Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death

Anyway, the Council had decreed that the ace should be one of the two: the Prince or the Ghoul.

The case for the Prince was clear enough – he was a man on the make. He’d appeared from nowhere, and the jobs he did were breathtaking. But the problem was he was in too much of a hurry and he was obstinate, those were his only flaws. The grandfathers were afraid that power like that might go to his head.

The Ghoul was a different matter altogether. He was from the old guard – the less showy bandits who’d plodded their way to the top. The Ghoul didn’t have any famous jobs to his name, his deck didn’t fire any broadsides, but people were just as much afraid of him as they were of the Prince.

The Ghoul’s deck didn’t make a living from hold-ups, though, they had a new business, one that was kept very quiet: they skimmed from the grain merchants and shopkeepers. Their kind of businessmen were called ‘milkers’. If you wanted your shop to stay safe, and you didn’t want the sanitary inspector picking on you, or the coppers bothering you – then you gave the milker his dough and carried on trading in peace. But as for those who didn’t pay – who thought they could manage or were just plain mean –all sorts happened to them.

One stubborn grocer was hit over the head from behind in a dark alleyway, he didn’t see who did it. He fell down and tried to get up, but he couldn’t – the ground was spinning in front of his eyes. Suddenly he saw a horse and cart coming straight at him, and the cart held a great heap of paving stones. He yelled and waved his arms, but the driver didn’t seem to hear him. The horse stepped over the grocer, so its hooves missed him, but the wheels of the cart ran right over his legs and smashed them to bits. Now they pushed that grocer around in a chair on wheels, and he paid the Ghoul promptly. And there was an ice-cream seller too, they ambushed his daughter, who was engaged, put a sack over her head and violated her, and not just one of them, no, half a dozen thugs. Now she sat at home and never showed her face outside, and she’d been taken down from a noose twice. If only the ice-cream seller had paid, none of that would ever have happened.

But even the Ghoul wasn’t to the liking of all the grandfathers, Sprat explained. Those who were older and remembered times past didn’t approve of the Ghoul’s trade. Back then it wasn’t done to suck people’s blood like that.

Anyway, today was the day of the meet.

‘They’ll do each other in!’ Senka gasped. ‘They’ll stab each other, or shoot each other.’

‘They can’t, that’s against the law. They can break a few ribs or crack someone’s head open, but that’s all. You can’t take weapons to a meet, the Council doesn’t allow it.’

*

At five o’clock the mediators came from the Council, two calm, slow-moving ‘grandfathers’ who used to be respected thieves. They named the spot for the meet – the Cows’ Meadow in the Luzhniki District – and the time: seven o’clock on the dot. They said the Ghoul wanted to know whether his whole deck should come or what.

They sat the grandfathers down to drink tea in the front room, and all crowded round the Prince at the table. Even the Bosun trundled in from the street, afraid they’d settle things without him.

Maybe shouted out first: ‘Let’s all go! We’ll give the ghoulies a beating to remember.’

The Prince hissed at him:

‘Think before you speak, smartarse. Do we have a Queen with us? No. Death won’t traipse across to Cows’ Meadow, will she now?’

Everyone smiled at the joke, and waited to see what the Prince would say next.

‘But the Ghoul’s Queen is Pockface Manka. Last year she smacked two narks’ heads together so hard, they never got up again,’ the Prince went on, polishing his fingernails with a little brush. He was sitting with his legs crossed and easing his words out slowly – no doubt already seeing himself as the ace.

‘We know Manka, she’s a woman to be reckoned with,’ the Bosun agreed.

‘Right, then. So think on a bit. You’re a cripple, Bosun – no offence meant – what good are you at a meet?’

The Bosun bounced on his stumps and started getting excited.

‘Why I. . . I’ll smack ’em so hard with this mallet – that’s enough to double anyone over. You know me, Prince!’

‘A mallet!’ the Prince mocked him, biting off a hangnail. ‘And the Ghoul’s niner is Vasya Ugreshsky. What good will it do to swing your mallet at him? You see?’

The Bosun went all sad and started sniffing.

‘Now let’s take Sixer,’ said the boss, nodding at Sprat.

‘What about me?’ said Sprat, jerking his head up.

‘I tell you what. Their sixer is Cudgel. He can hammer a six-inch nail into a log of wood with that great big fist of his, and anyone can knock you down with a feather, Sprat. So where does that leave us, my brave gents? With this – at a meet, their deck will leave us for dead, as sure as God’s holy. And then they’ll say the Prince had his whole deck with him, they won’t bother working out who’s too small, who’s crippled and who wasn’t even there. That’s what they’ll say, oh yes they will,’ the Prince declared in response to their dull muttering.

The room was suddenly quiet and downbeat.

Senka was sitting in the corner farthest away, afraid they might throw him out. He wasn’t too upset about them not taking him to the meet, he didn’t much fancy fisticuffs, especially not against real fighters. They’d batter a youngster like him down and trample him into the ground.

The Prince admired his nails, then bit off another hangnail and spat it out.

‘Call the grandfathers. I decide. And not a word! Keep your traps shut.’

Sprat ran off to get the mediators. They came and stood just inside the door. The Prince stood up too.

‘Two of us should go to the meet, that’s my opinion.’ He looked at them merrily and shook his forelock. –The King and one other chosen by the King. Tell the Ghoul that.’

Deadeye sighed and the others frowned but not a word was spoken. It clearly wasn’t on to haggle in front of outsiders, Senka thought.

But even when the grandfathers left, there was no yapping. Once the Prince had decided, that was that.

Sprat winked at Senka: come on outside. In the collidor he sniffed as he whispered: ‘I know that spot very well. There’s a little barn there, a good place to hide. We’ll wait and watch them from there.’

‘But what if they see us?’

‘Then we’re for it, no question,’ Sprat said with a careless wave of his hand. ‘They’re real strict about stuff like that. But don’t you get the wind up, they won’t see us. That barn’s a great spot, I tell you. We’ll burrow into the hay. No one will twig, and we’ll be able to see everything.’

Senka suddenly felt afraid and he hesitated. But Sprat spat on the floor and said: ‘You can please yourself, Speedy. I’m running over there right now. While they’re dragging things out, I’ll get there ahead of them.’

Of course, Senka went with him – what else could he do? He couldn’t act scared like some girl. And he really did want to watch: this was serious stuff, a proper bandit meet, to decide who would be Ace of Moscow. How many people had ever seen something like that?

Naturally, they didn’t actually run there, that was just Sprat’s way of talking. The young bandit had a wad of cash in his pocket. They walked to Pokrovka Street, hired a cab and drove out of town to Luzhniki. Sprat promised the driver an extra rouble to drive like the wind. It took them twenty-three minutes – Sprat timed it with his silver watch.

The Cows’ Meadow was just that, a meadow – all yellow grass and burdock. On one side, across the river, were the Sparrow Hills, and on the other side was the Novodevichy Convent, with its vegetable gardens.