The Beast of the North

by Alaric Longward

  “The Affront” was a tavern next to a huge, brick fountain of uncannily blue water. It was flowing from the mouths of strange beasts with antlers. The tavern specialized in spiced dishes from the far south, and the man the soldiers dutifully escorted had an appetite for them. He sat a few tables away, eating; his duty was forgotten as he stared at the cleavage of a sultry redhead sitting just across from him and chatting merrily. That was his lover, a whore, I thought. She looked expensive, sophisticated. This man, the king’s Master of Coins, subject to the Lord of Harbor was always spending an hour of the early morning in the whorehouse disguised as a tavern.

  ‘Lith, dear,’ he drawled as he licked his fingers like a delicate cat. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow. Shall I bring you anything?’ the man cooed and the woman purred, whispering something in his ear, nibbling it, and the man laughed. ‘That is part of the deal, love. I never leave home without it. Never worry!’ Then he kissed her hand, and I watched him go. The stoic guards stomped after him for the Cliffside Mint, the king’s own mint, and the crucial business this man was supposed to be overseeing. I stayed put, and the woman walked over. She sat down and smiled at me voraciously. I sipped at the ale and smiled at her. There was something about her that made me very nervous. A bit like Shaduril had, I decided. Or any girl, for that matter. But she was strange and odd, and there was intensity in her I did not understand.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ she said bluntly. ‘I usually get it, but not this.’

  ‘The Bear gets it, Lithiana,’ I told her with confidence I did not feel.

  ‘Lith,’ she whispered. Her low cleavage was overwhelmingly disturbing, and I fought to keep my eyes on hers. Where Shaduril had been like a goddess, she was different. She was brazen and confident and spoke bluntly. A whore, I reminded myself, is brazen. Yet there was more to her, a layer of intelligence and bravery I could not understand. I feared and admired her.

  I shrugged arrogantly and waved my hand imperiously to the direction of the mint. ‘It is our business, and you are paid. That is enough.’ I hoped such a come-what-may attitude would make her stop the questions. She frowned, doggedly interested in our business. I went on, hoping to finish the business fast. ‘Tomorrow, he will come up to your room, as is the norm. And we shall be there. It is time, the Bear says.’

  She leaned on her hand, smiling demurely. ‘But why? Did my Naram gamble down in the Brewery and then refused to pay up?’ the woman asked, tilting her head. ‘He does that, I hear.’ She scowled briefly as she saw I was indeed reluctant to lift the veils of mystery on the matter. Perhaps she was unused to not being able to sway a man, and she tapped her long fingernail on the table to get my full attention. ‘He has been good to me. He has good manners, plenty of money, and he calls me pretty. He does not have to, but he does. It is nice. He is the sort of catch you don’t easily let slip through your fingers. So yes, I am still wondering what you will do with him.’

  I snorted and leaned forward. ‘Catch? He is skinny, arrogant and should his wife die, and he would marry you, he would soon find another special whore,’ I said and froze, for I did not know what had prompted such an outburst. ‘Though you are most beautiful,’ I added meekly. She stared at me with huge, shocked eyes.

  ‘Am I?’ she finally purred. ‘The most beautiful thing you have ever seen?’

  I stammered and for some reason, did not wish to lie. ‘No.’

  ‘What?’ she asked me, cocking her head as if she had misheard. ‘Not?’

  ‘I recently saw a girl,’ I told her. ‘A blonde girl I saved. I am hers. And she does not even know who I am.’ I felt embarrassed, and I was sure she would not take well to my honesty. I had called her a whore and then placed another above her. I was terrible with women.

  She did look upset. Very upset. Then her eyes softened, and something changed in her. Where she had been arrogant and demanding and flirting, now she seemed determined to make me relax. She clapped my hand and nodded at me kindly.

  She smiled knowingly. ‘I thank you for the compliment and laugh at the insult. My, my, but the lusty, drooling, silent man on the side table has claws after all,’ she breathed and leaned closer. ‘And he is a romantic. A true romantic.’

  ‘I am not drooling!’ I insisted.

