by Peter McLean
“And you didn’t teach him how?”
“I don’t fucking know how,” Kurt hissed at me.
I nodded slowly. Old Kurt couldn’t keep Billy the Boy any longer, I could see the truth of that. Not now he was this afraid of the lad. Besides, it seemed to my mind that Billy might have outgrown his teaching already.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll have the lad back and we’ll call it square. What else can he do?”
Kurt just shrugged.
“He learned the basic things fast enough,” he said. “The quenching of fires he already had before we even started, and he picked up the setting of them fast enough, and then the calling of them. He can mend hurts, but you knew that, and now he can cause them too. Divination’s a strange one, with him. Sometimes he knows a thing will happen, however outlandish it may seem, and the thing happens just how he said it would. But ask him what time the sun will rise in the morning and he has no answer to give you. He can write and he can draw a glyph, but he seems unable to read any hand but his own, and he can’t read a printed book at all. How you can learn to write when you can’t read is beyond me, but there it is.”
“The goddess moves through him,” I said, thinking out loud.
“Something does, aye,” Old Kurt said. “Whether it’s your goddess or some devil from Hell is another question.”
“You be quiet with that,” I said, sharply. “You listen to me, Old Kurt, and you mark me. The boy is holy. Do you understand me? If you’ve a different opinion, you’d be wise to keep it to yourself. Very wise indeed.”
“Aye,” Old Kurt muttered, and took a long swallow of his beer. “Aye, I mark you, Tomas Piety.”
I nodded.
“Well and good,” I said. “See that you do.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Billy the Boy seemed happy enough to move back into the Tanner’s Arms, and he took to Ailsa immediately. Once word reached him that she was my woman, he took to calling her Auntie.
For all that that caused some merriment among the crew, she didn’t seem to mind it any. I was glad about that. I remembered walking along the river path with Anne and Billy on our way to Old Kurt’s house, back in the spring. It had seemed to me at the time that we might almost have been a family, and I remembered that I had thought then that perhaps it would be no bad thing. Not with Anne, no, but with Ailsa I thought it might well be a different matter. I was being a fool there, I knew that, but still the thought lingered.
Aunt and Uncle, I would take that if it was offered.
Hari and Billy renewed their friendship, largely based on pastries though it may have been, and a few days passed merrily enough. Jochan still worried me, but there was little enough I could do about that. He would come out of it or he wouldn’t, I supposed. Fat Luka was away a lot, out in the streets doing what he did best.
“The Gutcutters are laid in for a siege,” he told me one night, sharing my table in the Tanner’s while Simple Sam loomed in front of us and kept flapping ears away. “I think they don’t understand why there’s been no reprisal for Enaid’s house. Some of them say it’s because you’re too weak to strike back, but the prevailing word is otherwise. I’ve paid well for that word, and so far it’s working. Our man Gregor sits at Ma Aditi’s left hand, and he whispers in her ear whatever I tell him to.”
I remembered that man from our sit-down with the Gutcutters, sitting there in his purple shirt and whispering to her as Luka said. Whether or not Bloodhands listened to him remained to be seen. I nodded.
“Well and good,” I said, “but it won’t do forever, will it?”
“No, boss, it won’t,” Luka said. “Is there any word on the . . . the thing we talked about?”
“It’s coming,” I said, and I hoped that was true.
Ailsa might well like to deal in could and might and possibly, but I preferred cold certainties. I needed those weapons and men, and I needed them soon. It had been over a week now since I had made my deal with Ailsa and sent a boy to fetch Rosie to her, so I could only hope that her rider had already reached Dannsburg. All being well there were wagons rolling up the West Road toward us even as we spoke, laden with trained men and army weapons.
If not, then there would be hard times ahead. Luka’s gold could only keep the Gutcutters sitting tight for so long, and if they came at us again I knew we would be sorely pressed. They had blasting weapons and I didn’t, and through Bloodhands they had the backing of the Skanians.
