The Duchess of the Shallows

by Neil McGarry

  "If you get me thrown out of the Widow you're not getting a drop out of me tonight," she warned him. "So you can find us a table or go thirsty." The boy scrambled off into the dimness of the room, his followers hard on his heels. The Widow was crowded at this time of night but she had little doubt they'd find a table; lightboys always seemed to find what they needed, particularly when free victuals were at stake.

  She brought the ale herself – best not to give Zachary a second chance to offend Shari – and the lightboys went at their drinks with gusto. Duchess guessed it was not the first time they'd tasted ale. She knew them only by sight and since they didn't seem inclined to share their names Duchess didn't ask. This didn't bother her; lightboys learned wariness at a young age or else they didn't survive very long.

  "So what happened last night after I was gone?" she asked Zachary. He was young, perhaps ten or twelve, although with Deeps and Shallows children, who didn't always eat very well, it was hard to know. His height said twelve, but his face looked more like ten. In fact, that face looked so young that she sometimes wondered if he were really a small child stretched to an older child's height. His hair was a long stringy mass of brown, behind which he hid big wide eyes and an innocent grin.

  His grin was all that was innocent about him. The Bells, like most lightboys, spent their nights working in the Shallows and their days sleeping in and roaming about the lawless Deeps, which even the blackarms did not trouble to police. That put them right in the path of the most despicable thieves, rapists, thugs and murderers the city had to offer, none of whom had any reluctance to harm children. They did their best to avoid the worst of the Deeps, but sometimes they grew into the very things they feared: the gangs of thugs who fought and killed each other in the Narrows. The more fortunate ones made enough money as lightboys to escape the Deeps and find work and permanent lodging in the Shallows, perhaps as oddbodies or blackarms, or (more rarely) as ganymedes. The luckiest found work in Trades District, and a few even impressed their employers sufficiently to be trained as apprentices and journeymen, with a chance to someday join a guild and labor for themselves. The rest kept trying until their youth ran out and they joined the line that trod Beggar's Way every morning to cry for alms along the Godswalk.

  The Bells controlled a large abandoned house in the Deeps that they'd dubbed the Belfrey. They'd dwelt there since Lysander's time, which was impressive in a district in which you owned only what you were strong enough to defend. And defend it they had; Lysander had regaled a younger Duchess with stories of the grand battles they'd fought against thieves, squatters, and other lightboy bands. At the time she'd thought those stories exciting, imagining Lysander fighting squint-eyed pirates and menacing brigands; it was only as she grew older that she realized just how dangerous those struggles had truly been. A defeat would have cost them far more than the Belfrey.

  Zachary laughed, bringing her out of her thoughts and back to the events of the previous night. "After we whacked him a few dozen times we left off and gave him a chance to move on, but he weren't having none of it. He swung at a couple of us and then tried kicking me, but he was so drunk he ended up falling right on one of the women we'd been taking about. That was a big mistake." The other boys nodded and chuckled into their mugs, but Duchess noticed not a one dared to interrupt him. Not much different from Lysander and "the girls."

  "So what happened then?"

  Zachary whistled. "Turns out that man she was with was a lord's son...name of Krieg or Koreg, something like that. He starts yelling about his lady's dignity and all that – never even trying to help her up, mind you – and that he's going to send for his sword so's they can duel for honor." He took a gulp of ale. "Well, your man started talking fast, saying he was sorry, no offense to his lordship, slobbering like a dog on a hot day" – this got a cheer from the rest, with much back-pounding and hand-shaking all around – "and after a while the lord's son lets him off with just a warning, saying it wouldn't be right to duel since it wouldn't be no contest." There was more laughter and a few cups were clacked together in celebration. "Still, after that the nobles were going crazy, and one of the women kept saying she might faint from the sight." He snorted, disgusted. "Like seeing stuff like that wasn't 'xactly what they'd paid for." Duchess smiled, relieved that her pursuer had been driven off without harm to Zachary or any of his boys. That had ended better than expected, she thought, patting the purse she'd taken from the luckless lout.

  Still, it was probably best to change the subject. "And how are things in the Deeps? Is the Belfrey still standing?"

