorists dedicated to the overthrow of the establishment by creating financial instability, anything but simply a powerful merchant family who knew a thing or two about business. All Marius knew was that wherever he went, and whatever discord he found, there was a Tesnuk lurking nearby. It would be nice to know if it was merely coincidence.

  But he wasn’t going to get anywhere this time. Toshy was already making a clumsy attempt to tap his nose with his finger. Nose, eye, cheek, wince. “Special,” he said. “Secret and shit. Need to know and all that.”

  “Ah, well. Fair enough, your special envoyness.”

  “Anyway…” Toshy had taken the long way round, but he’d arrived at a thought of his own. “What you doing out there?”

  “Helping you.”

  “Helping me do what?”

  “Return to your special duties.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Marius tried not to roll his eyes. “I’ve come to get you out. But I need your help.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Gods help me, Marius thought. “You want to get out of here, yes?”

  “Suppose.”

  “You want to get back to your delegation?”

  “Will Kitty be there?” Toshy made kissy-kissy sounds. “Here, Kitty, Kitty. Come here, darling. Got a hunnert riner. You know what I like…”

  “Yes, yes.” The dead have no gag reflex. Marius was grateful. “Kitty’s waiting. But I need your help.”

  “What?” Toshy stopped fondling his imaginary whore. “You said you were helping me.”

  “I am. But the guards…” Marius rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in the universal motion for “money, baby”. Toshy t’ched.

  “Fine, fine.” He fumbled the moneybag from around his neck. Marius avoided chortling like a crazed banker. That was one hell of a large moneybag. Toshy found his feet at the third attempt, and staggered over to the door. Marius took the bag, and pocketed it.

  “Excellent. Now…” Marius glanced past Toshy. He shouldn’t try this, he really shouldn’t. He should just take the money and scarper. But here he was, standing in the corridor in nothing but his torn and filthy undershirt, with the cold seeping up through his bare feet and even the slightest breeze playing havoc with his gonads. And there was the idiot son, kitted out like a minor princeling with not a thought in his empty head for the needs of others. Besides, he thought, glancing at the end of the bed, they are such nice boots.

  “I need your boots.”

  “What? What you want my boots for?”

  “Ssh.” Marius waved his voice down. “Watch the volume.”

  “But what… what you want my boots for?” Toshy asked again in a stage whisper.

  Good question. Marius thought furiously. “Disguise, isn’t it?”

  “Huh?”

  “Think about it.” He beckoned Toshy closer, so they stood mouth to ear with only the inch of wood between them. “Nobody’s going to believe that someone like me has the money to free an important person like you.” There was no way he was getting away with this. There really wasn’t. “But if I disguise myself…”

  Toshy got the idea. “They’ll think you’re me.”

  “Exactly.”

  A dark thought crossed the drunkard’s brow. “Wait a minute.”

  Shit. “Yes?”

  “Wait.” Toshy was grasping at something. Marius could see it coming. He braced himself to run. He should have been satisfied with the money. He shouldn’t have been greedy. Perhaps he could get through the door and out the exit before anyone reacted. Perhaps…

  Toshy’s thought found its way to the front of his brain. “Boots won’t do it.” Marius relaxed. The Assistant Special Envoy was earning his title.

  “Sorry?”

&nb
sp; “You need all my close.” He leaned right in, breathed seven kinds of alcohol across Marius. “Perfick disguise, see? Look jus’ like me.”

  Marius could have laughed. He could have kissed the little idiot, but then he might have been mistaken for Kitty, and that would be all kinds of ugly. So instead, he settled for nodding in agreement. “You’re absolutely right.”

  “Right.” Toshy began to strip, giggling like a clever princess. Marius shook his head in wonderment. Far too much inbreeding in the Tesnuk clan, he thought. There’s a fine line between protecting your assets and creating an army of Assistant Special Envoys. The booze-stained jerkin came through the window, then his shirt, trousers and belt, then his underpants. Marius picked them up between thumb and finger and dropped them back in the cell.

  “You keep those,” he whispered. “You don’t want to ruin your own disguise.”

  “I get a disguise?”

  “Oh yes.” Marius quickly stripped, and slipped on Toshy’s clothes. A little on the large side, and a little… he sniffed… boozy, but they’d more than do. He shoved his dirty, torn clothes through the window. “You get to be me.”

  “Magic!” The young Tesnuk frowned as another moment of clarity threatened to upset his mental equilibrium. “Who are you, again?”

  “Your rescuer.”

  “I know that. Whass your name?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? Boots, please.”

  He handed the boots through. Marius slipped them on. Oh, they were nice. He could walk to Borgho in boots like these, no problem.

  “Well?”

  Marius looked up, the soul of innocence. “Drenthe. Drenthe McScorbus the Third. At your service.”