“How about information?” I said. “Are we still good for that?”
Squint tilted his head. “It’ll cost you.”
“I’m kind of skint right now.”
“Surprise.”
That hurt.
“How about a favour?”
“Naw. Two favours.”
My mouth fell open. I closed it with a click. “What?”
Squint shrugged, his loose shirt sliding over his bony body like a grasshopper trying to shed its skin. “You’re desperate, and I don’t know if I’ll get to collect on them.”
Was he serious? I knew I was in trouble but this was … well, it was low. “You know I don’t break my promises.” Breaking promises was a bad move in my job. I might not have much, but I did have my reputation.
Squint shrugged. “Yeah, but there’s no saying if you’ll be around long enough for me to claim my favours. I’ve got to balance the risk.”
I threw myself back in the chair. He thought I was going to get killed. That didn’t fill me with confidence. What did he know that I didn’t?
Before I could respond, Sereh carefully set her violin case on the table and leaned forwards, her pale blue eyes fixing on his. I knew how disconcerting — no, scratch that, how terrifying — that could be.
“One,” she said, scarcely above a whisper.
Squint’s fingers tightened on the table top.
“What’s that?” he croaked.
“One favour,” she said, no louder.
Squint’s mouth worked, like he was trying to swallow a pebble.
At last, he shuddered and forced himself to look at me. It was painful to watch. “Fine,” he managed. “One. Because we’re old friends, you know?” His eyes flicked back to Sereh.
“I can feel the goodwill rolling off you,” I said. “One favour. Usual terms.”
He nodded. I had always been strict on my terms: no curses, no using my magic to hurt another person, and no raising the dead. Even this desperate, I would walk away from the deal without that.
“You know about the business up at Thousand Walls?” I said.
“They say you and Benyon Field killed a Master Servant. You got picked up by the Ash Guard, but they let you go.”
If that rumour was already spreading, everything was going to get more difficult. No one would want to help me or even be seen with me. No wonder Squint thought I was going to get killed.
“We didn’t do it.”
Squint glanced around. “Can’t help you with that. If I knew who did, I’d have sold it to Silkstar already.”
I hadn’t been naïve enough to think that the identity of the real killer would be being passed around so easily. Whoever was behind it had been too good at covering their tracks. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a little twinge of disappointment.
“Tell me about the woman who died. The Master Servant.”
Squint nodded. “Her name was Imela Rush. She’d been working for Silkstar for nine years. Loyal, trusted, just like you’d expect with a Master Servant. Came up from the Warrens, though.”
That bit of information caught me by surprise. “Are you sure? I’ve never heard of a Master Servant from the Warrens.” Master Servants were usually recruited from the up-and-coming classes, those with a decent amount of wealth but aspirations to more. Having one of your children trained as a Master Servant and employed by one of the great and good of Agatos could provide the next step up for an ambitious family. A Warrens family, though? Those of us from the Warrens were scum. Not many people got out. Sign me up for a good luck story by all means. I was just having a hard time believing it.
“Hasn’t happened before, that’s why,” Squint said. “Or since.”
For good reason. Agatos’s sainted upper classes would sooner marry their sons or daughters to a goat than let someone from the Warrens into their homes, let alone trust them with their secrets.
“So how?”
“Word is, her family asked for a big favour from the Wren. Money to pay for the training, a new identity, documents…”
That wasn’t just a big favour. That was a gargantuan, cliff wall of a favour. You could buy a good chunk of the Warrens for the price of the training alone.
A favour like that wouldn’t come cheap. The Wren would want something big in return. It would be an investment for him.
“Do you know if he ever called that favour in?”
Squint shook his head. “Heard he was about to, though.” He laughed, a wheezing sound that sounded like a sick frog. “The Wren is really pissed off with you.”
I bet he was. I was really good at making enemies, it seemed. I sat back, thinking. Master Servant Rush had owed the Wren a favour, and she had been placed right at the heart of Silkstar’s empire. What if … What if the Wren had demanded she steal something, some information that would give him an advantage over his rival high mage? It was a long game — Master Servant training took seven years — but the Wren played long games. And if Silkstar had found out… Depths. What if Silkstar had killed her himself? The question of who would be able to set a booby trap right in the middle of Silkstar’s library had been niggling at me. The obvious answer was the high mage himself, and here was his motivation.
If that were so, if Silkstar had set me and Benny up, he would want us dead fast, before we could persuade anyone we were innocent. I swore under my breath. My situation was more serious than I’d thought. One high mage thought I’d killed both his spy and one of his brokers. Another had set me up and wanted me out of the way. I couldn’t prove any of it, but it made sense.
“You done?” Squint said. “You got what you need?”
“Yeah. No. One more thing. The Master Servant? Are her family still around?”
Squint nodded. “On Long Step Avenue, just around the corner from your friend Benny. Green shutters. Now.” He smiled, showing brown stumps of teeth. “I think that’s one favour’s worth. Unless you want to trade another favour?”
“No.” I pushed my chair back. “I think we’re good.” I nodded to Sereh to follow, then gestured to the untouched wine Dumonoc had left on the table. “Help yourself,” I told Squint.
