“My very first earnings, ever! Now that it’s happened, I’ve broken what mother called the Casual acquaintance barrier’ in my mind, in my ability, and I know I can do it again. And again. I am employed, Hanse! — and as a S’danzo should be!”
He made supportive noises and tried very hard to seem to share her excitement and pleasure. He did, and yet he did not.
Part of his problem was that he had no employment and did not know what to do. He had been well trained in a particular profession, and his natural ability had made him superior in that nocturnally-practiced occupation. Now that he had no need of practicing it, he had no notion as to what to try. He had always looked for opportunity and loot rather than for work, or for what others called work, anyhow. Accordingly three nights later, when she had had four more successes with complete strangers, he found an excuse to be angry, and to depart their apartment.
That night Shadowspawn struck, in Firaqa.
Like a sinuous black cat bearing a mouse, he returned proudly with a good bracelet of silver and garnets, and a striped sash of rich silk. Mignureal was shocked. She was not pleased, understanding, or supportive.
Hanse stormed out again. He actually went back up a wall and across two roofs before throwing the bracelet in an almost perfect toss through an open window. It was the same window he had used to enter that second-story room of a nice dwelling, and to emerge again with scarf and necklace. This time the window was open because the owner’s husband and brother were waiting inside with crossbows.
A bolt sang evilly through the air a foot or so above the black-clad thief. He was naturally offended at their reaction to his returning the bracelet. While they made a lot of noise and loosed another steel shaft despite being unable to see him, he took his leave. Shadowspawn eased backward off a ridgepole, slid partway down that roof and pounced easily to another, and became one with the shadows of night.
Less than an hour later he gave the sash to a painfully young whore he met in a dive called the Duck’s Teat, probably because it was located down on Duck Walk on the wrong side of Caravaner. Not only did her wool prove not worth carding, he scratched for the next three days and nights. At last he immersed most of himself, grinding his teeth against the pain of water hotter than he could stand it, and forced himself to stay there long enough to murder the infesting vermin.
Furthermore, a worse than miffed Mignureal spent two of those days and nights with Turquoise and family and returned to the apartment on Cochineal only when her period started.
At last both of them apologized and both claimed fault, though Hanse could not admit his problem about her working while he did not. There was some weeping, to the considerable interest of the cats, and a lot of embracing and sniffling and protestations of devotion. All was well again, and both Sinajhal’s list and the nine coins in the abhorrent old saddlebag had remained unchanged for many days. Along about then he learned about her physical state, and was a long, long time getting to sleep.
Next day the saddlebag contained eight silver Imperials.
Hanse had something to do. Like most active but jobless men of pride, he threw himself into his self-appointed task the moment Mignureal left for the stall in the bazaar. He stood to prove very little, really, since the names on the list remained as before. Nevertheless, he asked. He asked at the gate, and found Watch headquarters and asked there, and gained Gaise’s help. Gaise had no information for him, however. Hanse spent the day at it, and learned nothing. Nervously, he even approached the main Temple and asked a priest. Apparently no one had died yesterday, in all of Firaqa.
He was no good company that night. Cats and Mignureal trod with care around him, so that at least no trouble rose among them.
In the morning he was at it again, asking all over the bazaar and in and out of ale-and eating-houses. No, no one knew of any deaths day before yesterday. No, no funeral processions.
He felt needles along his back when he heard the hail and turned, on Better Street, to see that it was a Red who called him by name. Hanse did not know the man and approached him with apprehension.
“You are the one, aren’t you? The sergeant wants to see you. Said he had something for you, about your query yesterday. Sergeant Gaise?”
“Yes! Thank you!”
Today Gaise had gate duty, and Hanse found him there, sitting boredly.
“Oh, Hanse! You seemed so wrought up yesterday that I thought I ought to tell you. Know a taverner named Jumnis?”
“Jumnis? No. What tavern?”
“Uh…the Bottomless Cup, on Olivewall.”
