Steven Erikson: Blood follows

In a less boisterous tone, Emancipor added, “I am Emancipor Reese, able manservant, coachman, cook-”

“You are drunk,” the man said, his accent unlike anything Emancipor had ever heard before. “And, your nose is broken, although it appears the bleeding has slowed.”

“My humblest apologies, sir,” Emancipor managed. “For the drink, I blame grief. For the nose, I blame a wooden post, or poss’bly the cobblestones.”

“Grief?”

“I mourn, sir, a most terr’ble personal trag’dy.”

“How unfortunate. Step inside, then, Mister Reese.”

The chambers within occupied a quarter of the top floor, opulently fitted with two large poster-beds, both covered in twisted linen, a scriber’s desk with drawers and a leather writing-pad, and a low stool before it. Bad frescos set in cheap panels adorned the walls. To the desk’s left was a large walk-in wardrobe, its doors open and nothing inside. Beside it was the entrance to a private bathing area, a bead-patterned, soft-hide curtain blocking it from view. Four battered chest-high travel trunks lined one wall; only one open and revealing fine clothes of foreign style, on iron hangers. There was no one else in the room, but somehow the presence of a second person remained to give proof to the tousled bed. The only truly odd thing in the room was a plate-sized piece of grey slate, lying on the nearest bed. Emancipor frowned at it, then he sighed and swung a placid smile at the man, who stood calmly by the door, which he now closed, setting the loop-lock over the latch. A tall one. Makes bowing easier to cheat.

“Have you any references, Mister Reese?”

“Oh yes, of course!” Emancipor found he was nodding without pause. He tried to stop, but couldn’t. “My wife, Subly. Thirty-one years-”

“I meant, your previous employer.”

“Dead.”

“Before him, then.”

“Dead.”

The man raised one thin eyebrow. “And before him?”

“Dead.”

“And?”

“And before that I was a cockswain on the able trader, Searime, for twenty years doing the Stygg run down Bloodwalk Strait.”

“Ahh, and this ship and her captain?”

“Sixty fathoms down, off Ridry Shelf.”

The second eyebrow rose to join the other one. “Quite a pedigree, Mister Reese.”

Emancipor blinked. How did he do that, with the eyebrows? “Yes, sir. Fine men, all of them.”

“Do you… mourn these losses nightly?”

“Excuse me? Oh. No sir, I do not. The day after, kind sir. Only then. Poor Baltro was a fair man-”

“Baltro? Merchant Baltro? Was he not the most recent victim of this madman who haunts the night?”

“Indeed he was. I, sir, was the last man to see him alive.”

The man’s eyebrows rose higher.

“I mean,” Emancipor added, “except for the killer, of course.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve never had a complaint.”

“I gathered that, Mister Reese.” He opened his hands to gesture with one to the stool at the desk. “Please be seated, whilst I endeavour to describe the duties expected of my manservant.”

Emancipor smiled again, then went over and sat down. “I read there’s travel involved.”

“This concerns you, Mister Reese?” The man stood at the foot of one of the beds, his hands once again clasped at his lap.

“Not at all. An incentive, sir. Now that the seas have subsided, and the blood-toll is no more, well, I itch for sea-spray, a pitching deck, rolling skylines, the tip and tumble and turn-is something wrong, sir?”

The man had begun to fidget, a greyish cast coming to his already pale face. “No, not at all. I simply prefer travelling overland. I take it you can read, or did you hire someone?”

“Oh no, I can read, sir. I’ve a talent for that. I can read Moll, Theftian and Stygg-from the chart-books, sir. Our pilot, you see, had a taste for the mead-”

“Can you scribe in these languages as well, Mister Reese?”

“Aye, sir. Both scrying and scribing. Why, I can read Mell’zan!”

“Malazan?”

“No, Mell’zan. The Empire, you know.”

“Of course. Tell me, do you mind working nights and sleeping during the day? I understood you are married-”

“Suits me perfectly, sir.”

