She Who Waits (Low Town 3) (43 page)

It was less fulfilling than I had anticipated.

I lay there a while. I would have lain there a while longer, if I could have. I think I would have lain there till the end. Wren wouldn’t let me though, that little bastard. Picked me up off the ground, steadied me against the wall. My legs collapsed beneath me. Wren helped me up again, and that time I managed to stay steady as he wrapped my arm around his shoulder and dragged me out of the abattoir and into the street.

W
e found ourselves in a bar just off the main quay called the Homeward Winds. It was a quiet little dump owned by an old comrade of mine, name of Lumiere. I used to slip in there on nights when the Earl was too busy for my tastes, when I wanted a little bit of quiet. The Winds had that in spades. Lumiere ran the bar as well as owning it, and he was a cold, unfriendly fellow, who seemed to have more of a taste for hitting people than he did speaking with them. He really had no business owning a bar, but it wasn’t my place to tell him that.

Wren disappeared for a few minutes, ostensibly to the toilet, in actual fact to pull himself together. He’d well earned some time to himself. While he was gone I put enough breath into my body to allow it to forget some portion of its injuries. Then I had a quiet few words with Lumiere. He was nodding when the boy came back in.

I was up at the counter, but I walked him to a table in the corner. ‘You hanging on?’ I asked.

‘I’m fine.’ His face made a lie of his bravado. I signaled Lumiere for two draughts of ale. We waited silently until it came.

‘To your father,’ I said.

Wren drank it quickly. I didn’t look into his eyes, but if I had I’d have noticed they were wet.

‘Then Adolphus is …’ Wren trailed off.

‘Yeah.’

‘And that man I …’

‘Better you’d never learned what it felt like to put a fellow away,’ I said. ‘But since you had to – I’m glad it was him.’

Wren nodded, but he didn’t seem to take much comfort in it. I watched him down his beer, trying to wash away the memory of the life he’d snuffed. A lot of them take to it, the young ones especially. I saw plenty of that in the war, quiet boys gone loud with their first taste of blood. Dangerous in anyone, doubly so for someone with the Art. But I could see from his eyes that Wren wouldn’t go in that direction. He looked miserable, and lost.

I felt so damn proud of him, just then. He was maybe the only thing I ever got right in a long life of foolishness and barbarity.

We drank a while in silence.

‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked.

‘My mother.’

‘I thought she died when you were a kid.’

‘Doesn’t mean I can’t think about her.’

‘What do you remember?’

‘Small things,’ I said. ‘There was a song she used to sing, to me and Henni. She was half-Islander, they’ve all got a touch of minstrel in them.’

‘You never told me that.’

‘Father was an Asher, I think. Unredeemed of course.’

‘They must have cared for each other.’

‘I suppose.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘I can’t remember,’ I said, which wasn’t true.

We finished off our drinks, and I signaled Lumiere to bring us two more.

‘What happens now?’ Wren asked.

‘The plan hasn’t changed,’ I said. ‘You and Adeline are off to Kinterre at dawn. I’ll be following you when I can.’

‘It’s a little late in the day to be squaring me out of accounts.’

‘It’s a little late in the day, period.’

‘I’m part of this now, like it or not. I killed a man tonight.’

‘Let’s quit while you still feel bad about it.’

‘You don’t feel bad about it.’

‘I am what I am. I’d like to see you be more.’

Lumiere had a mirror behind the bar, though it took me a while to realize who it was reflecting. My hair had been dun with streaks of gray in it two hours earlier. Now it was white as bone. How many years had that stunt with the Eye cost me? Ten? Twenty? I pawed at the fresh wrinkles on my face, lines like a gnarled oak. I hadn’t ever been a vain man – I’d never had anything to be vain about – but still, it was a hell of a thing, sitting there and seeing what I’d sacrificed.

I was grateful for the boy’s interruption. ‘What’s your plan, then?’

‘Crowley wasn’t the only one I owe something to.’

‘You’re going after the Old Man?’

I nodded.

‘Then I’m with you. Adolphus was my father; he deserves that much.’

‘You think he’d want you dead?’

‘What he wants don’t much matter anymore, does it?’

‘Of course it does,’ I said. ‘It matters now more than ever.’

