Murar’s expression had paled. “That’s what I’ve heard. That you kill in peace.”
“Not apathy,” Jak clarified. “Assurance. Big difference.” Then he smiled to lighten the mood. Conversationally, he asked, “What about you?”
“I’m too old for skulking down alleys.” Murar looked out over the beet field they were preparing. “I plant now.”
“I think we’re past lies,” Jak said, driving his shovel back into the dry earth. “I’ve been here long enough to know beets aren’t good business.”
Murar gave his easiest laugh yet. “You have me. I don’t skulk myself. But I have a crew. Several, actually. You don’t live as long as I have in this trade without some wit. When the reflexes go, wit remains.”
Jak nodded, smiling. “That was my guess. And beets are your cover.”
“I just happen to like beets.” Murar licked his extended lower lip, signaling his penchant for the red vegetable. Then his eyes grew distant. “My son liked beets, too.”
Jak held the silence that followed.
“Wish that boy would come home,” Murar finally said. “I miss him.” He looked over at Jak. “But he was getting to an age. Boys have to starting playing at manhood, don’t they?”
Jak left that unanswered.
Just then, a squeal of delight rose from the house. Murar’s daughter, Cheyn, shot through the door on a dead run for him. Becka, his wife, came smiling after her. Each carried a tall glass of something cold.
Cheyn spilled close to half getting it to Murar, who wrapped her in a smothering hug, spilling another good bit of it. She laughed into his neck. Becka arrived, and handed Jak a glass. He drank. Cool and with a plum tang. He finished it off and handed back the glass.
“You make this?” Murar asked his little one.
“Yes. By myself,” Cheyn answered in a proud voice.
“Well, let me have a taste, then.” Murar drank his half glass down, and smacked his large lower lip against his teeth. “Best drink I ever had.” He winked at Cheyn.
The girl laughed. “You promised to play knots with me tonight.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” Murar handed her his empty glass. “Now, you better let me get back to work, so I can keep that promise.”
The girl nodded and hurried back to the house, as if doing so would hasten her father’s return too. Becka smiled at both Jak and Murar and followed her daughter to the house.
Murar watched until the door had closed, an unmistakable fondness in his eyes. A simple, pleasant smile hung on his lips. With satisfaction lingering in his face, he bent back to their ditch.
They worked companionably until the end of day, Jak again retiring to his shack with his shovel, Murar heading up to the house with a bit of spirit in his step.
The following morning, Jak dammed up the ditch near its end with a pile of fieldstones. He then broke the dam at the riverbank. Water moved down their trench. Worked perfectly. Satisfaction filled him. Not only did it feel good to exercise new muscles, but seeing the fruit of his labors had palpable rewards.
As Murar arrived, crunching over dry ground in his boots, he raised a hand toward the flowing water. “Hey, hey. Works like a charm. You’ve a future in ditches.”
Jak smiled as he traced the water’s course all the way back to the small river.
“We were talking about accountability yesterday,” Murar said, picking up their conversation of the day before.
“I was telling you Dannire are not.” Jak swished the water with his shovel.
“Fair enough,” Murar conceded, “but then how does the kill process begin? Who names the mark?”
“That’s where our ties with Reconciliation come from,” Jak explained. “They’re good about letting us know when we’re needed. But,” he said, looking Murar in the eye, “we often find those needs ourselves.”
“Judge and executioner,” Murar quipped. “Nice.”
“Well, not always,” Jak said. “And since we’re talking about accountability, let me tell you about the time—”
I took a meeting with a money lender. Ponderously big man. He wore his success in layers of fat, just as he did layers of fine cloth. Immaculate dresser. I understood it wasn’t always that way with him, but that in his later years he expanded beyond lending. Started taking deposits. A banker, then, but not one on the finance ministry’s roll. No taxes, you see. A man who doesn’t pay taxes can afford to be fat. To have his skin brushed by Su’winde cotton.
“You wish to borrow?” Wilem Beattie, the corpulent lender asked.
