“This could scuttle the whole mission,” Yendor said when he drew near enough.
“Yup,” his friend answered.
Yendor noticed Long was drinking something other than ale, something stronger. “What’s that, then?” he asked.
“Apricot brandy. Used to have a thing for it back when.”
“And now?”
“I just wanna get shit-faced.”
“Ah,” Yendor smiled, “you’ve come to the right man, then.”
“Actually, you’re the one came in. I was already here,” Long pointed out.
“Fair point, my friend. But then, I’m a high priest of shit-facery, whilst you are but a novice.”
“Huh,” Long grunted, before tilting his cup up and draining it. He then slammed the cup down and raised his arm in the air, waving at a passing barmaid. “More o’ the same,” he rasped. “A whole bottle, if you’ve got it.”
“I’d no idea the boy meant so much to you,” Yendor said, impressed by Long’s determination to drink.
“It ain’t just that,” his friend croaked. “I about got killed at House Fyne, and before that, even, I ran into…” His voice faded out, as if he’d decided against speaking any further.
“Who?” Yendor urged. “Who’d you run into?”
Long fixed his increasingly blurry eyes on his friend, began to speak and again stopped short.
Yendor took a guess. “The missus?”
The barmaid arrived with the requested bottle and even poured some of its contents into Long’s cup. Without having to be asked or told, she produced a second cup, placed it before Yendor…and walked away without filling it.
“Swear to Mahnus, they can smell who’s got the money and who don’t,” Yendor muttered. “Anyway…” he continued, cueing his pal.
“Weren’t the missus,” Long grumbled. “Ya think I’d be in this mood if I’d seen my Mardine?” Before allowing Yendor to respond, he continued, “No. No, the person I ran into was…”
Yendor was like to scream if the man didn’t spit it out. “Who?” he said as loudly as he dared.
“Janks.”
Yendor said nothing, waited for the punch line he felt sure was coming. But Long’s focus had turned to his brandy, and he said nothing further. After a good, long pause, Yendor said “Janks. You think you saw Janks?”
Long downed his second cup, grimaced ever so slightly, and looked over at Yendor. “I thought I did, yeah. Then I wasn’t sure. Now…?”
“Well, I’m sure you didn’t. Look, the man’s dead. He’s dead. I know that’s a right sore spot for you. I understand that. But whoever you saw today ain’t Janks.” Yendor poured himself a cup of brandy, took a sip. “Alheria’s thorny undergrowth, that’s some good stuff!” He exclaimed. “Much better’n Skent.”
The captain actually giggled. “Skent,” he said, reminiscing. “I’d almost forgot about that.” Shortly, he grew somber again. “I say tomorrow, we switch Houses and do the same thing. We go out again today, they might get suspicious. We go tomorrow, they oughta have different guards on duty. I’ll go to your Houses; you go to mine.”
Yendor nodded. It sounded like a plan to him. Suddenly, he remembered something. “You said you almost got killed! What’s the story there?”
Long grinned drunkenly. “Ain’t gonna tell you. Wanna see if you’re smart enough to avoid making the same mistake.”
*****
Spirk, House D’Escurzy
Pellas’ Legacy was powerful magic indeed. Almost as powerful as Spirk’s magic stone. Or maybe more powerful. It was hard to tell. Nevertheless, Spirk had walked right into House D’Escurzy on the heels of a poulterer, and no one had seen fit to challenge him – not even the poulterer. And certainly not the poulterer’s birds, which were in any event dead. Spirk might have taken a moment to mourn them, but in truth he hadn’t really been acquainted with them, and such unasked for sympathy seemed a touch presumptuous to him. He felt reasonably sure the chickens would say the same, if dead chickens could speak. And happened to speak the Queen’s tongue. Of course, if that had been the case, the poulterer probably wouldn’t have killed them, Spirk reflected, choosing instead to sell them to a circus or, perhaps make a gift of them to Her Majesty, herself. If she weren’t missing.
“You there!” the poulterer suddenly said to him, “Where’s the blighted kitchens in this place?”
Spirk looked about and noticed that he and the poulterer stood in a large foyer, with hallways running off in three directions: left, right, and straight-on. Not wanting to appear completely unhelpful, Spirk selected a direction at random. “That way,” he said at last, pointing to the right.
With a demonstrative harrumph, the poulterer hitched up his birds and set off.
“And I’m sorry about your chickens!” Spirk called out, feeling he should say something after all.
The poulterer looked back at him with an expression of utter contempt. “They’s ducks!” He spat, and stomped off down the corridor.
Not wanting to run afoul – or even a fowl – of the angry poulterer again, Spirk chose the opposite hallway, to his left. He passed a number of doors that were locked and a number of others that were guarded. He noticed the guards never looked at him, which seemed further proof of Pellas’ Legacy at work. Eventually, the hallway took several turns, to the left and right before opening into a vast room with animal heads hung all over the walls. Atop various tables, shelves and bookcases were smaller animals in their entireties. Spirk was momentarily frightened to discover a positively ferocious looking skunk perched on a bookcase not two feet from his face. It was amazing, really, how lifelike they’d managed to make the thing. Its eyes were particularly well done, in Spirk’s opinion. Once he was certain the skunk posed no threat, he took a brief tour of the room, studying all the animals, many of which he was familiar with, but others, as well, that remained completely unknown to him. He stopped to examine one especially odd creature and received yet another fright when a voice from behind addressed him unexpectedly.
