Daniel Polansky - Tomorrow, the Killing

He set a half-keg of cider on the ground, then turned to me. ‘Wren says you’re sending him to see some darkie witch-woman.’

‘You got the broad strokes down.’

‘Since when do you make that kind of decision without me?’

‘You’re a tough man to get a finger on these days, Adolphus, what with all this running about pretending that you’re still a soldier.’

‘I’ve got a right to know what’s going on with him.’

‘And now you do.’

‘You’re gonna send him down to the Isthmus, let some hag teach him to read the future in a pig’s entrails?’

‘It’s Mazzie’s lack of qualifications you object to? I knew a First Sorcerer once, but he’s dead. Course, if you’ve got a suggestion, you’re welcome to throw it into the ring.’

‘I don’t see what the point is. He’ll grow into it.’

‘It’s not a pair of trousers – either we teach him to handle it or we wait until it burns out his mind. And while we’re on the subject of Wren’s future, what are you doing trying to turn him into a drummer boy?’

A back the length of a half-pike rose and fell. ‘He likes it.’

‘He’d like it if you spiked his tea with ouroboros root, but we’re not going to fucking do it. It’s our job to make sure he does what’s smart, not what he enjoys.’

‘Isn’t like I took him to a recruitment center.’

‘You’re setting a bad example. He’s a boy – he likes blood and loud noises and the naked threat of force. There’s no need to encourage him.’

‘That wasn’t all it was.’

‘I shortened it for the sake of brevity. Since you’ve got me going, I don’t like him hanging around with the crew of miscreants you’ve decided to make your new best friends.’

‘You deal with worse people.’

‘I’m a drug dealer, so that’s not much of a recommend-ation.’ I discovered my pouch of dreamvine was still in my pocket. I thought about rolling up a spliff but thought better of it. Then I thought better of that and went ahead and started on it. ‘Your man Joachim Pretories, Roland Montgomery’s successor, the Private Soldier’s best friend. How much you think he’s worth?’

Adolphus’s eye got shifty. ‘I never thought about it.’

I pinched shut the paper and lit it with a match. ‘I got time.’

‘I guess he gets a stipend. The dues they collect go to the wounded, and to the widows and children.’

‘Every penny, I’m sure, but you haven’t answered my question. What is Joachim Pretories worth?’

‘I dunno. I’m not his banker.’

‘He can lay hand on twenty thousand ochres, or I’m a nun.’

‘Bullshit. Joachim Pretories is an honest man.’

‘A unique specimen, then – we ought to frame him and mount him on the wall.’

‘You jape like a monkey, but I’ve yet to hear any evidence.’

‘Close your eyes tight enough, you’ll miss the sunrise. Pretories is no different than the head of any other mob. He’s got his base, and he’s got his muscle.’

‘The Association isn’t a syndicate,’ he growled, close enough to savage to be a warning, for all that I didn’t heed it.

‘How many men you think Roussel’s killed since he mustered out? I bet it’s more than he ever did in uniform.’

‘You’re no saint yourself.’

‘And I recognize my own.’

‘If you hate them so much, why’d you throw in with them?’

I ashed the joint onto the floor. ‘You heard about that, huh?’

‘I did.’ And he didn’t seem happy about it.

‘I’m in an ugly line of work, Adolphus. I have to spend time with a lot of ugly people.’

‘This is some . . . some scheme of yours?’ he asked, horrified and bewildered, like I’d spat on a statue of the Firstborn.

‘Not at all. I woke up this morning and remembered how much I loved soldiering, and the joy that would stir in my breast to find myself once again in the ranks.’

‘I don’t want to know about it,’ he said, waving his hand as if to ward me away, fat jiggling around the white of his undershirt.

‘That fits well with my plan of not telling you.’ But I continued just the same. ‘These men aren’t who you think they are – tell me you’re not so desperate to relive your youth that you’ve blinded yourself to that fact.’

‘Not everyone’s as crooked as you.’

‘Sure they are – they just go through more effort to hide it.’

There was a lot of nastiness floating around the bar, and with evening falling I had an errand that excused my quick absence. Upstairs I pulled a long black trunk from below my bed. Inside was a cache of weapons I don’t generally need for day-to-day work. I put a knife in my sleeve and in my boot. Then I tied a trench blade to my belt, the short, wide-edged cutting swords that had been universal on both sides during the war. They weren’t enough for what was coming, but they were all I had.

22

Evening is an undignified time to perspire, but that’s mostly what I did on the walk over to Estroun. Weeks of drought had turned the Andel into something that could only kindly be described as a stream, a brackish trickle of water winding its way to the docks. A girl about Wren’s age stood silently in the dry riverbed, watching me cross the bridge. She wore a cotton dress and had a bruise running the length of her face. In one hand she held an empty bucket. After a moment her eyes narrowed, and she spat into the current and walked off. I knew how she felt.

The Eighth Daeva Tavern took up most of the block, three towering stories and a rooftop deck that had the best view of the city north of the Aerie. To walk into it was to be whisked into a chaotic and licentious skein, a citadel of, if not debauchery, at the very least excess. It was a popular hangout for a curiously broad range of the population – bravos blowing a week’s worth of thuggery on one memorable evening, slumming nobles from the Heights dipping their toes into the city’s underbelly. All and sundry were welcome, so long as you had the coin and kept the peace. Aiding the first were a dozen barmen on every floor who passed out dreamvine as easy as whiskey, along with an impressive selection of gaming tables and an equally inspiring stable of whores. Ensuring the second a hand-picked squad of bouncers swept the premises regularly, unmissably large gentlemen in handsome attire loose enough to throw a punch without rupturing a seam. These were supplemented by a subtler detail, a sprinkling of wiry boys sipping watered-down beer and keeping keen eyes on the proceedings. You could do all the business you wanted in Estroun outside of the Eighth Daeva, so long as you kicked up your percentage to the man who owned it, but the bar itself was inviolate. Such was the implicit guarantee that inspired so diverse a swath of the population to revelry, a promise backed by the full faith and credit of the Swell Man.

The heat had done nothing to diminish the crowd, twenty or thirty people bottle-necked outside. I slipped to the front and took up a spot by the doorman, a brawny Vaalan with sad eyes that missed nothing. As a rule, weapons were not allowed in the Eighth Daeva, but I’m not part of the normal trade, so he glossed over my armaments. ‘Hello, Warden.’

‘How’s the day, Koos?’

He reviewed the foremost applicant, a silken courtesan a few years past prime, then waved her in without enthusiasm. ‘I’m not one to complain. Not about the weather, or the stink. Or the Crown, or the plague, or my pay.’

‘You’re not one to complain,’ I agreed.

‘No sir, I am not. Boss is on the floor somewhere – you shouldn’t have trouble catching up with him.’

‘Hold solid, Koos.’

‘I’m a rock, Warden.’

I don’t particularly like Swell’s joint. Humanity is tiring enough one-to-one – I never saw what was so recreational about culling a bunch and dumping them into an enclosed area. And the Daeva was too deliberately a place to see and be seen, and I wasn’t much for the spotlight – a side effect of my business dealings, I suppose. Still, it was hard not to be impressed by the sheer jubilant cacophony. From one flight up I could hear a band banging out a tune, the roof shaking in unison. Down at sea level things were a bit calmer, gallants staking their claim on the whores and the not far from it, the unloved or out of pocket drawn up despairingly against the walls.