Gilded Latten Bones

by Glen Cook

  “What happened?”

  “The night visitor came back. The Capa had a specialist waiting. And Director Relway had a team of Specials in the area, too.”

  “I thought I heard an explosion but I didn’t see anything when I looked out the window.”

  “There was an explosion. Why don’t you go down and see for yourself while I do this?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Here.” She pulled a slip of parchment from its nest in her cleavage. It was warm and lightly scented.

  “What’s this?”

  “An employee pass. It will get you in and out if you have to deal with people who don’t know you.”

  “Thank you. That should be useful.” For a moment I wished I could spread the brag amongst my circle. I had written proof that I was a bona fide employee at a top-level brothel.

  On reflection, though, it might be better to keep it to myself. I would hear every possible bad joke from people determined to undermine my dignity. Towel boy would be the most generous accusation I’d hear.

  20

  The pass proved unnecessary. Several tin whistle sergeants remembered me and had been tipped that I had semiofficial standing. This one time only, my presence within sight of a crime scene was to be tolerated.

  Barry Berry was a humorless man but a good guy. He attached himself to me like that was his special assignment. He took me on a tour. “Everything is right where it fell. The Director and General Block want to see it all for themselves before we start the cleanup.”

  There would be some of that to do. The neighborhood had been blessed with five corpses. Two had been Civil Guards. Another had been one of Belinda’s men. The remainder were unknowns presumed to have been companions of the perpetrator. They wore tattered gray wool. They had wooden helmets encasing their heads.

  I observed, “Somebody believes in living on the edge.”

  “The prevailing theory is that it’s somebody who can’t make the connection between actions and consequences. We got a sicko out there, Garrett. A huge sicko.”

  A race was on, now, between the Outfit and the Guard. Honors to the winner would be first chance to have a long, painful sit-down with whoever was behind these deaths.

  The mystery men in gray had fallen in the street on a line from under Morley’s window to the place where Belinda’s watcher had perished earlier. The force of the bang had hit them from behind, hurling them a dozen yards across cobblestones. A blood trail said one crawled twenty feet before expiring. The broken remains of a cart and roasted carcasses of two goats marked the beginning of his brief trek. Against the brick wall, below the window, lay a chunk of something that put me in mind of squid. There were no tentacles or anything, it was just that the skin on the uncooked side had a texture that stirred the squid notion.

  Berry said, “Most of the guys were reminded of snails. I guess because of the crust on the brick.”

  “No shell.”

  “No tentacles, either.”

  “That’s true. Do we know what happened?”

  “We know exactly what happened, minute by minute.”

  “Give me the highlights. If you would be so kind.”

  “The goat cart showed up just like it did before. Like whoever was bringing it had no idea that we might be watching.”

  “But with two thugs along.”

  “Stupid. Totally overconfident stupid. Miss Contague had a friend off the Hill tucked in to watch, same place as the guy who got waxed. He used a stealth spell that wasn’t completely effective. The villain didn’t notice him right off. When he did the Hill guy unleashed the lightning.”

  “And that caused all this?”

  “It did. Miss Contague used somebody from the first string.”

  “Where’s the villain?”

  “Got away. Come over here.” Berry led me past the wreck of the cart to a patch of what looked like candle black fifteen feet across. At its center was a circle of perfectly pristine cobblestones a yard across. The black around the circle was an eighth of an inch thick. Small footprints left, passed all the casualties, and headed toward downtown. “There was a running fight. That’s when we lost our guys. And the Outfit soldier.”

  “No wounded. Just dead.”

  “Yep.”

  “And the sorcerer?”

  “The one who made the bang? Too old and fat to keep up.”

  Surrounding buildings were too tall for me to see far but I thought the villain’s line of flight might parallel a crow’s toward the Hill. I didn’t mention that. I didn’t need to. That angle would be getting a hard look already, not just by the red tops and Outfit but by key people on the Hill. They don’t like rogue behavior likely to attract more animus than they already enjoy.

  “This is a puzzlement, Sergeant.”

  “It is indeed. Dotes said anything yet?”

  Ha. Here was why I had my very own red top tour guide. “Not yet. Believe me, though, I’ll have a book full of questions when he does wake up.”

  “If he does?”

  “He’s my oldest friend, Sergeant. I’m bound to think positive.”

  “Was I you, I’d do my best to be positive. After last night people all the way up to the Crown Prince are going to want to ask him what’s going on.”

  I made one of those intuitive leaps for which I’m not well-known. “I’ll bet an angel right now that he won’t have any idea.”

  “He’s going to clam and try to handle it himself?”

  Morley’s mind would work that way. “Not what I meant. I mean I’m willing to bet he knows less about what’s going on than you or me.”

  “But somebody wants to kill him.”

  “Maybe. But maybe the somebody who was here wasn’t the same somebody who turned him into a pincushion. Maybe this somebody wants to find out what that somebody was up to.” I was brainstorming. That notion arose from the fact that there had been no sorcery involved in the attack on Morley. “Mistaken identity might be involved. Or somebody thinks Morley knows something that he doesn’t. I could come up with this stuff all day. It’s just speculation.”

