Dirt

by CC Hogan

  Chapter 2 – A Policeman’s Lot

  The morning was grey and sultry. Farthing stuck an experimental foot out from under his throw. Nights could be cold in Redust and burying under a pile of old clothes and the harsh, woven blankets the country people made was the best way of keeping warm. The foot was followed by a hand and then a cautious knee, and eventually, two eyes, bleary with sleep appeared above a red and amber, woven pattern of a cow. Farthing groaned as the ongoing problem of Truk’s hole pushed its way into his consciousness. Geezen would be looking out for him and he would be mad to be late.

  Shaking off the worst of the night spent on the hard palette, Farthing pushed himself upright and stuck his head out of the window, trying to gauge the time through the clouds. The effort was worthy of an expletive or two, but they were lost in the general fog of expletives that hung over the town at all hours. It was early enough, he guessed, and he threw on his work clothes, the tough, unforgiving woven pants and shirt that many wore, then stood his palette on its end and stored the bedding; there was not enough room to leave it all on the floor. He poured himself some morning-chilled water from the covered, terracotta jug, sat down at the tiny table and dunked a couple of the tough biscuits that were a common breakfast in Redust. Made from oats, salt, and sugar cane, they were baked hard, would last for months and were inedible unless dunked. They may have contributed to the general toothlessness in the poorer population, but they were cheap.

  The apartment had two rooms and a small store. The main room was kitchen, washroom, dining room, living room and his bedroom all rolled into one, despite being only three paces across. The other room was his old parents’ room and his sister used it now. They kept all their clothes in there too, together with blankets, spare floor rugs, cushions and so on. The tiny store was the coolest room in the house, facing north as it did, and they kept their meagre provisions and cooking pots there, plus the odd tool for cleaning. It occurred to Farthing that it was his turn to sweep out since Rusty had done it last time. Talking of which, where was she? He shook his head to exile the last wisps of the night and looked around the room. Rusty was normally awake by now and her door was half open. He peeked in, but she was definitely not there. Maybe she had gone in early? The bed looked unslept in, as much as a pile of rugs could look like anything apart from a pile of rugs. Barkles had said there were problems at the Burh and something had been happening on the island the day before. On a hunch, Farthing lifted the lid off the storage pot; her dinner was untouched. That could only mean she had not come home the night before. That sometimes happened, especially if there was some big event going on as the ferrymen would not navigate to and from the island in the dark if the tides were wrong, but it was rare. Well, if she had, she wouldn’t be back until nightfall, so there was nothing he could do now.

  Fennerpop shot past going downhill with his cart at speed as Farthing unlocked his own from the side alley.

  “Morning!” shouted Farthing.

  “Can’t stop!” shouted Fennerpop accurately over his shoulder with a grin.

  “So I noticed,” Farthing said, more or less to himself. Fennerpop and cart bounced off the corner of a building and careered down one of the side lanes. “You are going to have to stop shifting dirt before you kill yourself, old man.”

  “Oh, he’s got time in him yet, lad,” said the large man, huffing and puffing his way up the hill again.

  “Maybe, but I am not sure his cart has,” Farthing answered. It was the friendly man from the day before. Farthing had no idea who he was, so slung his strap around his shoulders and let the cart go first down the hill. Getting run over by your own cart was embarrassing and possibly fatal, so this was the better way of getting down to The Skattlings. At the bottom of Long Hill, the main route through the Wealle, Farthing hesitated. He was half considering heading down to the docks and then along to the ferry to the island, but he wasn’t sure why. For some reason, he was worried about his younger sister. He was often worried about her, of course, but that was just an annoying older brother thing, as she pointed out regularly. Today was different, somehow. Something was gnawing at his brain. He shrugged it off and turned right down towards Thanks, noting briefly the now closed window behind which Sally was no doubt storing her Virtues after a busy night’s work.

