Michael Flynn - The January Dancer

“Och, list’ tae me loshing. I said there’d be nae religious arguments, and here I am starting one myself.”

“I never argue about the gods,” the Fudir said. “It leads nowhere, and can only irritate them.”

Bridget ban laughed at that, and they spoke a little more of inconsequentials. “Och, yer a comfort, Fudir,” she said just before falling asleep. “There’s nae denying it.”

“Am I?” the Fudir asked the night when she was breathing softly.

In the morning, when Bridget ban awoke, the Fudir was gone.

“And so you see him,” says the scarred man, “for the treacherous bastard that he was, and why this quest of yours was always a waste of your time.”

The harper says nothing but toys with her now-empty plate. She looks around for Mamacita, but the wide woman is gone. Darkness has fallen outside the shed and only the string of decorative lights provides an island of illumination. The busier sounds of the City seem distant, and the lamps along Greaseline Street and the Bourse are like the suns on the far side of the Rift, blurred and indistinct. The harper wipes at the corners of her eyes and hates the scarred man for the mocking grin above which he watches her.

“Let’s finish this,” she says harshly.

“We’ll warn you. The finish is no better.”

“But there must be an end of it. You said so yourself.”

“You shouldn’t listen to everything we say. He’s been known to lie.”

She stands and slings her harp over her shoulder like a carbine. “Will you at least escort me back to the Hostel?”

“Why not?” says the scarred man. “I’m in a hostile mood.” He grins at his own pun. “I hate them all. The pompous Grimpen. The priggish Greystroke. The cocky Hugh O’Carroll. The ice-cold witch-woman.”

“Men are more than adjectives. I find that I have come to love them all. What of the Fudir?”

“Him, I hate the most, for he betrayed all the others.”

It was not easy to surprise the Fudir, the scarred man says, but Little Hugh O’Carroll managed it now and then. In that early hour of the morning, he managed it for the last time.

Hugh was sitting on the stoop just outside the ragged hotel tossing nuts to the equally ragged birds. The Fudir froze at the sight of him. Hugh looked up.

“Ready?” he said.

The Fudir pointed to the nuts. “You give them those things and they’ll come to expect it. They’ll circle the doorway waiting and shit on the people going in and out.”

Hugh looked along the street. “And that would be different?”

“You sit out here alone and you’re bait for every thief in the Fourteenth District.”

“It’s too early for thieves. They like to sleep in. How do you plan to get into Watkins Naval Yard?”

The Fudir ran his hand along the fringed anycloth he wore, took a tassel between his fingers, wondering what to do about this latest complication. “What were you waiting for out here?”

“You. I know you haven’t given up on liberating Terra. But now the Kennel folks have a new reason to give the Dancer to the Ardry.”

“By me, a new reason to keep it from him. I like his reign; I wouldn’t like his rule.”

Hugh nodded. “And that means you have to go in without the others.”

“‘Others.’ That would include you. But I don’t think you’ve given up on your own plans.”

Hugh shook his head. “I’m not going back to New Eireann.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

Hugh stood and brushed at the knees and seat of his trousers. “Let’s go and save the galaxy. Unless you want to eat breakfast first.”

“You’ve grown a bit since we first met.”

“I’d hate to think otherwise. Only the dead never grow. You and me, Fudir, we’ve been through a lot since Amir Naith’s Gulli. We were in this together almost from the beginning. It’s only right that we’re together at the end. Just you and me.”

“I know. That’s what makes this so hard.”

And with that, like a black mamba striking, he poked Hugh in the brisket with his bunched fingers, bending him double, and followed it with a blow to the side of his head.

Hugh collapsed and the Fudir caught him before he struck the steps, eased him back to a sitting position, and replaced the bag of nuts into his hands. He felt the neck for a pulse. He stood and studied the unmoving figure bleakly. It was difficult to know how hard to strike.

There was a man watching from the pedestrian walkway across the city rail that ran down the center of the public way. He was slouch-shouldered, with a hangdog look. His clothing seemed slept in and none too new before that. “You mess this man,” the Fudir told him, “and some people in that building will hunt you down and kill you. That’s if you get away from me.”

“I believe you,” the man said, holding his palms up. “Just minding my business, me. You got a ruby or two? I’m powerful thirsty.”

The Fudir studied him. “Don’t go anywhere yet.”

When neither Hugh nor the Fudir appeared in the morning to plan their infiltration of the Watkins Yard, Bridget ban went to fetch them.

“They’re nae in their rooms,” she reported.

The three Kennel agents looked one to the other. Grimpen said to Greystroke, “You trusted him.”

Bridget ban said, “They may only have stepped outside for the air.”

“Air’s worse outside,” Grimpen said. He rose like an uplifted mountain range. “I’ll look.”

When Large-hound had left the room, Greystroke turned on Bridget ban. “What was the purpose of all that cuddling if not to keep his leash short?”

Bridget ban had no answer. She turned away and looked into a corner of the room, her thoughts all in turmoil. “Maybe Hugh went looking for the Fudir,” Bridget ban suggested.

Grimpen came back in carrying Hugh over his shoulder. “If he did, he found him.”

The others jumped to their feet in alarm. “Is the wean a’right?” said Bridget ban.

Grimpen deposited his burden on the sagging couch and straightened his limbs. “He’s not dead, but he’s taken a bad blow to the head. He’ll have a headache when he comes to.”

“He’ll have more than a headache,” Bridget ban told him. “He liked the Fudir. He thought he was a nice old man, underneath that bitter act.”

Greystroke’s face was grim-set. “The bitterness was no act. The nice old man was. The Terran word is ‘bonded.’ It’s something to beware of, Bridget ban.”

“Aye? An’ ye’ve lost yer lead to the Donovan, haven’t ye?” Then she straightened. “The Other Olafsson! Maybe she snatched the Fudir so she could find Donovan and carry out the mission.”

But Greystroke said, “No. Hugh would have tried to stop her and the Ravn would have killed him. The Fudir is Donovan. I suspected it when he didn’t keep the sex straight of his next contact. After I followed him into the Corner of Jehovah, I knew. And he knew I’d puzzled it out. But he wanted out of the Great Game. He’d been hiding from the ’Feds, hoping they would never call on him. We had a silent agreement.”

“Wonderful,” said Grimpen. “The problem with silent agreements, Pup, is that they’re no different from silent disagreements.”

“I’m no fool, you great lump of flesh! The Red-hound and I programmed aimshifars into the clothing we gave him. We can track him through the anycloth. Bridget, where is he now?”

Bridget ban had already been studying her wrist strap. “Nearly out of range o’ this mickle thing. Let me…Ah, there I have it. Sou’-sou’west. Half a league.”