One Man

by Harry Connolly

  The stewed fruit was delicious, as expected, but it was the bread that surprised Tin. It was the chewiest, freshest bread she’d ever had. “Wow. Delicious. Your wife is right. People die every day. But killing your heir wouldn’t do me much good in the long term. No, I’d arrange to have him found naked, surrounded by empty jugs of brandy, a smear of white tar, and a dead orphan boy.”

  The old man huffed in surprise. “By the fallen gods—”

  “And that would just be the start. A pair of constables I run would start spreading the rumor that Naufulin, child of Namfalis, the investigator your family controls, has covered up scenes like this before. Then a little sepulcher with four or five more bodies would be discovered, and your nephew’s ring would be among them. He thinks he’s lost it somewhere here in your compound, I expect, but I have it.”

  The old man glared at her, but Luthella kept smiling. The only evidence that she understood the threat she was facing was that she seemed to be studying Tin’s face carefully for the first time. “Young woman, are you sure you want to make enemies of us?”

  It was the older woman’s first misstep, and it made Tin feel bold. She smiled crookedly. “I’m one of those common people who suffer out of your sight, so fuck you. Besides, we already have your nephew.”

  Luthella pursed her lips. “What do you mean?”

  “He was supposed to meet someone at the south tower about Suloh’s gift, yeah? Someone recommended him?” Both Luthella and Rueljun seemed shocked that Tin knew that. “Well, that invitation is counterfeit. I sent it. And by this time, he’s tucked away in the back of a carriage somewhere, pissing his pants at the bared steel around him. If you two refuse my deal, you get the scandal instead. Or, I should say, the first scandal, because we can do it again with a Carrig merchant and a detailed map of the city walls, or maybe a map of the Steward-General’s family compound. How much are your noble friends going to love your nice things when they think you’re harboring spies and assassins?”

  Rueljun leaned toward her. “I could have you—”

  “Be quiet, dear,” Luthella interjected.

  Tin had them.

  Luthella straightened her robe. For the first time since Harl’s head had been put away, she looked uncomfortable. “You know how to wield a stick.”

  “But I haven’t swung it yet,” Tin said. She popped a small piece of bread in her mouth. Amazing. She was never going to enjoy the plain bread she got in the city again. “And I’m still offering the carrot. Harl has been bleeding this city dry for years. Gambling, white tar, whores, thieves, rackets, the whole deal. He’s been shipping piles of gold back to Carrig, and what have we gotten out of it? Silks and spices bought at a discount for the benefit of the noble families. It’s pathetic. It’s practically treason. So. Here’s how it’s going to work from now on. You, Rueljun parsu-Lorrud ward-Lorrud defe-Lorrud admir-Lorrud hold-Lorrud, will be my parsu and I’ll be one of the many humble stitches in your sail. I’ll tithe to you, and in return—”

  “Not from the white tar,” Rueljun interrupted. “We don’t take money from that. We don’t want it.”

  Tin studied him a moment. He seemed to be sincere, and she stifled the urge to sneer. Did he think… No, it didn’t matter what he thought. “And in return, you will do for us what you did for Harl: protect our people from the bureaucracy and the constables, help us secure deeds and titles that we need, and ensure that the High Watch does not make a serious effort to wreck our business. And don’t worry about being too liquid. From now on, you’ll be paying full price for the luxury goods that give you so much influence.”

  The old man’s expression was sullen and resentful. He wasn’t used to having terms dictated to him. “And if we decide to have you killed?”

  Tin shrugged. “No one chases this prize without risking everything, and no one who does what I do expects to die quietly in their sleep, either, with lots of gray hair and little grandchildren. Someone will kill me. Maybe it will be you. Whoever does it will have to pay in blood and broken bones. I’m sure the High Watch will be overjoyed to see you ignite another Downscale War over your child-killing nephew and foreign gangster friends.”

  That, finally, ended the discussion.

  “Three days,” Luthella said. “If you’re still alive in three days, and still in Harl’s position, you’ll become our stitch.”

