She Who Waits (Low Town 3)

by Daniel Polansky

  All the same, my sudden appearance was something of a shock to the assemblage. There would be no consequences for the murder of Christiaan, the hoax were not called that because of their high level of efficiency, and obviously his family wasn’t going to declare a blood feud. But no one likes being surprised mid-murder. One of the boys tensed up when he saw me, the one who’d done the deed itself, to judge by the freshly painted knife he was holding. The other made a quick move for his own piece of steel.

  Eddie was the only one who kept his cool – Eddie and me, I mean. ‘Christiaan seems to have had an accident,’ I said.

  The one with the knife laughed. Years later, when I had him killed in the street, I remembered that chuckle and felt good about myself.

  Edward didn’t laugh though. He leaned down till he was just about eye level, and took a slow look at me. ‘You got any notions of revenging him?’

  He had a half foot on me, would for a few more years. But I didn’t look away from no one, not then, not ever. ‘I don’t give two shits about Christiaan. He was a man who paid me. I don’t imagine he’ll be the last.’

  Eddie seemed to like that. He smiled and stood back to his full height. ‘You’re a smart boy,’ he said, and gave his men a quick head shake that meant I wouldn’t be following Christiaan into the next world. Then he waved at the front door. ‘You can see your own way out.’

  But I didn’t. ‘Your uncle owed me two copper, for carrying a message from the hoax.’ Actually, I’d already collected my pay from Christiaan, but I didn’t see any harm in collecting it twice.

  Eddie nodded towards the corpse on the chair, wide-eyed, a crimson semi-circle seeping into his shirt. ‘I don’t imagine he’ll be able to make good.’

  ‘It’s your set-up now, ain’t it? That means it’s your debt as well.’

  ‘Shut your fucking mouth kid, before you get it shut permanent.’ This from one of the hoods – not the one holding the knife, though I figured he had one on him somewhere.

  Eddie didn’t answer, just kept staring at me. After a pause he reached into his pocket and came out with an argent. I reached over to take it and he grabbed my arm. ‘Smart boy, like I said. You ever feel like moving up from this petty-ante bullshit you’ve been doing, come see me. We’ve always got work for smart boys.’

  He let go of my sleeve. I shoved the argent into my pocket and hoofed on out.

  I stopped running errands for the syndicates not long after that. I was getting to the age when people started to expect you to make a commitment, and even then the idea of having some trumped up choke pusher tell me where to walk wasn’t my cup of brew. Besides, at the time I’d had dreams of being more than another Low Town thug. The foolishness of youth, but there it was.

  Killing his uncle was only one step in Eddie’s positioning himself at the forefront of Low Town’s underworld. He was still a running dog for the Rouender interests, not much taken seriously in the city proper. But for the rest of his life he called the shots in Low Town, as much as anyone could claim to control the bedlam that reigned north of the bay and south of the Old City.

  In the months and years to come, the reign of Christiaan Theron would come to be seen as a halcyon period in Low Town, and false memories of his charity and benevolence would spring up every time Eddie raised rents or brutalized a bystander, both of which he did with unfortunate frequency. Eddie was something very close to an animal, as killing his uncle had been meant to showcase. It was just as well, really. I’m not one for nostalgia, and in truth I think I preferred Eddie to his uncle. Evil is best served without a patina of hypocrisy. The man mugging you doesn’t need to offer false sympathy.

  Despite his banter, despite his age, Christiaan didn’t understand Low Town. Nobody did, not like me. Because when Christiaan and Eddie and the rest of the city had taken shelter in the provinces, wetting their beds against the thought of the plague following them, I’d snuggled tight against her bosom. Fed from her effluvia, nested amidst her bones. Listened to her whispered secrets in the still hours of the night. The rest were summertime lovers, quick to show when times was easy and as hard to find when the day turned cold. Only I had stayed faithful to her.

