Low Town: A Novel

by Daniel Polansky

  I woke the next morning in a single-room apartment in the shadier section of Offbend to discover that the cut running across my left arm had turned into a nasty-colored thing, bright and livid. I put on my clothes and coat, trying to avoid contact with the wound as I did so. Walking out, I banged my shoulder against the wall of the flophouse and had to stop myself from screaming.

  I couldn’t go back to the Earl like this—they’d be cutting off my arm in half a day. And I didn’t want to alarm Celia any worse than I already had, so the Aerie was out too. Instead I headed south toward the harbor and a street doctor I knew, an aged Kiren woman who sewed up injuries in the back of a dress shop. She couldn’t speak a word of Rigun, and her dialect of heretic was sufficiently unrelated to mine as to make dialogue effectively impossible, but despite that and her irascible temper she was as good a battle medic as you could ask for, quick, practiced, and discreet.

  The snowfall had ceased, although it seemed to have continued through most of the night and would likely pick up again in an hour or two. In the brief interlude, however, it felt like the whole city was out on the streets, the thoroughfares packed with lovers walking arm in arm, and children celebrating the approaching festivities. These manifestations of the season started to die off as I made it to Kirentown, whose inhabitants were uninterested in the upcoming holiday, assuming they were even aware of it.

  I turned down a nondescript side street, hoping the ache in my chest didn’t signal a fever. The alley was organized according to the commercial instincts of the heretics, a dozen shops subdividing the hundred-yard stretch of street, each announcing its wares with brightly colored signs covered with Kiren characters and pidgin Rigun. I stepped into one midway down the alley, distinguished only by its curiously bland bill, a small, fading tablet that read simply DRESS.

  Inside sat a frowning grandmother, ancient as stone, the sort of creature whose youth seemed even theoretically impossible, as if she had sprung from the womb wizened and oak-tree old. She was surrounded on all sides by bolts of colored cloth and bright ribbons, strewn about without regard for organization or aesthetic. Anyone foolish enough to enter in the hopes of purchasing the advertised merchandise would find themselves quickly disabused by the state of disrepair, but then the old bitch made more than enough with her illicit dealings to forgo the troublesome sideline of legitimate mercantilism.

  The proprietress waved me to the back room without comment. It was tiny and dirty, with a swivel stool in the center. The walls were occupied by shelves of medical supplies, poultices, drafts, and alchemical ingredients of all kinds. Most of these were almost certainly useless, but then medicine is half illusion anyway, and two thirds among the heretics.

  I sat down on the chair and began to disrobe, the dowager looking on unhappily. Once my shirt was off she took hold of my arm, not roughly but with less tenderness than I’d have preferred given the agony shooting through my left side. She inspected my injury and chattered away in her foreign tongue, the words indecipherable but the tone astringent.

  “What do you want from me? You’re right, I should have seen it coming—Beaconfield as much as warned me. I figured he’d need longer to man himself into it.”

  She started pulling jars from her shelves, inspecting and re-inspecting the unlabeled bottles in a fashion that did not do wonders for my confidence. She settled on one and poured the contents into a strange-looking kettle, then set that on the iron furnace pumping heat from the corner of the room. We waited for it to boil, time the matron spent glowering at me and muttering incomprehensible pejoratives. Then she pulled out a small vial from a fold in her robes and shook it enticingly.

  “I probably shouldn’t—I have a pretty firm no-opiates-before-brunch rule.”

  She pushed it at me again, insisting in her singsong.

  I sighed and waved her forward. “It’s on your conscience.”

  She pulled a tiny dropper out of the vial and placed a bead on my tongue. It tasted acrid and unpleasant. The drug went back into her pocket, replaced by a small blade she cleaned with a length of cloth.

  My vision was spinning and it was hard to concentrate. She pointed to my arm. I tried to think of something witty but couldn’t. “Do it,” I said.

