by Jack Yeovil
Harald knew better. Harald had met a lot of people who thought they were tough characters. They usually turned out to be pussies.
The Fish were losing ground to the Hooks and trying to get back by throwing in their lot with Yefimovich the fire-breather. The clerk continued his count, mumbling under his breath.
It had been a cold night, but it was a warmish day, the last of the autumn. The heat meant that the docks smelled worse than usual. The next barge was unloading a cargo of seafish that might possibly have been caught within the last ten years, although Harald wouldn't have put a bet on it. Chunks of ice were fast melting in the sunshine and the dockers were hurrying the job, trying to get the barge unloaded before the smell got too bad to bear.
Harald's hand rested on his right hip and happened to brush against the hilt of his throwing-knife.
After all these years, the weapon still hung comfortably in its sheath.
'Come down in the world, haven't you, thief-taker?' said Warble.
Harald raised his upper lip a little.
'The last time I was in Altdorf, you were a captain of the watch. Now, you're just doing sums for merchants.'
Harald looked at Warble, trying to place the face.
'Have I heard of you, halfling?'
Warble shrugged again. 'I doubt it. I keep to myself, mostly. I have a lot of respect for the law.'
'Still three barrels short,' said Benning.
The clerk looked at Krimi before he looked at Harald, which was their second mistake. Deciding to steal from the Reik and Talabec Trading Company, of course, had been their first.
Ruprecht could have stayed out of it, but he was too stupid. He was leaning against a stack of cotton bales on the dock, flapping a meaty hand at a fly that was buzzing around his eyes.
'I told you, Kleindeinst, there's no mystery. The barrels slipped their moorings and rolled overboard. They're with the fish.'
Harald just looked at the night watch. He felt sick to his stomach, as he always did around stupid, contemptible people.
'It's funny how many things just roll overboard on this run, isn't it?'
Ruprecht was sweating more than usual. He must be nursing a hangover from that l'Anguille wine. It had quite a kick and fat people could rarely hold their liquor.
'With the fish, huh? That's a believable story.'
Krimi looked up from his rope and raised an eyebrow. The Fish had originally got their name because they were always the people who seemed to come into possession of goods that 'rolled overboard.'
'Apart from that,' the clerk said, 'the tallies match.'
'Benning,' he said, 'if your tallies match, then you're either a terrible book-keeper or a clever thief. And I don't think you're a terrible book-keeper.'
The clerk jumped, almost falling off the quay. He turned round and his eyes stuck out.
In the quiet, he could hear the creaking of the barge as it drifted into the quay, grinding against the pilings and floated away again. The shipyard dog was panting, waiting for something to happen. Like everyone else.
'Do you have any idea how stupid you've been? These others don't know any better than to steal. But you're an educated man. You should never have doctored the tallies.'
The clerk looked around. Neither Krimi nor Ruprecht met his panicky eyes.
Warble pretended not to be interested and spat the wet end of his cheroot into the water.
'Three barrels, Benning. It's always three barrels. Whenever you count, Mr. Fish here unloads and Ruprecht stands around watching, the cargo always comes up three barrels short. You should have varied it. You thought the company wouldn't believe it if there was no pilferage, so you decided on three barrels.'
Ruprecht was shaking, ready to explode. Krimi was gently lashing the dock with his rope. His gang lolled around, half on the barge, half off, leaning on things, waiting.
The halfling exhaled smoke. 'I've been over all the tallies and it comes to a lot more than three barrels a trip. You're a conscientious man, you must know exactly how much you've cheated the company out of.'
Benning was about to crack. Harald could see the water in his eyes.
'I-I-I was I was fuh-fuh-forced'
'Shut up, quill-pusher,' shouted Ruprecht, leaning forwards. He slapped his own face, setting his chins wobbling, but still missed the fly.
Harald turned on the night watch and his knife was in his hand, the blade against his palm, hilt pointed at Ruprecht. It was a fine piece of workmanship, with an eighteen-inch blade honed to razor edges. Some men had daggers with designs carved into their hilts and the names of gods etched on the blades. But this was unadorned, a thing of smooth curves and sharp lines. It was not for show.