  ‘If I poked you with a dagger, a stream of molten lust would drip from the wound.’ She giggled. ‘And then you would hate yourself, for you wish to keep pure for your little woman.’ I blushed deeply and shook my head in denial. She went on, wondering. ‘You look like you are not entirely young anymore, sort of weather-beaten, but there is something boyish in you.’ She was ticking her tooth with a nail.

  ‘I’m not sure where you get this,’ I insisted, blushing. ‘And we have an agreement. I can only assume you will not go back on your word.’

  She nodded. ‘We have a deal. I have one. With the Bear. He pays me well. At least promises to. Enough to make a difference, and as I know what Naram does for a living, it might be possible that I will be delivered such a bounty. Risky, but possible. Instant wealth. It is something one can never overlook. Naram is a dead one.’

  ‘He is,’ I told her nervously. ‘As agreed! We will not fail. No.’

  ‘Good,’ she whispered and hesitated. She looked distraught, her eyes gleaming with some mysterious feeling, and finally she got up, strangely driven. ‘So, come and I shall show you the room.’ She got up, and I followed her. She was a friend of Kallir and apparently, Ann and the Bear had always been wondering how to take an advantage of the lust of the Master of Coin. Then I had come along, and it gave us a perfect opportunity to hurt the Grim Jesters. Perhaps permanently, I thought nervously. I’d go to the lion’s den, and we would rob the place clean. Then I’d show Valkai’s face to the onlookers. That would test the patience of King Magor beyond endurance. Beyond breaking point if we knew our business. I went in through the silken shades, dodged an old waiter carrying mugs of dark ale for the customers outside. The sound of the fountain faded as the people inside—sitting on cushy seats of dark wood and pillows—ate and made merry. Lith pulled me up the stairs to a wide staircase of redwood and up there, the corridor spread right and left. Her room was on the left, and it had a white marble door. Each door was of different color and unique to the harlot.

  I stopped at the door, blushing.

  She grinned at me from inside. ‘Coming in?’ She stretched her hand to me and tilted her head alluringly, a triangular earring twinkling in the light of the oil lamps.

  I considered it. She was offering me something few men would easily refuse. But I thought of Shaduril and Lith terrified me, for some reason. ‘Ah! No, not right now. I know the place, and I’ll be here tomorrow.’

  She gave me a disbelieving look, and I did not blame her. ‘You are jesting, no? Must be some woman to do that to a man.’

  I opened my mouth and went silent. Finally, I decided to speak. ‘I told you. She is beyond me, but I fell in love with her. I cannot—’

  ‘Love?’ she said coldly.

  ‘Yes,’ I told her.

  ‘That is not love,’ she told me, looking away. ‘It’s just lies. I’ll show you love. Go, and be here tomorrow.’ She seethed and slammed the door in my face.

  ‘I am sorry. I think you are stunning,’ I stammered, rubbed my face at the idiotic comment, and turned and ran away. I dodged some customers downstairs, weaved my way past the waiter again, then a woman looking for a toilet. A thin noble nearly fell on his back as I thrust him aside.

  ‘Hey! Is your wife looking for you? Why are you rushing like that?’ he yelled at me, and I dodged to the street. I calmed my nerves, slowed my steps, looked around, and noticed nobody was running after me. I resisted the urge to glance up at the windows of the whorehouse and managed not to, but only barely. I dodged to a tiled alleyway where Bear’s two bald men were waiting.

  Kallir grabbed me and pulled me aside, his eyes seeking danger, hand on a short dagger. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Why are you rushing about like that?’ They were both short,
powerful men. Both were well suited to Bear’s profession of robbing people out in the wide roads of the Red Midgard, but they were very much at ease in the streets of the city as well.

  ‘I went up there,’ I told him as if the world was about to end.

  ‘Lith asked you? Never asked me. Lucky boy,’ Kallir said with a leer. ‘Of course, if she were to see how ugly you really are, she’d rather not.’

  I stared at him, blushing. ‘I did not—’

  He sneered. ‘You didn’t do anything? Never mind. Makes no difference,’ he breathed, and I cursed as they rolled eyes at each other.

  ‘Something like that,’ I told him and tried to change the subject. ‘It is all set then. Did you find out what you need?’

  They nodded. Kallir pointed at the north side of the Third Ring. ‘I followed him for a week. He has keys to the mint,’ Kallir said.