  Rueljun sat upright. “My dear—”

  “Three days,” she said again, ignoring him. “You seem clever enough, but the Lorrud name goes all the way back to Selsarim. It means something. We can’t just throw the full weight of our seal behind every boastful, ambitious criminal. Prove yourself capable of keeping your place and keeping order, and you’ll be our stitch.”

  Tin hesitated, then pulled another knot from the loaf on the table. She stood. “Agreed. You’ll have your nephew back in four days if I’m still alive and your word is good.”

  “It is.” Luthella had regained her composure but not her smile. “You haven’t told us your name.”

  “I’m called Tin Pail.”

  Rueljun looked confused, but his wife did not seem surprised. “Harl sent a message about you. He wanted Naufulin to mobilize the constables, flush you out, and hang you. But after that business in Upgarden with that harvested corpse, we weren’t sure if we should act. And now we see that it’s too late.” She shrugged. “No great loss to the world. But… Tin Pail, you say? How prosaic.”

  Tin had never heard that word before in her life, but she got a sense of its meaning from the way Luthella said it. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  The first thing Riliska did when she woke was search the spa. As she’d hoped, there was a set of paints and brushes shoved into one of the cabinets, partially covered by some old linens. There was no yellow, of course, because that color was new, and the other colors were dry and cracked from having been locked away for so long. She would need a few drops of olive oil to make the red usable again, but the green and black needed only a drop of clean water each, and while the baths were dry, some of the fountains still worked.

  She found the other kids at breakfast in a large room with mortared stone floors. She couldn’t imagine what the room was for originally, but the stone felt nice against her bare feet. A little space was open at the end of the kids’ table, and Riliska sat there.

  Their meal was crackers and roasted pigskins. It tasted good, even if it was the kind of cheap food her mom said would pockmark her face. Also, it wasn’t enough, but there were so many little ones that Riliska was afraid eating her fill would mean they went hungry. They looked like they went hungry all the time.

  Grownups ate at another table on the far end of the room. They had real bread, fish preserves, and a crock of honey. The thought of salty fish reminded her of the Broken Man, but none of the heavies there looked like they might share.

  When she finished eating, she offered to paint the nail of the little girl beside her. The girl couldn’t have been older than five. She meekly offered up her hand.

  The effect that one painted pinky nail—which Riliska made into a sleepy-eyed cat—had on the other kids was astonishing. They crowded around, jostling to be next. Riliska scolded a girl her own age after she pushed a little one, and the girl had the decency to blush.

  After that, they were excited but orderly. Riliska explained the technique as it had been taught to her. Never move your wrist. Either make a short stroke with your fingers, or a long one with your whole arm. The kids mimed her movements, practicing with invisible brushes. A small boy brought a spoonful of oil from the grownup’s table so she could use the red, too. The oldest boy brought her another plate with three crackers on it, and she said thank you.

  It was fun. It had been a long time since she’d had other kids sitting close, paying attention to her. It was the best feeling in the world, and Riliska hoped it would never end.

  Her hand and wrist got sore before she ran out of hands to paint, so she taught the boy who brought her extra food t
o do an owl.

  A little girl no older than six approached Riliska. She’d gotten a happy kitten on her thumb, but now she looked frightened. “I don’t think we’re allowed,” she said, displaying her hand.

  Riliska glanced at the grownups. One was telling the others a story, and the others leaned forward, eyes wide and mouths gaping. They didn’t seem to know the kids were there. “Why not?”

  “Because.”

  Riliska had never had a sister, but she knew what to do. She put her arm around the little girl and turned her toward the distant grownups. “If it was forbidden, they would have stopped us, don’t you think?”

  The girl shrugged, then leaned against her, and Riliska felt an unfamiliar maternal kindness. The ache for her missing mother suddenly grew so strong that tears welled in her eyes.

  It felt good to comfort someone smaller. She wished her mother would try it herself.

  The door opened, and everyone stopped what they were doing. A big man with wild red hair entered the room. Tiny bells chimed as he walked. He shrugged out of his long, sleeveless coat with a fur collar—Riliska could see something long and heavy hanging inside—and hung it on a peg. His pale left cheek was swollen and there was a cut under his right eye. Someone had tried to beat him up.