'It's a tradition of the docks, Kleindeinst nobody begrudges old Ruprecht his cut'
Harald didn't say anything. He always felt sick to his stomach when thieves broke down. And thieves always broke down.
Krimi said, 'Yevgeny Yefimovich says that property is theft.'
'Yes, well theft is theft too.'
Harald held up his knife.
'This was made by Magnin the steelsmith,' he said. 'It is the heaviest throwing knife in the known world. To be effective, such a weapon has to be balanced to within a thousandth of an ounce. To be thrown properly, the knife-wielder has to have an accurate sense of time, an unusual strength of wrist and the eye of a hawk.'
Ruprecht backed against the bales. The fly settled on his ear. The night man was blubbering, sweat darkening his shirt.
'You'd better hope, scum, that those five bottles of wine I drank last night have not affected my aim this morning'
Ruprecht sucked in a breath and closed his eyes, and the knife left Harald's hand, flipping end over end as if travelling through thick liquid
There was a thud as the knife embedded itself up to the hilt and Ruprecht yelped.
The insect had stopped buzzing.
Ruprecht opened his eyes and found that the knife was stuck into the cotton bale, between his right ear and his skull. He was not even cut.
'Now, do I get a confession, or do things get unpleasant?'
Ruprecht was too busy praying to answer the question, but the Fish weren't impressed. They saw a man without a knife and made the familiar error of thinking he would be easy to take.
Krimi made a move with his eyes and came for Harald. He whipped out with his rope and raised his marlinspike to smash Harald's skull.
It was just like the old watch days. The scum seemed to move slower than a thick syrup, while he darted like a dancer.
Harald caught the rope as it snaked through the air and, with a deft turn, wrapped it around his wrists. He pulled and Krimi was off his feet.
When the Fish was within Harald's reach, he brought his knee up sharply into the other man's groin.
Krimi gasped in agony and his marlinspike fell onto the quay.
Harald let him go and pushed him away.
'Hurts, doesn't it?' he said.
The Fish would be too busy thinking about pain to be any more trouble. Harald picked up the rope and, pulling Krimi's hands away from his bruised balls, tied his wrists.
'Ruprecht,' he said, 'bring me my knife.'
Without thinking, the night man pulled the Magnin out of the bale and handed it to him. Harald sheathed it.
He looked at the remaining dockers. None of them wanted any more trouble.
'What are you waiting for?' he said. 'Get the cargo on the dock and don't forget the secret compartments in the fore hold.'
The Fish snapped to and started moving barrels and boxes like the marionettes of an especially dextrous puppeteer.
Warble stepped off the barge and looked at Krimi, who was still rolling on the dock, his knees locked together.
Harald yanked on the rope, hauling Krimi upright, and slipped an iron collarbrace around the Fish's neck, clicking the catch tight. Spikes dimpled the criminal's throat, drawing a little blood. If he struggled, he would gore himself badly. Harald playfully tugged the
collar, drawing a howl from the Fish.
'Tell me,' Warble said, 'is that why they call you 'Filthy Harald'?'
IV
'Let me through, I'm on the Emperor's business.'
It was not strictly true but, along with his distinctive green courtier's cloak, it impressed enough people to get Johann through the crowd on the Street of a Hundred Taverns. Even discounting the curiosity-seekers and ghoulish layabouts, there were more people in the narrow alley between the Mattheus II and Bruno's Brewhouse than he would have thought possible.
'Captain Dickon,' an officer of the watch was saying to his superior, 'one blanket isn't enough to cover the corpse.'
'Sigmar's hammer,' swore the captain.
More than one person had been sick in the gutter.
'It's incredible,' said a slender elf in minstrel's clothes. 'She's all over the place.'
'Oh, shut up, pointy-ears!'
A scuffle was in the offing. Several, in fact. Johann got the impression that this crowd could be even more dangerous than Yefimovich's mob.
They had already been given their first whiff of blood and now they were thirsty for more.
The officers were standing with two battered sailors, one sergeant asking questions. A watchman produced a pair of handcuffs and rattled them threateningly in a sailor's face.