  Farthing made his way through the waking town, the shopkeepers of the poor neighbourhood doing their decorative best with what goods they sold from racks and shelves and hooks outside their small, single-roomed shops. The artisans, scribes, alchemists and apothecaries setting out their work under awnings; nailing shoes, rolling out flatbreads, brewing potions and tonics. The stable boys sweeping out the muck of man and beast from behind the inns and liveries, the women hanging out rugs from the edges of flat roofs and beating out blankets on lines. And through it all Farthing and countless other men and women of all ages pulled and shoved and hauled handcarts, trolleys and barrows as the business of the town beat on in a timeless and familiar rhythm.

  By the time he reached his hole, Farthing was convinced something was wrong.

  “You are looking sick this morning, you lazy git,” Barkles sneered from behind his stall, decorated with a new day’s supply of pastries. “Can’t you handle even the mildest wheat beer, son?” Barkles braced himself for the usual set of cocky retorts, but none was forthcoming. He frowned. “Trouble, lad?” he asked in a serious voice.

  “Don’t know. Rusty didn’t come home last night from the island.” Farthing rested his cart by the wall of Truk’s house and leant against a small tree by the well.

  “She sometimes stays over; they get asked to. Could it be that?” Barkles asked.

  “Might be,” Farthing said, shrugging and looking down at his feet.

  “But you don’t think so.” Barkles studied Farthing carefully. The two kids had had a rough life, like too many others up on the Wealle, but despite the hard grind, Johnson was a cheery lad most days and pretty much optimistic about life, when he wasn’t digging holes. Quiet worry was not his style.

  “No, I don’t. Something feels wrong. Something about what you were saying last night.”

  Barkles was tempted to just dismiss Farthing’s worries as big brother stuff, but that wouldn’t help. He marched over to the door in the wall and gave it a hard wrap. “Come on lad, let’s tell Geezen what ails you.” The door opened and Barkles asked Moppy the maid to fetch the portly midwife. Farthing looked guilty.

  “It's probably nothing, Barkles. I don’t want to get Geezen worried over nothing,” he said. In Redust, the blurred space between childhood and adulthood starts at ten when most begin working and ends in the early twenties when most get kicked out of home. At nineteen, especially for boys, swerving from one state to the other was common, and at this moment, Johnson Farthing looked and sounded more the boy than the tall, strong man.

  “Getting Geezen worried over what?” The big woman came to the door, her arms crossed. “Morning, Mr Barkles. Was that your wrapping hand I heard?”

  “It was. Seems young Rustina didn’t make it home from the island last night and the lad is worried.”

  Geezen’s expression changed swiftly. “She said nothing, Johnson?”

  “No, I was expecting her home and left her food when I went out last night. She is sometimes late and I didn’t think much over it, but she wasn’t there this morning.”

  “Didn’t leave early?” the midwife asked.

  Farthing shook his head. “Her dinner wasn’t eaten, and she wouldn’t go without her dinner.”

  Geezen understood. When you were terribly poor, you never got lazy about eating; you couldn’t be sure when you might next have food. At least, that had always been her excuse.

  “Hetty said there was some trouble with the Prelate’s daughter, something about her going missing,” Barkles said quietly to Geezen. Geezen looked at the worried young man.

  “Come on, about time that well
had a go at digging itself. You and I are going to the Island.” She grabbed Farthing by the hand. “Barkles, is Hetty at the island today?”

  “No, she has just finished a pile of cushions for them. She is at home working on some market jobs.”

  “When you go back for your lunch, see if she knows anything more.”

  Barkles always went home at lunchtime to collect fresh pies for the afternoon. He watched Geezen drag the tall, blonde, strong young man up the lane and smiled. Geezen was a treasure, which was why Truk spent so much time away. “You can’t spend all day staring at treasure,” he would say. “You have to go out and earn it too.” Barkles grabbed Farthing’s cart and told Moppy to open the side doors so he could store it inside the backyard, then went back to his stall and cleared his throat to start selling.