If the Skanians had had one magician then I daresay they had another. I didn’t have a magician, but to my mind perhaps I had something else. I had Billy the Boy, and from what Old Kurt had told me I thought that might be a good thing.
It may seem harsh, to use a boy so young in battle, but he had fought and killed men in Abingon, and before that. We had found him as an orphan in Messia, but he was alive and unharmed and that meant he had fought there too, alone among the ruins. He’d have been dead if he hadn’t.
Billy the Boy was a soldier, in his way, and he was of age now. Aye, if it came to it, Billy would fight. Whether his cunning was strong enough to defeat a Skanian magician was another matter, of course. I remembered the one we had faced in the Golden Chains and how flames had sprung from his fingertips like living things. I remembered how Grieg had burned and then simply exploded before my eyes. Could Billy really stand up against that?
The boy’s fucking possessed, Old Kurt had said. Whether it’s your goddess or some devil from Hell is another question.
If those weapons didn’t arrive soon, I would take whichever I could get.
* * *
• • •
Another week went by, and I knew it wouldn’t keep any longer.
Luka’s spies reported that the Gutcutters were restless, and nothing that his man said could keep them in fear of us now. I had sat too long without acting, and I knew that I couldn’t wait for Ailsa’s men. I had to do something, and at once.
“Word is, they’ll try us tomorrow,” Luka told me that morning. “Something to test our defenses. Bloodhands has Aditi’s ear, and he controls her poppy supply. I don’t know where he’s getting it from so I can’t cut it off, but he has more say over her now than my man does.”
I would have bet good gold that Bloodhands was getting that resin from his Skanian masters the same way I was getting mine from Ailsa, but I couldn’t tell Luka about that. He certainly wasn’t getting it through the Golden Chains, I knew that much. We were open for business again by then, but the membership list was small and select and drawn only from the upper class of Ellinburg, such as it was. And Captain Rogan, of course. I had had to honor that agreement, although all he did was play cards and lose money. Rogan wasn’t the type to smoke the poppy, whereas Ma Aditi very much was.
I was sitting with Luka and Bloody Anne at my table in the common room, keeping our voices low although we weren’t open for the day yet. I hadn’t invited Jochan to this council of war. He was my brother, yes, but he was still too far gone from himself to have been of much use at the planning table.
“Very well,” I said. “Then we hit them tonight, while they’re busy planning for tomorrow. That should put them off the idea.”
“Boss,” Luka said, and shifted his bulk in his seat the way he did when he was about to say something he thought I might take ill. “I don’t know that we can. The new men are untried, and I don’t trust a one of them, not yet. Sam’s only just fit, and Brak’s still useless with his shoulder. We could swap out Cutter and Sir Eland for a couple of the new lads just for a night, I suppose, but you need four to hold the Tanner’s and that still only leaves us . . .”
His brow furrowed as he tried to figure it, and I cut him off.
“I know how many men I’ve got, Fat Luka,” I said. “You’re right, it’s not enough for a frontal assault on the Wheels and that’s not what I’m suggesting.”
I turned to Bloody A
nne and noted the thoughtful expression on her face.
“You remember the road from Messia, when we were ahead of the main march of the regiment and we caught up with the enemy baggage train?” I said. “Well, the captain didn’t have us attempt to storm it, did he? That would have been madness, and the captain was no fool. Small raiding parties, coming in the night from all directions, that was how we did it. Hit and run and hit again, until they thought we had ten times the numbers that we did. Do you remember that, Bloody Anne?”
She nodded.
“Aye,” she said. “I remember.”
“Well and good,” I said. “What worked once will work again, to my mind.”
Anne nodded, and even Fat Luka started to smile.
“Who, and where?” Anne asked me.
I trusted Sir Eland enough to have him running security at the Golden Chains now, where his airs and graces could be put to good use, while Will the Wencher was breaking in a couple of the new lads for me in his place up at Chandler’s Narrow. That was good and Eland needed to stay there, but Cutter was wasted babysitting a boardinghouse full of harmless slaughtermen and skinners.