  The children were completely still, staring at the man as though he might pluck one out of the crowd and eat them. To her surprise, Riliska noticed the grownups had the same expression. They were scared of him too.

  He moved to the grownup table. The heavies sitting there slid out of their chairs and moved away, not turning their backs until the red-haired man was seated. The man didn’t seem to mind, but Riliska thought he looked lonely.

  Rummaging through the paint set, Riliska pulled out the largest of the brushes. She couldn’t imagine what it was used for. Her mother had taught her to make slender, delicate lines. Maybe it was an old set for a style that was out of fashion.

  She brought the brush into the fountain and washed it in the icy trickle from the carved mouth in the wall. Then she fetched a linen from the cabinet where she’d found the paint set, and soaked that, too.

  The moment before she returned to the big room, she had a momentary fear that the red-haired foreigner would have already left, but no, he was still there, chewing silently. Riliska hurried toward him. He wasn’t ugly, but his pale pink skin made him look sickly. He gave her the same blank look he’d given the grownups when she approached the table.

  “This is for you, good sir,” she said, holding out the wet linen. “My mommy says that a cold compress keeps the swelling down. Men hit her sometimes, and she says this makes sure she stays pretty.” The foreigner stared. She laid it gently on his cheek. “Not that you’re pretty. I suppose you’re not too bad-looking, for a foreigner, but my mom says we have to take all the help we can get.” He didn’t take the cloth from her, so she said, “Hold this, please.”

  He did. She smiled at him and held up the brush. “Don’t worry. I just washed this.” The nearest wooden plate had a clean spot on the corner. Riliska poured a drop of honey onto it, dipped the brush, then lifted it to his face.

  “My mommy says that even small cuts can get infected, and doctors are expensive.”

  Riliska began to dab the honey onto the cut below his eye. The foreigner still hadn’t spoken to her, and she had run out of ideas on how to make him start.

  He stared at her as though she was a ghost.

  This was one of the men who took her mother away. Maybe he knew where she was. Riliska wasn’t sure how she could work her mother into the conversation again without directly asking to see her.

  Better just to try. “Good sir,” she said, “do you know—”

  The door banged open, startling her. In walked the wild-eyed man with the steel chain around his neck. The one who had tortured Riliska’s mom.

  Others followed, but Riliska didn’t look at them. She backed away quickly, her gaze on the floor.

  “Get some sleep?” a woman asked.

  “I did,” the red-haired man answered as he stood. His voice sounded thick, like he was talking out of the back of his throat.

  “Good. One more meeting. And I need you to be ready.”

  One of the gangsters brought the foreigner his odd coat and he put it on. Riliska risked a look at him. He was watching her, his eyes blank and his expression unreadable. He tore off a piece of bread with scarred, bloodied hands, then followed the others out the door.

  Riliska had missed her chance.

  * * *

  “Are they there?”

  Tin waited for her heavy to answer. His name was Ink Mouse, and he was supposed to be Paper’s cousin or something. At the moment, he was staring at the ground, lost in thought.

  Wooden leaned forward and slapped the back of his head. Ink came to life and blurted, “What? Oh! Yes, boss. The last of them just arrived. Sorry. I was thinking about…”

  He was thinking about Paper, of course. Tin had grown up with Paper Mouse. He’d once been a snotty kid trailing behind her and her brother, hoping for a leftover crust of bread. When Tin and Wooden had gone to sea, Paper had wept like a new-made orphan. When they’d returned, years later, with their Katr in tow, he’d fallen in behind them like an old soldier glad to march to war again.

  But he was stupid enough to let that scarred pawnbroker stick him with his own knife when she needed him most, so fuck him. Who could she trust to take his place?

  As they descended the stairs to the Spillwater deck, they came upon a group of young street toughs coming the other way. They were just stupid, swaggering kids—no older than twelve—but they reacted to her and her people the way she had in her day—they took on a tough posture and stood in the center of the stair for a moment too long, then got the fuck out of the way.

