Mike Shevdon: The Eighth Court

The fair was an assault on the nostrils. The press of bodies intermingled with the sickly scent of spun sugar over diesel fumes from the generators, cut by the ozone tang of sparking electricity from the rides, gave him indigestion, not helped by the thumping bass of the music. It had Marshdock feeling sick even before he’d found the meeting place.

One of the oldest of the travelling fairs — originally they’d been a nexus for information exchange and maintaining contacts, but these days they were merely an amusement for those who liked such things. The dark came early this time of year, and the last of the families were drifting towards the edges of the fair; kids clinging with sticky fingers to trophy bears and being rewarded with toffee-coated apples and doughnuts laden with sugar and cinnamon. Soon the families would be gone and a teenage crowd would slip in between the rides and the shooting galleries in search of a different kind of thrill.

“Scream if you want to go faster!” That was the call.

No one did business here any more. Normally he would not grace it with his presence but he’d received a tip-off that there would be something special for him, as long as he collected in person.

Information like that always carried a premium, and being the sole source would mean that he could pay off favours that were long overdue and start to build up some capital again. The last year had been lean. Nothing was said, but he had the distinct sense that someone had put the word out that he was no longer to be trusted. It had been like that ever since the girl — Blackbird — had brought him an unwanted visitor. It hung on him like a curse, and it rankled with him that he had helped them and got nothing in return. It showed weakness, and in his line of work that was a luxury you couldn’t afford. He walked past the dodgems and threaded through the crowds heading for the darker edges of the fair between the rides and the caravans.

Since the incident in Covent Garden, Carris had been a refugee. She appeared when it suited her, and where she went in the meantime no one knew. In truth, no one really cared. She would drink and curse and swear revenge against the one who had killed Fenlock, her lost love, but everyone knew she would not face his killer directly. The word these days was that Fenlock’s murderer was Warder-trained and everyone knew the Warders stuck together. No one wanted that kind of trouble, even for a price; not that Carris had anything to offer.

So the invitation to meet Carris had been intriguing. Delivered through numerous proxies to ensure that her location wasn’t discovered, it was pitched well beyond anything she could normally demand, indicating that she thought she’d stumbled on something worthwhile. His initial scepticism had been tempered by the condition that he meet her here in Nottingham, while the fair was in full swing, making Marshdock wonder if she’d been travelling with the fair all along. It would explain her erratic appearances.

There were hints in the message that she was onto something big — something that the Lords and Ladies would be interested to know, and that kind of favour was always worth cultivating. Carris couldn’t take it to them direct because that would mean dealing with the Warders, and she was understandably shy of that. Since Carris trusted no-one else to act as go-between, Marshdock could earn favour on both sides by bridging the gap.

Wrapping himself in glamour to remain unseen, he slipped between the penny-falls and the hall of mirrors, merging with the shadows behind the stalls and letting his eyes become accustomed to the dark before moving on. He was early, but it always paid to scout out the location of a pick-up before the meeting. He might rarely stray from his fireside these days, but many years of collecting information in dark alleys had taught him caution. Even so, he almost stumbled into the figure lingering in the shadows behind the hall of mirrors.

He retreated back into the gap between the stalls, realising that the lurker was watching the area behind the stalls so intently they had not noticed him. He wondered for a moment whether Carris had also turned up early, but then realised that the figure was male and not inclined to the gothic fashions that Carris adopted. As Marshdock’s eyes adjusted to the dark he nevertheless began to think he recognised the person lurking there. There was something familiar about them, the way they hunched their shoulders and cocked their head on one side as if listening. A suspicion formed in his mind, just as the figure stepped out into the light that striped across the grass between the hall of mirrors and the candyfloss stall.

It was a facsimile of himself. Marshdock’s pulse began to race as he wondered why anyone would be impersonating him. It wasn’t as if he was a regular at the fair — he couldn’t recall when he had last been here. That meant that someone knew that he was going to be here. He’d told no one where he was going, so unless he’d been followed — no, more likely someone had heard about the meeting from Carris. One of the go-betweens must have blabbed and now someone wanted to get the jump on him. Someone was trying to steal his prize.

He considered confronting them, right there, but caution was ever his watchword. He would see what they did and make his judgement then. His hand slid to his belt and eased the long knife from its sheath. He held it down behind his leg so the blade would not catch the light and give him away. Better to be ready.

“Marshdock?” The call came from the shadows beyond the waiting impersonator.

“Well who else would it be?” his twin asked, impatiently.

“Were you followed?” asked the voice.

“Certainly not!” said his twin, with conviction.

Carris edged into the light. Since he’d last seen her she’d lost even more weight. Her stick-thin legs in skinny jeans looked too spindly to bear her and she moved in short bursts like a frightened cat, ready to dart into the shadows at the first sign of trouble. Her skin took on a sickly tone in the coloured lights from the fair that no amount of face powder and black eyeliner could disguise. Her black hair hung lank around her face. Marshdock thought he could smell her.

“You know the price?” said Carris, peering into the shadows so that Marshdock was obliged to keep rigidly still or give himself away.

“We can negotiate on that,” said his twin. He even sounds like me, thought Marshdock.

“No negotiation! I want the wraithkin Warder dead! Understand?” Her anger was fierce, but short-lived. “I want my life back,” she said, quietly. “I want some respect.” She faded fast; it was hard to imagine anyone giving her regard in her current state.

“Then you’ll have to produce something worthy of blood-price, won’t you?” said his twin. “A favour for a favour, you know how it works.”

“How can I trust you?” she asked. “This didn’t come from me, understand?”

“Who else can you trust?” said his twin. “And my sources are always anonymous. Now, either you tell me something worth knowing, or I’m leaving. Which is it to be?”

“It concerns the High Court,” said Carris. “That’s gotta be worth something?”

“That depends,” said his twin, cautiously.

“The Seventh Court, they’re here,” she said. “Not just one, there’s a group of them.”

“That’s news indeed,” said his twin, “but hardly a surprise. You’ll need more than that to be worth a blood-debt against a Warder.”

“I’ve seen them,” she said. “They didn’t see me, though. They were meeting someone from the High Court — the who and the why, that’s worth the price, isn’t it?”