Babylon Steel (41 page)

“I don’t see what this has to do with me. So you dumped us for a better client. Fine. Well, we’ve found ourselves another butcher, we’ll manage.”

“Thing is, I didn’t think there was anything to it, when she said yon man was a priest. Plenty of them around, I thought.”

“I’m not following you, lady, and I’ve got things to do. If this is a roundabout way of saying you’d like us back on your lists, I’ll fetch Flower and you can talk to him. Now if you don’t mind...”

“Listen!” she said. “That order I got? It was for the Vessels of Purity.”

The bloody and thrice-damned Vessels. Again. “And what’s that got to do with me?” I said.

“The man who came along, he said mine looked like a good place. Clean, he said. Cleanest he’d seen. He liked that. He asked me about my other clients, and I told him, the Lodestone, and how they were known for their food; and Pippit, she’s my daughter, she goes and pipes up with the name of the Lantern, not knowing any better, because of you having a reputation for good food, too.” She glanced up at me, half embarrassed, half angry.

I didn’t say anything.

“So he says...” – she took a breath, folding her arms under her bosom – “he says that that was a pity. He made it obvious, see, that if I dealt with you...”

“He’d whisk that big fat order out from under your nose,” I said. “Wait a minute, did your daughter tell him what sort of place this was?”

“‘Course she didn’t! I didn’t bring her up to mention such things!”

“Which means he knew already,” I said. “That’s odd, don’t you think? That a priest of the Vessels should know about a brothel? Or maybe not, since they made a point of coming here, causing ructions and distress all around. Maybe that’s what they do, go searching around for places of sin. Wonder what they do if they can’t find any?
Why
are you here?”

“They came here?”

“They stood outside, two of them, scaring off clients until they realised they were breaking the law. So?”

The woman was twisting her hands in a fold of her cloak, wrenching the material into a rope like she was trying to wring out the long-dried dye. “I should have come before,” she said. “When she came back, and told me, but I had so much on, I just told her to take a different route and stay out of his way. What was I to do?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The priest,” she said. “Pippit was doing an order for the Hen and Chickens, just riverwards of you, and she came past here, and she stopped, because, she said, she always liked to look and see what the girls were wearing, especially the Fey, and I know Flower, sometimes he’d give Pippit a little treat, a cake or something, guess she was hoping he’d be about, and he came out of the alley and he started talking to her.”

“Who did? You mean Flower?”

“No! This priest. He said things to her. Things about sin, and how she’d get tainted, and how she should stay away or be scoured in the cleansing fires. Well, the first time it happened, I didn’t think much to it, she knows not to let anyone mess with her. But he was there again, next time, and somehow he had her scared. She started going the long way round, and she had to tell me ’cause it took longer and she knows I worry if she’s late. She’s a good girl that way.”

“I’m sure she is. You tell the militia?”

“The militia? Well, no. I mean, he hadn’t done anything but talk, and she recognised him from when he came to the shop. Just a bit too much god in him, that’s what I thought. Only she’s been fretting, worried, and to be straight, so have I. Because you’ve got young girls here – I know, I don’t mean children – but still, I thought he might be trouble for you. I thought maybe I should come.”

“Bloody right, you should. I’d have appreciated knowing some ranting hate-monger was hanging around my jalla.” Then something in my brain went
click.
“Which alley?”

“What?”

I kept my voice under control with an effort. “Which... alley... did this
priest
come out of?”

“Just down there... Dice something?”

“Twodice Row,” I said. “You should have come earlier.”

“What...” The colour dropped out of her face, leaving it yellowy, like an old candle. “Was someone hurt? Did he do something?”

“You saw that bandage Cruel was wearing? The girl on the door? He damn near stove her skull in.”

“Oh, sweet All protect us.” Her knees went, and she collapsed on the nearest sofa. “Pippit... he was talking to Pippit...”

“Hey, now.” I poured a measure of golden from the decanter on the table and gave it to her. She drank it down without a blink, and the colour rushed back into her face.

“So this priest. A Vessel?”

“Pippit said so. He had the mask.”

I remembered the birdlike flicker of grey I’d seen, when I was looking out of my window. “All right. We’re going to the militia, right now.”