I didn’t immediately answer, and strolled deeper into the man’s office. I stopped beside the leather chair opposite Beattie. “I’d like to make a deposit. Establish some credit. With interest.”
Beattie sat back in his own deep-back chair and templed his fingers in a manner of thoughtful consideration. “I see. And you’d like it kept off the public record of depositors maintained by ministry banks.” The man gave a knowing smile.
“Naturally,” I replied, and sat. “But then ministry banks have the protection of the city and her army. How will you keep my money safe?”
The fat man laughed. “Ah, but telling you makes it immediately less safe. Do you see?”
I smiled. I already knew how the man safeguarded his money. “Then you don’t trust me.”
“And you should be glad of it,” he said, his jowls rolling into warm smiles. “Lending money isn’t a trusting trade. And taking deposits even less so. Makes a target of a man. My only protection against theft is that only I know where I keep my vaults.” Beattie sat forward, more business-like, shuffling a few papers on his desk. “I’ll turn you three percent. Low risk, as I make good investments. But still some risk. Are we made?”
I sat a moment, waiting for him to look up at me. “What’s your lending rate?”
“You want to borrow too?” he asked, sounding confused.
“Your rate?” I repeated.
“I see. You want a sense of my solvency. Very well. Thirty percent.” He grinned as he spoke the number.
I nodded. I knew all this already too. I simply wanted it at the top of his mind. “And how many of your borrowers default? Not able to pay?”
“Half,” he stated. “More in winter. The collateral I keep in a number of warehouses around the city. Auctions turn the goods back to me in coin at roughly a forty-two-percent net gain. Now,” he said, losing his patience, “is that enough information for you? I don’t mind, to a point, since I have my own protections.”
I knew about his hired guard. This may be the first time he was seeing me, but I’d been his shadow for weeks. That was the part I really enjoyed. Every time. The preparation. The patient collection of necessary information to bring a kill off in a satisfying way. Knives placed quickly in throats had their place. And I had done my share. But it was lazy. Not purposeful. And a powerful kill, one that resonated, one that did more than put out a life, it deserved careful thought. There wasn’t always time for it. But where there was—like now—it was the only way.
“What happens when a borrower hasn’t enough collateral for the money they need?” I asked. It was another leading question. I knew what happened, I just didn’t know how. Though I had my suspicions.
Beattie got quiet. His eyes flicked to the window, then to the depths of the office behind me. Finally, he steadied his gaze and folded his hands on his desk.
“People who borrow come in two stripes. The first are gamblers who need to cover a debt. I never lend to them. The second are parents, who are in a state because they have mouths to feed. Hard-working lot. Most believe Reconciliationist tales of gracious gods. Which is to say, they believe their luck will change. So, with a bit of a nudge, many will agree to my suggestion to indenture themselves, even their small ones, should it come to that.”
I kept the disgust off my face. Also, the desire to kill him now. Myself. A knife through his teeth.
His smile spread over his face like a slow blossom. “Do you see? The
borrower, himself, becomes the collateral. Or, as I say, his family. I have a rate sheet based on age, sex, and current market value.”
By now, I knew Beattie had a percentage for everything. “How many of these indentured borrowers ever earn back their freedom?”
The following silence was deafening. It was the first question the man didn’t answer.
“But you’re depositing,” Beattie finally said, sitting back in his chair. “Would you like now to know the nature of those who deposit? Or can you summarize from the fact that I’m not a ministry bank? And that you, yourself, are requesting deposit?” His smile turned arrogant.
That would be enough. I smiled in return, giving it a menace that Beattie couldn’t escape.
“What?” the man said.
“Two guards on the opposite side of every street that runs adjacent this building,” I began.
Beattie sat forward, his brow furrowing deep.
“Four men on the roof, one at every corner.” I began to examine my nails casually as I continued.
“You bastard.” The moneylender began reaching beneath his desk for a weapon. I let him. This wasn’t my fight.
