Brown River Queen

by Frank Tuttle

  “The Watch. I got picked up on the way home. New man, named Holder. Kept on and on about the woman who tried to stick me.”

  Darla bristled.

  “They took you downtown?”

  “To the Old Ruth, no less. I think Holder was trying to shake me up.”

  “You show him your Avalante pin?”

  “He wasn’t impressed. That worries me. Need to talk to Evis.”

  “You need a couple of hours of sleep, husband of mine. You can barely keep your eyes open.” She kissed me on my cheek and smoothed back my hair. “You look exhausted. I’ll leave breakfast in the oven. Scoot or I’ll have Buttercup fetch Mama and that black tea she calls her restorative.”

  I groaned and found my feet. “Anything but that.”

  She laughed and hugged me, brief but fierce. She walked across the porch and into our house, leaving our door open behind her.

  I made it to the bedroom and wound up sleeping in my coat. I dreamed of riding in a carriage pulled by little red imps while phantasmal Watchmen shouted down rude questions from the trees.

  Like any hard-working entrepreneur, I rose at the crack of noon. I gobbled down the breakfast Darla left, and was well on my way toward leaving my bathtub and perhaps selecting a dressing gown when a familiar knock sounded at my door.

  “Boy, you in there?”

  I cussed and scrambled out of the tub and sent soapy water sloshing all over Darla’s new floor tiles.

  “Hold on, Mama, I’m coming.” I wasn’t sure she heard so I charged into the hall, dripping on everything, and shouted it again.

  Mama heard and replied with something unintelligible. I watched her short fat shadow seat itself in one of our three rocking chairs, and I hurried back to the bathroom to get dried, combed, and dressed.

  “It’s about damned time,” said Mama when I finally stuck my well-coiffed head out my door. She rose from the chair, scowling. “I don’t know what to think of folks sleepin’ away half the day when they got a fancy new house to pay for.”

  “Good to see you too, Mama.”

  She snorted and trundled inside.

  Our house isn’t fancy, despite what certain busybody soothsayers claim. In the front room, there is a brown couch and a pair of comfy tan chairs, all aimed at the fireplace. There’s a low table situated so people have a place to put teacups or books. There’s a bookcase beneath the south window that opens to the porch, and doors to the kitchen and the hall on the east and north walls, respectively. The floors are dark-stained oak and a big red Balptist prayer-circle rug—a wedding present from a former client—keeps bare feet toasty warm in the winter.

  Mama stopped just inside my doorway and took it all in. Then her hand darted in her battered black lace handbag and when it darted out again she held a woeful dried barn owl.

  “Peace and contentment within these walls,” said Mama. “Let those who would enter and do mischief meet swift misfortune.”

  Her owl shed dust and feathers but she hid it away again before I could voice a complaint.

  “Brung you something, boy,” she said. Again, she fumbled in her bag.

  “If it’s a mummified crow we’ve already got one.”

  “Hush.” A shiny new horseshoe appeared in her hand. “I hexed it. Hexed it good. You set it right there on yonder mantel, open end up, you hear?”

  She thrust it toward me. I shrugged, glad it wasn’t a ring of sun-dried snakes or some other homespun backwoods monstrosity, and placed it as she bade.

  Mama nodded in approval before allowing herself a gap-toothed smile. “Well, are you goin’ to offer me a seat and some coffee or not, boy?”

  I made a sweeping motion toward my many seating options. “Make yourself at home, Mama. I’ll go start the coffee.”

  Mama sat, folded her hands in her lap, and promptly began to snore.

  “I reckon you and the missus have got a right nice home,” said Mama after noisily draining her third cup of my coffee.

  “Thank you.” I refilled her cup with the last of the pot. “Darla will be glad you came.”

  Mama nodded. “Well, to tell truth, this ain’t the first time I been here. Just ain’t knocked before on account of the hour.”

  “Do tell.”

  Mama sighed. “Buttercup. She took to sneakin’ out at night when she thinks I’m sleepin’. Ain’t that something? She ain’t even human, but acts like a strong-headed child all the same.”

  I groaned.

  “Buttercup is coming here after Curfew?”