Squint nodded appreciatively and pulled the wine over. I shook my head. Squint was the only man I’d met who actually liked Dumonoc’s swill.
I dropped a couple of coins on the bar on my way past and earned a sour grunt from Dumonoc in response.
I wasn’t fooling myself. Within the hour, everything I had said to Squint would be shared with the Wren. Maybe my protestation of innocence would give him pause. Or maybe he would think I was trying to throw him off the scent and would come after me harder. There was nothing I could do about it either way. I led Sereh out of the dingy bar.
“And don’t fucking come back!” Dumonoc shouted as the door closed behind us.
Chapter Nine
Long Step Avenue was supposedly named as such because it was the main road out of the Warrens to the better parts of the city. A long step, they said, to better things. It was all very metaphorical.
That was what people outside the Warrens said, anyway. But then none of them ever went that far down Long Step Avenue if they could help it. In the Warrens there was a different story. If you walked west along Long Step Avenue, crossing the Royal Highway — which carried the trade from the port, through the city — leaving behind the better parts of Agatos until you reached the Warrens, and then you kept going for a couple of dozen paces to where the road began to narrow and the mean houses closed in, you would reach a place where one of the brick sewers running down from higher up in Agatos had collapsed or become blocked. As a result, the sewage came bubbling and lumping up here and flowed across the road. Over the years, either the force of the thick liquid had washed away the cobblestones to form a channel, or some hygienically-minded resident had hacked a way through. Either way, people in the Warrens said you needed a long step to get cleanly across.
From time-to-time, someone would lay planks across the gap to make
the passage easier for carts, but as anyone there could tell you, if you left anything lying around in the Warrens, it soon got up and walked away.
Imela Rush’s parents’ house was on the good side of the long step. Elevation to Silkstar’s household had proven a boon to her family. It was a big house, the kind of place that was often occupied by three or four families. The walls were freshly whitewashed and the shutters painted neatly in woodland green. The red mourning banners that draped down the walls told me that this was the right place. The banners were cheap and worn, but clean. When I unfocused my eyes, I saw simple but effective wards set into the fabric of the building. A family that had moved up in the world, but not far. A family that might have risen higher, if their daughter hadn’t been brutally killed.
I stopped half way across the street. Sereh came to a halt a step past me and gave me a questioning look. A soldier, wearing his Agatos cloak and carrying his musket, moved around us with a curse.
I ignored both of them, my eyes fixed on the house. It might look clean and bright, but I had no doubt that inside it would be dark with mourning. I didn’t have any right to insert myself in there. I would be like a knife working my way between ribs. They wouldn’t want to see me.
But what choice did I have? I couldn’t afford to ignore leads. And, looking up at this neat, quiet house, for the first time I felt a pressing obligation to this family. They deserved to know who had really killed their daughter.
It still made me feel shit.
“Why are we here, Uncle Nik?” Sereh said. “We should be trying to get my dad out. We can’t wait forever.”
I glanced down and saw that she was playing with her small, sharp blade. I suppressed a shudder.
“I told you. We have to get your dad out legally or he’ll only get hunted down again. We have to find out who was really behind the whole thing.” I shook my head. “The Watch aren’t going to be interested in your dad if they can get a murderer. We’ll do a deal. Now put that away before you scare someone.”
Someone other than me.
She gazed at me emotionlessly for a moment before the knife smoothly disappeared.
“You’d better be right. I won’t let anything happen to Dad.”
“Me neither, kid. Benny is my friend, remember?”
I looked back at the house. I could try to justify this any way I liked, but I still had no right to be here.
Maybe if I gave them another day or two. Just enough time to come to terms with their loss.
Yeah? And how long do you think that’s going to take? You think they’ll be over that tomorrow? Or next week? Or next year?
People said that you never forgot something like this, but you did. You didn’t accept it. How could you? You didn’t grow used to it. You simply forgot, bit by bit, year by year. The memories sank deeper and deeper. That was the only way you could cope with a loss like this, and that was an even worse loss, because you weren’t even doing them the decency of really remembering them.
I hadn’t known my father, but Mica’s dad had been around for a few years. He had been a good man. A fisherman. He had been the closest thing I had ever had to a father. Then, one day he had gone out in his boat, a fine, clear day with steady winds, and he hadn’t come back. They had found his boat in the end, broken on the rocks, but never him. Most days I didn’t even think of him anymore. You forgot.
A sharp pain flared in my back. I jerked forwards, thoughts scattering, and spun around. Sereh wiped her little knife on her sleeve before hiding it again.
She had snuck around behind and stuck me!
“What was that for?” I demanded.
“You seemed distracted, Uncle Nik.”
Pity! Yeah, I had been distracted, but what was wrong with a tap on the shoulder?
I could still feel the sharp sting of the knife, as well as a trickle of blood down my back. I didn’t dare check it, though, with Sereh standing there.
I gazed at the door again. There were roses on either side, buds about to open. There was a cracked cobble in front of the doorstep. The stink of the open sewer further down Long Step Avenue hung in the air.
If I stood here much longer, Sereh was going to stick me again.