“Six on the main floor,” I continued. “Two more on every floor, near the stairs. Another at the door to this office. Several more that roam. And none of them louts. They keep to the shadows. They look like normal folk.”
“I won’t tell you where my vaults are.” Beattie then smiled wide, and drew out the weapon he’d been reaching for.
It wasn’t an ornamental knife. Or a crossbow gun. Instead, he held what looked like a silver hemisphere, about the size of a small melon. Around its edge ran a frame of engraved faces, though it appeared unfinished. Room for more faces.
“You mean to buy me off?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know what he held. Of course I did, weeks of surveillance had revealed this article. I knew its uses too.
“Of course not,” Beattie said with a mockingly wounded voice. “No, this fine little item is called a mazieur, tooled in Mason Dimn. See here.” He pointed to one of the faces in the frame around the reflective half-globe. “This is Silas Copern. Another moneylender hereabouts. He thought it might be good to eliminate the competition. We could have gotten into a war about it. Lots of hirelings. Lots of death. But that’s a waste of good money, don’t you think?”
“Obviously,” I agreed.
“So, I take a meeting with him on the pretense of ceding my stake. As a token of good faith, I offer him this.” Beattie raised the item. “When he looks into the polished surface, his intent to eliminate me is captured. Taken. His desire to kill me is literally stolen, and moved in form to this decorative frame. Lovely, don’t you think?”
Mazieurs were enormously rare. They could pluck a man’s harmful purpose and seal it in the metal.
Then I smiled again, and sat forward, staring into the mirror of it. Beattie’s own sense of triumph faltered when my face didn’t materialize in the frame. The lender spun the mazieur around, searching for my likeness around the edge of the hemisphere.
“I don’t understand,” he mumbled.
To which I leaned forward and knocked on the front of his desk, as I might for admittance to an office.
A moment later, no less than thirty of Beattie’s borrowers streamed into the room. They came forward, crowding around us. Some carried cudgels. Some kitchen knives. One woman had a nasty set of iron knuckles that looked natural on her hand. Two men held heavy chains with sharp twists of metal woven through the endmost loops.
“You see, it’s not me who intends to kill you.” I stood, readying to leave.
“I’ll forgive all their debts,” Beattie rushed to say. “Please, don’t leave me alone with them. And for you, anything you want. Name it.”
I’ve never been one to salt a wound. And I didn’t need to gild the moment with anything poignant. I simply offered the man a sad smile and left.
I wasn’t far beyond the door when the screams started.
“Interesting approach,” Murar said. He appeared genuine. “And again, poetic.”
“If by poetic you mean apropos, then yes.” Jak removed a shovelful of dirt from the ditch.
“And of course, the odds were in your favor,” Murar observed. “A gang to take out one.”
Jak stopped digging, hearing something in his employer’s words. He studied the man’s eyes for several long moments. Then, on the hot spring air rose the sound of many pairs of feet crossing the broad yard. One of Murar’s crews. Come to remove the threat of a middle-aged Dannire given to ditch digging.
Jak nodded. “I knew you’d call them in. No matter my assurances, you had to assume poor intent on my part.”
“You don’t get to be our age in this trade without making some assumptions,” Murar agreed. “I like beets, but I also run a set of successful kill crews. You like digging ditches, but I doubt it’s all you do.”
Jak took several long breaths, readying himself. “Will you find this poetic too?” he asked with a smile.
“Nah. Prudent, more like.” He then took several steps back.
Jak turned a slow circle. Six men were converging on him from different directions. Two walked right over the field he’d tilled up a few days prior. Footprints marred his neat rows. Asses.
It appeared they’d do this brute style. Murar could have poisoned him with a fresh, cool drink during one of their many digging breaks. Or surprise him in his sleep. Or use archers. Instead, it looked like Murar wanted a demonstration of the legendary Dannire fighting techniques.
Jak looked down at his shovel. Maybe it would be poetic after all.
The first man hastened his step, then came in low and balanced, knives raised. He simply misjudged both the length of the shovel and the speed with which Jak could thrust it. The blade lodged itself in the man’s throat with much the same sound as it did going into dry dirt.
