Frank Tuttle - The Broken Bell

“City folk ain’t likely to understand,” he said.

“I do understand kids have no business being outdoors in Rannit after Curfew, Mr. Sprang.”

A ghost of confusion passed over his bloody face.

“My boys ain’t babies,” he said. “They’s grown men.”

“Rainy too?”

“I brung Gerlat and Polter.”

I dared put my face close to the bars.

“Then why the Hell did I pull Rainy off the street yesterday? Why did he spend a whole damned night-a whole night, Mr. Sprang-out with the vampires, after Curfew? Why?”

“You’re lyin’. Rainy ain’t in Rannit. I brung Gerlat and Polter.”

“I am not lying. Rainy is here. And alive, thanks to me and Miss Gertriss and Mama Hog. It’s a miracle he survived one night. He’d not have lived through another. And you tell me you didn’t bring him?”

“I ain’t fool enough to bring a child on a man’s errand.”

Gertriss stepped up beside me. “He’s telling the truth, Boss. About Rainy. He didn’t bring him.”

Mr. Sprang glared at Gertriss, but she neither looked away nor stepped back.

“I don’t need no help from you, you-”

“Remember what I said about insulting my partner.”

He clamped his mouth shut.

“We just saved your son’s life. We’re offering to pay you out and send you home. Seems like you owe me a favor, Mr. Sprang. But you hate me even more for that, don’t you?”

“I’d kill you where you stand, if’n it wasn’t for my boys.”

“Does that make sense to you? Does it?”

“Mama took a hex off Rainy,” said Gertriss. “A hex cast to make him hate Mr. Markhat and I.”

“Same hex is riding you,” I added. “Think about it, Mr. Sprang. That day we met. You and your boys pulled blades on me without even knowing for sure who I was. Have you ever done anything like that before?”

“Your woman. She kilt my kin.”

“She’s nobody’s woman but her own. So you were close to Harald Suthom? You loved him like a son? Bounced him on your knee as a baby?”

“He was kin.”

“What color eyes did he have?”

The eldest Sprang hesitated.

“You don’t even know. You don’t know because it never mattered much to you. And it never mattered much because Harald Suthom was a two-bit, lousy sonofabitch, and you know it. So you think about this, Mr. Sprang. You think long and hard about who might have hexed you and your grown sons here and little Rainy too. Because they almost got Rainy killed.”

“I ain’t believing a word of this.”

I shrugged. “I don’t really care what you believe. I told you the truth. Whether you believe or not is another matter. Now, are you willing to sign these papers and get out of Rannit and stay out of Rannit? Will you take Rainy and go home and leave Gertriss and I alone?”

Polter moaned softly. In the distance, an echoed scream rose and fell and died.

“We’ll go,” he said, at last. “Just let us go our way. And we’ll let you go yours.”

“Gertriss?”

Gertriss stared.

“I don’t think he’s lying, Boss. They’ll go home.”

“Then let’s get this done. And you better listen good, Mr. Sprang. Because if I ever see you in Rannit again, you’ll wish the Watch was there. Because I’ll kill you myself and feed you to the ogres. Understand?”

He didn’t speak. But he did lower his eyes and nod.

I woke up the guard. “Fetch an officer,” I said. “We got some papers to sign.”

He grumbled and rose and went.

The Sprangs slumped against the wall and muttered amongst themselves. None of it sounded threatening.

“Think the Old Ruth is stronger than the hex?”

Gertriss frowned and considered that.

“Maybe,” she said at last. “Depends on who cast it.”

“You know of any witch women back home who might have that kind of skill?”

Gertriss shook her head. “Old Granny Gint could probably turn them all into blue-jays if she wanted to. But she wouldn’t. She’s dead set against any kind of black hex.”

I grunted. “Any kin to Harald Suthom or this lot?”

“None. She’s not responsible, Boss. I’m sure of that.”

“Then we’ve got ourselves a stray wand-waver.”

She didn’t reply. I didn’t blame her.

Freeing the Sprangs took maybe five minutes. Papers were signed by myself and Gertriss and passed between the bars and the Sprangs scrawled their marks. The clerk read the terms of the release aloud in a rapid-fire sing-song that escaped everyone in the room, but we nodded and raised our right hands and spoke the oath that bound us to the terms and set the Sprang clan free.

They didn’t release the Sprangs at once, nor did they allow us to mingle. So while they were led away, still in rusty shackles, Gertriss and I hurried back up toward the street and a cab.

The Sprangs were coming to Mama’s to pick up Rainy, and the Hoogas still had orders to pound them on sight. Since the family Sprang didn’t appear to need another beating, we arrived first, and I kept the Hoogas handy, but asked them to refrain from any violence unless the Sprangs started it.

They didn’t. No one spoke. I’d thrown a couple of coppers into the mix, which allowed the Sprangs to hire a wagon for their trip out of town. Polter was stretched out flat in the back of it, still moaning. His color wasn’t good, and a trickle of blood leaked from his ears. Mama just shrugged as she dribbled her anti-hex potion on him and then looked away.

Rainy didn’t even recognize me. He ran past me and grabbed his father’s waist and hung on.

“Now git.”

Mama spoke those words, and they were the only words spoken the whole time.

They got. The Hoogas watched the wagon roll out of sight, and then they sagged a bit. Mama gave them hash and I gave them coin. Then they shambled away, heading back to whatever it is ogres do when they have a pawful of money.

“You’re sure the Sprangs are heading home?”

“That they is, boy. Ain’t nobody could hex them back here again. Not today, anyways. They’s beat, and they’s hurt, and they is stupid but they ain’t crazy. Go on and do your business. We’ll be safe.” Mama looked suddenly grim. “’Leastways ’til I knows what I’m dealing with.”

A bath did wonders for my aroma, if not my spirits.

I lingered a long time in that hot copper tub. Steam wafted off me. Soap worked its homespun magic. Mr. Waters doesn’t allow clients to bring in beer, but one must have followed me from home because there it was, in my right hand.

I bathed and sipped beer and allowed myself the luxury of not pondering the events of the night and the day. I’d been assaulted. I’d had myself arrested for the murder of a little man with four legs. I’d been freed.

And someone in Pot Lockney might be hexing the whole village to come after my head while I lay there bathing.

I had no doubt Hisvin could not only discern the identity of the person who had hexed the Sprangs but probably also make them appear with a flash, caught up struggling in whatever dead hand Hisvin happened to be wearing at the moment.

Which would leave me even further in Hisvin’s debt.

I took a long draught of beer. No. That wasn’t going to happen. The moment I let the Corpsemaster fight my battles, that was the moment I became just another shuffling body in her legion of shuffling bodies.

I put my beer down on the floor and sank beneath the water. I could hear muffled sounds, under there-the tap of blind Mr. Waters’ stick, the sound of distant voices, a peal of sudden thunder. But it was muffled and distant and, best of all, no problem of mine.

I stayed down there in the warm, wet deep until I needed air. When I rose, sputtering and dripping, Mr. Waters was there.