“But Pippit’s on her own, in the shop; I can’t leave her, I have to go...”

“We’ll take her with us. They’ll want to talk to her anyway.”

I told Cruel what was up as I was leaving. “Tell the others. Let in no-one,
no-one,
we don’t recognise. Understand? We got any clients in?”

She shook her head. “Not that I know of. Too close to Twomoon.”

“Good. In that case, no clients either. Right?”

“If he comes, we’ll be ready,” she said.

I wasn’t going to let one more girl die at his hands, not if there was a chance I could stop it. As soon as the twisted little creep was in the hands of the militia, I’d be gone.

Back to Tiresana. I felt my stomach curdle at the thought.

A
NY OTHER CITY,
any other time, we’d have made a strange threesome, me and Mirril the butcher and neat little Pippit. Her mother clutched the girl’s hand as though afraid she’d float away, glaring around at anyone who came too close.

But this was Scalentine, and close on Twomoon. The streets rang with the boom and crackle and sulphurous tang of fire-magic; the portals hummed and burned. The sky danced with light. Closer to hand, brass blared, drums throbbed, and a procession spilled down the street.

They were little blue people from some plane I didn’t know; dancers in costumes of multicoloured rags, their tall hats glittering with sequins; musicians playing great curved brass horns, so long the bowls were supported on little wheels; riders on fat beasts like grey sheep, slung about with drums the riders played with their heels.

Mirril clutched Pippit close to her, and the girl squirmed. The grinning dancers tossed paper-wrapped sweetmeats at passers-by. I caught one on a reflex, but for once I had no appetite. I managed to wave and give something like a smile, and gave the sweet to Pippit. The procession trailed noisily away.

As we moved into King of Stone, towards the barracks, the streets were packed with moon-dancers, driven to a spinning frenzy by Twomoon, their wide silvery skirts and long white hair flying out as they whirled themselves to exhaustion. There were wailing luck-singers and people hawking cures for weredom (
they’d
be away on their toes if they saw a militia uniform). There were junny-men with their steaming jugs of happy juice; banta-cake sellers, for those with stone mouths and steel digestive tracts; the green-robed, slate-skinned priesthood of the Church of the Glorification wandering through the crowd, handing out little wooden mice.

No Vessels. Not one.

The barracks was packed to the walls. People pushed past, shouting; the only space was around a dozen weres on the turn who didn’t have a safe room of their own and were queuing for the ones provided by the city. They were already jumpy and hairing up. Pippit stared around, wide-eyed. She didn’t seem scared, just interested.

A middle-aged woman, with a tall, sullen, wild-haired boy in tow, was pleading with Roflet.

“Madam,” he said, “we can’t just lock him up.”

“But you can see it! Look at him! He’s changed, he’s not like my good boy anymore, he doesn’t do his chores, he argues, he won’t bathe! He’s a were! I know weres have to be locked up during Twomoon, I’m doing my duty, that’s all!”

The boy glanced at us, Pippit giggled and he flushed.

“Ma’am, he’s not a were,” Roflet said. “He’s just fourteen. We don’t lock people up for that.”

Eventually she went away, still towing the poor lad by the wrist, claiming that it was all wrong and if her son ran amuck it wouldn’t be her fault.

Mirril and I made it to the front of the queue, finally, and when they asked us what we wanted, I said, “We’ve got information that might help with finding out who killed the girl down in King of Stone.”

Mirril made a choking sound. She hadn’t, of course, known about the dead girl, and I hadn’t thought to tell her. One of these days I’m going to have to learn when to apply tact
outside
the bedroom.

“Chief’s office,” Roflet said.

Mirril started to jabber as soon as the door shut behind us, telling the whole story, and the Chief held up his hand. Paw.

She shut up.

I’d never seen him on duty so late in his Change – they must have been really pushed. His shoulders were massive, and smooth silver and black hair was growing up his neck and cheeks to meet the mane that tumbled down his shoulders. His jaw was longer, his nails had become claws; he was starting to look a lot like a lion.

He looked at Pippit. “You remember what this man said?” His teeth were changing, too, making his speech slightly mushy.

She chewed her thumb. “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, some things, but not, you know, what he actually said in his actual sort of words. What sort of were are you?”

