Brown River Queen

by Frank Tuttle

  I took a cab right to the shadow of the High House and stood directly under the Brass Bell when it clanged out two of the clock.

  By the time it rang out three, I’d visited four of Rannit’s finest hotels and had half a dozen quiet conversations with desk clerks and concierges. Only one, the concierge at the Bedlam Towers, had the audacity to raise objections to Toadsticker, and he’d quickly swallowed them when he recognized my name.

  As I said, being a Captain, however unwilling, in the Corpsemaster’s private army does confer certain favors.

  But even my lofty rank couldn’t pry any information concerning small-framed, black-haired women out of the Bedlam Towers or anywhere else. I’d also offered to cover the woman’s bill if she left one unpaid.

  No one nibbled at the bait.

  My next stop was a pre-War monstrosity of soot-blacked granite called simply Orlin’s Inn. Word has it that Orlin’s is one of Rannit’s most haunted structures, and even in the bright afternoon sun and under a brilliant blue sky, Orlin’s manages to look shadowed and mysterious.

  I dodged carriages and pedestrians and clambered up the worn thirteen steps that stretch from the street to the wide, tall doors. The Ogres flanking the entryway dipped their eyes to me in greeting, and I doffed my hat in return.

  A human doorman held the door for me.

  “Welcome to the Orlin,” he said. He was fat and fifty and bald but his smile was wide and possibly genuine.

  “Thanks,” I said. I took off my hat as I crossed the threshold. “Say, maybe you can help me. I’m looking for a woman.”

  His smile didn’t waver. “Not that kind of place.”

  “Ha. She’s not that kind of woman, either. Twenty, maybe twenty-five. Smallish. Curly black hair. Fancy black dress, last time I saw her. Good teeth. Blue eyes. Ring any bells?”

  A coin found its way into my hand. This happy accident was witnessed by my friend, the smiling doorman.

  “Quiet, she was. Never got a name. Arrived three days ago. Haven’t seen her since.”

  My coin found a new home. I bade my friend farewell and headed for the front desk, lest our conversation be noted as anything but a polite change of pleasantries by the somewhat less jolly-looking desk clerk.

  The lobby was everything the Orlin’s exterior wasn’t. The floors were white marble all the way to the desk. There were chairs and low tables scattered about, plants in urns, and even a burbling fountain in the center. Tall, old windows managed to let in just enough light to keep the room from being gloomy. A huge hearth—no fire today—took up one wall. Four long couches faced it, ready to warm street-weary feet come winter and Rannit’s fickle snows.

  The desk was a curving thing of oak and stone that took up another wall. Behind it stood a single clerk, whose sharp little eyes bore into the depths of my soul as I smiled and sauntered up.

  “Does sir have a reservation?”

  I didn’t let my smile drop even a little.

  “Sir does, but I’m not due until tomorrow. I’m here a day early on party business.”

  I spoke the last in a whisper, accompanied by a furtive glance around the room.

  The clerk’s glare softened a bit. He took in the brand of the hat I laid casually on the counter and the cut of my jacket and the enticing aroma of my five-crown after-shave, and his glare softened even more.

  “Party business, sir?”

  I made frantic shushing noises. “For Heaven’s sake, man, keep it down. The Duchess will be furious if anyone spoils the surprise.”

  “The Duchess?”

  “Shush, man!” I leaned in close and continued in a whisper. “I assumed you of all people had been told!”

  He reddened.

  “Well, surely you’re in on it? How could you not be—you, the man in charge?”

  He positively inflated with injured pride.

  “Some people don’t see things that way, sir. I assure you, I’ve been kept quite in the dark.”

  I shook my head and sighed. “Then you weren’t told that the Duchess is planning to surprise the Duke tomorrow, right here in the lobby?”

  “No one has breathed a word, sir.”

  “Unbelievable. Why, if I hadn’t arrived early…” I let my words trail off.

  “Indeed, sir! The calamity! Now, how may I assist you?”

  “I shall need to see the Duchess straightaway,” I said. “She usually travels under the name Chavel-by-Golance. Perhaps you can send a boy up with word that I am here?”