  So I could have told Christiaan something about Low Town, could have told all of them. She is a hateful bitch – without loyalty, without affection, ever eager to turn against your hand. To possess her is to take a wolf to bed, and to forget that fact is to be lost.

  21

  I kept a bottle of whiskey in a closet in the back, near where Wren sleeps. It was ten years old when I was given it ten years back, partial payment from a distributor who’d decided liquor wasn’t enough for him, gotten pretty heavy into me for daevas honey. That night, after the trade had left and Adeline had gone to sleep, I pulled it out and cornered Adolphus at a back table he was cleaning.

  ‘I’ve had a thought,’ I told him, taking a seat and gesturing him down.

  He obliged me. ‘A rare occurrence,’ he said, his smile ugly but honest.

  ‘And one that deserves commemoration.’ I poured us each a few fingers.

  ‘Your health.’

  ‘Yours.’

  We clinked glasses.

  ‘By the Lost One, that’s good stuff,’ Adolphus said.

  ‘I’d hope so – I took it in exchange for like two ochres’ worth of ooze.’

  He sucked his teeth. ‘It’s not that good.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘This was from that guy who owned the distillery?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  What had happened to him? I chewed over lost memories. ‘I think he ended up offing himself.’

  Adolphus took a long look at the amber-colored liquid he was sipping. ‘That’s pretty terrible.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed, and gave us both another shot.

  The fire cracked and snapped in the corner. On the surface it was like a lot of other nights we’d had, hundreds, maybe thousands going back to when we’d opened the bar. There wouldn’t be many more like them. It’s only at the end of things that you come to any appreciation for what you’ve let slide by.

  ‘This thought,’ Adolphus began, ‘I don’t suppose it’s a happy one?’

  ‘Depends on whether or not you go along with it.’

  He finished off his end of the whiskey, wiggled his glass for more. I dutifully refilled it. ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

  ‘We’ve had a good run,’ I said.

  ‘That’s all you’ve got?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘We’ve had a good run,’ he repeated. ‘In the past tense.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what are we set to have now?’

  ‘A bad one,’ I said, and finished my own drink. ‘We’re getting ready to have a very bad one.’

  ‘Care to elaborate?’

  ‘I’ve gotten caught up in something.’

  ‘This is you elaborating?’

  ‘It’s still a little hazy – suffice to say things have gotten awfully knotted.’

  ‘You’ve unraveled them before.’

  ‘I’d be a fool to mistake luck for skill, and twice over for thinking it’ll last forever,’ I said. ‘You know that bum, sometimes see him begging for change around Crossed Street Market?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘He’s always screaming about how the world is gonna end? Sometimes holds a sign up to that effect?’

  ‘Oh, that one. Sure, I know him.’

  ‘I guess you don’t pay him much attention.’

  ‘Not really,’ Adolphus said, with an exaggerated show of patience. ‘Because he’s a bum holding a placard saying the world is gonna end.’

  ‘Understandably – he’s always been wrong before.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  I set my hand on his, both gnarled, both wrinkled, one twice the size of the other. ‘But he won’t always be wrong. You wait around long enough, you’ll wake up to see everything turned to ash.’

 
‘This is all a little abstract.’

  ‘You want me to put it simple?’

  ‘We ain’t all so sharp as you.’

  ‘I think the Empire is on its last legs. I think Queen Bess was the last thing holding us together. Sure, she was nothing but an inbred hag eating off solid gold saucers while the rest of us scraped for dinner – but she’d been around so long we’d all grown attached. With her dead, the fissures are bound to start showing. There isn’t enough of everything for everyone that wants it, and ain’t nobody interested in sharing.’

  ‘This sense of impending doom,’ he said, ‘it have anything to do with that Step you met up with?’

  ‘In part.’

  ‘What’s the other?’

  ‘Black House.’

  ‘How long they gonna have you on a chain?’ he asked, shaking his head in sympathy. Despite everything we’d seen, there was still some part of Adolphus that was disappointed the powers that be weren’t honest.