Wren looked into his beer a while. ‘I got a right to make my own mind up on this one.’

‘You do. You’re a man, and I’m proud as hell to think I’ve had a hand in you becoming one. I’m not telling you to go – I’m asking you.’

He stared off into space for a while, thinking it over, bitter and confused and young, mostly just young. ‘I won’t leave you here to face it alone,’ he said finally. ‘I can’t.’

‘You’re sure?’

Wren nodded firmly.

‘All right.’ I waved to Lumiere. He reached beneath the bar, filled two shot glasses and brought them over to us on a tray.

I took the one nearest me, handed Wren the other. We touched them against each other, then drank them in turn. Mine was strong whiskey, and it burned happily on its way down.

Wren set his own back on the table, frowning and licking his lips. After a moment he swirled his finger into the dregs, coming up with an unpleasant black slick. It took him another second to put it all together.

‘Mother’s Helper,’ I said. ‘A few grains of that will knock out a bull.’

He stood up from his seat, then promptly collapsed backwards. Lumiere was waiting to catch him, eased him slowly down to the floor. An unpleasant fellow, Lumiere, but reliable.

‘Be easy, be easy,’ I said, climbing out of my chair and kneeling down beside Wren. ‘You fight you’re only gonna give yourself a headache.’ Actually, either way he was going to wake up in eight hours with the most awful fucking pain in his skull that you could imagine, but there was no reason to let him know that in advance. ‘You look out for Adeline – she’s already figured about Adolphus, but it’ll take her a day or two to admit it. There’s coin waiting for you in the Free Cities, enough to get a solid start at least. They say the practitioners there operate in the open, unregulated – you find the best one you can and you convince him to take you on. You want to do something for Adolphus, for me, that’s what you’ll do. Make every fucking drop you got in you count.’

He was too far gone to speak, but his eyes were furious, little dots of rage gradually swirling into unconsciousness.

‘You’ll forgive me at some point. At least you’ll be alive to try.’

I waited another moment, then gave him a solid poke in the shoulder. He didn’t react. Lumiere was standing over us silently, waiting for the nod. I gave it to him, along with the name of the boat he was to drop the boy’s body off on.

‘Pour me another shot before you leave,’ I said. ‘Straight up this time.’

L
ord Charles Monck was a handsome, dignified man a few years older than I was. His hair was slate gray, but he had a broad chest and a youthful face. He looked like the sort of person you’d want in charge of the Empire – which, for most of the population, was far more important than actually being capable of running it.

Egmont, by contrast, looked very much the worst I’d seen him. He’d forgotten to comb his hair, or he’d simply undone his good work at some point during the day. His face was pale as curdled milk, and he was staring at me in a fashion that a man of weaker ego might find wounding. I assumed it had something to do with the letter I’d sent that morning, the letter that had in fact prompted the meeting that was about to begin.

It had read:

Egmont,

I know everything. At midnight, so will Black House. Should this possibility fail to meet with your approval, I’ll be at your chapter house this evening at seven. Be there, and ensure your boss is as well.

After making sure of Wren’s exit, I’d found a room at a nearby inn, slept for about twelve hours. I’d woken up feeling worse, feeling so old and tired I could barely keep my head up. It was small comfort to know that I wouldn’t need to do so much longer. I’d spent the rest of the morning and the following afternoon chain smoking and trying to maintain that state of inebriation wherein tomorrow seems very distant, but unslurred speech is still a possibility. Around sunset I realized I’d overshot the mark, but I managed to right myself with the aid of a few vials of breath. I copped two more of these off a Tarasaighn on the way over to the Steps’ headquarters. A member of my own stable, curiously. He was selling me what I’d sold him, at about a sixty-percent markup.

We were in a room in the chapter house that I’d never seen. They’d searched me before I’d come in, a thorough but not undignified pat-down. The Steps were big on gravitas.

‘I was sorry to hear about your bar,’ Monck opened smoothly.

‘Don’t be. I was the one who burned it.’

‘And why would you do something like that?’

‘I felt overburdened by the weight of my own possessions. Wanted to make a clear break.’

‘How profound.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Normally, I don’t interfere with Egmont’s activities. He has my … utmost respect.’