  “Sir, I can assure you, we have no guest registered under that name.”

  I snapped my fingers in a show of well-bred rage.

  “She must be exercising even greater caution than usual,” I said. “I imagine she’s using another name. Gont de Lamon? Mrs. Notable of Plinker? Baroness Callowhapper?”

  “Sir, no one of those names has ever been a guest here.”

  “The Duchess is a striking woman. Petite, like all the dames of her line. Black hair, delicate features, blue eyes?”

  The clerk’s face lit up with a sudden beaming smile.

  “But of course, sir,” he said, his gaze moving past me over my left shoulder. “And here she is, right now!”

  I turned.

  And there she was. The same black hair, piled high and held tight. The same blue eyes gazing right into mine. The same wide smile, as if she’d just found something dear she’d lost long ago.

  The knife in her slender small hands, though. The knife was not the same. This one was a plain backwoods hunting knife, its wicked blade honed to a deadly shine.

  “Sir?”

  Judging from his tone, I guessed the desk clerk had seen the knife and was beginning to realize that the woman was trouble—duchess or not.

  I left my hat where it sat. I saw there to be more chairs and couches to my right, so that’s where I headed with commendable haste.

  She followed, still smiling, quiet as a ghost but quick as a Troll. She gripped the dagger in her right hand and knew to keep it waist-high and moving back and forth.

  Someone yelled. People scattered. Nervous laughter and snide advice broke out from the suddenly-crowded stairs.

  “You shouldn’t have broken her heart, mister.”

  “Don’t think flowers are gonna get you out of this one.”

  “Call the Watch,” I yelled. I didn’t like the way that blade glimmered in the sun when she moved past a window. Something oily and wet was smeared all over the steel.

  I put a table between us. She took hold of it with her free left hand and tossed it casually aside.

  The laughter and snide commentary went silent as the mob made quickly for higher ground.

  “I don’t even know who you are,” I said as I sought refuge behind a heavy couch. “I’ve always been told it’s rude to assault a stranger.”

  She sent the couch sliding across the marble tiles as easily as she’d thrown the table and got close enough to stab.

  I leaped away, my shoes clacking on the tile, my right sole nearly killing me by sliding. Toadsticker swung at my side and for an instant, I considered drawing him.

  She kept coming. Dart, stab, dart, stab. I had plenty of chances to grab the wrist of her knife-hand but I knew she could nick me before I could wrest the knife away. There aren’t many poisons so deadly they can kill with a scratch, but there aren’t many identical, knife-wielding, smiling women either, so I opted for a series of dignified scampers around the lobby.

  I made one complete circuit of the room. I was huffing and puffing and dripping sweat all over the Orlin’s fresh-mopped tiles. She wasn’t even winded, and not a single raven-black lock hung askew.

  Worst of all, she was still smiling.

  I unbuckled my belt. She lunged and stabbed. I spun and yanked and managed to drag Toadsticker’s scabbard free, and before she lunged again I whacked her hard on the right side of her temple with as much force as I could muster.

  She lunged. I dodged.

  I hit her again, using Toadsticker�
��s longer reach to avoid that venomous blade.

  She didn’t even blink.

  The big oak doors burst open, flooding the room with sunlight and a pair of huge Ogre silhouettes. I dropped Toadsticker and scabbard and ran manfully toward the Ogres, my smiling assassin close on my heels.

  “Her knife is poisoned,” I yelled. A hairy Ogre arm swung up and out and I ducked, and she didn’t.

  The Ogre’s blow sent her flying. I turned to watch, holding my empty hands up just in case a second Ogre blow was being considered.

  She hit the far wall, landed on her feet, and came at me again, still smiling.

  The Ogres exchanged low, wet growls.

  “Mind the knife, boys,” I said. “Poisoned.”

  One of the Ogres stepped into the burbling fountain, casually picked up a smooth, decorative chunk of white stone the size of a wheelbarrow, and hurled it directly into the smiling woman’s belly.