  “Sicko.”

  Probably. Undoubtedly. In the spirit of open cooperation, I began to quiz Berry about crimes that might have been related to what had happened here. Relway had mentioned a deep interest in a pattern of ugliness.

  I did not get to run with that. After discovering that she could not open the window to yell at me, Miss Tea began pounding on glass to get my attention. She beckoned vigorously.

  “Got to go, Sergeant. Thanks for everything.”

  21

  Miss Tea did not give me a chance to ask what was happening. “I didn’t tell you to take the rest of the day off, I’d cover for you.”

  “The red tops gave me the first-class tour. I’ve never seen them this serious. We may have Prince Rupert himself up here later.”

  She wanted to go on being irritated but put that aside. A visit from the Crown Prince had a ton of meaning. “I see.”

  “Our own prince say anything while I was out?” Dotes was sound asleep again.

  “He proposed. A two-hour common-law marriage. After he gets on his feet again. I’m thinking about it.”

  “Another sign that he’s recuperating.”

  Miss Tea scowled at me and grumbled something I don’t think Morley would have found endearing. She absented herself in quest of more important duties. She didn’t take the breakfast tray. I poured cold tea, put my cot back down, settled, picked up the Salvation omnibus and tried reading Star-Crossed Love. The title said it all. The theme animated most of the plays put on in TunFaire’s theaters. There were autobiographical elements to this one. The female protagonist, instead of being the usual fainthearted rose, resembled Salvation’s girlfriend, Winger.

  After a few pages I glanced over, wondered aloud, “What did you get yourself into this time?”

  It looked big. That didn’t fit. Morley would not do anything to invite the attention of Prince Rupert.

&nb
sp; That left me thinking about the attack on me and Tinnie.

  We weren’t involved by choice, either.

  I went back to the play. I needed to clear my head.

  I finished the first scene in act three, looked over, found Morley looking back, not brightly. “What the hell did you do?”

  He gave me a weak smile, said, “Water!” in a raspy little croak.

  I dribbled water. When he had enough he went back to sleep, nothing said and no questions answered.

  Crush brought lunch and took breakfast’s remains away. I told her, “I need more water and a chamber pot change.”

  “I need a diamond tiara.”

  Despite the attitude, all was handled quickly.

  Morley woke up, drank water, dispensed no wisdom, and went back to sleep. An hour before supper the healer returned, tricked out in his best mourning outfit. I did not care enough to ask why the Children dressed that way. I was getting jaded. And distracted.

  Accompanying the healer was a serious surprise from yesteryear, the Windwalker, Furious Tide of Light.

  She was surprised to see me, too. And a tad embarrassed, I think. She lowered her big, beautiful violet eyes.

  I greeted the sorceress politely, inwardly pursuing a goofy calculation trying to connect a heavyweight off the Hill with a cult healer because of the word Light. I don’t have an adequately developed paranoid imagination.

  Belinda Contague accompanied them but stayed in the hall, observing. I did some observing myself.

  The Windwalker hadn’t aged a minute. She remained totally waiflike and utterly delicious but today she was all business. She moved to the window, looked out, paid almost no attention to Morley. I tried to remember if they had met. Those were confusing times. Antediluvian times. I was a different man in a different world, then, not a respectable member of the bourgeoisie.

  I couldn’t help but snicker. That earned a scowl from all women present.

  The healer asked, “What’s happening with him?”

  “He sleeps and he drinks water. I think he’s getting better.”

  “He drinks water.”

  “He wakes up, makes a little croak that means he’s thirsty. I use the pipe. He sucks it down; then he goes back to sleep.” For the lady in the hallway, I added, “Miss Tea claimed he made a pass this morning. She was just trying to get my goat.”

  “It will be a long time before this fellow sins again.” He examined Morley’s wounds while he talked. “He is the luckiest knife victim I’ve ever seen. Some of these wounds are six inches deep, yet not one cut an artery or hit a vital organ. There is no infection, either. Don’t press him with questions. He won’t be able to answer for a while. Ah! Here he is now.”

  Morley’s eyes opened. He cataloged the crowd, made his “Water,” sound.

  The healer produced a black glass bottle the size of my thumb. It had a clear glass stopper. “Three drops into each pitcher of water. Keep his water separate. This is for pain. There is a good deal of pain still, isn’t there?” he asked Morley.

  Dotes grunted, closed his eyes.

  The healer spoke to the doorway. “I’ve done what I can. He’ll recover. How well depends upon how firmly he clings to my instructions. No straying from the diet. All the water he wants. The drops are not addictive. They will cause considerable drowsiness. Keep him clean. Turn him once in a while. Time is what he requires. There was a timetable in the instructions I gave you, madam. Enforce it to the letter.”

  Wow! I’d never heard anybody give Belinda Contague orders. This nut was doing it. And she was nodding! She understood the instructions, too. Morley was sure to try going before he was ready.

  Furious Tide of Light said nothing. After the early glances she ignored Morley. She was fascinated by something in the street. “Your rat associate is quite clever.”