“Jochan, with Stefan and Erik,” I said. “Leave Sir Eland where he is, but take Cutter and put him with Jochan’s crew. Some of the new boys can look after Slaughterhouse Narrow for a bit. Me, with you and Borys. Mika, Billy, and Luka with Sam to hold the Tanner’s.”
“Which Billy?” Luka asked.
I blinked at him.
“Black Billy, you fool. The door’s his, and he won’t want anyone else taking it. Billy the Boy . . .” I paused for a moment, and remembered my thoughts of the previous week. “Aye, I’ll take Billy the Boy with me.”
Anne gave me a look, but I ignored that.
“A bit of experience will do him good,” Luka said.
I nodded, but that wasn’t what I had meant.
Not at all.
THIRTY-EIGHT
That night we didn’t open the Tanner’s to the public, and I assembled the three crews in the common room to address them.
Jochan, Stefan, Erik, and Cutter made up one raiding party. Me, Bloody Anne, Borys, and Billy the Boy were the other, leaving Fat Luka, Simple Sam, Mika, and Black Billy to hold the Tanner’s. Sir Eland and his squad of hired men had a good grip on the Golden Chains, I knew, and I could only hope that Will the Wencher had his new lads in good enough shape to keep the house on Chandler’s Narrow safe. Slaughterhouse Narrow wasn’t likely to be at risk, to my mind, being the farthest from the Wheels and the least valuable. The rest of my businesses just paid me protection and weren’t permanently guarded. That was well and good, then.
Everyone was mailed and fully armed, and Bloody Anne had made sure no one was drunk. Except for Jochan, of course. There was nothing to be done about that.
“Right,” I addressed them. “Tonight we take the fight into the Wheels. There’s two ways up there from here, the river path and Dock Road. Jochan, I want your squad to head along the river path. Slip up the alley past Old Kurt’s house and come out at the top of Dock Road where they won’t expect you. Kill anyone who tries to stop you. I’ll lead my lot right up the road from here, where they’ll see us coming. That should put the fox in the fucking henhouse, and once they’re up and at us you can come running and take them in the rear. Everyone clear on that?”
There was a chorus of grunts and ayes, and I nodded. Ailsa was standing behind the bar, for all that we weren’t open, and I looked over and caught her eye. She gave me a short nod, and it was done.
We pulled up the hoods of our cloaks and set off into the blowing snow.
* * *
• • •
Dock Road was a good mile long, from the edge of the Stink to the top of the alley that ran past Old Kurt’s house, but no one had noticed that flaw in my plan. Not that it was a flaw, as such, not if what I believed turned out to be true. Expecting Jochan’s crew to creep along the river path and join up with us before we were overwhelmed would have been a fool’s thinking, of course, if it had just been the four of us with blades marching into Gutcutter territory. I had hoped for it to be the four of us with a cart full of flashstones, and another five men who knew best how to use them, but it seemed that wasn’t going to be the case tonight. I had something almost as good, though.
I had magic, or so I very much hoped.
“How do you feel, Billy?” I asked the lad as we approached the edges of my streets.
“We’re going to fight,” he said. “Good fucking deal.”
“Aye, we are,” I said. “We’re raiding tonight, though, not going into battle. Do you know what raiders do, Billy?”
“Strike fast, strike hard, burn everything, and run away afore we’re caught,” Billy recited, quoting the captain’s words from memory.
“Good lad, that’s right,” I said. “That’s exactly what raiders do. They strike fast, and they burn everything. If I ask you to burn something, Billy, can you do that for me? A workshop maybe, or an inn?”
He looked up at me, although truth be told, he wasn’t all that much shorter than I was, by then.
“With the cunning?” he asked.
I nodded. “Aye, lad, with the cunning.”