  Geezen and Farthing made their way from Thanks, around the back of The Hive and to the ferry on the Wead. There were two sets of ferries across the broad, red-tinted river. Down at the river docks at The Skattlings was the main good’s ferry, a rope-pulled barge which spent its day traversing the river south to north and back again, filled with goods, perishing perishables, and arguing traders. The other ferry, the older, smaller one, was nearer the old fishing harbours and had a triangular route that took in the north bank, the south bank and the Prelate’s island.

  “We can’t just go to the Burh with no excuse, Geezen,” Farthing said. It was a standing joke that everyone was welcome at the door of Prelate Hearting, but only when he said you were welcome.

  “There are three people we need to see, Johnson,” Geezen explained. “The ferryman, the chief of police and the Prelate. And I have smacked all three.”

  “You smacked the Prelate? Geezen, he is too old!”

  “I smacked him when his daughter was born to make him see sense.”

  Gorestop Hearting, Prelate of Redust, lost his wife the day his daughter was born. It was a poorly kept secret that in a fit of fury he had ordered the guards to take the child and get rid of her. Geezen, there as a midwife, had stopped the moment of insanity, but the relationship between father and daughter had ever since been a fractured and guilty thing, and the Prelate had changed from just being a stupid ruler to an uncaring and unscrupulous one.

  They had to wait a good half an hour before one of the ferry boats slipped-slopped its way from the north shore and, with a thump and clunk, birthed against the pier.

  “Northbound, northbound only!” the ferryman shouted. Geezen stomped on board dragging Farthing.

  “Straight to the island, Jacob,” she said with finality.

  “I said northbound only!” protested the ferryman.

  “Jacob Pissgiven!” Geezen said in a voice that smacked him like a child. “If you suck your cheeks in any further, your face will cave in. Now you and the boys get to the oars and row us to the island. This is an emergency.”

  “But…” the man whimpered.

  “Just row or I will throw you into the nearest quicksands and shout at the boys for you.”

  Pissgiven sighed and turned to the puzzled boys who manned the oars.

  “Turn the ferry around and let’s get to the island before she sinks us,” he said with a tired sigh.

  “Less of that tone, little Jacob,” warned Geezen.

  “And smile as you row lads, for the beautiful lady,” he added with a large, toothless, fake grin that fooled no one. Geezen, however, smiled with satisfaction and sat herself down on the bait box; the ferrymen liked to do a spot of line fishing on quiet days.

  The currents around the island were governed by the long tide and were notoriously difficult to navigate. But there was a line the ferrymen took that made the journey surprisingly easy. Get it wrong and you could be dragged upriver, or sucked out to sea, or finish perched on the nearest sandbank with half the town laughing at you. It had happened several times. The ferry, which was a long, wide, but shallow craft, was pulled by eight oarsmen and guided with some skill by the ferryman on the tiller. All eight only rowed when fighting against the tide, and some rested when not all oars were needed. The oarsmen instinctively knew whose turn it was to rest and would put up their oars straight in the air on a single “up” command from Pissgiven. There was no messing around, it was well rehearsed. The ferry could take up to eight passengers plus assorted small cargo, but thanks to Geezen, this trip only had them on board, so moved at a pretty pace.

  At the pier on the island, two dockers waited with mooring lines. No lines were kept on the ferry as this would require oarsmen to down oars to throw the ropes, so it was done the other way around. As Pissgiven navigated the craft sideways to the pier, the oarsmen on that side lifted their oars straight up out of the way while those on the seaward side moved their oars in small circles to help move the boat in. The dockers neatly lassoed the fore and aft cleats and pulled the boat the last couple of feet on to the coiled rope fenders. It took seconds to do and the dockers had a plank out and ready before the boat had even stopped rocking.

  “Thank you, Jacob,” Geezen said with a tolerant smile, and strode delicately across the plank, taking an unnecessary hand from a fearful docker. “I will tell your dear mother how helpful you were.”

  “A pleasure, Geezen,” Pissgiven said with obvious agony. “Right, push us straight off lads and head to the north terminal, double time!” He was one journey behind schedule and he was not going to hang around to make it worse. People paid for him to be on time, which was more than Geezen, who somehow had contrived to not pay at all.