  Molun continued. ‘In his belt. I know because I’ve seen them. But I also found out something more. From a doctor.’ He leaned closer, and I resisted the urge to push him back. He stank of sweat and garlic. ‘The keys are forged into a chain, and the chain is crafted to his bone. I paid silver for that bit of knowledge. This doctor once treated him and had to rummage around his rear end a bit. Saw the chain in the flesh.’

  ‘Gruesome,’ I breathed. ‘Bone?’

  ‘Gruesome? Really?’ Kallir asked, looking very confused, and then shrugged. ‘Bone, flesh? I don’t care. Anyway, this is the process: we switch you up. He or you will walk up there, arrogant as shit. You will open the first door to the mint, and then you ask for the day’s passphrase from the two guards. Then you’ll go in and tell this phrase to some fool inside. The mint’s never been robbed, and I know nothing about what is inside. But this is the way inside anyway.’

  ‘But I’ll take his face and clothes …’ My eyes went round with suspicion. ‘And the key?’

  ‘We will handle that,’ Kallir said with a grin. ‘It’s just a bone. Of flesh.’

  ‘But I don’t want it to be stuck in mine, that chain,’ I said, and half asked.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll just tie the chain in on your pants. Have to extract the chain first, of course,’ Molun said happily. He had a broad, simple smile, and I had to remind myself we were talking about a murder.

  ‘Won’t it make a mess?’ I asked and decided it did not matter as they looked at me blankly. I shrugged, and the rogues finally nodded, in full agreement that it was a meaningless fact. I leaned on them. ‘She says she is worried about her payment. She has been making a lot of coin off him.’

  Molun patted my back as if to calm me. It was somewhat insulting. ‘We will pay her. Pay her very well. What has she got from him? A coin or two? This will make her rich. And don’t worry about anything, the body included. It is a whorehouse. They sell corpses to strange people all the time. No questions asked, and some strange priest gets to experiment on an excellent, noble stiff. Lith will be happy,’ Molun noted and pushed me playfully, not unlike a horse would kick. After I had picked myself up, I smiled and nodded.

  ‘Tomorrow, then,’ Kallir said. ‘Let us leave. Molun will stay and keep an eye on things. And an ear.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, and so Kallir pulled a cowl over his face and hiked me to the gates, provided false documents to the utterly bored guards, and we left Dagnar. We walked to the Haybolt Stables, saddled the horses, and rode away to the west by the wide Broken Crown Road, and soon we were heading northwest, as the road followed the cliffs over the Arrow Straits. Then, after an hour of riding, we guided our horses off the main road, skirted a tavern and a way stop for coaches and took some animal trails for the higher country, making wild paths through wet, rocky forest, and found the Green Hall and Bear and Mir waiting. And Sand. The latter hailed me thinly, and my face melted to my own. I nearly fell as I dismounted. ‘Rot reared shit!’ I yelled and pushed the horse. ‘Old damned nag.’

  ‘Maskan!’ Mir chided me.

  I laughed tiredly at Sand. ‘We are about to murder a man, and she thinks of my manners.’

  Bear appeared and pushed my bridle into Sand’s hands. He smiled wickedly. ‘It makes you less of a man, boy, to swear so. Makes you seem nervous as a virgin in a wedding bed,’ the Bear said sternly. ‘Only swear at your enemy’s face as you fight him. Mock him after beating him. Or her. Never swear when you have lost or are in trouble. Obey your mother, at least when she is present. Kallir and Molun will do the killing bit; you stop swearing and just get us the king’s gold. But … ’ he began, and I said nothing, looking unhappy.

  Yes, there was danger lurking, no matter who did the killing “bit”, and anything could happen inside the mint itself. There, I’d be alone. The Bear hesitated, grunted, grabbed me and took me down a path towards the cascading waterfall and sat me down there on a flat rock. The noise of the waterfall was strangely soothing, and it was not all that loud, for some reason. He was walking up and down, back and forth in agitation until he finally sat down before me with a huff.

  ‘How are you holding up?’ he asked as sweetly as a man called the Bear can.

  I nodded. ‘I’m just fine,’ I lied.