  I heard bones crunch. She went down, coughed up a mouthful of blood, and came at me again, crawling this time.

  The other Ogre ended her rampage with his boot, then extended to me his massive six-fingered Ogre hand and helped me to my feet.

  The Watch whistles were nearly to the door. Curious onlookers, sensing the danger was past, crept back into the room, eyes widening at the sight of the corpse on the floor.

  She was face down, for which I was glad. I’d seen all of that vacant smile I ever wanted to see. Blood was pooling beneath her, spreading across the clean white tiles like it had all the time in the world.

  “Who was that?” someone said.

  “What was that?” asked another.

  The Ogres exchanged soft hoots and returned to their posts at the door. The Watch burst in, a dozen strong, swords drawn, crossbows at the ready.

  “My name is Markhat,” I said before any of them spoke. I didn’t smile but I made sure they could see my hands. “This woman attacked me without warning or provocation. There were two dozen people present, and most of them are just out of sight on the stairs.”

  “Shut your cake hole,” said the biggest of the blue-caps. He swung his crossbow around and kept it trained on my face. “Nobody moves. Nobody leaves. Nobody talks ’til I tell you to. Got that?”

  “Got it.”

  Cussing and stomping sounded from the back ranks of the Watchmen. I cussed a bit myself when I recognized the angry red face shoving its way through his fellows.

  “Captain Holder. How good of you to drop by.”

  “You.” The good captain befouled the Orlin’s premium flooring with spit and glared down at the expanding pool of blood.

  “What is it with you and dead women, Markhat?”

  “It gets better, Captain. Roll her over. You won’t believe me if I tell it, so see for yourself.”

  He did.

  He cussed some more while his Watchmen tried to force a confession out of me through the sheer intensity of their hateful glares.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Downtown, Markhat. We’re going downtown, right now, just you and me and not a fancy, halfdead lawyer in sight.”

  “Always happy to help the Watch with their inquiries, Captain. That’s my hat on the counter. Mind if I fetch it?”

  “Lou. Get the man’s hat. Then put him in a wagon and take him to the Old Ruth. Shoot him in the leg if he gets smart.”

  A Watchman grudgingly retrieved my hat. I put it on and adjusted the fit.

  “You’re warming up to me, Captain Holder. Yesterday you’d have said shoot him in the head. By tomorrow, Lou here will be buying me beers—”

  “Get him out of here. Stennis. Round up this mob. I want statements from everyone.”

  Watchman Lou hustled me out the door. I bade my Ogre saviors a hasty farewell and clambered aboard the Watch hoosegow wagon with as much dignity as one can muster when being locked up in a soiled iron cage.

  “Man, you’ve got some nerve, mouthing off at the Captain like that,” opined Lou as he forced the rusty lock shut. “He’s got it in for you, and no mistake.”

  I leaned back, heedless of the dark stains on the rough-hewn wood, crossed my ankles, and pushed my hat down onto my nose.

  “To know me is to love me,” I said. “What’s his first name, anyway? Your Captain’s, I mean.”

  Lou snorted in derision and stomped away.

  “Probably Eugene,” I said. I closed my eyes as the wagon rumbled into the street. “Maybe Percival.”

  I didn’t nap. I did relax, relive my first sight of the dead woman, try to decide if she’d shown a flicker of emotion at any point during our brief but active acquaintance.

  But all I could see were those bright blue eyes and that unwavering lie of a smile.

  My afternoon with Captain Holder at the Old Ruth jail was markedly less than pleasant. Despite the two dozen witnesses to the assault and my refusal to draw Toadsticker from his scabbard, the good Captain was determined to hold me on at least one count of being Markhat.

  Had Avalante not intervened, he’d probably have made good on that. I once spent a night in the Old Ruth, courtesy of the Watch. It’s not an experience I care to repeat. Until Evis’s lawyers showed up with writs of this and motions of that, I was wondering how to get word to Darla that her brand new husband might be spending the next fortnight pondering the error of his criminal ways.

  But the lawyers came, and despite raised voices and much pounding of fists on tables and ominous vows to see me jailed until the Angels descend on pillars of fire come Judgment Day, Captain Holder let me go for the second time in as many days.