“The lot could use a good dusting,” the voice wheezed.
Spirk turned. In a chair he hadn’t seen earlier because it was located behind a rampant bear sat a wizened old man. Or at least Spirk thought he was a man. The creature was but half the size of a normal man and might have been fashioned of bone and aged leather. The hair on his head looked as if it were made of cobwebs, of gossamer, and floated in a diaphanous haze around his skull. Draped in dark, heavy satins of a most somber hue, he looked more like an imperious but poorly made puppet than a man.
“Well?” the puppet breathed impatiently.
“Yeah?” Spirk asked, somewhat taken aback.
“I say the lot could use a good dusting. And I don’t like to repeat myself.”
“Oh!” Spirk exclaimed, “You want me to…”
“Of course I want you, addle pate! Who else is there?” the puppet replied.
“Um…I, uh…”
“Oh, for Mahnus’ sake. Another imbecile!” the puppet said. “I do hope we’re not paying you much.” At this moment, he was seized with a racking cough that sounded at once painful and phlegm-y. After he calmed down, he paused, looked Spirk up and down and said, “Your first day, is it?”
At last, something Spirk could answer truthfully. “Yes, sir. My first day.”
“Sir? I am ‘Your Lordship.’ Or, if needs must, ‘Titus D’Escurzy. Address me incorrectly again, and I’ll make you smart for it!”
Knowing he wasn’t bright, Spirk responded, “Oh, can you? I’d very much like to be smart.”
Titus rolled his eyes. “I’ll be sorry to hear we’re paying a single shim for such foolery. Tell me, dolt, can you handle a feather duster without injuring yourself?”
“I hope so, sir, your Lordship.”
His Lordship pulled his robes tighter across his chest and hawked some mucus into an enormous handkerchief. “I hope so, too. There’s a false panel behind that stag over there,” he pointed. “Behind it, you’l
l find cleaning equipment, a small ladder and more. When you’re done dusting you can stoke the fire in yon fireplace.”
“Stoke the fire, yes, your Lordship.” Spirk said eagerly. “Anything else sir, your Lordship?”
But His Lordship had fallen asleep. Or perhaps he had died. Oh, let him not be dead! Spirk thought to himself as he set about fetching the tools for dusting. I’d hate to have lost my new employer in the first few minutes!
After successfully dusting every head in the room, including His Lordship’s, Spirk put a couple of logs on the pitiful fire in the room’s oversized fireplace and returned to Titus D’Escurzy’s side, awaiting further instructions. It was a long wait, for while the man was not, in fact, dead, he could nap with the best of ‘em. The sun had set and the room had gotten dark by the time His Lordship awoke. He seemed almost depressed to see Spirk again.
“Still here, eh?” he asked irritably.
“Yes, your Lordship, I am.”
“I didn’t mean you, dolt. I was referring to myself.”
Spirk was himself, which is to say bewildered. “You don’t wanna be here, your Lordship? Can I take you somewhere else?”
Titus groaned in exasperation. “Idiot!” he yelled. And then, “Yes, wheel me to my room before any of my wretched children come looking for me.”
It was at this moment that Spirk noticed that the chair His Lordship sat in had wheels attached to its legs. He’d never seen such a thing before and was quite delighted with the chance to experiment. “As you say, your Lordship,” he replied. Placing his hands on the chair back, he spun it around, pulled it closer and began pushing towards the door, to a constant monologue of “Easy! Slow down! Left, left, left!” from His Lordship. They collided with several objects on the way out of the room, but only managed to topple one, which Spirk thought was quite an accomplishment. His Lordship did not agree.
“Are you blind and stupid? Is this how my family thinks to serve me? With cripples and imbeciles?” Lord Titus complained.
Spirk had been called worse (by his own father, no less) and so took it in stride. “I’m sorry, your Lordship,” he said. “Won’t happen again.”
“Ha!” Titus cackled, before launching into another coughing fit.
An eternity later, they reached Lord Titus’ bed chambers, which were as dark and cavernous as a cave. Even the clutter of overstuffed furniture did nothing to diminish the excessively empty feel of the place. Spirk thought to beg off, but his new master would have none of it.
“You stay!” he commanded, as Spirk backed towards the door. “I think I’ll make you my personal valet. Can’t be betrayed by an idiot, after all.”
Spirk looked at the old man. “Wh…what happened to your last valet?” he asked.
“I had him killed,” his replied, flashing a picket fence of a smile.
For a moment, Spirk stopped breathing.
“What is your name, anyway, dolt?”