  “One down, now to the next person on our list.” Geezen might be a large woman, but she was fast on her feet when the situation required, and she soldiered up to the parade ground.

  “Will the chief of police be here?” Farthing had as little to do with the police as possible, the Redustian Peacemen as they were officially known. The police were based in North Wead by the river docks, but the barracks was further up the river. There was only a small office in South Wead and the Peacemen there were as likely to barricade themselves in as do anything useful.

  “Captain De Pepperpot never misses the chance to sample the Prelate’s cellar, Johnson, so if something has happened to the daughter, he will stay till either the crime is solved or the cellar is empty.” Geezen walked straight past a sentry at the gate and shouted at a small man who was talking to a couple of uniformed Peacemen.

  “Panzy, I need a word!”

  The man visibly winced, and Farthing made out the words “Oh, shit; Geezen,” mimed out on his lips.

  “That’s Captain Panzy, I mean De Pepperpot, Mistress Geezen and I am on duty.”

  “That is where I want you to be, Panzy lad,” the large woman bellowed as she pushed the two bemused Peacemen off on their way. “Now, what has happened?”

  “That is the concern of the Prelate, Mistress Geezen, I am afraid.”

  “And so you should be,” Geezen said, the threat as plain as a tree in a desert. “Has a maid gone missing?” De Pepperpot rolled his eyes skywards towards a god in which he had long since ceased believing. The speed news travelled in this cesspit never failed to amaze him.

  “Not that it is any of your business, Geezen,” he said, his formality wavering.

  “If her name is Farthing, it is very much my business.”

  “Why?” the captain asked suspiciously.

  “First, she is one of mine, and you know what that means. And second, this is her brother, Johnson Farthing.” Farthing was considerably taller and more muscular than the small captain and he stood straighter just to make the point.

  “Relax, Johnson. Panzy here is a nice fellow when he remembers to remove the Captain’s braid from his demeanour.”

  The Captain pulled them aside. “The thing is, Geezen, Farthing, we don’t know what has happened. The Prelate’s daughter has gone missing and your sister with her. There was no sign of a struggle and all we know is that the Prelate and his daughter had a big fight a cou
ple of weeks ago and haven’t been talking. For all we know, the daughter has run off and taken your sister with her for some reason.”

  “My sister would not just go,” Farthing said, angrily. “She is only seventeen and is not flighty.”

  Geezen agreed. “That is true, Panzy. Rusty is a reliable girl and just a general maid.”

  “That she may be,” the Captain said. “But if ordered to go by the Prelate’s daughter, she may have had little choice.” Farthing looked unimpressed. “Son, we have no idea what has happened and the Prelate isn’t even ordering an investigation; he thinks she has run off. She has done this before and he is in no mood to go chasing his wayward child.”

  “But what if it is more than that?”

  “If it is, I will look into it, but the daughter is my first consideration. Go home and get on with your life. She will probably turn up in a year or two or not. Either way, there is nothing you can do here.”

  Farthing looked like he was about to strike the Captain, but Geezen put a strong hand on his arm. “Panzy, you know better than to deal with people like that. Now, we need to speak to the Prelate.”

  “Forget it, Geezen, he hasn’t been speaking to anyone.”

  “He will speak to me.”

  “Well, if you want to try, go and bang on his secretary’s door, but the lad stays here.” The Captain waved over four of his Peacemen. “You two, take this lady to the secretary’s office. You two, watch this lad.” He turned to Farthing. “There is nothing I can do for you, son, however angry you are. You are going to have to accept that.” And with that, de Pepperpot bowed curtly to Geezen and walked stiffly away to talk to more of his men.

  “Stay here, Johnson,” Geezen said. “This will take a little time.” She marched off up the cobbled road to the Prelate’s Palace, the two Peacemen racing to catch up. Farthing sat on the low wall that bordered the large plaza. The two Peacemen detailed to watch him stiffened.