  ‘Until the day I die, obviously. Though in fairness to the Old Man, I sort of … volunteered for this one.’

  ‘You haven’t volunteered for anything since you joined the army, and you’ve been complaining about that ever since. What possibly prompted you to work for Black House?’

  He deserved to know the truth. I wouldn’t tell him the truth, of course, but he deserved to know it. ‘Albertine’s back in Rigus.’ It near choked me coming out.

  He put a hand the size of my chest to a brow the size of my hand. ‘Śakra’s swinging cock, how long you gonna hold a torch? She’s poison.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She’s wyrm.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You don’t truck with wyrm. It’s kind of your thing, as I remember.’ That was one thing about Adolphus – he could backhand you, but still cut it with sugar.

  ‘I don’t have any notions of reunion.’

  ‘Then what’s the point?’

  That was a very good question. I really ought to have had an answer, at least one to give myself. Adolphus was kind enough not to push me on it.

  ‘It’s not about her,’ I said finally. ‘And it isn’t even about me. We’re heading towards a cliff, all of us, the city, the whole fucking Empire. A month, three, maybe six at the outside. But when it comes, it’s going to make the red fever look like tummy ache.’

  ‘You’re talking about civil war?’ He seemed faintly incredulous. Even the best of us don’t like to look at what’s in front of them. ‘Between Black House and the Steps?’

  ‘The Steps are a symptom of the rot – they aren’t the cause. What’s left propping up the edifice? Nationalism? That burned out in the war. Religion? Lip service aside, nobody important ever took the daevas serious, and that’s unlikely to change. Money is the glue that’s been holding us together. So long as the man on the street could afford a new coat, a new bed, a new house, he wasn’t much concerned with what had to happen for him to get them. You turn off the spigot, you see how quick he gets to counting his rights. And the well has run dry, my friend – we’ve gorged ourselves on the wealth of the colonies and reparations from the Dren for fifteen years, but that’s done with. People get angry when they can’t buy new shit, and they start looking around for things to break, and listening to anyone who gives them a decent excuse to do so.’

  ‘It’s not the first time that Black House crushed a revolt.’

  What Adolphus had failed to mention was that he’d been a part of the last rebellion, and paid dearly for it. I, of course, saw no percentage in pointing out his oversight. ‘The Old Man isn’t infallible. Don’t no one retire from life undefeated.’

  ‘You think the Sons will win?’

  ‘I think we’ll lose.’

  Adolphus settled back into his chair, the wood groaning uneasily at his bulk. He’d pushed aside his glass and moved straight to the bottle. I didn’t say anything, but it hurt my heart to see him absent-mindedly putting away whiskey that had cost me a full jar of daevas honey.

  ‘Where do we go?’

  ‘The Free Cities. The Empire doesn’t have much pull over there, and they’ll have less by the time things settle.’

  ‘Won’t be cheap, setting up a new life.’

  ‘I’ve got enough stashed away to take care of us for a while. It won’t be easy, but …’

  ‘Ain’t never been,’ Adolphus answered, then brought the neck of the bottle up to his lips, choking down the dregs. ‘When do we move?’

  ‘As soon as possible. This week, the next at the very latest.’

  He shook his head. ‘That’s impossible – there’s no way in hell I can sell the bar that fast, not at any sort of a price.’

  ‘You won’t be selling the bar. You won’t be packing a bag, or telling a soul you’ll be going. You won’t be doing anything that would deviate from routine. Neither will Wren, or Adeline. Neither will I.’

  ‘I’ve got a life here,’ Adolphus protested. ‘Customers, suppliers. I can’t just disappear.’

  ‘Everyone that matters will be coming with us.’

  Adolphus is well liked because he likes well, because he’s garrulous, and openhearted. Near twenty years behind the counter at the Earl, he’d raised a small army of well-wishers and half-friends. I’d been in the city twice as long, and could count my intimates on two hands with my thumbs down.