The man frowned, then nodded. “Very good, then. The duties include arranging mundane matters related to the necessities of travel. Booking passage, negotiating with port authorities, arranging accommodation howsoever it suits our purposes, ensuring that our attire is well-maintained and scented and free of vermin, and so forth-have you done such work before, Mister Reese?”

“That, and worse-I mean, that and more, sir. I can also groom and shoe horses, r’pair tack, sew, read maps, sight by stars, tie knots, braid ropes-”

“Yes yes, very good. Now, as to the pay-”

Emancipor smiled helpfully. “I’m dirt cheap, sir. Dirt cheap.”

The man sighed. “With such talents? Nonsense, Mister Reese. You diminish yourself. Now, I will offer a yearly contract, depositing sufficient amount with a reputable money-holding agency, to allow for regular transferral of earnings to your estate. Your own personal needs will be accommodated free of charge whilst you accompany us. Is the annual sum of twelve hundred standard-weight silver sovereigns acceptable?”

Emancipor stared.

“Well?”

“Uh, uhm…”

“Fifteen hundred, then.”

“Agreed! Yes indeed. Most assur’dly, sir!” Hood’s Breath, that’s more than Baltro makes-I mean, ‘made.’ “Where do I sign the contract, sir? Shall I begin work now?” Emancipor rose to his feet, waited expectantly.

The man smiled. “Contract? If you wish. It is of no concern to me.”

“Uhm, what shall I call you, sir? Sir?”

“I am named Bauchelain. Master will suffice.”

“Of course, Master. And, uh, the other one?”

“The other one?”

“The one you travel with, Master.”

“Oh,” Bauchelain turned away, his gaze falling to rest pensively on the slab of slate. “He is named Korbal Broach. A very unassuming man, you might say. As manservant, you answer to me, and me alone. I doubt whether Master Broach foresees a use for you.” He turned and smiled slightly, his eyes as cold as ever. “Of course, in that I could be wrong. We’ll see, I imagine, won’t we? Now, I wish a meal, with meat, rare, and a dark wine, not overly sweet. You may place your order with the scriber below.”

Emancipor bowed. “At once, Master.”

Guld stood atop dead Sekarand’s creaking tower and scanned the city, squinting to see through the miasmic woodsmoke that hung almost motionless over the rooftops. The stillness below contrasted strangely with the night-clouds over his head, tumbling, rolling on out to sea, seeming so close above him that he found he’d instinctively hunched down as he leaned on the moss-slick parapet and waited, with dread, for the lantern signal poles to be raised.

It was the call of the season, when the sky seemed to heave itself over, trapping the city in its own breath for days on end. The season of ills, plagues, rats driven into the streets by the dancing moon.

Dead Sekarand’s Tower was less than a decade old, yet already abandoned and known to be haunted, but Guld had little fear, since he himself had been responsible for tending and nurturing the black weeds of hoary rumour-it suited the new purpose he’d found for the dull-stoned edifice. From this almost-central vantage point, his system of signal poles could be seen in any section of Lamentable Moll.

In the days when the Mell’zan Empire had first threatened the city-states of Theft-mostly on the other coast, where the Imperial Fist Greymane had landed his invasion force, coming close to conquering the entire island before being murdered by his own troops-in the days of smoke and threatening winds, Sekarand had come to Lamentable Moll. Calling himself a High Sorceror, he had contracted with King Seljure to aid in the city’s defense, and had raised this structure as his spar of power. What followed then was confused and remained so ever since, though Guld knew more details than most. Sekarand had raised liches to keep him company within these confines, and they’d either driven him mad, or murdered him outright-Sekarand had flung himself, or had been thrown, from these very merlons, down to his death on the cobbles below. Grim jokes about the High Sorceror’s swift descent had run through the streets for a time. In any case, like the Mell’zans-whose presence on Theft remained in but a single, downtrodden port on the northwest coast with half a regiment of jaded marines-Sekarand had been a promise unfulfilled.