“Olivewall. Is that a street?”
“Right.”
Hanse shook his head. “I never even heard of that street, much less the Bottomless Cup, or Jumnis. Why, Gaise?”
“Jumnis. He was missing yesterday. Never opened the place. No family. Late yesterday afternoon one of our boys helped one of Jumnis’ two employees break into the place; he knew the fellow. They found Jumnis, dead on the floor between bar and door. Had his cloak on, as if he was on his way in or out. The poor employee started in babbling in terror that he hadn’t had a thing to do with it. Our man had only to touch the body to know the truth of that. Jumnis was stiff and cold. We couldn’t find a mark on him. We think he was just closing up night before last, and died. Had his day’s proceeds right there on the floor beside him, in a locked box.” Gaise shrugged. “We’re calling it heart failure. That’s what we and the leeches always say when nobody knows why a man suddenly drops dead. You know: if you’re dead, obviously your heart failed! So, presumably someone did die day before yesterday, after all. But it’s not who you were wondering about, hmm?”
Hanse shook his head and swiftly made up a half story: “Who knows? Mignureal’s a S’danzo. She has the Sight, you know, and she — she just had a feeling. I’ll ask her. She’s with the S’danzo stall in the bazaar, and maybe he had been in there. You know, getting a reading. How old a fellow was he?”
“Oh, thirty-five, thirty-six. Native to the city. Did well with that place, too. Property, fat account with Tethras. Now we have to find a relative.”
Hanse managed a smile. “Well, let me know if you don’t, and I’ll see if I can make you believe I’m his long-lost younger brother.”
Gaise laughed, and thought of a joke he wanted to tell, and that was that. Hanse told Mignureal. Nothing was proven. A man had died and a coin was missing. That was hardly cause and effect, and neither Hanse nor Mignureal had ever so much as seen this Jumnis, so far as they knew.
Two days later, however, he learned from Tethras that Jumnis and Lallias were long-time pals. As far as Hanse was concerned, he had proof: Jumnis’ life, too, was connected to the outré coins. Like Lallias, Jumnis was gone, and so was his coin.
*
“I want to call it proof,” Hanse told Mignureal.
They had eaten at the Green Goose, because they had needed to get out of the apartment. Now he was enjoying an unusual second mug of beer. She still nursed along the same wine she had ordered when they arrived — which Chiri had proudly brought her in a nice goblet of formed blue glass. A delighted glance from Mignureal had been greeted by a smile and wink from Chondey.
“We already assumed that the coins are linked to the lives of men, Mignue. Firaqi men. We were afraid they also had something to do with me. Remember your fear that a coin vanished when I killed someone? Well, I had nothing to do with Lallias’ death, even though we were together. Still, a case could be made that if he hadn’t been taking me to Horse he wouldn’t have been there in the first place, and wouldn’t have been in the way of that runaway horse. Oh, I know you never mentioned that, Mignue; I thought of it, just the same. But this Jumnis! Neither of us ever heard of him or his alehouse or even that street. But he was connected with Lallias, and he did die, and a coin did disappear.”
He sat back, looking almost proud. Almost, because it was really no explanation at all, and they both knew it.
“There is one other part of that I like,�
�� she said, looking into her deep blue glass. “It doesn’t have to be violent death. You said Jumnis didn’t have a mark on him. He died of natural causes.” She swallowed and her expression changed into one less pleasant. “Just…death. That’s the connection. Death.”
The shadow of sorcery still hung dark and heavy over them. It affected their thinking and their attitudes and thus their relationship and sleep. It was an oppressive weight on their very lives.
*
Next day some people up in Newtown complained, and some Reds arrived and did some checking. The neighbours were right about the odour, and the water. The corpse down the well appeared to have been dead about three days, and with his head bashed out of recognition he had certainly died violently.
The coin might have represented him, then, and not Jumnis.