  With one firm hand she pushed my shoulder back against the chair and dragged her blade quickly against the abscess that had formed where the Blade’s man had tagged me. I bit my tongue till I tasted blood.

  Grandma moved on to the next part of her work without offering much in the way of sympathy. While she was puttering about in the corner I made the poor decision to inspect the now reopened wound, with predictable effects on my digestive track. Seeing me turn green, she dashed over and smacked me once across the cheek, pointing her finger in my face and letting forth with a stream of invective. I twisted my head away from the laceration, and she returned to the stove and poured the contents of the now steaming kettle into a small clay cup.

  She moved back toward my chair, and the look in her eyes was enough to let me know that what was coming wasn’t going to be fun. I gripped the underside of my seat as tightly as my body would allow and nodded. She raised the tumbler.

  Then I did scream, a bright exultation of torment as she dribbled the boiling liquid into my wound, the fierce heat torture against my torn muscle. I took a few deep breaths while water drained from my eyes.

  “Why don’t you break that vial back out?”

  She ignored me, waiting for the wax to harden. After a moment she pulled out a blunt iron tool and began to scrape away the excess resin.

  “You’re a fucking cunt,” I said. “Śakra’s swinging cock, I hate you.”

  It was impossible to imagine she hadn’t picked up a smattering of obscenities during her long years of providing medical attention to criminals, but if she understood me she gave no sign. The pain receded to a dull warmth, and I sat in silence as she pulled out a needle and began sewing up my arm. Whatever was in that bottle was absolutely amazing—I was barely aware she was even there. After a few minutes she cocked her head curiously and gibbered what sounded like a question.

  “I told you. The Smiling Blade did this—you should be proud. I’m not some bullyboy stumbling in here ’cause he lost a knife fight. Important people are trying to kill me.”

  She smirked and drew her thumb across her throat, the universal symbol for murder, evil being man’s mother tongue.

  “I’d love to, believe me, but you can’t just sneak into the bedroom of a noble and put a razor to his windpipe.”

  By that point her interest had faded and she went back to sewing shut my wound. I enjoyed a comfortable few moments basking in a static narcotic glow, so deeply anesthetized that I didn’t even notice she was done until she shook my shoulder roughly, threatening to undo the work she had just completed.

  I brushed her hand off and looked at her craftsmanship. It was first-rate, as always. “Thanks,” I said. “Hopefully I won’t see you again for a while.”

  She muttered something that suggested she held little faith in my prophetic abilities and held up five fingers.

  “Are you out of your mind! I could get an arm reattached for that!”

  She narrowed her eyes at me and lowered two digits.

  “That’s more like it.” I set three ochres on the table, and she scooped them up and tucked them quickly into her robes. I grabbed my shirt and coat, putting them on as I walked outside. “As always, whatever language you speak, anyone hears about this visit and you’ll need to find someone better with that scalpel than you are.”

  She didn’t answer, but then she wouldn’t. By the time the painkiller wore off, I was halfway to Low Town and it had started to snow again.

  Back at the Earl I got to watch Adolphus try and pretend he hadn’t been worrying about me. His shoulders tensed up as I came in, but then he returned to wiping the counter with little more than a grunt. I took a seat at the bar.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I respon
ded. “Just out late, didn’t want to walk home with the weather.”

  It was clear he didn’t believe me. “These came for you while you were out.” He handed me a pair of envelopes, and waited while I tore open the seals.

  The first, tight script against cream-colored paper, was from Celia.

  My workings have borne fruit. You will find evidence of the Blade’s crimes in a hidden chamber in the desk in his study, beneath a false bottom. Good luck.

  C

  Short as it was I had to read it twice to make sure I got it right. Then I set it aside, trying to keep the smile off my face. I’d all but forgotten about the working Celia had promised to perform—those things rarely go as advertised, and never quickly enough to be of help. But if she was right, then I had a line on something real I could take to Black House. I set my mind toward Beaconfield’s mansion, and the machinations that would be required to again gain entrance to it.

