Paul Kemp: The Hammer and the Blade

He tried to take her in at a glance but she always seemed too large. He perceived her only in pieces, never in whole: the tight bun of her gray hair, the perpetually stained apron, her three chins, the immensity of her girth, the hairy mole on her right cheek, the puckered, flabby arms, the tattered dress large enough to serve as a tent.

She squealed with delight and hugged him hard enough to take his breath, enfolding him in her rolls of fat, her sour smell, her love. He returned the hug in full, losing himself for a moment. Mamabird was the sweetest person he'd ever met in this life, and sweeter than any he expected to meet in the next. He knew holy men without half her rectitude. He felt relaxed for the first time since entering the Warrens.

"My favorite chick returned to the nest!" she said.

"I always come back, Mamabird."

"But it's been so long," she said, and hugged him harder.

"Mamabird," he said into her apron, "I can't breathe."

She laughed, released the hug, and held him out at arm's length.

"Let Mama look at you."

She examined him the way she might a market chicken. Frowning at the sharp steel he carried, she turned him all the way around and tsked.

"You're not eating enough. Look how thin. You've got no backside. Come sit and eat. I've just made some stew."

"It smells delicious," he said, and meant it.

As always, she kept her damp two-room shack with its warped wood-plank floor as tidy as life in the Warrens allowed. Rain pattered softly on the roof. Blankets lay on the floor near the tiny hearth, all of them tattered but clean.

"Caring for some of the urchins, I see. Where are they?"

She tsked again. "They're not urchins, my love. They're children. As were you. And they're out doing what they do. They'll be along."

Her furniture, reclaimed from the Heap or made for her inexpertly by grateful beneficiaries of her grace, looked worn but reasonably sturdy — a few sitting chairs, a round eating table with mismatched chairs, a cabinet, the doors long removed, that held her two pots and few dishes.

"I don't have a lot of time, Mama. Egil is waiting for me back in the city."

"Time enough to eat, though," she said. Not a question.

"Of course, Mama."

She ladled her stew into a wooden bowl. "And how is Egil? Shame about his wife and child. Such a sad man, he is."

"Aye," Nix said somberly.

"Come, sit."

They sat at the eating table: not the same one at which Nix had taken so many meals as a child, true, but Mama's presence and her stew made it feel the same. He might as well have been ten winters old. He sipped the stew, its smell and taste full of good memories, and they talked for the better part of an hour about small things. Mamabird coughed often and he noticed her rale, noticed, too, the additional wrinkles that time had added to her countenance.

"I'll send a priestess of Orella to see to you about the cough," he said.

She waved off his help. "Now, Nix, you know Mama's had the same cough for ten years. Ain't no need for a priestess. Besides-" She chuckled and the chuckle gave way to a coughing fit. She never stopped smiling throughout. "No white-robed priestess of the healing goddess will come in here. You know that."

"They will if I ask, Mama."

"I know how you ask, Nixxy."

Nix smiled to hide his concern. He tried to imagine Dur Follin without her, tried to imagine his life without her, and failed. He would've offered to move her out of the Warrens, but he knew she wouldn't abide it. She regarded the Warrens as her home and its urchins as her children. She'd die in her shack and leave only when they carried her out. He dreaded that day.

After they'd eaten and the conversation had slowed, he broached the real subject of his visit. "I have some coin for you, Mama."

She cleared his bowl. "Oh, Nix, I don't need-"

"It's just a bit."

He took a coinpurse from his cloak and dumped fifty commons and ten terns on the table. He'd included no gold because he knew she couldn't spend a royal. Merely holding gold in the Warrens could put her at risk.

Her hand went to her mouth. "Oh my, Nix! It's too much. I couldn't hope to spend it all."

He smiled but held his tongue. She always marveled at a pittance as if it were a fortune. He couldn't buy a decent blade for what he'd put on the table. But he knew she'd never take more, not all at once. He had to provide for her in dribs and drabs.

She looked up from the coin and regarded him across the table, eyes shrewd.

"How'd you come by all this coin, young man? You didn't hurt someone for it, did you? I taught you better'n that."

He felt his cheeks warm. "You did, Mama. And I earned it fair. Egil and I have had a bit of luck of late."

He and Mamabird had an unspoken agreement that he never told her about his tomb robbing explicitly and she never asked in detail.

"You two." She shook her head, chuckling, chins and breasts bouncing. "Good boys, you are."

Ool's clock sounded the hour: nine deep, discordant notes. He reached for her hand as he stood.

"So soon?" she asked.

"I know." He kissed the back of her hand. "I'm sorry, but I'll return as soon as I can."

She sighed, nodded, came around the table and embraced him. She had tears in her eyes. He had tears in his. He fell into her, memorizing her smell, the feel of her arms around him.

"Oh, I need you to keep something for me," he said, and took the rolled piece of vellum from an inner pocket. "This is a deed to some property Egil and I bought."

Mama took it, a question in her eyes. "A deed? What property?"

He nodded. "Just keep it safe for us, will you? If ever I'm… away for a long time, that deed is yours. Understand?"

"I wouldn't know what to do with such a thing. I'll just hold it 'til you come back."

She tucked it into a pocket in her apron.

"Thank you, Mama," he said.

She smiled and walked him toward the door. "You be good, Nixxy. And don't worry about your old Mamabird. I'll be fine."

Her words devolved into a fit of wet coughing that made him wince.

"I know you will," he said, and wished he believed it.

"Send my love to Egil."

"I will."

He exited her shack, the only home he'd ever had. The moment he closed the door, he donned the mask — Nix the Quick, Nix the Lucky, a man fast with a word, faster still with a blade. He drew his falchion and pushed his past down deep.

He had to hurry. Egil would be waiting and Egil hated to be left waiting.

He picked his way back through the avenues and alleys until he reached the Poor Wall, the ancient line of crumbling stone that delimited the border of the Warrens, a binding cross that separated the Warrens' poverty and hopelessness from the rest of Dur Follin. Four lax watchmen in orange tabards manned the Slum Gate. In the torchlight, Nix saw that crossbows hung from their backs, blades and truncheons from their belts. He knew that Slum Gate duty was considered a punishment post among watchmen.

Seeing Nix approach, one of them nudged another and the second stepped forward. He was unshaven, his helm removed and his hair disheveled. "Name and business."

Nix sheathed his blade. "Nix Fall of Dur Follin, and my business is none of yours."

"Nix Fall?" The guard squinted at Nix, looked back at his fellows, back at Nix. "Nix the Quick?"

One of the other guards pushed off the wall and walked closer, attitude in his stride. "Don't you belong in there with the rest of the rubbish?"

He was tall, maybe twenty winters, barely old enough to grow a beard. He stood beside his comrade.

The insult deflected off of Nix's distraction, summoning only modest ire. "More than you know. Better class of people living in there than I see standing before me. Now, go fak yourself and both of you get out of my way."