  The fit was tight but I managed to join her. Singe was down below, talking to several senior red tops and a brace of wide loads from middle management in Belinda’s enterprise. I was pleased to see my little girl getting the respect she was due as the finest tracker in the city.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “She means to backtrack instead of trail forward.”

  Backtrack goats? Easier than following some human who killed three people while making a getaway. Safer, too. And more useful. Both incursions had come from the same direction and had gone on toward the Hill. “The girl is scary smart. What are you doing here?”

  “Personal appeal from Prince Rupert.”

  Ah. A family friend, I recalled. “And how is your dad and your daughter Kevans?”

  “We’re not getting along at the moment. Let’s concentrate on the task at hand. I’m not the woman you remember.” She turned her cool, emerald eyes my way. I was afraid I was going to drown there.

  “I’m sorry. I’m probably not the man you think you remember, either.” I watched some of John Stretch’s ratman associates emerge from shadows as Singe moved out with a train of thugs behind. Those hailed from several sides of the law. They stayed back so as not to distract her.

  I asked, “You know why this mess is causing so much excitement?”

  The Windwalker met my gaze. Her eyes were a striking blue. The shy girl I remembered emerged. “I can comment only from a position of vast ignorance. Prince Rupert is concerned about a possible Hill connection.”

  I met the Crown Prince once. He’d asked me to be his personal agent. He was as determined as Deal Relway to afflict TunFaire with great gobs of law and order. Someone who failed to acknowledge that rules existed would be a definite black beast to him.

  “What I wanted to know was, what are you doing here in this room, with us?”

  “I had a notion that, with the healer’s assistance, I might learn something useful. I was wrong. Then I was so startled by seeing you... I should get back to work. I need to be with those people out there.”

  Tight as it was, she got past me and Belinda without getting intimate. She left me totally rattled. Those eyes... I had forgotten those eyes.

  22

  Belinda gave the Windwalker a short lead. “There something between you two? I thought I knew all the bimbos that came after me.”

  “Only in her head. Maybe. She took a weak run at me once upon a time. It didn’t go anywhere. Though... She’s a multiple personality type.”

  “She’d have to be to come down off the Hill to chase you.”

  Belinda was kidding but was so tired and worried she made it sound serious.

  I kept my mouth shut. Belinda wasn’t really interested. She held Morley’s hand and asked, “Where the hell were you for those ten days?”

  I got confused. “Ten days? There some things you haven’t shared with me? The backstory changes as we move along?”

  “What are you yammering about?”

  So I thought back. And decided I was a dumbass. All she had said was that he had been laid up here three days before she brought me in. “I don’t know. I’m having trouble getting my mind into fighting trim. You did wait three days before you came to me?”

  “I was rattled. You, of all people, understand that we do stupid things when we aren’t thinking straight.”

  “He could have died.”

  “But he didn’t. And I did get around to you and the Children of the Light.”

  “Sorry for barking.”

  “I had it coming.” Belinda looked at Morley with the same cow eyes I have seen on a thousand other women. I took a short ramble through the realm of intuition.

  “Belinda?”

  “Uhm?”

  “Were there any weird events around here before I showed up?”

  Sometimes Miss Contague is a mind reader. “You suggesting that they suspected he was still alive but didn’t know where to look? So they watched you. They raided your place to get you moving... No. That doesn’t hang together.”

  “They watched you till you contacted me. Then they watched me. That’s how I would’ve done it. How come they’re so desperat
e? Where did it happen? What did the people who found him say?”

  “I don’t know where, yet. I’m supposed to go look at a place. They found him dying. That’s about it. It was obvious he wouldn’t need his stuff anymore so they started turning out his pockets.”

  “And found something to connect him to you. So they did the right thing.”

  “They did what they thought might put money in their pockets.”

  “Did they bet wrong?”

  “No. That’s just good public relations. You feed the beast sometimes.”

  “Did you get his stuff back?”

  “I did. I thought he might have been hit because of something he was carrying. He had nothing on him. But he might have been cleaned out where he was attacked.”

  “How about dead attackers? Nobody could do this much damage without Morley doing some damage back.”

  “The place I’m going to check, there was some blood and others signs of a big fight. But no bodies. My people found two wooden buttons, a scrap of gray wool cloth, and a broken wooden mask with cast glass eyehole covers. Weird, huh? I hoped Pular Singe could do something with them. She said it’s too late. That trail is long gone.”

  “He was missing for ten days?”

  “Yes. Again.”

  “He really never told Sarge or Puddle or any of his mugs anything?”

  “No. I went there even before he turned up full of holes. We talked about this already.”

  “I have to ask over and over. You had a witness.”

  “One who can’t be found by anyone anymore.”

  “Put away for safekeeping.” In the river, with big rocks for shoes.

  “I’m thinking ringer. Not based on any evidence, just intuition.”

  “No marvelous body in tight black leather?”

  “Not him. We’ll find him eventually.”

  We would, of course. “I can’t see Morley wandering off for that long. For one night, maybe. But he’s a hands-on guy with his business.”

  “You’re not producing original thought.”

  “I’m not trying. I’m musing out loud. But here’s a question of personal interest. How close are you working with the Director?”