  Wren bolted his way in from the back room, so finely attuned to the mood of the place he could tell when I’d arrived. Which was good, because there was a man I needed to make contact with, and I didn’t feel like walking. “You need to run a message for me.”

  His expression remained unchanged, but I’d had enough evidence of the bear trap quality of his memory not to need any outward displays of attention.

  “Take Pritt Street east past the docks, into Alledtown but before you hit the Asher enclave.” I rattled off a street name and house number. “Tell the woman at the entrance you need to speak to Mort the Fish—she’ll let you on up. Tell Mort I need to see the doctor. Tell him it’s urgent, and tell him the doctor will be glad he made time.”

  “Don’t forget your coat!” Adolphus added, although the boy was heading toward it anyway. Wren pulled it over his shoulders and set out into the snow.

  “He can tell the weather,” I said after he was gone.

  “I didn’t want him to get cold.”

  “Just because you got him three months ago doesn’t make him three months old.”

  Adolphus shrugged and tapped his finger against the remaining letter. “The aristocrat came by earlier this morning for you. Wanted me to give you this. You got any more business with that one, try and do it outside my bar.”

  “Guiscard’s not so bad.”

  “I wouldn’t trust him.”

  “I’m not. I’m using him.” I read through the note. “And he seems to have been of service.”

  Afonso Cadamost spends most of his waking hours at a wyrm den on Tolk Street beneath the sign of a gray lantern. You were right—we are still keeping tabs on him.

  Guiscard was sapling green if he didn’t know Black House kept tabs on damn near everyone. I looked back up at Adolphus. “Are you going to get me breakfast or not?”

  He rolled his eyes, but stepped into the back room and called for Adeline.

  I was massacring my plate of eggs when Wren returned, his hair slick with snow and his face flushed with enthusiasm, or perhaps the cold.

  “He says okay. He says the doctor will meet you at the Daevas’ Work pub off Beston in two hours.”

  I nodded and went back to finishing off my sausage.

  “Who’s the doctor?” Wren asked.

  “You’ll find out in two hours,” I said. “Take your coat off—it’s warm in here.”

  He looked at me, then shrugged and headed to the rack.

  There are two ways to meet the best second-story man in Rigus. The first is quick and easy. Catch a shiv anywhere from Kirentown to Offbend and, if you’re lucky enough not to bleed out in the street, you’ll be taken to Mercy of Prachetas Hospital. Inside this somber edifice, assuming you aren’t forgotten by their massive and incompetent bureaucracy, you’ll be taken to an overworked medical professional who will pronounce your wound untreatable and prescribe a few drops of attaraxium to speed your ascent into the afterlife. As the light goes from your eyes, you’d likely be shocked to discover that the short, affable-looking gentleman standing over you and easing your meeting with She Who Waits Behind All Things is responsible for three of the five most lucrative heists in the history of Rigus, including the legendary theft of the Amber Pagoda, the exact details of which have never been successfully reconstructed.

  If the first option doesn’t sound square, you’ll have to settle for the second—putting a word into the ear of his agent, a fat-faced, unpleasant Rouender, and hoping that his client decides your job is interesting enough to warrant an interruption of his schedule.

  To that end I was sitting in a small neighborhood bar on the outskirts of the Old City. I’d left Wren at a corner table in the front, not wanting to spook my prospective envoy—although the doctor would need to have awfully weak nerves to be overcome by the sight of a hundred-and-ten-pound prepubescent.

  I’d been waiting about twenty minutes when he walked in. The single most talented larcenist since the execution of Fierce Jack Free was an open-faced little Tarasaihgn, somewhat fairer of skin than most swamp dwellers, but apart from that utterly average. We had met a few times, under the kind of predictably clandestine circumstances that didn’t encourage intimacy.

  “It’s been a while,” he said.

  “Dr. Kendrick, a pleasure.”