“I can do that,” he said, and he grinned at me. “Old Kurt never let me burn nothing big, but I know I can if I try.”
“Good lad,” I said again.
I could feel Bloody Anne giving me the hard eye in the darkness, but I had to ignore it. Billy the Boy was of age now and he was one of us, whether Anne liked it or not. If I was right, he was the most dangerous man I had.
Apart from Cutter, perhaps. I remembered the fight in the Golden Chains and how the Skanian magician had sent us all cowering behind tables. I remembered how Cutter had crept up behind him and opened his neck, magic or no fucking magic. Cutter was very dangerous too, I had to remind myself.
That, and he was still Jochan’s man, not mine.
All my attempts to build a trust with Cutter had fallen on stony ground. He had been content to move into the house on Slaughterhouse Narrow, and I had seen little of him since. The man said next to nothing, and I had no idea what levers moved him. Something tied him to my brother, some bond of loyalty forged in the war, but I hadn’t managed to find out what it was. I didn’t even know where he was from, but he had skills that conscripts don’t get taught.
I would have bet a gold crown to a clipped copper that Cutter had been a professional killer before the war, but where and for who remained a mystery. So long as he was a Pious Man, that was well and good, but I trusted him even less than I had used to trust Sir Eland before he proved himself to me, and that was quite some statement to be making.
“Right,” I said, and squared my shoulders under my cloak. I could feel the weight of the mail dragging against them, over the thick layer of leather beneath. “This is the last street of the Stink. Up there is Dock Road, and that runs all the way through the Wheels to the docks. That’s Gutcutter territory, all of it. What we’re going to do is walk up that street, nice and slow. Billy, I want you to leave the houses alone but burn every business I tell you to. Anne, Borys, we’re going to kill every bastard who comes out and tries to stop us. When we meet up with Jochan and his lads, we’re going to turn and run back to the Stink like the very gods of war are behind us. Everyone understand?”
They all nodded, and the smile on Billy the Boy’s face told me how much he was looking forward to it.
“Yes, Uncle Tomas,” he said.
We set off up Dock Road, and the first place we passed was a baker’s that I knew paid protection to Ma Aditi. I pointed to it, and Billy’s smile widened. He stopped in the street and stared at the shop front, the snow settling on his cloak. A moment later a dull glow began to light the windows from within. It brightened by the moment, until I could see flames licking at the inside of the panes.
“It’s done,” he said.
I nodded, and we moved on.
“Witchcraft,” I heard Bloody Anne mutter under her breath.
“Magic,” I said, correcting her. “It ain’t the same thing, Anne.”
I wasn’t sure I could see a difference, but I needed her to.
There was shouting behind us, the crash of breaking glass and the sound of panicked voices as the baker and his family fought the fire. They weren’t my enemies, no, but then the people of Messia had done nothing to me either. This was war, the same as Messia had been.
The same as Abingon.
Civilians suffer in war, and there was nothing to be done about that. I couldn’t meet the Gutcutters in formal battle any more than our generals had been able to draw the garrison at Abingon out from behind the city walls. Instead we had smashed those walls with our cannon and stormed the city, killing and burning as we went. This was the same thing, to my mind.
“There,” I said, indicating a chandler’s shop.
That went up even better than I could have hoped, and it took the tailor’s shop next door with it. A lot of Ellinburg is timber and daub, and even in the cold wetness of winter that burns well. We hurried on, hearing the shouts and chaos building behind us. These were just protected businesses, though, and for all that we were making a nuisance of ourselves in the Gutcutters’ eyes, we hadn’t really hurt them yet. To do that, we had to reach the Stables.
The Stables was nothing to do with horses.
It was Ma Aditi’s favorite place in all of Ellinburg: a brothel that specialized in boys. She liked young lads herself, and there were enough men who felt the same way for it to be a lucrative business. The Stables was near the top of Dock Road, where it could attract incoming sailors who had got too used to their cabin boys while aboard ship.