  She fucking hated Spillwater. It was dark. It stank. The people were the dumbest assholes in the world. Mudside might have been a lawless hellhole of animals in human skin, but Spillwater, which stood just above, with its leaking overhead sewer pipes and copper-knot whores who’d gut you for a ragged cloak, was a place of vicious desperation and savagery.

  This downcity shitpile was another reason she was glad Harl was dead. He’d let it fester. Tin was going to clean it up.

  They reached the bottom of the stair and looked down the road at the crooked hovels, piles of trash, and puddles of murky water.

  “Ugh,” Wooden said, smoothing the cuff of his silk tunic. “This place.”

  Tin clapped him on the shoulder, and they walked around to the back of the stair.

  They were on the southwestern corner of the Spillwater deck, far from the fresh air and daylight of the eastern edge of the city. A line of torches slanting upward caught her eye, and Tin stood for a moment, staring west toward Salash Hill.

  Most goods that entered the city from the water came by way of The Docks, but for the most valuable cargo headed to the wealthiest merchants in Upgarden—and their noble customers—The Docks, with their thieving dockhands and corrupt constables, wasn’t good enough.

  For them, there was a back way—a steep stone road that went up Salash Hill directly to an Upgarden distribution point. It was always brightly lit and closely guarded. Even though it passed within ten feet of Wild Dismal, Tin had never been able to dip her hands into that trade.

  She wondered whether Harl had managed what she could not.

  At the edge of the Spillwater deck, she looked down into Mudside. A few torches burned there, mostly on the massive ribs of Yth’s back and to the east along the spine. Evidence of life, of a kind.

  Beside her was a squat, square building. It had been constructed not on the Spillwater deck itself but on a platform of normal wood that extended out over Mudside. The tar on the roof was still wet, but considering how quickly it had been slapped together, Tin was pleased.

  Wooden passed her a clay oil lamp with a stubby wick at the end. Ink Mouse held an identical one, already lit. They touched wicks to share the flame.


  Her bodyguard was as cool as ever. As for Wooden, his eyes were bright and his smile so wide, his mouth was hanging open. The only hint that he felt nervous was the way he absentmindedly stroked his steel chain.

  Ink Mouse was sweating. If they survived the next few minutes, he was going back to grunt work. Coward’s work.

  As for Tin herself, this was the final test. She would take Harl’s throne or die trying.

  Her bodyguard pushed the door open. She followed him inside.

  There was only a large single room a little over fifteen feet square. The wooden floor was bare. There were no cloths on the walls and no windows. The door and lintels had no carvings. The only openings came from the door, ill-fitting planks in the walls, and a smoke hole in the roof. There were benches along the wall and little oil lamps like the one Tin carried mounted on tiny shelves. The room was gloomy and the air close.

  There were sixteen people inside. Tin knew the important ones. Immediately to her left was Dirty Straw, the youngest of Harl’s lieutenants, along with three of his heavies. He was only a few years older than Tin, not yet thirty. He had earned his place by working out a new scheme for getting white tar off The Docks and into the city without attracting the attention of the cosh.

  To his left was Cotton Stair, who had been Harl’s top heavy for years before being trusted to run part of the city. Every member of his organization came up through the same street gang he did. They were all Stairs of one kind or another, and they valued loyalty and dim-witted brutality.

  Standing in the far corner, almost directly opposite the door where Tin entered, was a group of four Carrig thugs. Their leader had fucked up in a big way and had been sent to his uncle in Koh-Salash, although it was unclear if that was punishment, apprenticeship, or a mixture of the two. Tin didn’t know which were heavies and which the lieutenant. In their homeland, they did their fighting barehanded, although they were smart enough to be wearing hatchets and knives now.

  And finally, with almost the entire right half of the room to herself, was Black Apricot, who had taken over for her sister when she’d been hanged. Tin Pail had always believed that gangsters didn’t get to grow old, but Black was the exception. Her gray hair was cut very short, almost to her skull, and the sagging, wrinkled skin over her eyes could not disguise the shrewdness there. Her people had a ferocious loyalty to her, and Tin considered her the second most dangerous person in the room.