  “I am not going anywhere,” he said. “Do you know what has happened?” The Peacemen stood either side of him and said nothing. “No, you probably don’t either,” Farthing said in resignation.

  “Percy, unless you want your bottom spanked for the second time in your life, you will step out of the way and let me through that door!”

  “He has said that nobody is to be let through.”

  “I am not nobody, I am Geezen and he owes me.”

  Percy Bellobottom sighed and sat down behind the desk hard enough to make his old, comfortable chair creek in annoyance.

  “Go ahead, spoil my day, Geezen, but if I hear even one shouted word, I will resign on the spot, walk out of here and you are on your own, and let the best man win!”

  Geezen glowered at the sarcasm behind the secretary’s words and marched up to the door. Unexpectedly, she stopped herself from walking straight into the private office and knocked instead, very gently.

  “What?” came a shout.

  “I am pretty sure he just said, ‘come in Geezen, just the person I needed to see!’” Geezen smiled and winked at Percy Bellobottom, and then thundered into the office like a heard of rathen, slamming the door behind her. “Gorestop Hearting, you better have something intelligent to say or I will lay you out on the floor for the second time!”

  Percy Bellobottom sighed, took out a sheet of paper from a drawer, inked his quill and started to write.

  “Dear Prelate Hearting,” he began.

  “Well?” Farthing called out to Geezen Truk as she returned to the plaza followed by her two scared guardians. Although she was strong, Geezen wasn’t young and she was very large. When she approached, she was red in the face and Farthing helped her to sit down on the wall.

  “That man is an idiot!” she blurted. Farthing shut his eyes. He knew she was talking about the Prelate, and even in Redust, which was much less conservative than many other Prelatehoods, and suffered a Prelate who really didn’t give a damn for nine out of ten of the population, you still did not call the Prelate an idiot. The two Peacemen who had accompanied Geezen, had called over Farthing’s two protectors to tell them the news.

  “Yes, the secretary is looking after him,” Farthing overheard. “She knocked him flat on his back. No, he doesn’t want her arrested; said something about it being too dangerous…”

  “Geezen, what did you do?” Farthing asked in horror.

  “That silly man has not spoken a civil word to his daughter in weeks and hasn’t the foggiest what has happened to her. What is worse, I don’t think he cares!” Her breathing was not good and Farthing waited while she got her breath back.

  “So, what do we do?”

  “I spoke to one of the other maids on the way out. Your sister had been asked to help out in the daughter’s rooms as her usual maid was taken with some illness. That is the last anyone saw of either of them. There is even a rumour that Rusty was somehow involved in the disappearance.”

  “Geezen, that is mad!” Farthing was horrified.

  “I know it is, lad, and so does everyone else really, but they are too busy flapping their tongues in every direction.”

  “Geezen, I have been thinking about something I saw.” The woman looked at Farthing suspiciously. “Yesterday, when I was swimming, I saw a small boat sail out to sea from the back of the island. A trader’s daughter who was there said it was peculiar as it was against the tide. Was that them?”

  “I have no idea, Johnson,” Geezen said. “Maybe it’s connected, maybe it’s nothing, but whatever has happened, there is nothing left to be done here. We need to get back across to South Wead and you need a finder, probably from The Hive somewhere.”

  Farthing looked deflated. Finders were lesser magicians, some of whom could find missing items and a very few who could find missing people. All of them wanted paying and most of them were charlatans. Farthing had barely enough for old dried cheese. Geezen caught his look.

  “We can work out the money at another time. I am sure Truk has plenty of holes planned. Come on, let’s find a willing Ferryman. I think I am running out of favours today.” Geezen levered herself to her feet and, rubbing a suspiciously sore fist, headed to the pier.

  Weasel stared at the empty ale pot in front of him. He wasn’t very sure how just long he had been staring at it, but suspected that it had been empty for a considerable length of time and that he had been staring at it ever since it first had reached that unfortunate state.