  ‘Tomorrow, you will attempt a frightening deed. I’m not saying it will be easy. I don’t want to lie to you, boy. It’s a deed that will make the Jesters the most hunted fugitives in the land. But it can go wrong, and Jesters won’t suffer, only us. You understand this. If you fail, they won’t offer you supper and congratulate you for a worthy try. They will hurt you badly if you should trip and get caught,’ he rumbled. ‘I worry for you.’

  ‘They’ll not take me, sir,’ I told him earnestly, gratefully, for I did like him.

  ‘The guards stay out, you know this, no?’

  ‘Yes, they will give me the passphrase and wait in the guardhouse just to the right of the gate to the mint,’ I said. ‘You said you had a way to take out the people inside.’

  He rubbed his neck. ‘I do. Hold on. Molun and Kallir will kill the guards in that room. You will have to handle the people inside, indeed, but ...’ he said with some doubt, ‘... I am not sure how many there are or how well armed. I’ve heard a rumor they have a tunnel running up to the Tower of the Temple itself to bring in the gold and silver flans and also to take the coin back, and there is sure to be a guard out there. We’ve never seen anyone take any shipment out any other way. The Master of the Coin and the mint is utterly careful with his establishment and guards his special place with the King and the Lord of the Trade and Harbor. What does he do inside? I do not know. There will be a bunch of workers there, hitting dies together all day long. But we have a tool to take them all out. Ann has one.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I told the Bear with some concern. ‘That key has me worried. What if I have to change clothes inside, and they see the chain is hanging free?’

  ‘Perhaps we should weld the key on your skin, just to make it look authentic,’ he said, and his wide, bearded face took on a speculative look.

  ‘Thank you, no,’ I said. ‘So, you have it? This … A tool?'

  ‘Here,’ he said heavily, and I stared at his hand. ‘I hate it,’ he said. ‘It’s cowardly. But I see what Ann is saying. Don’t drop it. It breaks very easily. With a good reason.’ There was no mighty weapon of power, no weapons at all. He handed me a clay bottle with a yellow stopper, and I took it in my two hands, for it was precious, despite my disappointment. It was to keep me alive, after all. The Bear leaned closer to me. ‘Ann got it for us. She knows the ones to brew such evil things. Even I don’t want to know. This here,’ he said and shook the bottle in my face, ‘will stop their breathing, almost. It will be, they say, a result that is seemingly deadly, taking one very near Hel’s realm. They say you can mistake the victims for corpses. Yeah, if you fall and hit your head after you break this, it can kill them. They might choke on food. But otherwise, it should not kill them. Hurts terribly, Ann said, but leaves them alive. I don’t want to kill the men inside, but it will be great if people think they died.’

  ‘Sh
ould I pour this someplace?’ I asked, terrified I should drop it. If I did, perhaps I did not have to go to the mint?

  He smiled widely to encourage me. ‘When you get to the mint, make sure they are all in the same room. All of them. Then smash that on the ground. Run to the shitter, cover your face, and wait. When it’s over, you come out, and the lot will be out for a day. That’s what Ann said. Then, find the key to the inner door. Open up, and the boys will be there. And they will take care of any remaining guards.’

  ‘All right,’ I told him. He pushed me. ‘What?’

  ‘You will need something to fight with,’ he said, and I realized I would get a weapon after all. ‘You see, the plan might turn into shit. There might be a military presence in the mint. A guard might happen by as we rob the place, no? The king might visit it? You have to prepare yourself for it. I once held up a wagon where sat a Brother Knight. We made it to the woods, but only barely. Molun lost a cousin that day.’

  ‘I see,’ I told him, fiddling with the bottle. ‘I need a weapon. Though I am not sure what I can do if things turn sour. Can’t use one,’ I sulked. ‘Never did. Sand—’

  He scowled, but not at me. He looked up to the hall, and I knew he blamed Mother. He voiced it. ‘Sand is not to blame. Your mom never wanted you to learn how to fight. Gods know why! Sometimes I think she keeps you close to her tit on purpose. Sand does a lot of knuckle dragging for you both, but you are a damned big boy. Fast and smart. Brave too, as far as I can gather from the fact you went and stirred the hornet’s nest for a girl.’