  “Not every night, boy. Every other, maybe. Has been for ‘bout two weeks. I tried keepin’ her in, boy, you know I tried. But it don’t do no good to nail doors shut when the little devil can magic herself right through ‘em.”

  I hadn’t heard a thing. No telltale pitter-patter of little bare banshee feet on the roof. I’d not seen so much as a shadow pass my window.

  Oh, I knew she followed Darla home at lunch if Mama was napping, but her daytime jaunts were rare and getting less frequent. In daylight she could pass for just another child. But after dark on empty streets?

  “This isn’t good.”

  “I know it ain’t, boy. I ain’t so much worried about Buttercup herself. I reckon even half a dozen vampires couldn’t catch her, much less put a mark on her. But it won’t do to get stories started about her. ‘Specially not stories that leads to you, what with that high-and-mighty wand-waver friend o’ yours dead and gone.”

  “You’ve heard that too?”

  Mama scowled. “I reckon I damn well has. I took my jars down, boy, I didn’t plug my ears. I hear the whispers. I listen real hard when people whisper, boy.” She shook a finger at me. “You ought to do the same.”

  “I pay your niece to do all my listening for me, Mama. These days I just sleep late and let unpaid bills pile up on the floor.”

  “I see you ain’t lost that smart mouth to sloth yet.” Mama rose. “I thank you for the coffee and the hospitality.”

  I stood too. “You’re always welcome here, Mama. Late hour or not. You knock anytime, you hear?”

  “I hear.”

  “Darla’s going to get her feelings hurt if you don’t come back for a visit when she’s home.”

  “I reckon I’ll be passing this way around suppertime tomorrow, if’n that suits.”

  “It suits.”

  Mama turned and started for the door.

  “She ain’t playin’ when she comes here at night,” said Mama, not turning. “She floats. Shines a bit too, like a half-moon.”

  I’d seen Buttercup do that once, back when I’d first laid eyes on her deep in the woods south of Rannit. The memory of it ran icicles down my spine.

  “Maybe it don’t mean nothin’, boy. Maybe she’s just seein’ where you went.” Mama put her hand on my doorknob and turned it. “But she is what she is. So you be extra careful, you hear? Extra careful.”

  And then she stomped across my threshold and off my porch and down the three steps to the walk and was gone. I peeked through the window and watched her march away down the sidewalk, her heavy boots clomp-clomping steadily toward home.

  I scribbled Darla a note letting her know Mama paid us a visit and was planning another for the following evening. Darla would insist on providing a feast, which was fine by me. I’m not ashamed to say I’d missed the old charlatan since moving out of my office on Cambrit.

  I spent another few moments secreting various small instruments of mayhem on my well-dressed person. Then I ventured out in Mama’s wake, humming a happy tune between spates of yawning.

  I wandered on foot for a bit just to see if the inquisitive Captain Holder was wasting the Regent’s coin by hiding Watchmen in my shrubs. He wasn’t, or if he was, he was too good to spot. So after a half-dozen blocks of ambling, I hailed a cab and settled in for the short ride west to Cambrit.

  On a whim, I’d told the cabbie to drop me at the barbershop a block from my place. When I saw the tall, grim-faced man idling in the shade of old Mr. Bull�
�s meager stoop, I was glad I added that block. The idling man wasn’t wearing Watch blues. No, he had on a grey topcoat and a newish grey hat and black pants that more or less fit. He’d have been hard to spot in a crowd, but standing there on Cambrit all by himself in his scuffed, black Watch brogans he might as well have been in uniform.

  I got out at the barbershop and ambled in and left by the back door after a nod to Curtis the barber. From there I made my way to the back door of my neighbors the Arwheat brothers, and after a short visit with them I headed to a middling fancy eatery downtown called the Brickworks.

  Along the way I made another stop in an alley I won’t name. I counted a certain number of bricks up and a certain number across, and I pulled out the loose one and left a note behind it.

  Gertriss and I have ways of keeping in touch, you see.

  That done, I dined. I made sure to take a table in the middle of the place, I called my waiter by name, and surprised him with a generous tip. Same for the wine steward, the maître d', the busboy, and the doorman. In a fit of purely spontaneous generosity, I also bought a round of drinks for the bar and thus made a few new friends in the banking and haberdashery industries.