  ‘Believe me – they’ll have more to worry about than the whereabouts of their favorite publican. The way things are going, they’ll have a lot more to worry about. We wait around much longer and so will we.’

  He thought this over for a while, then shrugged uncomfortable agreement. ‘We’ll need something to tide us through – pay our way out, set us up once we get there. I figured what we’d make off selling the Earl would be that. As it is, my hoard isn’t exactly what you’d call vast. I don’t fancy the idea of making it to the Free Cities and starting over as a fucking beggar.’

  ‘This should cover our initial expenses.’ I dropped the note I’d gotten from Egmont onto the table. Adolphus picked it up and whistled. ‘What are you doing for the Sons of Śakra that’s worth five hundred ochres?’

  ‘Betrayal.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’

  22

  Wren slept in the back, on a bed by the fire that Adeline built for him every night and dutifully removed each morning. It was the warmest spot in the bar, and the most comfortable – a distinct cut above the small room I occupied on the second floor, which was drafty, cramped and had the tendency to leak rainwater onto my forehead. On the other hand, it afforded the boy little in the way of privacy, or protection from passersby. He’d come to adopt the sleeping habits of a wintering bear; without forcible interruption his repose often extended well into the center of the day.

  Which is a very long way of explaining that I had to put a boot into his side to wake him, and even then it took a solid forty-five seconds for him to blink into consciousness.

  ‘What was that for?’ he said finally, shoving my toes out of his armpit.

  ‘I’m a mild sadist,’ I said.

  ‘Mild?’

  I thought that was pretty cute given that he was still wiping sleep out of his eyes. ‘Get dressed. We’re going for a walk.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Not to catch the early worm, I can tell you that much.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re going to see Yancey,’ I said. ‘So put on some fucking pants.’

  He nodded and waved me off – indeed seemed by all outward signs to be rousing himself to full attention. All the same, I spent another half hour sipping black coffee and scowling before he finally managed to make an appearance. And even then he was moving at something less than half-speed, yawning and scratching himself.

  When Wren had joined our little commune, six years prior, it had taken three months to convince him to spend the night beneath our roof. For a long time after that he’d snap awake any time anyone passed by, wary of letting
sleep get too firm a hold on him. I looked at the well-fed youth in front of me, trying to make out the ghost of the wild thing he’d been. There wasn’t much. A certain sharpness in the eyes, a speed of hand you rarely saw amongst the settled. But by and large he’d been pretty well domesticated.

  For some reason that thought made me angry. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ten? Eleven?’

  ‘Twelve.’

  ‘If you knew the answer, why’d you bother to ask?’

  ‘A lot of things happened, during the first half of the day.’

  ‘Do tell.’

  ‘Adeline was eaten by a passing gang of cannibals. A giant eagle came for Adolphus, swooped down from the sky and carried him back to the nest. A cadre of courtesans slipped by looking to pleasure you, but they left when they found you asleep.’

  ‘Sounds like a busy morning.’

  ‘How the hell would you know? The building could have burned down around your ears, you’d have woken up in the next world, paying for your sins.’

  ‘Good thing I’ve led a life of such firm moral rectitude.’

  I stretched my shirt down off my shoulder, revealing a patch of mottled pink skin, the scar long faded but still unpleasantly visible. ‘You see this?’

  He leaned over to inspect it. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘One night, a long time ago, when I was a little younger than you, I found my hands on a bottle of rotgut. I guess I hadn’t had much experience with liquor by that point, because evening found me passed out beneath the Mast bridge.’

  He chuckled.

  ‘A couple of the neighborhood fiends stumbled through, hopped up on choke, saw where I’d laid my head. Decided to have some fun.’ I pulled my shirt back up.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  I didn’t answer for a while. ‘I suffered, Wren. I suffered.’

  Now it was his turn to be silent. Not for long of course – you’d need to stuff a rag in his mouth to keep him quiet for more than half a minute. ‘I don’t imagine anyone’s going to knife me in the back room of the Staggering Earl,’ he said, as if to close the conversation.