“Well, no-one’s quite sure. No-one knows where I come from, see.” He winked at the girl. “Now, anything you can remember? What he said, way he looked, anything.”

She stared at the table with those big solemn eyes, looking exactly as she had working at her slate. “Well, he said stuff about how the god didn’t like the Lantern. That it was full of bad people, people who did lots of sin, and I shouldn’t go there. That I’d be... rotten.”

“Rotten?”

“A word like rotten.”

The Chief looked at me. He loses some words, closer he gets to Change.

“Maybe... corrupt?” I said.

“Yes!” She looked delighted. “Corrupt. He said there was corrupting and iniquity. And stuff. And he was creepy.”

“Creepy how?” the Chief said.

“Well he was talking at me and at me, it was like it didn’t matter if I listened or not, and he didn’t even
know
me.”

I glanced at the Chief. A Vessel, talking to a woman? Even one as young as this?

“And I tried to get on and do my rounds, and he just kept
talking.
And when I was there again and he was there
again
, he saw me, and he sort of
shook,
and his voice was all funny. He said things about me being still an innocent, and that I could yet be saved, but I had to stay away from the... corrupting.

“Then he held his hands up like this.” She held hers up, the fingers hooked, the thumbs spread. A strangler’s grip. “And said something about the Purest protect her innocence, for otherwise His Servant must do cleaning, or something.”

There was a hitching sound. Mirril had one red, work-roughened hand to her mouth, and you could barely see anything of her face except her eyes, fixed on her daughter, as though afraid she might disappear.

“It wasn’t like he was talking to me at all,” Pippit said. “Maybe his god. I don’t know. Anyway I said I was sure he was right and I wouldn’t go there again and I went home.” She dropped her hands and gave the Chief a bright-eyed look, like the good student I’m sure she was.

“Very good,” he said, after a moment. “Thank you, Pippit.” He was working hard to keep it out, but I could hear the undertone in his voice, that growl waiting to burst out of his throat.

I sympathised. It was lucky, very lucky for the Vessels, that I wasn’t an Avatar any longer. Right then I’d have given a great deal to have the power to go through whoever was responsible like... well, like Babaska would have done.

Roflet gave both Pippit and her shaking mother some water, and turned to the Chief. “What now?”

The Chief frowned, his eyes almost disappearing in hair. “Don’t know for certain it was a priest, just the mask. Anyway, a hundred priests in the city. More. Can’t bring ’em all in on suss.” He looked at Pippit. “Anything else? He ever take his mask off?”

She shook her head.

He held his hands up. “Any rings?”

“No. He didn’t have any rings. His hands were very clean. They looked all scrubbed, like Mum’s do when she’s getting ready to cut the meat?”

“Clean hands.”

“Yes. Very clean. He smelled of soap. Not just clean-clean, but really strong soap. Like Mum uses in the shop.”

I saw Mirril frown, as if something was twitching at her memory. Something was twitching at mine, too. Something to do with the Vessels, again, but I couldn’t quite grasp it.

“Why the
mask?
” the Chief said. “He can’t be a Vessel. No sense to it. A mask is meant to say, here’s a Vessel. Look. But...”

“Wearing a mask
implicates
the Vessels, doesn’t it?” Roflet said.

“Yes.”

“Well, yes,” I said, “but...” But I shut up, because I could see the point. The mask of the Vessels was a statement. To wear the mask meant you were acting as a Vessel. And the Vessels knew that they couldn’t commit murder, as Vessels, and get away with it...

My head hurt.

“So, we need to talk to them again,” the Chief said. “They’re not going to like it. Diplomatic section won’t, either. After all, Vessels have been being co-operative, right? Good upstanding citizens...”

“Yeah,” I said. “Funny, that, isn’t it?”

The Chief gave me a look. His eyes had changed, but they were as sharp as ever. “What?”

“Well, that changed kind of sudden, didn’t it? One minute, they’re all
we demand this, we demand that, no whore has a right to question anything we do
, and the next they’re all apologies. And money. And they’ve been hanging around my jalla, too; not just the day they were obvious about it. We’ve caught glimpses of them. Now, I thought it was because they were hoping to catch us out on something, breaking the law, maybe. But what if that wasn’t it?”