  “Weasel, I don’t care how long you stare at it, I am not going to fill it till you pay for the last one.” The innkeeper was wiping out some rough clay mugs with a nasty looking cloth; about right for this sort of establishment, just one step above the gutter as it was.

  “Don’t worry, your bill will get paid. I just need a little luck!”

  “I am looking for someone called Weadle?” Farthing walked into the empty bar wondering whether Geezen had sent him on some mad frummage chase. The small, greasy-fleshed, flightless birds were disgusting to eat and only a fool would chase one.

  “It's Weasel!” corrected Weasel in annoyance. “Not Weadle! And I am over here.” The innkeeper pointed him out to Farthing with a shrug.

  “I need to…” started Farthing.

  “Before you need anything else, lad,” the wiry man said, grabbing Farthing’s arm, “you need to get a new one of these pots, but filled with ale, and then you can pay for that and the rest of my bar bill. Once you have done that, bought me three more and I have drunk them all, you can sit down and tell me why Geezen has sent you to get me.” Weasel went back to staring at the empty ale pot.

  “Is he always like that?” Farthing asked the innkeeper as he paid off the bar bill with the coin Geezen had given him.

  “Only when sober, so no, not often.”

  “How many of these does it take before he’s drunk?”

  “Two. Did Geezen really send you?”

  “Yes, you know her?” asked Farthing.

 
; The innkeeper rubbed his arse involuntarily. “Yeah. I am one of hers.”

  “Me too. What about him?”

  “No, he is from Tepid Lakes. Not even Geezen’s maw reaches that far.”

  “Is he really a finder?”

  “Says he is and he has found a couple of things. Seemed to know about you, so maybe he has got something. But you never really know, do you.”

  “No, you don’t,” Farthing said, gathering up the pots and lining them up in front of the finder. A skinny, dirty hand reached over and grasped the first pot, its mission firmly etched in its owner’s wishes.

  Weasel woke up with the distinct impression that someone was kicking him.

  “Wake up!” Farthing shouted, kicking Weasel again.

  He had made the mistake of trying to carry the drunk finder back up to Thanks, but the small man was surprisingly unhelpful; mostly unconscious, in fact. The day was going from bad to worse. His sister was missing, the authorities didn’t care, Geezen had knocked out the prelate, and now Farthing was stuck with this drunken charlatan. There were only a few magicians in The Prelates, and it was rare you found one. Generally speaking, they were seen as about as likeable as tax collectors, but far less convincing. Finders were known as Lesser Magicians, as were wishers, makers, speakers, rat finders, tasters, menders, healers and spirit talkers. It was probably all rubbish, but Farthing was running out of options, and Geezen seemed to think this filthy, drunken fool might be able to help.

  “Get up, you stinking pile of crap!” Farthing dragged a groaning Weasel into a sitting position. “I need you to find my sister.”

  “Why, what has she done?”

  “Gone missing, why else would I want to find her?”

  Weasel peered up at the tall, strong, young man towering over him. “What makes you think that I can help?”

  “I don’t,” Farthing said flatly. “But Geezen thinks you can.”

  “Oh, you are that person with a missing sister.” Weasel shook his head. It hurt. “How long have I been un… asleep?” he asked, carefully.

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “Oh, that is why I am sober again.”

  “You get sober in twenty minutes?”

  “No, I get sober in about ten minutes, I fall asleep for twenty.” Farthing looked both puzzled and annoyed. “It’s an occupational hazard,” explained Weasel. “Actually, it is nearly impossible for me to get drunk at all like I can’t be poisoned either, so I have had to teach myself to get drunk, to sober up, and to have a hangover. I suspect you get more fun out of it than I do.”

  Farthing gave up waiting and dragged the magician to his feet, staring right into the small man’s eyes with nothing less than pure venom.

  “Look, my sister has gone missing with the Prelate’s daughter. I think they have been taken out to sea in a boat, and no one is doing anything. Either you help me or I will give you to the Nuns of Temperance.”

  Weasel squinted up at his tormentor and sighed.

  “Okay, but let me sit down again. This will be hard.”