  As I stepped out into the sunlight before darting into an Avalante carriage, I knew one thing—all the lawyers in Rannit wouldn’t get me out of the Old Ruth a third time.

  I bade the driver to make haste, and I rubbed my wrists until the shackle-marks were all but gone.

  They opened her up by cutting her from neck to navel and then from shoulder to shoulder. The dead don’t bleed. Much.

  Stitches stood a pair of paces from us, her hood concealing her ruined face, her sleeves hiding her pale hands. She’s been standing there when Evis and I arrived, watching through the glass wall that separated us from the body. She hadn’t spoken or otherwise offered a greeting.

  Evis hid his eyes behind dark glasses. The light in the autopsy room was noonday bright. None of the Avalante doctors were halfdead, and I wondered if that was because the blood would prove too tempting or the light was too intense.

  I looked away as they peeled back the corpse’s skin.

  Evis frowned. The doctors on the other side of the glass wall pointed and peered and moved about, poking and prodding at the dead woman’s insides like schoolboys finding a cache of new marbles.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Evis.

  “That’s the consensus of modern religious thought.”

  Evis snorted. “That creature isn’t human. I’ll bet you two cigars.”

  “Why? What did you see?”

  “It’s what I didn’t see. But let’s hear what the good doctor has to say.”

  As Evis spoke, one of the white-coats headed for the door. Evis opened it for him and the doctor joined us.

  “That’s no woman,” he said. His hands were covered in blood. “No stomach. No intestines. No reproductive organs, no bladder, nothing. Doesn’t even have vocal cords.”

  Evis spoke first. “What does it have?”

  The doctor wiped his long nose, leaving it smeared with red. “Extra muscle. Solid bones, no marrow. Thought we’d never get the sternum cut. A third lung. And a lifespan of two days, maybe three, before it died of dehydration.” He shook his head. “Damnedest thing I ever saw. You say it came at someone?”

  “Me. Nearly got me. Took a pair of Ogres to put her down.”

  He grunted. “Not surprised. We want to open the skull, see how much of a brain it had. You’re a lucky man. If I had to guess, I’d say that thing was created to go out and kill someone
and then just sit there until it fell over dead a day later.”

  Evis crossed his arms over his chest. “Open the skull. Learn what you can. When you’re done, Stitches will take over. I want to know who made that thing and how they did it, and I want to know by tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” The good doctor failed to exude confidence. He did wipe more blood on his nose before returning to his fellows and the still body on the slab.

  And behold, there is no new thing under the sun. No, not one.

  “Nice to see you again too,” I said. “Is that scripture you’re quoting?”

  Stitches laughed softly in my head. Indeed, though it is not a scripture native to the church you know. Evis. The good doctor will discover nothing of value, other than what he has already divulged. Neither, I suspect, shall I.

  Evis frowned behind his glasses. “Your quote made me think you knew something already.”

  Indeed I do. That creature was once called a bentan in a tongue that predates the Kingdom. They are the product of a potent magic and they are indeed designed to kill and then quickly die. Stitches turned to face me, though her cowl kept her face concealed. You have attracted the malice of a powerful sorcerer, Markhat. Doubtless one of the Corpsemaster’s rivals.

  “Me? Why waste perfectly good malice on me? Hell, I never even knew the woman’s real name. I’ve got less political pull than Evis’s right boot. Why me?”

  The way her hood tilted, I got the impression Stitches was giving me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding stare.

  “Markhat. You walked with the huldra. More than once. Do you not remember?”

  I groaned and settled against the wall.

  The huldra. Just thinking the word had nightmarish memories flooding back. I remember holding the cursed thing, right after the Corpsemaster tricked Mama into giving it to me.

  I remembered walking, guided by the huldra’s whispering. I remembered growing, towering up above Rannit, until people and carriages scurried like ants at my feet.

  I remembered the things the huldra tried to show me—the dark secrets it wanted to reveal to me, if I would just give it a tiny sliver of my soul.