  It was mid-afternoon by the time I made my way back to Cambrit. Mr. Bull’s stoop was empty aside from old Mr. Bull himself, who was worrying a wet section of sidewalk with his ancient, nearly strawless broom.

  He responded to my wave and cheery “hello” with a bout of cackling. I unlocked my fancy new door and ushered a petulant Three-leg Cat inside. Then I waited for callers.

  I didn’t wait long. Evis showed in a half-hour, swathed in black silk, his dead eyes shielded from the daylight by thick black spectacles. I got little more than grunts from him while he settled into a chair he’d pushed to the back, out of the light.

  We smoked cigars in silence while traffic rattled past outside. By the time an iron-wheeled Watch tallboy rattled to the curb, we’d filled my office with enough thick grey smoke to actually make seeing out the door’s peep window impossible.

  A meaty fist struck my door. “Open for the Watch!” shouted my new friend Captain Holder. “Open or we’ll break it down.”

  Evis stubbed out his cigar and folded back into the shadows. I rose and unlocked my door, then opened it wide before stepping back out of yanking distance.

  Captain Holder marched in, hand on his sword hilt, face beet red around eyes already going teary from the cigar smoke.

  “What brings you here, Captain?” Carelessly, I puffed smoke directly into his face. “Care for a Lowland Sweet?”

  That’s when Captain Holder, an officer of the law and a high-ranking Watchman, dared lay hands on me—a law-abiding citizen who did nothing but exhibit a generous nature concerning his excellent tobacco.

  Evis moved, a silent shadow leaving brief wakes in the smoke.

  Slam went my door, plunging my office into darkness.

  Snick went the Captain’s Watch-issue shortsword as it was snatched from its scabbard.

  Thunk went the blade as Evis buried the tip of it in my desk before returning to his seat and once again wrapping himself in silk and shadow.

  The Captain gaped, his sword hand closing on air.

  “I have half a dozen men right outside.”

  “Only half a dozen?” I sniffed and looked down my nose. “I’d have thought a desperate criminal such as myself would have demanded a full dozen, at least.”

  He wasn’t listening. Instead, he backed toward my door, his eyes on Evis, and then he yanked it open and bellowed through it.

  “Your men were called to attend pressing matters elsewhere, Captain Holder,” said Evis from the dark. “Close the door. You are in no danger. But we do need to have a chat.”

  I would have bet even money on the Captain bolting. But after a moment of staring out into the empty street, he straightened, uttered a single brief curse word, turned to face us, and closed the door.

  “You’ve had a bad morning, Captain,” I said. I strolled around my desk and pointed to the empty client’s chair. “But it doesn’t need to get any worse. Have a seat. Let’s talk this out like gentlemen.”

  He glared but yanked the chair back and sat.

  “You dumped a bucket of shit on a Watchman,” he said, his voice still rough with rage. “I know all about you, Markhat. You’ve been running roughshod over the Watch for years. I’m here to tell you you’ve gone too far this time. I’m charging you with assault on an officer of the law.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Charging me? With assault? Good thing my legal counsel is present, then. Captain Holder, meet Mr. Evis Prestley, of House Avalante. I believe you’ve heard the name.”

  “I know it.”

  I leaned back and laced my fingers together behind my head. “Assault, you say? Mr. Prestley. Have I, to your knowledge, assaulted any Watchmen recently?”

  “Why no, Mr. Markhat, I don’t believe you have.”

  The good Captain repeated his curse word. “You dumped a bucket of shit on my man outside. I can’t hang you for that but I can damned well throw you in the Old Ruth for a week or three.” He made as if to rise.

  Evis appeared by my side, his dead-pale face just touched by the sun.

  “And you can prove my client was involved, can you, Captain?”

  “It was him. You know it and I know it.”

  Evis shook his head and made tsk-tsk noises. “At what time did this alleged assault by excrement occur, Captain? As you have noted the complainant is a Watchman, I assume he was able to provide such details in his official report?”

  “Ten of noon,” growled the Captain, his beefy right hand clutching his Watch-issue handcuffs. “You’re wasting your time. He’s coming with me.”