The only aspect that could be interpreted as positive for Hanse and Mignureal was that at least they were sure Hanse had had nothing to do with the man’s death — his violent death. The shadow of sorcery seemed to darken, to grow more oppressive. It affected their mental state and ability to think, their sleep and everyday lives, and thus their relationship.
*
Three days later Mignureal came home badly shaken. She was sure that she had Seen violent death for a client, which was no pleasant matter. After comforting her for a while with considerable laying on of hands, Hanse thought to ask her the man’s name.
She knew at once why he asked: “It’s not one of those on the list,” she said irritably. “His name’s Ganther.”
“Ganther,” Hanse repeated, and upended the saddlebag.
Eight silver coins jingled out. He lined them up neatly, comforted Mignureal some more, and suggested a visit to the Green Goose. Mignureal pepped up, blinking mistily and showing him the best smile she could muster. After popping the coins back into the bag, they left the apartment and the cats, who were pretending to be kittens playing tumble.
Hanse didn’t open the bag until after Mignureal had left, next morning. It contained seven Imperials. That was enough to make him sit down suddenly. He sat thinking for a long while before slipping one of those coins into his outer purse. Then he took up his hat and left.
He was on his way when it occurred to him that he probably should not go to Gaise again. An imaginary conversation ran through his mind:
“A man named Ganther? Aye, he was strangled, poisoned, hanged and chopped into little pieces last night. What do you know about it, Hanse?”
“Nothing.”
“Then how come you popped in here asking whether someone named Ganther might have died yesterday?”
“Uh, well, Mignureal read for him yesterday, and, uh, she thought she saw violent death in his, uh, future”
“Hmm. That’s twice this has happened, isn’t it. Hanse, I’m sorry, but I think we’d better go and ask Mignureal some pointed questions. And maybe the FSA will want to talk with her, too.”
“Why?”
“Well, there is reading the future, Hanse, and then there’s cause and effect. I’m sure that nice girl is purely in the first business, but…”
No. He wouldn’t go to Gaise. The strain on both Mignue and me is bad enough already, without making him suspicious and maybe subjecting her to that. No. I’ll just think of something else.
It was the wrong time of day and not Hanse’s sort of behaviour, but he entered at the nearest alehouse sign. He ordered the smallest quantity of beer available and didn’t finish it before he gave up and left. No one was talking. He entered another, and learned nothing there except that drinking beer in the morning was not likely to become a habit with him. He paused outside the third place to put on his toughest face before he swaggered in, and ordered tea.
No one said a word about that; the four men at the table near the door were talking about that fellow who’d fallen out of the window of his third-floor apartment last night and splattered his brains several feet up the wall. Weird. Probably drunk, one said, wagging his head and sagging low over the table.
“People should have rules about drinking. Never alone and never at night!”
“That’s the dumbest flamin’ thing I ever heard, Stumpy. What a man shouldn’t do is drink in the daytime! I wouldn’t, either, if I wasn’t such a weak pile of horse biscuits!”
“My rule’s never to drink before breakfast,” a third member of the party said. “Never!”
Ils’ eyeballs, Hanse thought, I haven’t had a thing to eat!
He was on the point of losing his patience and turning to ask them the name of the dead man, when Stumpy did exactly that.
“Who knows?” one of the others said.
The proprietor looked up from arranging mugs and called, “Ganther. His name was Ganther. And he was pushed, I’d bet my last barrel!”
Hanse swallowed hard, then did it again. He tried burning his mouth with tea and discovered that it wasn’t that hot. Ganther.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“Now here is a smart individual,” the proprietor said loudly. “He looks perfectly capable of handling all four of you without thinking about it, and what is he drinking of a fine sunny morning? Tea! Tea, by the Flame!” He turned his gaze on Hanse. “Because people don’t just fall out of windows, that’s why! Someone pushed him, mark my word.”
“I fell out a window once,” Stumpy mumbled.