  "Was when we left," he said with a new grimness. "And it best be the same when we get back!" There was some nodding and grumbling around the table, and one small boy with a bald, scarred head, spit out "Damned Nel."

  "Nel?"

  "New head of the 'Siders," Zachary told her. The Outsiders were a rival group of lightboys who'd contested with the Bells for ages. It wasn't their own name for themselves, but rather what Lysander had called them since time immemorial.

  "'Cept she's not even a boy!" shouted the smallest. There was more nodding at that. Duchess raised an eyebrow. Young girls did poorly in the Deeps, from what she'd heard. Most allied themselves early with one of the gangs capable of protecting them, but of course there was then nothing to protect them from that gang. Some took up with the beggars, who stayed together for safety, or else found some desperate way into the Shallows or Wharves as quickly they could, often by joining a brothel. A girl who survived the Deeps, much less flourished there, was rare indeed.

  "A girl who's a lightboy leader?" It seemed hard to believe.

  Zachary nodded. "Not afraid of anything that one is. Just took over the 'Siders after she killed the old leader herself. Sneaked up and smashed in his head with a stone, is what the beggars are saying."

  "Girls are sneaks," one of the boys muttered, then looked at Duchess, embarrassed.

  "And you think that's true?" Duchess asked, looking only at Zachary.

  Zachary shrugged and finished his ale. "It is or it isn't. She's not one of ours, anyways. She's had her eye on the Belfrey, though, but we'll burn it down before we let her have it!" The boys cheered again, but Duchess was struck by a sudden thought. Zachary had lived in the Deeps a long time, and since Hector's shop stood right on the border of that district, he might know something of value that would help with this mission she had undertaken. The lightboys always knew more than you expected, and as the leader of the Bells, Zachary would likely know even more than that.

  "Zachary," she said over the ends of the laughter, "a word, if you don't mind?" She glanced at the other boys and sipped her ale.

  Zachary was young, but he took her meaning well enough. "I'll meet you in the Plaza," he told the others, jerking his head towards the door. "Get going." The boys finished their drinks quietly and departed, and Duchess was once again impressed at Zachary's control over the group.

  When they were alone she said, "There's a man on the south end of the Shallows who keeps a pawn shop. Hector, his name is. Do you know him?"

  Zachary laughed. "Old Dry-As-Dust? I know him. Hells, I was running messages for him last summer."

  "Messages to whom?"

  "King Ivan."

  Her breath caught. "Ivan Gallius?"

  He frowned. "That might be the name, but it were so long ago," he mused, looking up at Duchess through the tangle of his hair. He tapped his empty mug significantly. She rolled her eyes and signaled to Shari for more ale. Zachary sat in silence until it arrived, and she was forced to admire his grit.

  Once he was served, Zachary went on. "Don't know if this Ivan and the one you said are one and the same – big fella down Wharves way, right? Ran an import company out of a warehouse?" He was drawing it out, Duchess knew, but she was reluctant to rush him when he might have useful information. She nodded and motioned for him to go on. "Now that I think on it, Gallius does sound right. Had it on a big sign by the door. Everyone 'round there only knew the man as Kin
g Ivan, though I never heard him called that to his face. Hector and he were thick as thieves last summer, and I made a pile of pennies running from one to the other. They never thought I could read so they didn't even seal the letters, so..."

  "...you got an eyeful," Duchess finished, blessing Lysander for teaching the boy the read. She pointed at his cup. "If you can remember what those letters said there's another of those for you tonight."

  The boy puffed up, pleased to have gotten her attention and eager for more ale. "I can do you one better. I know all about what went on between the two of them, from beginning to end." He pointed at her with his cup. "As a matter of fact, I might be the only one who knows the whole story." He was laying it on thick now, and she gave him a look. Zachary blushed, coughed into his ale, and went on. "For true, though. I'd been working for Hector for awhile. He had me running all across Shallows and Market and Wharves and Trades with replies coming back for every single one. He never thought a lightboy could read, and sometimes he left the letters unsealed; so I read 'em. Lysander was still teaching me so I didn't understand all of it, but I understood enough.