  “Ten of noon,” said Evis. “Well. I can produce no fewer than two dozen prominent citizens of Rannit who will gladly swear they were dining with Mr. Markhat at the Brickworks between eleven and half-past one, Captain Holder. Remind me of the names, Mr. Markhat.”

  “Certainly. Tavis Green, of the Tavis Greens, was there. We enjoyed a bottle of Fitch together. Oh, and Markum Sate, and Corliss Poole, and that nephew of the Regent’s chief of staff, Malcom Slater.”

  I trailed off and watched a vein in Holder’s forehead bulge and pulse.

  “You spoke of a waste of time, Captain. Indeed, that is what incarcerating my client will yield you. Time and trouble. I assure you, Avalante will take an immediate and active interest in the matter.”

  “Might as well put the bracelets away,” I said. “Maybe one day I’ll slip up and you can clap them on me. But that isn’t today, Captain, and you know it.”

  Ten breaths. That’s what it took for Holder to work out the truth behind my words. But work it out he did, and the cuffs went back in his pocket.

  “I won’t forget this,” he said after a time. “Nobody dumps chamber-pots on my Watch officers. Nobody.”

  I shrugged. “Good for you. Now then. Being completely unaware you had a man watching my door, I find myself suddenly compelled to ask why you’d do such a thing. So. Why?”

  “Because a woman is dead and you killed her, that’s why.”

  Evis waggled a taloned finger at the Captain’s nose. “My client acted in self-defense during an unprovoked attack by a deranged stranger,” he said. “Even the Watch concurs.”

  “I think your client knows exactly who the dead woman was and why she ended up cut in half by a beer-wagon.”

  “If I knew who she was, Captain, I’d tell you. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because, as usual, you’re mixed up in something,” said the Captain. “Think you’re above the law, don’t you, Markhat?”

  “We don’t see enough law in this part of town to think ourselves above it.” I put my hands on my desk and leaned close. The Captain needed a bath. “Look. I’m not lying. I don’t know who she was or why she came at me. There wasn’t time to ask. But why do you care? The dead wagons haul bodies out of alleys every morning. Nobody asks. What makes this woman s
o special the Watch is pestering me about her?”

  “You’re telling me you don’t know her.”

  “I’m telling you I don’t.”

  “What happens if I stand up and try to walk out of here, Markhat? You going to turn your vampire loose on me?”

  I stood. “Beat it,” I said. “Get out and stay out until you calm down enough to talk sense. Try and snag me again, and you can explain yourself to the Corpsemaster. That clear enough for you?”

  “Corpsemaster is dead.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Why don’t you piss me off again and we’ll see?”

  He stood. Evis watched but didn’t move.

  “We’re not done here.”

  “I beg to differ. Get out.”

  He did, slamming my door behind him.

  Evis glided back into the shadows, chuckling.

  “Markhat. Did you really arrange for a Watchman to be bathed in excrement?”

  “The Arwheats don’t much care for the Watch. I almost had to force their pay upon them.”

  Evis shook his head. “They’ll not forget that. Not for a long time.”

  “Good.” I put my hands back behind my head. “Something about that dead woman has the Watch nervous.”

  “Indeed. Have you learned anything new about her?”

  “Nothing. I was heading to the hotels downtown today to see if anyone fitting her description skipped a bill. Maybe she left something in her room with her name on it, along with a note detailing her dastardly plans.”

  Evis nodded. “Still. A bucket of shit?” He shook his head. “As your attorney, I must admonish you against future use of night soil as a deterrent for loiterers.”

  “As you say, counselor.”

  Evis chuckled and produced fresh cigars.

  A Lowland Sweet later, I was heading downtown to mingle with the upper classes.

  I was dressed for it, too. Darla’s new hat sat rakishly atop my well-combed head. My coat was pressed and I smelled of a subtle cologne and even my socks were fine, upstanding examples of quietly tasteful footwear.

  In light of my recent brief acquaintance with a knife-wielding maniac, I carried several less refined implements upon my person. Toadsticker hung openly at my side. Being a Captain of the guard allowed me to flaunt all but the most stringent of Rannit’s open carry laws.