He fell back, gripping his neck.
Another man used the distraction to come at Jak’s back. His steps were silent. But Jak felt the change in proximity—a resonance fighting technique—and whipped the shovel around, arcing low. He took the man in the ankle, the shovel steel clanging brightly. The man stumbled, but got his balance and came up with a swift stab at Jak’s belly.
The tip of the knife caught Jak’s loose shirt. But before the blade found his skin, he thrust up with the shovel handle and knocked the man’s hand away. He kicked his attacker in the tender parts. And without dropping his leg, kicked again, higher, into the man’s nose. A wet, shattering sound spoke of crushed cartilage. Blood spattered across the dry ground. The man stepped back. His eyes glazed. He fell.
“Quite the showing so far,” Murar complimented. He sounded like a man at a cattle auction.
No matter.
This time, two came at once, trying to divide Jak’s attention. The one on the left threw a short knife to push Jak out of his stance, so the other could dart in. Gauging the angle, Jak bobbed back. The knife sailed past his chest.
The second man still came at him, his attack timed. Dual swords, short and quick, sliced in at him. Another thrust of his shovel, and Jak put the blade into the man’s belly, using the other’s momentum to drive it deep. The killer slumped before him, a confused look on his face.
Then something bit Jak’s rear thigh. He looked down and saw a knife buried in the flesh of his leg. One of Murar’s crew had sized the situation, and stopped to hurl knives from ten paces back. The man raised his arm, preparing to throw again.
Jak dropped the shovel, pulled the knife free, and darted toward the thrower. He’d thought coming at the man would startle him. But this killer was older. Seasoned. His arm came forward, his eyes steady.
Jak dove into a forward roll, the knife whistling just over his head. After a single turn, he shot up from the ground and buried the knife in this one’s chest. He felt it glance off a bone, plunging between two ribs into the man’s inner organs.
Assuming the others would follow suit—throwing or sho
oting rather than fight him by hand—Jak whirled. He’d have to close the distance again. Fast.
No need. The last two had followed after him, one having picked up Jak’s shovel. The first tackled him, driving him over the dead body of his fellow. They went down on the hard-packed yard. This man had to be a grappler. He maneuvered his body in a series of orchestrated positions, leveraging his weight to try and pin Jak.
Jak wasn’t new to ground forms. But this fellow seemed to have made a deeper study of it. He managed to get behind Jak, wrapping his legs around Jak’s waist. The man then pulled his arm up around Jak’s neck. He cinched it tight. Jak struggled to breath. The last man sauntered up and began raising the shovel. Seemed he wanted to put it into Jak’s body, as Jak had done his mates.
Jak kicked up, deflecting the attack. He then hooked his boot around the shovel blade and pulled the tool from the man’s grip. He reached up and grabbed the shovel, gripping it with both hands part way up the shaft. Then he pulled it down hard at his own face, bobbing aside at the last moment. The sharp edge caught his choker in the mouth, teeth shattering.
The other’s stranglehold loosened. Jak tore himself free. He slammed the heavy metal end of the shovel down on the grappler’s chest. The cracking of ribs echoed across the yard.
The last killer stood several strides away, breathing hard. He held a knife and sword. His eyes began to glint. He wasn’t giving up.
The man took two steps and threw the knife with great speed and precision. Jak held up the shovel. The tool steel clanged loud, like a church bell. But brighter.
“Send him away,” Jak said to Murar. “No need to lose one more.”
“You want a real weapon?” Murar asked. “Erik there has twenty years of training with a blade.”
Jak sighed. “Nah, the shovel will do.”
Erik circled in, keeping a low stance. When he’d gotten close, he feinted in, trying to draw Jak out. Jak didn’t flinch. He simply kept his shoulders square to the man, the shovel held loosely in his hands.
Erik struck. Jak, parried with the shovel handle.
Unfettered II: New Tales By Masters of Fantasy Page 5