  "Hector was the kind who always knew how to find the right person for whatever you needed. Had his fingers in a lot of pies, that one did, and all of them were less than white, if you take my meaning. He knew who to go to if you needed a lock picked, or a blackarm bribed, stuff like that. He usually didn't name names, though, which I guess is what you do when you write notes. Anyway, what did I care so long as the coin kept coming?

  "Then, as I was saying, last summer things started getting more serious down Ivan's way. I'd carried a note or two down there for Hector, but all of a sudden they had me running back and forth so much I had to send out some of the Bells sometimes just to keep up. None of them can read, though, which meant I didn't always know what was in the notes. Then Ivan started using me for his own, mostly to and from Market. Ivan paid better, so I shifted off Hector's stuff and took most of his for myself."

  "So if Hector's letters were about people who could get things done, what were Ivan's?"

  "They were usually about stuff that came in on ships, stuff he'd say were dropped or lost, but I think he meant something else." He took a long swig and grinned. "And not just things from the harbor, but wagons in from the Territories, or the Duchies...he knew about all of it, and was making more money than you'd think. From those notes I learned the letters for florin faster than copper, I'll tell you that."

  Duchess considered this. Zachary was no doubt filling in the gaps with inventions of his own, but on the surface the story made sense. A perfect match: Hector on the Grey, with invaluable contacts and information, and Eusbius with his shipping concern, smuggling items to and from the city. One to find the goods, the other to find the buyers, with each making a pretty penny off the partnership. "But something went wrong." It was not a question.

  Zachary smiled into his cup. "It always does, don't it?" He shrugged. "Don't know if Hector saw it coming, but I sure did. King Ivan must have been planning it for a while, because the letters started coming back thick from Market with the promises of coin just getting higher and higher. As time went on Ivan's notes started reading a lot more like Hector's: same words, same kind of information. But I knew something was really up when two things happened.

  "First, one of my boys started complaining about Hector's work. Said the notes had fallen off and there weren't no more responses most times to earn a coin on the way back. He told me it wasn't worth it to run for Hector any more. So I gave the job to one of the littler ones.

  "The other was where King Ivan's letters were taking me now. They started being a lot harder to understand, if you take my meaning, with no more talk of lost shipments. I didn't even understand half the words most of the time. And they all started going to and from one place in Market."

  "Where?"

  "That was the thing; they weren't going to someone from Market but in Market. That's what made me know something was up. It were one of the 'Siders, if you can believe it. He'd meet me at the same place every time, in the market past the wall and the scholar's stalls. He'd give me my coin, then wait for me to leave. I tried to follow him once or twice, even tried having the Bells keep an eye out, but the market's the easiest place in the city to get lost. Besides, if we got caught following there might be no more letters and no more coin, so I let it go." He drank from his cup and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. No good asking if Zachary had ever thought to ask that lightboy who he worked for; the Bells would starve before begging even a crust of bread from an Outsider.

  This was more interesting – and more troubling – than Duchess had anticipated. Whoever was getting those last messages from Gallius had enough coin to set up chains of lightboy runners, and was worried enough about being connected to Ivan to go to the trouble. That someone was also wise enough to know the Bells and the 'Siders hated each other like fire and would never get together to share information. And that someone was powerful enough to be a patron for Ivan Gallius.

  "And that's all you knew?"

  Zachary nodded. "That, and King Ivan got himself very happy all of a sudden, and the purses he handed out got fatter. He was a regular cat in cream, and so was I...for a while anyway."

  "And then?"

  "And then they just stopped. I guess something big went down, because suddenly there was no more word from Hector and no more letters from Ivan up to Market. That meant a lot of out of work 'Siders with nothing better to do than to cause problems for the Bells." She could see the shape of it: Hector using his connections with the Grey to find buyers and sellers for the goods Gallius smuggled, with Gallius making his own connections where he could but always dependent on Hector. Enter someone from Market with an interest in pushing Gallius ahead, at Hector's loss, and so Ivan makes his move, and takes over the whole operation.