'It's that sailor boy,' shouted an old man. 'He's the Beast!'
'String him up!' someone shouted.
'It's too good for him,' put in someone else. 'Cut him up like he cut up poor old Margi!'
The crowd was pressing forwards, pushing Johann towards the alley. He felt fingers reaching for his purse and slapped them away. Someone small apologised in a high, shrill voice and scuttled off to rob someone else.
The captain turned, and raised his voice. 'Back, all of you. This man is not a suspect. He found the body.'
There was a palpable air of disappointment. The crowd had wanted to do someone violence. Now, it was cheated. The sailor looked relieved, but his shipmate was too sick to notice his narrow escape.
'Captain,' said Johann. 'I am Baron von Mecklenberg.'
'The Elector of Sudenland?'
'Yes.'
The captain stuck out his hand. 'Dickon of the Dock Watch.'
Johann shook the watchman's hand. Lying, he explained, 'The Emperor has asked me to observe your investigation. He is very concerned with these Beast killings.'
Dickon tried to look as if he was pleased to have an aristocratic overseer. He wore a long coat and a peaked cap with a tiny feather. His nose had been broken and badly set some time in the past. He wasn't in uniform, but he had his watchman's copper badge pinned to his breast.
'Really? Could you do something about my requests to the palace? I've been trying to get the troops down here. The Dock Watch can't cope by itself. We're undermanned.'
Johann wondered if he had got himself in too deep without thinking. 'I'll try my best, captain.'
The crowd were pushing in towards the alley again.
'Look, it's her arm!'
'That's disgusting.'
'I can't see, mama. Hold me up.'
'Ought to be strung up.'
'Where's my purse? I've been robbed!'
'She was a mean old cow, though, that Margi. Vicious.'
'Disgusting!'
'Ought to be burned at the stake in the Konigsplatz.'
'Bloody coppers. Never around when someone's ripping your bowels out.'
'They say he eats their hearts.'
'I bet it's a Bretonnian. Filthy people, Bretonnians.'
'Nahhh, it's a dwarf. All the wounds are below the chest. Never touches their faces.'
'It's a curse.'
'We're all doomed. Repent, repent. The wrath of the gods has descended upon the unrighteous.'
'Bloody coppers.'
'Shut up.'
Johann was pushed against Dickon. The crowd was turning in on itself, a few blows had already been exchanged. The dwarf-hater and the woman who had no love for Bretonnians were squaring off against each other. The ragged cleric of no particular god was starting a sermon.
'This is ridiculous,' said the captain. 'You men there, get these people out of here.'
Four officers, one looking distinctly queasy, pulled out their clubs and advanced at the crowd. Luckily, they didn't have to hit anyone. Grumbling, the people dispersed. The taverns were open. Murder was evidently good for business. At least, it was in the daytime when the Beast wasn't about. The cleric loitered a while, telling the officers that the gods were angry. But when a sergeant remarked that the man resembled a pickpocket due to have his fingers trimmed if he were ever caught, the cleric disappeared in the direction of the Black Bat.
'Where's that scryer, Economou?' Dickon asked the sergeant.
'On her way from the temple, sir.'
'I wish she would damned well hurry up.'
Johann and Dickon were near the entrance to the alley now.
'Would you care to take a look, baron?' the watch captain asked, a little insolence oozing into his habitual deference to the green velvet.
'Uh, yes,' Johann said. He realized that the captain thought he was a morbid sensation-seeker, using his position to get an eyeful of the latest atrocity. The watchman evidently had a very low opinion of people. Just now, Johann couldn't bring himself to mind. If Dickon thought he were just another degenerate, then he would never think of checking with the palace to expose his story of being the Emperor's representative. That would make things a lot easier.
Dickon nodded to an officer in the alley and the watchman bent down to lift the blanket.
In his years of wandering, Johann had come across a great many dead bodies in a great many states of abuse and decay. But this was the worst thing he had ever seen.
'Was it a woman?'
He couldn't relate the remains to anything human, much less distinguish their sex.
'Oh yes,' said Dickon. 'Her name was Margarethe Ruttmann. She was a whore and a thief, and probably killed her pimp a few years back.'