“If we all come in here an’ ordered tea, Bim, you’d starve! Can’t make no money servin’ tea!”
“Starve, my butt,” Bim said. “I’d have a heart attack and fall down dead if you was to come in and order tea! Want a refill? Oh, uh, come back sir — didn’t offend you, did I?”
But Hanse was already out the door.
He walked, thinking. Ganther. He never did get around to eating. He walked. He walked Firaqa, thinking and thinking, and he noticed no one and nothing. He walked for hours, thinking, and when he came to the northward gate he went on through and wandered some more. Ganther. He ran into two people, one of whom threatened him even after Hanse’s apology. Hanse showed him the cultivated stare and half crouch, and the fellow decided that the apology was sufficient after all. He went his way and Hanse went his. Eventually he realized that he was in the area called Newtown and thought what a shame; he hadn’t been paying attention, and then the other thoughts closed in again, and the feeling of helplessness, and he was on his way back toward the gate when u occurred to him that it was mid-afternoon and he still hadn’t seen a thing of Newtown. His stomach rumbled, reminding him about something else he hadn’t done.
The shouting match the couple was having just ahead made him pay attention; those two were mad.
Suddenly the redheaded woman pounced at the skinny man, probably her husband or her man at least, and started in pounding him with both fists. He hit her back, good and hard in the face, and Hanse stopped dead still because he was walking right toward them. The woman let out a yell and flopped backward, raising a little dust and showing a lot of leg, and Hanse saw the flash of steel in the man’s hand as he shouted something really nasty and took a step toward her. A guard came from the gate, at the trot. The man took another step, steel in hand, and started bending over her, and the Red shouted. The woman was screaming. The skinny man looked at the guard, at her, and back at the uniformed man just as the guard reached him and reached for him with both hands.
The skinny man stabbed the gate guard in the neck and the woman shrieked as if the blade had just gone into her.
“Stop! Stop where you are and drop that knife!”
That order was bawled from the guard-tower beside the gate. Hanse looked up to see that the Red up there had his crossbow wound up, while a swift glance showed him that the sergeant on the gate was pointing at the skinny man with his sword while another Red was on one knee, aiming his crossbow. It occurred to Hanse that it could be wise to become less of a target. He fell flat. Meanwhile the woman was screaming loud enough to shame Enas and the skinny man stabbed the sagging guard again before turning to her
as if he didn’t hear a word or have any notion of danger.
When Hanse looked up between the hands he’d used to cover his head, the skinny man was reeling. He had sprouted a crossbow bolt in his thigh and one in the body, just above the belt. At that he held himself on his feet, got himself turned back to the screaming, crawling woman, and raised the dagger again.
Mighty good shooting, an impressed Hanse was thinking, just before someone’s aim slipped and a crossbow quarrel appeared in a burst of blood, having slammed completely through the lunatic’s cheeks and mouth. Now he was yelling, with blood pouring out of his mouth. The fourth shot was perfect, and he fell right down and kicked like a chicken whose head had just been wrung off.
That took care of it, fellows, Hanse thought urgently. Stop shooting now, all right? He isn’t between you and me anymore — nothing is!
He was up on one knee, in the act of rising, when the woman snatched up the fallen man’s dagger and charged the guards, screaming through her sobs.
She loved him, Hanse thought. They always do. And just in case, he went flat again.
When he looked up a few seconds later, the woman was sagging, moaning instead of screaming. The dagger lay at her feet and her hand dangled unprettily from a broken wrist. She was lucky, Hanse realized; the man with the crossbow had used it to whack her knife-wielding arm. In seconds he and the sergeant had rope around her other wrist and were winding the rest of that length of line around her body.
Hanse got to his feet again and moved up to look at the two men on the ground. They lay close together. He squatted between them.
“You don’t happen to be a leech, do you?” the sergeant asked a half minute later, trotting up.
Shadowspawn (Thieves' World Book 4) Page 21