Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

Sender’s Place was an old pub on the Rim overlooking Greenfire Depths. It was in the basement below a proper gentleman’s club and in Styke’s day had been soldier-exclusive – a place where the infantry could drink away the horrors of battle while their officers smoked and played cards in their posh velvet couches just upstairs. It all took place under the watchful eye of Grandma Sender, who brooked no fights or pulling of rank. To the veterans of Landfall, it was a damned institution.

It wasn’t the type of place anyone would try to start a fight.

It was about seven o’clock in the evening and Styke sat on a stoop across the street from the entrance to Sender’s Place, his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched and flatcap pulled down to cover his face. It seemed, from the look of things, that old Grandma Sender had fallen on hard times. The windows of the gentleman’s club upstairs were boarded up, the paint peeling and the front stoop occupied by a beggar and his mutt.

“I’ve been here before,” Celine told him.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, my dad used to fence stuff here.”

“To Grandma Sender?”

“No. A man he met in a back room. Grandma was nice, though. Always gave me a sweet.”

“I always liked Grandma Sender,” Styke commented. He was sad to see the ramshackle state of the place, and suspected it was held less sacred than it used to be. Oh well. Maybe it hadn’t been the best place to set up a meeting. “All right. You stay out here. You see anyone suspicious head toward the stairs, you throw a pebble at that window there. If there’s more than one, throw more than one pebble. Got it?”

“Right.”

Styke headed across the street and put his hand on the iron handrail leading to the underground entrance.

“Ben!” Celine called.

He turned back.

“Be careful.”

He nodded and headed down the stairs, ducking into the cool darkness. The pub was just as he remembered it – dimly lit, the faint smell of mala smoke hanging in the air, drunks sleeping off their afternoon hangovers on the corner benches, and old Grandma Sender herself, looking the same as she had ten years ago, standing behind the bar polishing glasses. Only the press of warm bodies and the sound of rowdy drinking songs were missing.

Styke let his eyes adjust to the dim light. He counted a dozen occupants, most of them drunk or on their way there, only a couple of them having dinner. None of them were Palo. He felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth as the smell of the place brought back memories. He’d met Ibana here, more than fifteen years ago. She’d broken his nose, and Grandma Sender had thrown them both out for the night, so they’d bluffed their way into a card game upstairs and cleaned every krana out of two Kez generals.

“You just going to stand there eyeing the place or you going to have a drink?” Grandma Sender said, not looking up from her polishing. “Don’t think about robbing us, we got nothing left.”

Styke went to the bar. “Hard times?” he asked, laying down several banknotes. “Whiskey and a pipe.”

Sender peered at him, scowling. “I know you?” She was a rough old woman, no doubt nearing seventy by now, skin wrinkled, leathery, and pale. She had one eye that seemed to perpetually squint.

“Doubt it,” Styke said.

She shook her head. “Yeah, it’s bad times.” The money disappeared off the bar. “Used to be a veterans’ pub. All the veterans either work down in the mills or been sent to the camps.”

“No more veterans in Greenfire Depths?” he asked.

“Some,” Grandma Sender admitted. “But not as many as you’d think. Taken over by the Palo these days and that lot is useless as far as I’m concerned. They won’t drink a drop if the owner of the place isn’t a Palo themselves so all I get is the rejects.” She put a full glass in front of Styke, then packed a pipe with cherry-scented tobacco and handed it over. “You a veteran?” she asked. “You look familiar.”

“Just another one of the weary dead, Grandma,” he said. He laid another krana down and nodded to the corner of the bar farthest from the door. “Light. Over there.”

Grandma Sender lit one of the myriad of gas lamps above the spot Styke had indicated and then left him alone with his whiskey and pipe. He produced the morning’s newspaper and sat back with his feet up on a chair. There was a report on the front page about the Riflejack Mercenary Company taking residence in the old Loel’s Fort and getting to work rebuilding a few nearby tenements. It would be the closest rebuilding project to Greenfire Depths in years and was stirring up a decent amount of support from the locals. Styke wondered what Flint was really there for – he hadn’t been allowed that far into her good graces – but figured the positive press was some kind of red herring. It usually was in Landfall.

There was another story about a massive dig site south of the city. Thousands of laborers had been transported there to help excavate an old monolith. The site was closed to the public but rumor had it scholars were being brought in from the Nine. No one really seemed to know what for, though. Seemed like a lot of effort for an old stone.

Styke flipped through the stories, still pleased by the concept of getting a newspaper the day it came out instead of waiting weeks or months for it to be smuggled into the labor camps. It was all drivel, of course, but it was drivel about his city.

His head came up at the sound of a clink against the high window on the other side of the room. There was another clink. Then another. And another. Styke drew his knife and laid it on the table, casually setting the newspaper down on top of it, and spread his arms across the back of the bench.

The door opened. Even through the dim haze Styke could make out the pale, freckled skin of a young Palo man, followed by several companions. There were four of them all told, dressed in wool suits like any other city folk, no doubt trying to blend in as well as they could. Even during the war most Palo had stopped wearing their buckskins in the city limits. Too much bad blood between them and everybody else.

The four Palo fanned out just inside the door. One carried a pistol proudly on his hip, two others heavy boz knives like Styke’s – though much smaller – while the fourth was already wearing a pair of iron knuckledusters. Came looking for a bit more than talk, it seems. Styke labeled the four of them in his head: Cheeks, Freckles, Soot, and Happy. Happy was the one with the pistol on his hip, wearing a big grin and looking around the pub like he planned on owning it by the end of the night.

“What do you four want?” Grandma Sender demanded. “Ain’t got no time for the likes of you, not if you ain’t drinkin’.”

Happy gestured rudely. “Shut up, Grandma. Spoke when spoken to, or you’ll get the back of my hand.”

“Try it, you little runt,” Grandma said, slamming the cup she’d been polishing down on the bar. “I’ll…”

“Grandma,” Styke called gently. “They’re here to see me. Don’t worry about them.” With one foot he pushed the chair across from him out from the table and switched from Adran to Palo. “Sit down and leave the old lady alone. We have talking to do.”

“No fighting!” Grandma Sender warned.

Happy narrowed his eyes at Styke and swaggered across the room, followed by the rest. He ignored the offered chair and stood across from Styke, arms folded. He wasn’t a small man, as far as most were concerned. Lean, muscular, taller than average. Like most Palo he had bright green eyes and a bit of a squint that came from a thousand generations under the Fatrastan sun. He had the type of face and bearing that would put most women on their backs. If only, Styke mused, he had the charm to go with it.