Dickon spat. The officer let the blanket fall. The stains were spreading on the cloth.
'A proper little minx with a blade, too. Let's hope she put up a fight and marked our man.'
An officer who had been on his hands and knees at the rear of the alley, where water was dribbling from a hole in the wall, cried out. Dickon and Johann walked to him, carefully stepping around Margarethe Ruttmann.
'It's her knife, sir.'
He held up a pathetic little pig-sticker.
'and here's her other hand.'
'Merciful Shallya!'
The hand lay under the stream, washed white and clean. It looked like a fat, plucked bird.
'Put it with the rest. The scryer will want to see it.'
The copper took out a kerchief and wrapped his fingers, then plucked the hand out of the stream and, holding it with his thumb and fingertips, walked very fast over to the blanket and popped it under the cover. Standing up, he rubbed at his hand with the kerchief. He was shaking.
'Not like thumping drunks and roughing up weirdroot suppliers, is it, Elsaesser?'
The young officer shook his head.
'It's what I have to work with, baron,' Dickon told Johann. 'This is the Dock Watch, not the Palace Guard. These people don't just have copper badges, baron, they have copper heads.'
The sun was shafting down into the alley. It was almost overhead. The morning was gone. Shadows were thin and things not meant to be seen were in full view.
'And put that knife in a bag, Elsaesser. Maybe the scryer can get something from it.'
They came out of the alley. Dickon pulled out a pipe and a tobacco pouch. He lit up and inhaled a suck of thick, foul smoke. He did not offer Johann a chew.
Carts were trundling by, mainly carrying barrels to the street's famous hostelries. Life was going on. Across the way, three young women were soliciting passersby. The watchmen took no notice, so Johann assumed they had met their payments to the Luit
poldstrasse Station this month. He wondered how much it would cost to get the watch to be unwatchful while a murder was being committed. Not too much, he supposed.
'Skipper,' asked one of the sailors, 'can we go now? We were supposed to rejoin our ship just after dawn. Things will go bad for us if we're any later. Captain Cendenai is a hard woman.'
Dickon looked at the man and he shrank visibly.
'No you cannot go, sailor boy. I stopped that crowd ripping you apart because I don't want you dead until I'm completely sure you didn't cut old Margi up, you understand?'
The other sailor was heavily bruised about the face and holding his stomach. He was standing in a pool of his own vomit and still heaving occasionally, even though there was nothing left inside to come up.
'Bloody amazing isn't it, baron? This fellow is so used to the rolling waves that he gets seasick on dry land.'
Nobody bothered to laugh.
'What do these men have to do with the killing, captain?'
'Who bloody knows? They were on leave last night and were responsible for a bit of a disturbance down at the Sullen Knight. Incidentally, if you ever want a good punch-up that's the inn to drink in. A couple of our officers broke them up and administered a street sentence×'
'What's that?'
Dickon grinned. 'That's when the cells are too full to bother with idiots like this, and you give them a couple of headaches with the clubs, then leave them somewhere where people won't trip over them. They invariably wake up with a few lumps and a newfound respect for the Emperor's laws.'
'Damn the Dock Watch,' said the less-sick sailor. 'Bastards all!'
The officer holding the sailor stuck an elbow in the man's ribs, chuckling. The seaman bent double, feeling an old wound flare up.
'Find them a cell,' said Dickon, 'and give them some breakfast'
The sick sailor finally brought something else up, a thin gruel laced with blood.
'then keep them for some more questioning. Oh and find a herbalist for the puking champion.'
The sailors were dragged off, protesting feebly.
'They're all scum round here, baron. You see what I have to deal with.'
Johann thought he had seen enough to judge Dickon's methods. He was a watchman of the old school. Faced with a crime and no obvious culprit, his inclination was to haul in someone obscure and helpless and hit them until a confession came out. That looked tidy on the court books, but didn't do much about the actual problem. And it wouldn't work on the Beast. Looking at Margarethe Ruttmann, Johann knew that the Beast was a man who enjoyed his nightwork and he wasn't going to stop unless someone stopped him.