‘Clean hands are a valuable commodity.’

‘But he says that you insisted my presence was necessary for this meeting to take place.’

‘I didn’t want to have to go over everything twice.’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’m here.’

I rolled a cigarette overslow, playing out each motion with unnatural deliberateness. ‘It actually wasn’t a bad plan,’ I said finally.

‘Excuse me?’ Monck answered.

‘But you got carried away. Lack of subtlety, that’s the first mark of an amateur.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t follow.’

‘I can run through it, if that would make you feel better. But then again, we don’t have a lot of time – it might be best to skip to the end.’

‘Humor me.’

I lit my cigarette. ‘You’ve been playing the long game against the Old Man. Slipping your people into Black House, doing what you can to wrong-foot him. At some point you made contact with the Nestrians. Your politics align vaguely, I suppose, and the enemy of my enemy and all that. They sent over a ringer, one of their top people, an old hand with deep roots in Rigus.’

‘Go on.’

‘It’s been a few years, but I’m sure Albertine still had plenty to tell you about Black House, about the weaknesses in the organization. She might even have pointed you at an … acquaintance of hers, the Old Man’s former protege.’

‘She thought you might be of some value to us.’

‘She’s a sharp one – how much of it was hers?’

‘Some of it.’

Most of it, if I had to make a guess. ‘You needed a convenient excuse to make contact with me. You’d learned about Coronet from Albertine – it was her great coup, after all. And you’ve got enough ears south of the Old City to let you know about our sudden rash of murders, and about this new drug that had made its way onto the market. How am I doing so far?’

‘Well enough.’

‘It took me a while to figure out why, if you were all so concerned about project Coronet, you made a half-wit like Hume your point-man. But the answer was staring me in the face – you didn’t care about Coronet, not really. Even if the red fever was some master plan on the part of the Old Man, it wouldn’t go into effect quickly enough to upset your plans.’

‘Coronet has never been our primary concern,’ Monck confirmed.

‘But while I was running around chasing leads, I stumbled upon all sorts of exciting secrets – secrets you knew I’d be passing on to the Old Man. Harribuld was your test case. Was he a complete patsy, or was he really working for you?’

Egmont fielded this one. ‘We’re always keeping our ears out for useful information. Harribuld didn’t have much to offer, but we paid him a few ochres a month.’

‘And all he had to do to earn it was get murdered,’ I smirked. ‘Anyway. You marched him past me the first time I visited, waited for me to tell the Old Man about it, waited for the Old Man to kill him. When that happened, you figured the game was on. You knew Black House was desperate to plug their leak, find out which of their people were secretly yours. And, lo and behold, last time I was in Egmont’s office, I came across information pointing to five honest agents, trussed up as traitors. If the Old Man had bought that, you’d have continued feeding me false information, watched as Black House started amputating its own limbs. Did I miss anything?’

Egmont and Monck looked at each other for a moment. ‘Not really,’ Monck answered, turning back to me.

‘A little over-clever, but not altogether a bad plan. The product of an impressively crooked mind, if I dare say so.’

‘Thanks,’ Egmont said, though he didn’t altogether seem to mean it.

‘Except the Old Man is more so – and he never bought any of it, not for a moment. You aren’t playing him, he’s playing you. He figured your scam out from the beginning, as soon as he discovered Albertine was whispering in your ear.’

‘We didn’t know he knew.’

‘You should always assume the opposition knows more than you think they do. If the Old Man is the opposition, assume he knows everything that you know, and a little bit more besides.’

‘He went along with it well enough,’ Egmont jabbed.

‘You mean because he killed Harribuld?’ I shook my head in bewilderment, only half-feigned. ‘By the Scarred One, how you gonna play the game, you can’t even read the score? Harribauld hasn’t been of any use for a decade. Making him disappear didn’t weaken Black House one fragment. All it did was get you over-confident, left me free to pursue my real purpose.’

‘Which was?’

‘What you don’t seem to have realized is that your secret weapon can be turned against you. Albertine is a foreign spy. If anyone could prove you’ve had contact with her, you’d all be swinging from a gibbet before the week’s out.’

‘But no one can,’ Egmont hissed. ‘The Old Man’s suspicions aren’t hard evidence.’