  This was it, then, the backstabbing that had given Ivan Gallius the money and position to eventually purchase himself an estate and a title, leaving Hector out in the fog, with the Grey fruning to every corner of the city that Ivan Gallius had gotten the better of him. No wonder he was so angry. Peevish and unpleasant as he was, it seemed he did indeed owe Ivan Gallius a bitter payment for that betrayal.

  Which is where Duchess came in. The next day she would venture into the house Ivan Gallius – now Eusbius – had purchased with the money Hector saw as his. She was a tile of Hector's, whom Minette implied was a tile in someone else's hand, taking revenge on Eusbius whom, it now seemed, had himself been used by a greater player who loomed over it all. Cat's-paws all around, she thought, shaking her head.

  She was sick of worrying. By this time tomorrow, she would either have revenged Hector on his old business partner, or be in the hands of the blackarms or, worse, the Brutes. She could play tiles as well as anyone; let the game begin.

  She set aside her cup and signaled Shari for another mug of ale. "Zachary, you'll probably walk out of here so drunk you'll fall down and crack your skull, but you've earned your ale tonight."

  "Why all the questions about Hector and King Ivan?" asked Zachary as she made to leave. "What're you up to?"

  She was about to say it was none of his business when to her surprise she saw genuine concern etched on his features.

  "Something very unwise," she found herself saying. "But when you're in the harbor up to your neck, there's nothing to do but swim." With that she took her leave, heading out into the evening fog, suppressing a shiver that she told herself was due entirely to the chill.

  Chapter Ten:

  The job before the job

  The next morning found her at Beggar's Gate with little more than the clothes on her back and a green ribbon in her hair, a gift from Minette. The fog had not yet reached the plaza but Duchess felt chilled all the same; this day would determine whether she would stay the bread girl of the Shallows or become the Grey's newest member. The beggars were already trudging in a single file between the guards, and to the side was the usual gaggle of
girls, ranging in age from ten to twenty, waiting for work. The gate guards watched with lecherous interest, and Duchess noted that Burrell was not among them; in fact, neither looked familiar. Minette's work, she realized with wry admiration. If Eusbius' men should come around looking for the girl who made off with their master's dagger, none of the guards would be able to identify Duchess by name. She made a mental note to buy Minette a bottle of wine, assuming she survived the party. And that she actually made off with the dagger.

  Which begged the question of why Minette was helping her at all. The Vermillion's mistress was not known for her charity, and yet she'd made these arrangements for Duchess without even a mention of compensation. Minette had always been openhanded with wine and gossip, true, and Duchess had enjoyed the Vermillion's baths and laundry facilities on more than one occasion, but this generosity seemed beyond the pale. Minette had gone out of her way to mention Hector, and had specifically spoken of Eusbius. It seemed she had at least an inkling of what Duchess might be up to. And yet she could not fathom a reason why Minette would wish to involve herself in this game of vengeance.

  Perhaps the answer lay in Zachary's story, and in whoever sponsored Eusbius' rise to power at Hector's expense. She and Minette had spoken of investments, of knowing where to put one's resources. Minette was always one to think three moves ahead, and most likely she was moving pieces of her own in a game even more shadowy than Hector's. Duchess wasn't sure whether that was good or bad.

  Still, it would not do to fret over endless possibilities. Someone was always playing a game in Rodaas, and she needed to concentrate on the pieces before her. For that she needed Minette's help, and no amount of worrying would change that.

  The girls were whispering amongst themselves, and they eyed her as she approached. She recognized some by sight but none by name, which was not surprising. The Shallows were home to a great many people; her father had once told her that an imperial census had estimated that a half-million souls lived in Rodaas. If only one quarter of those were of the Shallows...well, that meant a great many girls Duchess' age. She'd been worried that at least one of them might recognize her from her years pushing the bread cart, but no one spared her a second glance. Perhaps that was because they weren't expecting to see her waiting around at Beggar's Gate. "People see what they expect to see," Minette was fond of saying, "and a face that looks familiar in the bedroom might go unrecognized in a wine cellar." Perhaps that was how Minette's girls were able to pick up so much information even when they were not at the Vermillion.