  He hung his coat on the hook next to our booth and sat down across from me.

  “Not at all. Actually I was surprised when Mort told me who’d contacted him. I always got the impression you didn’t much care for me.”

  His impression was correct—I didn’t like Dr. Kendrick. He was friendly enough, and his skills were beyond question—but I’d never worked with him and would have preferred to keep that streak unbroken.

  The code of the criminal is clean if not honest, based on naked self-interest and the accumulation of capital. You don’t need to respect a man to work with him, or even trust him. You just need to know you’re giving him the best deal. But Kendrick didn’t care about money. Doctors aren’t paupers, and anyway he’d made enough through his various heists to have retired rich a dozen times over. He was in it for the thrill—you could see that in his eyes.

  At the end of the day I didn’t care how many ochres he’d stolen or that his street name was spoken in reverential tones throughout the underworld. I didn’t care that he could scale the sheer face of a rock wall or pick a triple-rated lock while tossing back shots of corn liquor. I learned quickly growing up in Low Town that the only excuse for crime is survival. Excitement and renown are concerns one busies one’s mind with on a full stomach. The doctor was a thrill seeker, and this wasn’t a business for him, it was a game. You can’t trust a man like that. He’s apt to go screwy at inopportune moments.

  Of course, no self-respecting professional would have come within a hundred feet of a job this half-baked—I hadn’t even bothered to ring out any of the rest of my contacts. The peculiar nature of the job limited my options.

  “I don’t have much need for subcontractors. Normally I prefer to handle my own business. But I have a situation that requires your unique skill set.”

  “Indeed,” he said, flagging down our homely waitress and ordering a beer. I waited till she was out of earshot before continuing.

  “Nor do I refer to your renowned ability with a scalpel.”

  “I didn’t think you called to discuss my research into the ocular cavity.”

  I took a sip of ale. “You ever do a job on short notice, without much prep work?”

  He nodded, unimpressed.

  “You ever work in public? Like during a dinner party?”

  “Once or twice. It’s not my normal style, but—” He shrugged. “I’ve done everything.”

  “You ever do both on the same job?”

  “Not yet.”

  The waitress returned with Kendrick’s drink and tried to catch his eye, but he was having none of it. She sulked as she walked off, and I took another swig to let the anticipation build. “I need you to break into the Duke of Beaconfield’s house tomorrow night and toss his study. It’ll be during h
is Midwinter party, so half the nobility in Rigus will be there. And I only have a passing knowledge of the topography. I can give you a general layout but that’s it.”

  “You mean the Smiling Blade.” He chewed at his lip to keep from grinning. “What am I trying to steal?”

  “In the desk in his study, beneath a false bottom, you’ll find a secret compartment. I’d like to peruse the contents.” I could see his interest was flagging, so I tossed in a few crumbs. “It’ll be trapped, I’m sure. And of course, the lock will be the best money can buy.”

  “How do you know there’s anything there?”

  “I’m well informed.”

  “An inside job, huh? Why not have your source do it?”

  “Because then I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of this meeting.”

  “If it’s trapped, like you say, they’ll be no way to cover up my presence. He’ll see someone’s rifled through his stuff and find what’s missing soon after.”

  “That’s fine. I’d rather he knows it’s gone.”

  “One of those, huh?” He worried the tip of his thumb with his teeth. “I don’t usually go in for that sort of thing.”

  “It would be a favor. You ask around, you’ll hear I’m a good man to do favors for.”

  “That’s the word.” He bit a callus off the top of his finger and spat it on the ground. “Why during the party?”

  “It has to be done soon, and the party will be the best chance.”

  “There’ll be a lot of people around. I could use a distraction.”

  “And as it so happens,” I said, “I’ve arranged one.”

  The germ of a grin spread contagion-like across his face as I explained what I had planned for the Blade’s Midwinter soiree. When I was done, he gave the answer I’d expected.

  “Sounds like fun.”