Not having planned this part very well, Spirk blurted out the first false name he could think of, “Long Pete.”
His Lordship eyed Spirk skeptically. “Long Pete, is it? Are you certain it’s not ‘Thick Pete,’ or ‘Slow Pete?’ How about ‘Dumb-as-a-Goat’s Arsehole Pete?”
“No, sir, your Lordship. It’s just, uh, just Long Pete.”
Thus, quite by accident, Long Pete had successfully infiltrated the D’Escurzy estate.
*****
Kittins, House Gault
It was a genuine dilemma and no two ways about it: if Kittins wanted to earn Lord Darley’s trust, he needed to make the man’s bastard daughter disappear somehow. He had also to come up with a child’s corpse that would fool His Lordship into thinking Kittins had done his bidding. Or…he could actually kill the child. But no, he was no Tarmun Vykers, that innocence meant so little to him. Back to the first plan, then: hide the daughter and substitute some other child’s body. Where to find one, though? After more than a day of wracking his brains, Kittins hit on an idea.
There were certain districts in Lunessfor where the streets featuring the fronts of buildings were entirely respectable, but those on the same buildings’ backsides were anything but. Travelers was such a district, with long, wide and relatively clean avenues in front, and filthy, urine-drenched alleys in back. Kittins stalked up one of those alleys in search of a door he’d heard tell of, the door to a ‘business’ where a working woman or somebody’s mistress could unburden herself of infants who looked nothing like their husbands, were born with various deformities or might otherwise be in the way of a profitable career. The thought that such places existed filled Kittins with rage and disgust. Unfortunately, on this occasion, he found himself complicit in their crimes. He needed one of these discarded babes. He swore he’d return some time later and burn the place to the ground, but it made him feel none the better for all that.
He passed a few urchins asleep in the refuse along the way, as well as one or two drunkards with no safer place to sleep. There were stray dogs, cats and rats in evidence, too, but Kittins paid them little attention. The door he sought was in surprisingly good condition, with a new coat of paint and a polished wooden knocker (brass being of too great value to thieves). Knockers of whatever sort were not Kittins’ style, however, and he simply pounded on the door with his fist.
At length, rattling could be heard, and the door crept open the tiniest crack.
“What is it?” a voice demanded in an unexpectedly upper class accent.
“I need something that you need to dispose of,” the big man growled in reply.
“What’s that to me?” the voice asked. “We burn our garbage.”
“Not always,” Kittins said. “For a price, I’m told you’ll sell the live ones.”
There was a pause, and then the voice said, “You don’t look as if you can afford a live one.”
“I’m not looking for a live one.”
“But I thought you just said…”
“I hear you sell live ones. So, I’m guessing you’ll have no problem selling me a dead one for less.”
“Hmph. You don’t look like…the type for that, either.”
Kittins grew impatient. “I’m not. This is a one-time thing. Have you got something for sale or not?”
“One Noble.”
More than a week’s wages. Without warning, Kittins threw himself against the door and shoved it open, knocking the man behind it onto the floor, on his back. He was a thin, frail fellow with watery eyes and an overlarge nose. “I’ll give you a Merchant, and I’ll let you live. How’s that?”
“Fine,” the man said immediately. “There’s no need for violence.”
“When can I have it?”
“That depends on how particular you are about its gender, health and appearance.”
“I want one’s been mangled. The worse off, the better.”
The man climbed to his feet, dusted himself off and looked askance at Kittins. “I can’t imagine what you…”
“Don’t,” Kittins cut in. “Don’t imagine. Don’t wonder.”
The man nodded, as if acknowledging the wisdom of this. “After dark. That’s the busiest time. Closer to midnight.”
Kittins nodded in return. “Good,” he said. “I’ll be back then.”
He turned and moved off down the alley, hating himself, feeling vile. Still, it was better ‘n killing a babe himself. Had to be. His next stop was the home of his intended victim. At war with himself as he was, it seemed to take Kittins no time to reach his destination. He was almost surprised when he looked up from the cobblestones and found himself in the proper neighborhood. It was a working-class place, but still nicer than he’d ever known. The apartment Darley had directed him to was on the third floor of a tall, narrow building. The stairwell and hallways smelled faintly of incense, but the place was clean, cleaner than just about anywhere else he’d been in the past several years. That was a woman’s touch, Kittins thought. Men were not so particular; leastways, not the kinda men he knew.
&
nbsp; He found the door he was looking for at the end of the third floor hallway. Good. Nice and private. Uncharacteristically, he tapped softly. From within, he heard a woman’s voice murmur something and then, “Who is it?”
“Friend of His Lordship,” he answered, trying his best not to sound threatening.
“Lord Darley?” the voice asked.
“None else,” Kittins replied.
For the second time in the past half hour, a door inched open without giving Kittins a view inside. He hadn’t known people in Lunessfor were so paranoid. On the other hand, seeing him on the stoop couldn’t be good for anyone’s nerves. He heard a slight gasp.
As Flies to Wanton Boys (Immortal Treachery Book 2) Page 10