I squared my shoulders, crossed the street, and rapped on the door. My palms were sweaty. I wiped them on my mage’s cloak.
It took a minute for anyone to answer. At first there was nothing, then an angry whisper and the sound of slippers on a stone floor.
I was just about to knock again when the door cracked open. It was gloomy inside, but I could see enough to recognise the woman who answered as a relative of Imela Rush. Like the Master Servant, she was tall and slim, with arched eyebrows and rich olive skin. There were wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and her hair showed more grey than black, but otherwise, the resemblance was striking.
I saw her take in my mage’s cloak and saw the emotions race across her face: grief, shock, fear, then resignation. Without speaking, she stepped back, pulling the door open.
That was one of the reasons I didn’t like wearing my mage’s cloak: it opened too many doors. What kind of city must we be where a man or woman in a black cloak could just walk into a gaol or into the home of a grieving family and no one even thought of saying no? What was it? Fear? A misplaced sense of respect? Habit? Whichever, it wasn’t healthy. It didn’t stop me taking advantage, though. I felt like a complete arsehole stepping into the cool, dim house. The woman’s face showed confusion as Sereh followed me in, but she didn’t say anything.
Too nervous. Or maybe too traumatised. And here you are, Nik Thorn, coming to drive the knife in further. Bastard.
This was what mage’s games did to ordinary people. It was why I kept to breaking curses and spying on jilted lovers, and it was partly why I hadn’t wanted to remain one of the Countess’s acolytes. As an acolyte, I would have been expected to abuse my power and status for the wealth and glory of the blessed Countess. Not only was it wrong, but I couldn’t cope with the pressure and the guilt it brought. I had learned that from my mother: Pressure and guilt at my qualms and inadequacies.
Screw it. I had made my choices.
“You’re Imela Rush’s mother?”
She nodded. It was an uncoordinated, loose gesture, as though the tendons, bones, and muscles holding her body together had become slightly detached. Look at her.
She deserved the truth. She really did. I doubted it would help to hear it.
“You’re from the Wren?” she said.
In for a penny…
“We need to ask you some questions.” I wasn’t lying, as such. I was just choosing not to answer directly.
Maybe if I kept telling myself that, I’d believe it.
She led us through to the living room at the back of the house. Through the gaps between shutters, I saw a small vegetable garden shaded by orange and lemon trees. The room itself was centred around a low table surrounded by mats. A reclining couch had been shoved against the far wall, and a couple of comfortable chairs stood under the shutters.
In the Warrens, where Benny and I had grown up and where this family had come from, mats on the floor were the usual arrangement, with few families able to afford much furniture. Imela Rush’s family had clearly moved up enough in the world to afford the furniture, but equally obviously they still preferred the mats. The Warrens run deep. They didn’t readily let go. My little sister, Mica, had shrugged the Warrens off as easily as an old cloak, and looking at her now, you’d never guess she didn’t come from one of the White City’s great old families, but then she had been young when we had left the Warrens behind. I still found it hard not to revert to a Warrens mentality.
“You need to be careful of her,” Rush’s mother said, waving vaguely towards Sereh.
For a moment, I thought she was warning me that Sereh was dangerous — which I absolutely had noticed, ever since the kid had turned six — but then I realised she thought Sereh was my daughter. I didn’t disabuse her.
&n
bsp; “We took her body to the Lady,” Imela Rush’s mother said. There was something about her expression that made it look like she was asking for approval or permission. Depths! This wasn’t a role I was comfortable with. I nodded anyway.
The Lady she was referring to was the Lady of the Grove. Most people who grew up in the Warrens paid at least lip service to the Lady. Her grove was a stand of cedar trees that grew on the slopes of the mountain behind the Warrens. Anyone might have expected the grove to have been chopped down for firewood and construction materials long ago and the land built upon, but it stood untouched, and that was down to the legend of the Lady of the Grove. The Lady was the goddess of that particular grove and supposedly looked down with favour on the Warrens. It wasn’t impossible. There had been gods and goddesses of far stranger things. But I had never seen her, and as far as I could tell, it had been a long time since the Warrens had received favours from god or man.
A stream flowed through the grove, and the more devoted residents of the Warrens left offerings on its bank. This was the Warrens, however, and despite the enduring belief in the Lady, those offerings were nicked back again by the end of the day. It was a custom among the more devout citizens of the Warrens to leave the bodies of the dead under the trees, beside the stream, for a few days before taking them to the burial shafts. What the fuck they thought the goddess was going to do, I didn’t know.
In the grove, the stream still ran clear and clean before pausing, taking a deep breath, and plunging into the filth of the Warrens, the Tanneries, and the docks, where it would emerge again as a toxic brown sludge.
I was starting to feel the same way.
“Did you find out who killed her?” the woman said, as she herded us towards the chairs beneath the shutters with vague flaps of her hands. “They say that mage in the Grey City did it. Someone hired him, and he killed her.” Her face twisted into such an expression of hate that I took a step back.
“No!” I blurted. I took a breath. If she worked out who I was, it would be like grinding glass into her wounds. I couldn’t do that to her.
Shadow of a Dead God: A Mennik Thorn Novel Page 10
